GERMAN MILITARISM 581 



GERMAN MILITARISM AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON THE 



INDUSTRIES 



By Dr. HUGO SCHWEITZER 



NEW YORK 



MILITARISM in its true sense is the defense of home and family 

 which has heen forced upon the continental nations for the rea- 

 son that they live in such propinquity to one another. Germany, for 

 instance, is surrounded on all sides by potential enemies. Its frontiers 

 are contiguous to Austria, Russia, France, Swtizerland, Belgium, Hol- 

 land, Denmark, and it is separated by narrow bodies of water from 

 Sweden, Norway and England. What such surroundings mean is evi- 

 dent in our own case. We have only two neighbors, Canada and Mexico, 

 and with each of them we have had wars and frequent disputes, such 

 as the Alaskan boundary question, the sealing and fishing controversies, 

 etc. Inasmuch as our comparative isolation has not saved us from trou- 

 ble, it is most remarkable that Germany, bordering on ten countries, 

 has had so few wars. 



German militarism is the application of arts and science as well as 

 the most perfect organization and administration to the defense of the 

 hearth. The prominent features of German militarism are conscription 

 and the standing army. 



Conscription has made the defense of house and family everybody's 

 business and not the affair of a few hired men. It has caused the upris- 

 ing of this wonderfully united nation as one man during this war, and 

 it is the reason for the boundless self-sacrifice of the people — men, 

 women and children — who all feel that everything must be given up 

 for the fatherland and that individual wants and necessities, worries 

 and pain do not count until victory and peace have been achieved. 



The standing army has been pronounced by an American author to 

 be the greatest democratic university of the world. Conscription and 

 compulsory military service combine to make it the army of the German 

 people, and not that of the Emperor, and therefore, German militarism 

 is not the militarism of the Kaiser but of the German nation. Every 

 one from the highest to the lowest is proud to be a member of the army 

 and to be able to contribute to the defense of home and family. Here 

 men of all types of education, the university man and the artist, mix 

 with the laborer and the farmer. During the period of service they 

 learn order and discipline. They are taught the value of punctuality, 

 of exactness, of cleanliness and of obedience. They become aware of 



