IF I were gastronomically inclined I would study New York’s cosmopolitan population and its progress towards Americanization from the standpoint of its restaurants; for the appetite is most loyally patriotic. A man may cease to speak his mother tongue and have forsworn allegiance to Kaiser and to King, but still cling to his ancestral bill of fare.

If I were an absolute monarch and wished my alien people quickly assimilated, I would permit them to speak their native tongue and cling to the faith of their fathers; but I would close all foreign restaurants, and as speedily as possible obliterate from their memory the taste of viands “like mother used to make.”

I fear that it is neither Goethe nor Schiller, nor Bismarck nor Kaiser Wilhelm who has kept the memory of the Fatherland alive in the minds and hearts of many German people in America. Dare I say that possibly much of their patriotism and loyalty is due to the taste of rye bread and sweet butter, Rindsbrust and Pell Cartoffel, not to mention a certain frothy amber fluid?

Be that as it may, when I discovered that the Herr Director and the Frau Directorin were homesick, I took them to a German restaurant to assuage their pangs; just as if, did I detect the same symptoms in an American whom I wished to make thoroughly at home in a foreign country, I would take him where a meal could be properly concluded with apple pie and cheese or ice-cream.

The restaurant I selected lent itself particularly well to my purpose, for everything was imported, from the Bavarian architecture to the Frankfurter sausages. The menu card was adorned by illuminated, medieval lettering, and on the smoked rafters were painted pious and impious verses, which gave the room a literary atmosphere.

It was as crowded and full of tobacco smoke and the odors of savory meats as the most loyal German could desire, and my guests were thoroughly at home. They ate their food happily, praised it discriminatingly, and studied the familiar environment carefully. As usual, certain things were lacking; for the Herr Director is a keen critic and never accepts anything as perfect.

I agreed with him that the orchestra was too noisy and on the whole superfluous, and that the native American dining there could be easily recognized by the indifference with which he ate. We heard no loud complaining, and little or no quarrelling with the waiters. The food was accepted in a humble sort of way whether it was satisfactory or not; bills were paid, tips were given in the spirit of meekness, and accepted in the opposite way, and the guests left without any ceremony except that of paying their toll to the keepers of their hats and coats, a form of extortion quite unparallelled abroad.

In striking contrast to our mere eating was my guests’ enjoyment of every morsel of the food which they had selected, not simply because it was food, but because it was a note fitting into the gastronomic harmony. The head waiter and all his minions hovered about them with due reverence, and woe to him who by pose or gesture disturbed the perfect accord.

A friend from Nebraska who was staying at our hotel had joined us at dinner. When the waiter handed him the bewildering bill of fare, he waved it aside saying: “Just bring me a big lobster stewed in milk, with a dish of pickles and a mince pie.”

The waiter turned pale, the Herr Director gasped, almost strangling on the salad he was eating, and the Frau Directorin looked at me despairingly. The waiter was the first to recover his composure, and cautiously suggested that the gentleman might like some Lobster À la Newburgh.

“Nix,” said the Nebraskan, “I want lobster À la Milkburgh, and don’t forget the pickles.”

The waiter retreated and after a long conference with his superior, informed the gentleman that he could have his lobster stewed in milk, but that it would cost him one dollar and fifty cents.

“Hustle it along,” was the curt reply, and in about fifteen minutes he was deep in his bowl of lobster stew, flanked on either side by pickles and mince pie, while the rest of us were eating our way leisurely and artistically through a menu which began with caviar and ended with Camambert and demitasse.

After dinner, American men, manners and ideals became the subject of a discussion into which my Western friend good-naturedly entered, although he was made a horrible example of the fact that we are ill-mannered. The Herr Director insisted that our nation is too young to have any except bad manners, and while no doubt we had improved in the years since he first made our acquaintance, the improvement had not yet permeated the masses.

That which I called the American Spirit was the spirit of the few cultured, academic persons I knew, but the majority of the people was as alien to it as was our Nebraska friend’s lobster and mince pie to our delicious and dietetically correct dinner.

“I don’t give a hang for your ‘dietetically correct dinner.’ I want what I want, when I want it!” the Nebraskan said, smiting the table with his fist, and evidently suppressing stronger language with an apologetic glance at the ladies of our party.

“That is exactly it; you want what you want, when you want it,” the Herr Director repeated, “whether or not it is on the bill of fare, or in the statute book, or among the laws of the Universe. In that I suppose you Americans all agree; that is your American Spirit.” He uttered the last phrase with special emphasis, and with no attempt to hide the sneer.

I admitted that my friend’s demand for the thing he wanted, regardless of the bill of fare and in defiance of a dietary law (of which he was not as yet conscious), was a manifestation of our individualism, a rather wide-spread characteristic. I was fain also to admit that our individualism is not always as harmless to others as in the case under discussion. It is an attitude of mind which has developed into a system to which we are committed for better or worse, and is in striking contrast to the German ideal of submission to an accepted order.

“Yes,” from the Herr Director with evident pride. “That which makes Germany great and strong is our willing submission to authority; but remember it must be intelligent authority, and at the same time it must be efficient. To be sure,” he acknowledged, “we are often chagrined by the ‘Streng Verboten’ to the right of us and the ‘Nicht Erlaubt’ to the left of us. We are much governed but we are well governed, and you, too, will some day discover that the common weal has to be above the individual’s caprice. Your evident disrespect of laws and conventions results from the lack of intelligence back of them, and you have no respect for your lawmakers because they do not deserve it.”

At this point the Nebraskan astonished us by saying that he had recently been in Europe on business, selling grindstones, that he knew something about Germany, and he never was gladder to get back to God’s country than when he finally set foot upon his native soil. He had many adventures, and as an example of what he had to suffer from one of Germany’s well enforced laws, he told a story which proved his sense of humor, though the “laugh was on him.”

“When I was in Berlin I made out a small bill for some goods I had sold, and the man told me that I must affix to it some revenue stamps. I didn’t want to bother with it, and told him so. The thing was too trifling anyway.

“I never thought of that bill again till I was forcibly reminded of it in Hamburg as I was about to sail for home. I was haled before the court, and the judge fined me fifty marks. Of course I knew I had to pay it, so I handed him the money and told him in good English to take it and go to the hot place with it. I didn’t dream that he understood, but he replied in as good English as I gave him: ‘Officials of my rank travel first-class. I must therefore have fifty marks more.’ That little joke cost me a lot of money. I wouldn’t want to live in a country where I couldn’t tell anybody I pleased what I felt like telling him.”

The Herr Director doubted the accuracy of the story because “no German official would show so little dignity.” I, too, doubted it; but on the ground that no German official would have so keen a sense of humor.

There followed an animated argument between the Nebraskan and the Herr Director as to which is of more importance, the individual or the state. The Nebraskan insisted that the state being the creation of individuals, they are of supreme importance, while the Herr Director persisted in his theory that the state is supreme and that it is the business of the individual to make it dominant and powerful, to which end the state must make him effective.

“An ineffective individual is a menace to the state, and a state which cannot impress its will upon the individual and make him submissive and effective will be vanquished in the great competitive struggle constantly going on.”

“I suppose you’re effective enough, but you’re as slow as molasses in January.”

“Oh, yes, we are slow, but we are thorough; we take our time to do a thing well, while your hurry is as wearing as it is useless. When we came down here this evening we were in a hurry. We were rushed to your crowded subway to take a certain train, although the next one would have done as well. In about three minutes we were pushed out of that train into another, because it went faster, and we reached here breathless. We saved time, but for what purpose? To see you eat your lobster and mince pie?” And he looked contemptuously at the Nebraskan.

“What are we going to do now with the two or three minutes we saved?”

This was a question I could not answer, for I did not know why I had hurried. Perhaps because of the excess of ozone in the air, or possibly because every one else was hurrying.

“You see,” he continued, “we Germans never make the mistake of confounding hurry with efficiency. We hurry, too, when we must, or when we have a rational purpose. We know that great things cannot be accomplished in a hurry. We lay our foundations not only patiently, but thoroughly and cheerfully.

“You work like slaves who are eager to finish the job, as you call it. We cherish towards our job a sentiment of love and loyalty which we call ‘Pflichttreue,’ a word for which you have no equivalent, proving of course that you have not the thing itself.”

I translated the word as loyalty to duty.

“Yes, that may be correct, but it does not ring true. Pflichttreue has an ethical significance which your translation does not convey.

“I have noticed that your conductors shed their uniforms the instant they leave their trains, as if they were ashamed of their job. With us, any uniform, whether a railroad conductor’s or a general’s, is gloried in, and honored because of the work it represents.”

The Nebraskan thought us too democratic for uniforms, which is the reason we do not value them more than we do.

“It is not the uniform, it is our work in which we glory. A shoemaker with us is as proud of his job as the Emperor is of his. He is Emperor by the grace of God, because he believes it is a God-given task to which he must be faithful, and we once had a shoemaker who called himself with equal pride, ‘Shoemaker by the grace of God.’

“This pride spiritualizes the simplest and commonest work by making every man a conscious part of the state, and he works for its glory and power. It is a glory shared by his wife and family,” and the Herr Director pulled from his pocket a German newspaper. “Look at this funeral notice. The widow signs herself not only as the widow of a particular man, but as the widow of a man who did something of which she is still proud. While she remains a widow she will sign herself Amalia Henrietta Schmidt Koenigliche Hof Opern Obo Spieler’s Wittwe.”

“How can we be proud of our jobs,” queried the Nebraskan, after his hearty laugh at Amalia Henrietta Schmidt, “when we never have a job which we expect to hold permanently? I started out with school teaching, then I got hold of a good thing in the way of Carborundum and made grindstones. That’s what took me to Europe. When that business went bad, I bought out the livery stable in my town, and now I am in the moving picture business. If I could sell out at a good price I’d do it and take up any old thing as long as there is money in it.”

He was right. Our work is not sacred to us, for too often it is only the means to an end, and frequently a very selfish end. Because Germany has had centuries of carpenters and tinkers and shoemakers who planed boards and mended pots and shoes “by the grace of God,” and swung the hammer as if it were a sword, they are now wielding the sword as if it were a hammer.

In some way we must get this spiritual appeal of the job, which means not only that we shall have to dedicate ourselves to our task in a manner worthy of its significance, but that the state must have this spiritual attitude towards the worker, and treat him as though worthy of his place in the economy of the nation. It is this wise provision for the workers’ efficient education, the state’s recognition that the well-being of the individual is its concern, which has given to Germany the unfailing devotion of all her people.

I was roused from these meditations by hearing the Nebraskan’s voice.

“You see I never had a chance to learn just one thing. I can do many things tolerably well, for I had to do them. I can splice a rope, repair a machine, shingle a house and if necessary build a barn. I can play ragtime on the piano, throw a steer or ride a bucking broncho. I can even make soda biscuits. I am the child of the pioneers, and in order to survive, they had to be jacks of all trades.

“I bought a tool in a department store the other day,” and he drew it from his pocket. “It can do sixteen things tolerably well, but it isn’t worth shucks for any one job, if you want to do it right. That’s me.”

The Herr Director wanted to know what “shucks” meant, and after I laboriously explained it to him and he had handled the patent tool he said:

“Your travelling men have come over to Germany and tried to sell us this kind of thing, but they found no market. When we want a gimlet, or a saw, or a coat-hanger we want that one thing and want it as good as it can be made. We marvel at your adaptability, but we are too thorough to be adaptable, and we do not need to be. You Americans will never be able to compete with us until you learn to specialize and do one thing well.”

We sat long into the night comparing the German and the American Spirit, but there was one phase of the former which the Herr Director clearly demonstrated. There was a religious fervor in his patriotism which the average American lacks. To him his country was not only above himself but beyond everything else on Earth or in Heaven. There often seems something sordid about our patriotism, something connected solely with the individual’s well-being. I glory in our sense of liberty, in the opportunity to live unmolested, and in every man’s chance to be himself; but I fear we have as yet not learned to value our duty to this country as much as we do our privilege.

I am sure there will be no lack of fighters if the country is in danger; but shall we be able to fight the long, exhausting battle which presupposes discipline and subordination?

The United States gives much to the individual, more, I think, than any other country; but she has not given intelligently, she has nearly pauperized us all by her beneficence, and has demanded nothing in return, nor even taught us common gratitude.

Our children are told that they must love their country, but what that means beyond fighting when it is in danger they know not. That it means to do their work thoroughly, that they must learn to do things well, and exalt the nation by becoming efficient workmen that they may help win their country’s battles in the factory, or behind the counter, they do not yet know; and what we have not learned, we cannot teach.

This questioning mood of mine is never gendered as I contemplate the mob, the many who are driven to revolt either by their unbridled passions or by the unbearable conditions under which they have to labor; my fear is strongest when I look into the schools and when I face our youth which comes out of them, inefficient, but above all, undisciplined. They do not lack physical courage, nor yet devotion to the country, in a sort of abstract way; they do lack the submission to intelligent authority.

In this latter-day test of different ideals of the state, through the cruel, undecisive test of war, we may learn from Germany to instill this “Pflichttreue,” this loyalty to the job. We may also learn the more difficult lesson for us individualists—submission to authority which we must make intelligent, as well as conscientious.

Necessity will soon teach us to be thorough, and thoroughness presupposes patience. Add these qualities and this discipline to the enterprise, the love of fair play, the courage, the faith in God and man, which we possess, and we too may ultimately develop a patriotism which will stand the test of adversity, and emerge from it purified and strengthened.

When we stepped out of the restaurant and its German atmosphere into the unmistakably American Broadway, my German guests felt that my rampant Americanism had been thoroughly subdued. However they had literally “reckoned without their host.” My protracted silence had misled them, but I could contain myself no longer.

“We are now walking in the streets of the second largest city in the world, its population thrown together and blown together from every quarter of the globe, and the most of these people, if not the worst of them, have come here in the last thirty-five years. They brought neither love of their new country nor knowledge of its language and institutions; they all came to make money, and to-morrow morning four millions of people will begin again the competitive battle from which they are resting to-night.

“The laws which govern them are illy made, but they have made them, or at least had a chance to select those who did make them. They have not always chosen well; the officers who govern them are often not good men; frequently they are only the most cunning politicians and one has but scant respect for them. Yet in spite of it all, this is a fairly well governed city and it is quite remarkable that these four million people live together in comparative peace and order. Neither is there any ill from which this great city or any group of its individuals suffers for which there is not some help or healing or some attempt to heal.

“If I were an absolute stranger without money, knowing neither the language of the people nor their ways, I would rather be on the streets of the city of New York than anywhere else.”

“How do you account for it?” the Frau Directorin ventured to ask, although the Herr Director had been violently expressing his dissent.

“We have several things to count on here, even when conditions seem intolerable. Let me name them.

“We are all human beings; some of us have inherited the Old Testament righteousness and the passion for justice, and many of us have the New Testament desire for service. These together make a very effective combination, and go a great way towards the glorious results we shall ultimately achieve.”

For once the Herr Director was silent, and as we had reached our hotel, I think I might have slept peacefully that night had not the Nebraskan triumphantly remarked as we were being shot up to the topmost floor: “Say, I did get that lobster À la Milkburgh with pickles and mince pie, didn’t I? I always get what I want when I want it.”