GERMANY AND THE GERMANS FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW

CHAPTER

INTRODUCTION

I. THE CRADLE OF MODERN GERMANY

II. FREDERICK THE GREAT TO BISMARCK

III. THE INDISCREET

IV. GERMAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE PRESS

V. BERLIN

VI. "A LAND OF DAMNED PROFESSORS"

VII. THE DISTAFF SIDE

VIII. "OHNE ARMEE KEIN DEUTSCHLAND"

IX. GERMAN PROBLEMS

X. "FROM ENVY, HATRED, AND MALICE"

XI. CONCLUSION



INTRODUCTION


The first printed suggestion that America should be called America
came from a German. Martin Waldseemüller, of Freiburg, in his
Cosmographiae Introductio, published in 1507, wrote: "I do not see why
any one may justly forbid it to be named after Americus, its
discoverer, a man of sagacious mind, Amerige, that is the land of
Americus or America, since both Europe and Asia derived their names
from women."

The first complete ship-load of Germans left Gravesend July the 24th,
1683, and arrived in Philadelphia October the 6th, 1683. They settled
in Germantown, or, as it was then called, on account of the poverty of
the settlers, Armentown.

Up to within the last few years the majority of our settlers have been
Teutonic in blood and Protestant in religion. The English, Dutch,
Swedes, Germans, Scotch-Irish, who settled in America, were all, less
than two thousand years ago, one Germanic race from the country
surrounding the North Sea.

Since 1820 more than 5,200,000 Germans have settled in America. This
immigration of Germans has practically ceased, and it is a serious
loss to America, for it has been replaced by a much less desirable
type of settler. In 1882 western Europe sent us 563,174 settlers, or
87 per cent., while southern and eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey
sent 83,637, or 13 per cent. In 1905 western Europe sent 215,863, or
21.7 per cent., and southern and eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey,
808,856, or 78.9 per cent. of our new population. In 1910 there were
8,282,618 white persons of German origin in the United States;
2,501,181 were born in Germany; 3,911,847 were born in the United
States, both of whose parents were born in Germany; 1,869,590 were
born in the United States, one parent born in the United States and
one in Germany.