Weak Monarchial Institution

The saying ‘With the hat in the hand one can go through the whole country’ applies to Germany.

This kind of social etiquette is observed in the presence of His Majesty.

It insists that everything should be praised which His Majesty condescended to like.

But Germans need manly dignity, and not subservience.

Servility in the presence of monarchs may be good for the professional lackey and place-hunter.

Such people have prepared the way for the downfall of monarchy and the monarchical principle.

• This is different from people who are prepared to stand up for a cause.

Monarchs are Not Divine

The worth and significance of the monarchical principle cannot rest in the monarch alone, unless Heaven decrees that the monarch should be:

• a brilliant hero like Frederick the Great, or
• a sagacious person like William 1st.

The monarch is but a wheel in this monarchy machine. He is obliged to do his duty towards it.

If everything merely centred around the ‘sacred’ person, then it would be impossible to depose an imbecile ruler.

It is essential to insist upon this truth now.

People talk about ’their King’–the man they shamefully deserted a few years ago at a most critical hour.

Those who do not participate in this chorus of lies are classified as ‘bad Germans’ by those champions of royalty who quit and ran away in 1918 and adopted Marxism. They:

• thought that discretion was the better part of valour.
• were indifferent about what happened to the Kaiser.
• camouflaged themselves as ‘peaceful citizens’ only to vanish altogether.
• were all of a sudden nowhere to be found at that time.
  • Circumspectly, one by one, these ‘servants and counsellors’ of the Crown reappeared, to resume their lipservice to royalty but only after others had borne the brunt of the anti-royalist attack and suppressed the Revolution for them.

This went on until when red badges were again in the ascendant. Then this whole ramshackle assembly of royal worshippers scuttled anew like mice from the cats.

If monarchs were not themselves responsible for such things one could not help sympathizing with them. But they must realize that with such champions thrones can be lost but certainly never gained.

All this devotion was a mistake and was the result of our whole system of education, which in this case brought about a particularly severe retribution. Such lamentable trumpery was kept up at the various courts that the monarchy was slowly becoming under mined. When finally it did begin to totter, everything was swept away.

Naturally, grovellers and lick-spittles are never willing to die for their masters. That monarchs never realize this, and almost on principle never really take the trouble to learn it, has always been their undoing.

One visible result of wrong educational system was the fear of shouldering responsibility and the resultant weakness in dealing with obvious vital problems of existence.

The starting point of this epidemic, however, was in our parliamentary institution where the shirking of responsibility is particularly fostered.

Unfortunately the disease slowly spread to all branches of everyday life but particularly affected the sphere of public affairs. Responsibility was being shirked everywhere and this led to insufficient or half-hearted measures being taken, personal responsibility for each act being reduced to a minimum.

If we consider the attitude of various Governments towards a whole series of really pernicious phenomena in public life, we shall at once recognize the fearful significance of this policy of half-measures and the lack of courage to undertake responsibilities.

I shall single out only a few from the large numbers of instances known to me.

In journalistic circles it is a pleasing custom to speak of the Press as a ‘Great Power’ within the State. As a matter of fact its importance is immense. One cannot easily overestimate it, for the Press continues the work of education even in adult life.

3 Types of Readers

Generally, readers of the Press can be classified into 3 groups:

1. Those who believe everything they read

This is the most numerous, being composed of the broad masses of the people. Intellectually, it forms the simplest portion of the nation. It cannot be classified according to occupation but only into grades of intelligence.

Under this category come all those who have not been born to think for themselves or who have not learnt to do so and who, partly through incompetence and partly through ignorance, believe everything that is set before them in print.

To these we must add that type of lazy individual who, although capable of thinking for himself out of sheer laziness gratefully absorbs everything that others had thought over, modestly believing this to have been thoroughly done.

The influence which the Press has on all these people is therefore enormous; for after all they constitute the broad masses of a nation.

But, somehow they are not in a position or are not willing personally to sift what is being served up to them; so that their whole attitude towards daily problems is almost solely the result of extraneous influence. All this can be advantageous where public enlightenment is of a serious and truthful character, but great harm is done when scoundrels and liars take a hand at this work.

2. Those who no longer believe anything

This is numerically smaller, being partly composed of those who were formerly in the first group and after a series of bitter disappointments are now prepared to believe nothing of what they see in print. They hate all newspapers. Either they do not read them at all or they become exceptionally annoyed at their contents, which they hold to be nothing but a congeries of lies and misstatements.

These people are difficult to handle; for they will always be sceptical of the truth. Consequently, they are useless for any form of positive work.

3. Those who critically examine what they read and form their judgments accordingly.

This is the smallest, being composed of real intellectuals whom natural aptitude and education have taught to think for themselves and who in all things try to form their own judgments, while at the same time carefully sifting what they read.

They will not read any newspaper without using their own intelligence to collaborate with that of the writer and naturally this does not set writers an easy task.

Journalists appreciate this type of reader only with a certain amount of reservation.

Hence the trash that newspapers can serve up is of little danger or importance to the members of the third group of readers.