Citations:suaviter in modo




 * 1900 December 26th, Viator (pseudonym?), “The Polish Danger” (Letter to the Editor) in The Times, № 36,342 (Thursday 3rd January 1901), page 5/6:
 * A member of the Prussian Consistory explained that policy to me in 1864 or 1865, when, owning some property in what was then still Wendish Silesia — it has become wholly Germanized since — I was patron of a living to which a man knowing Wendish must be appointed. Some business relating to that living brought the Consistorialrath to my house. “We are not going to crush out Wendism,” so distinctly said the Consistorialrath; “we are not going to forbid the use of the Wendish language; we mean to give the Wends a thoroughly good German education in their own language and then await results.” The Wendish clergy present gratefully replied that they asked for nothing better. As a matter of fact, the suaviter in modo has succeeded admirably, whereas the exasperating treatment of the Poles has succeeded only in drawing the three sections of the Polish race once more cordially together, after a long period of separation, in nerving the oppressed Prussian Poles to the patient but vigorous work of effecting race-union — as witness the Polonization of the “Wasserpolacken” — and bids fair to rouse the Poles to open rebellion, when the time comes — a time which will, we may depend upon it, not be the time of Prussia’s own choosing.