Part 8

Soon after I arrived in Switzerland I inquired at a Geneva hotel the name of the President of the Republic of Switzerland. The hall porter (about the same as chief clerk) could not tell me, nor could he find out on inquiry around the office. Several times in Geneva I asked the same question, but always in vain. One or two men thought they knew, but they were not sure, and, as I learned afterward, they guessed wrong. I kept at the work of finding out who was the chief executive until I reached Lucerne. In a bookstore there my question aroused the interest of the proprietor, who spoke good English, and he inquired around until he found out that the President of Switzerland is named Brenner. During the process I suppose I asked a dozen educated Swiss, and three-fourths of them could give me promptly the name of the President of the United States, but not the name of their own President. Of course there is a reason for what would be fearful ignorance in any other country. The President of Switzerland doesn’t amount to as much as the Vice-President of the United States, and it would stagger a good many Americans to tell who was Vice-President before Roosevelt. Switzerland is a rather loosely bound together confederation of cantons (states). The cantons are jealous of the federal government, and give it very little power. Up to a few years ago there would be tariffs in some cantons against importations from others. The general government has the power to do the international business, but Switzerland keeps out of European politics. It would have little or no power as an offensive nation with its three million of people, and so it contents itself with furnishing scenery, wine, watches, music-boxes and good air to the inhabitants of other countries who are able to buy. The federal government consists of a congress composed of representatives from the cantons made up like our Senate and House. This congress elects an executive committee of seven, and the President of Switzerland is merely the chairman of that executive committee. Berne is the capital of Switzerland and the congress meets there, but it can only propose important legislation, which is then submitted to the people, who usually defeat it. The cantons of Switzerland have various kinds of republican government. Some have legislatures, some councils, and in a few of the small ones, where it is practicable, the government acts by mass meetings of the people, with an executive or a committee to carry out the legislation. The small area of the country and of the twenty-two cantons (they average about the size of Reno county, but some are not bigger than a commissioner district) makes the government a peculiar proposition. There is no foreign immigration, no uneducated class, and no one whose ancestors have not been self-governing for a generation. And yet as they have remodeled their local and federal constitutions and charters, they have come closer to the American methods all the time, the only important difference being the initiative and referendum, which is after all only a continuance of their ancient “land gemeinde,” or mass meetings of the people at which measures were considered and officers elected, the voting now being done by ballot instead of holding up the hands.

As I have written before, in some cantons the people use one language and in some another. Likewise in some everybody is a Protestant and in others everybody is a Catholic; very seldom both faiths in one canton. During the Reformation and for a number of years afterward the Swiss fought and killed each other for the love of God as fiercely as in any other country. Switzerland and southern Germany, which borders on it, were the fields in which the great Reformers did their best and worst work. The Reformation in Switzerland was double-headed. One branch, led by Calvin, was marked by what we call Puritan austerity, and had its headquarters at Geneva. From there went John Knox to Scotland and a host of eminent preachers to England and other countries, forming what is now called the Presbyterian Church. Zwingli, at Zurich, was a milder, gentler teacher, and his kind of Protestantism grew most in Switzerland. Luther, only a little way off, had still another kind of Protestantism, and each of the three differed considerably in confession of faith, Calvin standing on the principle of predestination, Luther holding to transubstantiation, or the doctrine of the actual presence of the body of our Saviour in communion, Zwingli insisting that communion was only symbolic. Mutual friends brought Zwingli and Luther together, and when they could not agree, Zwingli held out his hand in parting and Luther would not even shake hands. Zwingli was killed in a battle in a religious war with the Catholics, but his creed really became the dominant one in Swiss Protestantism. Calvin had Servetus burned to death because he denied the trinity.

So you see in the good old days in Switzerland there was a hard time for the plain and honest person trying to do what was right. Those times are past now, and Protestant and Catholic cantons get along peaceably; but there is still friction. Each canton in Switzerland looks after its educational matters and there are good schools everywhere. In nearly every city is a big university. I suppose that in proportion to population there are more university graduates in Switzerland than in any other country on earth. In America the young men and women too often cut short their education in order to get into business. In Switzerland, there are no such alluring opportunities, and the students stay till graduation. A young Swiss will go through the university and then go to work at the trade of his father. In America the young man would want to “do better” and really does worse by becoming a lawyer or an editor. Even good things have their bad features, and American colleges make mighty poor professional men out of material which was intended for good mechanics and farmers.

We spent a couple of days in Zurich, the largest city of Switzerland. Its special industry is silk-making, and the silk and embroidery stores are beautiful. The main business street of Zurich has two rows of trees like First avenue in Hutchinson, and the result is a delightful change from the usual hot, bare main street of a city. And that reminds me that it is a law in Switzerland or in the forest cantons that no one can cut down a tree except by official permission, and then another must be planted to take its place.

In the agricultural and pastoral parts of Switzerland a great deal of land is held “in common,” that is government land, under the control of the canton, not for sale at any price, but for the use of the people of the community under strict regulations. So a Swiss peasant will have a few acres of land of his own, a few cattle, and a right as a citizen to pasture on the common ground and a share of the profits of the forest. Immigration is not invited, although tourists with money are welcomed, for the more people the less the share of each in the common fund. There can hardly be any poverty in Switzerland, except, of course, in the cities. Every Swiss peasant can make a living if he will work. But neither can he be expected to get rich nor be a bigger man than his father. He must follow the beaten path marked out by centuries of custom and more firmly established than the unwritten constitution of the country.

I am getting more and more impressed with the fallacy of “cheapness” in Europe. Comparing prices with those of Hutchinson, I find that the things which are cheaper here are silks, kid gloves, diamonds, and the products of labor like embroidery, lace, clocks, wood carvings, tailor-made clothes and straw hats (poorly made). Cotton goods, linen goods, shoes, iron and steel, bread and meat, coffee, and most of what we call necessities of life, are higher in Europe than in America. It is the people who are cheap and not the things; and when I say “cheap” I do not mean lacking in energy, ability, or industry, but in opportunity to make more than a living, to have leisure or the common luxuries and often necessities.

This is the last night in Switzerland. To-morrow we cross the line to Constance, which is in Germany, and which is spelled Konstanz and abbreviated “Kaz.,” which makes it near to “Kas.” Neuhausen is the place where the Rhine makes its big leap down the rocks, a fall of sixty feet, and on account of the volume of water the grandest in Europe. It is the Niagara Falls of the Alpine country, but it is not in the same class with Niagara Falls, U. S. A. The Rhine is about as wide as the Kaw at Topeka, but much deeper, and the falls are about four times the height of Bowersock’s dam at Lawrence. A beautiful hotel faces the roaring torrent as it precipitates itself over the rocks amid clouds of spray. The prices at the hotel are higher than the falls. I can only call to mind one place where you feel that you are being more genteelly robbed with your own consent, and that is at Niagara Falls, New York. But our Niagara Falls are higher to correspond.

GERMANY.

IN THE BLACK FOREST.

TRIBERG, GERMANY, July 17, 1905.

This is a small town in the middle of the Black Forest. I had read a good deal of the Black Forest, but really had no idea what it was. The name sounded as if it might be a part of Arkansas or Louisiana, and I think I was looking for swamps and waste land covered with underbrush and impenetrable to travelers except on made roads. But as a matter of fact it is as delightful and beautiful a country as I have seen since I left Kansas. The land is mountainous, but it is fertile and the valleys and hillsides are dotted with thrifty-looking little farms. The name applies, all right, for the mountains are covered with dense forests of spruce trees with a dark-green foliage which looks really black. The farming land has evidently been cleared in the centuries that have passed since the roving Germans settled into peaceful peasants and quit their occupation of making Rome howl by raiding and pillaging the towns of the declining empire. The Black Forest covers a great part of southwest Germany, mostly in the state or grand duchy of Baden. Up to a short time ago it had a number of practically independent little kingdoms about the size of your hat, which were in a perpetual struggle for existence and recognition. Anthony Hope used the Black Forest as the scene for his Zenda stories, and to-day we came through the principality of Fürstenberg, one of his favorite places, in which the prince of Fürstenberg still holds an honorary position but under the actual government of Emperor William. I also noticed that the prince was proprietor of a big brewery.

It is harvest-time in the Black Forest, and men and women are gathering the crops, small grain and hay, using the hand-sickle and the hand-rake but doing their work in a thorough manner. When they get through the raking I don’t suppose there is a waste straw left lying on the ground or a kernel of grain which is not carefully picked up. The farmer in Europe would get rich on what an American farmer drops on the way from the field to the barn. They have fine horses and cattle in the Black Forest, and look prosperous. When one horse is used in a wagon he is harnessed alongside the pole and not between shafts. I was told the reason was that it was to make it easy to add another horse if desired without changing the pole. That was nearly as strange as the one horse alongside the pole.

The time is past when the sight of ladies working in the field excites any interest, although I still have a little feeling when the woman is sixty or seventy years old. It is not so bad in Germany, and especially in the Black Forest, where the air is light and exhilarating; and then the men work too. In Italy the hauling was done by animals as follows: Horses, oxen, cows, dogs, women. Sometimes a woman and a dog were hitched together to small wagons, especially milk carts. In Switzerland the dogs were still in harness, but the women were out of it. And in the Black Forest I believe the dogs are freed, as all the vehicles I have seen have been drawn by horses or oxen. Perhaps it will be different later. I write now only of the Black Forest. We drove for twelve miles down one of the valleys and through the little villages. A number of the old peasant costumes were worn by women and girls, although most of them were dressed in the same styles as in Paris or Hutchinson. A very striking head-dress for the feminine is one of the Black Forest styles, a bonnet with two large wings extending upward at an angle of about 40 degrees from the head, and with flowing bands several feet long down the back. Girls and unmarried women have bright-colored wings and bands, married women must wear black. By the way, the women of continental Europe wherever we have been have worn earrings,—France, Italy, and Switzerland. As American women generally discarded these disfiguring ornaments several years ago, the sight has been a strange one. Especially in Italy are the earrings large and imposing, rich and poor vieing with each other in size of the pendants and rings.

Aside from agriculture the main industry of the Black Forest is wood-carving and clock-making. There are some small factories, but as a rule the work is done at home; and it is very good. We visited one of these home shops, and the whole family showed us their handiwork. A beautifully carved wooden hall clock with a cuckoo and a music-box which played every half-hour was only $4 American money. It must have taken the man a week to make it, and in our country the price would have been several times as large. There is a big tariff on this ware going into America, and it is all right. If it were not so, our American wood-workers would have to learn another trade or work for $4 or $5 a week. And if they got only $4 or $5 a week they would not eat much meat, buy much clothing, or pay for many newspapers. See?

The people of the Black Forest are a charming, friendly lot. I suppose they are as happy as anybody, although one of them was very proud of a brother who had gone to America and was making “much geld,” and whom he would follow if he could. All through Europe I meet people who have relatives in America, and that may account for the friendly treatment I have everywhere received. These American relatives have all gotten “rich” according to their European relatives, which shows that the immigrants to our country all succeed or keep a stiff upper lip when they write to the folks in the fatherland.

The architecture of the Black Forest houses is as striking as any I have seen. Nearly every farmhouse is very large, at least three stories high, and on one or more sides the roof “gambrels” off from the high ridge nearly to the ground. The effect is like a tent-covering, and the roof is often thatched or tiled in two or three colors,—on some the green grass is growing. Part of the house is the barn. The winter here is said to be severe, and the Forest peasant evidently believes in having his family and his horses, cows and chickens where they can be comfortable and sociable. The houses are extra clean, and the furniture, dishes and utensils of the kitchen shine with the good polishing they must receive. The little farms are tilled to the limit, and are generally irrigated and always fertilized. Just to show how these people manage to get a living out of the ground and the care they use to get it all, I saw women and men on the roadside with baskets cleaning the road of manure and carrying it to their land.

We have had to learn a new money system in Germany. France, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have what is called a “Latin league,” with interchangeable currency, the unit being the franc (France, Switzerland, and Belgium), and the lire (Italy). But Germany joins no Latin leagues. The unit of the German currency is the “mark,” equivalent to twenty-five cents American. This is divided into one hundred pfennigs. Prices are carried out to the pfennig, and one-pfennig coins (in value one-fourth of one cent) are seen more than our one-cent pieces at home. That illustrates the close, exact, economical German spirit. The first time I made a small purchase in Germany I got a pocketful of change. Mrs. Morgan wanted a little money, and I gave her a couple of handfuls. She said she didn’t want so much, as she only intended to buy inexpensive things. I had actually given her about fifty cents. When one hundred copper coins make twenty-five cents and they are used in most transactions, you can realize what a heavy load you carry and how you can get that wealthy feeling without much actual expense.

Soon after leaving Constance our road turned away from the Rhine, and going through a tunnel we were in the valley of the Danube. It startled me a little, as I had always connected the Danube with Austria and Turkey. But sure enough, we were riding along the banks of the Danube, which has been made famous by history, poetry and music. If a raindrop fell on one side of that hill it would go down to the Rhine to the Baltic, and if the wind blew it over to the other side before it struck the earth it would start eastward and journey down the Danube to the Black sea. Rivers are like human beings,—they get their directions from the place where they start and go onward along the road of least resistance to the place appointed, unless dammed or taken up by man or God, in which case they will struggle and work to seep back to the channel in which it was intended they should make their course.

By the way, the “Beautiful Blue Danube” is not blue at all in this part of its career, but almost black, seemingly taking its hue from the forests in which it has its origin.

The town of Triberg is a quaint little place near the top of the mountain, and apparently about one hundred miles from Nowhere. I have had my first experience with what I understand is not infrequent in old German towns. There is a tax on strangers, thirty pfennigs a day or one mark a week, and our hotel has to pay and charge in our bill. Ministers of the gospel, and paupers, are exempt. In America if they had a fool tax like that they would also exempt newspaper men. The only way I could get out of paying the tax was to make affidavit that I was a minister or a pauper, so I reluctantly gave up the offer to dodge taxation and the town of Triberg is fifteen cents to the good on account of our stay. However, there is a very fine waterfall, and we looked fifteen cents’ worth at that and called it even.

STORIES OF STRASSBURG.

STRASSBURG, GERMANY, July 18, 1905.

To use the American vernacular, Strassburg is a good town. It has the best-looking stores, the most energetic acting people and the most thriving appearance of any city since we left Paris. The reason for this is probably the mingling of the German and the French and the location of the city as the metropolis of a very rich territory lying in both countries. Strassburg is a German city in which the people are at heart French. Thirty years ago the treaty which ended the Franco-German war gave Strassburg and two of the rich provinces of eastern France, Alsace and Lorraine, to the German empire. But it did not give the German emperor a warranty deed to the hearts of the people, and they long for their old associations. Probably the new generation is not so much disposed to France, and the influence of education and environment will gradually change the desire of the Alsatians to be sometime reunited with their old countrymen, but time and again to-day in talking with the Strassburgers they have given me to understand that they were not Germans but French.

Strassburg has a history as a city on its own account. Away back in 1300 the people revolted from the rule of the bishop who was their sovereign, and gained their independence. For 400 years Strassburg was what is known as a “free city,” owing some allegiance to the German empire but governing itself and doing about as it pleased. The language, the customs and the sympathy of the people were German. In 1681 Louis XIV. of France in a time of peace seized Strassburg, and a few years later in a general treaty France was confirmed in the title, and from that time until 1871 it was a French city. During the war of 1870 Strassburg did not surrender to the overwhelming German army until its defenses were battered down and the city bombarded. And as I wrote from Paris, in the galaxy of statues representing the cities of France in the Parisian Place de la Concorde, the statue of Strassburg is hung with emblems of mourning, and some day France will fight to get the city back. Germany knows this, and the city has been strongly fortified and a garrison of 15,000 German soldiers is kept there. So many soldiers in a city of 150,000 people give a showy look to the streets, the promenades and the public places, and doubtless is a good thing financially for the merchants.

Since leaving Italy I have sworn off on cathedrals, but I had to go to the one here because it is a good one and because of the Strassburg clock. The spire of the Strassburg cathedral is one of the highest in Europe, 465 feet, beating by a few feet St. Peter’s at Rome and St. Paul’s in London. The rest of the building is just the ordinary cathedral except for the clock. The first big clock was constructed here in 1352 and it lasted two centuries, when another took its place, to be succeeded sixty years ago by the present one. This clock is about the size of the front of an ordinary church. It not only tells the hour and minute of the day, but the day of the week, the month of the year, the feast days of the church, and is regulated to run for centuries, automatically making the right figures for leap years and adapting itself to the revolution of feast and fast days for an almost unlimited number of years. Every fifteen minutes an angel figure strikes the bell for the quarter-hour, and figures representing boyhood, youth, manhood and old age come out for the appropriate quarters. A skeleton strikes the hour and another reverses an hour-glass. At noon there is a parade of the twelve apostles before the Saviour, and a big rooster at one side crows loudly twice before Peter gets to the front and the third time as he passes. I am getting a great sympathy for Peter because he has that story thrown up to him in so many cathedrals, churches and pictures in Europe. It seems to me that Peter did enough after that to entitle him to a rest on the cock-crow story.