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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 30, 1916)
T1IK STJXDAT OITEGOXIAX, rOETLAXD, X IXFAKT 30, 1910. Lftect of War on LrglLsh as World Language fife ALTHOUGH nobody can deny the truth of George Eliot's assertion that "of all tbe forms of human error prophecy is the most gratuitous." we can none of us refrain from speca latlns upon the deep and wide conse quences which will necessarily follow upon the cessation of the mightiest war 1 the history of mankind. There are cores of questions in our minds as to the immediate future after the com ing of peace, when tbe racial energies now fiercely bent on destruction shall be again directed toward construction, 'and when men are free once more ta work out their own salvation in their own fashion. Some of these inquiries are of Im mense importance to all of us. and some of them seem to have only a curious interest to a few here and there. A attention which has presented itself to many is as to the effect this great conflict is likely to have upon the expansion of tbe English language. Is the war going to help the spread of our noble tongue? Or is it going to hinder the diffusion of English and to halt the marvelous increase of the English-speaking peoples an increase which was one of the most significant of the many significant events of the 19th century. At the end of the 18th century there were probably 20.600.000 to 22.O00.0U0 human beings who had English for their mother-tongue, most of them be ing natives of the British Isles, al though perhaps a quarter of them were immigrants or the descendants of im migrants in the United States, in Can ada, m India and in various sparsely settled British colonies. At the end of the 13th century -the number of the inhabitants of Great Britain, of (he United States, of Canada and of Aus tralia was probably almost seven times as large as it had been 100 years earlier, and nearly all these 130,000,000 spoke English, even if it was not their native speech, and they were bringing up their children to speak English. Those who had to use English in their every-dar life probably outnumbered nearly two to one those who had Ger man for their mother tongue, as they probably outnumbered nearly three to one those whose native speech was either French or Spanish. Dreams ef Universal Tengne. In view of this extraordinary growth there m ere enthusiasts who hailed Eng lish as the future world language, the certain successor of the Latin, which for more than a thousand years had been the means of communication be tween peoples of the most diverse races. Some of these enthusiasts even ven tured to predict a linguistic millen nium, when many of the evil effects of the confusion of tongues would, dis appear, because nation after nation would come to perceive the benefit of abandoning its own language and of adopting English instead. Of course, this was only an idle dream; no race will ever surrender its inherited Idiom, no matter what advantage political or commercial it might find in the ex change. But even if English might never at tain the supremacy and the compara tive universality once enjoyed by Latin, it might hope to conquer for itself the proud position once held by French as the second language acquired by all educated men In all parts of the world. Indeed, the rivalry of French and Eng lish for this position as a medium of international communication has long been obvious, and there was little doubt that English was slowly gaining on French, even if It had not already passed it in Che race. For example, French was no longer the sole and necessary language of diplomacy. Again, owing to the fact that the Brit ish and the Americans are more abund ant and more persistent travelers than the French, it has been evident that the Dutch and the Italians, the Swiss and the Scandinavians were turning more and more to English, even if there was little relaxing in the potency of the appeal of French literature. And equally undeniable has been the effect of British leadership in finance. In commerce and in manufactures, where by It has been pecuniarily profitable for men of affairs in every part of the world to acquire English, if only for the purpose of doing business in it. Learn English for Profit. This increase In the number of those who possess English as a second tongue in addition to their own native idiom is not due to any superiority of the language itself any more than the former more or less universal use of , French and of Latin was due to any superiority of these languages. For eigners are led to learn English for political, financial and commercial rea sons, and not at all because they hold tbe language itself to be the best fitted to serve as an international medium. The world-wide use of Latin for near ly a score of centuries was the result, not of its own merits, undeniable as these are, but to the military prowess and to the political capacity of the Roman people. So the subsequent popu larity of French was the result partly of the abiding and compelling charm of French literature and partly of the political pre-eminence of France from the brilliant boyhood of Louis XIV to the dark downfall of Napoleon III. Yet English is no worse fitted for universal use than French or Latin; and perhaps it is even better adapted than either, because of the simplicity of its grammatical structure and be cause of the richness of its double vocabulary, ' Teutonic and romance. Even if English is not quite the gram marless language that Richard Grant White held it to be, it has far fewer grammatical complexities than any other of the great languages of . the world, ancient or modern. Owing to the fortunate fusion of the Saxon. and the Norman the English long ago rid themselves of the artificial genders, the embarrassing declensions and agreements, and the cumbersome con jugations which still abound in French and even how In German, -as they abounded in Latin and Greek. Biologi cally English is the most advanced of all the modern languages in that it has shed the grammatical intricacies characteristic of all primitive tongues. Better for tls Directness. Now and again, it la true, scholars of our stock, trained in their youth to an appreciation of the delicate shad ings of meaning made possible in Greek by declension and conjugation, have been moved to lament the dis appearance of these refinements from our stalwart and masculine speech. But these scholars are only a few at most; and they are far outnumbered by the students of language who re joice that our tongue has rid itself of these survivals from linguistic juve nility. The . Danish historian of Eng lish, Professor Jespersen, is emphatic in asserting that our language is su perior to other modern languages very largely .because It has dropped these outworn complexities. And an equally open-minded and far-seeing German student of speech, Jacob Grimm, had earlier declared that "In richness. In compact adjustment of parts and in pure intelligence no other of the liv ing languages can be compared with English, not even our own German, which must cast off many imperfec tions before it can boldly enter on its career." Whatever Its career may be here after, German is now severely handi capped in its expansion by its retention of primitive grammatical complexities which have been discarded by more advanced languages by French to a great extent and b Englsh to a still greater extent. German is also made more difficult to acquire by its cling ing to the contorted mediaeval alpha bet long since discarded by The Eng lish and Frenoh, the Spaniards and Vie Italians in favor of the clearer Roman letters. And German will be still fur ther unfitted for use as a world lan guage if It succeeds in its present ef fort to purge its vocabulary of foreign words, casting out the universal "hj tel" and "telephone," for example. In favor of the local "Gasthaus" and "Fernsprecher." Easiest to Learn "By Ear." As a direct result of the almost grammarless simplicity of structure, English is by far the easiest language to learn by word of mouth by the ear alone. But English is unfortunately far less easy to acquire from the printed page, that is to say, by the eye, because its orthography is as unnatural as its syntax Is natural. The Ideal of a rational spelling Is that there should be a single symbol for every sound and a single sound for every symbol, and if this ideal could be attained there would be no need of the pronouncing dlctionery and of the spelling book. Now, this ideal is now attained. If not completely at least substantially, in Spanish and in Italian, languages in' which the foreigner can learn to read without delay and in which the chil dren are not compelled to waste years in a barren memorizing of long lists in a speller. This Ideal Is not even ap proached In German, in French or in English, Misleading and absurd as the spelling of French and German often is, the spelling of English is far worse.. We have half a dozen symbols for every sound and we give half a dozen sounds to the same symbol. Our spelling is illogical, incoherent and chaotic and no other language, ancient or modern, has ever had a group of orthographic inconsistencies) as absurd as "though," "through," "cough," "hough," "bough" and "rough." Hinders Its Om Diffusion, It has been said although probably without warrant that when the Japan ese were engaged in taking over the manifold appliances of modern civiliza tion they considered seriously a propo sition to give up their own melodious language and to adopt Engljsh as their official speech, and that the determin ing cause of their final rejection of this suggestion was the surpassing ab surdity of our spelling. Even if there were no foundation for this tale and it is most unlikeiy that a proud people like the Japanese would ever consider seriously the surrender of its mother tongue it is an indisputable fact that our uncivilized orthography Is an ob vious hindrance to the wider diffusion In English. Happily, there are signs that the two peoples who speak Eng lish are slowly awakening to the Im mense disadvantages cf our spelling and that steps are likely to be taken in the immediate tuture to regularize it more or less and to make it fitter for world-wide use. Yet when all is said that needs to be said about the grammatical sim plicity and the orthographic complexity of Englieh. the fact remains that it Is not by its own merits that any language spreads itself abroad. The steady expansion of English In the future will be due to the same fac tors which have brought about the ex pansion in the past the masterful energy of the stock that speaks the language. If English Is to continue to press forward this will be because of the enterprise, the industry, the imagina tion and. the courage of the Americans and of the British. If English Is to be come the second language of -all edu cated men this will be due to the ability of the Americans and the British to hold their own in the Intense In ternational rivalry In the arts of peace, in literature, in manufactures, in com merce, in- finance and in diplomacy a rivalry certain to reveal Itself in tenser than ever before as soon as this war Is over. What Will the War Dot Of course, the future of English as a world language will depend to some ex tent upon the result of the war itself. If the British empire should be broken up, the blow would be hard to bear; and if the German empire should be able to hold any large portion of the coun tries now overrun by its armies there would be a corresponding advantage to the German language. Even if the German empire shall be able only to regain Its lost colonies this would be to the disadvantage of English, al though it is to be noted that Germany has not been successful in persuading its subjects to establish themselves in its own colonies, always under strict government control. Apparently, a German subject, when he migrates from his native land, prefers to go to a country where he feels himself free from the meticuloiiB supervision which . has restricted his liberty at home. It seems likely also that there will be very little emigration from Germany when peace is declared. In the first place, the fatherland, after the enor mous losses of the war, will need all its subjects to build itself up again; and, in the second place, Germans will not be Immediately welcome in the de pendencies of the nations with which the empire has been at war. In the neutral countries, however, and espe cially In South America, the Germans will make strenuous efforts to recap ture the trade they have lost during the war. Yet here again the rivalry of the German language Is less danger ous than might be supposed at first sight, because the success of German commercial enterprise has been due largely to the willingness of the Ger mans to learn and to employ the lan guages of the several peoples with whom they desired to do business. The Americans and ,the British rather ex pect the foreigner to learn English if he wants to trade with them, and some times the foreigner has taken the trouble to do this. 'The Germans do not take their language with them, and they make no attempt to force the for eigner to learn German. Competition of German Decreases. Still another characteristic of the German will tend to diminish the ef fect of the commercial competition of the next few years. The men who have English for their mother tongue not only take their language with them; they take an abiding prlde'in the rare (Concluded on Paa-e .V Man Who Amasses Warned Public to Shun $ 6:000,000 IN5TEEL 6 War Stock Craze j company were the Nixon Works, at Elizabeth. N. J., owned by Lewis Nixon; tT IS worse than hopeless for the I average man to expect to amass a fortune or to make money by the Bath Iron Works, of Maine; the dealing in the stock market." Harlan 4l Hollingsworth shipyards in And yet Samuel Untermeyer, who Delaware, and. the shipyards in San made the foregoing statement in a let- Francisco owned by the Union Iron ter addressed to the Rev. C. F. Reisner. Works. Grace Methodist Episcopal Church. New York City, is today some U.000,600 richer than he was a year ago as the tesult of the phenomenal rise in the price of Bethlehem Steel stock. But Mr. Untermeyer has not specu lated. Twelve years ago he bought J 5.000 shares of stock of the Bethle- Within a few months after the or ganization of the company it went to smash. Its securities tumbled violent ly. The bonds which had sold at 90 ate, Henry Wollman, were together paid a fee of 250,000, that amount be ing agreed upon by all the bondholders. He Sraaies Bethlehem Steel. In the course of the litigation Mr. Untermeyer, It appears, became thor oughly familiar with the merits of the various shipyards that had been' brought Into the combination, and made a careful study of the Bethlehem Steel property. Also he became well ac- and upward dropped to 10 cents on the qualnted with Charles M, Schwab, and dollar. At this juncture Mr. Unter meyer was retained by Roland B. Conk lln. Max Nixon and certain other bond- hem Steel Company as an investment, holders, together owning, about $300,000 For some of it he paid as little as ii of the bonds, face value, a share, while none of it, according to On their behalf he began an action the wiseacres in Wall Street, cost him in New Jersey for the appointment of more than twice that amount. The a receiver,' declaring that the promo same stock today Is selling around 159 tion and flotation of the securities was a share, and Mr. Untermeyer still holds a fraud and that the properties, ex the bulk of the 15,000 shares which he cept the Bethlehem Steel works, had bought originally. Mr. Untermeyer has repeatedly said that in ail these years he has had noth ing to do with the operations in Bethle hem Steel shares on tbe Stock Ex change; that he has done nothing to contribute to their recent sensational rise, and that he does not concern him self with the market price of the stock. been turned over loaded with debt. A receiver was appointed after a struggle his confidence in the future of the company under Mr. Schwab's direction was such that he did not hesitate to invest in the shares of the new cor poration which he was instrumental in bringing Into existence. The intrinsjc value of Bethlehem Steel stock, Mr. Untermeyer has said recently in a public statement, does not lie in the fact that the company has taken on a large number of orders for war supplies from the allies, but In the position of that company in times of In which some of the best legal talent peace to manufacture steel products on profitable basis In competition with other large steel concerns in this country. While Wall street operators have sought to stimulate the bull campaign In the so-called "war stocks" by call- in the country, including such men as Richard V. Lindabury. William D. Guthrie and William Nelson Cromwell, was arrayed on the side of the opposition. Then followed a long fight in the but Is holding it because of his belief courts, during which the entire deal Pg attention from time to time to the in its intrinsic value. On its merits was exposed. Men who played a prom- nig war oraers oeing receivea Dy tne he believes the stock is worth 11000 a Inent part in Wall-street activities in various steel, automobile and railway chare, although it has never paid a those days fell under the searchlight equipment companies. Mr, Untermeyer dividend. t investigation which Mr. Untermeyer has traveled about the country telling This belief rests partly upon Mr. and his associates turned on in hope of the public that he favors an embargo Vntermeyer's estimate of Charles M. bringing to the . surface some of the on arms and munitions by way of a - Schwab as the greatest manufacturer questionable practices that had been reprisal against Interference with our and salesman of modern times. The employed in connection with the deal, commerce by Great Britain and her story of how Mr. Untermeyer came to Messrs, Charles M. Schwab, Lewis allies. The adoption of such a policy form this estimate of Mr. Schwab and Nixon and Leroy B. Dresser were would unquestionably cut off a good invest so heavily in the stock of the among the men who were examined on deal of business from the Bethlehem present Bethlehem Steel Corporation the witness stand. Steel Company for the time being, but After a couple of years of this legal for tnat Mr. untermeyer aoes not care. warfare a settlement was reached by as he has plenty of faith in the future which a new company the present of the company on a "peace footing." Bethlehem Steel Corporation was He has also expressed himself pub- formeti. with $13,000,000 each of pre- licly as opposed to any vast scheme of f erred and common stock. The old preparedness such as has been pro bondholders received 60 per cent of new posed at the present session of Con- common stock and 40 per rent of new gress and which, if adopted, would States Shipbuilding Company had been preferred stock of the Bethlehem cor- greatly stimulate the business of the organized under the laws of New Jer- poratlon for their bonds, and Mr. Bethlehem and other large steel com ey. with 110,000.000 of first mortgage -Schwab received for his $10,000,000 of panlesof this country. In this connec bonds and many millions of preferred Bethlehem bonds 60 per cent of new tion Mr. Untermeyer has stated that he and common stock. That company ac- preferred and 40 per cent of new com- la not opposed to the President's pro quired a number of the leading ship- mon stock. The men who owned the gramme of expenditures the coming yards of the country that are now bonds of the old company that had sold year, but he objects to a programme for owned by the Bethlehem Steel corpora- as low as 8 cents on the dollar and years to come, or any definite p ra tion. It also acquired the Bethlehem exchanged them for the new stock, gramme, until after the war, when it Steel pTant from Mr. Schwab, who took and have held them to the present time, will be known whether there is to be recalls an interesting episode in the financial history of the Uaited States. when methods of so-called "high finance" were first exposed. This oc curred early in 1003. wjllleas for Shlpballdliur. A few months previously the United j, : ; ' ""' l - "v.- ' p ' f f Wfi I. T "'I tffil vfcrfc 27 iSeutk.pt m Nor has th mducn and enormous Its gambling operations, he has re- Increase In the value of Bethlehem cently declared, should be stopped, and shares caused Mr. Untermeyer to it should be made to assume its proper change his Ideas in retard to the Stock place in the financial system as the a mortgage of 110,000,000 In part pay- have now a value equal to over !50 a partial or total disarmament by the Exchange. He Is just as ardent a cham- great security market of the world, ment of the purchase price. Among the for their bonds. For conducting this European countries, and this country P0n cf governmental regulation of This, he claims, can only be aecom chlpyards that went over to the new fight Mr. Untermeyer and his associ- will be better able to fix Its course. that Institution today as for years past, pliohed by preventing the manipula tion of securities through' Government control. "Honest speculation." Mr. Untermeyer has said in public. "Is not against pub Mc interest, and I am not opposed to It, though never In my life have I bought or sold a share of stock short or engaged In any form of speculation. . "When properly conducted specula tion is the surest and, In fact, the only way of accurately determining values. My crusade has been directed against manipulation, which is dishonest specu lation. It Is like playing with marked cards or conducting a mock auction. That will never stop until some Gov ernment authority can scrutinize the dealings, as in other countries." While the fever of speculation In war stocks was at its height Mr. Un termeyer warned the public to keep as far away as possible from the con tagion. Most of the so-called "war stocks," he claimed, were selling at greatly inflated prices, based on tem porary conditions, which were greatly exaggerated by pool manipulations and other forms' of artificial activity. Speculation Determines Values. "Like all such movements," Mr. Un termeyer wrote to the Rev. Mr. Reisner, "it finds a semblanco of Justification, sufficient to fire the imaginations of the novices and visionaries, who are always easily separated from their hard-earned money by the bait of 'easy money' In exaggerated tales of the flood of new business involving abnor mal profits and that is likely to end as unexpectedly as It began. Stocks that represent nothing beyond hopes and dreams of promoters and that have been rightly regarded as little more than waste paper have suddenly been galvanized into life with the aid of cunningly devised and widely adver tised rumors and half truths from un known quarters and unloaded in reams on the unfortunate public. "Never in the history of the Stock Exchange has the public been threat ened by so dangerous a pitfall as that which is now open wide for its victims. The stocks of a few companies with genuine merit that were selling fwr ; below their actual values led the vay and made possible this wild orgy of gambling in a market that had Inst all sense of real values. The whole matter would be ludicrous to thinking men if it were not so tragic in its conse quences." Since that letter was written many who thought they were well aloing the road to great rit-hes have suddenly found themselves on the edge of the "pitfall," as the reaction In the stock market, equal to anywhere from 25 to &0 per cent of previous gains, has not only vlped out fortunes previously ex isting "on paper," but in the case of those who went in, for "eleventh-hour" flyers has inflicted heavy losses taW&n rcRl money trom the victims of the "war stock" erase. , . But Mr. Untermeyer, who never spec ulates, is still $8,000,000 to the good through his far-sighted Investment of 12 years ago.