X.
Even as race heresy must result in racial megalomania, it must result in political reaction and in the government of caste. The principle which is true of the nation as a whole is as true of every section of that nation. And the pride of race in a nation is substantially the same thing as the pride of birth in a class. If amongst the races of man there is one particular breed, the Teuton, which constitutes the born aristocracy of humanity, so amongst those Teutons there is one special caste which is the born aristocracy of Teutonism. It is the rooted belief in the race theory which has maintained the rule of Junkerthum. On the race theory an exclusive aristocratic government recruited and maintained by artificial selection is the only logical and sensible government, and democracy is bound to be considered as a principle of decay. The Kings of Prussia select their rulers on the same principle on which King Frederick William selected his regiment of six-foot grenadiers from the military caste.
That is why we find in Prussia the most exclusive aristocratic government in the world. As a sop to Southern German opinion, Bismarck was compelled to grant universal suffrage for the Reichstag, but in the Prussian Parliament, or “Landtag,” Bismarck, the Junker of blood and iron, retained the good old principle of aristocratic government. Under the three-class voting system of the Landtag, one voter constituting by himself the first class may have as much political power as the twenty thousand electors constituting the third class. That is also why the Prussian Junker retains by right of birth a monopoly in the higher ranks of the Army, of the Diplomatic and Civil Service. The Junker is born to greatness even as the princely families of Germany have been born to a monopoly of all the thrones of Europe.