That betrayal of hospitality, that taking advantage of
human feeling, is a baser thing than her unique savagery in war time.
During my months in Belgium I have been surrounded by evidences of this
spy system, the long, slow preparedness which Germany makes in another
country ahead of her deadly pounce. It is a silent, peaceful invasion,
as destructive as the house-to-house burning and the killing of babies
and mothers to which it later leads.
The German military power, which is the modern Germany, is able to
obtain agents to carry out this policy, and make its will prevail, by
disseminating a new ethic, a philosophy of life, which came to
expression with Bismarck and has gone on extending its influence since
the victories of 1870-'71. The German people believe they serve a higher
God than the rest of us. We serve (very imperfectly and only part of
the time) such ideals as mercy, pity, and loyalty to the giver of the
bread we eat. The Germans serve (efficiently and all the time) the
State, a supreme deity, who sends them to spy out a land in peace time,
to build gun foundations in innocent-looking houses, buy up
poverty-stricken peasants, measure distances, win friendship, and worm
out secrets. With that information digested and those preparations
completed, the State (an entity beyond good and evil) calls on its
citizens to make war, and, in making it, to practise frightfulness.
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