Part 15 (1/2)
”And that,” said h.e.l.lar, ”is all that the workers and soldiers can read.
The modern type could be taught them in a few days, but we see to it that they have no opportunity to learn it. As it is now, should they find or steal a forbidden book, they cannot read it.”
”But is it not true,” I asked, ”that at one time the German workers were most thoroughly educated?”
”It is true,” said h.e.l.lar, ”and because of that universal education Germany was defeated in the First World War. The English contaminated the soldiers by flooding the trenches with democratic literature dropped from airplanes. Then came the Bolshevist regime in Russia with its pa.s.sion for revolutionary propaganda. The working men and soldiers read this disloyal literature and they forced the abdication of William the Great. It was because of this that his great grandson, when the House of Hohenzollern was restored to the throne, decided to curtail universal education.
”But while William III curtailed general education he increased the specialized education and established the Information Staff to supervise the dissemination of all knowledge.”
”It is an atrocious system,” broke in Zimmern, ”but if we had not abolished the family, curtailed knowledge and bred soldiers and workers from special non-intellectual strains this sunless world of ours could not have endured.”
”Quite so,” said h.e.l.lar, ”whether we approve of it or not certainly there was no other way to accomplish the end sought. By no other plan could German isolation have been maintained.”
”But why was isolation deemed desirable?” I enquired.
”Because,” said Zimmern, ”it was that or extermination. Even now we who wish to put an end to this isolation, we few who want to see the world as our ancestors saw it, know that the price may be annihilation.”
”So,” repeated h.e.l.lar, ”so annihilation for Germany, but better so--and yet I go on as Director of Information; Dr. Zimmern goes on as Chief Eugenist; and you go on seeking to increase the food supply, and so we all go on as part of the diabolic system, because as individuals we cannot destroy it, but must go on or be destroyed by it. We have riches here and privileges. We keep the labourers subdued below us, Royalty enthroned above us, and the World State at bay about us, all by this science and system which only we few intellectuals understand and which we keep going because we can not stop it without being destroyed by the effort.”
”But we shall stop it,” declared Zimmern, ”we must stop it--with Armstadt's help we can stop it. You and I, h.e.l.lar, are mere cogs; if we break others can take our places, but Armstadt has power. What he knows no one else knows. He has power. We have only weakness because others can take our place. And because he has power let us help him find a way.”
”It seems to me,” I said, ”that the way must be by education. More men must think as we do.”
”But they can not think,” replied h.e.l.lar, ”they have nothing to think with.”
”But the books,” I said, ”there is power in knowledge.”
”But,” said h.e.l.lar, ”the labourer can not read the forbidden book and the intellectual will not, for if he did he would be afraid to talk about it, and what a man can not talk about he rarely cares to read. The love or hatred of knowledge is a matter of training. It was only last week that I was visiting a boy's school in order to study the effect of a new reader of which complaint had been made that it failed sufficiently to exalt the virtue of obedience. I was talking with the teacher while the boys a.s.sembled in the morning. We heard a great commotion and a mob of boys came in dragging one of their companions who had a bruised face and torn clothing. ”Master, he had a forbidden book,”
they shouted, and the foremost held out the tattered volume as if it were loathsome poison. It proved to be a text on cellulose spinning.
Where the culprit had found it we could not discover but he was sent to the school prison and the other boys were given favours for apprehending him.”
”But how is it,” I asked, ”that books are not written by free-minded authors and secretly printed and circulated?”
At this question my companions smiled. ”You chemists forget,” said h.e.l.lar, ”that it takes printing presses to make books. There is no press in all Berlin except in the shops of the Information Staff. Every paper, every book, and every picture originates and is printed there. Every news and book distributor must get his stock from us and knows that he must have only in his possession that which bears the imprint for his level. That is why we have no public libraries and no trade in second-hand books.
”In early life I favoured this system, but in time the foolishness of the thing came to perplex, then to annoy, and finally to disgust me. But I wanted the money and honour that promotion brought and so I have won to my position and power; with my right hand I uphold the system and with my left hand I seek to pull out the props on which it rests. For twenty years now I have nursed the secret traffic in books and risked my life many times thereby, yet my successes have been few and scattered.
Every time the auditors check my stock and accounts I tremble in fear, for embezzling books is more dangerous than embezzling credit at the bank.”
”But who,” I asked, ”write the books?”
”For the technical books it is not hard to find authors,” explained h.e.l.lar, ”for any man well schooled in his work can write of it. But the task of getting the more general books written is not so easy. For then it is not so much a question of the author knowing the things of which he writes but of knowing what the various groups are to be permitted to know.
”That writing is done exclusively by especially trained workers of the Information Service. I myself began as such a writer and studied long under the older masters. The school of scientific lying, I called it, but strange to say I used to enjoy such work and did it remarkably well.
As recognition of my ability I was commissioned to write the book 'G.o.d's Anointed.' Through His Majesty's approval of my work I now owe my position on the Staff.
”His Majesty,” continued h.e.l.lar, ”was only twenty-six years of age when he came to the throne, but he decided at once that a new religious book should be written in which he would be proclaimed as 'G.o.d's Anointed ruler of the World.'
”I had never before spoken with the high members of the Royal House, and I was trembling with eagerness and fear as I was ushered into His Majesty's presence. The Emperor sat at his great black table; before him was an old book. He turned to me and said, 'Have you ever heard of the Christian Bible?'
”My Chief had informed me that the new book was to be based on the old Bible that the Christians had received from the Hebrews. So I said, 'Yes, Your Majesty, I am familiar with many of its words.'