364 Civilization and Decay 



the rise of his economic fellow-countryman, but to 

 the rise of the other military man in Germany. Mr. 

 Adams says that since the capitulation of Paris the 

 soldier has tended to sink more and more, until he 

 merely receives his orders from financiers (which 

 term when used by Mr. Adams includes all business 

 and workingmen) with his salary, without being al- 

 lowed a voice, even in the questions which involve 

 peace and war. Now this is precisely the position 

 which the soldier has occupied for two centuries 

 among English-speaking races ; and it is during these 

 very centuries that the English-speaking race has 

 produced its greatest soldiers. Marlborough and 

 Wellington, Nelson and Farragut, Grant and Lee, 

 exactly fill Mr. Adams's definition of the position 

 into which soldiers have "sunk"; and the United 

 States has just elected as President, as it so fre- 

 quently has done before, a man who owes his place 

 in politics in large part to his having done gallant 

 service as a soldier, and who is in no sense a repre- 

 sentative of the moneyed type. 



Again, Mr. Adams gloomily remarks that "pro- 

 ducers have become the subjects of the possessors 

 of hoarded wealth," and that among capitalists the 

 money-lenders form an aristocracy, while debtors 

 are helpless and the servants of the creditors. All 

 this is really quite unworthy of Mr. Adams, or of 

 any one above the intellectual level of Mr. Bryan, 

 Mr. Henry George, or Mr. Bellamy. Any man who 

 has had the slightest practical knowledge of legisla- 

 tion, whether as Congressman or as State legislator, 



