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5418474_2_1_0963.xml
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<title>
<bibl><title>Abendpost</title>,
<date when="1915-02-04">Feb. 4, 1915</date>.
<title level="a">The Double Standard</title><title level="a" type="sub">(Editorial)</title></bibl>
</title>
</titleStmt>
<publicationStmt>
<publisher>The Newberry Library</publisher>
<pubPlace>Chicago, Illinois</pubPlace>
<address>
<addrLine>60 West Walton</addrLine>
<addrLine>Chicago, IL 60610</addrLine>
<addrLine>USA</addrLine>
<addrLine>http://www.newberry.org</addrLine>
</address>
<idno>5418474_2_1_0963</idno>
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<notesStmt>
<note>Transcribed from digital images contributed to the Internet
Archive by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.</note>
</notesStmt>
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<bibl><title>Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey</title>, <date>1936-1941</date>,
<sponsor>Works Projects Administration</sponsor>,
<sponsor>Chicago Public Library Omnibus Project</sponsor></bibl>
<bibl>
<title>Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey [microform]</title>
<sponsor>University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign</sponsor>
<sponsor>Internet Archive</sponsor>
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<change when="2009-10-02">Automated conversion to expanded header.</change>
<change when="2009-09-16">Initial TEI transcription from PanGeo Partners, Inc.</change>
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<pb facs="5418474_2_1_0963.jpg" n="1"/>
<div type="group">
<list>
<item>GERMAN</item>
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<item>I C</item>
<item>I G</item>
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<div type="citation">
<bibl><title>Abendpost</title>,
<date when="1915-02-04">Feb. 4, 1915</date>.
<title level="a">THE DOUBLE STANDARD</title><title level="a" type="sub">(Editorial)</title></bibl>
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</front>
<body>
<p>The British are a peculiar people. They look down on other nations with a glorious contempt, have a complete lack of understanding for foreign customs and habits, and find frequent occasion to poke fun at others. They practice ridicule and malice and, in case of subjugated peoples, callous cruelty, unnecessary tortures, and merciless discipline. All this they consider to be in harmony with the divine will, providing they themselves apply these measures. Hypocrisy is congenital with them. But although the British can dish it out, they don't seem to be able to take it. Whenever the British Lion smashes down a people some place on the globe, the British merchant robber swells up with arrogance, devoid of any consideration for the wounds which his uncurbed egotism has afflicted upon some hapless native tribe. When the London shyster diplomats had finally managed, after years of conniving, to involve a couple of nations, which had previously lived peaceably with each other, into an <pb facs="5418474_2_1_0964.jpg" n="2"/>exhausting war, they furtively rubbed their hands with glee in Downing Street, and could hardly wait for the moment to step in and snatch the bone of contention from the fighting parties. Time and again the snooty island people have pulled this trick. Each time the wily fox carried the ill-gotten quarry into his den. There he believed himself safe from the revenge of his enemies. He thought himself invincible and immune from attack.</p>
<p>The course of events during the past months naturally proved a great and painful, but well-deserved, disappointment for England. For the first time in ages Johnny Bull had to take up arms himself to protect the friends he had beguiled from an imminent defeat. The average Englishman, of course, was perfectly convinced that the mere appearance of the "Tommies" on the European continent would suffice to make the enemy show his heels. Downing Street apparently has not recovered yet from that painful surprise, when things turned out differently than expected. British self-praise makes it intolerable to mention defeats of the British army. But defeat and nothing else is what the "Tommies" have sustained so far in France. The Britain does not mind if his <pb facs="5418474_2_1_0965.jpg" n="3"/>hireling soldiers give other peoples the works, but he cannot stand it if his own mercenaries get the licking which they were supposed to dish out. What, then, is easier than to raise a protest against the abominable behavior of the enemy? And that is exactly what our Englishman does, and plenty. He protests when he gets beaten in France; he protests when the German navy undertakes to disturb British shipping; he protests when enemy ships have the effrontery to shell the coastal towns of holy and sacrosanct England; he protests against enemy airships making nocturnal forays, thus disturbing the sleep of the King and his loyal subjects in the rudest fashion. He protests if German naval units tear his own vessels to shreds, or when there is a rumor that the carefully guarded neutrality of some South American state of the fifth or sixth magnitude is menaced by German men-o-war.</p>
<p>But all that does not mean, of course, that he, Johnny Bull himself, would not do the same things any day he feels like it. Because a creature who assumes such an exalted position in the world as he does naturally cannot do anything wrong! If Johnny Bull drops bombs on open cities, killing innocent women and <pb facs="5418474_2_1_0966.jpg" n="4"/>children, it is a quite different matter than if German Michael [allegorical name for Germany] does it who, according to the British, had better pull his nightcap over his ears, relax in an easy chair smoking his pipe, and modestly watch Johnny Bull rule the world. It's all right, too, and quite a matter of course, if said John Bull violates the neutrality of small or larger nations, as long as they are willing to put up with it and everybody keeps his mouth shut. If any nation should register a mild complaint, Johnny won't take it to heart. He knows the other fellow didn't really mean it. It was just a little face-saving act. Because, after all, did not the whole world know--or should, by now, anyway--that England can do no wrong? Any thing she does is well and wisely done. But don't let anybody else try to do the same. That simply won't do really, old chappy! It's all right for John Bull to beat up the other fellow, but nobody is supposed to do that to him. Since it never occurred to him that the passive form of the verb "to beat" could be applied to him, and drastically too, he does not cut such a heroic figure when the score is added up. With his perpetual and ridiculous complaints and protests against the injustices done him, John Bull reminds us more and more of that sorry-looking <pb facs="5418474_2_1_0967.jpg" n="5"/>knight, Don Quixote, who also yowled bloody murder each time he was given a sound trimming.</p>
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