CHAPTER I

THE RED AND BLACK AND GOLD STRUGGLE FOR
SUPREMACY ON THE CHANGING MAP OF THE WORLD


~1~

When but a child of seven my uncle placed me in a private school in
which one of the so-called redeemed sub-sailors was a teacher of the
German language. As I look back now, in the light of my present
knowledge, I better comprehend the docile humility and carefully
nurtured ignorance of this man. In his class rooms he used as a text a
description of German life, taken from the captured submarine. From this
book he had secured his own conception of a civilization of which he
really knew practically nothing. I recall how we used to ask Herr
Meineke if he had actually seen those strange things of which he taught
us. To this he always made answer, "The book is official, man's
observation errs."

~2~

"He can talk it," said my playmates who attended the public schools
where all teaching of the language of the outcast nation was prohibited.
They invariably elected me to be "the Germans," and locked me up in the
old garage while they rained a stock of sun-dried clay bombs upon the
roof and then came with a rush to "batter down the walls of Berlin" by
breaking in the door, while I, muttering strange guttural oaths, would
be led forth to be "exterminated."