"No. I said like Huns. I mean by Huns a people who insist on their tribal sovereign right of conquest by means of ruthless murder and senseless destruction—wiping out foreign races and property."
One evening the conversation drifted to this theme:
"Is Luther—Protestantism—one of the reasons why Protestant America is so favorably inclined to Germany?" suggested Kirtley.
"Americans would be surprised to find there is no such thing as Lutheranism here. A bumptious military cult has usurped its place. There are no Lutherans in Deutschland—only Evangelicals and Dissidents. And of course Catholics. If you ask an ordinary Teuton what Protestantism is, he will scarcely know what you mean precisely. American Protestantism and German Protestantism are radically unlike. The one is peaceful and trustful, the other is warlike and knavish.
"And it seems to me so plain that, besides our religionists, our American education is playing in with the Kaiser's plans. It tends to weaken faith in our government. It makes unpatriotic citizens. Our colleges turn out young men who feel no political duties. We teach them to look for benefits without responsibilities. How different with the German universities! Our school histories, too, nurse active hatred of England, and everywhere with us the main opinion about the French is fostered that they are immoral and therefore to be despised. All this works in with the advancement of German popularity and interests, while at the same time our young men, like you, are sent here to study. Only the best in Germany is diligently kept before our people. The worst is never known as you and I are learning to know it over here."
"So you think," said Gard companionably, "that the Kaiser will set his fiery ball rolling this spring."
"I put the date at March first." The old man's hands trembled as he relighted his cigar stub. His voice almost broke.
"I know they think I'm getting in my dotage—brain a little cracked—and all that. I'm a poor chap possessed of a foolish and wicked delusion. Mean well, but head rickety. Sometimes I really think I must be crazy, with all the world against me about the German danger. They call me Jeremiah and Mother Goose rolled into one. But, by God, Kirtley, as my soul's immortal, I tell you I'm right—I'm right! The deluge is just ahead!—and nothing being done to prevent it." He shouted the words till Gard almost shook.
Every time he left Anderson, he would settle back into the lulling arms of false security, but always a little less assured. How could the old newspaper man be correct and the rest of mankind be in error? He used the stock arguments with himself. Granted that the obese Germans about him on the tram trundling along toward Loschwitz were talking war and preparing for war. They had been doing so for forty-three years and no conflict had come. Immense populations of peace and unpreparedness were growing up who would discourage a world war—would not permit it. There were increasing millions of people who had never seen a soldier, never seen a battleship. Would they want to pay the cost in blood and billions of treasure? It was unthinkable.
And so everyone was floating on with these comfortable convictions—floating on toward the imminent cataclysm, smiling pityingly on the few lugubrious Andersons who were right.