734 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 



explains its deviation from American conditions. Besides the 

 necessity of strong military preparations, there are essentially two 

 factors: First, something which never existed in the greater part of 

 America, which may be designated as Riickstdndigkeit, viz., the 

 influence of a gradually disappearing older form of rural social 

 constitution. The second factor, circumstances which have not 

 yet become effective in America, but to which this country, which is 

 so elated by every million of increased population and by every rise 

 of the valuation of the soil, will infallibly be exposed, exactly as 

 Europe has been: the dense population, the high value of the soil, 

 the stronger differentiation of the profession and the peculiar condi- 

 tions resulting therefrom, under which the rural community of old 

 civilized countries opposes capitalism joined to the influence of great 

 political and social powers which are only known to old countries. 

 Capitalism produces, under these circumstances, even to-day effects 

 in Europe which can be produced in America only in future days. 

 In consequence of all those influences, European capitalism, at 

 least on the Continent, has a peculiar authoritative stamp which 

 contrasts with the citizen's equality of rights and is usually distinctly 

 felt by Americans. These authoritative tendencies, and that anti- 

 capitalistic sentiment of all those factors of Continental society of 

 which I have spoken, find their social backing in the conflict between 

 the country aristocracy and the urban citizens. But the country 

 aristocracy undergoes, under the influence of capitalism, serious 

 inner transformations which alter completely the character the 

 aristocracy has inherited from the past. I should like to show how 

 this has taken place in the past and how it continues to be carried on 

 in the present, by the example of Germany. 



The social constitution of the rural districts in Germany shows sharp 

 contrasts which every one traveling in the country does not fail to 

 observe : the farther toward the west and south, the denser is the rural 

 settlement, the more the small farmers predominate, the more 

 dispersed and various is the culture; the farther toward the east, es- 

 pecially the northeast, the more extended are the fields of cereals, of 

 sugar-beets, and potatoes, the more the gross culture prevails, the 

 more numerous a rural class of journeymen without property stands 

 in opposition to the aristocracy of land-owners. This difference is of 

 great importance. 



The class of the rural land-owners of Germany, consisting partic- 

 ularly of noblemen residing in the region east of the Elbe, rules 

 politically the leading German state. The Prussian House of Lords 

 represents this class, and the right of election gives them also a de- 

 terminative position in the Prussian House of Representatives. It 

 imprints upon the corps of officers of the army their character, as 



