"The Crown Prince!"
"Who are the chosen people of the good old German God?"
"The German people!"
Never was there a finer bit of sarcasm and yet the Germans were never able to understand the play. The Kaiser, the War Staff, the Cabinet, down to the last wretched creature working in the stables and the sewers, reading the play, exclaimed:
"What is the man driving at? Why, of course the Germans are the greatest people in the world—we admit it!"
Now, during the last few years the Germans have spent untold millions in propagating this myth of superiority, and yet the German intellect has never even had a second-rate position. Call the roll of all the tools that have redeemed men from drudgery and you will find that Germany's contributions are hopelessly inferior to the other nations.
The new industrial era began with the locomotive and steamship; James Watt invented the one and Stevenson the other.
The new era of physical comfort began with the loom; a Frenchman named Jacquard and an Englishman named Arkwright made men warm for their work in winter. Garments within the reach of the poor man in forest and factory, field and mine, means the cotton gin, and that gin is the gift of an American. The sewing machine changed woman's position, but the world owes that to our own Elias Howe.
We owe the telegraph to an English inventor and, in part, to Morse. We owe the cable in part to Lord Kelvin and, in part, to Cyrus Field. We owe the telephone to Bell and the wireless to Marconi.
Holland invented the submarine, Wright the airplane, McCormick the reaper and Edison the phonograph.