GERMANY’S INDUSTRIAL GROWTH

Why was she not satisfied?  What more did she want?  There was nothing in the world of peace that she did not already have and have in abundance.  We boast of the extraordinary pace of American advancement.  We show with pride the statistics of the increase of our industries and of the population of our cities.  Well, those statistics did not match the recent statistics of Germany.  Her old cities took on youth and grew faster than any American cities ever grew.  Her old industries opened their eyes and saw a new world and went out for its conquest.  And yet the authorities of Germany were not satisfied.

You have one part of the answer to the question why she was not satisfied in her methods of competition.  There is no important industry in Germany upon which the Government has not laid its hands, to direct it and, when necessity arose, control it; and you have only to ask any man whom you meet who is familiar with the conditions that prevailed before the war in the matter of national competition to find out the methods of competition which the German manufacturers and exporters used under the patronage and support of the Government of Germany.  You will find that they were the same sorts of competition that we have tried to prevent by law within our own borders.  If they could not sell their goods cheaper than we could sell ours at a profit to themselves they could get a subsidy from the Government which made it possible to sell them cheaper anyhow, and the conditions of competition were thus controlled in large measure by the German Government itself.

BERLIN-BAGDAD RAILWAY

But that did not satisfy the German Government.  All the while there was lying behind its thought and in its dreams of the future a political control which would enable it in the long run to dominate the labor and the industry of the world.  They were not content with success by superior achievement; they wanted success by authority.  I suppose very few of you have thought much about the Berlin-to-Bagdad Railway.  The Berlin-Bagdad Railway was constructed in order to run the threat of force down the flank of the industrial undertakings of half a dozen other countries; so that when German competition came in it would not be resisted too far, because there was always the possibility of getting German armies into the heart of that country quicker than any other armies could be got there.

Look at the map of Europe now!  Germany is thrusting upon us again and again the discussion of peace talks,—­about what?  Talks about Belgium; talks about northern France; talks about Alsace-Lorraine.  Well, those are deeply interesting subjects to us and to them, but they are not the heart of the matter.  Take the map and look at it.  Germany has absolute control of Austria-Hungary, practical control of the Balkan States, control of Turkey, control of Asia