• ANTHOLOGY: America in the War (1918) "Restitution and Reparation"   An article. Edited by Louis Raemaekers (b.1869, d.1956). "Each cartoon faced with a page of comment by a distinguished America, the text forming an anthology of patriotic opinion." John Philip Sousa, John Kendrick Bangs, Cabot Lodge, John Burroughs, Ellis Parker Butler, Albert Bigelow Paine, Palmer Cox, Alice Hegan Rice, Admiral Peary. Hardback. Good. Oversized. New York: The Century Company. p 60. From Questia.  [WEB]

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from America in the War
Restitution and Reparation
by Ellis Parker Butler

It is with good reason the Prussian covers the thick bone of his head with a helmet, for into it ideas of right and justice can only be battered with a club. The tough, club-resisting helmet is the arch-symbol of Prussianism. From its earliest days Prussia has taught its neighbors the Prussian theory of right and justice by means of a club. When the Prussian wishes to educate his neighbors to an appreciation of Prussian ethics he puts on his helmet, picks up a club and slugs the neighbor on the head.

The Prussian theory of right and justice is this: "What is mine is mine. What is yours is also mine if I want it."

This idea is deep buried beneath the thick bone of the Prussian head. He holds it with stolid stupidity and deep, prehistoric crudity, like a pig or an idiot. He cannot understand that there are any rights higher than Prussian greed. "If I want it, it is mine because I want it." It is the logic of the primitive human animal, the cave-man.

Cornered and accused of his thefts he clings to his loot like the pig that has stolen a carrot. When asked to disgorge he is shocked by the suggestion. "But they are mine! I wanted them, so they are mine!" he says. Right and Justice answer, "They are not yours; you stole them." "Maybe so!" says the Prussian. "But just the same they are mine--I stole them a long time ago."

The logic of the Prussian fills ten thousand volumes. It is written in hundred-line paragraphs and six-inch words. It can be condensed into two short words--piggish greed: piggish because it knows neither right or justice, greed because it is greed.

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