[Applause.]
German "Civilization."
I will not say a single word in disparagement of the German people. They
are a great people, and have great qualities of head and hand
and heart. I believe, in spite of recent events, that there is as great
a store of kindliness in the German peasant as in any peasant in the
world; but he has been drilled into a false idea of civilization. It is
efficient, it is capable; but it is a hard civilization; it is a selfish
civilization; it is a material civilization. They cannot comprehend the
action of Britain at the present moment; they say so. They say, "France
we can understand; she is out for vengeance; she is out for
territory--Alsace and Lorraine." [Applause.] They say they can
understand Russia; she is fighting for mastery--she wants Galicia. They
can understand you fighting for vengeance--they can understand you
fighting for mastery--they can understand you fighting for greed of
territory; but they cannot understand a great empire pledging its
resources, pledging its might, pledging the lives of its children,
pledging its very existence, to protect a little nation that seeks to
defend herself. [Applause.] God made man in His own image, high of
purpose, in the region of the spirit; German civilization would recreate
him in the image of a Diesel machine--precise, accurate, powerful, but
with no room for soul to operate.
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