Irving Bacheller

“ Lest we forget the innumerable dead who have nobly died, and the host of the living who with a just and common sense and love of honor have sent them forth to die. Lest we forget that we and our allies have not been above reproach; that there were signs of decadence among us—in the growing love of ease and idleness, in the tango dance of literature and lust, in the exaltation of pleasure, in a very definite degeneration of our moral fiber. ”

“ The infamy goes back to the men higher up—to Bill Hohenzollern and his gang of pirates and highwaymen. They have slain the soul of Germany.
“I am told by men who have lived there that in certain provinces a chaste woman is a thing unknown. Let us hope this exaggerates the truth. As to that I have no knowledge. But that the land of the Kaiser has lost its chivalry I have no doubt whatever. The loss of chivalry stands for the loss of conscience—for moral degradation. A man's value as a man may be accurately measured by his respect for women. ”

“ I have tried the perils which our boys will have to suffer, but, unfortunately, I am too old to fight with them.
“It is a great privilege they enjoy—that of going out to battle for honor and decency and the good of the world. They have entered the great university of common sense. There is no other like it. What a school is that comradeship of the camp and the trenches! For the first time in history the whole civilized world stands shoulder to shoulder.” ”

“ There are millions of acres of land in Europe occupied by nothing but a sense of inherited superiority; there are millions of hands and intellects in Europe occupied by nothing but a sense of inherited superiority, while billions of wealth have been devoted to its service and embellishment. A man who has even a small amount of it needs a force of porters and footmen to help him tote it around, and a guard to keep watch for fear that some one will grab his superiority and run off with it when his back is turned. ”

“ The born gentleman and professional aristocrat, with a hot-air receiver on his name, who lives in a tower of inherited superiority and looks down at life through hazy distance with a telescope, has and can have no common sense. He is a good soldier, he knows the habits of the grouse and the stag, he can give an admirable dinner, he understands the principles of international law, but when international law turns into international anarchy he is not big enough to find the way of common sense through the emergency. ”

“ Now is the time when all men must choose between two ideals: Behold the common sense of Germany become the sense that is common only among criminals! The sooner we recognize that, the better. They are really burglars in this great house of God we inhabit, seeking to rob it of its best possessions—Hindenburglars! ”

“ For many years more than half its people have been supering—wasting their time in busy idleness—on the high road to deviltry. You don't have to think twice to decide that it is about the most dangerous of all crimes, my friend, because it is the straight way to all crime. It leads direct to deceit, theft, adultery and murder. It kills the sense of brotherhood in the heart of man. ”

“ Germany was inebriated with a sense of its mental grandeur and moral pulchritude. Now moral pulchritude is like a forest flower. It can not stand the fierce glare of publicity; you can not handle it as you would handle sausages and dye and fertilizer. ”

“ Every one must find his work and do it, or come to grief—that is the conclusion of the whole matter. We have our European Americans—our Mislaid Consciences, our Leatherhead Monarchs, our Smothered Sons, our Shrimpstones, our Wedding Tourists. We must use the slipper with a firm but kindly hand, and remind them that they are of the Hohenzollern breed and request them to fall in line and get the pace and spirit of Democracy. ”

“ The Germans have an average man, but he has suffered himself to be Williamized. His conscience has been mislaid.
“Since 1860 this average man of ours has given of his blood and substance for the ideals of Democracy and with not the remotest hope of gain. His God is the father of the whole human family—a God of progress whose aim is not the selfish enjoyment of a favored few, but the welfare of all men the world over. His aim is, in short, common sense—a common sense of honor and decency and brotherhood in the great family. ”

“ What was the use of crying over spilled milk and dead people? Tears were in the nature of a luxury. The poor could not afford them. Life was not going to be lived any longer—it was to be conducted. It was to be a kind of a hurried Cook's tour. Nobody would have to think or feel. All that would be attended to by the proper official. Life was to be reduced to a merciless iron plan like that of the beehive—the most perfect example of efficiency in nature, with its two purposes of storage and race perpetuation. ”

“ The cabarets and brothels of New York, with their fist fights between young women, their desperate, bull-dog encounters between sex maniacs, their ogling, besotted degenerates, sometimes with a lame pretense of a moral and sometimes without it, are shown for the entertainment of young America.
“The Huns have already invaded America, my friend. They are armed with things more deadly than guns and bullets. Their gun is the camera, their ammunition, the moving picture. That picture penetrates to the heart and soul of the young and no surgery can remove it. To them, seeing is believing. ”

“ Now, that man is doing a real service to Democracy.
“When the monster of war is devouring the fruitfulness of the earth and stopping the labor of those who produce it, there is only one remedy. We must increase that fruitfulness so that there shall be enough to feed the monster and the people at home. If this is to be done, every one must work. In such a situation, the idleness of the able-bodied becomes a disgrace, and his dinner the food of remorse. ”

“ If one were to estimate the greatness of a people he would disregard its armies and navies and the splendor of its cities and the deposits in its banks, and go out to that people and appraise the character of its average man,—his respect for honor and decency and especially his respect for that great, world embracing unit known as human rights. ”

“ It kills the spirit of Democracy. The world is being strafed for it, in my opinion.
“Now the center and headquarters of all supering is Prussia—the home of the superman—and Bill Hohenzollern, the Godful, is the head and front of the whole push.
“There are two kinds of superiority—real and assumed. Real superiority is largely unconscious of itself. It can never be inherited—there's the important fact about it. You will recall that there are only three cases on record of a great father begetting a great son. The son is apt to have a sense of inherited superiority. ”

“ Now I deny that the main purposes of human life are storage and race perpetuation and efficiency. If that were true, the man that had the most cash and wives and children would be the greatest man in the world. ”

“ Lest we forget that the spirit of man has been lifted up out of the mud and dust of the battle lines, out of the body tortured with pain and weariness and vermin, out of the close companionship of the dead into high association on the bloody altar of liberty and sacrifice. ”

“ It is to be credited to Alabama where she was born about sixty years before I met her in Paris last summer. She had a charming southern accent. It was the best thing she had. I liked it. I like all those little provincialisms which have the flavor of their native air and soil. Why shouldn't the manner of decent men and women grow in the way of nature out of their environment? I love the drawl that is the natural product of New England, the quaint, indolent slur of Dixieland, the breezy dialect of the Far West. ”

“ There should be an asylum for the misery lovers who sit in snug security and dream of misfortunes—Zeppelin raids, submarine bombardments and the end of the world. They grab at every straw of pessimism. Nothing pleases them so much as to find fault with the Government, which is doing its best with a difficult problem, and mighty well at that. ”

“ He has not that intimate knowledge of human nature which comes only of a long and close contact with human, beings. Without that knowledge he will know no more of what is in the other fellow's mind and the bluff that covers it in a critical clash of wits than a baby sucking its bottle in a perambulator. He fails, and the cost of his failure no man can estimate. ”

“ It is friendship, it is personality, it is credit—the credit for good sense and square dealing and high character—a character that is shared in some measure by every servant of the enterprise, be he manager or errand boy. ”

“ I would remind these European Americans who provide our amusements for us that the world has never seen a civilization like that of old New England. I am not saying that it had no faults, but its human product has justly excited the wonder and admiration of the world. ”

“ The Germans were a great people when Bill Hohenzollern took the reins of power—good-natured, industrious, God- fearing. The young men were encouraged to found their happiness on the sands of women, wine and song.
“The wine press and the beer vat are the indispensable adjuncts of Hohenzollerism. Alcohol is the balm of the mislaid conscience, the nourishment of the big-head and the pneumatic brain. These things lead to worse things. Swinish indulgence leads to the morals of the swine-yard. ”

“ Abigail had only to be an ordinary human being with nothing to do but work. The modern girl must have the beauty of a goddess, the grace of a gazelle, the digestion of an ostrich, the endurance of a horse and the remorse of a human being. ”

“ It is easy to accept the hot-air treatment for common sense—easy even for sober-minded men. The cocaine habit is not more swiftly acquired and brings a like sense of comfort and exhilaration. Slowly the Germans yielded to its sweet inducement. They began to believe that they were supermen—the chosen people; they thanked God that they were not like other men. ”

“ Sam tried to do the right thing, but couldn't. He went with the German army.
“Now, a man's conscience is given to him for his own use—exclusively for his own use. There's nothing truer than this: A man's conscience is like his tooth-brush—it should have but one proprietor. You can not leave it lying around like an old pair of shoes. Your umbrella is not as easily lost. It is like your right hand. You can not lay it away—you can not lend it, and the more you use it the better it is and the less you use it the weaker it is. ”

“ His great lack was common sense; his great failing an uncontrolled temper. When you become the pivot around which the whole world revolves you are apt to get hot and noisy. The world bears down rather hard. So Mr. Shote squeaked and roared with anger every day of his life.
“His great vice was too much efficiency. No man in the plant had any power of initiative, due to the fact that Mr. Shote had no faith in any one but himself. ”

“ His efficiency had gone too far.
“Again I say, success is the worst of teachers—save to those who sit in the grand stand while it is working out its failure. Unfortunately, it gave the laboring men of this country a lesson in Williamism which has spread over America. I wish the workers all success in getting their just share of the fruits of commerce, but let it be done by fair, democratic methods and not through Williamism.
“Above all no man should hitch his conscience to a post as if it were a mule or a nanny-goat and go off and leave it. ”

“ How often it has flashed out of my memory in these last forty years. There is no power like that of a picture for good or evil in the life of a child. Pictures are, indeed, the universal language of childhood. ”

“ So it is with this world of men. Caesar dies, despotism is uprooted, as we thought, and we discover that they have returned and are busy growing and spreading their roots. Everything returns if you give it a chance. ”

“ But there is one sentence of Scripture that I would have you remember—my brave, fine fellows who are to fight under this flag of ours. Having lived some fifty years and been a somewhat careful observer, I would call it the most impressive sentence ever written. It is full of vital truth. Every young man ought to read it once a day and think of it as often as he is tempted. ”

“ The trouble with Russia lies in the fact that among its people there are no individuals—no men trained in the use of the intellect and the conscience. Its people are like bricks, all of the same shape, size and color—all two inches wide and six inches long. ”

“ It is a dangerous habit to acquire—that of believing oneself—believe me. If there's any one that requires careful corroboration it's yourself. Mr. Shote could not help believing his own thoughts—they were so commanding and imperious. ”

“ He can rule a great nation, but first he must fool it. First he must induce his people to part with their common sense and take some preferred—a dangerous quality of preferred. This he can do in a generation by the systematic use of hot air. ”

“ I exclaimed.
“In America,” Mr. Potter went on. “The quarantine officer has been bribed. He has left the door open and the plague has come in. The name of that officer is Human Conscience. Williamism can make no progress save through the carelessness or neglect of the human conscience.
“Long ago the German people turned over their consciences to the Kaiser and the Bundesrath with a license to use them as they thought best. The people said to themselves: 'The Kaiser enjoys the special protection and favor of the Lord. He is an intimate friend with a pull. ”