¶ To understand these ideas, let us for the moment look forward as well as backward. Let us speak in general terms, along the lines of the realistic politics, that Bismarck was maturing, as against the old-time German sentimental idealism, once the political hope of Unity.
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Bismarck’s whole message turns on the urgency of faith among the German people; his idea, that United Germany must be achieved by faith, alone!
¶ Bismarck had the well-nigh impossible task of organizing and inspiring a common political faith in 25,000,000 people, divided by religious, climatic and personal differences. That at times he utterly failed to meet the situation except by political hypocrisy, is merely to say that in addition to being a warrior and ultimately the conqueror of a continent, he always kept within hailing distance of human nature; for when he could not win his way with a kiss, he gained it with a curse.
¶ In the final analysis he won, largely because of stirring faith in the German states.
With faith, what can a nation not do: If the United States, today, had deathless belief in the destiny of the Republic that Americans emphasize in their worship of the Golden Calf, a bloodless revolution for a higher standard of political thought would take place over night.
The difficulty is that with the average American National faith is dead.
He has come to the conclusion that he has no stake in the Government, that in short he is a victim to the machinations of plutocrats.
To read the American point of view, (1915) we, today, no less than the Prussians and the Austrians, in Bismarck’s time, are also about to spring at each other’s throats! There is little sentiment for National unity; it is the East against the West, in Congress, and in the newspapers it is the people against the plutocrats.