12 
LAND 6? WATER 
September 5, 1918 
it. We were compelled to fight fire with fire. The only way 
we could have prevented this catastrophe from befalling us 
would Jiave been by preventing Germany's developing such 
an organisation and philosophy, if such a thing had been 
possible. 
The Conscription of Capital 
Precisely the same danger threatens us in the trade war. 
If ever we allow the- Germans to organise a feudal, subservient 
trade army and to ' launch their programme against us, 
whether they succeed or not, we shall find ourselves compelled 
to adopt their diabolical methods to meet them. They will 
force upon us the discipline of all la-bour, as well as capital 
and trade, just as, for the time being, they have forced us 
to adopt a military government. 
The answer is, that if it takes forty years we will stay 
with this war game until we have for ever wiped out not 
only the possibility, but the very desire for, and dream of, 
such a procedure. 
The conscription and discipline of capital by the Kaiser 
is a second conquest necessarily antecedent to the launching 
of the great commercial offensive. This does not mean 
capital with a capital C — which is the surplus of the financiers. 
•It means the earnings and wealth of the people — the deposits 
in the savings banks and investments in all manufacturing 
concerns. Herr Herzog puts it this way : 
" Constraint must likewise be put upon capital, if it shows 
itself stubborn," and "then, too, we must always reckon 
with short-sighted and narrow-hearted capital. ... In 
such cases the State must step in without fear or favour ; 
the right of expropriation (seizure) must be established by 
law for this purpose. If there is danger that the refractory 
individuals may find themselves relieved of their entire 
capital, then there will scarcely be damaging resistance from 
the capitalist side." 
"To be sure," he blandly admits, "that is an infringement 
of guaranteed commercial liberties ; yet it is necessary 
when the State meets opposition in exercising its duty to 
protect exports." 
To the average citizen it would appear that in forestalling 
this plot we would in fact be rendering the German people 
no less service than emancipating them from slavery. For 
an examination of the action contemplated by the State in 
"exercising its duties to protect exports" we discover that 
they involve : 
1. The complete elimination of the small manufacturer 
from the face of the earth. Little independent units have 
no place in a great army. They are to combine or perish. 
The overwhelming concentration of all wealth in gigantic 
enterprises under the thumb of the State is the first principle 
of this proposition. 
2. The second is like unto it. All bankers and investors 
are to put their money where the State — i.e., the Kaiser — . 
commands. And he will command that it support his 
monstrous monopolies, and under no circumstances wander 
beyond the Rhine, or into "irrelevant and incompetent" 
channels. 
As in the case of the military mobilisation of labour, so in 
the case of the military mobilisation of the people's money, 
it behoves us to take care that the German does not execute 
his intentions, lest in the ensuing contest he shall compel us 
to take the same fatal action, in imperative self-defence. 
In these preparations the Prussians are_not content with 
harnessing all persons and property to their chariot wheels. 
As a final touch, they contemplate the exclusive ownership 
and direction of the arts and the sciences — 1 mean of the 
sciences. Presumably there is to be no art, unless destruction 
be an art. The minds and means and the very thoughts of 
all inventive genius are to be under the same rigid military 
supervision — and directed toward the one single goal of 
conquest. Away with the old vision of the fraternity of 
intellect ! Away with the international participation in the 
fruits of human progress and civilisation 1 
Herzog makes the idea clear enough. But he believes it a 
mistake to allow us to find it out. So, in concluding the 
details of the plan, he says : 
" The idea should not get about that a Chinese wall is being 
thrown around German inventions and 'improvements, 
although the experiences of the war have taught us that too 
great scientific familiarity with foreign countries was rewarded 
by ingratitude and injury." So "if all inventions and 
improvements are accessible to a central office, a suitable 
organisation will make it possible to keep these inventions 
and improvements out of the reach of foreign countries. . . .' 
As for the discoveries and inventions made in Allied 
countries — well, Germany will have complete lists and use 
of these. For the plan of campaign includes a special bureau 
and a world-wide network of spies and agents for just exactly 
this purpose. As of yore, if you are an experimental chemist, 
your confidential secretary is to be from Essen. 
Commercial Camouflage 
"Peace will come," says Herzog, "yet hate will remain in 
the Jiearts of those who have conjured up this bloody struggle, 
and who are inferior therein, morally, physically, and econo- 
mically" — meaning 3'ou and me and our allies. 
Yet this sentence reveals the first disturbing glimmer of 
doubt that has clouded the bright visions of the German 
contemplation of "Might" as a talisman to universal supre- 
macy. They have discovered and admit .that it breeds 
hatred. And, further, they recognise the mighty forc«^s if 
raises in the primrose path of conquest. 
But their answer is not for the forsaking of the creed of 
compulsion. They wiU meet this proposition with its twin 
corollaries — treachery and deceit — reinforced with still more 
arbitrary' power. It is all very well for the National Security 
•League to circulate pledges not to purchase German goods 
after the war. It is all very well for the Allied Trade Councils 
to consider co-operation to that end, and for the clever 
French artists vividly to paint the obvious fact that the 
coming Diisseldorf drummer with his line of incaadescent 
lamps is the same identical blonde beast^ that ravished the 
hamlet of Sermaize. The German General Staff will take 
care of that. Here is Herr Hcrzog's diagnosis and the 
remedy : 
"'German exporters must expect that for a long time after 
the end of the war German manufacturers will be outlawed 
among our present enemies. It would be idle to live in the 
opinion that peace will banish hatred at once. The latter 
must be reckoned with in German industry. 
"The German 'make-up' is to be avoided. . . . The 
intrinsic quality of exported German goods must be typically 
German ; their external garb, for better or for worse, will 
have to he anonymous — neutral. The make-up, by which 
terrn not only the packing, but also often the style is to be 
understood, must for the present adapt itself exclusively to 
the taste of the customer, even if a thorough-going change 
in the manufacturing process is thereby involved. Disavowal 
under such circumstances is required. 
" 'Camouflage' in war is an important strategic method ; 
when opportunely and ingeniously applied, it increases the 
-effectiveness of weapons. The application of this precept 
for the commercial struggle is as clear as day. . . . Away, 
then, with the German trade mark. . . . Away with it 
where it brings loss instead of gain. 
I will leave to the cfoss-roads merchants and the metro- 
politan department stores the problem of meeting such 
commercial "camouflage" as selling "anonymous" goods. 
But I shall recommend a remedy of mv own for Herzog's 
further method of preserving this invaluable alibi. 
His method is succinctly contained in this paragraph : 
" If the German manufacturer with great self-effacement 
makes every requisite effort to banish sources of irritation, 
he, for his own part, has a right to insist that the government 
of the hostile country does not work against him. Officers 
of foreign States, whether they be railroad or customs officials, 
can under no circumstances be permitted to label goods so 
as to disclose the place of origin. Nor can they be allowed 
to do this after laying down rules under a pretence of impar- 
tiality, to the effect that all imports are to be labelled in this 
way without regard to the particular country from which 
they come. It is clear that the indication of origin from a 
formerly Allied country represents an official recommenda- 
tion for the product in question, and that a rule requiring 
such a label in all cases has only the purpose of making 
German goods especially recognisable — to their disadvantage. 
It is, however, not sufficient for the German manufacturer to 
gain his point, namely, that the goods coming from him need 
not be thus indicated. He must be inexorable in demanding 
that no recognisable mark of origin may be used at all 
on the goods without regard to tlie country from which 
they come. 
"For the non-marking of German goods, as a right of ' 
exception granted them,^ while other foreign goods are labelled, 
amounts in actual practice to giving away their origin. The . ■> 
path to foreign trade must not be beset with ambushes of 
this sort. . . . Secret malicious weapons mu^t be destroyed 
before their use — by force — if there is. no other way." 
Curiously enough, the only effective antidote for this 
poisonous suggestion is precisely like the suggestion— that 
it be destroyed before its use — by keeping every cantonment 
in America filled to its utmost capacity, and shipping another 
three million soldiers to France somewhat faster than any- 
body believes it can be done. . • 
