ENGLAND OR GERMANY? MR. HARRIS.

Published in the Fatherland

New York, New York, U.S.A.

16 June 1915

(page 4)

The greatest critic of Shakespeare that ever lived is fitted to criticize the degenerate countrymen of the noblest of poets. The cosmopolitan journalist and essayist is able to judge without bias. The most brilliant talker of his time is the man of all men to amuse us, and he does so in these very essays.

At first, I will admit, I was scandalized by his remarks on English justice and English aristocracy; for I happen to be a member of the class which he indicts. On reflection, I perceive his accuracy, and my testimony has more value, for where he complains, I exult. But the accident of my being a hammer does not blind me to the feeling of the anvil. At the same time, I think that Mr. Harris is quite wrong if he supposes that it is any different in any other country. He is on surer ground when he attacks the slipshod, haphazard methods of the English, and contrasts them with the scientific precision, the forethought (with the imagination implied in that virtue), and the organized common sense of the Germans. And in his exposure of the snobbery-jobbery of English governments his ruthlessness is hardly equal to the facts. The European War will have been lost on the back stairs of Fleet Street.

Honest and capable men may yet emerge and save England; but that possibility lies on the other side of the bloodiest of revolutions. When dotards like Balfour, mediocrities like Bonar Law, mountebanks like Carson, nonentities like Henderson (the king log of the labor men), are invited to strengthen a government, what must be that government?

Kitchener is getting past his work—especially since that work has been chiefly to baffle the intrigues of his own subordinates: French has no soldierly qualities but his bedside manner; Smith-Dorien shines brightest on parade; the other generals should never have been dragged from their bath chairs. England is now experiencing the result of basing promotion on tactful adultery.

All this rottenness is exposed by Frank Harris in these brilliant essays. Truth will out, in times like these, despite a bought press and censored cables. Brains are not to be bounced, in the long run. America is coming to her senses. This book will hasten the process. This book may be purchased through The Fatherland for One Dollar, postpaid.