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 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 MRS. 
 
 ERIC SCHMIDT
 
 GERMANY
 
 GERMANY 
 
 The Welding of a 
 World Power 
 
 By 
 
 Wolf von Schierbrand 
 
 New York 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Company 
 
 1903
 
 Copyright, 1902, Dy 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Company 
 
 Published November, 1902
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Now that the United States is reaching out for the markets of 
 the world, and taking the measure of its great rivals, England 
 and Germany, the appearance of a book like the present seems 
 peculiarly timely. For with England the people of this country 
 are more or less acquainted by history and identity of language, 
 and are thus fairly able to form a rather exact estimate of 
 that country. But Germany is a less known quantity. Vague 
 ideas exist of the high culture of Germany, of the thorough 
 technical training, and of the enormous capacity for taking pains, 
 which qualifications the typical German possesses in a high 
 degree. These characteristics might be expected by an out- 
 sider to give Germany a decided superiority in the struggle for 
 material and political development. Those, however, who have 
 lived on the inside know that these great advantages are offset 
 by dangers and weaknesses. 
 
 It is on these points, therefore, as on others, that the writer 
 wishes to give his views and experiences to the country of his 
 adoption. 
 
 The German, while possessing an unusual power of application, 
 yet lacks that daring initiative which is rather the concomitant 
 of a nation bred in the full light of individual and public liberty. 
 
 This book aims to tell the truth. It is free from bias. The 
 writer, however, frankly avows that his viewpoint throughout 
 is that of one whose political and social convictions are American, 
 not German, not European. 
 
 A recent long residence in Germany, in a position which en- 
 abled him to come in close contact with every phase of German 
 life, and to ponder constantly the things seen and heard, 
 afforded exceptional opportunities for obtaining a faithful reflex 
 of rapidly changing conditions. This work aims to deal fairly 
 with everything and everybody, to weigh motives and make due 
 allowance for the historic past and its peculiar political and social 
 bent. Out of it the Germany of to-day has grown. Without 
 
 V
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 a thorough appreciation of this it is impossible to do adequate 
 justice to present conformations. 
 
 The facts contained in this book are largely derived from what 
 the writer has personally seen and heard during his stay in 
 Germany. It was, of course, found impossible to include in its 
 scope everything of interest, but its limits are drawn wide enough 
 to give the reader an intelligent conception of the main institu- 
 tions, and of the main driving forces in Germany's public life. 
 Beside social, political and industrial aspects, some features are 
 dealt with which are in a sense unique. That person of transcend- 
 ing interest, the Kaiser, has considerable space devoted to him 
 in these pages, both in his public and in his private capacity. 
 He is considered as a man and as a ruler, and from either point 
 of view he commands attention. The moral strife that is now 
 rending Germany is depicted fully as its absorbing character 
 demands. 
 
 The thanks of the author are due to the editors of The Century, 
 The World's Work, The North American Review, The Fonim and 
 The Critic for permission kindly granted him to reproduce in 
 this work articles recently contributed by him. 
 
 To the intelligent understanding of the American people this 
 book is commended. 
 
 The Author.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Preface 
 
 Chapter 
 I. 
 
 Germany as a World Power 
 
 Pagb 
 
 V 
 
 I 
 
 II. 
 
 The Kaiser as He Is : : 
 
 . 15 
 
 III. 
 
 The Kaiser's Personal Influence 
 
 . 24 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Kaiser's Family Life 
 
 • 37 
 
 V. 
 
 Germany's Political Turning-Point 
 
 . 50 
 
 VI. 
 
 Political Life . . : . . 
 
 . 56 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Socialist Movement 
 
 . . 76 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Polish Problem in Prussia 
 
 . 97 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Agrarian Movement 
 
 . no 
 
 X. 
 
 Prussian Hegemony . . 
 
 . 125 
 
 XI. 
 
 Pan-Germanism ..... 
 
 . 138 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Tariff Problem . . ; : 
 
 . 158 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Commerce and Manufacturing : : 
 
 • 165 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Krupp and Siemens . . . ': 
 
 . 183 
 
 XV. 
 
 Shipping ...... 
 
 . 199 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The Army ..... s 
 
 . 216 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The Navy ...::; 
 
 . 234 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Education . : .' " 
 
 . 251 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Social Customs . •.- t i 
 
 . 264 
 
 XX. 
 
 Germany's Colonies . . ; . 
 
 . 286 
 
 XXI. 
 
 German Courts .... 
 
 . 299 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The Press . . . i .• 
 
 . 312 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Literature and Art . .- s 5 
 
 : : 334 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 German Chancellors .... 
 
 : : 350 
 
 XXV. 
 
 The Outlook for Germany . 
 
 ! : 361 
 
 Vll
 
 GERMANY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 GERMANY AS A WORLD POWER 
 
 When Bismarck retired, twelve years ago, Germany was no 
 world power. She was a country which, in a military sense, was 
 considered preeminent in Europe, and which, by reason of the 
 tripartite agreement between her, Austria and Italy, filled a lead- 
 ing position, in a political sense, on the Continent. But a world 
 power she was not. The very word had not then been coined. 
 It was before the series of startling events that have since trans- 
 formed the whole situation in the far East and brought Japan 
 and China into the family of nations as potent factors. It was 
 before the Spanish-American War, which in two hemispheres 
 projected the United States into the midst of the political arena. 
 There have seldom been ten years in the world's history which 
 have wrought such radical changes, changes of such far-reaching 
 importance, as those since 1892. The world at large has as yet 
 scarcely gained the right focus for viewing those momentous 
 happenings. Next to this country it is Germany that has most 
 largely profited from the new situation. 
 
 It was the Kaiser who was the first in Germany to speak of 
 his nation as a world power. It was in one of the most felicitous 
 speeches he ever made — on the launching of a gigantic ocean 
 greyhound — that he used the term. He did not define his mean- 
 ing of the word, but he was generally understood. What he 
 meant was that Germany, transformed into one of the three 
 leading exporting and naval powers, expanding as a shipping 
 and colonial nation, and rapidly growing as an industrial and 
 manufacturing centre, must needs enlarge her mental horizon, 
 and reckon not only with her Continental neighbours, not only 
 with Europe, but with the whole globe as a competitor, customer, 
 friend or foe. She must extend her political and commercial
 
 2 GERMANY 
 
 influence all over the world, and must have ships on every sea 
 as well as merchants in every port. As the Kaiser expressed the 
 same idea, on a later occasion, in graphic though somewhat 
 boastful language: "Nothing must be done anywhere on the 
 globe without the sanction of Germany's ruler. " 
 
 This, in a nutshell, is his conception of Germany as a world 
 power. It found, of course, no unanimous assent, either in 
 Germany or in other countries. There were many in Germany 
 then as there are many now who deemed his aims too extrava- 
 gant and the means of their realization — comprising, above all, a 
 big navy and a bolder and more assertive foreign policy — not in 
 accord with the empire's best interests. The whole Liberal party 
 in Germany and a number of leaders among the government 
 supporters are opposed to him on this point. But the Kaiser, 
 as is well understood by all who know the Germany of to-day, 
 is masterful. He contrives to impose his will and his ambitions 
 on the nation he i-ules, and that part of it which is dominant in 
 politics has been in the main won over to his ideas. Thus, for 
 weal or woe, Germany has embarked on the troubled seas of the 
 new policy outlined by him, then and since, in a number of force- 
 ful and picturesque speeches. 
 
 The first outcome of the Kaiser's world policy was Germany's 
 share in the winding-up of the Chino-Japanese War, when she 
 joined Russia and France in wresting out of Japan's grasp the 
 prize won by the sword. It is a question whether that was a 
 wise step for Germany to take. For one thing, it drove Japan 
 into England's arms, and made that pushing Eastern nation 
 hostile to Germany. This is a fact which is of great iinportance 
 to a power having serious and growing interests in far Asia. 
 Next, Germany played her part in the Turco-Greek War, par- 
 ticularly in its settlement; and she played her part well, obtain- 
 ing afterwards from Turkey the big railway concession in the 
 Euphrates Valley and other benefits. In the Cretan trouble she 
 purposely refrained from doing more than was necessary to main- 
 tain her prestige ; but she did a great deal more than Bismarck 
 would have done under similar circumstances. She again used 
 her opportunities well during and shortly after the Spanish- 
 American War, when she seized upon Kiaochou, thus securing 
 for herself a point of leverage in China. She then acquired, by
 
 GERMANY AS A WORLD POWER 3 
 
 right of purchase, the CaroHnes, and, by amicable settlement 
 with this country and England, the main portion of the Samoan 
 Isles. She has not been successful — except in one instance, at 
 the mouth of the Indian Ocean, by an understanding with 
 Turkey — in her strenuous efforts to acquire coaling stations at 
 convenient points along the main road to far Asia, though her 
 need in that respect is both palpable and urgent. In Africa her 
 latent designs to extend her sphere of influence have not recently 
 been favoured by opportunity. Her domains there are, for the 
 most part, arid and susceptible of but small development, or, as 
 in the case of Togo and the Cameroons, unfit for European habita- 
 tion by reason of a inurderous climate. Her intention of buying 
 from Spain the important island of Fernando Po, thus making 
 her Cameroons possession twice as valuable, has for the time 
 miscarried. Nothing at all to Germany's advantage has re- 
 sulted from England's Boer war, although she fully expected 
 something. In China, too, the implied monopoly of commer- 
 cially exploiting the province of Shantung — one of the best 
 Chinese provinces for mineral and railroad development — which 
 was granted to Germany in her agreement with China ceding 
 Kiaochou, has come to naught. Both this country and England 
 have vigorously opposed German pretensions in this respect, 
 on the principle of the "open door," and have thus deprived 
 Germany of the chance of extensively fructifying her bargain 
 with China and treating Shantung as her exclusive domain. 
 These and other reasons tend to keep Germany in her Chinese 
 policy on the side of France and Russia, the two countries which, 
 for strong reasons of their own, favour the policy of recognizing 
 a chain of "separate interest spheres" with a view to the 
 eventual dismemberment of the huge empire. 
 
 From the above statement it is plain that Germany, during 
 her brief career as a world power, has had a fair measure of 
 success, as well as some reverses. The opportunities that came 
 to her were boldly and adroitly used. But the question never- 
 theless arises: "Will Germany for any length of time be able to 
 maintain herself as a world power?" And further, will she be 
 able to contend successfully in tlie fierce struggle for naval, 
 colonial and commercial expansion, without allies or at least 
 strong friends? The question may well be asked, for during
 
 4 GERMANY 
 
 the long troubles in China, Germany became for the first time 
 painfully aware that in her world policy she stood without 
 friends. Again and again, at crucial moments of that long oc- 
 cupation of Chinese territory, it was brought home to Germany, 
 though she it was of all the powers interested in that punitive 
 campaign that had been most terribly affronted, that her interests 
 ran parallel to none other. It was only with the utmost diplo- 
 matic effort that she succeeded in obtaining a sort of amende 
 honorable from China. 
 
 What, then, are Germany's points of weakness and strength 
 as a world power ? To know that is virtually an answer to the 
 foregoing two questions. 
 
 It requires commercial, naval and military preeminence to 
 be and remain a world power. In some cases, due to excep- 
 tionally favourable geographical conditions, military supremacy 
 may be, to a certain extent, dispensed with. This is true of both 
 England and the United States, and it is a generally acknowl- 
 edged fact that does not seem to require elaborate explanation. 
 But for Germany to maintain herself as a world power there is 
 no exception to the rule. Situated as she is in the very heart 
 of Europe, surrounded on every side by powerful and ambitious 
 nations, military supremacy is indispensable. 
 
 In this respect she does not disappoint her friends. Ger- 
 many still stands foremost in military power. The enormous 
 prestige she won in 1870-71 holds good. She has not supinely 
 rested on her laurels all these thirty years. Her army is to-day 
 in every respect far superior to that with which she vanquished 
 the French. Enormous improvements have been made in the 
 commissariat, in the physical training of her soldiers, in their 
 morale even; and her telegraph, telephone, railway construction 
 and aeronautic departments are considered the best extant. 
 The general staff of her army is the unapproached model for the 
 whole world. There has also been a great increase in numbers. 
 The peace establishment of Germany's army is to-day larger 
 than the vast host of 600,000 men, a number up to that time 
 unprecedented, which Napoleon I led to the conquest of Russia 
 in 1 81 2. And her armies on a war footing amount to a grand 
 total of 5,788,000 men and 250,000 ofhcers. With these figures 
 she has left France far in the rear, and exceeds even Russia's
 
 GERMANY AS A WORLD POWER 5 
 
 nominal total by 600,000. It is safe to say that Germany 
 alone, from the purely military viewpoint, is to-day more than 
 a match for the combined forces of France and Russia, taking, 
 of course, into due account the much greater actual efficiency 
 of the German army when compared with those of her two 
 principal military rivals. In the history of the world there has 
 never been any such surpassingly powerful fighting machine 
 as the German army of to-day. 
 
 As to the next point, namely, naval power, Germany is, 
 however, neither in prestige — which, in fact, is totally lack- 
 ing in her case — nor in actual strength on a par with 
 England or France. In fact, for the time being she 
 stands but fourth in the list, Russia at least nominally 
 exceeding her in the number of vessels. So far Germany 
 has not had a chance such as, for instance, this country had 
 a few years ago, to demonstrate her actual naval fighting 
 strength; the only naval skirmish in the Franco-German War, 
 in West Indian waters, having amounted to little. 
 
 There are, however, a number of facts which, in the absence 
 of any practical test on a large scale, tend to show partly what 
 the German navy at this time really amounts to, and partly 
 what it will mean in the near future. As to the first point, the 
 unanimous opinion of those naval experts, no matter of what 
 nationality, who have had a chance to examine carefully the 
 workings of the German navy, is to the effect that in general effi- 
 ciency, in discipline and in spirit the men and officers have no 
 superiors, and that the ships, as fighting machines for harbour 
 and coast defense and for battle on the open seas, are first-class. 
 To mention, out of the mass of this favourable opinion, just two 
 cases, both American, I shall here cite Admiral Evans and 
 Commander Beehler, the United States naval attache in Berlin. 
 Both deem the German navy, in all essential points excepting 
 size, equal to the English and superior to the French. That 
 German characteristic, thoroughness, has been brought to bear 
 upon the German navy, both as to men and ships, with won- 
 derful results. The men are trained to a degree unknown in any 
 other navy, not excepting the American. The practice, inaug- 
 urated by the Kaiser since his accession, of annually holding 
 big naval manoeuvres in all respects closely resembling actual
 
 6 GERMANY 
 
 naval warfare, has been of immense benefit in this respect, and 
 their considerable cost has been a wise expenditure. 
 
 That is the verdict of competent judges as to the German navy 
 of to-day. But the real German navy — i.e., that now in process 
 of formation, will be a vastly different and more formidable affair. 
 A plan of enlargement was adopted by the Reichstag, two years 
 ago, at the urgent solicitation of the Kaiser, and has thus 
 become an organic law of the Empire, not subject to fluctuations 
 of public opinion. The enormous sums needed for the purpose, 
 amounting in all to over $250,000,000, have been appropriated, 
 in annual instalments, by the same national parliament. The 
 scheme provides for the more than doubling of the present 
 German navy, and for the remodelling and modernizing of about 
 a score of the old vessels — those of the so-called "Sachsen" 
 and "Oldenburg" classes or types. The transformation is to 
 be completed, according to the wording of the law, by 191 5; 
 but it is an open secret that the rate of construction has been 
 much accelerated, so that the year 19 10 will probably see the 
 young naval giant in readiness. When completed, the German 
 navy will consist of thirty-seven battle-ships — the number at 
 present is fifteen — comprising twenty-seven of the largest and 
 most powerful type, eight of the second size, and two smaller 
 ones; twenty-six armoured cruisers, ten large and sixteen smaller 
 ones; thirty-two sea-going gunboats, averaging 350 tons each; 
 and fourteen big armoured vessels for coast and harbor defense. 
 The total equipment will be 109 fighting vessels, manned by 
 55,000 seamen and marines, with 74,000 naval reserves, and, 
 for batteries, 586 heavy guns and 2,836 secondary and machine 
 guns. This navy will be equal in the three points mentioned — 
 namely, number and tonnage of vessels, men and guns — to the 
 present French navy, with the enormous advantage, however, 
 of being new, up to date, and equipped with all the most recent 
 improvements. Germany would then be, unless France should 
 follow in her footsteps, of which there does not seem to be any 
 likelihood at present, the second sea-power in the world. 
 
 Her merchant marine consists now of 4,108 vessels, with a 
 total of 2,826,400 tons, and crews aggregating 50,556 men. One- 
 third of these vessels are steamships. This shows an increase of 
 fifty per cent, during the last decade, and puts Germany, so far
 
 GERMANY AS A WORLD POWER 7 
 
 as the ocean traffic goes, in the second place; though, if we in- 
 clude our lake shipping, the American merchant marine would 
 be far ahead of Germany. 
 
 In population Germany is gaining rapidly as well. The 
 official census of December, 1900, gives her 56,345,014, a gain of 
 over four millions since 1895, or eight per cent, within five years. 
 
 As the last, and most important, of Germany's qualifications 
 as a world power, her commerce must be mentioned. The 
 figures I quote are from German official statistics. According 
 to them, she imported during 1900 a total of 49,491,400 tons, 
 valued at 6,043,000,000 marks. She exported 36,318,100 tons, 
 worth 4,752,600,000 marks. Of her imports the United States 
 furnished 1,020,000,000 marks' worth, while of her exports 
 912,000,000 marks' worth went to England. These two coun- 
 tries do most business with her, American imports furnishing 
 over one-sixth of the total and English exports about one-fifth. 
 Since 1891, when German imports amounted to 4,403,000,000 
 marks, this branch of her foreign trade has increased over 25 
 per cent., while the exports, which in 1891 were 3,339,000,000, 
 have since risen by about 30 per cent. Her transmarine export 
 trade has grown at an even greater ratio. It amounted in 1900 
 to 2,634,000,000 marks, or over 56 per cent, of the total, being 
 an increase of about 40 per cent, since 1891. The bulk of her 
 transmarine exportations being finished products, this is, there- 
 fore, the most profitable section of her trade. Even the severe 
 financial depression that set in about eighteen months ago, 
 and whose effects are still noticeable, has not been able to check 
 the commercial growth of Germany ; for the advance figures for 
 her total exports and imports during 1901, although but ap- 
 proximate, show but a slight falling ofif against the preceding 
 year. 
 
 Summarizing, then, Germany's claims to consideration as a 
 world power, it is seen that her military supremacy is unde- 
 niable. She has, as shown above, an efficient navy, which she 
 is now transforming into the second largest in the world, and 
 which, to confine myself strictly to the present, is about thirty 
 per cent, stronger than the American navy. Her commerce 
 is steadily growing, and is the second largest in imports and 
 exports, though by no means in domestic trade, in which point
 
 8 GERMANY 
 
 this country leads the world. Germany has also some traits 
 in her national character which constitute undeniable advan- 
 tages. Her people, as traders, bring into play a more thorough 
 education than either the English or the Americans possess. 
 Her mercantile colleges fit out young and intelligent men with 
 all the mental equipment they need — not only languages, but a 
 reliable knowledge of foreign countries, men, and methods. 
 The custom, so largely prevailing for many years past in large 
 German exporting houses, of sending out young relatives or 
 clerks to countries that are their main customers, to study the 
 field on the spot for a term of years — often, too, settling them 
 there permanently as their representatives — is a wise one. It 
 enables the home firm to be correctly, closely and quickly in- 
 formed of everything that will be of use to it. 
 
 Then, too, German patience, frugality and adaptability are of 
 great use to Germany in her transmarine trade relations. Where 
 the Englishman often persists in methods no longer successful 
 in certain countries, and where the American wants big and 
 quick profits, the German, by the exercise of the above quali- 
 ties, frequently carries off the prize. The German exporter 
 studies to please his foreign customer, sinking his own tastes 
 and predilections in favour of those of the distant purchaser. 
 Again, he accommodates himself to the often rather unsatis- 
 factory modes of payment obtaining in many foreign lands, 
 giving long credits, etc. Of course, his linguistic knowledge 
 likewise plays an important part in giving him a better status 
 with the natives. This is particularly true in the case of Spanish- 
 speaking countries. 
 
 All these are points of strength. Germany's points of weak- 
 ness, however, also fill a considerable list. First, politically con- 
 sidered, Germany's foreign policy is now in a bad way. The 
 Dreibund is visibly crumbling. It is absolutely necessary for 
 Germany to make friends with either the United States or 
 England, or both. Let this be understood plainly. Germany, 
 without such a close and friendly understanding, will be, in the 
 long run, powerless. Her role as a world power will be over 
 and done with. The reasons are clear to anybody who will take 
 the trouble to see patent facts. Germany is losing Austria and 
 Italy as hard-and-fast allies. No one who has watched political
 
 GERMANY AS A WORLD POWER 9 
 
 events during the last ten years doubts fhat. She is thus prac- 
 tically isolated. And Germany cannot, like England, afford a 
 term of "splendid isolation." The contingency of which 
 Bismarck spoke in his Memoirs, and which, according to that 
 book, was his " nightmare, " has arrived. A repetition of the old 
 Triple Alliance, composed of Austria, France and Russia, has 
 become a strong possibility. By that it is not meant that such 
 an alliance is likely to come immediately. In fact, the present 
 Austrian monarch is too loyal to lend his aid in forming such a 
 political combination, unless vital interests of his monarchy 
 should be at stake; but he is aged, and it is certain that his suc- 
 cessor has never shown any German sympathies, and that he is 
 strongly influenced by his Czech wife. Accordingly, later on 
 a radical change may be expected in Austro-Hungary's foreign 
 policy; and the old Kaunitz alliance, which once came near wip- 
 ing out Prussia's political existence, may be revived. Bismarck 
 gave expression to this conviction on several occasions during 
 the last years of his life, and he also, as mentioned above, re- 
 corded it in his Memoirs.* 
 
 Even if the Dreibund were not in a state of decay, but still 
 in its pristine vigour, that would not help Germany in her 
 position as a world power. Austria's interests are purely 
 Continental, and her foreign commerce is insignificant. Her navy 
 is not worth serious consideration. Italy, beside being finan- 
 cially, as well as in size and population, the weakest of the great 
 powers, is absolutely in no position to further Germany's ambi- 
 tions in other parts of the world. Of late years, too, she has 
 committed herself to a policy of retrenchment, and in pursuance 
 of it both her army and navy have been reduced. She is building 
 few new ships. Since her Abyssinian reverses, Italy's foreign 
 policy has become wholly defensive, and merely directed to the 
 maintenance of the status quo. For her freedom to plough the 
 seas and maintain her trade, she relies on her recent friendly 
 understanding with France, and for the preservation of present 
 conditions in the Mediterranean, on her old-time friendship with 
 England. 
 
 Thus her two allies are both unable and unwilling to embark 
 with Germany on her policy as a world power. This has been 
 
 * Part II, p. 229, etc.
 
 lo GERMANY 
 
 proclaimed of late in positive language in the three Parliaments 
 by the leading statesmen of the old Dreibund powers. Now, to 
 whom else can Germany turn in her absolute need of obtaining 
 guarantees against a possible interruption of her expansive com- 
 mercial and colonial policy? 
 
 To Russia and France? Certainly not. Those two powers 
 must be left out of such a reckoning. For while it is quite within 
 Germany's ability to enter into a definite understanding with 
 either or both of them, at a given time and for a given purpose — 
 as she did, for instance, with Russia and France toward the close 
 of the Chino-Japanese War, and with France in Africa, where 
 Germans and French, for the first time in several centuries, were 
 fighting shoulder to shoulder to checkmate a British advance — 
 it is quite out of the question that an agreement of a general 
 nature can be made between Germany on the one side and Russia 
 and France on the other. Still less is it possible for Germany to 
 enter into an offensive and defensive alliance with these two 
 powers, even as to interests in Asia or Africa. Leaving aside 
 the fact that Russia and France are together strong enough to 
 carry out, in most cases, their colonial, political and commercial 
 schemes in those continents as well as in Europe, and therefore 
 want no third power to share in their course of action and to 
 influence it, it must never be forgotten that the Dual Alliance 
 was originally based on a common enmity toward Germany, 
 and that Russia knows full well that to try to admit Germany 
 to the benefits of this agreement would eventually mean to drive 
 away France. Admitting that the reasons for France's unwil- 
 lingness in this respect are largely sentimental, and that to-day 
 sentiment is rarely the ruling factor in statecraft, still the senti- 
 ment impelling France on her road, side by side with Russia, 
 is very strong. By systematic training during the past thirty 
 years the so-called "revanche idea" has become a part of the 
 French nature and of the national creed — in fact, the very first 
 paragraph in it. 
 
 But there are other reasons militating against an intimate 
 understanding between Germany and these two countries. 
 Germany's main object in Asia is the extension of her export 
 traffic and the acquiring of points of vantage along the coasts — 
 coaling stations for her navy, a number of pieds a terre for her
 
 GER^IANY AS A WORLD POWER ii 
 
 troops and radiating points for her commerce. There is hardly 
 a point, however, where, in carrying out her designs, she would 
 not run counter to important French or Russian interests. There 
 are but a few such points left, excepting some belonging to 
 Portugal, that are not in possession of either Russia and France, 
 England or the United States. Russia and France have vast 
 Asiatic possessions with which they do not want Germany to 
 interfere, and which they desire to monopolize commercially. 
 This policy of exclusive commercial exploitation, unwise though 
 it may be for countries strong in industry and commerce, is 
 probably the only one for Russia to pursue; and though the 
 wisdom of it is less apparent in the case of France, it is the 
 one which the latter country has traditionally held as a part of 
 her colonial policy. 
 
 There is no other important power with which Germany could 
 unite in an endeavour to extend and maintain her world policy 
 as against that of Russia and France, on the one side, and 
 England and the United States, on the other. I group England 
 and the United States together, for there is no use in denying the 
 fact that the overwhelming public opinion of both countries 
 wishes such a grouping, and even takes it for granted. True, 
 there is no formal alliance between the two English-speaking 
 powers, nor could there well be under existing political 
 conditions. But there is something stronger than that — a 
 powerful and steady national sentiment on both sides, whose cur- 
 rent runs in the direction of mutually safeguarding vital interests. 
 
 Wherever the living forces that eventually shape the politics 
 of the world are closely and calmly studied, it must be recognized 
 that Germany is too weak — or, shall I say, not powerful enough — 
 to undertake and pursue unaided her policy as a world power. 
 England alone would be powerful enough to drive her off the 
 seas at any time that the vital interests of England and Germany 
 seriously clashed. England and the United States together 
 could accomplish that task with less trouble and expense. 
 England and the United States with their colonies form the 
 most important item in Germany's foreign commerce — about 
 one-third of the total. Germany could not for a moment stand 
 as a world power against the combined will of England and the 
 United States. These two powers, in fact, would be, as foes,
 
 12 GERMANY 
 
 the most dangerous of all to Germany's life interests. It is 
 Germany's wisest course — nay, more, her only possible course — 
 to bind these two countries to herself by ties of strong friendship. 
 I shall not speak here of the strong sentimental reasons which 
 ought to impel Germany in this direction, although these are, 
 and ought to be, potent factors. But judging the situation 
 solely from the viewpoint of enlightened self-interest, it is the 
 only solution for her if she means to continue her world policy. 
 And if there is anything that may be declared with safety about 
 the Kaiser's future course of action, it is that he docs mean to 
 persevere in it. However, it is an open secret that the Kaiser 
 has for some time clearly perceived that a close understanding 
 with England and the United States is Germany's safest policy, 
 and that he has been shaping his course accordingly. But the 
 fact, nevertheless, remains that as yet no such intimate friend- 
 ship has been contracted with those two powers — certainly not 
 with England. 
 
 This present isolation forms, then, the chief weakness of the 
 young empire from the political point of view. 
 
 Germany's commercial weakness lies partly in the fact that 
 both her natural resources and her financial powers are inferior 
 to those of England and the United States, and to a certain 
 degree even to those of France. Germany's per capita wealth is 
 much lower than that of the three countries named. She is 
 economical and cautious, but she has also the faults of these 
 virtues — a serious matter when contending for the commercial 
 supremacy of the world. In addition, her trade conditions are 
 no longer stable, but fluctuate greatly, as export trade must and 
 will. Her chief staples for manufacturing — coal and iron — are 
 not as advantageously located as those of her two main 
 competitors. As compared particularly with this country, the 
 German nation does not possess that quick perception, that 
 boldness and originality of methods and execution, which, since 
 Americans seriously set out on their career as great exporters, 
 have been universally recognized as among their chief points of 
 strength. Nor is inventiveness a leading German characteristic, 
 as it is an American one. 
 
 Germany's geographical position, too, is a decided element of 
 weakness. As regards sea trade with the main European coun-
 
 GERMANY AS A WORLD POWER 13 
 
 tries, she is not so advantageously situated as England. She 
 lies "cooped up " far to the northeast ; and to gain the open water 
 tradeways she has first to skirt for days a dangerous coast, both 
 in the Baltic and the North Sea, where her vessels, in time of 
 war, are especially liable to seizure and search. It costs a great 
 deal more to move a ton of goods by sea from German harbours 
 than from English, French, or even Spanish ports. Germany is 
 not so near to the Atlantic as her chief rivals. As to the Pacific — 
 conceded to be an avenue of trade which in the near future will 
 become of almost equal importance with the Atlantic — Germany 
 is again placed at a distinct disadvantage. The projected Isthmic 
 Canal will intensify this. The difference of distance, as between 
 German harbours and the principal Atlantic ports of this country, 
 to China, Japan and some other points in the Pacific, will amount 
 to between 3,000 and 4,500 miles, once that canal has been 
 completed. This will hereafter render German competition in 
 the carrying trade to that quarter of the globe more and more 
 difficult. 
 
 There is one other important obstacle in Germany's way as a 
 world power. That is, however, of a domestic character, and 
 its name is the Agrarian party. To humour this party, the 
 present German Cabinet has submitted to the Reichstag a tariff 
 bill framed chiefly with a view to satisfying that party's demands 
 for a tariff enabling the German agriculturist to compete with 
 imports of American foodstuffs on better terms than those now 
 obtaining. If the bill becomes a law, now or later, it will go far 
 to weaken Germany's position as a world power, for it will in- 
 crease the price of the necessaries of life for the labouring popula- 
 tion, and hence must lead to an increase of wages, which in turn 
 will heighten the cost of German articles of export. This, put 
 in a few words, is the gist of the matter; and it will be of great 
 interest to the rest of the world to watch the outcome of this 
 struggle in Germany between the mediaeval forces of her landed 
 and titled proprietor class and the modern forces of her commerce 
 and industry. For the final result will either greatly handicap 
 Germany in her race with other nations or else remove a serious 
 obstacle from her path. 
 
 Striking a sort of general balance, therefore, in the matter of 
 Germany's weakness and strength as a world power, there seem
 
 14 GERMANY 
 
 to be, just at this juncture in the world's affairs, more points that 
 tell against her than for her. Her old-time military preeminence, 
 while it renders her position secure at home, as against the 
 Continental powers of Europe, cannot win for her that amount 
 of strategical advantage and safety on the ocean and on foreign 
 coasts which, as an exporting world power, she absolutely needs 
 to safeguard her against the vicissitudes of the future. Her 
 navy, required to back up her sea trade, will be, for the next ten 
 years, in a transition stage. If left undisturbed to work out 
 this transformation, and if the other leading naval powers do 
 not imitate her example, she will in 1910 or thereabouts be a 
 sea power only less formidable than England, and equal or 
 superior to France. But England, it must be remembered, 
 stands committed to the professed policy of maintaining a naval 
 superiority on the basis of being able to cope at any time with 
 a possible naval combination between France, Russia and 
 Germany. Germany's serviceable Baltic Canal, enabling her 
 navy to concentrate, at any time and within a couple of days, in 
 either the German Ocean or the Baltic, has given the young 
 empire, on the other hand, a great tactical advantage over both 
 Russia and France, the configuration of whose coasts does not 
 permit of such concentration, and even to some extent over 
 England, whose vast coast development and widely scattered 
 colonial interests admit of no such massing of all her naval 
 resources. 
 
 But even if left to reap the fruits of her wise and far-sighted 
 naval policy, Gennany would not be strong enough to stand, 
 so to speak, on her own naval bottom. The necessity remains 
 for her to make sure in time of at least one other strong naval 
 power as a friend.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE KAISER AS HE IS 
 
 No monarch of modern times has been so misunderstood as 
 the German Emperor, and about none has pubHc opinion the 
 world over so wavered. In an age full of virile, powerful men 
 who in different spheres of human effort are achieving miracles, 
 the Emperor stands out boldly — surely a strong proof that the 
 man amounts to something. The world over, his name has 
 appeared daily, now as a menace, now as that of a strong-armed 
 friend. No features are more widely known than the firmly set 
 jaw and upturned mustaches of the Kaiser. And yet no one 
 knew the German Emperor himself, nor could any one tell what 
 he would do next. His own people have ceased to wonder, 
 and accept his will as eternal law, and the other Europeans have 
 become accustomed to believe that however mad he seems there 
 is always method in his acts. His picturesqueness, a penchant 
 for saying and doing the dramatic thing, his frank strenuousness, 
 all the sides of the man which gave him an appearance of attitud- 
 inizing are seen to be natural. When Bismarck had been dis- 
 missed, when the civilized world stood aghast, and Punch came 
 out with a cartoon showing the German ship of state in troubled 
 waters and the weatherbeaten old helmsman turned away from 
 the wheel, with the words below, "What next?" — then it was 
 that the Emperor wrote to the Grand Duke of Saxe- Weimar, his 
 great-uncle, "As to the rest, the same course will be steered and 
 God with us. " This showed a self-confidence which at that 
 time struck many in and out of Germany as little short of fool- 
 hardiness, if not sacrilege. 
 
 Since then comment and wonder at his doings, his sayings 
 and his aims have never ceased, and at no time has he been any- 
 thing else than an intensely picturesque personage, a man who 
 has continually given both friends and foes something to think 
 about, to wax indignant over or to praise with enthusiasm. One 
 
 15
 
 1 6 GERMANY 
 
 day he has been declared a transcendent genius by some who 
 pointed to a real or imaginary success scored by him on the chess- 
 board of international statecraft ; the next day men have com- 
 pared him to a vaporing fool or to a blatant advertising agent, 
 when lo ! this kaleidoscopic character would appear in yet an- 
 other light. Thus the public judgment of him has never crys- 
 tallized, and it is to-day in as unsettled a condition as ever. He 
 has held a larger share of public attention in England and in 
 America than any German ruler since the days of Frederick the 
 Great; and it is quite safe to say that he has fairly hypnotized 
 the Gallic mind. Thus, then, at home and abroad the Kaiser 
 compels and invites criticism and comment; and proof of the 
 difficulty of judging him fairly is given by the fact that there is 
 as much diversity of opinion regarding him among the persons 
 of his immediate entourage as there is outside of that circle. 
 
 His is an unusually complex mind. He himself proclaimed 
 on a memorable occasion "I am an 'up-to-date' man"; and in 
 many respects this is true. More than any other living monarch 
 he shows appreciation of and interest in the ever-increasing vic- 
 tories of applied science in the material world. New and start- 
 ling inventions and discoveries and improvements, in medicine, 
 in electrotechnics, in shipbuilding, in telegraphy, in the postal 
 service, receive his instant and enthusiastic appreciation and 
 help, and he spares neither time, pains nor influence to appropri- 
 ate them for the nation whose head he is. ''Die Welt steht im 
 Zeichen des Vcrkehrs" {i.e., this is an era of rapid transit) was 
 another oft-quoted saying of his. Perhaps the most significant 
 motto, however, was the one which he adopted while still a boy, 
 during the days he went to the public school in Cassel — his 
 "Rasf ich, so rosf ich" (" If I rest I rust "), which gives the key- 
 note to his restless energy — a restlessness so much at variance 
 with the typical German character as to have started those never- 
 ending rumours of his mental unsoundness. That he is of a 
 highly nervous temperament is undeniable, and besides the 
 exalted conception he holds of his duties as a ruler and a Hohen- 
 zollern, this nervous concentration is largely responsible for his 
 incessant activity. " Tott jours en vedette" is another motto 
 often quoted by the Emperor in conversation. It is not only 
 the army and navy and the foreign policy of Germany that he
 
 THE KAISER AS HE IS 17 
 
 steadily and powerfully influences and shapes, but also the arts 
 and the sciences, the commerce and the industry, the press and 
 the pulpit of the empire. Nothing in the world escapes him. 
 With an alertness and intuitive foresight truly wonderful he 
 seizes upon every advanced stej) taken anywhere, and if possible 
 he utilizes all new knowledge. He clearly recognizes the force 
 of public sentiment, of that elusive element in politics which 
 Bismarck, the teacher of his early manhood, termed the ini- 
 pondcrabilia of statecraft. Witness his despatch to Kruger after 
 the Jameson raid, or per contra, the telegram to Kipling during 
 the latter's illness, and the audience he granted to Cecil Rhodes. 
 But, while in all these respects he is, in very truth, a thoroughly 
 modern man, he is as pronounced a reactionary, a man of 
 the past, in other essentials. With one foot he stands in the 
 eighteenth century, in the century of Louis XV and absolutism; 
 and with the other he touches the twentieth century, the century 
 of electricity and of an untrammeled press. In his political 
 creed he is his grandfather's son, not his father's. He is an 
 autocrat by belief, by training, by temperament, and not a 
 constitutional monarch. He wishes to rule as well as to govern. 
 He believes neither in a free people nor a free press. He scorns 
 the good old democratic motto, Laisscz faire, laissez alter; and 
 he believes in the theory and the practice of his ancestor Fred- 
 erick William I, viz., to beat his people into happiness and pros- 
 perity. He profoundly believes in the divine right of kings and 
 in the providential character of his own mission. He believes, 
 with Charles I, that a monarch can do no wrong, and that he, 
 with all the other rulers by inheritance and divine right, is 
 fashioned of a different and better clay than his subjects. He 
 believes in paternalism and enlightened despotism, and not in 
 parliamentary rule, nor in constitutional barriers to his own 
 will. And he believes in all these so thoroughly and firmly 
 that ever since his accession to the throne he has, on many 
 public occasions, given full expression to these beliefs, not- 
 withstanding the fact that the press and the enlightened public 
 opinion of the world, to which in otlier respects he pays assidu- 
 ous attention, has condemned, and continues to condemn, such 
 utterances, which from the mouth of an enlightened nation's 
 chief sound doubly monstrous and antiquated.
 
 i8 GERMANY 
 
 To quote a few such sayings of the Kaiser's, I will mention his 
 Suprema lex regis voluntas, which he wrote into the Golden Book 
 of Munich during a visit there; his "One only is Master within 
 the empire, and I will tolerate no other," which he proclaimed 
 in the presence of the Rhenish Provincial Chamber; his "My 
 course is the right one, and I shall continue to steer it," which 
 he remarked on February 24, 1892; and in still a stronger form 
 "There is but one law, and that is My law," which he told the 
 recruits in 1893; and his Sic volo, sic jnbco, which he wrote 
 in strongly marked characters under his own portrait, when 
 presenting it to the conference hall in the Ministry of Public 
 Worship in Berlin. These are a few well-authenticated expres- 
 sions by the Kaiser of the many of similar import that coidd be 
 cited. They all breathe the same spirit — the spirit of autocracy. 
 
 A very interesting parallel might be drawn between the 
 present Kaiser and his great-uncle on the paternal side, King 
 Frederick William IV, that unfortunate but brilliantly endowed 
 monarch, who finally died a lingering death from softening of 
 the brain. He loved literature, the arts and sciences, and he 
 did much to foster them and to draw men of renown to his court. 
 Theoretically, he loved enlightenment in the political life of his 
 people; but in his heart he remained a hide-bound absolutist, 
 who scorned, in 1848, after the political revolution had tempo- 
 rarily been successful throughout Germany and Austria, the 
 Imperial Crown, offered to him solemnly by the spokesmen and 
 elected representatives of the whole nation, simply because this 
 offer was a popular and not a dynastic one. He decried the 
 Prussian constitution after it had been forced upon him, as a 
 "piece of paper which would come between himself and his 
 people"; but, after the popular uprising in Berlin had been 
 successful, and the fighting in the streets had led to the with- 
 drawal of all the troops from the Prussian capital, this won- 
 derful monarch went with bared head behind the coffins of those 
 carried to burial who had been shot down behind barricades 
 by Uie regular troops at his own orders. He was an odd char- 
 acter, this great-uncle of the Kaiser, and there are many points 
 of striking resemblance between the two; but, after all, the 
 Kaiser is essentially a man of action, while Frederick William 
 IV was a man of brilliant thought, but of halting and timid
 
 THE KAISER AS HE IS 19 
 
 action. As to the mental state of the Kaiser, lie is, of course, 
 perfectly sane, and all the contradictory features in him may 
 be accounted for by the complexity of his nature and by his 
 impulsive temperament, which often carries him on the spur 
 of the moment further than he would go in cooler moments. 
 Sometimes, too, intoxicants acting on a high-strung and naturally 
 nervous constitution may be responsible for many of the ex- 
 treme and apparently irrational things that he has said. I 
 have heard now and then, during my residence in Berlin, from 
 the lips of honorable and truthful army officers, remarks of this 
 kind which the Kaiser had made at or after an officers' banquet, 
 which sounded perfectly insane, but which were readily ac- 
 counted for by the fact that he was flushed with wine. 
 
 Another peculiar bent of his mind concerns the Socialists. 
 He has an unreasoning fear and hatred of them. It must be 
 remembered that in Germany the Socialists are the great bulk 
 of the mechanics and the best of the whole labouring population, 
 and that they are quiet, law-abiding, peaceable folk; that their 
 jx)litical programme to-day is in the main nothing worse than 
 that of a radical reform party, and that there is a large pro- 
 portion of them who are even royalists. These Socialists polled 
 at the last general election some 2,170,000 votes, which is about 
 twice the voting strength of any other political party in the 
 empire. Yet so unreasoning and unreasonable is the antipathy 
 of the Kaiser to this large fraction of the nation that he referred 
 to them in a throne speech as a "horde of men unworthy to bear 
 the name of Germans." He has, on many other occasions, 
 insulted these men and their families in the grossest and most 
 unjust manner, and he has frequently provoked them in a most 
 despicable way. He has harangued regiments, telling them 
 that it wotdd be their duty, if there ever was another popular 
 uprising, to shoot down the rioters, even if their own mothers, 
 fathers, brothers and sisters were among them. And his courts 
 then sentence some of these same Socialists, when they have 
 said something not quite to the Kaiser's liking, to terms in prison 
 during which many have died. This hatred is constantly 
 whetted and heightened by irresponsible advisers and cronies, 
 and it forms one of the chief hindrances in Germany 
 to a more liberal political era. For the Kaiser needs only
 
 20 GERMANY 
 
 to be told that some projected measure is likely to sti-engtlien 
 the Socialist party to condemn that measure. At the root of 
 the paramount influence of that old fossil of mediaeval times, 
 the so-called Conservative party in Prussia, lies nothing more 
 nor less than the Kaiser's fear of a popular uprising under 
 Socialist leadership. For Germany this is most deplorable, 
 since it hinders all political progress, and has weakened liberal 
 political aspirations and movements enormously. 
 
 Intimately allied with his incessant fear of the Socialist party 
 is the Kaiser's blind confidence in his army. Yet at least thirty 
 per cent, of the army is composed of the sons of Socialists, them- 
 selves usually already confirmed in that faith. Of the petty 
 officers, too, many are Socialists, or sympathizers with them. 
 There is little doubt that if another political or social revolution 
 should occur in Germany — the chance of such a thing is very 
 small — the army would not play the part of a blind instrument 
 in drowning such an uprising in a deluge of blood. The officers 
 of the army to-day are different from the officers of fifteen years 
 ago. Formerly the great majority of them came from the ranks 
 of the nobility. Now about seventy per cent, are the sons of 
 plain, though well-to-do, citizens. The Kaiser for a time tried 
 to stem this rising influx of what he considered "undesirable 
 elements," but he had to yield in the end, for with the increas- 
 ing poverty of the ruling castes, and with the army doubled in 
 size since 1870, there is no remedy. 
 
 The Emperor has a strong dislike of the press. It is mainly 
 owing to his own influence that that very modest measure of 
 comparative liberty which the German press enjoyed under his 
 grandfather and his father has been curtailed, until even the 
 semblance of it has almost disappeared. The principal reason 
 for the Emperor's antipathy to the press is his personal experi- 
 ence, especially during the first five years of his reign, when 
 public opinion was considerably prejudiced against him. It so 
 happens that the Kaiser is inordinately vain, and extremely 
 susceptible to criticism, and impatient of it. He fears and hates 
 particularly the English and the American press because it ex- 
 erts an enormous influence upon the opinion of the world, his 
 own country included, and is outspoken and energetic. The 
 French papers he cares little about, because their political
 
 THE KAISER AS HE IS 21 
 
 opinions on any non- French topics or persons are held of Httle 
 account outside of France. Besides, no German emperor has 
 the right to expect anything but abuse from his hereditary foe. 
 The German press is securely and effectually muzzled, and the 
 few editors or correspondents who now and then kick over the 
 traces are silenced. The rest of the European press does not 
 count for much, but the English and the American press, power- 
 ful, wealthy, enterprising and fearless, has always been a great 
 thorn in his side. He minds the English leading papers more 
 than the American, for obvious reasons. But of late, since the 
 United States has developed an unexpected military, naval and 
 political strength and commercial supremacy, he devotes much 
 greater attention to its press than he formerly did. 
 
 How does the Kaiser regard the United States ? He is neither 
 an especial friend of this nation nor is he its inveterate foe, which, 
 since the spring of 1898, a large portion of the American press has 
 represented him and a large part of the American people be- 
 lieved him to be. He learned from Bismarck a lesson or two — 
 this among others, that a statesman must reckon with con- 
 crete facts, however unpalatable. The war with Spain showed 
 the United States much stronger than the Kaiser or anybody 
 else in Europe had any idea of. Moreover, the dominant party 
 in the United States stands committed to a policy of expansion, 
 political and commercial; this fact was fully and at an early 
 date recognized by the Emperor, and he has since shaped his 
 own policy accordingly. He now earnestly seeks a rapproche- 
 ment. His sending his brother over here was but the latest and 
 most striking proof. Yet it is quite natural that he should not 
 like the American. A man of his political views, believing in a 
 government by divine right, in a strong government based 
 on the army and on the inherited prerogative of the privileged 
 castes to rule, cannot sincerely like a government which is of 
 the people, by the people and for the people. The Kaiser and 
 the upper and ruling classes in Germany look upon the United 
 States as little better than a "mob government." 
 
 I collected, during my stay in Berlin, a few authentic utter- 
 ances made by the Kaiser about this country. To the late 
 General Runyon, then United States ambassador in Berlin, 
 he once said: "Such a pushing people as the Americans will
 
 2 2 GERMANY 
 
 sooner or later clash with others, but let us hope never with 
 Germany." 
 
 To Ambassador White he said: "America is a country of 
 contrasts — piercing lights and deep shadows." And on another 
 occasion: "I know there are many things my Germans might 
 learn from the American people, above all, their optimism, their 
 almost naive enthusiasm, and unquenchable energy." 
 
 To the late ex-President Harrison he said in the course of 
 an hour's conversation: "Your whole country is an experi- 
 ment — an intensely interesting one, I admit, but still an 
 experiment. Whether it will stand the storms of time as the 
 older monarchies of Europe have done remains still to be 
 seen." 
 
 To the same: "One of the doubtful features of American 
 life is its lack of national cohesion and homogeneity — you're a 
 conglomerate, a bubbling caldron." 
 
 To the same: "Such seething party politics as yours are not 
 conducive to a calm, well-balanced public opinion." 
 
 These remarks are interesting enough, some of them, but 
 taken altogether they hardly show enthusiasm for democratic 
 institutions. The Kaiser, indeed, has affection and cordial good 
 wishes for only one other nation than his own, and that is the 
 English. His English blood, the strong English influences and 
 family ties felt all his life, and his many visits to England easily 
 account for this interest. He once said in speaking of the 
 English: "Blood is thicker than water." But the English free 
 press he does not like, as witness two sayings of his to Sir Frank 
 Lascelles, the British ambassador in Berlin: "An unbridled 
 press is a curse for any nation — liberty does not mean license," 
 and on another occasion: "Scribblers and libelers are not 
 journalists." 
 
 To Count Szoegenyi, the Austrian ambassador, he expressed 
 some harsh criticism of parliamentarism. He spoke of the 
 recent violent scenes in the Reichsrath in Vienna as 
 "Parliamentarism run to seed," and again, "Parliamentarism 
 is a double-edged sword which nowadays seems to do more 
 harm than good." 
 
 On another occasion he said to the same: "It's not talk-talk-talk, 
 but do-do-do that legislative bodies ought to be chiefly engaged in."
 
 THE KALSER AS HE IS 23 
 
 And to Count Osten-Sacken, the Russian ambassador, he 
 said: "After all, it's the monarch alone who gives stability to 
 a nation's politics." And on another occasion: "Monarchy like 
 ours in Prussia is, in critical times, the nation's sole salvation."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE kaiser's personal INFLUENCE 
 
 It is an attractive task to lay bare the various sources of the 
 extraordinary influence exerted by the German Emperor upon 
 the pubHc Hfe of the nation he rules. The world knows this 
 influence to be very strong, but relatively little is generally under- 
 stood as to whence it is derived. When one compares the actual 
 power wielded by the present Emperor with that possessed by his 
 grandfather, one is struck with the fact that though William I, 
 as the founder of the united empire and as the successful leader 
 in two great wars, naturally enjoyed a much greater prestige 
 than did his grandson at the outset of his reign, yet he never 
 attained to that measure of paramount authority which William 
 II may justly claim to-day. The undeniably greater ability 
 of the latter does not alone explain this, nor does the disparity 
 in character between the two rulers. There are other forces at 
 work. 
 
 The constitution of the empire, on which the lawful power 
 and prerogatives of the head of the nation exclusively rest, does 
 not confer on him a great abundance of either — hardly as much, 
 in fact, as the constitution of this country delegates to the 
 President. It divides the power of the empire as such between 
 the Kaiser, the Bundesrath or Federal Council, and the Reichstag 
 or National Parliament. It makes the Kaiser chief commander 
 of the military and naval forces ; it invests him with the right of 
 representing the empire on all occasions in its dealings with 
 foreign countries and their ambassadors and ministers, and of 
 declaring war and concluding peace. But it grants the Kaiser no 
 veto power to block unwise or unwelcome legislation, such as the 
 President of the United States possesses ; neither does it give him 
 the duty or power to interfere in the internal affairs of any of the 
 German States save the one whose monarch he is, making him in 
 every respect, excepting those specified above, merely prhnus 
 
 24
 
 THE KAISER'S PERSONAL INFLUENCE 25 
 
 inter pares. The Bundesrath and the Reichstag are jointly en- 
 trusted with the right of legislating for the empire, of framing, 
 altering and passing bills which after approval by both bodies 
 become laws, although the Imperial Government may, and gener- 
 ally does, prepare and submit such bills, and these, of course, 
 may more or less accurately reflect the personal wishes of the 
 Kaiser. But it is at all times within the province of these two 
 bodies to thwart the Kaiser in the matter of legislation. 
 
 The Bundesrath, particularly, is an organization whose func- 
 tions are, on the whole, as defined by the constitution, nearly if 
 not quite as important as those of the Kaiser. Its fifty-eight 
 members are appointed by the governments of the twenty-six 
 sovereign States which together compose the Empire; and its 
 powers are not only legislative, like those of the Reichstag, but 
 within certain limits supervisory and administrative as well. It 
 also belongs exclusively to the Bundesrath to devise and set in 
 force the rules and regulations for the execution of all laws. 
 Prussia is represented within the Bundesrath by but seventeen 
 out of the fifty-eight members, so that the Kaiser, even as King of 
 Prussia, apparently cannot sway the deliberations and decisions 
 of this body. 
 
 The other branch of the legislative organization of the empire, 
 the Reichstag, is composed of three himdred and ninety-seven 
 members, elected by general franchise, and representing, of 
 course, every shade of political opinion, from the Socialist creed 
 to the most reactionary shade of belief held by the so-called 
 Junker party. The splitting-up of political thought in Germany 
 into almost a score of parties and factions would in itself prevent 
 the complete ascendancy of the Imperial will within this body, 
 and, as a matter of fact, the Imperial Government is obliged to 
 win over a majority of votes for every measure it desires passed. 
 This is what Bismarck called " Politik machen von Fall zn Fall,'' 
 and about which he continually complained. 
 
 Thus, then, in theory, the power of the Kaiser to guide the 
 legislation and administration of the Empire is seriously cur- 
 tailed and, to some extent, even handicapped. But in practice 
 this is true in a much less degree. As to the Bundesrath, though 
 the seventeen Prussian votes directly controlled by the Kaiser are 
 less than one-third of the total, there are always enough votes
 
 26 GERMANY 
 
 of the other States obtainable to give Prussia, which means the 
 Kaiser, the majority. For, aside from the fear of displeasing the 
 Kaiser, a sentiment which is strong in the bosoms of the smaller 
 States and their rulers, and for which experience has furnished 
 them good reason, Prussia's interests in any pending measure 
 naturally run parallel with those of a number of its neighbours. 
 And the great weight which the interests of a State must naturally 
 have which alone forms three-fifths of the territory and contains 
 two-thirds of the population of the empire, will be the decisive 
 factor in many otherwise doubtful cases. At any rate, it is a 
 fact that the Bundesrath, ever since it held its initial session in 
 1 87 1, has in the end run counter to the Kaiser's and Prussia's 
 serious interests in not a single instance. 
 
 The Reichstag has not always been so amenable to the Kaiser's 
 influence. On a number of conspicuous occasions that body 
 has rejected measures strongly urged by the Imperial represen- 
 tatives. Some of these measures have been definitely dropped, 
 while others have again made their appearance and been passed, 
 with or without alterations, as was the case with several of 
 the bills for the increase of the army and navy. Nevertheless, 
 the Reichstag has always been recognized by the Emperor as an 
 uncertain element in his calculations, and as one which, in spite 
 of the utmost clever manipulation, can never be depended upon 
 to give effect to his wishes. But the powers of the Reichstag 
 are more narrowly circumscribed than those of the Bundesrath; 
 and the very fact that this body is composed of so many and so 
 heterogeneous political units prevents it from becoming at any 
 time a very formidable adversary, and from ever presenting a 
 solid front against Imperial encroachments. It has, besides, 
 no "patronage," so-called, to distribute and no other tangible 
 favours to bestow, and its hold upon the confidence and affections 
 of the nation at large has been steadily diminishing. 
 
 The opposition, therefore, which the Kaiser has met, and is 
 likely to meet in the future, from this quarter is much less 
 serious than at first sight would appear to be the case. The 
 amount of this possible opposition, however, is still measurably 
 decreased by the personal influence of the Kaiser. For the 
 Kaiser strikingly embodies an epitome of all the driving forces in 
 the German character of to-day; and just as he in that capacity
 
 THE KAISER'S PERSONAL INFLUENCE 27 
 
 exercises a well-nigh mesmeric influence on the mind and imagi- 
 nation of the nation, so, too, he does on its representatives in the 
 Reichstag. His masterful ways, and the forceful and picturesque 
 manner in which he usually presents his views in public, greatly 
 add to the authority of his personality. But he has still other 
 means of impressing his will. Among these are speeches from 
 the throne. These public enunciations, which in other countries 
 are mere cut-and-dried papers to which little attention is paid, 
 are really meant by the German constitution to be nothing more. 
 Under the present Kaiser's predecessors they were nothing more. 
 They were read in a perfunctory manner, precisely as worded by 
 the Imperial Chancellor. But William II did not follow in his 
 grandfather's footsteps in this respect. He has repeatedly and 
 in a dramatic manner disregarded the exact wording, and even 
 the spirit and substance, of the manuscript prepared for him 
 by his Chancellors, and strongly infused them with his own ideas 
 and opinions. From impersonal and unimpressive documents, 
 such as the constitution contemplated, his throne speeches have 
 become sensational events, reverberating through the whole 
 Empire, and stamping in advance as his personal opponents, nay, 
 enemies, all those delegates in Reichstag and Diet who resist the 
 passage of the measures proposed by him. The receptions the 
 Kaiser accords, in conformity with a long-established custom, to 
 the presiding officers of the legislative bodies, and which under 
 William I were merely formal, are regularly turned to the same 
 account by the present Kaiser. B}^ strong and eloquent suasion 
 on these occasions the Kaiser has several times turned the scale 
 in favour of important measures. 
 
 William II has often given public utterance to his conviction 
 that the most potent support of his throne is the army. It is not 
 surprising, therefore, that he has steadily aimed at keeping that 
 pillar of his strength perfectly under his own control. In doing 
 this he has made use of every available means. All the year 
 round finds him busy attending parades, manoeuvres, anniver- 
 saries of battles, birthdays of sovereign or otherwise distinguished 
 chiefs of a number of his regiments, and delivering speeches, 
 toasts, formal or impromptu addresses, in which he never fails to 
 inculcate precepts and traditions of loyalty and of every other 
 military virtue, seizing, too, opportunities thus afforded him to
 
 28 GERMANY 
 
 pay compliments to the heads of allied or friendly nations, or to 
 express other sentiments likely to benefit Germany in her political 
 relations. Above all, though, he fraternizes with the officers of 
 the army at luncheons or banquets given at their barracks, to 
 which he invites himself. His after-dinner remarks on such 
 occasions have often astounded the world, but from his own 
 point of view, that of Commander-in-Chief of the army, they have 
 boen highly effective, and have tended to knit still more firmly 
 the bonds which unit'i the army to his person. Then there is the 
 entire category of rewards and punishments which he, as head of 
 the army, dispenses at will — promotions, orders and decorations, 
 praise or censure meted out to individuals or bodies in army 
 orders and bulletins, confirmations, revisions or nullifications of 
 sentences imposed by courts-martial. It will easily be under- 
 stood that these varied and constantly applied means alone suf- 
 fice to make the influence of the Kaiser over his army an element 
 of surpassing force. But to all this must be added the power 
 he acquires through his "Military Cabinet." This is a bureau 
 under his exclusive control, whose mission it is to supply him 
 daily, by regular verbal or written reports, with that wealth of 
 personal details about his army, and especially about the corps 
 of officers, which enables him to know at all times the exact spirit 
 and degree of efficiency noticeable in each regiment, even each 
 company or squadron, and which lends to his personal relations 
 with the army a spice of intimacy and comprehensive knowledge 
 which is of enormous value. It is credibly asserted that the 
 Kaiser personally knows half of the 25,000 officers in the German 
 active army. 
 
 His "Naval Cabinet," whose scope of duties is similar, is 
 largely responsible for his intimate knowledge of the ships and 
 men composing the German navy. His constant visits to the 
 naval vessels also have a share in this, and it is probably true that 
 he knows every one of the one hundred and twenty-three vessels 
 and 1,500 naval officers under his command. At the regular 
 autumnal manoeuvres of the German navy he has, besides, an 
 opportunity of testing the mettle of his ships and men. 
 
 As regards the citizen population, and more particularly the 
 immense corps of government officials, his "Civil Cabinet," of 
 which Herr von Lucanus is the dreaded chief, puts him in a posi-
 
 THE KAISER'S PERSONAL INFLUENCE 29 
 
 tion to acquire a great deal of similarly intimate knowledge 
 about it. Thousands of petitions, letters of thanks, special re- 
 ports, etc., reach him in the course of every year through this 
 "cabinet" which give him a keen insight into the lives, ambi- 
 tions and aims of the middle and higher classes. The peculiar 
 passion for titles and decorations, for which the Germans them- 
 selves have coined the word " Titelsitcht," likewise furnishes the 
 Kaiser with a strong lever by which to turn people at will. Every 
 winter — on January i8th, as a rule — the so-called "Ordensfest," 
 or Fete of Decorations, is celebrated at the Berlin court, when 
 between 5,000 and 8,000 newly decorated citizens, drawn from 
 every walk of life, are invited to court, file before the Kaiser and 
 his consort, and are subsequently regaled in a number of the 
 most splendid apartments of the Old Castle, and affably treated 
 by a large and gorgeously attired body of flunkeys. Thus an 
 indelibly sweet and powerful impression is left on the minds of 
 this heterogeneous multitude, largely composed of unsophis- 
 ticated and intensely loyal denizens of rural districts or smaller 
 towns. The official organ of the empire on the afternoon of that 
 day publishes a special edition, containing on a score of quarto 
 pages the full names, callings, etc., of all these happy persons, 
 together with a minute classification of the decorations and 
 medals awarded, and all the newspapers in the empire reprint 
 the list, wholly or in part. The present Kaiser has used this quite 
 inexpensive but very eifective mode of rewarding loyal subjects 
 with steadily increasing lavishness, and has invented a number of 
 new decorations, besides. He indulges the ambition for titles 
 with like generosity and with like effect. 
 
 By vastly increasing the splendours of his court the Kaiser has 
 also materially heightened his personal influence. The simple 
 and unostentatious manners and customs prevailing at the Berlin 
 court during the days of William I have been superseded by an 
 elaborateness of ceremonial, a brilliancy of appointments and 
 costumes, and a display of taste and refined luxury which rival, 
 and in some features even surpass, the elegancies of the Tuileries 
 under Napoleon IIL The exterior and interior of Berlin Castle, 
 and of several other royal homes belonging to the Prussian 
 monarchs, have been renovated and embellished, and connois- 
 seurs claim that the so-called White Hall in Berlin Castle, in its
 
 30 GERMANY 
 
 new guise, is the most beautiful and chaste extant. The ban- 
 quets given by the Kaiser on grand days enjoy a deservedly high 
 reputation among European diplomats, and the royal cellars are 
 unequalled to-day in any capital. The pressure to attend the 
 Berlin court festivities has on account of all this become stronger 
 every year, as the list of festivities has been published by the 
 chief court marshal, and even many distinguished strangers have 
 strenuously exerted themselves to that end. But in like ratio has 
 the Kaiser's tendency increased to render these festivities ex- 
 clusive. 
 
 All these means used by the Kaiser to extend and strengthen 
 his influence on every class of the population are legitimate. 
 But some other means he uses are open to serious objection, for 
 they amount to nothing less than an overriding of the constitu- 
 tion. It was Bismarck who drew up this fundamental instru- 
 ment, and it contains provisions clearly defining not alone the 
 powers and prerogatives of the Emperor, but also those of the 
 Imperial Chancellor. One of these provisions is to the effect 
 that every public utterance by the Emperor, oral or written, 
 must receive the sanction of the Imperial Chancellor to acquire 
 the character of a government emanation. Without that, such 
 utterances are to be considered merely as private enunciations, 
 having no binding force on the sovereign, the government, or 
 the nation. The constitution provides that every document 
 signed or written by the Emperor in his public capacity must 
 have the counter-signature of the Imperial Chancellor, whereby 
 he, the Chancellor, assumes the responsibility for it toward the 
 nation and its representatives in Bundesrath and Reichstag, and 
 becomes amenable to them. Bismarck in his Memoirs says that 
 the intent was to render the Chancellor alone responsible, he 
 having identified himself with the monarch's act or expression 
 by his signature, and thus "shield" the sovereign; the further in- 
 ference being that if it becomes manifest at any time that the 
 nation, through the majority of its representatives, disapproves 
 of measures or opinions thus endorsed by the Chancellor, the 
 sovereign has the simple reinedy of dismissing the Chancellor 
 and appointing a successor — which would be the pure parlia- 
 mentary form of government. 
 
 This important provision of the German constitution has been
 
 THE KAISER'S PERSONAL INFLUENCE 31 
 
 practically nullified by the Kaiser for many years past. He has 
 declared himself in favor of projects or pending measures; he 
 has proclaimed a new policy, or an important alteration in an old 
 one; he has launched the ship of state into the troubled waters 
 of a dangerous adventure, without even first consulting with his 
 Chancellor. This he did throughout the Hohenlohe regime, and 
 he has done it on several occasions since the present Chancellor 
 came into power. The seizure of Kiaochou was a step under- 
 taken not alone without the knowledge of the Chancellor, but 
 directly against his will. If Germany at that time had become 
 involved in war with China, that war would have been due to a 
 flagrant violation of the constitution by the Kaiser. Public 
 declarations have been made scores of times by the Kaiser, con- 
 demning or approving men and measures, without previous con- 
 sultation with his Chancellors. Yet, while thus ignoring the 
 constitution himself, the Kaiser has, when such utterances of his 
 were adversely criticised, taken advantage of the existing very 
 illiberal judicial practice, in prosecuting such critics whom he, 
 on a conspicuous occasion, styled "Norglcr" (fault-finder), and 
 whom he advised to "shake the dust of the fatherland off their 
 shoes." If these utterances of his had been made with the con- 
 sent, or over the signature, of the Imperial Chancellor, they 
 would have become fit subjects for criticism within reasonable 
 bounds. But by this doubly unfair proceeding on the Kaiser's 
 part neither the Reichstag nor the nation at large is permitted 
 to pronounce public judgment on his sayings and doings. 
 
 Again, the Kaiser has, contrary to the constitution, practically 
 monopolized the direction of the foreign policy of Germany for 
 many years — in fact, ever since the retirement of Bismarck. 
 The empire's foreign policy, by the explicit terms of the consti- 
 tution, is left wholly to the Chancellor. If the Kaiser be not 
 satisfied with the Chancellor's foreign policy, he can dismiss 
 him. But the Kaiser found it more to his taste to shape the 
 empire's foreign policy entirely according to his own ideas, 
 making the Chancellor, at least in this important respect, a 
 mere figurehead. Bismarck, with whom he first tried these 
 tactics, would not submit and was retired. Caprivi, a soldier 
 before being a statesman, and regarding the Kaiser solely as his 
 commander-in-chief, obeyed blindly. Hohenlohe, who was of a
 
 32 GERMANY 
 
 different moral and intellectual fibre, disliked being thus cava- 
 lierly treated, and finally resigned. How long von Buelow will 
 submit to this treatment remains to be seen. 
 
 These are the two most important features in which the Kaiser 
 shows a studied and persistent disregard of the constitution. 
 But there have been other less important instances in which he 
 has shown small respect for the instrument which created his 
 position. These autocratic doings of his would, in other coun- 
 tries with a longer past of constitutionalism, be a most dangerous 
 defect. But in Germany, where parliamentarism is an impor- 
 tation which has by no means as yet been as firmly established 
 as in England, France, or even Italy, these absolutistic tendencies 
 of the Emperor figure not nearly so prominently in the people's 
 eyes as one might think. For what in Germany is termed the 
 "monarchic principle" is rooted very deep in the heart of the 
 nation as a whole. The Socialists are the only exception; nearly 
 all the rest of the nation, say three-fourths of it, is intensely 
 monarchic. 
 
 But, after all, it is the personal influence of the Kaiser which 
 is most potent. His forceful personality simply compels atten- 
 tion. For years after his accession millions of Germans stood 
 aloof, ignoring his kaleidoscopic activity, and firmly believing 
 that after he had "sown his wild oats," and after the novelty 
 of the situation into which he had been summoned so unex- 
 pectedly had worn off, he would cease his pyrotechnic inter- 
 ference in every phase of public life. But these would-be "in- 
 differents" were forced to abandon their attitude. When, after 
 one of his speeches, often ill-advised, flamboyant and overshoot- 
 ing the mark, but always striking and earnest, the press of the 
 whole world would be ringing with comment, and at every 
 German fireside heated discussions pro and con would take place, 
 these sober-minded Germans, while still condemning his methods, 
 found it impossible to stand supinely aside. The Kaiser, on 
 every weighty problem that came to the surface for solution, 
 would split the nation into two hostile camps, stiinulating dis- 
 cussion and keeping both adherents and opponents of his views 
 at fever heat. It is this sensational side of his personal in- 
 fluence, probably more than any other, which has been, and is 
 still being, felt most strongly. Into every political campaign in
 
 THE KAISER'S PERSONAL INFLUENCE 33 
 
 Germany he has thrown firebrands in the shape of mottoes, 
 pithy and apt sayings, sarcastic allusions, or ironical retorts to 
 his adversaries. Every weapon of warfare has been success- 
 fully employed by him. 
 
 When the Kaiser disapproved of the violent Agrarian agitation 
 in 1894, he coined the phrase: "You cannot expect me to 
 sanction bread usury." And the phrase flew like wildfire all 
 over Germany. When he dedicated the important Baltic-North 
 Sea Canal, he said: "Oceans unite; they do not sever." And, 
 similarly: "The world's present motto is, 'Easy Communica- 
 tion. " When he considered it necessary to check the advancing 
 tide of Socialism, he spoke of the Socialist party, numerically the 
 largest in his Empire, as: "A horde of men unworthy to bear the 
 name of Germans. " And the bitter words still rankle in the 
 breast of every German Socialist. When he rebuked the Ultra- 
 montane Centre party for refusing to do honour to Bismarck on 
 his eightieth birthday, he said: "This is a national disgrace, un- 
 equalled in modern history. " When he had veered around in his 
 ideas on the Agrarian question, he said: " Agriculture is the back- 
 bone of the country, and it must be protected. " He coined the 
 phrase about the " Greater Germany, " and said : "Our future lies 
 upon the water"; and, more strongly: "Without the consent of 
 Germany's ruler, nothing must happen in any part of the world. " 
 His sayings about the "mailed fist, " about "planting the banner 
 of Germany upon the walls of Pekin, " about the "yellow danger," 
 and all the other highly coloured and startling sentences descrip- 
 tive of his conception of the situation in China, are still in every- 
 body's recollection. 
 
 Now and then he has been checkmated, or even defeated out- 
 right. The several attempts made by him to bring about anti- 
 Socialist legislation have been foiled. The great Reichstag 
 election of 1898 went strongly against him, and this despite his 
 vigorous interference, and brought an increase of strength to the 
 SociaHsts. Both the Reichstag and the Diet refused, in the face 
 of the Kaiser's urgings, to pass laws (the so-called ''Lex Heinze" 
 and "Lex Arons") which would virtually have throttled the 
 remnant of public and private freedom of speech and thought, 
 though ill this fight he had the Centre with him and nearly the 
 solid Conservative faction. The Diet, on two conspicuous occa-
 
 34 GERMANY 
 
 sions, and notwithstanding the fact that the Kaiser had pubHcly, 
 repeatedly and in emphatic language pledged himself personally 
 in favour of it, refused to sanction the construction of the 
 Midland Canal. 
 
 These are important and far-reaching measures in which he was 
 worsted, but he had a like experience on many minor occasions. 
 A conspicuous instance was the struggle between the Kaiser and 
 the Prince-Regent of Lippe, ruler of a small state comprising 
 but 1,215 square kilometres, with a total population of 139,000. 
 The regent of this petty principality had been, prior to his ac- 
 cession, a mere count of modest means and a major in the 
 Prussian army. Yet in his earnest attempt to unseat this ruler 
 of an unimportant fragment of the empire, the Kaiser was 
 signally defeated; and as his object had been to supplant Prince 
 Ernest by his (the Kaiser's) brother-in-law, Prince Adolph of 
 Schaumburg-Lippe, and as the committee of arbitration deciding 
 against him had been presided over by the Kaiser's friend, the 
 late King Albert of Saxony, this defeat was all the more galling. 
 
 However, despite occasional rebuffs, the Kaiser, in nine cases 
 out of ten, has had his way, and is likely to have it in the future. 
 His influence to-day is felt more strongly than that of any other 
 single factor in Germany. In some ways this has been beneficial 
 to Germany. It has led to the adoption of a most comprehen- 
 sive plan of naval increase. It has infused more enterprise and 
 self-confidence into the nation. It has inaugurated Germany's 
 world policy. Despite the fact that the nation gave undue 
 prominence to sentimental considerations during the Spanish 
 and the Boer wars, and thereby embittered relations, first with 
 this country, and next with England, it has steered the ship of 
 state so cleverly as to lead to the present rapprochement with this 
 nation, and to at least a maintenance of correct relations with 
 England. Perhaps, however, the same results might have been 
 obtained by the Imperial Chancellors, if they had been left un- 
 trammelled to the exercise of their constitutional functions. 
 
 The Kaiser's influence upon education and upon science in 
 Germany has been great and, in the main, wholesome. He has 
 clearly perceived the urgent need of remodelling the German edu- 
 cational system on new lines — lines more in accord with the re- 
 quirements of this age of practical things; and his ideas, though
 
 THE KAISER'S PERSONAL INFLUENCE 35 
 
 at first they met the united opposition of the professional peda- 
 gogues of the old school, are now slowly prevailing. In the wide 
 domain of applied science the Kaiser's influence has also wrought 
 a vast amount of good. 
 
 But the incalculable harm done by the Kaiser's influence in 
 other fields of public life probably more than balances accounts. 
 For one thing, it has lowered the national standard of political 
 thought and liberty. To all intents and purposes Germany, 
 though nominally enjoying a constitutional form of government, 
 is ruled autocratically. This is a curious instance of political 
 atavism, when the previous history of political development in 
 Germany during the nineteenth century is considered. 
 
 On German literary and art life the personal influence of the 
 Kaiser has also been noxious in the highest degree. He has 
 waged, with more or less success, a savage war upon that highly 
 interesting movement known variously as "Secessionist" or 
 "Realistic," and of which, in literature, Hauptmann and Suder- 
 mann have been the main standard-bearers, and in art, Bocklin, 
 Liebermann, Klinger, Thoma, Stuck, and others. With all his 
 might he has fought this movement, the most promising Germany 
 has known for a century, and despite its extreme and unwise 
 partisans one powerfully moulding German thought and ideals. 
 In place of it the Kaiser has, so far as lay in his power, substi- 
 tuted tame mediocrity, as strikingly exemplified by his own 
 marble "ancestral gallery" in the Siegesallee in Berlin, and by 
 the bombastic historical dramas of Joseph Lauff , the latter owing 
 their very existence to the Kaiser's inspiration. 
 
 But perhaps the most portentous injury, and certainly the 
 most completely achieved, done to German public life by the 
 Kaiser's personal influence, is that inflicted upon the press and 
 periodical literature. Honest expression of opinion, whenever 
 it contravened the Kaiser's ideas and convictions, has been so 
 persistently and severely punished that it may be said to be 
 effectually muzzled. There has never been any regime in 
 Germany, so far as the records go, during which convictions 
 for lese majeste and all sorts of press oftenses have been even 
 approximately as numerous. All this is not only in consonance 
 with the Kaiser's wishes, but it is in large measure directly due 
 to him, the appointment of the judges forming the highest
 
 36 GERMANY 
 
 tribunal in the empire, and the positions leading up to this 
 highest court, being under his control. The Kaiser has never 
 during the fourteen years of his reign pardoned a single one of 
 these offenders against his own dignity, nor even shortened, in 
 any instance, their penalty. Besides, he is on record with many 
 sayings wherein he expressed nothing less than downright hos- 
 tility to a free press. 
 
 In the Kaiser's veins mingle strange and unharmonious ele- 
 ments — the blood of the Hohenzollerns, than which there is 
 none more matter-of-fact in Europe, nor more cool and well- 
 disciplined, and the blood of the Guelphs, than which there is 
 none more stubborn, proud and unruly. William II shows very 
 distinctly this double lineage in his physical as well as his mental 
 make-up. When one keeps this in mind, the discordant qualities 
 of his personal influence, in its baneful as well as its beneficial 
 effects, are more justly appreciated and adjusted.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE KAISER S FAMILY LIFE 
 
 The Emperor's family life is wholesome and restful, and since 
 his accession to the throne, when still a young man, no scandal 
 has publicly been connected with his name. The one great 
 scandal which stirred his court, eight years ago (and which found 
 its last quietus only recently in the death of Baron Schraderr 
 the traducer, as a consequence of a duel, on homicidal terms, 
 with the traduced. Baron Kotze), met in no one a 
 severer judge than in the Kaiser himself. I refer, of course, to 
 the disgraceful "anonymous letter affair," in whose meshes 
 for a time not only Countess Hohenau, one of the chief figures 
 at the Berlin court, but even the brother of the Empress, Duke 
 Giinther of Schleswig-Holstein, were entangled. It was a case 
 of such diabolical malice and petty meanness, and for several 
 years so shrouded in mystery, that it led to the wildest suspicions 
 and most sensational rumours. Yet it resolved itself in the end, 
 when the full truth was established, to nothing worse than the 
 cunningly devised intrigue of an envious and ambitious minor 
 court official against his superior, the chief chamberlain, and 
 the sole motive in the intricate network of cabal was a desire to 
 supplant one of the Kaiser's favourite underlings. It chanced 
 that the issue of the duel fought between Kotze and Schrader, 
 whose terms were "until death or mortal wound," was favour- 
 able to the victim of the whole miserable intrigue, and so even 
 poetic justice was satisfied. 
 
 But this scandal, like some minor ones before and since, did 
 not touch the person of the Kaiser, nor his family. Whatever 
 his peccadillos may have been as a prince, until several years 
 after his marriage, and, of course, tales of that kind have been 
 circulated by the court gossips and found their way into the sen- 
 sational and into the Socialist press, he has outgrown them long 
 ago, and none of those light amours which even so honorable a 
 
 37
 
 38 GERMANY 
 
 monarch as his grandfather, WilHam I, indulged in now and 
 then, are charged to the present ruler of Germany. Nor is this 
 astonishing, for a man so engrossed with serious thoughts and 
 with the multifarious duties of his position as he, has scarcely 
 time or inclination for those lighter affairs of the heart which 
 less busy monarchs might find pleasure in. He is, indeed, an 
 intense and rapid worker, and a brief sketch of an average day 
 with him will show that between rising and bedtime hardly a 
 minute is not accounted for. 
 
 The Kaiser plunges into his day's work with cheerful and 
 vigourous alacrity. He is, in summer, often up with the lark 
 and always before the postman. He often rises as early as five 
 o'clock, and in any case is sure to be astir before seven. During 
 the hunting season he rises even earlier. When the boar is 
 hunted in the Grunewald, near Berlin, late in the autumn, the 
 Kaiser's pink coat may be dimly perceived gleaming through 
 the misty forest long before sunrise, and in midsummer, when he 
 regularly stalks the capercailzie cock in the Thuringian woods 
 around the Wartburg, in company with the Grand Duke of Saxe- 
 Weimar, he has sacrificed half of the night's sleep to indulge in 
 this, the most sportsmanlike sport to be had in Germany. But 
 these, of course, are exceptions. 
 
 He regularly braces himself with a shower bath, and then he 
 slips into his uniform and goes straight to breakfast. This is a 
 simple but substantial meal, consisting of eggs, cold meats, tea, 
 rolls, and butter. At this meal he meets his entire family, the 
 Empress rising as a rule as early as he, and often hurriedly 
 supervising the tea-making. He greets her and the children 
 with a kiss or a playful pat, and then the meal, like those later 
 in the day, is quickly despatched. 
 
 Next he betakes himself to his study, where a mass of cor- 
 respondence confronts him. There are several hundred letters, 
 petitions, etc., arranged and classified for his inspection by his 
 six secretaries, who have already been at work for an hour or 
 more. The Kaiser works his way quickly through, them, now 
 and then making marginal notes in his large, bold and rather 
 odd-looking handwriting, or dismissing the missives on their 
 routine way without comment. In the piles before him he may 
 notice here and there a familiar hand, and then he will grasp
 
 THE KAISER'S FAMILY LIFE 39 
 
 and read the letter, and sometimes, but rarely, write an answer 
 on the spot, or else dictate one. The reports on a thousand and 
 one subjects are also glanced at, and thus a bird's-eye view ob- 
 tained of the whole, which is then further assorted by the staff, 
 the Emperor perhaps reserving a dozen or so of the whole batch 
 for his own prompt attention. The Kaiser's personal corre- 
 spondence, once quite voluminous, has dwindled more and more, 
 but once in a while he still sits down to pen a letter. He has 
 not made friends with the typewriter, considering it an outrage 
 on good taste, and he refuses to accept any machine-made or 
 manifolded letters or inanuscript. 
 
 There is a regular clipping bureau daily at work for the Kaiser. 
 This forms a small part of the Ministry of the Interior, and it 
 sends him for his inspection every inorning the latest cullings 
 supposed to interest him, among them for some time past clip- 
 pings from the American daily and periodical press. The Kaiser 
 keeps a scrap-book, tabulated according to subjects and arranged 
 as to dates. Thence, if the wish occur to him to learn something 
 more definite about a special matter, he will cause one of his 
 secretaries to make extracts and to read them to him, the notes 
 in each case containing source, authority, date and place. Then, 
 often, he sends out orders that he wants to see some particular 
 person or persons on this same matter, with an intimation as to 
 what he expects to hear from them. He has thus listened to 
 what the German university professors call " privatissvna" from 
 perhaps half the noted men in Germany and hundreds of famous 
 foreigners — men of science like Helmholtz, Slaby, Riedler, 
 Roentgen, Koch, Behring, Leyden, Harnack, Pfleiderer and 
 Delitzsch; men of action like Ballin, Wiegand, Siemens; or men 
 of eminence in other paths of life, such as travellers, explorers, 
 soldiers, naval men, inventors, discoverers, political leaders. 
 
 His daily reading is, however, very small. He glances, when 
 he has the time, at the Paris Figaro, at the London Times, occa- 
 sionally at a Russian paper, and, of the German press, at the 
 Kreuz-Zeitimg, the Cologne Gazette, and on special occasions at 
 papers of the opposition, including the Vorwiirts, the Socialist 
 central organ. Frequently, though, he does not see a news- 
 paper for a whole week or longer, and of periodicals and illus- 
 trated papers he sees, generally speaking, but a few extracts or
 
 40 GERIMANY 
 
 articles of special interest to him. Books he seldom reads, 
 and then only those strongly appealing to him, like the naval 
 books of Captain Mahan, whose adoption as German text-books 
 he subsequently ordered. On his midsummer trip to the 
 Northern Seas, however, he takes a big supply of carefully 
 selected volumes along, both of the latest and of old books. Last 
 summer he had with him, for instance, the original French 
 version of the interesting correspondence of his ancestor, 
 Frederick the Great, but he threw that aside, remarking at 
 the cynicism in it, and saying: "What an old heathen he was !" 
 After rapidly disposing of his correspondence in the manner 
 above indicated, the Kaiser usually receives some verbal reports, 
 from members of the Cabinet sometimes, but oftener from depart- 
 ment chiefs, from some army general or one of his aides-de-camp, 
 and more often still from the chiefs of his "cabinets " or bureaus. 
 There are three of them, military, naval and private. The 
 military cabinet deals with all questions of a personal nature 
 that affect the army, such as promotions, dismissals, furloughs, 
 individual merit or misdemeanor, etc. Through this agency 
 he is enabled to keep in that strongly personal touch with the 
 whole corps of Prussian officers, which gives him, as it did the 
 Prussian monarchs before him, such a strong hold on them. 
 The naval cabinet enables him to do the same thing with the 
 navy, and as its personnel is much smaller he is even more 
 intimately acquainted with all the details of his naval officers' 
 affairs. The private cabinet, finally, handles a great variety of 
 matters, such as petitions, promotions, decorations, anniver- 
 saries, etc., and it performs for him a similar service in its own 
 way as the other two for the army and navy. There has often 
 been complaint in the German press that relatively little reaches 
 the Kaiser as to the affairs of State as v/ell as to the affairs of his 
 subjects that has not previously gone through the channel of 
 these three so-called "cabinets," and that the chiefs of these, 
 while occupying no constitutionally amenable positions, really 
 exert more influence in shaping the mind and the prejudices of the 
 head of the nation than do his constitutional advisers. This 
 complaint is founded on fact, and to this surreptitious but reg- 
 ularly exerted and powerful influence must be attributed much 
 in the Emperor's views and actions which otherwise would be
 
 THE KAISER'S FAMILY LIFE 41 
 
 inexplicable. The trio Lucanus, Huelsen-Haeseler and Senden- 
 Bibran, who are the chiefs of these three bureaus, unauthorized 
 by either the Prussian or Imperial constitution, have now and 
 again exerted a baleful influence on the Kaiser's mind. They 
 axe, however, personally men of the highest integrity. 
 
 There is another institution which demands the daily attention 
 of the Emperor, viz., the Household Ministr}^, to whose province 
 belongs the administration of the Kaiser's personal, family 
 and crown estates, and of the whole court with its variegated 
 interests. In this domain the Empress relieves her husband 
 to some extent, but it claims, nevertheless, his almost daily 
 attention. The Kaiser's personal and crown estates are very 
 considerable. He owns at present one hundred and two of 
 them, many being leased or rented for lifetime or a long term, 
 usually fourteen years. A great part of his personal income is 
 derived from these estates, and that makes the Kaiser, so to 
 speak, an agrarian, as the constant falling in the rent values of 
 these farms, dairies, and big manorial holdings, largely due to 
 American competition in agricultural products, reduces his 
 revenues to that extent. 
 
 By nine in the summer, and by ten or eleven in the winter, 
 these reports are usually disposed of, and the Kaiser then takes 
 his first airing, with his wife accompanying him. When in 
 Berlin he will either drive or ride on horseback to the Thier- 
 garten, the fine large park just without the Brandenburg Gate. 
 At a certain spot he dismounts, and then walks rather rapidly 
 along the side paths for a half or whole hour, according to the 
 weather and other circumstances, with the Empress on his arm 
 and one of his military aides by his side, while one or two follow 
 him at some distance, and others precede him, he chatting or 
 conversing the while. It is rather a wonder that no attempt 
 has ever been made on the life of William II during these walks. 
 Their hour and place are well known in Berlin, and the Thier- 
 garten is, of course, accessible to all. There are always several 
 of Baron Windheim's shrewdest sleuths from the secret branch 
 of the police circling at some distance around the Kaiser when 
 he takes these walks, scurrying through the bushes and dodging 
 out of sight at the turns in the path, for he dislikes to see these 
 gentry so close to him. Besides, at the Emperor's own sug-
 
 42 GERMANY 
 
 gestion some time ago, the dense vegetation in the Thiergarten 
 has during the past few years been considerably thinned out, so 
 that it is now not so easy for an unknown person to creep up 
 unawares toward the path. Skulking and poorly clad persons 
 are forthwith stopped by the detectives when met with near 
 this part of the park. For all that, it would be a relatively easy 
 task for a determined man to get near enough to the imperial 
 person during these morning walks to throw a bomb or fire a 
 revolver at him, and Baron Windheim, the Berlin police presi- 
 dent, has for years vainly tried to dissuade him from this form 
 of exercise. The Kaiser is, personally, a man of high courage, 
 and believes, like Napoleon, in his star. Besides, to give up his 
 much-needed exercise in the Thiergarten would by no means 
 eliminate the danger of assassination from his path. On his 
 way from the royal castle to this park, which he often takes twice 
 in the day, he has to pass along the whole length of the Via 
 Triumphalis of Berlin, the Unter den Linden, and thus it would 
 be an easy matter for an evil-disposed person to kill him while 
 riding past a given point, although he always goes at a quick 
 trot or canter. At any rate, the fact that no such attempt has yet 
 been made on his life is a striking proof that Anarchists are few 
 and Socialists not murderously inclined in Germany. 
 
 From this walk he will often ride or drive to Count Buelow, 
 the imperial chancellor, to converse on matters of state for an 
 hour, or take luncheon with him, or else similarly surprise an- 
 other cabinet minister, or one or the other of the ambassadors, 
 especially Count Szoegenyi, the Austro-Hungarian representa- 
 tive, or Count Osten-Sacken, the Czar's man in Berlin, for both 
 of whom he has a strong personal attachment. He doubtless 
 would frequently pay similar visits to Mr. White, the American 
 ambassador, whom he sincerely likes, if this country, like the 
 leading European countries, had a fine palace for the home of 
 its embassy, instead of obliging every newly arriving ambassa- 
 dor to Germany to go house-hunting during the first year of his 
 stay, and then to put up with rented apartments for the rest of 
 his short term. What such personal and more or less intimate 
 intercourse with a monarch like William II is worth to an astute 
 and suave diplomat needs no pointing out. 
 
 If the Emperor has made no such informal call on his way
 
 THE KAISER'S FAMILY LIFE 43 
 
 from his airing, he frequently employs an hour or two in visiting 
 the studios of sculptors, painters, or other artists, who are per- 
 haps executing some work ordered by him, or he inspects some 
 public institution. Then he returns home, and the regular 
 routine work with his various "cabinets" is resumed, audience 
 is given to persons by previous arrangement, and more reports 
 are listened to, and decisions made. In fact, this part of the 
 Emperor's duties goes on, with interruptions, the whole day, 
 and often far into the night. Like Bismarck, the Emperor is an 
 indefatigable worker, and it is by no means a sinecure to be 
 closely attached to his person. He never takes a nap during 
 the daytime, not even after luncheon or dinner, in this breaking 
 with an old German custom. 
 
 Luncheon comes at two, and it is not, as a rule, a very sumptu- 
 ous meal. The table is always set very daintily, with flowers 
 from the Potsdam or Berlin imperial hothouses and nurseries in 
 crystal vases, fine royal china and gold and silverware set off by 
 snowy linen, a fashion introduced by the late Empress Frederick, 
 the Kaiser's mother. But when no guests of royal rank or other- 
 wise of great distinction are present, luncheon consists of but 
 four courses, viz., soup, oysters or fish to begin with, next a 
 roast, with vegetables, then game in season, or fowl, followed by 
 ices or pudding, fruit, and cheese. With this two or three rather 
 light wines are served, such as some fragrant Moselle, a young 
 Rhine wine, a bit of Bordeaux, or, sometimes, a glass of German 
 sparkling mousseux. All these wines, so far as they have grown 
 on German soil, come from the imperial vineyards. On state 
 occasions, or on festive family days, choicer wines from the 
 Emperor's cellars are served, and there is probably no other 
 court in the world where wines of such rare and racy flavour and 
 of such special vintages are to be found in like quantities. But 
 for ordinary occasions the Empress, like the thrifty housewife 
 she is, feeds her family, including her husband, on simple and 
 homely fare. This, besides, is in accord with the Kaiser's own 
 tastes. There is a legend at the Berlin court that the Kaiser's 
 favorite dishes are "Sauerbraten" (a species of potroast with a 
 sour and fat gravy) and "Schmierkase" (unsalted fresh cheese), 
 but that his medical man. Doctor Leutholdt, has forbidden him 
 these two items of diet.
 
 44 GERMANY 
 
 During the afternoon, so far as it is not taken up with the 
 aforementioned duties, the Kaiser again takes a drive or ride to 
 the Thiergarten, when in Berhn, or a stroll through Sanssouci 
 Park when residing in Potsdam, and gives more audiences, or de- 
 votes some time to the study of papers in important or pressing 
 cases. One of his peculiarities is to annotate nearly every paper 
 he has thus read, often very liberally. Reports made to him 
 from the general staff of the army are frequently turned by him 
 topsy-turvy, requiring the whole work to be done over. He has, 
 as the world knows, a nimble and pliant mind, able to grasp many 
 subjects with remarkable rapidity. During his audiences, too, 
 his questions sometimes intuitively go straight to the core of the 
 matter. Besides, he possesses a smattering of nearly everything 
 in the wide domain of human knowledge, due to his quick percep- 
 tion and his retentive memory. If fate had not placed him on 
 the imperial throne, he would have had the stuff for a good 
 journalist in him. But his often fatal mistake is to assume that 
 he knows everything, that the little which he has been able to 
 pick up about the sciences, military lore, literature and art, is all 
 there is worth knowing about these matters, and that he must 
 direct and guide every subject that comes under his personal 
 observation, which in the twentieth century is a manifest ab- 
 surdity. His ideas on art particularly are crude and swayed 
 strongly by prejudice against the independent spirit that nearly 
 always characterizes the original-minded artist, and his influence 
 on German art, which happens to be in a very interesting stage 
 of transition, I consider wholly bad and largely responsible for 
 the gingerbread style of official sculpture rampant in the Germany 
 of to-day. 
 
 The evening ushers in the brightest and by no means the 
 least valuable hours of the Kaiser's day. Guests are always 
 invited to the dinner, ordinarily timed for six o'clock. In the 
 choice of these guests it must be confessed that the proud ruler 
 of Germany shows an amazing catholicity of taste and a re- 
 freshing absence of social conventionality. While during the 
 daytime his bearing is rather stiff and haughty, and a strong 
 sense of his dignity seems to dwell with him, at the dinner hour 
 he appears to be actuated by a desire to please and to be pleased 
 and instructed in turn. Under the stout oak of his dining-table
 
 THE KAISER'S FAMILY LIFE 45 
 
 have been stretched the legs of noted men of almost every rank 
 of life and of every variety of thought. Recently, for instance, 
 the Kaiser shocked the orthodox clergy by inviting repeatedly 
 as his guest Professor Delitzsch, the greatest living Assj-riologist, 
 and one of the most formidable opponents to the theory of the 
 divine authorship of the Old Testament, and listened with evident 
 interest to his views on cosmogony and comparative mythology. 
 He similarly received at his table the late Cecil Rhodes, even 
 unto that iconoclast's unceremonious frock coat, and thereby 
 gave strong offence to the whole tribe of Philistines in the 
 empire.* 
 
 Supper is served at nine, when there are more guests, and when 
 the Munich beer and cigars are handed around the Emperor 
 likes to have some lively music, bright conversation, or a 
 game of skat — a very interesting German game of cards, plaj^ed 
 always for very low stakes. This j^ear he wanted to hear some- 
 thing of American national music, and he had Van Eweyk, a 
 young American barytone who is settled in Berlin as a music 
 teacher, repeatedly sing him and his guests quaint plantation 
 songs. 
 
 The interval between dinner and supper is often spent by the 
 Kaiser with the Empress and his children, and to judge by the 
 hilarious shouts which are heard from the apartments where 
 these little reunions are held, they must represent the simplest 
 and happiest moments which this tremendous worker allows 
 himself. 
 
 It is at dinner and supper that the varied play of a many- 
 sided mind scintillates its brightest. Quick at repartee, and 
 with an inexhaustible mine of anecdote, the Kaiser then fre- 
 quently gives himself up unreservedly to the charm of uncon- 
 ventional conversation. He discourses, when in the mood, 
 with great fluency and vivid flashes of wit. He, however, ques- 
 tions more than talks, always on the alert for enriching his fund 
 of knowledge. He quickly recognizes on such occasions the 
 
 *During the winter the Emperor and his immediate entourage or guests 
 often visit the theatre. He prefers the old-fashioned style of drama and 
 comedy, being strongly opposed to the new literary current in German)', 
 and to Ibsenism and Tolstoism as well. Unlike his grandfather, who was 
 an enthusiastic admirer of the ballet, he cares nothing for that class of 
 stage divertisement.
 
 46 GERMANY 
 
 man who has mastered the subject under discussion, and then 
 proceeds to "pump" him. His voice and lively gestures help 
 to emphasize everything he says, his voice being pitched in rather 
 a high and strident key, but full of modulation and insistence. 
 
 No doubt this habit of the Emperor's always to deal with men 
 rather than books is an excellent one, as it enables him to often 
 draw out the very marrow of a master-mind. And as he seldom 
 forgets a fact he has learned, and never a face, this pleasant 
 habit of treating men as walking cyclopaedias and extracting 
 from them their mental essence stands him in good stead. His 
 speeches are often the result of pondering the thoughts he heard 
 from others. After these gay and lively dinner and supper con- 
 versations, the Kaiser frequently sits calmly down by his desk 
 in his quiet sttidy and there jots down the facts he has learned 
 that evening. Then he retires, but within reach of his hand, 
 on a little table, is always paper and pencil, so that ideas which 
 strike him before falling asleep or during wakeful nights may not 
 escape him. 
 
 The Kaiser is such a marked personality, and his wife of so 
 retiring and rather bashful a disposition, that very little has ever 
 crept into publicity regarding her. But she, too, is a distinct 
 personality. She is a perfect wife in the old-fashioned German 
 sense, and taceat mnlicr in ecclesia her motto. She lets her hus- 
 band do the talking, to use a homely phrase. She is also an 
 affectionate and indulgent mother, and all her children adore her. 
 
 In 1896, at the Berlin municipal exposition, the Kaiser wanted 
 to buy her a costly dress there exhibited and adorned with a 
 very long train. She smilingly refused. "What use would it 
 be ? " she asked. " With two or three of the boys always hanging 
 to my skirt, it would be torn in a jiffy." And when, during 
 religious instruction, the young princes were taught that all are 
 sinners. Prince Eitel Fritz cried: "That can't be true, — my 
 mother isn't a sinner. " 
 
 The Kaiser's ways with his boys are often, too, very pleasant. 
 Once when he had won, as the best shot at a military rifle tourna- 
 ment, a small money prize, he put it in his pocket, saying: "I 
 can buy something for the boys with that." He has the habit, 
 whenever he is dining out, of loading his pockets with candy 
 and sweetmeats, generally remarking: "That is for the chil-
 
 THE KAISER'S FAiAIILY LIFE 47 
 
 dren; they always like best what I bring home, just as I used to 
 do with my father when I was a boy." 
 
 Both the Kaiser and his wife keep up the national traditions 
 as to Christmas and Eastertide, so dear to little Teutons. The 
 Christmas tree is annually decorated in fine style, and gifts that 
 show a wealth of loving thought are placed underneath its 
 spreading boughs. At Easter the imperial couple invite their 
 own children and some of the latter's playfellows to the park of 
 Chateau Bellevue, in Berlin, and there both Kaiser and Empress 
 hide Easter eggs in hundreds of bushes, the Empress crawling 
 around with the little ones on all fours, and subsequently treat 
 the whole juvenile crowd to goodies and chocolate in the chateau 
 near by. 
 
 It almost broke her tender mother's heart when, one after the 
 other, her sons fled from the maternal nest. 
 
 As to her other qualities, they are preeminently housewifely 
 ones. She thoroughly understands every department of house 
 and kitchen work, and often herself cooks, or superintends the 
 cooking of, some favorite dish for her husband or guests. She 
 has a very devout and pious mind, and has made it her special 
 province, ever since her husband's accession, to aid church, 
 hospital and charitable work of every kind. Not unfrequently 
 she visits personally worthy persons in distress, especially moth- 
 ers of large families and recently confined ones, and then her 
 bounty is lavish. While in Berlin, she frequently visits hos- 
 pitals and asylums, evinces heartfelt sympathy, and charms 
 by her gentle solicitude. 
 
 The building of new churches, though, and the extension of 
 church life have been her special hobby. When she became 
 Empress, the need of more churches in Berlin and many other 
 cities of Prussia had become very palpable. Since then forty-two 
 new churches, nearly all of them being fine structures, have 
 been built in Berlin alone, mainly through her instrumentality. 
 Her chief court marshal. Baron Mirbach, tmder her instructions, 
 is spending a great part of his time in personally visiting wealthy 
 citizens and soliciting contributions for the erection and en- 
 dowment of churches or eleemosynary institutions. In the exe- 
 cution of this task he shows a very catholic taste, for he does 
 not scruple in the least to visit well-to-do Jews for the purpose.
 
 48 GERMANY 
 
 They were, in fact, among the heaviest subscribers toward the 
 building of the magnificent Emperor WilHam Memorial Church 
 and of the new Dom, or cathedral, near the royal castle in 
 Berlin, which latter alone cost about five million dollars. Even 
 Socialist leaders, if they only be wealthy, like Singer (who is, 
 besides, a Hebrew), this Imperial messenger seeks out for these 
 pious ends. The Socialist press, which is frankly atheistic and 
 anti-monarchic, has not failed to comment on these facts with 
 vitriolic fury. 
 
 How charmingly unaffected, kind and genuinely human 
 the Empress is, all those who have had occasion to meet her 
 attest. She made the American colony in Berlin her enthusiastic 
 champions several years ago by showing, at one of her hospital 
 visits, tender and gracefid attention to Miss Morgan, an elderly 
 American spinster residing in Berlin, and just at that time a 
 patient in that particular institution. There are innumerable 
 stories current in Germany, wherever she has stayed for a shorter 
 or longer time, illustrating her amiable gifts of heart. Through- 
 out Bavaria, where her husband is strongly disliked, she is ex- 
 tremely popular. When, several years ago, she spent a month 
 in the summer in the Bavarian highlands, the rude and simple- 
 minded peasantry fairly worshiped her. 
 
 Like every normally constituted woman, she has her little 
 vanities. She seriously rebelled for a time against her husband's 
 dictum that she must have no more dresses made in Paris, but 
 to get all she needed in that line made either in Germany, if at 
 all feasible, or else in Vienna,- and to follow the same principle 
 as to the garments needed for her children, excepting such 
 sporting goods as were not readily obtainable at home, and 
 which she was allowed to order from England. But when the 
 Kaiser once detected her in a flagrant case of insubordination, 
 there is said to have been a scene, and since then she has sub- 
 mitted in this, as in nearly all other things. 
 
 Some years ago, when she suddenly began to grow stout, she 
 was induced by a lady at court to begin, unknown to the Kaiser, 
 a special treatment, into which the regular consumption of cer- 
 tain pills made from the thyroid glands of sheep largely entered. 
 The treatment had indeed the desired effect, but it had other- 
 wise rather unpleasant consequences, and the change wrought
 
 THE KAISER'S FAMILY LIFE 49 
 
 in her appearance was such a rapid one that the Kaiser could 
 not fail to notice it. Investigation brought out the above state 
 of facts, and then she was prevailed upon to accept the services 
 of her regular physician in undoing, as much as possible, the evil 
 done. The Empress, however, shows to this day the effects of 
 her own treatment, and her hair has been fast turning gray since. 
 
 She is by no means what is termed chic or "stylish" in general 
 appearance, and her dresses, no matter how costly and elegant, 
 never fit her perfectly. But she has a quiet, demure gentle- 
 ness of demeanor and of aspect, and kindness and charitable- 
 ness of heart are so conspicuous in her that she easily wins and 
 pleases. Her aspirations never soar higher than those of a 
 model German "Hausfrau," and her tastes in literature and art, 
 if she have any, never became known. She converses always 
 in a low, slightly lisping voice, and she speaks German with a 
 distinct Holstein burr, due to family and educational influences. 
 She understands and speaks French well, however, and English 
 tolerably. 
 
 The Empress is a few months older than her husband, and she 
 looks, despite her placid disposition and despite the arts of the 
 toilet, fully five years more than he. This is a point on which she 
 is very sensitive. When he was still plain Prince William, and 
 especially during the first three years of her married life, she was 
 violently jealous of him, and rumour has it that there was some 
 cause for it. It is related that on one occasion she went com- 
 plaining to the old Emperor, her husband's grandfather, with a 
 tale that had come to her ears. The old gentleman, after 
 courteously listening to her, playfully patted her cheek and 
 half-chidingly, half-sympathetically, said to her: "Well, child, 
 then you ought to have married no Hohenzollern. " From 
 that time on she learned to hide her feelings. 
 
 Altogether, she is about the best wife a man like the Kaiser 
 could have found. She has justified Bismarck's choice. The 
 Kaiser has, now and then, given expression to his approval of 
 her in terse and slightly sarcastic sayings. As when he re- 
 marked that she was the old German ideal in confining herself 
 to the three "Ks" — Kirche (church), KiicJie (kitchen), and 
 Kinder (children); or, on another occasion, remarking that she 
 always acted on him as "an anodyne. "
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Germany's political turning-point 
 
 For years past Germany's policy, domestic and foreign, has 
 been vacillating. It has now arrived at a point where irresolu- 
 tion becomes impossible. There must be decision, and there 
 must be a break with the past. She must change her foreign 
 policy and she must modify her fiscal policy. The Dreibund is 
 crumbling before our very eyes, and the important tariff bill now 
 before the Reichstag is a clinching proof that Germany intends 
 to alter her policy in that respect. Count von Buelow's repeated 
 declarations before the Reichstag showed, as plainly as the words 
 of a statesman of purely diplomatic training could do, that reli- 
 ance is no longer placed on the international confederation com- 
 posed of Germany, Austria and Italy; and these declarations 
 have been so understood by the entire German press. The 
 Kaiser's advances during the last few years both to this country 
 and to England, of which the mission of his brother, Prince 
 Henry, was but the latest and most striking illustration, clearly 
 point out the direction which he means to give to Germany's 
 foreign policy in the near future. 
 
 In the chapter of Bismarck's Memoirs which is devoted to a 
 discussion of the genesis and the probable duration of the 
 Dreibund, the matter is treated without any reserve. Bismarck 
 there makes it plain that the understanding with Austria was 
 based, primarily, on the assumption that a war with Russia 
 was likely to come, not one with France; and the admission of 
 Italy was designed to safeguard that country and Germany 
 against French aggression. That Bismarck, when he wrote that 
 chapter, not long before his death, had begun to have strong mis- 
 givings as to the intrinsic and lasting force of this tripartite 
 agreement, is evident from the concluding paragraph, in which 
 he says: 
 
 "The Triple Alliance is a strategic position which, in view of 
 
 50
 
 GERMANY'S POLITICAL TURNING-POINT 51 
 
 the dangers threatening at the time of its conclusion, was ad- 
 visable, and was the best that could be attained under existing 
 circumstances. It has from time to time been prolonged, and 
 we may succeed in prolonging it again ; but no lasting treaty of 
 this kind is possible between great powers, and it would be un- 
 wise to regard it as a secure foundation for every kind of pos- 
 sibility, which may change in the days to come the conditions, 
 needs and sentiments which once made it possible." 
 
 He winds up with a skeptical expression of even a more 
 decided cast. Since Bismarck's death, conditions have altered 
 more rapidly than could have been foreseen then. Russia under 
 Nicholas II has become eminently peaceful. The Panslavic 
 movement has been aiTcsted. More friendly relations than 
 existed for fifty years past have been established between Russia 
 and Austria. There is no longer any fear on Austria's part of 
 Russian aggression. For Austria, then, the reason which con- 
 trolled her in becoming a member of the Dreibund no longer 
 exists. On the other hand, Austrian internal politics have 
 simultaneously changed in a manner more and more hostile, or 
 at least more averse, to the alliance with Germany. The Czechs, 
 the Poles in Galicia, and all the other Slavic populations of the 
 polyglot empire, have gained political ascendancy; they have 
 been, from the first, opponents of the Dreibund, and they are 
 more opposed to it now than ever. The Polish question in 
 Prussia has of late greatly embittered the Poles against Germany, 
 whom they regard as a persecutor of their race. The pending 
 German tariff bill adds new fuel to this feeling. In Italy, the 
 situation is similar. Italy no longer fears French hostility, and 
 the recent Italian naval demonstration in French harbours was 
 intended and accepted as an outward sign of muttial good-will. 
 The long Franco- Italian tariff war is over, and an amiable under- 
 standing between the two nations as to the Mediterranean ques- 
 tion, and as to Tunis and Tripoli, has removed the last inflam- 
 mable material. Therewith the chief cause which induced Italy 
 to join the Dreibund has disappeared, and she, too, looks upon 
 the proposed German tariff legislation as inimical to her fiscal 
 interests. The alliance with Austria was always unpopular in 
 Italy because of the Italia Irredenta movement, which was handi- 
 capped under Dreibund auspices; and of late the Francophiles,
 
 52 GERMANY 
 
 always a large and very influential part of the nation, have 
 gained enormously in Italy. 
 
 In a word, then, so far as the other two members of the Drei- 
 bund are concerned, no important reason obtains any longer for 
 their remaining in it; and a number of important reasons tell 
 against the further continuance of this alliance. For Germany, 
 too, several potent factors have come to the surface which 
 make against the Dreibund as the pivotal point of Germany's 
 foreign policy. The chief one, perhaps, is the military weakening 
 of both Austria and Italy, whose resources, in the event of a future 
 big war, both on land and sea, are, relatively speaking, much 
 smaller now than when the Dreibund was formed. Aside 
 from that, however, in taking a front place as a world power, 
 Germany has had to reckon, and will have in future to reckon, 
 with other powers which are strong in commerce, in colonies, and 
 in naval force, these being England and the United States. 
 Neither Austria nor Italy has been in a condition, nor willing, to 
 further Germany's vital interests as a sea power and as an expan- 
 sive commercial and colonial empire. With France and Russia 
 more closely than ever allied in Europe and abroad, and with 
 Germany's inability to attain to the rank of the first naval power, 
 it is manifestly her interest to put herself not only on a thoroughly 
 friendly footing, but on terms of intimate friendship, if not on 
 those of a formal alliance, with the only two powers that are, so 
 to speak, open to such an engagement. This would not mean 
 that Germany would entirely relinquish her long-continued 
 friendship with Italy and Austria. As far as she is able to do 
 so she will tenderly nurse those good relations ; but the character 
 and importance of them, nevertheless, will undergo — has even 
 now undergone — a very great change. They will henceforth be 
 of secondary consideration, and by no means the determining 
 factor in her foreign policy. 
 
 Now, as to England, the anomaly is presented that, while the 
 German Emperor and his government are anxious to tighten 
 the political affiliations with that country, and while, particu- 
 larly, the Kaiser's strong sympathies and desires go out in that 
 direction, the overwhelming public opinion of Germany is averse 
 to this. It is within the truth to say that a sentiment of down- 
 right bitter hostility, of a strength seldom equalled in his usually
 
 GERMANY'S POLITICAL TURNING-POINT 53 
 
 placid bosom, rages in the breast of the average German against 
 his English cousin at the present moment. Sentiment counts 
 for something in that. The war against the Boer republics was 
 all along strongly condemned in Germany, largely for sentimental 
 reasons; and that feeling was so widespread and powerful that 
 even the Kaiser, on one or two occasions, and the Imperial Chan- 
 cellor, had to take it into account. Other sentimental reasons 
 lying further back there also are; and there is, besides, the fact 
 that England for a time took a somewhat unfriendly attitude 
 towards Germany's colonial aspirations, and that England has 
 been Germany's chief commercial rival, and not always a gener- 
 ous or fair one. At any rate, there is no doubt that an Anglo- 
 phile foreign policy is just now unpopular with the larger, and the 
 politically dominant, part of the German people. The Liberal 
 political parties in Germany, who traditionally favour such a 
 policy, are not the determining factors in her political life. 
 
 But, while all this is true, it does not mean that a foreign 
 policy friendly to England is impossible in Germany even at this 
 moment. For the Kaiser practically shapes her foreign policy. 
 The Imperial Chancellors since Bismarck's retirement have, 
 virtually, merely carried out their imperial master's behests, and 
 have vouchsafed only that explanation to the Reichstag and 
 Bundesrath for the steps taken or decided upon in Germany's 
 relations with other countries which they saw fit and con- 
 sidered safe. It is idle to discuss here the question whether this 
 is in strict consonance with the constitution of the empire. Cer- 
 tain it is that such has been the unvarying practice since the 
 Kaiser, twelve years ago, took hold of the helm himself and be- 
 came, to use Bismarck's expression, his own Chancellor. And 
 that the Kaiser is strongly in favour of an Anglophile foreign 
 policy there is not the shadow of a doubt. 
 
 As to the United States, things in a measure are similar. When 
 the war with Spain broke out, in the spring of 1898, the German 
 people violently, and almost altogether for sentimental reasons, 
 sided with Spain; indeed, until the close of that war the torrent 
 of popular abuse of the United States flowed as fiercely and was 
 fed from as many sources as that which is now directed against 
 England. The German Government, however, took a con- 
 sistently friendly attitude toward the United States— a fact
 
 54 GERMANY 
 
 which recent pubHcations have brought out clearly. This, it may- 
 be admitted here, was due at first more to Count von Buelow — 
 then still Secretary of Foreign Affairs under Prince Hohenlohe — 
 than to the Kaiser personally, whose sympathies for a time 
 rather leaned to Spain. But the Kaiser is, after all, Bismarck's 
 pupil, and as such he considers concrete facts as of paramount 
 importance. He quickly came to see that the United States was 
 bound to be victorious, that Spain represented a lost cause, and 
 that the United States would emerge from the war much stronger 
 and more ambitious than ever, and become a new and leading 
 factor in the process of reshaping the world. He saw clearly 
 that Germany's interests bade her remain the best of friends with 
 the United States; and, once he had recognized this, he frankly 
 and without reserve accepted the new situation, and shaped his 
 policy accordingly. The relentless force of logic told him that 
 the closer Germany's relations became with the great American 
 republic, the better chance there would be for a friendly under- 
 standing with it at all those points where its new political or 
 commercial interests might clash with those of Germany. His 
 foresight has since been proven true in the settlement of the 
 Samoa difficulty, in the acquisition of the Carolines, and during 
 the recent troubles in China. 
 
 In his political calculations, he took into account the policy of 
 expansion to which the dominant party in this country stands 
 committed, and he has since given adherence to the American 
 definition of the Monroe Doctrine. Is he sincere in this ? Has 
 Germany absolutely relinquished those old, but never more than 
 half-formed, designs upon West Indian and South American 
 territory? Does she consider herself bound, under all circum- 
 stances, to abide by that interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine 
 which rests, not so much upon the vigorous yet withal conserva- 
 tive enunciation quite recently made by President Roosevelt, 
 as upon that somewhat hazy yet tangible and more far- 
 reaching idea of it held by the larger half of the American people ? 
 Time alone will show. At any rate, neither the Kaiser, nor the 
 German Government, nor the even more important public opinion 
 of Germany, any longer defines the Monroe Doctrine as Bismarck 
 did in my hearing, on May 26, 1898 (two months before his 
 death), as "a species of arrogance peculiarly American and quite
 
 GERMANY'vS POLITICAL TURNING-POINT 55 
 
 inexcusable. " True, the Pan-Germans and the colonial enthu- 
 siasts in Germany continue to rail against this "species of arro- 
 gance"; and in a late issue of the leading German colonial organ, 
 the Koloniale Zcitschrift, Dr. Rudolf Breitscheid declaims 
 against it and against the alleged unholy designs of the United 
 States upon South and Central America, and calls upon Count 
 von Buelow to quicken the pace of German colonization in South 
 Brazil and Argentina. But he and his kind do not influence the 
 German foreign policy. There is no manner of doubt that 
 Germany — Kaiser, government and people — is at present 
 honestly desirous of close and friendly relations with the United 
 States.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 POLITICAL LIFE 
 
 Nothing more characteristic of present German political life 
 exists than the new Reichstag palace. It rises, a splendid and 
 impressive edifice, just without the monumental Brandenburg 
 Gate, in Berlin, its most magnificent fa§ade toward the broad 
 expanse of the Konigsplatz, and its southern side turned toward 
 the fine old trees of the Thiergarten. The statue of Bismarck, 
 flanked by allegorical figures, stands in the centre of the immense 
 square to the west, and that grand old man stretches out his hand 
 of bronze in the direction of the pile where the elected representa- 
 tives of the nation legislate for its weal or woe, as if to caution 
 and guide them. A fountain throws its powerful column of 
 water into the pure air, and from afar the thunder of busy life 
 comes in a steady boom. Plainly visible to the west is the golden 
 glint of the Column of Victory, whose massive shaft was welded 
 from guns taken by Germany's conquering hosts during three 
 successive wars, each swift, terrible and glorious. 
 
 The Reichstag is an immense structure, built throughout 
 of graystone, and in that architectural style termed the German 
 renaissance. Rich sculptures everywhere embellish portals, 
 windows, pilasters and roof, and several gigantic figures in dark 
 bronze heighten the artistic effect. The building was paid for 
 out of the French war indemnity. Inside, too, the eye is grati- 
 fied. The great lobby, all in white marble, and a flood of light 
 pouring down upon it from the enormous gilt cupola, is stately 
 and beautiful. The session hall, with its wealth of stained glass, 
 its bright colours on ceiling and cornices, and its light yellow 
 oak on walls and galleries, makes a fit setting for the dignified 
 body of men who here, for nine months of the year, discuss 
 national affairs and frame the laws of the country. The com- 
 mittee rooms are handsomely and appropriately furnished, and 
 the spacious reading rooms and library give ample facilities for 
 
 56
 
 POLITICAL LIFE 57 
 
 mdrimentum spiriins. In fine, nothing could be more appro- 
 priate or suitable for its purposes. 
 
 But when examining all this a bit more closely, a number of 
 things strike the observer. The events and persons everywhere 
 glorified by the numberless works of art adorning this palace 
 of the people are wars and rulers. Dynasties and their obedient 
 servants are shining down from glowing glass and burnished 
 frame. The carved and fretted symbols that decorate the walls 
 speak exclusively the same language. Nowhere is there made 
 the slightest attempt to recognize the virtues, the sacrifices, the 
 deeds or rights of the people, of its representatives, champions, 
 or spokesmen. Nowhere is there a sign that this fine building 
 arose at the will of, and with the money appropriated by, the 
 nation's representatives. No motto, no inscription indicates 
 or even hints at it. This palace was built after plans approved 
 and in every detail directed by the present Kaiser. It stands 
 as an eloquent witness to the fact that you are in an intensely 
 monarchical country, in a country where everything is of the 
 monarch, by the monarch, and for the monarch. This new 
 Reichstag building is the very essence and outflow of the Kaiser's 
 masterful spirit. 
 
 If any more proof of that, however, were needed, it is but 
 necessary to enter the big session hall and attend an average 
 meeting of the delegates. The session is opened and closed 
 with cheers for His Majesty. Whenever one of the speakers 
 attempts to criticize or even to name the Emperor, the presi- 
 dent, worthy old Count Ballestrem, with an unctuous and dis- 
 approving shake of his silver locks, warns the offender that he 
 is infringing on the "Brauch des Hauses" (custom of the house), 
 and nips his ambition in the bud. There is no constitutional 
 barrier against such criticism; on the contrary, the constitution 
 of the empire explicitly permits it. But the "custom of the 
 house," as it has grown up under a majority of time-serving 
 Conservatives and their allies, forbids the practical exercise of 
 this constitutional privilege. With the exception of an occa- 
 sional Socialist or radical Liberal speaker, such a phrase as 
 "rights of the people" is not even heard in this hall. 
 
 And this is the body which of all others in Germany is sup- 
 posed to watch over and defend these same rights of the people !
 
 58 GERMANY 
 
 With a spirit so glaringly subservient to the will and pleasure 
 of an autocrat, it is no wonder that the Reichstag, as a body, 
 has more and more lost the confidence of the nation. 
 
 But that is not the only reason for the moral decadence into 
 which the Reichstag has sunk. An even more potent one is 
 its disintegration. There is no party rule in Germany. There 
 cannot be under existing conditions. The 397 members com- 
 posing this body legislating for the Empire are divided and 
 subdivided into a score of factions and particles of factions, 
 the difference in political creed between them often amounting, 
 indeed, to the splitting of hairs. It is the old Teutonic spirit, 
 the spirit which Bismarck and so many great Germans have al- 
 ways deplored, the spirit which is almost solely responsible for all 
 the misfortunes, reverses, and calamities that have befallen the 
 German nation since the dawn of its history — the spirit of fac- 
 tional strife, of discord, and of mutual and petty jealousy. And 
 yet, be it said, nobody has done as much as Bismarck himself to 
 breed and foster this spirit. To play off one party against 
 another, to allow none a share of the government, and to rule 
 supreme by dividing them all — that was his unbending policy 
 in shaping and dominating parliamentary legislation. The 
 deplorable state of impotence to which the Reichstag is to-day 
 reduced is very largely due to this Machiavellian policy. To 
 judge from present indications, the process of disintegration has 
 not even reached its limit. Within the recent past two new 
 factions — the League of Husbandry and the Bavarian Peasant 
 Federation, have come into existence, and the number of 
 Independents — /. c, members unaffiliated with any faction, 
 has in the same time largely increased. 
 
 However, despite this curious splitting up into relatively 
 small fragments, it is nevertheless not difficult to describe the 
 component parts of the Reichstag, and to show how, under 
 ordinary circumstances, the dominant majority is formed. 
 What in common parlance might be styled the government 
 party in it is made up from the two Conservative factions (num- 
 bering in all 91), the Centre (or Catholic Ultramontane faction, 
 with 107 votes), and a larger or smaller portion of the National 
 Liberal faction (at present reduced to 49), with occasional 
 accessions from the ranks of the other factions or subfactions,
 
 POLITICAL LIFE 59 
 
 and Independents. This, in ordinary cases, gives the govern- 
 ment a good working majority of 25 to 50. Ordinary occasions 
 in the above sense are legislation concerning the army and navy, 
 the budget, the tariff, and tax c^nestions. On religious matters, on 
 education, and on a great many others, there is no solid phalanx 
 either way, and it often happens that on this kind of legislation 
 a majority for the government is formed from its opponents 
 in principle, including the extreme Radicals and tlic Socialists. 
 
 There are many bills drawn up by either individual members 
 or by factions or a group of factions in the course of a Reichstag 
 session, and presented to that body for consideration. But the 
 important bills, and the larger portion of those ultimately be- 
 coming laws, have been carefully prepared and phrased by the 
 government in its various departments, and have been passed 
 by the Bundesrath, before they reach the Reichstag. In other 
 words, relatively few and certainly no very important bills 
 originate in the Reichstag itself. But even the bills thus origi- 
 nating do not, as a rule, become laws. The Bundesrath, whose 
 province and whose powers are more extensive than those of the 
 Reichstag, and to whom all bills passed by the latter body have 
 to go, usually refuses to sanction them. Perhaps the most 
 glaring case in point is the bill providing compensation for the 
 services of the Reichstag delegates. This bill has been passed, 
 each time with a larger majority, by the Reichstag year after 
 year, ever since the Reichstag itself came into existence, thirty- 
 one years ago. Bismarck had purposely avoided fixing such 
 compensation, in the belief that this would keep Socialist dele- 
 gates and other representatives of the lower and politically 
 radical-minded classes out of the Reichstag. But he had reck- 
 oned Vv^ithout his host, for the Socialists have all along paid a 
 modest per diem allowance to their representatives out of party 
 funds, the only party or faction in Germany, by the way, that 
 has followed this practice. No matter how often the Reichstag 
 has passed this bill, however, the Bundesrath has always 
 promptly rejected it. 
 
 Generally speaking, the code of parliamentary rules governing 
 the Reichstag is neither so comprehensive nor so exacting as in 
 either the English Parliament or our Congress. Nor are breaches 
 of these rules so severely or summarily dealt with. The presiding
 
 6o GERMANY 
 
 officer not infrequently makes mistakes in applying the rules of the 
 house, but appeals from his decision are rarely taken, and much 
 forbearance and good humour are displayed in this respect. Parlia- 
 mentary customs are fashioned more after those obtaining in the 
 French Chamber of Deputies than after English or American ones. 
 Reichstag sessions are often dull. The phlegmatic temper of 
 the average German has something to do with that, for it is sel- 
 dom that speakers lose their temper, or that their listeners indulge 
 in witty, humourous, or abusive interruptions, sallies, or shouts. 
 There being, besides, relatively few young men among the mem- 
 bers, the whole tone of the House is rather dignified, subdued and 
 calm. The decorum preserved is admirable. Billingsgate, un- 
 couth or indecent language are never indulged in, and personal 
 insults are extremely rare. As a rule, the current of talk flows 
 on rather sluggishly, and many of the members can then be seen 
 dozing or peacefully slumbering in their seats. Friends of mem- 
 bers, or constituents who wish to speak v/ith them, are never 
 allowed on the floor of the House, but must always state their 
 business first in writing to one of the handsomely uniformed 
 Reichstag servants, who thereupon informs the member, and the 
 latter will see his man outside in the lobby or in one of the com- 
 mittee rooms. Reached by separate stairs outside, galleries run 
 around three sides of the session hall, about twenty feet above 
 the floor of the house. These are separated from each other, so 
 as to make intercommunication impossible. One of them 
 contains a very spacious box over the row of seats occupied 
 by the Conservatives, and this is reserved for the exclusive use 
 of the imperial court, and of other personages sent by the Kaiser 
 to attend certain sessions in whose results he is interested. On 
 gala days this and the diplomatic box adjoining are often filled 
 with a highly distinguished audience, brilliantly attired court 
 ladies, army and naval officers wearing high decorations, and 
 occasionally even princes of the blood. The Kaiser, however, 
 has personally never visited the inside of the session hall.* 
 
 *The gallery for the press contains seats for about sixty reporters and 
 correspondents, and when crowded to its utmost capacity accommodates 
 a,bout 200. It is right above the Socialist row of seats — a significant 
 fact, and the acoustics of the hall being wretched, it is impossible to hear 
 with understanding any but the very best speakers — i. e., best in enuncia- 
 tion and quality of voice. The press up there has, therefore, to preserve 
 a respectful silence during the proceedings, on pain of " botching " the 
 work in hand, and also because offenders are summarily expelled.
 
 POLITICAL LIFE 6i 
 
 One other reason for the dullness usually prevailing during 
 Reichstag sessions is the general absence of oratory. Few 
 Germans are fluent or impressive speakers. This is as much 
 due to the language itself, which in its grammar is difficult and 
 in its syntax still more so, full of pitfalls for the unwary or hasty 
 speaker, as it is owing to the recentness of German parliamentar- 
 ism and to the complete lack of any tuition or systematic train- 
 ing in public speaking. German education has so far neglected 
 this field. There are no courses in elocution in either colleges 
 or universities, nor even in private schools. Neither are there 
 debating societies or clubs in existence where the nascent rhetor- 
 ician might develop his talents. The genius of the nation does 
 not incline that way, and "fine speaking" is not only not ad- 
 mired, but it is positively looked upon with suspicion and disdain. 
 That form of "spread-eagleism" which exists, too, in German 
 legislative bodies is essentially different in form — not so pictur- 
 esque, nor so exuberant in fancy, but more rugged and homely 
 than the American species. The most perfect specimens in 
 Germany of this type of rhetoric are Liebermann von 
 Sonnenberg, the rabid anti-Semite, and Doctor Hasse, the 
 Pan-German leader. Both possess in a high degree the gift of 
 touching certain chords in the German soul. 
 
 But while deficient in oratory, as that much-abused word is 
 commonly understood, the German parliament possesses a num- 
 ber of earnest, forcible and convincing speakers, and on "great 
 days, " when subjects are under discussion that fire the national 
 heart, the sessions are interesting enough. The most impas- 
 sioned speaker — now that old Liebknecht is dead — is by all odds 
 August Bebel, the Socialist veteran. His style of speaking 
 indeed approaches nearest to the American. He is fluent, 
 uses his resonant voice to good advantage, thrills, hypnotizes, 
 transfixes his hearers — opponents even more than friends. He 
 always goes into his subject heart and soul, and is fairly tireless. 
 As he warms up to his work, after the first half-hour or so, he 
 has captured the whole house. From the benches on the Right, 
 where the aristocrats of birth sit, these gentlemen of immaculate 
 linen and daintily pointed mustache come crowding around the 
 high desk behind which this leader of the unwashed multitude 
 stands, his strongly marked face aglow with very genuine excite-
 
 62 GERMANY 
 
 ment, his unkempt beard quaking, and his vitriolic eloquence 
 pouring forth like a resistless torrent. The toiling masses in 
 the Empire have no more dauntless or unsparing champion 
 than him. Up in the galleries court ladies press scented lace to 
 their eyes as he depicts the sufferings of the lower classes or de- 
 claims with burning words against tyranny. He is a fanatic 
 by conviction, and it is that which lends peculiar force to his 
 vibrating periods. As a coiner of striking similes and metaphors 
 he has not his like in the Reichstag. 
 
 As popular a speaker, and likewise of the opposition, though 
 a man of wholly different fibre, is Eugene Richter, he who often 
 crossed swords with Bismarck in the Reichstag, and usually 
 vanquished the grim Chancellor. Finance and budget matters 
 are his specialty, and these dry topics this radical veteran knows 
 how to invest with such a brilliant array of witticisms, humour- 
 ous allusions, anecdotes, and sarcasm, as to hold the house spell- 
 bound. Richter has passed his whole lifetime in parliamentary 
 struggles, and he knows the finances of Prussia and of the empire 
 better than the whole government, past and present, put to- 
 gether, and has convicted of serious errors scores of finance 
 secretaries. In England, Eugene Richter would have become 
 a Gladstone or a Goschen; in Prussia he edits an excellent paper 
 of small circulation. Dr. Theodore Barth, also a radical Liberal 
 and in some respects the younger and fresher type of Richter, 
 is likewise a convincing and able speaker. As the best-equipped 
 and stanchest friend of this country in both the Reichstag and 
 the Prussian Diet, he is, of course, the special bete noire of the 
 Agrarians in both houses. Doctor Paasche, Bassermann, and 
 Doctor Lehr are able speakers among the National Liberals. 
 The members of the Polish faction, thirteen in number, are 
 nearly all fluent and passionate speakers. 
 
 Among the Socialists, Singer, Auer, and von Vollmar, but 
 especially Bernstein, may also be mentioned as forcible and 
 competent orators. What makes von Vollmar more impres- 
 sive than the others is his past and his personality. From a 
 member of the privileged classes, from a brave officer who fought 
 in the war against France with such distinction as to win the 
 highest decoration for bravery, the iron cross, he has become 
 one of the fiercest champions of the lower classes. When he
 
 POLITICAL LIFE 63 
 
 climbs with some difficulty up the steps that lead to the speaker's 
 stand, the French bullet which lamed him for life still occasioning 
 him much discomfort, his pale and handsome face as cold as 
 marble, there is none of his erstwhile companions-in-arms on the 
 aristocratic side of the house who does not feel a throb of in- 
 voluntary respect. Among the Conservatives there are few 
 good speakers; one may, however, mention von Kardorff, von 
 Manteuffel, Count Kanitz and Doctor Arendt. But not one of 
 them is able to command at any time the undivided attention 
 of the house. Prince Herbert Bismarck, the little son of a great 
 father, is one of the poorest speakers there. Among the South 
 Germans it is especially Conrad Haussmann, leader of the small 
 Democratic faction, who deserves notice. He is impressive and 
 caustic, and is the only non-Socialist in the house who occasion- 
 ally defies the "custom of the house," and its president to boot, 
 by arraigning in biting words the crowned head of Germany. 
 Among the Alsatian "protesters" the Abbe Wetterle is the ablest 
 and most resourceful orator, but his rhetoric is French, not 
 German, and generally misses, therefore, its aim in a German 
 audience. The recent death of Doctor Lieber has robbed the 
 Ultramontane Centre not only of its greatest party strategist, 
 but also of its greatest speaker. Doctor Bachem, of Cologne, 
 Doctor Groeber and Doctor Spahn are now the oratorical towers 
 of strength of the Catholic faction.* 
 
 In the Reichstag and in the other German legislative bodies 
 it is the custom, as in France and England, for the government 
 to send members of the cabinet and department chiefs into 
 parliamentary sessions in order to furnish special information 
 and answer interpellations or attacks made by members. This 
 has, of course, occasionally an enlivening effect upon sessions, 
 though in the main these government representatives make a 
 point of preserving a great outward dignity, and seldom say 
 much, even when they talk enough. Count von Buelow, the 
 Imperial Chancellor, is in some respects an exception to this rule. 
 Of course, he has not a tithe of the prestige w^hich Bismarck 
 enjoyed, either as a parliamentary speaker or as a statesman. 
 
 *Affiliated with Doctor Earth's radical Liberal faction is Prince Emil 
 Schonaich-Carolath, popularly known as the "Red Prince " because of 
 his advanced political views. This gentleman is a voluble speaker 
 enough, but a much better poet and writer.
 
 64 GERMANY 
 
 When it was known that Bismarck would speak, the pressure of 
 the public to gain admittance in the Reichstag used to be terrific, 
 and the interest manifested intense. This was purely due to the 
 matter, not to the manner, with which he regaled his hearers, for 
 that mighty man of brain and brawn, physical colossus though 
 he was, had a voice very disproportionate to his massive frame. 
 It was high-pitched, thin and grating, and altogether of an un- 
 pleasant quality, besides which his mode of deHvery was jerky, 
 halting, and uncertain — he would often come to a complete 
 stop, painfully striving to hit upon the words expressing his 
 nimbler thoughts. But there were great ideas, bold conceptions, 
 in what he said, and many of his phrases, struck off fresh from 
 the forge of his mind, will live forever, so pregnant and inspiring 
 were they. Buechner's "Winged Words" contains a large number 
 of them. In the case of Count von Buelow, whom his admirers 
 love to call a pupil of Bismarck, it is quite otherwise. He is, 
 it must be remembered, a diplomat purely and simply, and he 
 plainly shows the virtues and failings of one. There is none of 
 that subdued fire, that deep earnestness, which made the words 
 of his great master living, sentient potentialities. Instead, he 
 is fluent, almost glib, happy in graceful, pretty similes and 
 parables, paying a dainty little compliment to the one party, 
 and administering a waspish, venomous sting to the other, 
 calmly and elegantly gliding over the surface of the topics he 
 handles, but never by any chance going deep down to the very 
 core of a matter. With an almost Gallic wit he indulges in 
 cleverly worded sallies, cracks jokes, relates anecdotes, gives 
 ivdl play to his lively imagination, and amuses everybody. 
 Now and then he coins a new catch phrase, as when he com- 
 pared the "concert of the powers" to an orchestra, now well 
 directed, now playing out of tune, and adding that Germany, 
 whenever harmony had turned into discord, would quietly lay 
 down her flute and step out of the orchestra. But that is an 
 exception — as a rule, reading over Buelow's speeches in cold 
 type, minus the charm of personal manner and the facile grace 
 of gesture, they appear rather commonplace and devoid of vi- 
 tality. Nevertheless, in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed 
 man is king — among the government speakers he is facile princeps. 
 For the initiated it is amusing to watch him then, and particu-
 
 POLITICAL LIFE 6$ 
 
 larly the careful and minute mise en scene set by his underHngs. 
 I remember one such occasion. I happened to have obtained 
 from the Hps of the American ambassador in Berhn, Mr. White, 
 the distinct and formal news that a definite understanding had 
 been effected between Germany, the United States and England 
 as to the final settlement of the Samoan squabble, including the 
 actual terms of this understanding. This information was 
 given me early in the afternoon, and I cabled it in full to this 
 country. The next noon, twenty hours after, a session of the 
 Reichstag took place, and the morning papers threw out dark 
 hints that some great news of startling import was to be vouch- 
 safed at this session by Count von Buelow. At the Foreign Office 
 in Berlin they claimed not to know of any settlement, and no 
 German or foreign correspondent was given the above news, 
 nor was able to obtain confirmation of it. This was, of course, a 
 tiny but deep-laid plot by the Imperial Chancellor to prevent 
 the news from leaking out before he had imparted it, with dra- 
 matic effect, to the representatives of the nation. And after the 
 session had been solemnly opened. Count von Buelow ascended 
 the speaker's stand with the mien of an haruspex and delivered, 
 in a highly impressive manner, what purported to be a great and 
 exclusive piece of news. His little trick worked to perfection 
 and nobody in the house except one was aware of its being a 
 trick. This little incident is, however, highly characteristic of 
 him. He is a man accomplishing little ends by little means 
 — a diplomat, not a statesman. 
 
 Impressive in his own peculiar way is also Count Posadowsky, 
 the Imperial Secretary of the Interior, and the man who would 
 like to step into Buelow's shoes. He is tall, has strongly marked 
 features, with a long and flowing beard to set them off, and loves 
 to unroll a long list of statistics which he then proceeds to illu- 
 minate in a more or less startling and graphic manner. Some 
 years ago he was the first, in a Reichstag budget debate, to 
 draw attention to the "American danger" in international com- 
 merce. He has more solid attainments than Buelow, but lacks 
 almost altogether that gentleman's easy and unctuous manner, 
 and also his gift of saying platitudes with infinite solemnity. 
 
 Buelow is very careful how he handles the Socialists in the 
 Reichstag, for they are more than a match for him there. Bebel
 
 66 GERMANY 
 
 on one occasion, in a half-hour's speech, utterly demolished von 
 Buelow's smooth eloquence by disproving, one after the other, 
 all his statements. Like Chamberlain in England, von Buelow is 
 very neat and tidy, almost fastidious, in his appearance, but 
 while his British prototype prefers an orchid as a boutonniere, 
 his German imitator likes a white camellia or chrysanthemum 
 in his buttonhole. By that anybody going into the Reichstag 
 can usually pick him out. 
 
 It would be a futile and thankless task to go here into an 
 elaborate and detailed description of all the factions represented 
 in Germany. For one thing, even after such a description, it is 
 doubtful whether the reader would have obtained a clear idea 
 of it all. Besides the parties and particles composing, for in- 
 stance, the Reichstag, there are scores of other political organiza- 
 tions making up the independent legislatures of the twenty-six 
 separate German States, and the names given to a number of 
 these differ greatly, and many of these names acquire other 
 meanings in some of these State bodies. P'or most purposes it 
 will suffice if some mention be made here of a few of the main 
 organizations, and to point out some of their peculiar features. 
 
 In the Reichstag one is struck, for example, by the strange 
 fact that it contains numerically about one-fourth of the total 
 membership in factions whose entire programme, or at least its 
 vital part, consists in repudiating and protesting against the 
 existing government and the present order of things. Besides 
 the large Socialist faction of 62 (which is treated rather fully in 
 a separate chapter), there are of these: The Polish faction (13), 
 the Alsace-Lorraine faction (10), the Hanoverian faction (4), the 
 Danish faction (i), and a number of Independents, all of whom 
 "protest" against the state of annexation and amalgamation 
 of their native soil and nationality by Prussia or Germany. 
 This interesting fact seldom becomes apparent, however, 
 to the visitor in the Reichstag, for these members do not, 
 as a rule, take part in either the debates or in the committee 
 work, excepting when the narrowly circumscribed interests of 
 their constituents are involved, which happens, perhaps, once 
 or twice during a whole season. The rest of the time they re- 
 main supine, and content themselves with the consciousness that 
 their mere presence there is a living protest.
 
 POLITICAL LIFE 67 
 
 In Alsace-Lorraine a change of sentiment is slowly being 
 wrought. Part of these provinces — in German politically 
 called the " Reichslande, "or " Lands belonging to the Empire, " 
 and which have no separate sovereign beside the head of 
 the whole nation, but are governed by an Liiperial Stadtholder — 
 are now resigned to their separation from France, but the larger 
 part is still irredentist, and submits with an ill grace to the 
 inevitable. This is especially the case in Upper Alsace (the dis- 
 trict comprising Mulhouse, and stretching along the Swiss fron- 
 tier up to Belfort and Montbeliard) and in the French-speaking 
 portion of Lorraine, around Metz. Several times Alsatian con- 
 stituencies have elected Socialists into the Reichstag, like Bueb 
 and Bebel, and the densely populated industrial districts w411 
 no doubt one day become permanently the legitimate prey of 
 the Socialist propaganda. But the larger portion of this fertile 
 and progressive region is, in its policy of "protest," under the 
 domination and leadership of the Catholic clergy there, who 
 naturally object most strongly to amalgamation with a Protes- 
 tant country like Germany. The bitterest and most resourceful 
 "protest" delegates, therefore, which the annexed French prov- 
 inces sent to the Reichstag, have been Catholic priests and 
 abbots, and they, too, have owned and edited most of the 
 Alsatian journals in which the hope of ultimate reunion with 
 France has been steadily held out. But even their opposition 
 is no longer so violent, and there are signs of a slow process of 
 eliminating the fiercer and irreconcilable "protesters," many of 
 the latter still drifting to France. No difficulty has been ex- 
 perienced from the start with the Alsatians and Lorrainers in 
 the German arm}'. This is owing, of course, in part to the 
 cautious policy pursued of avoiding the formation of inilitary 
 bodies made up largely or wholly of these men from the " Reichs- 
 lande, " who instead have been apportioned to the various 
 regiments in Germany, where they imbibed more or less German 
 sentiment, had to cultivate a knowledge of the German language, 
 and became acquainted with the real sentiments of the nation at 
 large. Returning, these men have often become the best and 
 most useful advocates of reconciliation. But aside from that, 
 the men of these former French provinces have always been good 
 and willing soldiers, which the names of many of the best and
 
 68 GERMANY 
 
 most successful generals during the reign of the two Napoleons 
 attest. Their natural inclination gets the better of them, so to 
 speak, under the new regime. The German government does 
 everything to hasten and facilitate this process of winning over 
 the inhabitants of the " Reichslande, " of course, but it has not 
 always been happy in its choice of means to bring this about. 
 The Kaiser has exerted great influence in this direction, by 
 captivating the lively imagination of the Alsace-Lorrainers, who 
 love, like the French, a dashing soldier for a sovereign, and by 
 showing the population many favours. The fact that he has 
 enlarged and beautified his fine estate near Courcelles, not far 
 from Metz, and that he spends some time there with his family 
 every year, has heightened this effect. Then, too, the domestic 
 and foreign policy of France has for a number of recent years had 
 a deterrent influence on the people of these provinces. In this 
 connection the Dreyfus affair has done much, and the close 
 political affiliation with Russia is also looked upon by them with 
 disfavour. 
 
 The Danish faction (of one member) exerts, of course, no 
 influence upon the Reichstag; neither does the Guelph, or 
 Hanoverian faction, which, aside from its numerical weakness, 
 has never enjoyed much S3^mpathy in Germany, and this for a 
 variety of reasons. The population of this Prussian province 
 enjoys indisputably a far larger measure of prosperity under 
 its present rule than it did under its last Guelph king, blind and 
 obstinate George V, and the larger part of the province is fully 
 reconciled. It is very different, though, with the thirteen 
 members composing the Polish delegation. 
 
 Another anomaly, and in a sense more striking still, which the 
 observer notices in the Reichstag, is the fact that in an over- 
 whelmingly Protestant country like Germany, with its 36,000,000 
 of Protestants against 20,000,000 of Catholics, the Centre (01 
 Catholic Ultramontane party) has become the dominating factor 
 in her political life. There must have been gravely disturbing 
 elements at work to effect such a reversal of natural conditions — 
 that is the inevitable inference. It was the " Culturkampf , " 
 so called, the fiercely fought battle between the Catholic hier- 
 archy and the Protestant State, which Bismarck brought to a 
 climax in the seventies, and which has been mainly responsible
 
 POLITICAL LIFE 69 
 
 for the fact that the largest political faction in Reichstag and 
 Diet was formed, and maintained itself ever since, on the simple 
 lines of its religious faith. The Centre has now one hundred and 
 seven members in the Reichstag, with a constituency of about 
 1,800,000 voters. It is the mightiest single factor in domestic 
 politics. It is, of course, composed of otherwise very hetero- 
 geneous elements — side by side with Prince Arcnberg, whose 
 title is one of the oldest and most honourable in the empire, 
 sits another member of the Centre in whose veins flows churlish 
 peasant blood; and the wealthy Catholic manufacturer of Cologne 
 meets in the same committee a party member whose class in- 
 terests are diametrically opposed to his own. The single co- 
 hesive force binding together this mass of men from every walk 
 of life is their religious creed — a unique thing in international 
 politics. This is not enough, though, to make them a unit on a 
 great number of questions that come up for legislative solution, 
 and on these they often split. Windthorst, physically the 
 smallest but intellectually the most gigantic of Bismarck's foes 
 in Germany, welded the Centre together for a couple of decades, 
 displaying consummate generalship during all crises that his 
 party weathered in the German Parliament. After his death. 
 Doctor Lieber, recently deceased, continued his work, though 
 in a more conciliatory mood. 
 
 The make-up of the Conservative faction, in its two wings — 
 the old-fashioned and uncompromising portion, which is by far 
 the larger, and the Reichspartei, or " Liberal" part of it — is well 
 enough known not to require lengthy explanation. In nunibers 
 it remains far behind both the Centre and Socialist factions, 
 but by the unreformed elective system still in vogue in Prussia 
 and by adhering to the districting plan of thirty-one years ago 
 as far as the elections for the empire are concerned, this party 
 sends about twice as many delegates into the German legislatures 
 as it is by rights entitled to. It thus presents the second largest 
 body of delegates in the Reichstag, and on nine questions out of 
 every ten it is a unit. Its membership is drawn, with few excep- 
 tions, from the wealthiest and privileged classes, numbering in 
 its ranks high government officials, owners of vast estates, etc., 
 and through this fact and their wide and intimate personal and 
 family connections the Conservatives exert an influence both
 
 70 GERMANY 
 
 upon the government and upon legislation which is out of all 
 reasonable proportions. This influence is used largely in further- 
 ing their class interests, and in the main is a most unfortunate 
 one upon the political life of the nation. By confederating with 
 the Centre, and according to circumstances with a part of the 
 National Liberal faction, they are enabled to push through most 
 bills which have been stamped with their approval. They may 
 be called the most reliable government support, at least on all 
 legislation which does not militate against their class interests. 
 
 The enormous decrease of political Liberalism in Germany, 
 which has been one of the most marked symptoms of the past 
 decade, is that feature in the political life of the young empire 
 which fills the friend of Germany with deepest sorrow and with 
 direst forebodings. During the sixties, the Liberals (then called 
 the Fortschrittspartei, or Progressive party) were the dominant 
 party in Prussia, and it was then that Prussia was recognized 
 all over the German-speaking lands as the champion of political 
 progress. This moral factor had as much to do as all others 
 together in giving Prussia her hegemony, and in bringmg about 
 the formation of the North German Confederation, and next the 
 adhesion of the Southern States to the empire. It was during 
 that period that King William I of Prussia, afterwards the first 
 Emperor, seriously feared meeting the same fate as Charles I 
 of England, as Bismarck has told the world since, because of 
 the long conflict between him and his Cabinet on one side, 
 and the Liberal majority in the Diet on the other. From its 
 proud eminence the Liberal party in Germany has sunk to a 
 pitiful depth. Liberalism, as the word was formerly understood 
 in Germany, is almost dead there. And the Reichstag bears 
 eloquent testimony to this fact. 
 
 The National Liberal party, which after the foundation of the 
 Empire represented for a score of years the most important and 
 energetic impulses of the nation, and contributed more than any 
 other to its national unity and greatness, has been steadily de- 
 clining. It now sends but forty-nine members and polls about 
 850,000 votes. It has, besides, ceased to be "Liberal" in all but 
 name. From patriotic it has become "jingo. " In its ranks to-day 
 are found the wildest ranters for Pan-Germanism, men like 
 Doctor Hasse and Doctor Lehr. Their platform has been tinkered
 
 POLITICAL LIFE 
 
 71 
 
 out of all recognition, and more and more of their old-time con- 
 stituencies have repudiated their candidates. The other three 
 Liberal sections, the old Progressive party, its offshoot, the 
 Liberal Association, and the People's party, have come down 
 to 862,000 votes combined. All the Liberals elected either to 
 the Reichstag or the Prussian Diet are numericall}^ too weak to 
 undertake a jDolicy of their own, and they lack cohesion and a 
 community of political aims and interests. Thus, they shift 
 about and are barely able, now and then, to defeat a specially 
 obnoxious measure by filibustering tactics. Under such dis- 
 piriting influences, they have become mere obstructionists. 
 This decrease of Liberalism has occurred since jingoism was in- 
 jected into German politics, and since a blatant and ill-directed 
 greed for colonies took hold of a large part of the nation. Of 
 course, it is too early to surmise what, if anything, will come of 
 those colonial dreams. 
 
 An anachronism as pronounced in its way as the Ultramontane 
 party (or Centre) is the anti-Semite faction. It originated a 
 score of years ago in the so-called Berlin Movement, and ac- 
 quired at that time a good deal of force and a wide spread 
 throughout the empire. At a particular point in its develop- 
 ment this peculiar political creed could boast of a voting strength 
 running close up to a million, and that portion of the press sub- 
 servient to its interests was both numerous and violent. 
 
 Its three shining lights for a time were Hermann Ahlwardt, 
 rector of a college ; Adolf Stoecker, court and cathedral preacher 
 under the old Emperor; and Liebermann von Sonnenberg, a well- 
 known writer. All three of them were forcible speakers, and 
 their methods of appealing to the popular prejudice against the 
 Jews by cunningly devised arguments and wholesale abuse, and 
 by demanding the social, political and business ostracism of this 
 part of the population, proved eminently successful for years. 
 They flooded the country with anti-Semitic pamphlets and cir- 
 culars, explaining the growing wealth of the Jews in Germany 
 by attributing to them greater unscrupulousness and clannish- 
 ness, and declaiming against the ascendancy of Jewish capital; 
 and their newspaper organs, above all the Berlin Staaisburger- 
 Zeitimg, systematically inflamed public opinion to a dangerous 
 pitch. They adroitly manipulated as campaign capital the sen-
 
 72 GERMANY 
 
 sational "Passover murder case" on the lower Rhine, where an 
 orthodox Jewish butcher named Buschoff was charged with the 
 slaughter of a little Christian girl for ritual purposes. In spite 
 of the utmost efforts on the part of the anti-Semites, however, 
 and despite the unsafe state of public opinion at the time of 
 the trial, the court failed to convict Buschoff, and the evidence, 
 such as it was, showed a deplorably low mental condition and 
 the darkest kind of superstition pervading large classes of the 
 German people. After definitely failing in this and several 
 other and similar cases, trumped up for the express purpose of 
 intensifying ancient prejudices, the anti-Semites began to decline 
 as a political factor, though they have every now and then re- 
 newed their demands upon the imperial and the several State 
 legislatures to frame special laws against the Jews. One of 
 their standing demands is to enforce a government translation 
 of the Talmud and of several rabbinical writings, as they claim 
 that such translation would show an orthodox Jewish code of 
 morals wholly at variance with the Christian one and with the 
 best interests of the nation. This demand, however, as sundry 
 other ones, have steadily been declined by both governments 
 and legislatures. 
 
 Thus, anti-Semitism in Germany is no longer a strong factor 
 in politics. Nevertheless, it makes itself greatly felt. The 
 dozen anti-Semite members in the Reichstag, led mostly by 
 Liebermann von Sonnenberg, a flamboyant but effective orator, 
 comprise by no means anti-Jewish sentiment in that body or 
 in the various State legislatures. It is not long ago that a well- 
 known Conservative leader in the Reichstag could say, "To-day 
 every decent man is more or less an anti-Semite," and earn 
 vociferous applause by this remarkable statement. 
 
 The last census gave Germany 567,884 Israelites — i. e., mem- 
 bers of the Mosaic faith. That means but one per cent, of the 
 total population. But in certain parts of the empire the Jews 
 are, nevertheless, a great power. This is the case in the prov- 
 inces of Silesia and Posen, in Hesse-Nassau and the Rhine prov- 
 ince, but particularly in Berlin, which has a Jewish population 
 of over 100,000. In Berlin the Jews occupy indeed an eminent 
 place in public and business life, more especially as financiers 
 and manufacturers, brokers and agents, writers, journalists.
 
 POLITICAL LIFE 73 
 
 actors, artists, etc., and that in a measure explains the strength 
 of the anti-Jewish sentiment in that city. But the curious 
 fact remains that the movement is also strong in parts of 
 Germany where the Jewish admixture in the population is 
 numerically very slight, as in Saxony (9,000 out of 4,000,000), 
 Mecklenburg (489 out of 600,000), and elsewhere. 
 
 This is not the place to go into the question whether Jewish 
 influence upon the recent development of Germany has been 
 in all respects wholesome and uplifting, but it can be truthfully 
 said that the Jewish part of the population there is absolutely 
 necessary to Germany's welfare, and that without it the empire 
 would not have attained so quickly, if at all, that eminence in 
 trade and industry which is the just pride of the nation as a 
 whole. 
 
 While, however, anti-Semitism as a political entity is quite 
 evidently on the wane in Germany, the tide of anti-Semite 
 sentiment is still running fast and furious. 
 
 The Prussian Diet is the legislative body next in importance 
 in Germany. It antedates the Reichstag by a score of years, as 
 it was the outgrowth of the Prussian revolution of 1848, which 
 was fought for a constitution and for legislative representation 
 of the people. It is in many of its features patterned after the 
 English parliament, and has a "Herrenhaus," or house of lords, 
 and a "Abgeordnetenhaus," or house of delegates. The upper 
 house is of minor importance, and its members are either heredi- 
 tary, like the princes of the royal family, the heads of the wealth- 
 ier and more ancient noble families, or are appointed by the 
 Kaiser, as king of Prussia, such as rectors of universities, chief 
 mayors of leading cities, and high court and royal household 
 officials. The lower branch, like the House of Commons, is 
 the more important, and nearly all distinctively Prussian 
 laws of moment originate there. The 433 delegates to this 
 body are elected by the nation, and receive a stipend of 15 marks 
 per diem, or about $3.75, also mileage, and some other emolu- 
 ments. But the suffrage on which this house is elected is not 
 general, as in the case of the Reichstag, but is plutocratic pure 
 and simple. It was Bismarck who stigmatized this antiquated 
 Prussian election law as "the worst in existence." The law 
 works in this way: From the total number of adult citizens in
 
 74 GERMANY 
 
 each of the 433 election districts are eliminated all those who do 
 not pay a certain minimum of direct taxes. This removes 
 nearly the whole labouring population and a considerable frac- 
 tion of the poorer middle classes. The remainder is divided into 
 three classes of electors — those paying the highest amount of 
 taxes in each election district, those paying the next highest 
 amount, and those paying the lowest. Each class, no matter 
 how small the number of those belonging to it, counts as an even 
 third in making up the electoral vote, so that, for instance, 
 three electors in the first class count for as much as the 225 of 
 the second class, or the 14,800 electors of the third. As if this, 
 however, were not sufficiently absurd, no general figures are 
 given as to what shall constitute inclusion in each class, so that 
 in one district, where wealthy taxpayers abound, a tax receipt 
 showing 10,000 marks in taxes paid as a minimum will be neces- 
 sary to secure the privilege of voting with the first class, while 
 in the adjoining district, where not a single wealthy man re- 
 sides, 500 marks paid in taxes will be enough to enjoy that boon. 
 Under the operation of this ridiculous law it has often happened 
 that while a wealthy master tailor has voted in the first class, his 
 customer, a minister of state (though poor), has had to vote in 
 the third class, along with his own coachman and valet. One 
 man in the first class of electors (the only really wealthy man in 
 the town) and three in the second have together outvoted the 
 3,000 or 4,000 electors of the third class in a town of medium 
 size. And so on in all sorts and degrees of unreason. 
 
 Against this travesty on election based on the franchise, the 
 entire Liberal party of Prussia has been arrayed for two genera- 
 tions, but all their efforts have not availed in the slightest. The 
 Prussian government and the present privileged classes there 
 know that under this law they are secure against political or 
 social reforms, and they also know that the Socialists and the 
 entire lower class cannot enter the Diet and "disturb the peace" 
 there, and so they keep this law. 
 
 It is under these circumstances not surprising that the lower 
 house of the Diet is made up of 199 Conservatives and 100 mem- 
 bers of the Centre, while the impotent minority of 134 is com- 
 posed of the various branches of the Liberal party, of the Polish 
 "protesters," etc.
 
 POLITICAL LIFE 75 
 
 But the Kaiser and his Prussian cabinet are playing with 
 a double-edged tool in this matter, for the reactionary ele- 
 ments in the Diet are there in such a strong majority that they 
 feel not the slightest hesitation about defeating the will of the 
 government, whenever that seems to run counter to their class 
 interests, and to frustrate promptly any unwelcome legislation. 
 Thus it happened, for instance, that the Diet, at successive 
 sessions, killed without any compunction the all-important 
 Midland Canal Bills, although the Kaiser had personally pledged 
 himself for their passage and although the government had 
 agreed to all sorts of "compensations" as a reward for their ac- 
 ceptance by the stubborn Agrarian majority. There was a fine 
 tinge of poetic justice in this. 
 
 Political life and parties are a more or less faithful copy of 
 their Prussian prototype in the other twenty-five States of 
 Germany, but with some modifications. There is, for instance, 
 more political freedom observable in South Germany to-day, 
 although the difference is certainly not very marked. The most 
 liberally governed State at present is WUrttemberg, where 
 there is a complete absence of the "Younker" element, and 
 where Icsc iiiajcstc trials are unknown. Bavaria, too, is rather 
 democratic, and her legislative bodies often indulge in an amount 
 of plain speaking which would not be tolerated' for a moment in 
 either the Reichstag or the Prussian Diet. Baden, however, 
 has been Prussianized, in this respect as in others. And the day 
 is gone when South Germany, either in its compact entity or in 
 its individual parts, could determine, or even measurably in- 
 fluence, the political destinies of the nation. These States and 
 their rulers are manipulated so cleverly by the Kaiser and his 
 Chancellor that, consciously or unconsciously, they are made to 
 do Prussia's bidding on all important matters of legislation. 
 This, in fact, is the logical trend of events, the unpalatable price 
 the smaller powers in Germany have to pay for the great boon of 
 national unity 
 
 -F
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 
 
 "We will make short work of the Socialist movement!" 
 This, as Prince Bismarck related one day to a group of friends 
 in Friedrichsruh, after his retirement, is what the young Kaiser 
 said to him a fortnight after his accession to the throne. " Leave 
 that to me," he continued; "I shall win them over to my side 
 inside a year. " 
 
 Bismarck smiled his enigmatic smile, and ventured to point 
 out some of the great difficulties that seemed to stand in the 
 way of such an easy and simple solution. But the Kaiser knew 
 better, and mapped out a whole programme to his own satis- 
 faction. 
 
 The world knows how egregiously he failed. Fourteen years 
 have passed since then, and the Socialist party has grown to 
 more than double the strength it mustered then. To judge by its 
 voting strength, it represents to-day one-fourth of the German 
 people, but even that high estimate is probably below the actual 
 truth. Whoever lives in Germany cannot help mingling daily, 
 almost hourly, knowingly or unknowingly, with Socialists. The 
 valet who gives you admission to his master's drawing-room 
 may be a Socialist. In the ante-chamber of Count Buelow, the 
 Imperial Chancellor, you are likely to meet him. In every 
 government department Socialists are employed by the score. 
 Nay, the Kaiser himself, do what he will, has Socialists at his 
 court and in his immediate entourage. Only thus is the 
 enormous influence of that party, its resources and ramifica- 
 tions that extend everywhere within the Empire, at all 
 explained. 
 
 As the Mayor of Kolberg, in a controversy with the govern- 
 ment district president about the renting of a public hall to a 
 body of Socialists once expressed it, "He who does not want to 
 sit where Socialists have sat, will nowadays be somewhat em- 
 
 76
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 77 
 
 barrassed to find a seat anywhere in Germany ; at least, he cannot 
 any longer travel in railway carriages. What we eat and drink 
 is for the most part made by Socialists. Our clothes have been 
 manufactured by Socialists. You cannot live in a new house 
 in the building of which Socialists have not been engaged. In 
 short, to avoid Socialists or to stigmatize them as a class outside 
 of the pale of respectable society is an absolutely futile task. 
 Only by acknowledging them as a public factor on an equality 
 with all other public factors can the social peace be furthered." 
 
 Indeed, the Mayor of Kolberg did not overstate the facts. 
 Strange as it seems at first blush that at least one in every four 
 men one meets in Germany belongs to a political organization 
 which has written on its banners the obliteration of the present 
 state of government, the abolition of monarchy, and the sub- 
 stitution of the immense army by a much vaster militia body, 
 a party that looks upon the present State as its mortal enemy — 
 it is only too true. It is the same party which the Kaiser, 
 thoroughly recovered from the dream of his first year as a ruler, 
 characterized, at the opening of a new Reichstag session, as a 
 "horde of men unworthy to bear the name of Germans'"; the 
 same party — and the only political party in Germany, be it 
 said, — which by its masterly generalship, its cohesion, and in 
 many cases by the justice of its cause, has defeated the Kaiser 
 whenever he crossed swords with it. His thrice-repeated attempt 
 to force through the Reichstag and the Prussian Diet special 
 legislation putting the Socialists outside the pale of the Constitu- 
 tion and of the common law of the Empire, miscarried utterly. 
 The whole power of a splendidly drilled bureaucracy has been 
 employed in vain against it. Thousands of Socialists have been 
 sent to the hulks for uttering critical or abusive words regarding 
 the Kaiser or monarchy, and the editors of Socialist papers have 
 been sent to jail by hundreds — and all the effect produced was 
 the election to the National Parliament of new Socialist dele- 
 gates and the increased circulation of the Socialist press. 
 
 While no "exemption laws" could be passed against the 
 Socialist party, the existing laws have been strained to their 
 utmost by willing judges, and the enormous powers of an ad- 
 ministration which practically is above the law has been steadily 
 and pitilessly exerted against its followers. Socialists for many
 
 78 GERMAxNY 
 
 years have been virtually denied nearly all the benefits which 
 the constitution confers on every subject — liberty of speech, 
 liberty of the press, liberty of worship, and liberty of associating 
 for political, social or economic purposes. This has, of course, 
 not been rigidly done in every part of the empire. In the large 
 cities, especially, this roughshod overriding of the fundamental 
 law of the empire could not, in many cases, be even attempted, 
 for fear of uprisings, and still more for fear of driving the Liberal 
 and well-to-do portion of the citizens into the Socialist camp as 
 well. But in the rural districts and in the smaller towns, above 
 all in the less enlightened provinces of Prussia, in the North and 
 East, such high-handed measures to stamp out Socialism have 
 been much in vogue, and have found the enthusiastic approval 
 of the Kaiser. But all to no purpose. The ranks of the party 
 have become more serried than ever, and persecution of creed 
 and thought has had in this instance, as it nearly always does, 
 but a contrary effect. 
 
 Were it not for the comparative freedom of speech which 
 still obtains in the Reichstag, and for the 63 Socialist delegates 
 in it, there is small doubt that the Socialist masses would be 
 treated even much more harshly than is the case. But the 
 solid Socialist phalanx in that body calls the worst offenders 
 in this line to account. It is in the army that the Socialist fares 
 worst. Of course, nobody can blame the Emperor for insisting 
 on the stern exclusion of anything like a Socialist propaganda 
 within the army, and on severe punishment for any attempts in 
 that direction. The possession of Socialist literature in any 
 shape — books, pamphlets, newspapers, etc. — and the mere 
 reading of it, is visited by condign retribution. Utterances of a 
 Socialistic nature, too, meet with strict disciplining, and often 
 with long jail sentences. But many cases have been brought to 
 public notice where the culprit, on being asked by his superior 
 officers, merely admitted his Socialist belief, and was thereupon 
 cruelly punished. Every Prussian minister of war makes a 
 point of being severer in this respect than his predecessor has 
 been. This abuse of military authority, as well as similar cases 
 within the province of civil administration, finds castigation on 
 the part of the Socialist spokesmen in the Reichstag and in the 
 legislatures of the different German States, though this cannot
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOX'EMEXT 79 
 
 prevent recurrence, and, besides, leads to worse persecution of 
 the victims, if the latter can at all be traced by the authorities. 
 Still, on the whole, this parliamentary uplifting of the veil that 
 hides these outrages committed from a mistaken sense of zeal, 
 has a salutary effect in checking persecution both in volume and 
 in degree. 
 
 Of course, the Kaiser as well as the whole German government 
 and the different sovereign rulers of the German states, know 
 perfectly well that Socialism, as it exists to-day in Germany, 
 has practically been robbed of its revolutionary sting. Evolu- 
 tion in German Socialism, not so much in its nominal creed as in 
 its practical aims and in the hold it has acquired on the masses, 
 has been more and more away from its original sources. After 
 the savage suppression laws against Socialism which Bismarck 
 framed, and which were in force for a number of years, failed 
 to be renewed by the Reichstag at their expiration, the Socialist 
 party, it is quite true, gained quickly and enormously in 
 numbers. In 1878-79, owing to these repressive measures, the 
 Socialist vote dropped to 312,000 as against their 493,000 votes 
 in 1877. But from that time until the last general election, that 
 of 1898, the Socialist vote rose rapidly and steadily, and in the 
 latter year it attained to 2,107,000, while the vote of all the other 
 parties gradually went down, and to-day some of these parties 
 poll barely one-fourth of their former strength. The parties 
 suffering the most were the Liberal, in its various shades of 
 opinion, with the National Liberal and the Centre following. 
 All the Liberal factions together to-day do not poll as many 
 votes as the Socialists alone, showing plainly tliat whole classes 
 of the population, formerly trusting to a large Liberal party 
 for the carrying out of a programme embodying a greater meas- 
 ure of political liberty, had despaired of that hope, and in that 
 despair turned to the most radical reform party of all as a last 
 resort, and as the only available means of uttering a protest 
 against the present regime. The constituency of the remnant 
 of the once powerful Liberal party has also greatly changed 
 during this process. It used to comprise nearly the whole middle 
 class in Germany — this was preeminently the case before, under 
 Bismarck's warfare against the Catholic Church, the Ultramon- 
 tane Centre was formed — /. c, the best and most progressive
 
 8o GERMANY 
 
 part of the nation. It was this part, in fact, which made Ger- 
 many what it is to-day. But now, after the Centre has become 
 the largest party in parliamentary representation (but by no 
 means in the number of votes polled), owing to the most flagrant 
 and wholesale case of gerrymandering on record in the political, 
 history of any nation, and after the enormous accessions to the 
 Socialist party from the Liberal ranks, the Liberal factions 
 represent in the main the plutocratic interests of Germany, the 
 large banking, shipping, and industrial classes and their millions. 
 In that capacity they still wield, owing to the great wealth 
 represented, a certain, mainly negative, influence on legislation. 
 But their hold on the masses is entirely gone. One by one the 
 election districts held for generations by the Liberals have sur- 
 rendered to triumphant Socialism. The industrial and manu- 
 facturing centres, such as the whole Rhenish and Westphalian 
 provinces, and nearly all the large cities with their rapidly 
 growing population of "hands" employed in factories, textiles, 
 the iron and steel industries, etc., have become strongly Socialistic. 
 Berlin and its suburbs, comprising a population of two and a 
 half millions, has an enormous Socialist majority. So has 
 Hamburg, Breslau, Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz, Altona, Stettin, 
 Konigsberg, Dantzic, Nuremberg, and nearly all other large 
 centres. The election districts of Germany are still the same 
 they were in 1871, although since that time they have changed 
 entirely in their population, the urban ones having in many 
 cases doubled, trebled, and even quadrupled in size, while the 
 rural ones have actually diminished. All attempts to effect a 
 redistricting, however, have been stubbornly resisted by the 
 government as well as by the dominant parties, the Conservative 
 factions and the Centre, even by the National Liberals, since 
 such redistricting would at once increase the Socialist represen- 
 tation by at least one hundred per cent., and decrease the repre- 
 sentation of nearly all other parties, but most of all that of the 
 Conservatives and of the Centre. 
 
 Berlin, for instance, would, with its suburbs, alone send 17 
 Socialists to the Reichstag, instead of 7 as at present. There 
 would then be about 120 Socialist delegates in the Reichstag, 
 out of a total of 397, and the Conservatives would be 
 reduced to less than 50, against their present 91, while the
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT gi 
 
 Centre, instead of 107, as now, would muster barely 60. "With 
 the more radical Liberal wing, now a jjitiful twoscore, but under 
 a redistricting having at least 60 members, and a portion of 
 the numerous Independents, the Socialists would then be the 
 dominant legislative factor in imperial affairs. It is not aston- 
 ishing that the government and the parties now controlling 
 legislation should resist to the utmost such a contingency. 
 In fact, both government and the more extreme factions in the 
 Reichstag usually siding with the government harbour the de- 
 sign of curtailing the general franchise in order to perpetuate 
 their present power before the Socialists have, even under pres- 
 ent unfavourable conditions, attained the control, a thing which 
 is greatly feared by them, and which, judging by the signs of the 
 times, there is abundant reason to fear. For the bye elections 
 that have taken place during the last two years, to replace mem- 
 bers who had died or resigned, have, with one or two exceptions, 
 all resulted in Socialist victories, even in former strongholds of 
 other parties. The whole trend of affairs, in fact, seems to point 
 to very large Socialist increases at the next general elections, 
 in 1903. It is probable that the Socialist gains will be larger 
 than at any previous election. 
 
 These designs of curtailing the general franchise, either by 
 attaching to the ballot the condition of a stipulated minimum 
 of taxation, or by some other discrimination which would dis- 
 franchise large numbers of the lower classes, has thus far met 
 with a determined resistance on the part of the Reichstag ma- 
 jority, composed of the entire Left and part of the Centre, and 
 there does not seem to be any chance to realize it in the near 
 future. However, the plan exists, and whenever the time should 
 come that the government deems it necessary to realize it, the 
 Kaiser and his resourceful advisers may find the means, either 
 in coercing or otherwise influencing the Reichstag, or by an in- 
 fringement of the Constitution, to make a concrete fact of it. It 
 would, indeed, be a matter of life and death with the govern- 
 ment to prevent the Socialists from obtaining control — although 
 the mere majority in the Reichstag would not yet give com- 
 plete control, there being the Bundesrath as a coordinate and 
 equally powerful body to consider, while the amiy Vv'ould still 
 remain, as now, under the sole command of the Kaiser — and
 
 82 GERMANY 
 
 the Kaiser at least is not the man to give up the fight until the 
 last ditch. 
 
 However, it is by no means certain that even if the Socialists 
 should obtain control of imperial affairs in the Reichstag, they 
 would make an attempt to carry their party programme as it was 
 originally framed by their earlier leaders, a programme in its 
 main features corresponding with the doctrines of Marx and 
 Engels, or even of Liebknecht, one of their later prophets. 
 
 Liebknecht, who had suffered much for the faith, and who 
 was put in jail for a long term for "implied Icse majeste " (as the 
 judge who convicted him of this offense, not found in the sta- 
 tutes, phrased it) only a short while before death finally released 
 him from all Prussian jurisdiction, had died happy in the firm 
 belief that the great day of reckoning was close at hand. He, 
 like Bebel and Singer, had been an honest fanatic and an un- 
 daunted champion of Socialism in its earlier form, involving 
 a bloody uprising of the lower against the upper classes and 
 against the present form of government, and a complete reorgan- 
 ization of society on the lines of State control of all the means of 
 production and consumption. This Utopian dream formed, of 
 course, an integral and vital part of orthodox Socialism as taught 
 until a decade ago, and though successive Socialist party con- 
 ventions had gradually weakened and modified this original 
 platform, its main features, smoothed over somewhat, were 
 still contained in the party programme adopted at the great 
 Erfurt convention, in the middle of the eighties. 
 
 Since then, however, a strong counter-current has set in 
 within German Socialism. There has been a steady and in- 
 creasing inclination to lop off from the parent tree these revo- 
 lutionary branches, and to confine the party, in creed as well as 
 in practical aims, to a set of reforms which, radical as they are 
 and diametrically opposed to the class interests of the dominat- 
 ing factors in Germany, could nevertheless be carried out on 
 peaceable lines, and could easily find a place within the present 
 order of society. In its main features this revised programme, 
 though out of deference to the feelings of their old-time leaders 
 it has not been adopted in so many words, not even at the last 
 party convention, is that of a radical reform and labor party. 
 It includes State control of all means of communication and of
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 83 
 
 all factories, mines, shipyards, etc., with the voice of owner and 
 toiler coordinated, and provides for a minimum of wages and 
 a maximum of hours of labor, etc., etc. But it does away with 
 any violent upheaval, witli forcible dispossession, and with nearly 
 every paragraph in the earlier creed to which other political 
 parties, no matter how friendly disposed otherwise to the 
 just demands of labor, have had all along strong objections. 
 And though, as stated above, this new programme has not 
 so far been formally adopted by the Socialists of Germany as a 
 party, largely for sentimental reasons, there is, as a matter of 
 fact, not the slightest doubt that the overwhelming part of their 
 armies have really accepted it as their true aim and wish. 
 This has become plainer year after year, and the older and irre- 
 concilable elements of the party, though still in a good many 
 ways representing the Socialist masses in public, have been 
 pushed to the wall and gradually reduced to a small minority. 
 
 For a time it looked, indeed, as if there would be a formal 
 split in the whole party, with the extreme wing forming the 
 nucleus of a new one, and a year ago Singer, in a public speech 
 in Munich, threatened as much. But at present it seems as if 
 this smaller wing of dyed-in-the-wool Socialists of the earlier 
 Marx school had abandoned that idea, and intended to remain 
 in the party, where their counsel and voice will be in many 
 ways invaluable. As tacticians and campaigners and as po- 
 litical organizers of an opposition party, they are, and will prob- 
 ably continue to be, of immense service to the party and to its 
 younger and less experienced leaders, and as Socialist spokes- 
 men in the Reichstag and elsewhere their influence could hardly 
 be missed. Outside of these practical considerations, of course, 
 the fact that these old-time leaders of Socialism in Germany 
 have been the martyrs of the party on innumerable occasions, 
 and have spent half their lives in jail for the cause of the working 
 man, makes the moral bonds that unite the Socialist masses 
 to them much stronger. 
 
 The great change that has been wrought within the aims and 
 convictions of the Socialist masses in Germany has been due to 
 two great causes. The first of them is the altered character of 
 the rank and file. It was pointed out before that immense 
 accessions have come to the Socialist party during the past ten
 
 84 GERMANY 
 
 years from the various factions of the whilom great Liberal 
 party in Germany, and also from the Centre, especially in the 
 industrial districts of the Catholic Rhine and Westphalian 
 provinces and in some parts of the Polish-speaking districts of 
 Silesia. These recruits, becoming more and more numerous, 
 had for the most part little faith in the sanguinary part of the 
 old Socialist programme, but they firmly believed in the re- 
 forms advocated by the party. Their mere numerical weight, 
 however, great as it was, would not have sufficed to turn the 
 scale. But there was much brain power used in the same di- 
 rection, and the head and front of this intellectual warfare 
 waged against the earlier dogmas of Socialism was Bernstein, 
 for twenty years an exile from Germany — like so many other of 
 the ablest Socialists driven out by Bismarck under his repression 
 laws. He had been, in fact, a fugitive from German justice, 
 and a long term of captivity was awaiting him if he had been 
 found, any time these score of years, on German soil. The 
 "Steckbrief" (a demand upon all German authorities to arrest 
 him wherever found) had been regularly renewed by publication 
 in the Reichsanzeigcr to prevent its losing legal effect. Mean- 
 while Bernstein was following his trade as a writer on economic 
 questions in the British metropolis. The extensive experience 
 he thus acquired in an entirely new field of labor, and the conse- 
 quent widening of his mental horizon, produced due effect in the 
 course of time. Bernstein modified his theories on Socialism 
 more and more. He has been recognized within the Socialist 
 party for many years as the intellectual successor of Engels and 
 Marx, as the most scientific and keenest thinker on their side. 
 This opinion became so firmly grounded among the Socialist 
 masses while he was still an exile that it cannot be uprooted 
 now. During the last years of his stay in England he wrote and 
 published a series of books and pamphlets which found a power- 
 ful reflex in Germany, and which have done more than any 
 other single thing in moulding anew the doctrines on which 
 theoretic Socialism is built. But his main work in this line has 
 been done since his return to Germany. For a couple of years 
 ago his "Steckbrief" was not renewed by the German govern- 
 ment, which in itself is a very significant fact, since the omission 
 can hardly have been due to an oversight. Bernstein returned
 
 THE SOClALIvST MOVEMENT 85 
 
 to the party fold in Germany. Upon his return the entire 
 SociaHst press sang paeans of joy. But a goodly part of this 
 press has since changed its tune. For Bernstein issued in quick 
 succession a number of pithily written and wholly convincing 
 writings wherein he demolished, one after the other, the strongest 
 pillars upon which the old Socialist structure, as a scientific, 
 political, and economic system, rests — the dogma of the steadily 
 advancing pauperization of the masses; of a social cataclysm 
 being bound to come ; and of the tmearned increment in the 
 capitalists' incomes, etc., etc., — and there has been nobody 
 within the Socialists' ranks able to disprove his arguments and 
 conclusions. 
 
 A great howling and shouting and gnashing of teeth set in 
 within the Socialist part}^ and in a measure this still continues. 
 The old irreconcilable leaders, foremost among them, of course, 
 Bebel, Singer, and Auer, began to call for the ostracism of this 
 heretic. A campaign was opened against him, in which nearly 
 all the old-time leaders at first joined. One of the most in- 
 fluential Socialist papers, the Tribncne of Erfurt, clearly proving 
 that he had, seriatim, denied and tried to destroy all the essential 
 theories upon which Socialism is founded, demanded his removal 
 from the party. The central organ of German-speaking 
 Socialism, the Vorwarts in Berlin, which at first had rejoiced 
 at his return, now mentioned him with cool disapproval. But 
 below all this noise and animosity was plainly perceptible the 
 fear that Bernstein had the great mass of Socialism with him in 
 this matter, and that if the old leaders insisted on his forcible 
 removal from the party, it would be they who would be de- 
 feated. There were all sorts of indications of that. So, after 
 a while, the open opposition against him and his teachings died 
 down, and the new situation created by him is about as briefly 
 outlined above. The irredentist part of the Socialist army has 
 virtually subsided, and thereby acknowledged its overthrow. 
 A truce, if not indeed a peace, has been declared between the 
 warring factions, and at the last party convention the breach 
 has been patched up, and a sort of amicable understanding 
 tacitly established between them. A short while later, not 
 many months ago, Bernstein was elected into the Reichstag by 
 one of the most influential and largest Socialist constituencies
 
 86 GERMANY 
 
 in the whole Empire, and the stamp of approval thus formally 
 affixed to his work. He is now the acknowledged leader of the 
 larger and more enlightened as well as moderate wing of the 
 Socialist party in Germany. 
 
 That these new conditions are permanent and not of an evan- 
 escent character is seen by every unbiased and observant poli- 
 tician in Germany. But there are, on the other hand, many, 
 even whole political parties, who do not wish to see, and who, 
 by keeping up the cry against the Socialists, expect to reap 
 political or personal advantages. It is an open secret, for ex- 
 ample, that the Kaiser, and through him the government, has 
 not dared to break with the Conservative party, although often 
 sorely tempted to do so, because his entourage has known how 
 to impress him with at least a suspicion that the Socialist party 
 as a whole is only kept from rising in a bloody revolution, in 
 which his crown and all the institutions, political and religious, 
 which he holds dear would be at stake, by the constant fear of 
 an army absolutely devoted to him, the Kaiser; that to make 
 any pact or compromise with the Socialist party would be worse 
 than any humiliation the Conservative party may subject him 
 to, and that such a thing, in fact, is out of the question with 
 him. 
 
 The Kaiser was greatly shocked when he heard, some time 
 ago, that a monarch as proud as himself — namely, Francis Joseph 
 of Austria, met and conversed in friendly fashion with the 
 Austrian Socialist leader, Pernerstorffer, and that his relative. 
 Grand Duke Ernest Ludwig of Hesse, did the same with a 
 Hessian Socialist leader. It is a pity that the German Kaiser 
 has had his mind systematically poisoned against so many 
 millions of his subjects as to reject all approach, even the slight- 
 est, from that quarter. If it were possible to convince him of the 
 real truth, viz., that the bulk of these German Socialists are 
 to all practical intents and purposes good enough citizens, who 
 make the best soldiers, the best and most intelligent mechanics 
 and artisans, the best industrial toilers, whose handiwork has 
 enriched the empire and made of it a great industrial and ex- 
 porting country, and that they pay their taxes as regularly as 
 the rest of the population — that would be a great step forward 
 in freeing him from his mediaeval shackles, from the tutelage
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 87 
 
 and the almost exclusive influence of the reactionary classes 
 in Germany, the "Younker" party, the mortgage-ridden and 
 caste-proud manorial lords of the unprogressive eastern and 
 northern Prussian provinces, and give him a much firmer and 
 broader hold upon his people than the army with its bayonets, 
 an army, by the way, composed about one-third of young 
 Socialists, or sons of Socialists, can give him. Of course, one 
 cannot blame the Kaiser for feeling offended that his dis- 
 tinct advances during the first year of his reign were rejected 
 almost with scorn by the Socialists, and that he cannot have a 
 feeling of affection for a party whose platform embodies an anti- 
 monarchic plank. But neither can one blame the Socialists for 
 harbouring a strong dislike for a ruler who has done his best to 
 estrange their feelings by endless and unjust persecution, and 
 by applying to them the strongest terms of opprobrium that 
 ever fell from the lips of a monarch toward his own subjects. 
 Strong contrasts of political belief are noticeable between rulers 
 and ruled in other enlightened countries, this country and 
 England included. But nowhere else is there such a systematic 
 and wholesale attempt to put a large part of the nation virtu- 
 ally without the pale of the constitutional and legal guarantees 
 that encircle the liberties of all. There is, indeed, small doubt 
 that if at this present juncture of Socialist development in 
 Germany the Kaiser and his government were to abandon 
 forever their present policy of unconstitutional repression, and 
 show unmistakably their good faith in this matter, a modus 
 Vivendi could be established with the Socialist party that need 
 not be derogatory to imperial dignity, and that would suffice 
 for all practical purposes of politics. 
 
 The Socialists, in fact, had given repeated proof, even before 
 the transition described above had been fully wrought, that 
 they can be had for the asking in furthering or framing important 
 legislation not in dissonance with their creed. The most striking 
 instance of this they gave under the regime of Count Caprivi, 
 Bismarck's successor, the only chancellor so far who faced the 
 Socialists without prejudice. Without their votes Caprivi's 
 system of commercial treaties could never have been passed. 
 And yet it was this which enabled Germany to start out on that 
 brilliant industrial and commercial career which has been, for
 
 88 GERMANY 
 
 a decade, the marvel of the world. It was these same com- 
 mercial treaties which the Kaiser, in conferring the order of the 
 Black Eagle and a correspondingly high rank upon Caprivi, 
 termed "a real saving deed." Much of the work done by the 
 Socialists in the various legislative bodies of Germany, but above 
 all in the Reichstag, redounds to the best interests of all classes 
 of the Empire, although, of course, their main efforts are directed 
 towards benefiting their constituents, the labouring classes. But 
 that, too, is to the interests of the whole nation. Their work in 
 the various committees of the Reichstag — and they hold the 
 chairmanship of some of the most important — is more pains- 
 taking and conscientious than that of any other party, and is 
 so acknowledged. In acting as a radical leaven in the broad 
 mass of tame subserviency which the majority of the Reichstag 
 presents, they consciously or unconsciously accomplish a vast 
 amount of good, and prepare the way for a more liberal general 
 policy in the empire, but above all help greatly in preserving 
 at least that modicum of freedom in speech, press and religious 
 worship Vv^hich has survived the fourteen years of quasi abso- 
 lutist government inaugurated by the present Kaiser. With 
 them and their influence permanently removed from the 
 Reichstag it is hard to conceive to what depths of inanity and 
 impotence that body would have sunk by now. 
 
 It has often been stated that the German government has 
 done more, and is doing more, than any other for the good of the 
 toiling masses, and in proof of this assertion the inquirer is 
 pointed to the well-known so-called "Social Legislation." This 
 consists, as the world knows, in the laws providing for com- 
 pulsory insurance, invalid and old-age pensions, and accident 
 premiums paid the wage workers in mines, factories, industrial 
 establishments of every kind, and, to some extent, also, to those 
 in domestic service.* 
 
 The benefits which the labouring millions in the cities and 
 
 ♦The rural labouring population has been omitted throughout in this 
 legislation, owing to the determined opposition of the Agrarian party, 
 whose contention it is that such an additional biu-den would ruin them. 
 No legal restriction whatever is placed on the rural employer; his farm 
 hands work as long as he makes them, which in harvest time and during 
 the sugar beet "campaign" means i6 to i8 hours. Child labour and 
 woman labour have no boundaries set, either in the matter of wages or 
 hours. Death or accidents while at field labour are in nowise compensated.
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 89 
 
 towns of Germany derive from these laws are undeniable, 
 although by no means as large as might be supposed. For one 
 thing — and that is the main drawback to their efficiency — the 
 collection and administration of the funds out of which these 
 moneys are subsequently paid have been made so cumbersome 
 and withal so needlessly expensive, that a clear third of all 
 the sums paid goes into the pockets of the army of small 
 bureaucrats who are entrusted with this task, and who are a 
 sad incumbrance on the actual toiler who is to be benefited. 
 Magnificent palaces have been erected by the government 
 out of these moneys of the poor, in which vast hordes of these 
 administrative government employes are housed. The most 
 gorgeous of these palaces — for no other name will fit — stands on 
 one of the most aristocratic avenues of Berlin. The biting 
 sarcasm of the masses has dubbed it the "Klebepalast" — /. e., 
 "Pasting Palace" — in token of the fact that the millions required 
 to erect it came from the weekly "pasters" which every employe 
 and employer in the Empire has to buy and affix every week 
 to the pages of small booklets provided for the purpose. Nor 
 is this all. Much of the money paid under these laws both by 
 employer and employe never reaches the persons for whose 
 behoof it is ostensibly intended, for there are whole lists of 
 exceptions, annulments, etc., owing to sins of commission and 
 omission on the part of the laborer. Again, the old-age limit 
 is fixed entirely too high. Sixty is an age which not one in 
 twenty reaches in whole branches of unhealthy industries, such 
 as mining, chemical specialties, polishers and grinders, etc., etc. 
 But above all, the amounts finally paid the beneficiary in case of 
 complete disablement or old age are entirely insufficient to meet 
 the purposes for which the law was passed. Twenty-five to 
 thirty cents per diem is not enough, even in the most frugal dis- 
 tricts of Germany, and even with the greatest amount of rigid 
 economy, to subsist on. And in many cases the allowance is 
 even smaller than that. The laborer himself has contributed, 
 out of his meager income, one-half of the whole fund that has 
 accumulated during his lifetime, and in the end he is, by prema- 
 ture death, cheated out of the blessings held out to him so en- 
 ticingly for many years, or else he receives a mere pittance on 
 which it is impossible for him to live the brief space still allotted
 
 90 GERMANY 
 
 to him. These and a number of other drawbacks to the present 
 system not enumerated here have embittered the working 
 masses in this respect. They feel that instead of a real reform 
 they receive but the semblance of one. 
 
 All these defects have been pointed out many times in the 
 Socialist and non-Socialist press of Germany, but nothing is 
 being done or even attempted, and nothing seems likely to be 
 done for many years to come to better matters. The sentiment 
 among employers all over Germany is that to impose a greater 
 burden than their present ones on them in this respect would 
 seriously handicap them in competition with their foreign 
 rivals in industrial output, and this sentiment they have 
 known how to impose upon the government and the legislative 
 bodies. But even the little tangible good actually achieved by 
 this much-heralded "social reform" legislation is clearly at- 
 tributable, not to the initiative of the imperial government, 
 but to the influence of the Socialists themselves. Bismarck it 
 was who framed and pushed these bills through the Reichstag 
 and the Bundesrath, and we have it from his own mouth that 
 his single motive in doing this was to "take the wind out of the 
 Socialist sails," as he phrased it. For the Socialists had, through 
 their delegates in the Reichstag, for 5^ears advocated, and very 
 forcibly, too, just such measures, only more comprehensive and 
 shorn of the present ballast of costly bureaucratic management, 
 and up to the moment that it struck Bismarck as a clever strate- 
 gic move to take their scheme up himself, not the slightest at- 
 tention had been paid by the government to the Socialist cry 
 for relieving the aged or invalid toiler. It is, therefore, not very 
 surprising that the Socialist party, and with it the entire 
 labouring class of Germany, does not consider a large amount of 
 gratitude as the proper share of the government in this matter. 
 
 But, generally speaking, the German labouring classes, whether 
 Socialist in creed or not, both in city and country, have a long 
 and serious list of grievances. Nowhere else in modern times 
 are the relations between employer and employed so unsatis- 
 factory. Caste spirit is nowhere else so strong. That fair 
 measure of manly independence exacted by the worker and ac- 
 corded by the wage-giver in other countries is as yet not the 
 German workingman's. He is still looked upon as the serf, the
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 91 
 
 "thing" of the man whose bread he eats, and the treatment he 
 receives is, leaving exceptions out of the calculation, on a par 
 with this low estimate in which he is held. The Kaiser's inti- 
 mate adviser and friend for many years, the late Baron Stumm, 
 a multi-millionaire and owner of huge iron, steel and coal inter- 
 ests in the Saar district, was a man who embodied to the full this 
 type of German employer. His sway over his army of 25,000 
 workmen was not only autocratic but tyrannical as well. He 
 was inexorable in the demands he made upon every fibre of his 
 "hands." He allowed no strikes, of course, no representations 
 by his men about any unjust overseer or foremen, no complaint 
 about anything whatever. He allowed no newspapers except 
 those approved by him in the homes of his men. He dictated 
 to them whom they were to vote for at elections. He discharged 
 and blacklisted any man who dared disobey him in the slight- 
 est. In short, he played high-handed omnipotence in the large 
 district he ruled absolutely (a district popularly known as 
 "Saarabia"), about as sternly as it is at all given to man to do. 
 And this man was after the Kaiser's own heart, and his methods, 
 condemned even by nine-tenths of the unprogressive employ- 
 ers in the empire, found the Kaiser's enthusiastic endorsement 
 on numerous public occasions. His case was an extreme one, 
 it is true, but in the main the principle he unflinchingly stood 
 for, that of absolute non-interference by the employe, is to this 
 day the ruling one in Germany. On the other hand, constant 
 interference by the employer in the private affairs of his men is 
 not only held permissible but praiseworthy, and public opinion 
 supports this view. The toiler of the wage-earning classes, in 
 other words, is to this day looked upon in Germany as a being 
 deficient in sense to the degree necessitating constant surveil- 
 lance. He is, as a rule, treated harshly, often brutally and 
 cruelly. Nobody makes it his business (always excepting the 
 Socialist party) to enforce his rights as an adult and thinking 
 fellow-creature, and as a fellow-citizen protected by the same 
 constitution which confers similar rights upon the other classes 
 of the population. 
 
 Every attempt to enforce these constitutional rights by law- 
 ful means is discouraged, above all by the very power which 
 ought to aid in enforcing them — the courts. Germany is still
 
 92 GERMANY 
 
 a land of class legislation, but even more of class administration. 
 There is no such thing as even-handed justice, where the parties 
 to a quarrel belong the one to the upper crust and the other to 
 the lower strata of society. This is a grave charge to make 
 against an otherwise so enlightened country, but it is amply 
 borne out by the facts. Is it any wonder, then, that the rigo- 
 rous maintenance of such class distinctions and of class rule has 
 bred in the lower classes a fierce and inextinguishable hatred of 
 their oppressors ? 
 
 Class legislation and administration ! For proof of this one 
 has not far to go. The records of the German courts teem with 
 convictions and harsh sentences imposed against the poorer 
 classes for the most trifling offenses. Strikes, for instance, are 
 permissible under the laws. But several late special laws, fixing 
 very severe penalties for strike sentinels, for intimidation, and 
 other excrescences incidental to industrial warfare of this kind, 
 and, more than these laws, the far-reaching interpretation given 
 by the courts to them, practically render the right to strike 
 illusory, or at best very dangerous. Any breach of the peace, 
 easily committed by uneducated men when in a state of intense 
 excitement, are also draconically punished by the courts. And 
 so it goes all through the list. Similar offenses committed by 
 members of the educated classes find much more lenient judges. 
 All through his life of unrelieved and hard toil the German 
 workman meets severity and an utter lack of sympathy on the 
 part of the ruling classes. 
 
 In the matter of taxation the lower classes are again dis- 
 criminated against most unfairly. This fact obtrudes itself 
 upon every impartial observer in Germany, and it is this which 
 gives the Socialist agitator his heaviest ammunition. Here are, 
 for instance, some figures, taken from German official sources, 
 bearing out the claim. The German imperial budget for 1898-99 
 was 4,980,000,000 marks, or about 1,200 million dollars. Of 
 this sum fourteen per cent, went to the army and ten per cent, 
 to the navy. About twenty dollars per capita is what the 
 imperial government required. This, be it noted, does not in- 
 clude all the taxes raised by the separate states, towns, and 
 provinces for their own support. Of course, the labouring popu- 
 lation has to pay its full share for this support of both army and
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 93 
 
 navy, about seventy-three out of every hundred serving belong- 
 ing to that class. Now, where does a large part of the taxes 
 come from ? The tax and revenue system in Germany seems 
 to be gotten up so as to lie with crushing force upon the weary 
 backs of the poor. For the whole sum from import duties for 
 igoi is 478,978,000 marks. Of this the duty on cereals was 
 131,557,000 marks; on petroleum, 70,913,000; on coffee, 
 64,503,000; on lard, 12,540,000; on cotton, yarn and finished, 
 8,804,000; on meats, 8,459,000; on rice, 5,365,000; on salt her- 
 rings, 3,045,000; on cheese, 2,991,000; on tea, 2,856,000; on 
 eggs, 2,793,000; on cattle and sheep, 2,666,000; on butter and 
 margarine, 2,608,000; on table fats, 2,382,000; etc. It will be 
 noticed that these articles, which are so greatly enhanced in price 
 in Germany by high duties, are all articles for the poor man's 
 consumption. Then, as to the internal revenue taxes. Three of 
 the principal ones, viz., on tobacco, sugar, and salt, and the tax 
 on home-made spirituous liquor, figure in the returns for 1901, 
 respectively, as 11,960,000 marks, 111,380,000 and 48,943,000; 
 and liquor, which is twice taxed for internal consumption, is 
 put down as 109,768,000 and 18,087,000, while the brewing tax 
 amounts to 31,136,000. The government which thus raises the 
 price of nearly every foodstuff and liquid the poor require 
 encourages the distiller (who is nearly always owner of a big 
 rural estate) in every possible way. 
 
 From all the facts cited above it will be apparent that the 
 lower classes in Germany, from whose number after all the rank 
 and file of the Socialist party are largely drawn, though the 
 small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and other strata of the lower 
 middle class have of late years also flocked to it in ever increas- 
 ing numbers, have indeed serious reason for complaint, and 
 that it is not astonishing that they wish, somehow and anyhow, 
 for a radical change of system. It must not be supposed, how- 
 ever, that the higher classes in Germany are a unit in thus keep- 
 ing the lower classes under by fair means and foul. The best 
 mind of the nation, in fact, not only recognizes the dire need of 
 meting out a fuller measure of justice to the labouring classes, 
 but freely acknowledges the great guilt of the nation committed 
 in its treatment of this part of it, the one standing most in need 
 of kindness, forbearance, and consideration. Movements like
 
 94 GERMANY 
 
 those set afoot by the orthodox Pastor von Bodelschwingh and 
 by the hberal Pastor Naumann, the latter amounting to an or- 
 ganized attempt to fight SociaHsm with a counter-party having 
 similar aims but exempt from all strictly Socialist features, 
 show that this consciousness of guilt has penetrated large strata 
 of the upper classes. The clergy all over Germany, in fact, is 
 more and more coming around to the opinion that instead of 
 treating the Socialist, singly and cii masse, as an enemy worthy 
 only to be exterminated, the proper way is to try and understand, 
 and if possible rectify, his just grievances. This of late is espe- 
 cially true of the Protestant clergy, who have allowed these mil- 
 lions of the disinherited of this earth to drift away from their in- 
 fluence and teachings, while the Catholic priesthood in Germany 
 still persists in treating them as accursed of God and man. 
 But the highest trained intellect in the empire, the professors 
 and university teachers, have likewise begun to preach a different 
 mode of combating Socialism than the one in vogue with them 
 for so long. They have seen a not inconsiderable portion of 
 their former hearers and students turn to Socialism and swell 
 the rising flood of the "learned proletariat" of the country, and 
 their cool and haughty indifference is fast disappearing with 
 such an object lesson before their eyes. 
 
 An increasing number of the most noted professors of econom- 
 ics, history, and political science in the leading universities have 
 under this new impulse begun to publish writings in which the 
 idea is clearly brought out that to cure the nation of its Socialism 
 it is above all necessary to cure the evils and to redress the 
 Wrongs which have caused the movement. These writings 
 have met with just as violent opposition as acclaim, but in 
 any case they have not failed of a deep impression which augurs 
 well for the future. In a recent number of the Deutsche Monats- 
 schrift, one of the leading German magazines, Prof. Rudolph 
 Sohm, of the University of Breslau, advocated a perfect pro- 
 gramme for the regeneration of German political life, and in this 
 the idea of rendering tardy justice to the German laboring classes 
 occupied a prominent place. 
 
 It is indeed necessary to remember the historic development 
 of Germany in order to understand the low political and social 
 status of the lower class — the labouring man, the mechanic,
 
 THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 95 
 
 the small shopkeeper, the farm hand. This class has never been 
 able to acquire what the same class of the population has ac- 
 quired in France since the great Revolution, in England during 
 the course of the nineteenth century, on social and political 
 lines, and what has been the birthright of every man in the great 
 American Republic since its foundation. The only revolution 
 that ever took place in Germany, that of 1848-49, proceeded 
 from the middle classes, and had purely political reform for its 
 aim. It lasted, besides, too short a time, and was not successful 
 in the end. When its waves had rolled back, things returned 
 much to their old level. Thus it was that the status of the lower 
 classes, and of the poorer middle classes, had virtually not 
 changed when Lassalle and Marx and the other earlier Socialist 
 leaders began to make their appeals to the "proletariat"; and, 
 excepting the political and social awakening for which the 
 Socialist party is responsible in Germany, there has come no 
 other to the masses of the lower strata. They are still, even 
 where the leaven of Socialism has worked, rather behind their 
 fellows in countries more favoured politically, so far as self- 
 respect, maturity of convictions and sturdy independence are 
 concerned. These reasons explain, of course, partially the 
 remarkable rise of Socialism as a political and social power in 
 Germany. For there is no gainsaying the fact that it has had, 
 in many respects, a salutary effect on the masses there. It has 
 quickened the intellect of the worker, and has first enabled him 
 to think, however faultily, on political and economic topics. 
 It has, by organizing thousands of social clubs, given these 
 whilom dull and torpid masses a genuine taste for and appreci- 
 ation of purely aesthetic pleasures, such as music, singing, 
 theatrical performances, concerts, and above all, books. The 
 Socialists in Germany have done what the government had left 
 undone, viz., founded thousands of workingmen's libraries. 
 The Socialist press has in this respect done wonders. 
 
 Thus, looking over the vast field of German Socialism, the 
 unbiassed observer finds much that he cannot help admiring. 
 The cohorts and legions that obey the Socialist trumpet call 
 are by no means the dullards and fools which persons not ac- 
 quainted with the real facts are too prone to fancy them. What 
 the final issue of the great struggle will be which the Socialist
 
 96 GERMANY 
 
 party, single-handed, is making against all the powers of gov- 
 ernment and society there, it is too early to predict. Certain it 
 is, however, that the party is making headway, and that it is 
 gaining over to its ranks an increasing percentage of the cultured 
 middle classes as well. It is also certain that just at present at 
 least there is no prospect of a more liberal form and spirit of 
 government save and alone through this very Socialist party. 
 Shorn of its revolutionary character, freed from its former vis- 
 ionary features, and reduced to a radical and democratic reform 
 programme, there seems no valid reason why this party should 
 not have a great future in store. It alone, of the score of politi- 
 cal parties and factions in the Empire, has great ideals and aims, 
 and it alone is a living and growing force, throbbing with power, 
 with hope, and with faith in its own destiny.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE POLISH PROBLEM IN PRUSSIA 
 
 A NUMBER of manifestations in the Polish provinces of Prussia, 
 giving evidence of a growing spirit of unrest and of dissatisfac- 
 tion with existing conditions, and a marked desire to force the 
 Prussian government to abandon its present poHcy, have re- 
 cently awakened fresh interest in the Polish problem, and more 
 especiall}^ so far as it concerns Prussia. 
 
 It is of interest to note that it is precisely in that part of 
 ancient Poland which is in a material Vv^ay by far the most pros- 
 perous, as well as intellectually the most advanced, namely, the 
 Prussian section, that the Polish national spirit is now most 
 vigourously asserting itself. The Austrian part, known politi- 
 cally as the Kingdom of Galicia, has practically been enjoying 
 autonomy for a generation; and there the Polish element, con- 
 stituting the bare majority, in a total population of about seven 
 millions, is dominant both politically and sociall}^ But Galicia, 
 economically and intellectually considered, is far behind the 
 Polish provinces of Prussia. This is also true in a still higher 
 degree of Russian Poland. The reasons which operate in bring- 
 ing about this strenuous resistance to Prussian rule in the Polish 
 provinces are diverse. The principal ones, however, are differ- 
 ences of race and creed. 
 
 The only two provinces of Prussia which can be properly 
 called Polish — that is, where the Poles are numerically pre- 
 dominant — are Posen and West Prussia. There are also, how- 
 ever, in the provinces of East Prussia ana Silesia, large districts 
 which are settled almost exclusively by people of Polish race. 
 In Silesia it is the "upper" or eastern portion, adjoining Russia 
 and Austria, which is Polish, and in that region Polish agitation 
 is of very recent growth. But it has made rapid progress there, 
 so much so that at recent elections to the Reichstag and the Diet 
 the candidates of the Polish party were triumphant. Altogether, 
 the population of Polish blood and language in these four prov- 
 
 97
 
 g8 GERMANY 
 
 inces numbers about two and a half millions. Scattered through- 
 out the remainder of the empire, or settled in more or less com- 
 pact colonies — particularly in the mining districts of Westphalia 
 and the Rhine, but also in both the Prussian provinces of Saxony 
 and in the little kingdom of Saxony, as well as in Berlin and its 
 suburbs, where there is alone a Polish population of about 50,- 
 000 — another half-million of Poles may be found. But while the 
 latter cause the Prussian government some anxiety for various 
 reasons, it is in the Polish provinces that they have become a 
 real danger to the State. 
 
 Disaffection had repeatedly shown itself in previous years. 
 Both during the Polish rising of 1 846 in Russia and Austria and 
 during that of 1863 in Russia there were evident signs of it on 
 Prussian territory as well. But while a few slight skirmishes 
 took place between Prussian detachments and ill-organized 
 bands of Polish insurgents, there was no general insurrection of 
 the Poles in Prussia. Since 1863 Polish disaffection both in 
 Prussia and Russia has been latent. 
 
 So far as the material development of her Polish provinces 
 goes, Prussia deserves unstinted praise. This can be shown on 
 every count. When they became an integral portion of the 
 Prussian monarchy, the condition of these provinces was truly 
 deplorable. Not only German but also French and Polish 
 writers agree in this judgment. Frederick the Great, with his 
 characteristic energy, at once went about the task of ameliora- 
 tion. He devoted a considerable portion of Prussia's meagre 
 resources to improvements of every kind. Whole villages and 
 towns were rebuilt. The impoverished peasantry was furnished 
 with seed corn, potatoes and cattle, and taxes were remitted for 
 years. German colonies were established, and for a long time 
 the government aided them in attaining a sound financial basis. 
 German mechanics and merchants, German physicians and 
 druggists, were encouraged to settle in Polish towns. The civil 
 administration, which had been in a chaotic and wholly unsatis- 
 factory state, was put on a sound basis, and security of life and 
 property was rigidly enforced. During the fourteen years that 
 intervened between the acquisition of these Polish lands and 
 the death of Frederick the Great, the population had increased 
 nearly fifty per cent., and a revival of prosperity was apparent.
 
 THE POLISH PROBLEM IN PRUSSIA 99 
 
 This policy of improvement has been more or less faithfully 
 adhered to by all the Prussian rulers from that time on. Of 
 course, the long Napoleonic wars and Prussia's reverses between 
 1806 and 1 81 3, during which time she was deprived of her Polish 
 provinces, had an unfortunate effect upon the latter. But with 
 the restoration of peace and readjustment on the same politi- 
 cal lines as obtained before the Napoleonic upheaval came a 
 return to steady if slow improvement. 
 
 The more rapid rise of these provinces, economically con- 
 sidered, dates, however, from 1863. It is coincident with the 
 long and successful reign of William I, afterward chosen German 
 Emperor. Within the last forty years the wealth of the Polish 
 sections of Prussia has quadrupled. The Polish spendthrift 
 nobility, who were in the habit of squandering their revenues 
 in riotous fashion in either Paris or Warsaw, have become thrifty 
 and money-wise, and much of their capital is now safely deposited 
 in Polish banks. Agricultural methods have undergone a 
 radical change for the better. Primitive tools and contrivances 
 have given place to labour-saving machinery, and the work of the 
 small farmer and tenant has become much more efficient. On 
 the larger estates especially, ov/ing to more intense culture and to 
 the establishment of beet-sugar factories and distilleries, revenues 
 have vastly increased, and the old and rickety bams and stables 
 have been replaced by solid, well-constructed buildings. Min- 
 erals, which formerly were left where nature had placed them, 
 are now scientifically mined. Iron and coal are among the most 
 important staples of Upper Silesia, and salt and iron mines are 
 worked at a handsome profit in West Prussia. Agricultural 
 products of every kind have greatly improved in quality, and 
 cattle and horses of good breeds are now the rule. Agricultural 
 fairs are an established institution. 
 
 The greatest boon, however, that has come to these provinces 
 is the rise of a sturdy and fairly prosperous middle class. It was 
 the absence of this class which probably contributed more than 
 any other single factor to the downfall of Poland as a nation. 
 Up to about twenty-five years ago the small middle class to be 
 met with in Polish towns and cities was composed almost wholly 
 of Germans and Jews. To-day the young and well-educated 
 generation of Poles have largely replaced them. Polish mer-
 
 loo GERMANY 
 
 chants, bankers, shopkeepers, mechanics, artisans, physicians, 
 lawyers and engineers are now in the majority. 
 
 Within the last two years the Prussian government has de- 
 cided on another vast scheme for benefiting these provinces. 
 This was done at the instance of the late Prussian Minister of 
 Finance, Doctor von Miquel, a very able man. His programme, 
 which was carried through the Prussian Diet, binds the State, 
 for an indefinite period, to an annual expenditure of some ten 
 million marks in erecting new and substantial schoolhouses, 
 public libraries, museums, and buildings for higher institutions 
 of learning, the latter, of course, in a few of the centrally located 
 cities, like Posen and Dantzic. Special appropriations are made 
 for the adequate endowment of these institutions. 
 
 Education has, of course, also made rapid strides. While in 
 the Polish provinces of Russia illiteracy is still frightfully prev- 
 alent, the latest obtainable statistics showing but twenty in 
 every hundred of the population able to read and write, the per- 
 centage of illiterates in the Polish provinces of Prussia is but 
 slightly above three — surely a striking contrast. Compulsory 
 education is now strictly enforced. The percentage of Poles 
 who study at German universities has increased tenfold since 
 1880. German scholars of Polish race have of late distinguished 
 themselves on several conspicuous occasions. The projected 
 establishment of a fine and liberally endowed technical high- 
 school in Dantzic will be another step in advance. 
 
 In fine, nobody conversant with the facts can doubt that the 
 material and intellectual progress of these Polish provinces under 
 Prussian rule has for the last generation been all that could be 
 reasonably expected. While it is true that even to-day the 
 material and mental level of that region is not as high as in the 
 western provinces, with their greater natural resources and their 
 older civilization, it is equally true that the relative gain in the 
 former has been more marked. 
 
 In her political attitude toward her Polish subjects, Prussia 
 has not, however, been so successful. It is true that she has 
 never used such harsh or cruel measures in suppressing Polish 
 national aspirations as Russia has employed all along. But, for 
 one thing, there are enormous racial and religious differences that 
 interpose obstacles in the path of amalgamating the Pole with
 
 THE POLISH PROBLEM IN PRUSSIA loi 
 
 the Northern Prussians. And, for anotlier thing, Prussia has 
 been neither consistent nor wise in her endeavour to Germanize 
 the Poles. There has been neither a steady poHcy of suppression 
 nor one of moral suasion. Her policy in this respect has mate- 
 rially differed under every Prussian monarch that has reigned 
 since 1772. Not to go back too far, I shall merely speak of the 
 period since the accession of William I, about forty years ago. 
 
 That monarch, as will be remembered, had been kept from 
 marrying Princess Elise Radziwill, a noble and beautiful Polish 
 lady, only by dynastic reasons and by the strict command of his 
 father and sovereign, Frederick William HI. He had retained 
 from that romantic incident in his life an affection for the Poles. 
 This was particularly true as regards the Polish nobility. Hence 
 the Polish policy of that kindly old ruler was for a long time 
 friendly, nay indulgent, and at his court were seen many of the 
 foremost representatives of the Polish aristocracy, the so-called 
 Polish "court party," of which the brothers Radizwill, Prince 
 Czartoryski, Prince Sulkovski and others were the most striking 
 figures. Prince Antonin Radziwill was the old king's favourite 
 aide-de-camp, and likewise his usual counsellor in Polish affairs. 
 
 But in the middle of the seventies Bismarck precipitated 
 the so-called "Culturkampf," that bitter struggle between the 
 Roman Church, or rather hierarchy, and the Prussian State. The 
 Poles have been for centuries among the most devoted sons of 
 Mother Church, and when Cardinal Ledochovski, the Polish 
 primate, was thrown into jail at Posen, and Vv^ith him scores, and 
 at one time almost an even hundred, of the minor clergy, for 
 steadfastly refusing to submit to State dictation in the governing 
 of the Church, this treatment produced a dual effect. It made 
 the Polish priesthood the inveterate foe of Prussia, and it in- 
 jected a new and rancorous element into the anti-German senti- 
 ment of their flocks. During those years there was sown a seed 
 of hatred which has since sprouted rankly. There has been 
 added to the strife of race the venom of religious antagonism. 
 It is only since then that the masses of the Poles in Prussia have 
 learned to look upon their German neighbors and fellow-citizens 
 as enemies of their faith. This belief has been studiously fostered 
 by the Polish clergy, and it has by this time been so firmly en- 
 grafted in the head and heart of the lower-class Pole as to have
 
 102 GERMANY 
 
 become with him an axiom. This is so much the case that even 
 those Germans who, Hke the Poles, are CathoHcs, are not ex- 
 empted from the Pole's mireasoning hatred, as the Centre, or 
 Catholic party, in the Reichstag and the Prussian Diet has 
 since found out to its cost, when its candidates were defeated in 
 Polish election districts. 
 
 However, the "Culturkampf" finally ended. Bismarck, who 
 later on himself admitted it to have been a sad mistake, had 
 to bend before the power of the Roman pontiff. But the evil 
 had been wrought. If anything, the Pohsh religious hatred of 
 Protestant Prussiaand Germany has since been intensified. For 
 the old king and emperor, William I, the Poles had preserved 
 at least a part of the old affection. Their feelings for the present 
 William are of a different kind. The Polish nobles have dis- 
 appeared from the court of Berlin. Some five or six years ago, 
 yielding to the urgent appeals of the German press and a number 
 of political advisers, Wilham II and the Prussian cabinet de- 
 cided on a more energetic policy toward the Poles. The most 
 potent argument that has been advanced in the Emperor's 
 hearing, and doubtless the one which decided him, was that 
 the Poles plotted treason. Furthermore, it was urged that the 
 powerful aid of the State was required to prevent the continuance 
 of the process of Polonization as directed against the German 
 minority in the Polish provinces and districts. This needs some 
 explanation. 
 
 No doubt the ultimate object of Polish agitation everywhere 
 is the reestablishment of Poland as a national and political entity. 
 This aim, in fact, has been proclaimed by every Polish orator and 
 politician — and with the Poles these two terms are synonymous 
 — on numberless public occasions. Even such moderate Polish 
 leaders as Cegielski and Koscielski, who at one time belonged to 
 the Berlin court party, have confessed the restoration of Poland 
 to be their ideal. This was avowed in the speeches they made 
 two years ago at a great Polish gathering in Cracow. The Kaiser 
 thereupon struck their names from his court list. The Polish 
 press in Prussia and Austria has often elaborated this idea. 
 The aim of every Polish patriot, according to these papers, is 
 to see a Poland arise, on the ashes of the past, stretching from 
 the Baltic to the Black Sea — a country 720 miles in length and
 
 THE POLISH PR0BLE:M IN PRUSSIA 103 
 
 almost as much in width, comprising 400,000 square miles, and 
 with a population of 35 millions. It would embrace the so- 
 called Polish provinces of Prussia, to within a short distance of 
 Berlin, with half the Prussian shore of the Baltic. It would also 
 embrace Galicia, and the whole of that portion of Russia which 
 at one time, some of it three hundred years ago, formed part of 
 Poland at her largest. 
 
 Such a Poland would be by no means homogeneous. It would 
 include the Cossacks of the Don and the Dnieper, and the do- 
 main of the so-called "Little," "Black," and "White" Russians, 
 as well as that of the Ruthenians, Lithuanians, and Masovians. 
 There would be fifteen per cent, of Jews and six per cent, of 
 Germans in this total population, as well as a liberal sprinkling 
 of Rumanians, Magyars, and gypsies. Thus the real Poles 
 ethnologically — /. c, those speaking Polish and of Polish race and 
 sympathies, would barely form the majority. However, there 
 are other countries where a similar apportionment seems to 
 work quite satisfactorily, as, for instance, in Hungary. But 
 in point of creed there would be a similar diversity ; for of the total 
 population now dwelling in the territories embraced by this 
 projected Pan-Poland, about forty per cent, are of the Greek 
 Orthodox faith, and only another forty per cent, of the Roman 
 Catholic, while fifteen per cent, are Hebrews, some four per cent. 
 Protestant, and the small remainder pagan. As to the standard 
 of civilization, that, too, would show enormous differences. Of 
 the total population thus formed, over sixty per cent, would be 
 grossly illiterate. Thus, the new body politic would from the 
 first carry within it the seeds of racial and religious dissension. 
 
 However that may be, the creation of such a new Poland, by 
 whatever means, is the ultimate goal of Polish patriots every- 
 where, according to the Polish press and the Polish writers and 
 poets. The present agitation is but preparatory to that. It 
 would be a mistake, however, to suppose that there is impending 
 a great Polish revolution having for its purpose the realization 
 of the above dream. The Poles have learned patience, con- 
 centration and wariness in the awful school of adversity through 
 which they have passed. Since the last great uprising, that of 
 1863, they have acquired the wisdom and caution that come 
 even to an ill-starred race from a defeat sealed by the slaughter
 
 I04 
 
 GER^IANY 
 
 of thousands. They now know better the sources of their own 
 strength and weakness, and they mean to bide their time. They 
 trust to time to right them. No more rash and ill-prepared 
 risings for them, nor any reliance on the impotent sympathy of 
 the world. In that respect the Boer war has been another stern 
 lesson for them. They are waiting for the possible great events 
 of the future — for serious entanglements among the great pow- 
 ers; for a great revolution in Russia — hence the large percent- 
 age of Poles among the Nihilists; for the dismemberment of 
 Austria-Hungary after the death of the present monarch; for a 
 general political upheaval and a state of deep exhaustion fol- 
 lowing; for any or all of these catastrophes. And what is then 
 to be done for a reestablishment of Poland by the Polish leaders 
 in thought and action will depend on circumstances. This is 
 about the gist of their reasoning on this matter. Meanwhile 
 the Polish martial spirit is to be kept alive ; the longing for na- 
 tional independence is to be stimulated by every effective means ; 
 and agitation in every form is to go on. The advance of education 
 among the Poles, and particularly among those in Prussia, will 
 make them, when the time is ripe, all the more formidable foes. 
 This, be it understood, is the outline of the Polish programme 
 as it lives, more or less succinctly defined, in the breast of the 
 Poles on Prussian, Austrian and Russian soil, and as it has been 
 proclaimed on many public occasions of recent years. The great 
 patriotic gatherings that have taken place, mostly on the soil of 
 Galicia, were exploited in that sense, as, for example, the meet- 
 ings in commemoration of great Poles like Mickievicz, Krasinski, 
 Sobieski, Kosciusko, Copernicus, and Slovacki, which took 
 place in such Polish centres as Cracow, Lemberg, Warsaw, Posen 
 and Gnesen. On some of these occasions the Austrian govern- 
 ment allowed a great latitude in proselytizing the masses that 
 had come from beyond the Russian and Prussian borders in be- 
 half of the idea of an independent Poland. At some of these 
 great patriotic gatherings, however, the authorities interfered. 
 At the unveiling of the Mickievicz monument in Warsaw there 
 was a collision between the Russian troops, called out for the 
 purpose, and the crowd, and a number of persons were killed or 
 wounded. Sometimes, too, such inflammable meetings are pro- 
 hibited by the authorities, or else shorn of their exciting features.
 
 THE POLISH PROBLEM IN PRUSSIA 105 
 
 The Polish gymnastic associations, or sokols, serve, as 
 similar organizations did in Prussia when that country was pre- 
 paring to throw off the yoke of Napoleon in 1813, the purpose 
 of forming the nuclei of armed bodies. In the Prussian Diet the 
 Minister of the Interior, not long ago, in the course of a long 
 expose of the methods employed by Polish agitators, described 
 these sokols as hotbeds of treason, and read several speeches 
 made at sokol meetings which were certainly violent enough. 
 The number of these clubs in the Prussian part of Poland he gave 
 at between two and three hundred, with a total membership 
 exceeding 50,000, He said that many of them were well supplied 
 with arms, and regularly drilled in military fashion. The mem- 
 bership of these sokols in Galicia is unknown, but it must be 
 considerable. About the sokols in Russia statistics are not ob- 
 tainable. At all events, in case of another Polish uprising these 
 sokols could furnish a large and well-organized body of insurgents. 
 
 Polish literature, more particularly lyrical poetry, has been 
 for many years instrumental in keeping alive the national as- 
 pirations. Most effective in this way are the popular ballads 
 that have been set to music, and that celebrate Polish deeds of 
 valour in days gone by, especially those in which Germans or 
 Russians were defeated. Such ballads are sung at Polish social 
 gatherings, both private and public, and their number and scope 
 are constantly added to. Booklets containing several hundreds 
 of them are sold at a nominal price, and may be found to-day 
 in the humblest Polish homes. They are nearly all keyed in the 
 popular vein, and they cannot fail to inflame the minds of such 
 impressionable people as the Poles. But Polish prose literature, 
 too, has largely been in the service of the national idea. This 
 is the case with even the majority of the works of Henryk Sien- 
 kievicz, whose Polish historical novels are pitched in the patriotic 
 key. 
 
 But to speak once more exclusively of the Poles in Prussia, 
 the fact must not be overlooked that representative government 
 has given them, just as to the Irish in the British Parliament, 
 another formidable weapon. There are in the Prussian Diet, as 
 well as in the German Reichstag, thirteen Polish delegates, com- 
 posing in either body the so-called Polish faction. Nearly all 
 these men are able, bold and eloquent. They are, besides,
 
 io6 GERMANY 
 
 skilful in parliamentary tactics, and wield a power far beyond 
 their actual numbers. Of course, it is the cue of these Polish 
 delegates to hinder as much as possible the government's Polish 
 policy, and to pooh-pooh the charges made on the floor against 
 Polish agitators. In this they find, in almost every case, power- 
 ful allies in the Ultramontane party. 
 
 And that brings me to the Polish clergy as a political factor 
 in Prussia. I stated above that the Polish clergy, largely as a 
 consequence of the so-called " Culturkampf , " have become the 
 most dangerous foe of the government in its Polish policy, and 
 more especially in its systematic attempt to Germanize the Poles. 
 From the Polish primate, Archbishop de Stablevski, down to 
 the humblest Polish village priest, the Polish clergy in Prussia, 
 as also in Russia, present a solid phalanx in their resistance to 
 the plan of amalgamation. And when it is said that the Polish 
 priest exerts an almost absolute sway over the minds and sen- 
 timents of his parishioners, it will be understood how powerless 
 the State is, even in a country like Prussia, which has a great 
 many more direct and indirect means of coercing subjects than 
 is the case in less bureaucratically governed countries. Above 
 all, it is due almost wholly to the Polish clerg}^ that the knowledge 
 and use of the German language are not general in the Polish 
 districts. The Polish clergy correctly argue that with the adop- 
 tion of German as the language spoken in the home and from the 
 pulpit, the battle would be virtually won for the friends of 
 Germanization. Hence their strenuous and constant efforts 
 have been directed against the use of German wherever they 
 have had the power to prevent it. 
 
 And they have, indeed, succeeded remarkably well, especially 
 when it is considered that the Poles, as a class, had to forego 
 all those material advantages which naturally would accrue to 
 Poles able and willing to speak and write both languages. 
 To carry out their programme logically, the Polish clergy have 
 succeeded in persuading their countrymen that to abandon the 
 constant use of Polish means to become a renegade, an enemy 
 to the race, and a "hireling to the foreigner, " as the Polish press 
 puts it. The Poles in the service of this idea have voluntarily 
 shut themselves out of every career and calling which would 
 force them to make habitual use of German as their ver-
 
 THE POLISH PROBLEM IN PRUSSIA 107 
 
 nacular. This includes, of course, every kind of government 
 service. 
 
 But not content with preserving Pohsh as the only language 
 for themselves and their children, the Poles have also success- 
 fully carried on a campaign of Polonization within all those 
 districts of the four Prussian provinces before mentioned where 
 they form the majority. This process has been aided a good 
 deal by the fact that the Polish rate of natural increase, since 
 hygienic rules are strictly enforced, owing to Prussian authority, 
 is decidedly larger than that of the Germans. Not only in the 
 rural districts has this higher birth-rate told greatly in favour of 
 the Poles, but still more so in the cities and towns. In nearl}' 
 all of them there has been a relative or positive increase 
 of Poles as against Germans. A number of cities, like Posen, 
 Gnesen, Schroda, Schrimm, Bromberg, Schneidemiihl, Thorn, 
 etc., where the German element dominated not many years ago, 
 have been already brought, or are gradually being brought, under 
 Polish influences. Of course, the Polish migration from the 
 rural districts to these towns has likewise had something to do 
 with this. 
 
 The most alarming feature, however, from the German point 
 of view is the successful, though slow, process of Polonization 
 to which the German element resident in the Polish districts is 
 being subjected. This is accomplished partly by fair means and 
 partly by foul. Intermarriage between Poles and Germans is 
 one of the most effective in the first-named category; for that 
 nearly always means the loss of nationality for the German 
 part. Social and business influences are also astutely em- 
 ployed, as are religious and family ones. For obdurate Germans 
 coercion is used. This most frequently takes the shape of social 
 and business ostracism. 
 
 The Prussian government, as pointed out before, has no 
 equally potent means at its disposal. The one great panacea, 
 the German Colonization Fund, started by Bismarck for the pur- 
 pose of counteracting these Polonizing influences, may be pro- 
 nounced a flat failure. The fund has been increased at various 
 times, and now amounts to a round two hundred million marks 
 — that is, fifty million dollars. Its main object is to further the 
 settlement in Polish districts of German colonists or compact
 
 10 
 
 8 GERMANY 
 
 colonies, with a view to thus honeycombing the whole country. 
 This scheme has miscarried more and more. It is now found 
 next to impossible, despite the strong inducements held out by 
 the Prussian government, to persuade any desirable German 
 colonists to settle in districts where, from the German view- 
 point, it would be most advantageous. The reason for this is 
 obvious when the above facts are kept in mind. The other purpose 
 of the fund — namely, the purchasing by reputable and patriotic 
 Germans of Polish farms or estates which their Polish owners are 
 forced to sell, at public auction or private sale — is also rendered 
 nugatory or ineffective by the Poles. Such estates are either 
 sold to competing Poles as the highest bidders, or else, if they 
 are purchased by Germans, their new owners are soon made sorry 
 for their bargains ; the system of boycotting them, pursued relent- 
 lessly by all their Polish neighbours, and of inflicting all sorts of 
 annoyances and injuries, proving too much for the unfortunate 
 purchasers.* 
 
 The government in Prussia is, therefore, as the above un- 
 biassed statement shows, actually in an attitude of self-defense, 
 instead of proceeding on aggressive lines against its Polish sub- 
 jects, as has been widely believed abroad. To permit the Poles 
 to proceed unchecked in their Polonization scheme would mean 
 the abandonment for good and all of the object which Prussia 
 has had since the day she acquired her Polish provinces — namely 
 to Germanize them by bringing about the gradual adoption of the 
 German language, civilization, ideals, and aims by the Poles, and 
 by strengthening the German minority in all those districts by 
 the settling of new colonies of Germans. Yet, so far as the facts 
 point at present, that is precisely what is happening. Prussia 
 is at her wits' end in the matter. The Poles have only adopted 
 enough of German civilization to become thereby more powerful 
 adversaries. The very wealth of these provinces, fourfold what 
 it was a little more than a generation ago, has made the task of 
 Germanizing them all the harder — nay, seemingly impossible. 
 
 *Another large increase in this Colonization Fund, lately made by the 
 Prussian Diet, by which its total has been raised to $87,500,000, and 
 which is further augmented by an additional fund of §25.000,000 to 
 serve for the purchase of Polish estates, shows that the Priissian govern- 
 ment means to persist in this means of extending German influences in 
 the obstreperous Polish provinces. Whether with greatly enlarged finan- 
 cial means will come larger success remains to be seen.
 
 THE POLISH PROBLEM IN PRUSSLV 109 
 
 The Poles with an intellectual training, the men who have been 
 educated in German universities, are the leaders in the move- 
 ment to perpetuate the Polish race, language, and mode of 
 thought, and to put the masses in Poland in a state of readiness 
 for the great Polish uprising which they all firmly believe is 
 bound to come some day. The problem, in a word, is of its 
 kind — or, perhaps, even without that qualification — the most 
 serious which the Prussian monarchy has to face.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE AGRARIAN MOVEMENT 
 
 Reference has elsewhere been repeatedly made to the Agrarian 
 movement in Germany, but this is a topic which requires more 
 extensive treatment, as in a sense it furnishes the key to the 
 whole political situation in the empire to-day. A fuller explana- 
 tion of the nature and the underlying motives of that movement, 
 and particularly, too, an analysis of the social and economic 
 forces at work in it, both pro and con, will at the same time help 
 the reader to understand the strange and complex conjuncture 
 which the people and rulers of Germany are now facing. Inas- 
 much, too, as the present and future relations between this 
 country and Germany, both commercial and political, very 
 largely depend on the ultimate solution of the problem which is 
 wrapped up in this movement, there is hardly anything in the 
 political life of the empire which is of more immediate concern 
 to the American public. 
 
 Be it said, then, that the Agrarian movement is the most 
 dangerous and most powerful utterance of those reactionary 
 and mediaeval-spirited elements in Germany's public life which 
 are these days making, it is hoped, their last stand against the 
 spirit of progress and of modern energy that for a time had 
 proved triumphant, but whose supremacy is now once more 
 seriously threatened. The struggle between Agrarianism and 
 Industrialism which is raging in the Germany of to-day is the 
 struggle between Mediaevalism and Paternalism on the one side 
 and Modern Progress and Social and Political Liberty on the 
 other. It is nothing less than that. The outcome will deter- 
 mine whether Germany is to continue on the path she has trodden 
 with such signal success during the past decade, and emancipate 
 herself more and more from the fetters to which outworn tradi- 
 tions have bound her, or whether she is to sink back into the old 
 rut of the past, where class distinctions and political tutelage 
 await her. 
 
 no
 
 THE AGRARIAN MOVEMENT m 
 
 In certain respects the present political complexion of Germany 
 bears a striking resemblance to the political complexion of the 
 United States at the outbreak of the great Civil War. There, 
 as here, we have one large portion of the country whose economic, 
 social and political conditions are almost diametrically opposed 
 to those of the remainder. There, as here, we have a landed 
 aristocracy determined to hold on to their cherished privileges 
 and "peculiar institutions" at all hazards. There, as here, this 
 portion of the nation is politically much more potent than its 
 numbers would justify; inured to power and luxury, this portion 
 would make the nation believe that its narrow class interests 
 are identical with those of the whole nation. And there as here 
 these unfounded claims have been foisted, by an adroit and per- 
 sistent appeal to prejudices, on a large part of the public opinion 
 of the nation. 
 
 But the similarity ends there. The German situation has 
 a number of features distinctively its own. 
 
 Prussia consists of two halves, which in point of size are nearly 
 equal, but in population, wealth, status of culture and mode of 
 life differ radically. Its eastern provinces, namely, East and 
 West Prussia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, Posen, and Silesia, 
 are in every respect behind those of the west, namely, Hanover, 
 Hesse, Westphalia, Rhine, Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein. 
 The latter are in the main densely populated, with a highly 
 developed industry, with an old civilization, imbued with the 
 progressive spirit of the age, with an intense agriculture and hor- 
 ticulture, with a remarkably high average of education, and with 
 a per capita wealth that almost reaches that of England. In 
 these western provinces of Prussia are found, with the single ex- 
 ception of Berlin, nearly all the famous seats of learning in the 
 monarchy, all the towns of a rich historical past and of a high 
 degree of material comfort, such as Cologne, Frankfort-on- 
 Main, Aix-la-Chapelle, Wiesbaden, Bonn, Altona, Hildesheim, 
 and so on, and the modern centres of industry and commerce, 
 like Crefeld, Barmen, Bochum, Siegen, Diisseldorf, Essen, and 
 others. It is tliere that the great German " captains of industry " 
 have arisen, and there that the latent energies and potentialities 
 of the race have been set free of late and achieved marvels of 
 rapid material progress. In a word, these western provinces
 
 112 GERMANY 
 
 are the industrial and intellectual backbone of modern Prussia, 
 and, to a large extent, of the whole of modern Germany as well. 
 
 The eastern half of the kingdom is made up of provinces hav- 
 ing a poor soil, very few other natural advantages, a population 
 with a large admixture of Slavic blood, and not comparable with 
 the remainder in intellectual or material achievements, withal 
 decidedly behind in wealth, in education, and in political ideas. 
 This eastern population is overwhelmingly an agricultural one. 
 In the western provinces the soil is rich and holdings small but 
 very productive. In the eastern ones the soil is infertile and 
 the holdings either large and worked on patriarchal lines, or else 
 given over to a poverty-stricken class of small tenants. 
 
 These in the main are the leading characteristics of those two 
 sections of Prussia. The description does not, of course, hold 
 good as to every district in these two sections, but it accurately 
 enough fits the general aspects of the case. 
 
 Now, it so happens that the eastern provinces of Prussia are 
 the "old" ones of the monarchy — i.e., those which formed the 
 nucleus out of which the subsequent powerful and fairly pros- 
 perous Prussia of to-day has grown. These "old" provinces 
 shared to the full the storm-and-stress period of Prussia. They 
 had to undergo all the hardships and vicissitudes of the monarchy 
 during evil days, most of them as early as the Thirty Years' 
 War, and then the horrible period of the Seven Years' War 
 under Frederick the Great, and, worse still, the time of defeat 
 under Napoleon I, when the little kingdom was rent into frag- 
 ments and sank to the lowest imaginable depths in welfare and 
 power. This original portion of Prussia, wretchedly poor in 
 culture as it was, clung to its dynasty with a devotion and a self- 
 sacrifice seldom equaled in history, and its loyalty under the 
 bitterest humiliations was unfaltering and truly superb. In the 
 harsh school of adversity its temper became like steel, and an 
 intensely martial spirit became the chief virtue of its population, 
 a spirit which in the end proved the political salvation of the 
 whole of Germany and the means of national unification. 
 
 The western provinces of Prussia, on the other hand, had 
 come to the monarchy by conquest or by clever diplomacy — 
 anyway, by the power of the Prussian sword and by the ruthless 
 exercise of her ambitious policy. The larger part of these west-
 
 THE AGRARIAN MOVEMENT 113 
 
 ern provinces had been amalgamated with Prussia against their 
 own will — such, for instance, as the whole province of Hanover, 
 Hesse-Nassau, Schleswig-Holstein, portions of the province 
 of Saxony, of Westphalia, and the larger half of the Rhine 
 province. Along the Rhine, in the Prussian districts, although 
 united with the monarchy since 181 5, there is still a strong under- 
 current of anti-Prussian sentiment, and this is even truer of 
 Hanover and some other districts. The people of the old 
 provinces of Prussia know and appreciate this, and do not feel 
 at home in those more liberal-minded, more easy-going and 
 wealthier new provinces, where they are met with a very per- 
 ceptible prejudice and are looked upon in a sense as inferiors. 
 The latent dislike is mutual, and that spirit which is distinctively 
 called " Prussian" in Germany, and which is more or less antag- 
 onistic to the rest of the nation, is confined to these eastern, 
 the "original," provinces of Prussia. 
 
 From the purely dynastic viewpoint it is, of course, quite 
 natural that the kings of Prvissia have all along had a feeling of 
 much stronger affection for this kernel of their monarchy, and 
 it is also easily understood why they should above all care for 
 the welfare and the specific interests of these backward provinces, 
 the ones which stood by them through good and evil report, and 
 which won them their power and influence of to-day. The old 
 monarch, William I, grandfather of the present Kaiser and 
 King of Prussia, had this feeling in a much more pronounced 
 degree than the Kaiser of to-day. This was to be expected, 
 for William I made war upon a large i^art of the domains that 
 subsequently were incorporated with his kingdom, and up to his 
 death he felt rather as the Prussian King than as the German 
 Emperor. There were many illustrations of this during his 
 reign, long after the imperial crown had been placed on his 
 grey head by Bismarck, and some of these illustrations were 
 curious and significant. 
 
 But the present Kaiser is by no means exempt from the same 
 feeling. He has frequently emphasized it in public. A num- 
 ber of his speeches attest it. Every winter he presides at the 
 annual banquet given by the Brandenburg provincial chamber, 
 and then he always refers to himself as their "Marggrave of 
 Brandenburg," and expresses the hope that the death-defying
 
 114 GERMANY 
 
 loyalty of his Brandenburgers has remained unabated, and 
 that when the day should come to call upon them again to 
 follow him into the fray, they will equal the prowess and the 
 fidelity of their ancestors. In his informal toasts at regimental 
 banquets he likevv^ise often dwells on this theme, recalling the 
 warlike feats of old Prussian regiments — among them many 
 wrought against what are now his subjects — and hoping that this 
 "old Prussian valour" will again spring forth when the occasion 
 demands it. In a word, he, like his grandfather, though not in 
 the same degree, makes a distinction between his provinces and 
 their inhabitants — a distinction always in favour of the "old" 
 provinces. 
 
 With such a bent of mind on his part, and it must be added 
 on the part of his government as well, whose members are still, 
 as in the days of old, largely drawn from these "old" provinces, 
 the office-holding ones, it is not astonishing that the undeniable 
 agricultural depression in Germany, which is far more pro- 
 nounced in the eastern than in the western provinces, should 
 strongly appeal to him and to this government with pro-eastern 
 sympathies. This depression is indeed in its operation confined 
 almost altogether to the northeastern part of Germany, that 
 part which is in German political slang dubbed "Transelbia," 
 because it lies east of the Elbe River. It comprises, be- 
 side the eastern provinces of Prussia already named, only the 
 two Grandduchies of Mecklenburg and the Grandduchy of Old- 
 enburg, but in the latter agricultural and social conditions are 
 more favourable. There are, it is true, also some portions of 
 agricultural Bavaria, and some districts of Wiirttemberg affected 
 by it, but not in the same ratio, and the movement there has a 
 different character. Largely, then, this Agrarian movement 
 proceeds from, and is dominated by, the eastern and least pro- 
 gressive provinces of Prussia. But there again it is by no means 
 the unanimous movement of the entire population. It is rather 
 confined to that small fragment of the population which is se- 
 verely hurt by the large and increasing importation of agricul- 
 tural products — i. e., the class of titled manorial lords. This 
 class is numerically very small — a few thousands, with estates 
 in the provinces of Posen, East and West Prussia, Pomerania, 
 Brandenburg, and eastern Silesia.
 
 THE AGRARIAN MOVEMENT 115 
 
 Some of these estates are very large — of 50,000 to 100,000 
 acres and over. But the majority are between 4,000 and 10,000 
 acres in size. The Duke of Ujest, Prince Lichnovski, Baron von 
 Tiele-Winkler, Baron von Arnim and Count ]Mirbach, are among 
 the largest estate holders, and Prince Pless owns land the size of 
 a principality in the eastern part of Silesia. The Kaiser and the 
 royal house likewise own vast tracts of land in these backward 
 regions. These are thinly populated, when compared with the 
 western provinces, and the steady influx to the larger towns, 
 especially Berlin, of this poor rural population, as well as the 
 proportionately very large emigration, has made the labour ques- 
 tion there very difficult during the past twenty years. Most of 
 these estates have been forced to hire foreign help every season, 
 obtaining hundreds or thousands of ignorant and brutalized 
 Poles, Russians, or Lithuanians from beyond the Russian or 
 Austrian frontiers, and discharging them in the autumn. This 
 has been about the only kind of rural labour they have been able 
 to get to make up the deficiency of home labour, for these men 
 from Russia, although in some respects undesirable, work for 
 low wages, and can be gotten rid of when the crop is in, whereas 
 German agricultural labour from the west, even if they could 
 obtain it, is much more expensive and would not come on the 
 same terms. Still, this system has been all along a makeshift, 
 and has greatly tended to render social and economic conditions 
 more unsatisfactory. From a political view, too, the system 
 has been harmful, and it has all along led to constant differences 
 between the Prussian and the Russian frontier authorities. 
 Various attempts by these large estate-holders to procure rural 
 labour by importing Chinese coolies, attempts largely confined to 
 Mecklenburg and the Baltic shores, have miscarried. The cost 
 of transportation proved too high, and other conditions were 
 also unfavourable to this class of contract labour. This part of 
 the agricultural problem in the eastern parts of Prussia remains 
 entirely unsolved. 
 
 The reason why these large estate-holders in Prussia's eastern 
 provinces are especially affected by the agricultural depression in 
 Germany lies in their methods, their mode of life, and in the 
 nature of their estates as well as in the soil and climatic con- 
 ditions. Under the existing commercial treaties with Germany
 
 no GERMANY 
 
 the duty on various cereals is not high enough to protect these 
 men against the competition of the foreign producer. Their 
 wheat, rye and barley does not yield them a price high enough 
 to enable them to pay the interest on their mortgages — and they 
 all have big mortgages on their estates — together with their 
 running expenses, and allow them enough surplus to live in that 
 easy and luxurious fashion to which they and their forefathers 
 have been habituated. It must be remembered that these men 
 nearly all belong to the nobility of Prussia; their estates are 
 entailed so that a portion of the income always goes to younger 
 brothers, to dowagers, and other penniless relatives; the sons 
 of the owner go to universities or, more frequently, to the army 
 as officers, where they need much money; the daughters require 
 large marriage portions; the owners themselves are politicians, 
 former army ofificers, sportsmen, etc., and almost all indulge in 
 expensive tastes. Their estates, as pointed out, are mortgaged, 
 and since land all over Germany, even in these backward prov- 
 inces, is very high in price when compared with farm lands in 
 America or Argentina, or even Russia and Rumania, these 
 mortgages are mostly for large sums, often running into the 
 millions, and the interest, while lower than here (for it seldom 
 exceeds 3 1-2 to 4 per cent.), amounts to a good deal. 
 
 During the last ten years — i. e., since Bismarck's successor. 
 Count Caprivi, concluded commercial treaties with Russia, 
 Roumania, Argentina, Austria, etc., an increasing number of the 
 titled owners of these entailed estates have gone to the wall, 
 and the utter ruin of a score of noble families has been the conse- 
 quence. Up there in "Transelbia" these men suffer most from 
 the direct competition of Russian cereals, and only indirectly 
 from that of this country. But the effect in both cases is the 
 same. From the American imports of meats, lard, bacon, ham, 
 etc., they suffer, however, directly. Then comes their class 
 bias. They, as aristocrats and intensely loyal monarchists, 
 despise and hate this country of ours with a venomous hatred, 
 whereas for Russia, as an autocracy after their own heart, they 
 have a sincere liking. Anyway, this much is certain: While 
 their present aim is to do away with the agricultural competition 
 of all other countries, Russia included, they have a special spite 
 against this country, and if their efforts to obtain what they
 
 THE AGRARIAN MOVEI\IENT 117 
 
 consider adequate tariff protection on their produce should after 
 all fail, they will at least spare no endeavours to precipitate a 
 tariff war with the United States. If this tariff war should then 
 prove of particular injury to the industries of Germany — as it 
 doubtless would — they v/ould like that all the better, as next to 
 the "Yankees" they hate and despise the German merchant, 
 shipper and manufacturer. That is about as far as they go 
 in their reasoning. 
 
 At first sight, however, it seems strange that so relatively 
 small a number of men should be able to practically dictate the 
 political and economic policy of an enlightened countr3/ like 
 Germany, especially as these represent but a portion of the agri- 
 cultural interests of the most backward provinces of just a single 
 State of the empire. Undoubtedly it is a glaring anachronism. 
 But the fact is readily susceptible of explanation. 
 
 The Agrarians represent that portion of the Prussian aristoc- 
 racy — and comprise a number of the most influential noblemen 
 in the remainder of the empire as well — which has practically 
 ruled the monarchy for the last three hundred years. From 
 their ranks have sprung Prussia's renowned soldiers, her most 
 successful statesmen — including Bismarck — her leading admin- 
 istrators and officials, diplomats and courtiers — in a word, nearly 
 all the men who in the past as well as the present have had the 
 shaping of the country's policy in their hands, are and have been 
 the kith and kin of the Agrarians of to-day. The sympathy of 
 the whole vast government machine, in all its departments, 
 belongs in the nature of things to them. The Kaiser in his heart 
 of hearts is an Agrarian, and a fellow-feeling makes us all, of 
 course, wondrous kind. Count von Buelow,the present Imperial 
 Chancellor, is an Agrarian, and has confessed it on a number of 
 public occasions. The Prussian cabinet, as well as the im- 
 perial one, is in its majority Agrarian.* 
 
 The above facts naturally go far to explain the enormous 
 
 power wielded by this handful of men. But there are other 
 
 *The new Prussian Minister of Commerce, Theodore Mocllcr, is really 
 the only mrmber of the Cabinet who is "sincerely an anti-Agrarian, but 
 this fact has aroused the bitter antagonism of the whole Agrarian party, 
 as well as of the majority of the Caljinet members, and while he within 
 the proper sphere of his department does his best to further the expand- 
 ing commercial interests of the country, he is practically powerless to 
 stop the rising tide of Agrarianism.
 
 ii8 GERMANY 
 
 reasons. The Kaiser fears the moral and social and political 
 effect of the ruin of these thousands of his titled landholders. 
 It is true the chances of these men to emerge from their slough 
 of despond, and become once more fairly prosperous, would be 
 good enough if they had American "grit" and enterprise, coupled 
 with a determination for strict economy. A rational change 
 in their agricultural methods, a more sensible conforming to 
 actual conditions, such as the introduction on a larger scale of 
 labor-saving machinery, and the raising of cattle, the growing 
 of fruit, etc., might in many cases save them. But these are 
 things that are beyond them. With present conditions the 
 Agrarians are bound to go to the wall. That would eliminate 
 from German public and social life an element whose preserva- 
 tion the Kaiser, and with him not only the higher classes but 
 many German thinkers, regards as of prime importance. 
 
 But aside from that, there is the great political power which 
 the Agrarians exert in the various German parliaments — in the 
 Reichstag, where they form one-half of the membership; in the 
 Prussian Diet, where they are, in the lower and higher house, an 
 overwhelming majority; in the legislative chambers of the other 
 German States, especially those with large agricultural interests, 
 where they often dictate local politics. In the upper chambers, 
 where the hereditary wealth and nobility are paramount, and 
 whose membership does not depend on the ballot — in imitation 
 of the House of Lords in England — they exert, of course, domin- 
 ating influence. In the Prussian upper house of the Diet, for 
 example, the Agrarians represent about seventy-five per cent, 
 of the total. It is similar in Bavaria and Wiirttemberg, in 
 Saxony and Baden, and in the two Mecklenburgs conditions in 
 this respect are even worse. All these purely aristocratic halves 
 of the different State legislatures of Germany do not, or at least 
 but very rarely, exert much influence upon public opinion, and 
 they seldom originate any legislation of their own. But their 
 power is, nevertheless, quite real, for they often block the wheels 
 of legislation, refusing their consent to measures passed in the 
 lower houses. They furthermore, by reason of their close 
 affiliations with the sovereigns and their courts, know how to 
 sway the minds of these rulers. 
 
 However, it is in the lower houses after all that the Agrarians
 
 THE AGRARIAN MOVEMENT 119 
 
 wield the most telling power. And this they are enabled to do 
 by reason of antiquated election laws. While the Reichstag is 
 elected on the principle of general suffrage — every reputable 
 male subject of 25 years and over, irrespective of wealth and 
 social conditions, being a voter; and while in this way every 
 class of the population has at least approximately just repre- 
 sentation, the reverse is true of the electoral system under which 
 delegates to these vState legislatures are chosen. i\ll of them 
 are unfair to the poorer classes, and the worst of all is the old 
 Prussian Diet electoral law. This fact is so palpable that even 
 the very statesmen who are upholding it for purposes of their 
 own admit it at least in theory. Of its workings another chapter 
 of this book contains details. Suffice it to say here that by means 
 of this hoary and wholly unrepresentative election law the 
 Agrarians of Prussia, while really representing but a minimal 
 fraction of the population, are regularly enabled to return enough 
 delegates to the Diet to dominate there. Without their con- 
 sent no law can be enacted. The government is obliged to pur- 
 chase their votes in that body by comproinises or by constantly 
 renewed favours. To show their paramount power, they re- 
 peatedly defeated of late years pet measures of the Kaiser, such 
 as the so-called Midland Canal project, because they insisted 
 that this measure would prove unfavourable to agricultural in- 
 terests in the eastern provinces. In a word, they dictate legis- 
 lation in the Prussian Diet, and what is true of that body is true 
 in smaller degree of a number of the other German legislatures. 
 
 Then there is the Agrarian press of Germany. That is also 
 very influential. The capital required for the founding and 
 running of the hundreds of Agrarian sheets in the empire is 
 furnished largely by the wealthy landowners, aided and abetted 
 by a not inconsiderable number of high government ofificials and 
 other sympathizers of the cause. This press is skilful and bold, 
 insinuating and threatening by turns, as the situation seems to 
 demand. Its specious pleadings are plausible and keyed in the 
 popular vein. By pandering to national prejudices and to the 
 Jingo spirit that is now so rampant throughout the empire, it is 
 read by, and influences, large sections of the nation who else 
 would never swear allegiance to Agrarianism. By its ramified 
 connections in court, army and legislative circles, this press,
 
 I20 GERMANY 
 
 while showing a paucity of despatches, in many other Hnes 
 of soHd news often obtains earHer and more rehable information 
 of the Kaiser's and of the government's doings and intentions 
 than the large Liberal sheets are able to get. Above all, it has 
 managed to so twist and misrepresent the facts for years as to 
 make it appear that the cause of Agrarianism is the national 
 and patriotic cause, and that the Liberal press, in advocating a 
 renewal of the existing commercial treaties and in defending a 
 policy of commercial expansion, is really the mouthpiece of 
 foreign countries, especially of hateful America and England. It 
 has persistently misrepresented this country, and has magnified 
 the danger of American commercial supremacy in Germany; 
 it has done its best to make America odious to the higher 
 classes in Germany. And in this it has very largely succeeded. 
 Its methods in this respect are unscrupulous in the extreme. 
 The Agrarian press never prints news from the United States 
 which is creditable to this nation, but it elaborates or adorns 
 every tale, no matter how exaggerated, improbable or untrue, 
 which speaks of events more or less to be deprecated, such as 
 lynchings, sensational robberies, embezzlements, railroad acci- 
 dents, political quarrels, assassinations, and so forth. Generally, 
 too, the editor attaches a moral to such tales, and dishes them up 
 with a heading like "Echt Amerikanisch" (Typically American). 
 
 The present commercial relations obtaining between this 
 country and Germany are insistently represented as gradually 
 beggaring Germany, and often fictitious or garbled statistics 
 seemingly bearing out this claim are published by this press. 
 The German government is taunted with its lack of courage in 
 "showing the Yankee what's what," and every effort to bring 
 about a better understanding between the two countries is stig- 
 matized as unpatriotic. Every member of the Cabinet who 
 shows himself at all friendly to America or Americans is vilified 
 and slandered, and his influence is neutralized in all possible 
 ways. 
 
 This has been the deliberate policy of the German Agrarian 
 press all along, but more particularly since the outbreak of the 
 Spanish war in 1898. At that time they did more to inflame 
 German public opinion against the United States than all other 
 agencies together. The rancorous and rather hostile feeling
 
 THE AGRARIAN MOVEMENT 121 
 
 towards this nation which even now pervades Germany is in 
 large measure directly traceable to this press. So far as the 
 higher classes in that country are concerned, they have an en- 
 tirely distorted conception of America and the Americans, and 
 the picture of us they carry in their minds is by no means a 
 lovely or enticing one. 
 
 During the past three years the Agrarian movement has been 
 going on at an accelerated pace, and it has become more intense. 
 One sign of that is the formation of two new political parties, or 
 factions, the Husbandry League and the Peasants' Federation. 
 The last is confined to certain largely agricultural parts of 
 Bavaria, but the former is strong in the whole of northern 
 Germany. Both owe their origin to the belief of the fanatics 
 among the Agrarians that the existing political parties do not 
 go far enough in antagonizing the growing industrialism of the 
 empire. Baron von Wangenheim is the chief leader of the 
 Husbandry League, and Doctor Hahn and Doctor Roesicke are 
 his ablest lieutenants. This organization has been rapidly 
 gaining, and is now very large, counting by hundreds of thou- 
 sands. Their gala day is the national convention held every 
 year in the Circus Busch in Berlin, where by violent speeches 
 they seek to intimidate the government, and sometimes succeed 
 in doing so. On one of these occasions the chief orator threat- 
 ened the government with the conversion to Socialism of the 
 whole Husbandry League, and with a forcible uprising of the 
 agricultural masses, unless their demands were heeded. Count 
 Buelow he told to go to a very hot place. All this, it must be 
 borne in mind, in a country where usually the State's attorney's 
 aid is invoked by the government for any lapse of speech. But 
 nothing happened to this speaker nor to all the other violent 
 agitators who systematically patrol the country to win recruits 
 for the ranks of this extremist party. 
 
 Though the Husbandry League has not so far elected many 
 members into the Reichstag, it is an important factor just now, 
 for it acts as a continuous spur on the milder and more reason- 
 able Agrarian masses, and on their delegates in Reichstag and 
 Diet, urging and pressing them on a good deal further than they 
 would otherwise be likely to go. 
 
 This has been seen very clearly in the course of the present
 
 122 
 
 GERMANY 
 
 Reichstag session, when under the instigation of the Husbandry 
 League the Agrarian majority of that body increased their de- 
 mands on the government more and more, asking for much higher 
 duties on American agricultural products than the original bill 
 provided, until these duties finally assumed a distinctly pro- 
 hibitory character. The principal orator of the Husbandry 
 League, Doctor Hahn, is what the Germans call a "Krakehler," 
 i. e., a ranter and shouter, and his speeches are usually devoid of 
 logic and common sense. But notwithstanding this he exerts 
 great influence on the agricultural masses, who are nowhere fam- 
 ous for clear reasoning, and also in the Reichstag, largely be- 
 cause of the glowing reports of his speeches in the Agrarian press. 
 
 It should be explained here that the rural masses of electors 
 who send both the Conservative and the Husbandry League 
 delegates to Reichstag and Diet are in their majority dependent 
 for their bread and butter, wholly or in part, directly or indi- 
 rectly, on the successful candidates, many of whom are the 
 owners of the soil which the poor and ignorant elector tills. 
 In those districts, located (as before set forth) in the most back- 
 ward provinces of Prussia, and where the authorities and officials 
 are the kith and kin of these same Agrarian candidates, the 
 voting masses are treated somewhat worse than were the black 
 electors in some of our Southern States during the Kuklux days. 
 Opposition, nay, a lack of blind and mute obedience, is punished 
 severely. It is these bulldozing tactics, some of which are oc- 
 casionally dragged to the light during election contests decided 
 by the Reichstag, upon which very largely rests the political power 
 of these aristocratic landholders. And since it is always a com- 
 mittee in either Reichstag or Diet which in its majority is again 
 made up of Agrarians, it is rare, indeed, that any such election re- 
 sult, no matter how flagrantly illegal the methods employed, is 
 subsequently nullified. But even in the few cases where that has 
 been done, the ultimate outcome is not changed, for the next 
 candidate uses the same methods with less obviousness and 
 with the same success. 
 
 Of course, it must not be presumed that the nation as a whole 
 is blind to these doings. The protests against them are frequent 
 enough. But as these protests naturally come only from either 
 the Liberal or Socialist press, they are not heeded. A couple
 
 THE AGRARIAN MOVEMENT 123 
 
 of years ago one of the leading Liberal papers of Germany pub- 
 lished a series of artieles describing the exact nature of one of 
 these political campaigns in a district fairly typical, viz., located 
 in a purely rural part of West Prussia, the candidates being an 
 Agrarian manorial lord (at present one of the shining lights in 
 the Agrarian ranks of the Reichstag) and a well-to-do merchant, 
 member of the radical Liberal wing. These descriptions (whose 
 accuracy was not disputed in an}^ particular) showed very plainly 
 the high-handed methods of intimidation employed to force the 
 voter to cast his ballot for the Agrarian candidate, the utter 
 lack of argument and reasoning in the Agrarian election ma- 
 noeuvres, and the glaring illegality of the whole proceedings. 
 The Agrarian candidate won, of course, and the publication of 
 his misdeeds had no visible effect. He retains his seat to this 
 day. It ma}^ be partially owing to the fruitlessness of such 
 exposures, at least so far as practical results go, that the Liberal 
 press of Germany does not do its full duty in the premises. In- 
 sufficient enterprise and insufficient persistence is shown by it in 
 tracking these gross violations of the election laws of the land, 
 which practically nullify the real wishes of the electors in vast pro- 
 vincial districts. A couple of our enterprising and outspoken 
 American newspapers would have wrought a change in this respect 
 within a year, and a noticeable veering around of public opinion 
 would inevitably follow the vigourous and consistent exposure of 
 these lawless methods. And public opinion, although it does not 
 count for as mttch in Germany as here, still counts for something. 
 How far the Kaiser, who after all is the most powerful factor 
 in German public life, is personally cognizant of all the details 
 stated above, is mere matter of conjecture. But it woiild be 
 passing strange indeed if he did not know enough about them 
 to give him a pretty shrewd idea as to the original source of 
 inuch of the enormous political power wielded by the Agrarian 
 party. Doubtless he is aware of enough to make him silently 
 desire he had some other party whereby to impose his will upon 
 the masses of the German people. But his mind, as is well known, 
 is strongly tinctvired with prejudices. To abandon definitely 
 the cause of the Agrarians, and to seek the political sttpport of 
 the more advanced and liberal-minded part of the nation, would 
 mean a perfect break with the past, a past to which he is tied
 
 124 GERMANY 
 
 by education, by cast of thought, and by what he deems his 
 dynastic interests. It would mean sole reliance upon the broad 
 middle classes and, as he fears, upon the Socialist masses as 
 well. His nature rebels against that. With all his modern 
 ideas in many respects, he is still thickly enfolded by layers of 
 traditional sentiment and prejudice. His public speeches up to 
 the most recent past show that unmistakably. A man who 
 speaks of the nobility of his country as "the best and loftiest of 
 the nation" must necessarily have a conception of the other 
 classes of the population — /. c, ninety-nine per cent, of it, which 
 is totally at variance with the conceptions held by them of them- 
 selves, and totally at variance with the conceptions held on these 
 points in more liberally governed countries. 
 
 At any rate, the fact is notorious that the Kaiser has not so 
 far in a single instance expressed disapprobation of either the 
 Agrarian party — which under the circumstances is perhaps not 
 astonishing — or of the Agrarian methods and of their habitual 
 misuse of power at elections. As the Agrarians have, on a num- 
 ber of conspicuous occasions, even defied the Kaiser, and have 
 felt no hesitation in making him eat his words, the hold they 
 have on him is best illustrated thereby. His mental attitude 
 is such that he prefers rather to be snubbed and treated as a 
 quantite negligeahle by the Agrarians than to try and govern 
 with the other elements composing the nation. In theory he is a 
 champion out-and-out of modern progress and of the further 
 industrial development and commercial expansion of Germany. 
 In practice he tamely submits to Agrarian dictation when 
 Agrarian interests clash with the vital interests of in- 
 dustrialism. He either does not see or will not be guided by 
 the fact that the progress of industrialism means for Germany 
 practically the relegating to a secondary place of agrarianism. 
 In a country where, according to the latest figures, the over- 
 whelming interests of the nation have become industrial and 
 commercial, in the proportion of five to three, and where 57 
 out of every 100 are living on industry and allied branches, com- 
 mon sense tells that these majority interests must rule, on pain 
 of severe injury to the whole national fabric. 
 
 Count Buelow, the present Imperial Chancellor, is evidently 
 not the man to make the Kaiser see and feel this plain fact.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 PRUSSIAN HEGEMONY 
 
 A MATTER which is generally misunderstood in other countries 
 is the exact position which Prussia occupies in Germany. In- 
 deed, there is a very extended opinion abroad that Prussia 
 virtually means Germany, and that the remainder of the empire 
 is a mere appendage, satis importance and sans vital powers. 
 
 Nothing could be further from the truth. The empire was 
 formed and proclaimed on January i8, 1871, as the result of a 
 number of compacts made between the different sovereign 
 States of Germany. One of the States, although no doubt the 
 largest, which was merged into the empire was Prussia. But 
 Prussia, viewed merely as a component part of the new con- 
 federation, was granted no more rights than the tiniest and 
 least populous of the other sovereign entities making up the 
 empire. 
 
 The case, in fact, offers many analogies with the United States. 
 The State of New York, with its seven millions of population 
 and with its enormous wealth, has no more rights as a member 
 of the Union than has "Little Rhody." Like New York, that 
 small State has adequate representation in the United States 
 Senate, just as the principality of Waldeck, with its 57,913 in- 
 habitants as against the 34,463,377 inhabitants of Prussia, is 
 adequately represented in the Bundesrath, or Federal Senate. 
 Each of the twenty-six sovereign States of Germany enjoys in- 
 dependence in the same ratio as do our several States, nay, even 
 more so. To the Kaiser, as head and chief of the nation, certain 
 exclusive and paramount rights are vindicated by the Imperial 
 Constitution, just as is the case with the President of this Union. 
 These exclusive rights are neither so manifold nor so important 
 as those conferred on our ^President. As King of Prussia, how- 
 ever, the Kaiser enjoys no more privileges and powers than does 
 the sovereign of any of the other twenty-five States composing 
 Germany. The Imperial Constitution explicitly enjoins the 
 
 125
 
 126 GERMANY 
 
 Kaiser from in any way interfering in the internal affairs of the 
 other sovereign States of Germany, and though no doubt this 
 comes very hard to a monarch of such imperious instincts, the 
 Kaiser has been forced all along to rigidly adhere to this com- 
 pact. A strong and healthy sentiment in Germany, which is 
 even found in Prussia to some extent, acts as a perennial curb 
 on him. The several attempts he has made, now and then, to 
 break down this barrier were all vigorously resisted, and at once 
 called out such ominous signs of dissatisfaction, both by the other 
 rulers of Germany and by the people at large, that he in every 
 instance retreated. 
 
 Bavaria has been from the first that State which has most 
 jealously guarded its sovereignty. The sentiment there is so 
 strong that it would not be safe to slight it. In a minor degree 
 this is likewise true of the Kingdom of Wurtteinberg, of the 
 Grandduchy of Baden, and of the Kingdom of Saxony. But in 
 a more or less pronounced manner it is also distinctly traceable in 
 all the other States. 
 
 In the case of Bavaria there are sundry special reasons for the 
 vigour of this feeling. Bavaria is the second largest State in 
 Germany. True, its population but slightly exceeds 6,000,000, 
 and is therefore less than one-fifth that of Prussia, and in terri- 
 tory, too, it shows but 75,864 square kilometres, as against 
 Prussia's 348,607. But it forms, nevertheless, no inconsiderable 
 portion of Germany, and its population has always held — and 
 does now hold — a feeling very much akin to dislike for Prussia 
 and Prussians. In historical development, in manners and in 
 modes of thought there is a radical difference between these two 
 peoples. The Bavarian — like the other South Germans — is by 
 nature a democrat, and abominates that precise drill and that 
 intensely loyal monarchism which distinguishes the Prussian of 
 the old provinces. Bismarck tells us in his Memoirs what an 
 extremely difficult task he had, in the autumn and early winter 
 of 1S70, to induce the then King of Bavaria, Louis II, to come 
 over into the Imperial camp and allow the incorporation of his 
 monarchy with the empire. As it was, the task was only ac- 
 complished by granting to Bavaria a number of exceptional 
 rights — the so-called "Reservatrechte" — which included a wholly 
 separate army management, a separate postal department
 
 PRUSSIAN llEGExMONY 127 
 
 (with special stamps and various other exclusive features), and 
 other prerogatives marking sovereignty quite plainly. 
 
 Wurttemberg, too, had been granted similar privileges, but 
 the growth of pan-national sentiment in that country has been 
 pronounced enough of late to make this kingdom voluntarily 
 relinquish part of them. There is, however, in that country, as 
 in Bavaria, still a very large portion of the population rather 
 hostile to Prussia, and while this sentiment is latent in politics, 
 except on special occasions deemed provocative, it is by no 
 means so socially. The average Prussian even to-day finds his 
 path by no means strewn with roses when becoming a visitor or 
 resident of Stuttgart or some other Wurttemberg town. 
 
 How unabated is this feeling of Borussophobia in South 
 Germany particularly may be noticed in the Reichstag, for 
 instance. Speeches are made there every session, by delegates 
 from either side, breathing this mutual dislike. Among the 
 delegates from Wiirttemberg none is abler and none enjoys such 
 thorough popularity at home as Conrad Haussmann, a democrat 
 pure and simple, and yet on very good terms personally wdth 
 his king. On all important occasions he ventilates his anti- 
 Prussianism in the Reichstag, and these speeches particularly 
 have gained him his wide popularity. A Bavarian delegate, 
 however, Doctor Sigl, recently deceased, outdid him in this 
 respect. On one occasion he told his Prussian fellow-delegates 
 in the Reichstag that Berlin would be a charming city to live in 
 
 as soon as the " Prussians had been kicked out of it." He 
 
 edited a newspaper, called Tkc Bavarian Fatherland, in which 
 he habitually abused his pet enemy, and his wildest utterances 
 were always most applauded throughout Bavaria. 
 
 There have been repeatedly serious and bitter misunderstand- 
 ings between the Kaiser and the ruler of Bavaria, Prince-Regent 
 Luitpold, in every case owing to attempts made by the Kaiser to 
 even slightly transgress the Constitutional limits fixed for him, 
 and in every case the Bavarian ruler had his whole people to back 
 him up. The vigilance of the Bavarian press in this respect is 
 surprising. Thus, on one occasion the Kaiser had invited him- 
 self, in his somewhat abrupt manner, to a review of Bavarian 
 troops. The fact that he had not waited for such an invitation 
 from the Prince-Regent was sufficient to inflame Bavarian pub-
 
 128 GERMANY 
 
 lie opinion . When the Kaiser appeared in Nuremberg, a day be- 
 fore the review, he was at once made aware of the state of things- 
 Not a shout of welcome greeted him in the streets. The popu- 
 lace silently stared at him. He was intensely annoyed by the 
 incident, but it has taught him caution. During the review 
 itself the Bavarian ruler treated the Kaiser precisely as he would 
 have treated the sovereign of a foreign country, and the Bavarian 
 generals and all the lov/er officers behaved to the Kaiser with 
 distant courtesy, thus emphasizing the force of that paragraph 
 in the compact between Bavaria and the empire which vouch- 
 safes to that country perfect independence in military matters 
 during times of peace, and only recognizes the Kaiser as supreme 
 commander in the event of war. The Bavarian army swears 
 allegiance to the ruler of Bavaria, not to the Kaiser. 
 
 These illustrations of anti- Prussian sentiment in Bavaria and 
 elsewhere in Germany could be centupled without any pains, but 
 they will do to show how strong among high and low it is even 
 to-day. All this may seem very strange and futile to Americans, 
 but it is, after all, but natural. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the empire is but thirty-one 
 years old; that up to the time of its formation Germany did not 
 amount to a nation, in the sense of being a political entity and 
 having common political ends in view; that as late as five years 
 before the formation of the empire the power which gave the 
 main impetus to this gathering of all the tribes under one head, 
 that is, Prussia, had been at war with Bavaria, with the other 
 South German States, as well as with Saxony and a number of 
 the other northern and central ones, and that even to-day there 
 are many widows and orphans in the non-Prussian parts of 
 Germany who became so by Prussian bullets. Keeping all this 
 in mind, it will hardly seem astonishing that millions of 
 Germans do not yet experience that fellow-feeling towards 
 their late foes which one part of a nation would under different 
 circumstances have for the other. 
 
 But there is more than that. There is, as we all know, some 
 sectional sentiment in other countries. Italy has it, for 
 instance, in a pronounced degree. The Sicilian harbours for the 
 Lombard or Piedmontese a sentiment far from friendly. The 
 French nieridional looks upon the blond from Pas-de-Calais as
 
 PRUSSIAN HEGEMONY 129 
 
 belonging to a different race — as doubtless he does. Stud}- the 
 school of literature in the South of France made illustrious by 
 Mistral and you will discover a strong current of animosity 
 against the men of the North of France. Even this country, 
 young as it is, is not exempt from sectionalism. The South has 
 only lately come bag and baggage back into the fold. There 
 are differences of race and faith, of customs and thought, between 
 the different parts of the same nation in probably every country. 
 But the difference is one of degree. In Germany it is particularly 
 strong. The whole history of the nation furnishes the explana- 
 tion for that. From its beginning the nation has been rent into 
 fragments, always under some kind of nominal or real head, but 
 always with a federative configuration. For centuries the coun- 
 try was split up into many practically autonomous parts, which 
 in hundreds of cases made long and bitter war upon one another. 
 The present form of government, while an enormous step in 
 advance as compared with formerly, to a certain extent and in 
 a certain sense still encourages this sentiment of separatism. 
 These old dynasties, many of which are much older than that 
 of the Hohenzollerns, and look back upon a glorious past, such 
 as the Wettin dynast}^ of Saxony, which some time ago cele- 
 brated its eight-hundred-year-old reign; the Wittelsbachs of 
 Bavaria, about as ancient in lineage; or the Mecklenburg line, 
 which is even older, practically act as a powerful impediment 
 to that national consolidation which from one point of view 
 would be desirable for the empire's own good. 
 
 Of course, so subtle a mind as Bismarck's had thoroughly 
 gauged this obstacle, and he was perfectly aware of its future 
 injurious effects upon his creation, the empire, when he framed 
 its constitution so as to leave to the small German sovereigns 
 practically all the prerogatives they had enjoyed anterior to 
 national unification. He did simply the best that was feasible 
 at the time, preferring, as an eminently practical statesman, 
 half a loaf to none. He trusted to the beneficent influences of 
 time, and to the gradual intensification of pan-national aspira- 
 tions. In that again he probably builded quite right. For there 
 has been a perceptible lessening of this sectional feeling through- 
 out the empire from which even Bavaria is not wholly exempt. 
 This process of closer amalgamation would unquestionably pro-
 
 I30 GERMANY 
 
 ceed at a much more rapid pace, were it not that there are cer- 
 tain traits of character in the Prussian himself which naturally 
 retard the movement. 
 
 To explain this, it is necessary to remember the history of 
 those provinces of Prussia out of which that monarchy has grown, 
 and whose population has impressed its indelible stamp upon the 
 character of Prussia as a whole. Those provinces were originally 
 settled by Slavic tribes, like the Vends, the Sorbs, the Poles, 
 Masovians, Lithuanians, and others. The German settlers and 
 conquerors in mingling and intermarrying with these Slavs 
 naturally changed ethnologically. They changed in physique, 
 in mode of life, in their whole mental and moral make-up. Large 
 districts in the old provinces of Prussia, even leaving aside in 
 consideration the purely Slavic ones like Posen, West Prussia, 
 and Upper Silesia, are predominantly Slavic in blood. This is 
 the case even in the very cradle of Prussia, in the present province 
 of Brandenburg. A few miles from Berlin (which city itself is 
 Slavic in origin) there is the so-called Spree wald district, which 
 is inhabited by a population purely Slav, even in speech and 
 costume. 
 
 It is no more than might be expected that the South and 
 West of Germany do not, therefore, look upon the average 
 Prussian from these originally Slavic provinces as one of their 
 own race, but rather as largely sprung from a race held by the 
 German an inferior one, especially in culture and morals. 
 True, in the extreme West and South of Germany again the 
 admixture of blood is hardly smaller in degree, for there Celtic 
 and Latin elements have commingled with the German as early 
 as the days of Caesar. But this blood is not regarded as inferior — 
 rather the reverse, and this with reason. There is, then, a dis- 
 tinct race prejudice in part answerable for this latent distrust 
 and dislike felt for the Prussian of the old provinces in the rest of 
 Germany. And race prejudice, when felt by one part of a nation 
 for another, is perhaps even stronger and more unreasoning 
 than when felt by different nations for one another. 
 
 It is but necessary to glance at other nations to perceive this 
 truth. Thus, the race prejudice against the negro, which in this 
 country, for instance, is remarkably strong, exists but in a latent 
 form in those countries where the negro plays no figure in popu-
 
 PRUSSIAN HEGEMONY 131 
 
 lation statistics and where he consequently forms no problem 
 in national life. Parallel cases might be adduced from other 
 nations. 
 
 Besides this large race admixture, however, there are other 
 factors which enter into anti-Prussian sentiment. Owing very 
 largely to its peculiar historical development, and to the paucity 
 of natural resources which is a marked characteristic of those 
 Prussian provinces that formed the nucleus of the present mon- 
 archy, a spirit of ruthless aggression and of a self-assertiveness 
 which is often closely allied to arrogance and bluster, has grown 
 up there and become a leading characteristic of the modern 
 Prussian. This alone would demonstrate his mixed blood, if no 
 other proof of it existed, for it is a trait wholly foreign to the 
 German of pure race. Historians and writers of every descrip- 
 tion are all agreed on this, that one of the chief qualities of the 
 Teuton is modesty and an absence of "brag." Since Prussia, 
 however, became the dominant part of the nation, her sons have 
 made themselves obnoxious to the remainder of the nation by 
 the qualities stigmatized. This is a fact beyond dispute, so 
 much so that it has been proverbial in Germany for centuries. 
 
 With the blood of the conqueror flowing in their veins, with a 
 history which makes them justly proud and conscious of superior 
 prowess, the modern Prussian, both before and after the founda- 
 tion of the empire of to-day, has shown a great knack of mak- 
 ing himself offensive to the other Germans. The dislike felt for 
 him in all non-Prussian lands is indeed very pronounced. No 
 observant traveler understanding the language of the country 
 can fail to notice that in Germany. The writer remembers that 
 while on a trip through Bavaria, some few years ago, numerous 
 instances of the feeling came within his ken. One old peasant 
 in the environs of Munich, suspecting his questioner to be a 
 "Preiss" (Prussian), refused point-blank the information sought, 
 but on being assured that his suspicion was unfounded, became 
 quite affable and communicative. At a theatrical performance 
 in Munich, the audience hissed at the mention of the mere word 
 "Prussia" in the play. Riding in railroad cars, the Bavarian 
 fellow-passengers always behaved very distantly towards 
 Prussians, whom they usually detect at once by their harsh and 
 precise enunciation. Picking up at random a local newspaper
 
 132 GERMANY 
 
 in a Bavarian caf^, the eye lighted upon a satirical editorial 
 aimed at Prussian self-sufficiency. In a Nuremberg restaurant, 
 overhearing the conversation at a neighbouring table which was 
 monopolized by jovial burghers of the town, one of them was 
 heard to tell a story at the expense of his Prussian boarder, 
 whereupon the others remarked in chorus, "What else can you 
 expect of a conceited Prussian?" And so it went on throughout 
 the whole trip. In Stuttgart, where the writer had several con- 
 versations with a local editor, the same ferocious dislike of 
 Prussians was said by him to exist, though not so outspoken 
 as in Bavaria, where people are more given to speak their mind. 
 While traveling in the Rhine country, the writer noticed that the 
 inhabitants of the whole province, though politically forming 
 part of the Prussian monarchy, invariably avoided calling them- 
 selves Prussians, but always spoke of themselves as "Rhine- 
 landers," and in their casual remarks betrayed the same dislike 
 and semi-contempt of "Prussians," meaning thereby, of course, 
 the inhabitants of the old provinces of the kingdom. In Saxony 
 the same fact may be noted, although the dislike is there largely 
 mingled with a sentiment of fear. Whoever remembers how 
 hard little Saxony has fared at the hands of Prussia, and how 
 after the last dismemberment of that enlightened and charm- 
 ing country but a small fragment of its original self is left, can- 
 not wonder at this mental attitude. 
 
 Go where you will, in fact, in all the non- Prussian districts 
 of Germany, and you will discern a strong undercurrent of 
 Borussophobia, and this extends even to the capital, Berlin. 
 They call Prussia, half in jest and half in anger, "Der Hecht im 
 Karpfenteiche " — /. e., the pike in the carp pond, or the equiva- 
 lent of an insatiable, conscienceless robber. While it is gener- 
 ally admitted that such a predatory and ruthless force is needed 
 in the political life of Germany, they contend that it is not 
 possible to love such a person. 
 
 And indeed, the difference in character and behaviour, in modes 
 of thought and life, between the typical (old) Prussian and the 
 typical German is quite marked. Even street life in Berlin 
 when compared with that in non-Prussian cities proves that. 
 In Dresden the stranger asking his way is directed with the ut- 
 most politeness. In Munich he is accompanied part of the way.
 
 PRUSSIAN HEGEMONY 
 
 ^06 
 
 In Stuttgart he is given circumstantial advice which corners to 
 turn and which to avoid. In BerHn he gets a snappish and 
 gruff reply, or none at all. In Berlin the policeman will treat 
 him like a pickpocket or a suspect ; in Dresden he gets elaborate 
 courtesy. 
 
 The Prussian of the typical class has, no doubt, a number of 
 sterling qualities. But he is puffed up with vanity ; he is haughty 
 and discourteous ; he is very close-fisted and inhospitable ; he has 
 an offensive manner; he brags and blusters, and delights in dis- 
 paraging remarks at your expense; above all, he is utterly lack- 
 ing in amiableness and tact. In fine, he is not a pleasant person 
 to associate with. The prejudice against him is largely based 
 on these characteristics. He does not v/ear his heart on his 
 sleeve, and he does not enjoy a chat like the man from South 
 Germany or Saxony. They do not feel at home with him. 
 
 Yet, with all that, the rest of Germany clearly apprehends and 
 fully acknowledges that the Prussian element in the national 
 make-up is an absolute necessity; nay, more than that, that they 
 owe Prussia a heavy debt, and that there are good and sufficient 
 reasons why Prussia should be and remain the dominant factor 
 in German political life. Her right to hegemony is universally, 
 if ungraciously, conceded. And there is no gainsaying the fact 
 that Prussia's preponderance in Germany is an established fact, 
 a fact which is inherent in the whole situation, and which the 
 country cannot, if it would, shake off. 
 
 Prussia is only one of the twenty-six sovereign States of 
 Germany. This is true; but Prussia holds three-fifths of the 
 territory and of the population of the empire, and some of her 
 acquisitions during the past century comprise portions of the 
 most fertile and highly cultured districts of Germany. This fact 
 makes it inevitable that Prussia should exert supremacy in the 
 empire. And though the whole Imperial Constitution was 
 framed in such a way as to yield apparently more influence to the 
 remaining two-fifths of the empire than that portion is en- 
 titled to by size and population, practically things are very 
 much shaped as Prussia wants them to be. There is no escape 
 from that, and it is precisely this unpalatable truth against 
 which the Bavarian and the others chafe. 
 
 The Bundesrath has never crossed Prussia — /. e., the Kaiser,
 
 134 GERMANY 
 
 very seiiously. To obtain the thirteen additional votes in that 
 body which Prussia requires besides her own seventeen to carry 
 her point on any measures, has never proved very difficult. 
 Prussia has so many ways of making herself dreaded by her 
 smaller neighbours, such as railroad connections, river regulations, 
 postal facilities, etc., that this fact alone accounts for much of 
 the actual subserviency shown. But Prussia's material interests 
 are also identical with those of her smaller neighbours in so many 
 instances that this proves another very potent motive. Thus, 
 the impetus given by Prussia in legislation of any kind is nearly 
 always followed by the other States, no matter whether willingly 
 or unwillingly. With a Prussian king of such a bend of mind 
 as the Kaiser, this paramount influence is naturally greater 
 than it might be in the case of a monarch of more placable and 
 conciliatory disposition. The rulers and the populations of all 
 the smaller States appreciate the fact that it is not wise to pro- 
 voke Prussia, and act accordingly. 
 
 That the present status of affairs cannot go on forever, and that 
 at some future time Prussia will probably swallow up, little by 
 little, the other States of Germany, there can be but little doubt. 
 But whether this is likely to happen in the very near future or at 
 some remoter period must be largely matter of conjecture. 
 
 In the above it was pointed out that anti-Prussianism is 
 widely disseminated through the smaller German States, and 
 that this feeling has lost but slightly in its intensity when com- 
 pared with thirty or forty years ago. But, after all, there has 
 been some modification of it, and the ratio of this change is likely 
 to increase more rapidly as the present generation disappears 
 from view. Every year adds to the strength of the habit of 
 bending under Prussian domination, and the growing generation 
 will not know about the time when Prussia was really nothing 
 more than Bavaria, Saxony, Wiirttemberg, etc., namely, an 
 integral part of the German Federation, with no more rights and 
 powers than either of them. Besides, this antipathy to Prussia 
 is a force in only two-fifths of Germany — that is, in the non- 
 Prussian part, and if there are no strong outside influences (as 
 there were formerly) at play, the feeling on that very account 
 cannot predominate in the empire, and can certainly not sway 
 its destinies, nor determine its action on vital occasions. Again,
 
 PRUSSIAN HEGEMONY 135 
 
 there is another current of sentiment in Germany, and one of 
 slowly gathering strength, which makes for the further consolida- 
 tion of the empire. This current exists not only in Prussia 
 itself, but also to quite an extent in the smaller States, at least 
 in some of them. 
 
 It runs parallel with the pan-German movement, and of its 
 essence it is the same. It aims at the gradual elimination of the 
 smaller States and of "particularism" in politics. The ablest 
 and most famous advocate of it was the late Professor Heinrich 
 von Treitschke, who held a chair in history for many years in 
 Berlin University, and whose writings have a large sale and hosts 
 of enthusiastic admirers all over Germany. By the pan-Germans 
 he has been hoisted into the exalted position of their patron 
 saint. Treitschke was by birth a Saxon, and after 1866, when 
 his native country had just been defeated by Prussia, he, vigour- 
 ously sided with Prussia, took up the literary cudgels for her, 
 and left Dresden forever. During the remainder of his life he 
 proved the most potent factor in the Prussianizing of Germany 
 and as the prophet of complete national consolidation. Among 
 his disciples and successors Dr. Frederick Lange takes the lead. 
 He, too, is a powerful and popular writer on political subjects. 
 
 Various agencies are advocated by the spokesmen of this 
 school of thought — coercion and moral suasion; the incessant 
 teaching of the dogma; press, pulpit and university chairs; the 
 gradual weaning away of the population from their own djmas- 
 ties; annuities for the rulers and their households; pressure of 
 public opinion; and other means are spoken of. But it is quite 
 safe to say that the present generation of Germans is not yet 
 ripe for all or any of these measures. Nor does the empire 
 itself as yet rest on such a rock foundation that the experiment 
 of bringing about the complete welding together of its members 
 by violence and internal strife — and at present at least nothing 
 else would accomplish the result — could safely be tried. The 
 small rulers of Germany are for the time quite securely ensconced 
 behind the buttress of their loyal subjects' affections and devo- 
 tion. It would require a hurricane to dislodge them thence. 
 
 Nor is there any particular reason to deplore this fact. True, 
 these rulers of the twenty-four States (for the twenty-fifth — i.e., 
 Alsace-Lorraine, is governed by an official appointed by the
 
 136 GERMANY 
 
 Kaiser) cost their dear subjects quite a penny, at least in the 
 aggregate. But not nearly so much as might be supposed. 
 Bavaria, for instance, grants an annual revenue of but 5,402,683 
 marks, or about $1,300,000, to the regent and all the other mem- 
 bers of the dynasty. The king of Saxony receives about half 
 that sum for the same purpose, and so it goes down in a sliding 
 scale to the rulers of some of those minimal principalities like 
 Waldeck, Reuss, or Lippe, who yet enjoy incomes as large as 
 this big and wealthy nation pays to its president. Altogether 
 something like $10,000,000 are annually paid by the German 
 people out of their pockets to this brood of dynastic rulers, large 
 and small, leaving out of consideration the much larger revenues 
 drawn by them out of crown and private domains, estates, farms, 
 forests, mines, and other remunerative property, which in the 
 first place, of course, came from the people. 
 
 However, this is not so large a sum for a nation of 56,000,000 
 to pay for a political hobby — for such, after all, the keeping of 
 crowned chiefs is — and there is comparatively little complaint 
 on that score to be heard throughout Germany. And this 
 money is spent in the country, and helps home industry and 
 manufacture, while a not inconsiderable portion of it is all along 
 devoted by these rulers to encouraging native art and science, 
 assisting deserving poor, and like objects. The existence of over 
 a score of courts, with their partially wholesome influence on the 
 stage, on literature, art and science, has been largely instrumental 
 in raising the intellectual level of the German nation to its height. 
 Without going so far back as the court of Weimar in the time of 
 Goethe and Schiller, it is worth remembering that the court of 
 Munich has done, at various periods during the recent past, a 
 great deal for the advance of German music (Wagner and Louis 
 II) and literature (Paul Heyse and King Maximilian); that the 
 court of Dresden (Weber, Riickert, Tieck) has done even more 
 for stage and literature, and that scores of names of the con- 
 temporaneous roll of fame are intimately connected with one 
 or the other of these smaller courts, while the court of Berlin, of 
 course, likewise exerted much influence in this direction. 
 
 The beneficial influence thus wrought on certain important 
 phases of the national life of Germany cannot easily be over- 
 estimated. Germany largely owes to it that diversified and
 
 PRUSSIAN HEGEMONY 137 
 
 many-sided complexion of her art, literature and science, and 
 perhaps in nothing more so than in her dramatic art (whose re- 
 generation in certain lines was, for instance, due to the Duke of 
 Saxe-Meiningen, a tiny State), which constitutes one of the chief 
 charms and virtues of her whole intellectual life. There has 
 never been a time during the last one hundred and fifty years 
 when there were not at least three or four of the German sover- 
 eigns to encourage and sustain German philosophers, poets, and 
 other distinguished leaders of thought, who might without that 
 aid have been left to starve. Republics are in that respect 
 notoriously ungrateful and inconsiderate, as history amply proves. 
 
 So there is, as you see, a rather broad silver lining even to this 
 cloud of petty rulers. 
 
 Germany will undoubtedly work out her own political salvation 
 in this respect as in others. As a matter of fact, it is singular 
 that what is called there "the monarchic idea" has never been 
 so overpoweringly strong during the whole nineteenth century 
 as it is now. But if the undercurrents of her political thought 
 are read aright, she is steadily if slowly gaining in the direction 
 of complete national consolidation.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 PAN-GERMANISM 
 
 That movement for territorial and national expansion which 
 in its most naked form is called " Pan-Germanism " (or in 
 German, Alldcutsche Bewegung) is a perfectly natural outgrowth 
 of the political, social and economic conditions obtaining in the 
 empire. It is intimately allied with the colonial movement. 
 In fact, the two interlace and meet at every point. Both have 
 their roots in the undeniable fact that the limits of the present 
 empire are too narrowly drawn for the size of its population 
 and for its importance and its aspirations. This fact was more 
 or less instinctively felt by the entire nation since soon after the 
 close of the Franco-German War, but the sentiment slowly and 
 steadily gathered strength before it came to the surface, and be- 
 came a force in Germany's national politics. By the middle of 
 the eighties it had gained enough momentum, however, to compel 
 Bismarck, much against his will, to heed it. It is well known 
 that since then, one after the other, colonies (or in German 
 "Schutzgebiete" — i.e., protectorates) have been acquired by 
 Germany in several parts of the world, and that the desire for 
 more colonies is unabated to this day. 
 
 This colonial movement, however, found a number of very 
 strong obstacles in its way. These are spoken of elsewhere. 
 Suffice it to say, that it did not take a number of the most en- 
 thusiastic and pushing leaders in the colonial movement long to 
 discover that so far at least as the possibility was concerned of 
 creating a number of "new Germanics, " peopled with the enter- 
 prising surplus of the nation, the colonies would not "fill the 
 bill. " There seemed to be no more conveniently located ter- 
 ritory left on this globe which could under existing political con- 
 ditions be seized or otherwise acquired, and which would do for 
 the new home of large numbers of Germans. As Schiller in one 
 of his oft-quoted ballads put it: "The earth had already been 
 otherwise disposed of." 
 
 138
 
 PAN-GERMANISM 139 
 
 Under these circumstances a current of political sentiment 
 which has always existed in a not too well defined shape in all 
 classes of the German-speaking population gathered renewed 
 power. That sentiment may be briefly defined as consisting in 
 the wish, quite natural and laudable in itself, of uniting under 
 the aegis or under the direct sway of the Imperial crown of 
 Germany all those populations of Teutonic blood which, due 
 to a variety of causes, had strayed away from the national fold, 
 so to speak. 
 
 A longing to effect this reunion with the old fatherland can 
 be traced very plainly through German literature and German 
 political aspirations for several centuries past, ever since in the 
 wake of the Thirty Years' War a number of these former members 
 of the holy Roman Empire of German nationality — which was 
 the official title of the old German Imperial federation until its 
 final and dismal dissolution in 1806 — had been lost or wrested 
 away, or set up independently for themselves, as Holland and 
 Belgium, Luxemburg, etc., had done. While Germany, how- 
 ever, was but an impotent and decentralized congeries of States, 
 these dreams of an "All-Germany" were of no practical conse- 
 quence, either to the Germans themselves or to their neighbours. 
 University students, wearing across the chest the broad silk 
 sash showing the Pan-German colours, black-red-gold, might 
 sing all they pleased about "Das gauze DctitscJiland muss es 
 sein" — their song v/as so much air, nothing more. Pamphlets 
 might appear advocating the reuniting of "all the tribes," and 
 Pan-German athletic or singing societies might hold conventions 
 in any of the more populous cities of Gennan tongue, including 
 Vienna, make rousing speeches and swallow oceans of beer — 
 and the practical effect would be nil. 
 
 All this changed, as a matter of course, when Germany had 
 overcome her traditional foe since the Middle Ages, France. 
 She now stood monarch of all she surveyed, and could begin 
 to think seriously how to solve the problem of a Pan-Germany. 
 So far as the overt acts of the German government are con- 
 cerned, there is nothing to show that it has instigated or fur- 
 thered this movement. Indeed, there have been a number 
 of occasions during the last thirty years when the Pan-Germans 
 have seriously inconvenienced their national government, as it
 
 I40 GERMANY 
 
 is but natural in a movement which tries to discount the future 
 and to disregard the actual political needs and situation of the 
 present. Such a movement is very apt to "queer the course" 
 of the helmsman who is steering, with more or less difficulty, 
 the ship of state through shoals and cliffs into the harbour of 
 safety. The interference of men whose aims lie in the distance 
 and who on that account are too apt to overlook the obstacles 
 near by may render the task of the man at the head of affairs 
 all the harder. This has actually happened in Germany, and of 
 late more frequently than years ago. Whenever Germany has 
 become involved in a controversy of any kind, no matter of how 
 trifling a nature, with some other country, the Pan-Germans, 
 with their motley following of Jingos, Imperialists and extreme 
 Nationalists of every description, have set up a great howl, have 
 expressed extravagant opinions and proposed plans of extrava- 
 gant revenge in a way which naturally embarrassed the central 
 government in Berlin. They have, in every instance, inflamed 
 public opinion, and made a terrific noise, without, of course, 
 representing in any sense the sober and dominant minds of the 
 nation. 
 
 Still, for all that, the Pan-Germans are a power in their country, 
 and it is not too much to say that they stand for a programme 
 which, while it is certainly not the one officially admitted in Ber- 
 lin, and while it has not been adopted in so many words by either 
 the Kaiser, his government or the nation at large, dwells in the 
 minds of all as a vague dream, as a contingency which the nation 
 must prepare for, as a sort of hazy ideal that the future will reveal 
 one day in more tangible form. The Pan-Germans, in other 
 words, may be justly regarded as the political vanguard of the 
 nation. Their aims are shared by millions, both inside and out- 
 side of Germany proper, and while as a well-defined and con- 
 crete factor in every-day German politics their influence is not 
 yet large, they exert a very decided and powerful impetus on 
 the imagination of every part of the nation, and tinge national 
 thought much more strongly than they themselves are probably 
 aware of in many cases. In a sense, they play that part in 
 German political thought which the advocates of a united 
 Germany did during the period of 1815-70. 
 
 As a powerful future ally, as a party embodying those half-
 
 PAN-GERMANISM 141 
 
 avowed dreams of larger national glory, the Pan-Germans are 
 necessarily handled with extreme care by the central govern- 
 ment. Any other course would be, from the purely national 
 point of view, unwise. For the German government cannot 
 afford to seriously discourage the movement which the Pan- 
 Germans represent. Some day they may — nay, probably will — 
 prove its mainstay. 
 
 It is, of course, difficult to write with any degree of authority 
 about the Pan-German movement, for there is, in the very 
 nature of things, little that is tangible about it. It deals with 
 ideas, with aspirations, and nothing palpable has as yet come 
 of it. Nothing that can be touched and seen may come of it 
 for years. But to neglect discussion of this movement would 
 mean a grave omission, for in its essence it is of as great im- 
 portance as the Imperialistic movement in England, as the 
 Expansion movement in this country, or as the Irredentist 
 movement in Italy. And in all these cases there is that behind 
 the movement itself which always commands respect and at- 
 tention — a strong national feeling. It is well to premise this as 
 to the Pan-German movement, for without that strong backing 
 of national sentiment it would be undeserving of notice, since 
 it aims at things which at this juncture of international politics 
 appear almost impossible of realization, and which, at best, are 
 lying in the womb of the future, so inchoate as to be shapeless. 
 
 But the movement itself is very real. The Pan-Germans 
 number by millions in Germany, and there are probably another 
 couple of millions of them in Austria, in America, and scattered 
 broadly or thinly in all other countries v/here the Germans are 
 strong in numbers and influence. They have an ably and power- 
 fully edited press, and a political organization which makes up 
 in boldness and skill what it lacks in numerical strength. Its 
 delegates are to be met with everywhere. Some years ago Dr. 
 Carl Peters, one of the most daring leaders of the movement, 
 made a proselytizing tour of the world, in the course of which 
 he also visited the cities in this country having a large German 
 population, and founded Pan-German clubs in every one of 
 them. The movement has its representatives in the legislative 
 halls and in the press of Germany and elsewhere. In the Reichs- 
 tag there are scores of Pan-Germanists among the members, and
 
 143 GERMANY 
 
 two of their leaders there, Professor Hasse and Doctor Lehr, play 
 a very prominent role in that body. 
 
 One of the most striking evidences of its strength, however, 
 is the rapid growth of the Pan-German federation, or All- 
 deutscher Verband, with a membership of 22,000 and consisting 
 of 218 clubs, whereof 190 in Germany itself and twenty-eight in 
 other countries, such as Australia, the United States, and South 
 Africa. This organization comprises within its membership 
 many men of great influence and distinction, such as Count 
 Arnim-Muskau, Count Udo Stolberg, Doctor Samassa, Professor 
 Stintzing, and others. It issues a party organ, Die Alldeiitschen 
 Blatter, in Berlin, whose circulation runs into the hundred 
 thousand, and it has everywhere zealous and devoted friends. 
 The party programme of this federation confesses in almost 
 unveiled language what it aims at. The first paragraph says: 
 
 "The Pan-German Federation has for object the revival of 
 German-nationalistic sentiment all over the earth; preservation 
 of German thought, ideals and customs in Europe and across 
 the ocean, and the welding into a compact whole of the Germans 
 everywhere. The clubs constituting the Pan-German federa- 
 tion in the different countries decide for themselves, in con- 
 junction with the chief officers of the Federation, by what means 
 these aims are to be attained, keeping in view their particular 
 conditions. " 
 
 Under the second paragraph there are a number of sub-heads, 
 such as " (i) opposing all contrary tendencies by every available 
 means;" "(2) solution of the educational, school, and intellect- 
 ual questions in the sense of a united Germanism;" " (3) further- 
 ance and support of all German-nationalistic currents and aims 
 in all those countries where persons of our race have to fight 
 for the preservation of their kind, and massing together of all 
 the Germans on the globe for these aims;" ' '(4) promotion of an 
 energetic policy in favour of German interests in Europe and 
 across the sea, and, in particular, continuation of the German 
 colonial movement towards practical results." 
 
 The interpretation put upon this programme may be read 
 every day in the Pan-German press, and heard in the campaign 
 and other public speeches of their leaders. This interpretation 
 goes a step or two further than the above words, on their surface,
 
 PAN-GERMANISM 143 
 
 seem to imply. To understand that fully, though, it will be 
 necessary to describe the core of the movement, as it has been 
 expounded for years in the party organs. It will also be neces- 
 sary to outline the political situation, as understood by the 
 Pan-Germans, and so far as it applies directly or indirectly to 
 the forces composing this movement. 
 
 It is well known that the German-speaking race, so far as it 
 was grouped politically together, was virtually severed into two 
 parts of very unequal size by the Prusso-Austrian war of 1866. 
 The battle of Sadowa meant not only that Prussia proved tri- 
 umphant in that fraternal strife, but that the German influence 
 in Austria-Hungary, up to that time dominant in the internal 
 affairs of the polyglot empire, was doomed to succumb to Slavic 
 and Magyar influences, once the hegemony in Germany herself 
 had been wrested away from the Hapsburg rulers of the dual 
 monarchy. And so it proved. The Germans, who by their 
 higher culture and education, by their greater wealth and further 
 progress in the arts, in industry, manufacture, etc., and by the 
 strong backing they had always had from Germany proper, had 
 played the leading role, the role of educator in Austria-Hungary, 
 became by easy stages, during the past thirty-six years, the 
 Cinderella in politics there, being gradually outnumbered, out- 
 voted, and out-manoeuvred by their Slavic and Magyar fellow- 
 citizens. Generally speaking, it is true that the German- 
 speaking Austrians and Hungarians, numbering some eleven 
 millions altogether, are intensely dissatisfied with the turn affairs 
 have taken, and that they cast more or less longing eyes across 
 the frontier at powerful and energetic Germany, where their race 
 is achieving more progress and power and wealth every day. The 
 Pan-Germans believe that the Austrian Germans would, as soon 
 as the way was clear for it, like to join the German empire, 
 and totally relinquish their allegiance to the empire of the 
 Hapsburgs. 
 
 For this belief they have strong grounds. Whoever has 
 watched the internal race strife in the politics of Austria- 
 Hungary, during the past few years especially — and this race 
 strife has substantially been the keynote to everything done politi- 
 cally there — must have noticed how German sentiment in that 
 monarchy has become steadily more and more bitter, and how it
 
 144 GERMANY 
 
 has been consolidated more and more on the lines of consan- 
 guinity. The German factions there, up to recent years still 
 warring upon each other for a variety of minor reasons, have 
 one by one dropped these marks of separation, and have begun 
 to feel as one nationality — one that is opposed by all others, 
 and must, therefore, stand together for that very reason. But 
 these political reasons, which tended to alienate the Germans 
 in Austria from the rest of the population there, were not the 
 only ones, nor even the principal ones, working in that direction. 
 Material reasons came in. Under the new regime in the Austro- 
 Hungarian empire they have been crowded more and more to 
 the wall. Their best markets were taken from them, and with 
 them the chief sources of their wealth. As Hungary developed 
 in manufactures, she shut the doors against the Austrian-German 
 manufacturer, and as Germany imported more and more of her 
 food stuffs and raw products for industry from America and 
 other countries, it was the Austrian exporter of German blood 
 who again primarily suffered by the change. Vienna rapidly 
 sank from a wealthy, even luxurious, metropolis of a powerful 
 empire to the chief capital merely of the one-half of the em- 
 pire. As Vienna sank, so rose Budapest and Prague, and all 
 that meant great loss of trade to the German merchant and 
 manufacturer of Austria. 
 
 A political party arose among the Austrian-Germans whose 
 professed creed, as proclaimed in the Austrian Parliament 
 by its spokesmen, Wolff and Schonerer, was: "Los von 
 Oesterreich " — i. e., "Away from Austria. " This party grew in 
 strength and importance, and represents to-day the main driving 
 force among the men of German blood in the ill-assorted mon- 
 archy. Nay, even religion was forced into this propaganda for 
 the severance of these Germans from Austria. As the Catholic 
 clergy, acting under instructions from Rome, discouraged this 
 German nationalistic current, thousands and tens of thousands 
 of Catholic Germans in Austria have lately turned Protestant, 
 and this movement is still spreading. 
 
 There are other factors working in the same direction, and 
 thus it is not astonishing that those in Germany proper who 
 v>dsh to believe so do believe that the end of it all must and will 
 be the reuniting of these detached fragments of the German
 
 PAN-GERMANISM 145 
 
 race to the people they ethnologically and intellectually belong 
 to — viz., the German. 
 
 But the Pan-Germans do not sufficiently appreciate certain 
 facts. The vis inertice of political conformations, no matter how 
 poorly joined together, is very great. History proves that. 
 And to forcibly split up a monarchy which has lasted for seven 
 centuries, and which hangs together by innumerable threads of 
 traditional feeling and by immense totality of common inter- 
 ests, is no light task. But there is, besides, the peace of Europe 
 to consider. Nowadays such great upheavals as the falling to 
 pieces and breaking into a mass of incongruous entities of the 
 Austro- Hungarian monarchy would be, are usually prevented 
 by the concerted action of the powers, but even more perhaps 
 by the mutual jealousies of these saine powers — a fact to which 
 European Turkey, for instance, solely owes her continued ex- 
 istence. 
 
 Be that as it may, it is out of the question that the dismember- 
 ment of Austria will be such a simple or easy process as the Pan- 
 Germans imagine. It certainly will not occur during the life- 
 time of the present monarch, Emperor Francis Joseph. His 
 heir-presumptive is an unknown cjuantity practically, but that 
 he sides rather with the Czechs and the Magyars than with the 
 Germans of wavering loyalty there seems to be no doubt. It is 
 possible, of course, that under him such a cataclysm might 
 happen as the complete downfall of the Austrian monarchy 
 would be. But the contrary is even more possible, in view of all 
 the circumstances that will tend to keep the old political con- 
 figuration together. 
 
 However, the Pan-Germans reckon not only with the possi- 
 bility of this dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian empire, 
 but count it a moral and political certainty. They do not say 
 how they will overcome the geographical difficulties that stand 
 in the way of annexation of the German provinces of Austria — 
 how the German part of Bohemia, with its three millions of 
 Germans, is to get rid of the larger half, the Czech half, of 
 Bohemia, with its four to five millions; hov/ the German-speaking 
 provinces to the east and south of Vienna are to get over the 
 fact that they are separated from Germany by Slav populations; 
 nor how the Germans of Carinthia and Carniola, who are sur-
 
 146 GERMANY 
 
 rounded by other and more numerous Slav populations, are to 
 oust these ; and they indicate no means whereby the three million 
 of Germans in the other half of the monarchy, scattered through 
 a vast space peopled by Magyars and Slavs, and separated like 
 the Germans in Transylvania by hundreds of miles from their 
 fellows, are to come any nearer to the German empire. These 
 difficulties seem almost insurmountable, and they are a wall 
 erected against the national aspirations of the Pan-Germans. 
 
 This, then, in a nutshell, is the great problem that confronts 
 the Pan-Germans in Austria. That, however, is but one item, 
 though the weightiest, in their programme. The annexation of 
 the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland, that of Holland, 
 of the Flemish part of Belgium, of Luxemburg, of the German- 
 speaking or Baltic provinces of Russia, are so many more prob- 
 lems. As to Belgium and Holland, there has of late been a sort 
 of movement which seems to indicate at least a veering around 
 of public sentiment there in favour of a rapprochement, or a 
 closer political and commercial understanding with Germany. 
 The Flemish movement itself is an indication of the reawakened 
 race sentiment of that fragment of the great Germanic tree, a 
 fragment, however, amounting to about four million souls, and 
 which has been strong in history and successful in commerce. 
 The annexation of the Flemish provinces of Belgium and of the 
 whole of Holland would give German}^ a powerful position on the 
 North Sea and reunite with her a people that is purely German 
 in race and tongue, although estranged from her for cen- 
 turies, and with different political and social ideals and customs. 
 For a powerful empire like Germany it is undoubtedly a galling 
 fact that the whole lower course and the mouth of her most 
 navigable and important river, the Rhine, is in the possession of 
 another, a much smaller but very independent, people, and 
 that that people stops the empire's egress towards the west, the 
 sea. The same argument applies to Belgium. 
 
 However, the ugly fact remains that Holland and Belgium, 
 while they have become very friendly towards Germany, 
 show no inclination whatever of giving up their political inde- 
 pendence and of throwing their lot in with that of Germany. 
 True, there is a movement afoot both in Germany and Holland 
 which, if successful, might lead to a sort of political and colonial
 
 PAN-GERMANISM 147 
 
 protectorate exercised by Germany over Holland. It has been 
 nursed by the fear of the Dutch that either the United States or 
 England might seize their valuable Indian possessions, especially 
 Java and Sumatra. This fear has been magnified by the Pan- 
 German press by pointing to the Spanish-American War and 
 drawing analogies therefrom. But so far the majority of the 
 people of Holland have not taken this warning very seriously, 
 and indulge grave doubts as to its disinterestedness. However, 
 there is no telling what the evident rapprochement of Holland 
 and Germany may eventually bring forth, since the fact is un- 
 deniable that Holland, in a far greater degree than Switzerland, 
 is at the mercy of her powerful neighbour at home, and that her 
 colonial empire might be wrested away from her any day by an 
 unscrupulous power possessed of a strong navy. The advo- 
 cates of a close understanding between Germany and Holland 
 say that Germany might guarantee to Holland her colonies, in 
 exchange for special commercial favours to be shown Germany 
 in these colonies, and that a tariff league, or "Zollverein," such 
 as bound, for instance, Austria and Germany together for inany 
 years, could be concluded between the two countries at home. 
 Holland is even now one of Germany's best customers; in fact, 
 relatively considered, the best — i. c., per capita. Holland ceased 
 to be a member of the old German empire only with the Peace 
 of Muenster, in 1648, and might become a member of it again 
 without sacrificing much of her national independence, about 
 on the same plane as Bavaria — with a number of reserved riglits. 
 The greatest obstacle in the way of that, however, is the average 
 Dutchman's dislike to military service — above all, compulsory 
 military service. This aversion is with him even stronger and 
 more settled than with the average Englishman. Probably he 
 would rather run his chances of being "gobbled up" as a result 
 of his military unreadiness, and his weakness on the seas, than 
 "play soldier," as he calls it. 
 
 In Belgitmi, things in the main are similar in this respect, 
 though not quite to the same extent. There is a larger and a 
 better equipped army, and there is a chain of powerful fortresses 
 encircling the little kingdom, so that it would not be quite so 
 easy a matter to annex Belgium. Besides, she has no colonies, 
 if we do not count the Congo Free State, and this may be properly
 
 148 GERMANY 
 
 done, since King Leopold assumed sole financial responsibility 
 for that colonial venture in the heart of Africa. Thus, Belgium 
 can do without a navy. On the other hand, contrary to con- 
 ditions in Holland, the internal political situation in Belgium 
 has been steadily growing worse for years, and the very large 
 Socialist element there desires amalgamation with Germany for 
 party reasons. The Belgian dynasty, too, foreign in race and 
 represented by so poor a specimen as King Leopold II, has no 
 deep root in the country, whereas the old Orange line in the 
 Netherlands grows with every fibre in home soil. Economically 
 considered, Belgium, like Holland, is on the closest terms with 
 Germany, and these economic ties are becoming stronger all the 
 while as German enterprise expands. 
 
 What finally is to become of both Holland and Belgium, 
 especially in a ruthlessly aggressive age, when material interests 
 ride roughshod over sentimental considerations, as we have seen 
 in the case of the war in South Africa, is mere matter of con- 
 jecture. Only this much seems certain: That in a general 
 political convulsion, such as may come on the continent of Europe 
 before long, and which might end with a regrouping of powers 
 and countries on strictly nationalistic lines, such guarantees as 
 so far have vouchsafed the international position of both 
 Belgium and Holland would prove no insuperable barrier to the 
 powerful currents of German national aspiration that were por- 
 trayed above. The tendency towards national expansion and 
 consolidation is too strong in the leading and most energetic 
 nations to be checked by mere paper walls that should 
 happen to stand in the way. However, all this is, to borrow 
 an expressive German phrase, "Zukunftsmusik," and only the 
 future will show. 
 
 At any rate, the dream indulged in by the Pan-Germans and 
 all their conscious and semi-conscious followers, the dream of 
 building up an empire extending, after the annexation of the 
 German provinces of Austria, and of Holland and Belgium, 
 from the shores of the Adriatic to those of the western North 
 Sea, is such an enticing one, and one so powerfully spurring on 
 the imagination of an ambitious nation, that its force on the 
 public mind of Germany must not be underrated. 
 
 A concomitant part of that dream is also the acquisition some-
 
 PAN-GERMANISM 149 
 
 how of the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland, comprising 
 two-thirds of that repubUc territorial!}', and four-fifths in 
 wealth and population. The desire, I say, exists in Germany, 
 but there seems precious little to build this hope on. For 
 not only have these districts been politically separated from 
 Germany much longer than either Holland or Belgium, but they 
 are also very well satisfied in every possible way with their 
 present lot — prosperous, independent and respected. Their long 
 republican training has, besides, bred in the German Swiss a 
 fierce hatred of autocratic and monarchic rule, and this strongly 
 militates against any such close political understanding with 
 Germany as is the case with Holland and Belgium. The Swiss 
 press, as well as every other kind of Swiss public expression, has 
 uniformly, whenever the idea has been broached in Germany of 
 winning back that originally German territory, scouted the very 
 mention of it. In a military sense, too, the Swiss Federation is 
 no mean foe, at least so far as defense is concerned. Their 
 militia system, while, of course, it cannot wholly take the place 
 of a thoroughly trained regular army, is the best in the world, and 
 the officers are excellent in spirit and ability. The Swiss are 
 naturally a warlike race, like the Germans, and take to the pro- 
 fession of arms quite kindly. The chain of powerful forts and 
 mountain fastnesses which has been perfected by Switzerland 
 along her whole extensive frontiers, but strongest on her eastern, 
 or German one, since the close of the Franco-German War, and 
 her excellently trained militia, numbering in all several hun- 
 dreds of thousands, would, in a war where the national existence 
 should be at stake, represent a total force of no mean preten- 
 sions, even for Germany, to cope with. Thus at first blush 
 there seems not even a scintilla of fact favouring the Pan- 
 German aspirations in this quarter. 
 
 But there are, nevertheless, several facts of great importance 
 that tend in that direction. The chief one is economic. Switzer- 
 land has during the last twenty years become more and more 
 dependent on Germany, commercially viewed. Her exports 
 and imports to and from Germany now overbalance by far those 
 with any other country. Germany bought last year from 
 Switzerland to the amount of 180,000,000 marks, or about 
 $45,000,000, and sold 300,000,000 marks' worth, or $75,000,000.
 
 ISO GERMANY 
 
 This trade of $120,000,000 with a nation numbering barely 
 3,000,000 is relatively immense, and on the Swiss side is not 
 equaled by the joint trade with her two other main customers 
 and neighbours, France and Italy. A wise economic policy on 
 Germany's part and an equally unwise one on the part of France 
 and Italy, with both of whom Switzerland has been waging bitter 
 tariff wars, has aided greatly to bring this about. Such a close 
 community of economic interests means much in this age, where 
 material interests predominate. Identity of language and liter- 
 ature, identity of culture and art, and similarity of manners and 
 customs form another strong bond between the two countries, 
 and this bond particularly has greatly strengthened during the 
 last thirty years. The natural attraction which a powerful and 
 fast-growing empire has for a small country of the same race — 
 one whose independence is, after all, like that of Belgium and 
 Holland, only safeguarded by international agreement and 
 mutual jealousy, likewise counts for something. Nevertheless, 
 all things considered, there seems but slight tangible reason for 
 the hopes of the Pan-Germans to bring the German part of 
 Switzerland eventually under the sway of the empire, and this 
 view is shared by the sober-minded and overwhelming portion 
 of the German people. 
 
 Luxemburg, also purely German in blood, language and 
 civilization, is another small country which the Pan-Germans 
 claim as fair prey. One of the old German emperors was 
 from Luxemburg, and by history and political affiliations it 
 belongs clearly to the empire. But it is now a grand duchy 
 with a German for its ruler, and was made politically independent 
 as the outcome of the French intrigue of 1867, which Bismarck 
 nipped in the bud. It forms, however, a member of the German 
 tariff union, so that all its economic interests are identified with 
 those of the empire. The inhabitants are quite satisfied with 
 their present lot, which frees them from the burden of taxation 
 incurred by their great neighbours for military and other pur- 
 poses. 
 
 Lastly, the programme of the Pan-Germans embraces the 
 acquisition, by conquest or otherwise, of Russia's so-called Baltic 
 provinces — Livonia, Courland, and Esthonia. These represent, 
 like the province of Prussia from which the kingdom of that
 
 PAN-GERMANISM 151 
 
 name took its appellation, territory which was conquered, settled, 
 and christianized by German orders of knighthood during the 
 Middle Ages, and where the civilization, the dominating influence 
 and the entire intelligence has been from the start, and still is, 
 German. Under these German influences the three barbarian 
 provinces, so far to the north on the borders of the Baltic, 
 attained a fair measure of culture and prosperity, and when, dur- 
 ing the time of German political impotence, these provinces were 
 finally incorporated with Russia, they contributed, despite their 
 relatively small German population, an enormous number of 
 Russia's great men — soldiers, statesmen, scientists, etc. — whose 
 names shine on every page of Russian history since the days of 
 Peter the Great. 
 
 The German element in these provinces formed a sort of 
 aristocracy of birth, mind and wealth, during the last six hundred 
 years, and the university of Dorpat (now Russianized under 
 the new name of Yuryeff) counted among the best, and many of 
 Germany's leading minds taught or graduated there. They 
 remained faithful to their German blood, and kept up the closest 
 relations with the men of their race in Germany proper, despite 
 all the allurements held out to them by official Russia to wean 
 them away from these influences. 
 
 Unfortunately for Pan-German aspirations, the German 
 element in the Baltic provinces is numerically inferior to the 
 native element — Esthnian, Livonian and Kurelian. The Russian 
 government since the days of the present Czar's father, 
 Alexander III, has seriously entered on the task of thoroughly 
 Russianizing these provinces, and has steadfastly continued 
 this policy ever since. In doing this the Russian government 
 has utilized the native element spoken of above very skilfully 
 and successfully. This Russifying process has now progressed 
 far enough to show very palpable results. The political domina- 
 tion of the German element has been well-nigh broken, and by 
 strictly enforcing the preponderance of the Russian language in 
 the schools and in the university of the provinces, a death-blow 
 has been given to superior German culture there. Territorially 
 separated from the empire, and forming a part of gigantic 
 Russia, it is indeed difficult to see how these provinces are ever 
 to be united to Germany. As a matter of fact, the German gov-
 
 152 GERMANY 
 
 eminent discourages the propaganda in favour of Germanizing 
 these provinces. During Bismarck's time, when the Russi- 
 fication of them first became a systematized effort of the St. 
 Petersburg central authorities, and a wave of popular indignation 
 and sympathy thereupon swept all over Germany, it was the 
 Iron Chancellor himself who, in the Reichstag, severely depre- 
 cated such manifestations. 
 
 Thus, casting a bird's-eye view over the whole situation, it 
 is seen that the Pan- German movement in favour of reuniting all 
 these lands of German or Germanic tongue and thought, but 
 politically estranged from the rejuvenated empire, has uphill 
 work before it, work which will not only require all the mettle 
 there is in the race, but also luck, unusual luck, to accomplish 
 anything palpable. Its main hope is builded, of course, on the 
 unknown political events of the future, and in the crucible of 
 national amalgamation — a tendency of almost elementary 
 strength these days — things unforeseen may be evolved. Mean- 
 while, the Pan-German movement itself, as pointed out above, 
 gathers momentum every year, and is drawing into its vortex 
 larger and ever larger masses of the German-speaking race. 
 
 The published programme of the Pan-German Federation, as 
 translated above, embraces, however, the further task of "con- 
 tinuing the German colonial movement towards practical re- 
 sults. " The interpretation given to this part of the society's 
 creed, to judge by the utterances of the Pan-German press and 
 leaders, means this: To create new colonies, suitable for settle- 
 ment by native Germans, and to remain under the political 
 and economic control of the mother country; to organize the 
 Germans now residing in other lands which are still in the political 
 and intellectual period of formation, into a distinctively German 
 element, in sympathy with the institutions of their native country 
 and a power working on political, social and commercial lines 
 primarily for the good of Germany, and not of their adopted 
 homes. 
 
 This statement of the purposes of this federation — which, it 
 must be remembered, is after all but the nucleus for that far 
 larger body of men which it governs and directs in these matters, 
 is amply borne out by the facts. Hundreds of public speeches 
 have been delivered in Germany during the last ten years, both
 
 PAN-GERMANISM 153 
 
 in the legislatures there and before large and representative 
 societies, such as the Colonial Society, for instance, and thou- 
 sands of press utterances have been printed in which the above 
 idea is carried out to its logical conclusion. 
 
 Now, from the German national viewpoint, there is nothing 
 more natural or laudable. For a hundred years Germany has 
 seen millions of her sons emigrating to other countries, especially 
 to North and South America, who carried with them a large part 
 of the nation's energy, culture, and industry, yet who in the end 
 were totally lost to the mother country, so far as an extension of 
 its political and commercial power was concerned. The best 
 and purest minds of Germany have deplored this deeply, and 
 justly so. What more natural than the wish to so shape and 
 influence German emigration henceforth as to benefit in the first 
 place the country which gave them birth and all the blessings 
 of a vast and varied culture ! German statisticians have 
 estimated the average loss sustained by the nation in the 
 person of each adult and healthy emigrant at $1,000. For the 
 12,000,000 of Germans who have left their country for others 
 during the nineteenth century that would mean a financial and 
 political loss so enormous as to almost defy imagination. 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, it needs no pointing out that this new 
 programme of the Pan-Germans as to emigrants from the father- 
 land smacks of danger for the countries they hereafter will choose 
 as a new abiding place or a second home. However, this danger 
 cannot be considered very great, for so far as this country, for 
 instance, is concerned, the assimilative powers of the people of 
 the United States are, as experience has proven, so enormous as 
 to undo even the strongest original intentions that the individual 
 emigrant from Germany may on arriving have harboured in 
 his mind as to preserving his German ego in all its pristine purity. 
 Nothing has been better demonstrated than this truth during 
 the period when German immigration to this country formed 
 the largest factor in the total — the period, let us say, from 1872- 
 85, and before that, the one from 1850-55. All the flighty 
 dreams of founding "new Germanies " on the soil of this Republic 
 (dreams which, indeed, were indulged in by many thousands of 
 German immigrants in those days, and which were fostered and 
 encouraged by millions of Germans at home) came to naught.
 
 154 GERMANY 
 
 The few sucn colonies, intended as a nucleus of future German 
 empires, in Texas, Wisconsin, Iowa, and elsewhere,- were after a 
 few years, or at most a generation, easily and quietly absorbed 
 in the great body politic of the Republic. And this came about 
 in every instance through the simple and natural process of 
 political and social attrition and assimilation exerted by a vast 
 homogeneous body upon these small foreign excrescences. 
 
 Since then German immigration here has dwindled more and 
 more. This is not an accidental or short-lived fact, as the 
 figures for the past ten or tvv'elve years unmistakably prove. 
 It comes from the empire's greater powers of absorption, in- 
 cident to higher industrial development. There were years of 
 late when the number of foreigners immigrating to Germany — 
 Poles, Russians, Austrians and Italians — was far greater than 
 the number of her own sons seeking foreign shores. 
 
 But even if that were not the case, and assuming that German 
 immigration here, perhaps during another lengthy period of 
 financial depression in the empire, should again mount up to for- 
 mer figures, or even exceed them; and assuming that every one 
 of these German immigrants should be a convert to the Pan- 
 German programme (which, however, is out of the question, 
 the contrary being much more likely), no serious danger would 
 or could threaten this Republic from that source. Leaving all 
 other considerations aside, the one fact that we here have a com- 
 monwealth of 80,000,000, and rapidly growing and more firmly 
 consolidating, shows how utterly absurd is the idea that any 
 bodies of immigrants, even rising into the hundreds of thousands, 
 could here found new political colonies based on a spirit foreign 
 or hostile to existing conditions. The idea is not worth being 
 seriously entertained, and could only find lodgment in the brain 
 of a madman or of a blatant and insincere demagogue. 
 
 I will add, of my own knowledge, that this crackbrained 
 scheme of creating here a German element so strong in numbers 
 and influence as to be able to form a "State within a State, " of 
 exerting as such a determining political influence during critical 
 points in American national life, has been abandoned for good 
 by all the sober-minded men of Germany, and that means the 
 overwhelming majority. There are still, it is true, some promi- 
 nent men there who hold to this view, but this proceeds from
 
 PAN-GERMANISM 155 
 
 ignorance of real conditions here, and such men are few and far 
 between. 
 
 It is otherwise, of course, as to certain parts of South America. 
 The German government emphatically disclaims any intentions, 
 immediate or remote, of either founding or furthering the founda- 
 tion of such German colonies there that would enjoy autonomy 
 under the German flag. The Kaiser through his ambassador in 
 Washington, and throtigh his ministers in South America, as 
 well as through the mouth of Count von Buelow, the Imperial 
 Chancellor, has repeatedly given strong assurances that no such 
 plans are harboured by him or his government. And in any 
 case there is nothing to show that such plans exist. 
 
 But the programme of the Pan-Germans does embrace such a 
 scheme of creating independent German colonies, existing by the 
 power and under the flag of the empire, and redounding to that 
 empire's political and commercial advantage. There is not 
 the smallest doubt about that. This I can affirm of my own 
 knowledge, and there is plenty and convincing evidence to sus- 
 tain it. The interest felt all over Germany in this scheme is 
 indeed general and extraordinary. The papers are full of it. 
 Letters from prominent men advocating it appear constantly. 
 Reports about conditions in those parts of South America where 
 German colonies of importance already exist are printed almost 
 daily in the influential press organs, and in common conversation 
 the topic is frequently referred to. In the rough, then, both the 
 will and the wish exist in the German nation, at least in very 
 large and influential strata of it, to found distinctively German 
 and national colonies, particularly in the three States of Rio 
 Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and Parana, all located in the 
 moderate climate belt of Southern Brazil, and in Southern 
 Argentina and Uruguay, where the climate, too, is suited to the 
 German agricultural colonist and trader. 
 
 The German population in those parts of the earth is even 
 now considerable and fairly prosperous, and such colonies as 
 Blumenau, Neu-AViirttemberg, Joinville, and others, enjoy even 
 under their present Brazilian regime practical autonomy and 
 independence. In numbers this German population amounts 
 to something like half a million, settled rather in compact bodies 
 than scattered, and this in a territory boasting all told of but a
 
 156 GERMANY 
 
 million and a half of inhabitants, means more than appears on 
 the surface. However, this German population there is con- 
 stantly growing, and emigration to those districts is systemati- 
 cally promoted and encouraged in Germany. The North German 
 Lloyd company has bought immense agricultural territory there, 
 in size amounting to more than a half dozen German principali- 
 ties, and furthers German emigration to it. At the time the 
 North German Lloyd first began to engage in this venture, some 
 seven years ago, it was said in Germany that the Imperial 
 Government stood behind the scheme as sponsor, but of this I 
 was unable to obtain official or otherwise reliable corroboration. 
 Several circumstances, however, lent colour to the story. 
 
 There exists, too, a powerful and numerous private organiza- 
 tion in German3^ the German-Brazilian Society, whose presi- 
 dent is Rear Admiral Plueddemann, and whose main object is 
 to foster German interests and emigration to that country. 
 Lieutenant-General von Alten, one of the Kaiser's intimates, 
 is one of the directors of this organization. 
 
 Another promising field for German emigration, from the 
 viewpoint of the Pan-German Federation, is South Africa. Up 
 to the breaking out of the Boer war the impression was very 
 general throughout Germany that German political and com- 
 mercial influence could there, with some effort, be made para- 
 mount and overleap the British. Knowledge of this state of 
 feeling in Germany had doubtless something to do with the 
 exceeding bitterness displayed in England after the Kaiser's 
 congratulatory despatch to Kruger after the failure of the 
 Jameson raid. Germany had already large possessions there — 
 German Southwest Africa, adjoining to the south for hundreds 
 of miles the northern border of Cape Colony, and German East 
 Africa, more tropically located. Neither of these colonies is at 
 present of great value, in any sense, but it was hoped that the 
 internal strife between Boer and Briton would eventually ter- 
 minate to Germany's advantage, and give her the position of 
 paramount importance in the whole of South Africa, so eagerly 
 sought for. Even now, after peace between England and the 
 Boers has been restored, many persons in Germany think that 
 England's prestige has been permanently destroyed there and 
 that Germany will step in as tcrtiiis gandciis. This feeling Oa
 
 PAN-GERMANISM 157 
 
 self-interest in the outcome of England's fight there had a share 
 in the otherwise almost inexplicable depth of Anglophobia ram- 
 pant in the empire for years past. 
 
 With the view of ultimately strengthening Germany's political 
 position and commercial interests in South Africa German 
 emigration to those parts has been consistently encouraged at 
 home. Every German going there is looked upon as a pioneer 
 of German interests and as a future factor in helping to bring 
 about German supremacy there. The systematic immigration 
 to German colonies of Boers from the two former Free States 
 and from Cape Colony or Bechuanaland is similarly regarded, 
 and this immigration has only just begun to play a figure. The 
 latest accounts in the German colonial press show that thousands 
 of these Boers, presumably every one of them a bitter foe to 
 England, have already been settled in the southern districts of 
 German Southwest Africa. Whether all these hopes of future 
 domination in South Africa are also doomed to fail time alone 
 will show.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE TARIFF PROBLEM 
 
 The Germany of to-day is a workshop for many nations. 
 The express from Cologne to BerHn shoots for hours through 
 swarming towns, which are almost as well lighted at night 
 as by day, with tall chimneys belching flame, where thousands 
 of skilled mechanics, miners, and artificers turn out the finished 
 product of shuttle and anvil. This busy district is the creation 
 of the last two decades. Nature has provided coal and iron 
 ore, in enormous layers and veins, but most of it so deep down 
 that the cost of mining is considerably higher, despite lower 
 wages, than in either Pennsylvania or England. Yet such 
 flourishing industrial centres as Essen, Bielefeld, Bochum, 
 Muenster, Minden, Dortmund, Elberfeld, Barmen, Krefeld, Aix- 
 la-Chapelle and Siegen have for 3^ears successfully competed 
 with the world. The backbone of Germany as an exporting 
 centre is in this district, and there the great German captains of 
 industry have built up their immense plants and their gigantic 
 fortunes. But in transportation facilities, and especially in rail- 
 road freights, they are again worse off than their two chief rivals, 
 and the mines, too, for the most part, are not convenient to the 
 harbors by the North Sea and Baltic, or to the people of the 
 eastern provinces. The canal system which the Kaiser planned 
 years ago, to give the industrial output of the west cheap trans- 
 portation to the eastern agricultural provinces, and the latter's 
 foodstuffs an easy transit to the west, is still unrealized, since 
 the Agrarian party in the Prussian Diet twice killed the bill. 
 The harbor at the mouth of the Ems River, Emden, will be 
 turned into an important shipping point, it is true, with four 
 or five times its present capacity for handling merchandise. 
 But the Prussian government's plans will require at least ten 
 years for execution. Then Emden will become another 
 Hamburg or Bremen, and German manufactures from the 
 
 158
 
 THE TARIFF PROBLEM 159 
 
 Westphalian lowlands can be cheaply shipped. But the present 
 drawbacks for the German manufacturer in those regions are 
 serious. 
 
 Yet, aside from the financial depression in Germany, the 
 effects of which bid fair to last several years longer, German in- 
 dustry to-day is somewhat demoralized. The fear of American 
 competition has wrought its spell there as well as in England. 
 The phrase "American invasion," has taken thorough hold of the 
 German imagination. Nor is this to be wondered at. Such 
 a veering around of trade conditions as has taken place between 
 the United States and Germany is enough to strike terror even 
 to unimpressionable Germans, and the enemies of the United 
 States there have naturally made the most of it. In 1880 the 
 total imports of Germany were 2,844 million marks, of which 
 less than six per cent, came from the United States; while 
 Germany exported out of a total of 2,977 niillions more 
 than six per cent, to this country. In 1890, nine and one- 
 half per cent, of German imports came from the United States, 
 while she exported twelve per cent, to this country. In 1000, 
 out of a total import of 6,043 niillions the United States furnished 
 seventeen per cent, of the whole, and out of 4,752 millions' worth 
 of exports but nine per cent, went to this country. The change 
 is astounding. Of course, much of this rise of American imports 
 into Germany was due to German prosperity, since the large 
 bulk of goods consisted of rawstuffs which were subsequently 
 finished and either re-exported or consumed. But a steadily 
 growing proportion were finished products, a rising percentage 
 of them successfully competing on German soil with German 
 products. It is this development of the last five years which 
 inspires in the German manufacturer and merchant a fear of the 
 overpowering strength of American competition. It has become 
 plain to him that a country which twenty years ago exported 
 40 million dollars worth of goods, or 5.8 per cent, of the total, 
 to Germany, and now sends 250 million dollars' worth, or 17 per 
 cent, of the total, while taking practically no more of German 
 goods than it did ten or fifteen years ago, is a country with 
 which trade relations urgently need* adjusting. And that is 
 really at the bottom of the German government's desire to 
 bring about a commercial treaty.
 
 i6o GERMANY 
 
 The trade relations between the United States and Germany 
 have so far been based on the old treaty of 1828 between Prussia 
 and this nation. By this treaty neither Prussia nor the United 
 States could admit other nations to more favourable terms of 
 commerce without admitting at once the other contracting 
 party to the same terms, and this without previous negotiations. 
 This at least has been the German interpretation of the treaty, 
 which, after the foundation of, first, the North German 
 Confederation in 1866, and next of the German empire in 1871, 
 was extended to the other parts of Germany as well as Prussia, 
 with the exception of Alsace-Lorraine, at least so far as certain 
 paragraphs go. Now this interpretation, after being practically 
 in force for many years, has been disputed of late on several oc- 
 casions by the United States, particularly by Secretary Gresham; 
 and the German government, by the wording of the so-called 
 Saratoga Convention in 1S93, gave a quasi tacit consent to this 
 later American interpretation. The question became acute 
 several years ago when Germany, under her treaty rights, de- 
 nied to this government the right of concluding separate re- 
 ciprocal commercial treaties with France or other countries 
 without at once admitting Germany to the same benefits. The 
 questions have never been settled, and the treaty of 1828 is, 
 therefore, still valid, even if its provisions have not at all times 
 been scrupulously adhered to. 
 
 Germany, under the chancellorship of Count Caprivi, be- 
 tween 1892-94, concluded special commercial treaties with a 
 number of her more important customers, notably Russia, 
 Austria, Italy, Belgium, Rumania and Switzerland, and with 
 some South American countries. These treaties have benefited 
 Germany's trade. The steadily rising column of her exports 
 and imports proves it. Since 1892 her exports have risen from 
 3,150 million marks to 4,752 million in 1900, and her imports 
 from 4,227 millions to 6,043 millions. Trade with several of the 
 countries has already more than doubled. Yet under the treaties 
 agriculture undoubtedly suffered. This had been expected by 
 the Agrarian party, which opposed the treaties when they were 
 before the Reichstag, and in the autumn of 1894 drove Count 
 Caprivi from office. To what an extent German agriculture really 
 has been injured by the importation of Russian, Rumanian,
 
 THE TARIFF PROBLEM i6i 
 
 American, Argentine, Austrian and Italian agricultural products 
 it is impossible to tell, since no official figures have ever 
 appeared and since the Agrarian party and its press magnify 
 these injuries as their opponents belittle them. There is no 
 doubt, however, that the damage done fell unequally. It was 
 least noticeable in the industrial West, where, indeed, the small 
 farmers and peasants, who form the bulk of the agricultural 
 population, were actually benefited; it was not severe in the 
 southern and central portions (except in certain districts of 
 Bavaria) ; but it hit hard some of the eastern provinces of Prussia, 
 where there are thousands of large entailed estates, whose own- 
 ers could not adjust themselves to the new conditions, and, un- 
 able to compete with the cheaper grain, cattle, etc., of the treaty 
 States, lost much money or, in some cases, saw their mortgages 
 foreclosed and themselves beggared. 
 
 Now, the commercial treaties will expire by the end of next 
 year, and the whole Agrarian party are doing their utmost to 
 render renewal impossible. The tariff bill now pending in the 
 Reichstag, the government claims, is intended as a forerunner to 
 renewal. It is a mooted question whether Count von Buelow is 
 sincere in this claim. He has publicly declared that he is an 
 Agrarian, and family traditions and personal relations and 
 interests point in the same direction. But whether he is sincere 
 or not, this bill, though it goes very far in meeting the wishes of 
 the Agrarian party, does not go far enough, and they mean to 
 tack on a number of amendments which would render the chances 
 of any subsequent commercial treaties quite illusory — which 
 is precisely what they want. Such a bill, however, would fail 
 of approval by the Bundesrath (or Federal Council), and would 
 thus entirely miscarry. It would then be necessary for the 
 imperial government to prepare another bill, which would have 
 to go before a new Reichstag, after a dissolution of the present 
 one with its Agrarian majority. It is, therefore, a matter of con- 
 jecture what will become of the tariff bill as a whole. The gov- 
 ernment had framed it to hit with particular force the products 
 of the United States, both agricultural and industrial. If it 
 were to be finally passed substantially in its original shape, it 
 might either lead to retaliatory measures by the American 
 government or to a mutually satisfactory commercial treaty.
 
 102 GERMANY 
 
 The still-existing German tariff is frankly protectionist, and 
 is, with some subsequent alterations, the one framed under 
 Bismarck when that statesman became converted from his free- 
 trade views. It is, however, when compared with the Dingley 
 tariff, very moderate, viz., showing an average of thirteen per 
 cent., as against the Dingley tariff's fifty-four per cent. The 
 bill would raise that percentage to about seventeen or eighteen 
 per cent., but many items on it, and particularly some touching 
 American goods, show a much higher percentage — up to fifty 
 and sixty. Not only are heavier duties laid on such leading 
 articles of American export as cereals, copper, petroleum, meats, 
 and nearly all other foodstuffs, but also, and mostly much heavier 
 ones, on such American manufactures as within recent years 
 have begun to compete with German industries, like bicycles, 
 shoes, labour-saving and tool machines, leather ware, furniture, 
 locomotives, stoves, electric appliances, etc. 
 
 The German government is, however, not in as strong a posi- 
 tion in this whole matter as would at first appear. The vulner- 
 able points may be summarized thus : 
 
 Germany must do her utmost to preserve her markets, for she, 
 like England, must largely export in order to live. 
 
 German agriculture does not now produce, and is not likely 
 to produce in the future (even under a new and more favourable 
 system of commercial treaties or tariffs), enough food for the 
 nation. 
 
 Germany, by enhancing the price of foodstuffs by higher 
 duties, renders competition for her industry yet more difficult, 
 and is liable to precipitate a severe industrial crisis. 
 
 A tariff war between the two countries would fall with much 
 more crushing force upon Germany, for the simple reason that 
 while Germany absolutely needs for her indtistry or her labour- 
 ing population the more important items in her list of American 
 imports, the United States would suffer no very appreciable 
 discomfort if no German imports whatever should reach this 
 country. 
 
 In Germany, according to the latest official census, fifty- 
 seven out of every hundred people are engaged in industrial or 
 commercial pursuits, and only forty-three in agricultural and 
 allied employments. The overwhelming interests are industrial.
 
 THE TARIFF PROBLEM 163 
 
 About one-third of the foodstuffs consumed in Germany to-day 
 comes from beyond her frontiers. 
 
 By far the larger part of the German people are opposed to the 
 pending tariff bill. The whole labouring population condemns 
 it. So do the industrial classes, the merchants, and even a very 
 large portion of the smaller farmers and landholders in the 
 western and central districts of the empire. 
 
 The Agrarians dwell with special emphasis on the large dis- 
 crepancy between the amount of imports from the exports to the 
 United States. Yet by analyzing these figures it becomes ap- 
 parent that Germany as a whole can hardly do without the bulk 
 of the commodities purchased from this country. The American 
 cotton, which forms the largest item in the list, she certainly 
 cannot spare. There is nothing produced elsewhere which, 
 given prices and quality, could take its place. And cotton forms 
 one-fourth of the entire American imports. American petro- 
 leum, copper, and meat preserves cannot be spared nor obtained 
 in like quantity and quality from other countries. As to petro- 
 leum, the German government has for years encouraged in every 
 possible way importation of the Russian article, but all to no 
 purpose. The Russian petroleum was found unavailable for 
 most purposes, and the American variety still holds its place. 
 American ineat preserves, against which a systematic campaign 
 was also made by the Agrarian press and party, in the course of 
 which much was heard of the grave hygienic dangers from the 
 consumption of "embalmed meat," has also more than held its 
 own. An amusing illustration of this was furnished at the 
 time the German war vessels and troops were fitted out for the 
 suppression of the troubles in China. It fell like a thunderclap 
 in the Agrarian camp when it was learned that the government 
 had equipped the expedition with American canned goods. The 
 Agrarian press raved, and the government was formally inter- 
 pellated about it in the Reichstag. The answer was that there 
 was nothing else so good — that the American goods had given 
 uniform satisfaction in the German navy and army for many 
 years. 
 
 The great bulk of American imports, then, are substantially 
 indispensables. The better paid the German worker is, and the 
 more German industry flourishes, the larger will be the con-
 
 i64 GERMANY 
 
 sumption of these American commodities. Other American 
 goods, in a coming tariff war with Germany, it would not be 
 feasible to exclude from the market. They are American cereals, 
 hides, leather, etc., and American manufactured goods, notably 
 those spoken of above, less than one-sixth of the whole. In 
 a tariff war they would doubtless find their way to German 
 consumers in a roundabout way, via Holland, Belgium and 
 England. This is Germany's real position if it ever should 
 come to retaliatory measures between the two nations. 
 
 On the other hand, it would be relatively easy, and fraught 
 with no perceptible hardship to the American trader and con- 
 sumer, to bar out German imports here, as a glance at the list of 
 German goods reaching this country will show. They are, in 
 the order of their importance: beet sugar, textiles, chemicals, 
 chinaware, toys. These five items cover seventy-five per cent, 
 of the German imports here, and while it is likely that for a 
 short time it would be diffictilt to replace these goods in quality 
 and price, they could within a few months be purchased of 
 England, Belgium and France. And at any rate, neither these 
 nor the rest of the German commodities bought by America are 
 indispensables in the sense in which the chief American ones are 
 to the German market. 
 
 The German government knows, of course, the weakness of 
 its position if it should ever come to a tariff war, and so does the 
 unprejudiced Liberal press in Germany. Dr. Theodore Barth, 
 a leading German parliamentarian and editor of the Liberal 
 organ, Die Nation, has pointed out these facts time and again. 
 His argument and that of the entire Liberal Left in the Reichstag 
 is that the tariff war with this country which the Agrarian party 
 is doing its utmost to bring on would be suicidal for Germany, 
 and that the pending tariff bill, tending in the same direction, is 
 to be condemned for this and for other potent reasons. The fate 
 of this tariff bill will, therefore, decide the material welfare of the 
 empire for years to come.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURING 
 
 It was in August of last year that Mr. David B. Henderson, 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives, while on a week's stay 
 in Berlin, made the casual remark to me: "Berlin, for an 
 American, is the most delicate ground to tread." 
 
 He illustrated his meaning by some additional talk. What he 
 meant, in fact, was that Germany, as the most formidable rival 
 of this nation in political and commercial expansion, required 
 on that account the fullest exercise of American tact, American 
 love of fair play, and American rightly directed energy in com- 
 peting with the lusty empire, competing in such a way as to give 
 no needless offense and yet to stand always firmly on our own 
 national rights and to see to it that no serious American interests 
 are injured. 
 
 Mr. Henderson's view in this respect may probably be taken as 
 the typical American one, so far as Germany is concerned. And 
 it is indeed true that the two countries, if the hotspurs on both 
 sides were allowed to have their way unchecked, might easily 
 come to serious misunderstandings, for their interests and their 
 aims clash at many points, no matter if the diplomats and states- 
 men on both sides of the water studiously avoid mention of them, 
 and if their efforts — as is but right and within their proper func- 
 tions — are ceaselessly bent in the direction of smoothing over 
 difficulties that have arisen, and explaining away, with more or 
 less success, unpalatable facts. 
 
 But there is this about commerce — that it both approximates 
 and antagonizes mutual interests. In the long run, as history 
 teaches us, commerce has made both for peace and for war. The 
 whole eighteenth century was a struggle for commercial and 
 colonial supremacy between England and France, and the latter's 
 final overthrow was the root of that deep-seated enmity which 
 indirectly led to the twenty-years' struggle between the two 
 
 165
 
 1 66 GERMANY 
 
 nations at the outset of tlie nineteenth century. On the other 
 hand, our civilization of to-day, with its elements taken from a 
 score of different nations, is largely the product of commerce. 
 
 The great advance of Germany of late years, both as a manu- 
 facturing and trading nation, has riveted the eyes of all thought- 
 ful Americans. Isolated facts in plenty have become public 
 here, and have been variously interpreted. It will be of interest 
 to summarize on this occasion the chief features of this rise and 
 of the present status. 
 
 Up to the outbreak of the war with France, viz., 1870, 
 Germany had been mainly an agricultural country. Her com- 
 merce was relatively imimportant, and within her territory there 
 existed not a single large banking institution. Her industries 
 were in an undeveloped state, and were carried on with extreme 
 caution and on small capital. The more complicated and 
 highly finished manufactures she imported from either France or 
 England. Enterprise, though doubtless present in a latent form, 
 was hampered by narrow conditions. From this stage Germany 
 emerged after the successful end of that war, progressing 
 at first — up to 1885 — at a slow rate, but afterwards at a more 
 and more accelerated pace, in the same proportion as she learned 
 by experience her own full powers. The phenomenal period of 
 expansion, however, dates only since the year 1895 — the time 
 when the commercial treaties she had effected with six of her 
 most important neighbours had begun to take complete effect. 
 
 A faithful thermometer of this growth is furnished by her 
 commercial relatioiis with this country. In 1880 she bought 
 only $40,000,000 worth of goods from this country, and this was 
 almost six per cent, of her total imports. This amount was later 
 on again reduced, under the workings of Bismarck's protective 
 tariff. In 1882 she bought but $28,000,000 worth of us, or 3.7 
 per cent, of her total imports; in 1884 but $30,000,000, or 3.8; 
 in 1885 but $29,000,000, or 4.1 per cent.; and in 18S6 only 
 $25,500,000, or 3.6 per cent. That was the lowest ebb in her 
 commercial relations with us, as it was in her whole material 
 condition since the war with France. 
 
 But from that time on the figures began to jump. In 1889 
 Germany bought $76,000,000 worth of us; in 1897 the value of 
 American goods purchased by her had gone up to $161,000,000,
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURING 167 
 
 or 13.5 per cent, of the total; and in 1900 she has bought an even 
 $250,000,000 worth of us, v/hich figure remained nearly stationary 
 last year, despite the general depression in Germany. Thus, 
 within fourteen years' time she had multiplied tenfold her pur- 
 chases of us. 
 
 The total volume of her import and export trade rose alone 
 in the decade 1 890-1 900 from 7 2-10 billions of marks, or about 
 $1,800,000,000, to 10 3-4 billions of marks, about $2,650,000,000. 
 
 In 1890 the total imports and exports of the world amounted 
 to $18,000,000,000, and of this Germany claimed one-tenth. 
 In 1900 the world figures showed total imports and exports of 
 $21,000,000,000, and of this Germany could claim over twelve 
 per cent., or about one-eighth. England that year showed a 
 volume of 4.1 billions in exports and imports, whereof two- 
 thirds v/ere imports and but one-third exports. The United 
 States ranked below Germany, with 2.3 billions, whereof 
 nearly two-thirds were exports and but one-third imports; while 
 France figured with slightly over 1.5 billions, imports and 
 exports being almost evenly apportioned. 
 
 As to capital, too, the growth of Germany was surprising, 
 especially if her poverty thirty years ago be given due weight. 
 The total British capital invested in 1899 in foreign countries is 
 given in the authoritative work on "The History of British 
 Trade," by Percy R. Broemel (London, 1899) at $10,000,000,000, 
 and the interest drawn from it, at an average of four and one-half 
 per cent., at $450,000,000. Of this $800,000,000 are invested 
 by British capitalists in this country, and about $3,000,000,000 
 in foreign railroads and $200,000,000 in foreign mines. 
 
 For Germany there are tangible and reliable facts obtainable 
 as to this matter, while as to England the figures, after all, are 
 largely based on private information. In 1898 and again in 
 1900, with the other official material submitted by the German 
 government to the Reichstag, during the pendency of the naval 
 increase bills, there were exhaustive figures collected by the 
 Foreign Office through its consular and diplomatic corps all over 
 the world. These showed 3.4 billions in foreign papers held 
 by Germans, and another 1.8 billions invested by them in 
 foreign industrial enterprises, such as railroads, mines, factories, 
 street car lines, etc., of this sum $500,000,000 alone in South
 
 1 68 GERMANY 
 
 America, $250,000,000 each in North America and Africa, and 
 the remainder elsewhere. The grand total held by German 
 citizens in foreign investments of every kind amounted to 
 $5,000,000,000, or half the sum held by Englishmen. When it 
 is considered that this accumulation of capital represents, not 
 entirely but certainly largely, the efforts of only thirty years, 
 while in the case of England the accumulation is of much longer 
 growth, the facts thus presented are astounding. True, how- 
 ever, that quite a percentage of these foreign investments of 
 Germany's — certainly a larger one than in the case of England — 
 are financially rather unsound, as in the case of Servia, Greece, 
 Portugal, Argentina and others. 
 
 Perhaps no more striking illustration of this rapid accumulation 
 of capital can be given for German}^ than by briefly tracing the 
 simultaneous growth of one of her financial institutions of to-day. 
 A score of gigantic ones have arisen within the period referred 
 to, such as the Reichsbank, or Imperial Bank, which last year 
 did business to the tune of 189 billion marks, or nearly $46,000,- 
 000,000, and which now occupies under its safe yet enterprising 
 president, Doctor Koch, an honored position equaling that of the 
 Banque de France and of the Bank of England; the Dresdner 
 Bank, the Disconto Gesellschaft, the Prussian Mortgage Bank, 
 and others. But for the purposes of illustration, the Deutsche 
 Bank, a purely private and unaided institution, will serve best. 
 This bank started in April, 1870, in Berlin, with a modest capital 
 of 15 million marks, or about $3,750,000. It had in that year 
 a total business of about $60,000,000, and distributed a dividend 
 of five per cent. Ten years later its stock capital had risen to 
 $13,000,000, and it had done a business of $2,500,000,000, and 
 distributed dividends of ten per cent. Another decade saw it 
 advanced to $25,000,000 in capital, $7,000,000,000 of business, 
 and still ten per cent, dividends. In 1900 its capital had grown 
 to $49,000,000, its business to $12,000,000,000, and its dividends 
 to eleven per cent. And last year, despite the severe financial 
 panic that had been rampant through Germany, and that had 
 partially paralyzed enterprise, the capital stock had been in- 
 creased to $50,000,000, the volume of its business to almost 
 $13,000,000,000, and its dividends had remained eleven per cent. 
 
 At the counters of this bank German shareholders received
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURING 169 
 
 last year payments of interest or dividends upon mone^^s in- 
 vested in 495 industrial enterprises or government and private 
 loans. The institution has floated State loans for Prussia, 
 Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, Hesse and a score of other German 
 States and large cities. It has launched loans for Austria, Chile, 
 Denmark, Italy, Mexico, the United States, Sweden, Egypt, 
 Rumania, and other countries. It has founded or materially 
 assisted in founding several hundred industrial enterprises, many 
 of them in far-away countries, such as South America, Central 
 America, China, etc., and financed other enterprises like the 
 German-Atlantic l^^nk, the German-Asiatic Bank, the largest 
 German electric and mining societies, the Anatolian and the 
 Macedonian railroads, and to a large extent the Northern Pacific 
 Railroad as well. The leading position of Germany in electric 
 enterprises of every description is largely due to it. In a word, 
 it is an epitome of German industrial and commercial progress 
 during recent years. 
 
 From a country extremely cautious in investing its funds, as 
 was the case until 1870, Germany has become one of the most 
 liberal and daring investors and promoters. It is again her 
 banks, of course, which illustrate this best. During a decade of 
 extraordinary prosperity, they fathered thousands of industrial 
 ventures, some of them inflated and financially unsound, it is true, 
 and supplying far beyond the legitimate needs of the country, 
 but the vast majority of them conceived with great shrewdness 
 and keen business foresight. They started and maintained or 
 promoted factories, electric power plants, railroads, new steamer 
 lines, shipyards, mines, street car lines, etc., both at home and 
 abroad, and in the main showed in these transactions a pro- 
 gressive wisdom and a clear-sighted optimism which were, until 
 recent years, entirely foreign to the national character. The 
 same applies to foreign financial investments. The holdings of 
 German capitalists, mostly small ones, in Russian securities 
 alone amount to twice the amount of the indemnity France paid 
 her after the war. The Balkan States owe German faith in their 
 future, as expressed by loans and investments aggregating some 
 $200,000,000, a great deal of their economic rise. The same can 
 be said of Hungary, whose young industry was very largely 
 financed by German promoters. German holdings there are com-
 
 170 
 
 GERMANY 
 
 puted at about $120,000,000. The fact that Asia Minor is again, 
 after centuries of sleep, coming to the front as a promising coun- 
 try, is also partly due to German capital. This is more or less 
 true of South and Central America and of Mexico, of the Dutch 
 Indies (where of late much German capital has been put to good 
 use, especially in Sumatra), of China, of Japan, of Cochin-China, 
 and Siam, of Greece and Portugal. 
 
 The amazing growth of German cities is another illustration in 
 point. Many of them have outstripped Chicago in their ratio of 
 increase. Berlin, for instance, grew within thirty years from 
 720,000 to 1,888,326; Leipsic from 100,000 to 455,000; Munich 
 and Dresden from 120,000 to 500,000 and 400,000 respectively; 
 and so forth. The country grew during the lustrum 1895-1900 
 at the rate of eight per cent., or 4,000,000, showing a total of 
 56,345,014, putting Germany easily in the second place in Europe 
 as regards population. Significant, too, is the very small number 
 of German emigrants during the same period. 
 
 Germany's national debt is very high, being 12,950 millions 
 of marks, or about $3,250,000,000, as against $1,900,000,000 
 owed by this country, and whereof $850,000,000 belong to 
 individual States of the Union. But of Germany's total debt 
 not less than 10,450 million marks, or five-sixths, belong to the 
 separate States of the empire, and this vast sum represents 
 largely the value of the railroads, these having been purchased 
 by the various governments, and have thus become prime sources 
 of revenue for the public treasuries. Other profitable public 
 works, such as canals, mines, government factories, etc., are also 
 included in this total of national debt. These institutions are 
 more or less profitable, and relieve to that extent the strain of 
 taxation. 
 
 This fact must be borne in mind in looking at Germany's 
 national debt, for it alone gives the clue to its real inwardness. 
 
 There have been several special causes in operation of late 
 which undoubtedly bore a considerable share in Germany's com- 
 mercial prosperity. These were the going into effect of the new 
 Imperial Civil Code, the new tax system, and the great im- 
 provement in both the postal department and the railroad 
 system. 
 
 As to the new civil code, which went into effect in 1900, that
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURING 171 
 
 has for the first time given all Germany a uniform law in civil 
 matters and has been an immense step forward. It took the 
 place of a number of codes, differing widely from each other in 
 their provisions and spirit, and of which the Imperial Law 
 Collection, the Prussian Common Law, the French Code Civil of 
 Napoleon (in force up to that time in the Rhine districts), and 
 the Saxon, Bavarian, and a dozen other codes were the leading 
 ones. This new civil code has for the first time regulated uni- 
 formly the questions of minority, of guardianship, of the marriage 
 relation, and other very important matters. But so far as the 
 commercial and industrial classes of Germany are concerned, its 
 benefits consist mainly in giving laws devised and fitted to the 
 modern conditions of trade, of the modern wage system, etc., 
 which have equal force all over the empire. Its provisions in 
 this respect are acknowledged to be thoroughly adapted to present 
 conditions, and were the joint product of a number of Germany's 
 ablest jurists who acted largely on information furnished them by 
 chambers of commerce and other bodies possessing intimate 
 acquaintance with the legitimate wants of commerce. Under 
 the administration of this new code fraudulent bankruptcy and 
 similar banes of commercial life in other countries have become 
 practically unknown, and there cannot be the slightest doubt 
 that it has become a great boon to the whole commercial class 
 of Germany, and that it is directly and indirectly furthering 
 its material prosperity immensely. 
 
 Similar benefits, although of a different kind, have been de- 
 rived by this same class from the operation of the present 
 tax system of Prussia and of nearly every other German State. 
 This new system is the income tax and tax upon profit-bearing 
 capital, taking the place of a variety of unevenly adjusted taxes 
 which bore with much less equity upon the population, and more 
 especially the portion of it engaged in trade and manufacture. 
 Prussia gave the example, her recently deceased finance minister, 
 Doctor von Miquel, being the creator of the new tax law. 
 It is so ingeniously and fairly constructed that it really comes 
 near the ideal of placing the burden of direct taxation according 
 to the ability to bear it, and unlike the former direct taxes it 
 does not discriminate in favour of the privileged classes and 
 against the middle classes. The income tax applies to all in-
 
 172 GERMANY 
 
 comes above 900 marks, or about $220, per annum, but beginning 
 with three and one-half per cent, of the amount of income, after 
 deducting all running and other expenses, it gradually rises in 
 percentage with the amount of the income itself. Its provisions 
 are rigidly but justly and equitably enforced, and though during 
 the two first years after its taking effect there was considerable 
 friction and complaint, these complaints have now almost 
 entirely subsided, as both public and officials became better 
 acquainted with its workings, and after some needless official 
 chicanery had been done away with. The tax upon interest- 
 bearing capital is conceived and executed in a like spirit, and 
 gives no cause for reasonable criticism. Under the operations 
 of this law the revenues from this source — forming now the 
 bulk of the general revenues of the various State governments, 
 while the empire now as before relies on tariff duties and other 
 imposts — have steadily increased, and show a remarkable sta- 
 bility, these conditions, of course, likewise possessing a tendency 
 to steady and conserve trade. 
 
 The railway system of Germany, one of the most extensive 
 and soundest in the world, is largely owned by the various State 
 governments. Out of a total length of about 50,000 kilometres, 
 or 32,000 miles, all but 4,000 kilometres of it belongs to the 
 States within which the several lines are operated. From a 
 purely fiscal point of view they have all along been very suc- 
 cessful. The clear profits from them have steadily increased. 
 In the case of Prussia, for instance, its 30,000 kilometres of rail- 
 roads yielded a net revenue of $80,000,000 ten years ago. Last 
 year this sum had grown to about $150,000,000. By so much 
 the burden of taxation resting on the population of Prussia has 
 been lessened. The case holds good as to the other States of 
 Germany. This method of owning and managing railroads has, 
 however, its disadvantages as well. With a total lack of com- 
 petition grew up a lack of enterprise and an unwillingness to 
 keep step with improvements. The rolling stock became in- 
 sufficient for the demands of both passenger and freight service, 
 and its quality suffered as well. The scale of comfort and ac- 
 commodations began to perceptibly sink. For years there was 
 much just complaint on this score. 
 
 But during the past two years there has come decided improve-
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURING 173 
 
 ment. The rolling stock has been both greatly improved and 
 increased, and progressive methods have been introduced in 
 every department. The average speed of trains has materially 
 grown. A number of the leading commercial centres, such 
 as Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfort-on-Main, Nuremberg, 
 Stuttgart, Leipzig, Konigsberg, Dantzic and Stettin, have been 
 brought nearer together by the establishment of lightning ex- 
 press trains. Some of them are as fast as the fastest in England 
 and the United States, and faster than any in France. Dining- 
 room and sleeping cars have been multiplied, and much more 
 done for the comfort of passengers than heretofore. The long 
 delays in the delivery of freight, which were formerly chronic 
 during certain seasons, owing to an insufficiency of cars and 
 locomotives, have ceased, and even the exceedingly high freight 
 rates have been somewhat reduced. In a word, there has been 
 decided progress made, and German merchants are correspond- 
 ingly profiting thereby. 
 
 Similar improvement has taken place in the postal department. 
 Deliveries are now more frequent and much prompter in the 
 German cities of large size than in corresponding American ones, 
 and the mail matter is likewise more frequently collected. The 
 pneumatic letter delivery in Berlin and other centres insures, 
 for seven cents, arrival at its address within half an hour, and 
 works more rapidly, cheaply and safely than any contrivance 
 in New York or elsewhere. The reliability and probity of the 
 postal department and its 200,000 employes is proverbial in 
 Germany. There are several features, alien to our American 
 postal service, but worthy of imitation, in Germany. The 
 most important, perhaps, is its system of making payments and 
 collections for a trifling fee, but with great security, speed, and 
 general satisfaction, there being, besides, absolutely no risk 
 to sender or recipient in this species of transaction. The parcels 
 post system is also far superior to our express service, both in 
 despatch, reliability, and cost. The telegraph and telephone are, 
 it will be remembered, exclusively managed by the German 
 postal authorities, and while the former is hardly more efficient 
 than our telegraph service, the telephone service in Germany 
 is certainly superior and just as certainly much lower in price. 
 
 These four factors are points in which the German merchant
 
 174 GERMANY 
 
 has to a certain extent the advantage over his American com- 
 petitor. The impression prevails widely in this country that he 
 enjoys an even more decided advantage in having cheaper and 
 more reliable labour. I am not quite ready to admit that in the 
 matter of labour supply the German employer does enjoy an ad- 
 vantage when comparing him in that respect with the American 
 employer. Certainly, he does not pay as high wages, and in a 
 narrow sense it is also probably true that German labour is more 
 reliable, if by that word is meant that strikes are rarer and that 
 whims are fewer. As to strikes, for instance, last year cannot 
 be taken as a fair type, because of the wide-spread depression 
 and the consequent large number of unemployed. But the 
 year before, 1900, may be cited. In that year, then, there were 
 altogether 1,336 strikes in the empire, in which 154,017 persons 
 were engaged. Of these strikes, 331 were wholly successful; 
 429 were partially successful, and 528 were wholly unsuccessful. 
 This shows, indeed, a very much smaller number of strikes and 
 strikers when compared with this country, even taking the differ- 
 ence in population into consideration. 
 
 Ordinary wages in Germany are still decidedly lower than in 
 America, and they average for unskilled labour not more than 
 3 marks, or 72 cents, per day; skilled labour averages between 
 $5.00 and $10.00 per week, although there are certain branches 
 and cities where higher wages are paid. So that in this respect, 
 too, the German employer is at an advantage. This is, however, 
 partially offset by the obligatory contributions he has to pay 
 towards the invalid, sick and old-age relief for his employes, and 
 by the premiums he has to pay on the accident insurance policies, 
 and for pensions granted widows and orphans of men who lost 
 their lives in his service. 
 
 In comparison with the English workman, the German is also 
 more sober and steady-going, but I think in both these respects 
 he is inferior to the average American wage-worker. 
 
 The German workman is, besides, docile and obedient, quiet 
 and well-behaved. He is also more economical than his 
 American fellow. But he has several serious drawbacks, 
 when compared v/ith the average American toiler, and these, 
 I think, more than make up for his good points, so far at least 
 as the benefits derived by the employer are concerned.
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURING 175 
 
 The German workman is not so strong physically as the 
 American. This is constitutional and largely hereditary. 
 He himself is underfed, and his whole race, his forefathers, be- 
 fore him. The principal foodstuffs are so high in Germany that 
 the workman's earnings do not suffice to buy him and his family 
 enough nitrogenous and nourishing food. Even the lower 
 grades of fresh meat sell too high for his purse, and so he is obliged 
 to sustain life and strength as best he may on potatoes, sausage, 
 bits of bacon, lard, rye bread, "acorn coffee," with occasional 
 vegetables, fresh or canned. Instead of the more expensive 
 beer, he drinks potato brandy, which is injurious and full of 
 fusel oil. With insufficient nourishment, he cannot do a man's 
 work, and he does not, despite longer hours. The amount of 
 work actually accomplished by him in from ten to fourteen 
 hours is about two-thirds of that accomplished by an American 
 workman in eight hours. At no time is he either willing or able 
 to put forth his best efforts during his work — neither physically 
 nor mentally. Of course, beside his deficiency in bodily strength 
 due to the above cause, there is a certain amount of bias about 
 him. He is as a rule a Socialist, and on principle deems it right 
 to give his employer as little work for the money as possible. 
 
 The German workman lacks initiative and inventiveness. 
 Hardly one German workman to ten English and fifty American 
 ones ever takes out a patent or is credited with important in- 
 ventions or improvements in the machinery or tools he handles. 
 The contrast between him and the American is particularly 
 strong in this line. The German workingman even to-day works 
 — and prefers to work — with inefficient and clumsy tools, such 
 as chisels, planes, hatchets, axes, hammers, and very seldom 
 thinks out and then practically applies a new and easier method 
 of accomplishing results of labour. He has not the intuitive 
 knack of even the totally uncultured American toiler to do the 
 piece of work in hand with the smallest expenditure of energy 
 attainable. 
 
 Striking a general balance, then, the conditions under which 
 the German manufacturer or merchant lives must be called at 
 least as favourable, if not more so, as those his American com- 
 petitor has to reckon with. Everything considered, his taxes 
 are not as high as those in American cities ; his property is safer
 
 176 GERMANY 
 
 than property is here ; the labour market provides him with as 
 abundant material and at lower rates, though not in such choice 
 and of such high quality; his rawstuffs are obtained in part at 
 as low prices, while, to be sure, for others he has to pay more, and 
 in some cases considerably more, than the American. But 
 what about the material out of which the German manufacturer 
 or merchant himself is made ? How does that compare with 
 here? 
 
 The German manufacturer or merchant of to-day is a rather 
 superior man in some respects. In general education he beats 
 his English and his American competitor. He has almost in- 
 variably gone through a German college first, and afterwards 
 complemented his studies by a three years' course at an industrial 
 or technical high school, and by extensive travels abroad, keep- 
 ing his eyes and his ears open the while. Thus he is extremely 
 well equipped theoretically when he attains 3^ears of early 
 manhood, and he keeps this up more or less through life. He 
 is a conscientious, although seldom an intense, worker like the 
 American. He rarely enjoys working for his business in the 
 same degree in which the American enjoys it. Social demands on 
 his time are much greater and more exacting than they are here. 
 He does not cultivate that spirit of intimate acquaintance with 
 his employes, high or low, which the American cultivates; in fact, 
 he cannot very well do so, given the strong class sentiment which 
 still exists in Germany, and which acts as an insuperable barrier 
 between the different classes. He is fairly enterprising and 
 progressive in business, more so than the Englishman, but in a 
 minor degree when compared with the American. He assidu- 
 ously keeps himself informed of all that is going on in his line of 
 business, both at home and abroad, and generally keeps and 
 regularly reads at least one English and one French trade journal 
 in his line. He risks his money with greater ease than the 
 Englishman, although not with as much as the American. He is 
 eager for gain, and not more scrupulous than his competitors in 
 the chase after the dollar. He plays a not unimportant part in 
 politics and in public life generally, and if not directly then at 
 least indirectly succeeds as a rule in impressing the home govern- 
 ment with his needs and his wishes, and influences legislation, 
 though again not nearly to the same extent as the American—
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURING 177 
 
 in fact, hardly as much as the Enghshman. Unless greatly dis- 
 turbing influences should prevail in German political life, he 
 will gain greater influence upon the legislation of his country, 
 and upon its diplomatic relations, and it is quite within the 
 possibilities, even to a certain extent probable, that he will ere 
 long become the dominating factor in Germany's public life, 
 but as yet he is not. Where in exceptional cases the German 
 manufacturer or merchant possesses those characteristics we 
 call distinctively American, viz., great pluck, indomitable perse- 
 verance, and bold initiative, coupled with intense application 
 to business, he succeeds in his country, despite the great differ- 
 ences in ideas and social structure, nearly if not quite as much 
 as these characteristics succeed here. Witness in illustration 
 the career of such men as Baron Stumm, the Krupps, the 
 Siemens, the Loewes, the Bleichroeders, Baron Thiele- Winkler, 
 and others, who are no mean parallel cases to our Morgans, 
 Carnegies, Rockefellers and others. 
 
 A chapter of the special Imperial census taken throughout 
 Germany in 1895, and which dealt exclusively with the relative 
 numerical strength of the different callings, professions, trades 
 and avocations followed by the population, is quite instructive, 
 although, of course, the figures there quoted are to-day, after 
 seven years of further rapid progress, away below the actual 
 mark. At that time there were in the empire no less than 296 
 large industrial enterprises going, each of them employing over 
 1,000 persons, and together showing a total of 562,628 employes, 
 and operated by 665,265 horsepower. The chapter in question 
 gives a wealth of details, and ten of the largest ones, being typical 
 for special development in certain directions, are critically ex- 
 amined, not only so far as their resources and capacity goes, 
 but also in their influence upon the life of the nation as a whole. 
 These ten gigantic establishments were those of Krupp in Essen; 
 the ship-building yards of the Vulcan in Stettin; the Baden 
 Aniline Works in Ludwigshafen ; the great textile works of 
 Wuensche's heirs in Ebersbach; the immense plant of the 
 Schultheiss Brewery in Berlin; the phenomenal department 
 store of A. AVertheim in Berlin; the Berlin Electric Works; the 
 Hamburg- America Line in Hamburg; and the Deutsche Bank 
 in Berlin.
 
 178 GERMANY 
 
 Any American wishing to stiidy in detail the modes and 
 methods in vogue in these typical German establishments, and 
 thus form a comprehensive and adequate conception not alone 
 of them, but of German industry in general, its points of 
 strength and weakness, cannot do better than procure — with 
 trifling trouble and expense — this chapter of official and thor- 
 oughly reliable data. 
 
 But with all this prosperity and commercial wisdom, Germany 
 has not been able to escape a period of depression lasting 
 now fully two years, and whose full effects are not likely to be 
 exhausted for some time to come. It could scarcely be called 
 a panic. It came at first in driblets, and even after clear-sighted 
 observers had cast the national horoscope in a way to show that 
 a period of exhaustion had set in, the great masses did not take 
 warning. They continued, in fact, up to the early summer of 
 last year to invest, to promote, and to organize new industrial 
 and financial ventures with nearly the same degree of optimism, 
 not to say recklessness, which had been a chief trait in German 
 commercial development during the five years preceding. It 
 is, indeed, worth while going a little more closely into the peculiar 
 character of this receding wave of German prosperity. It 
 teaches an object lesson. 
 
 Sober-minded writers in Germany had often pointed to the 
 United States as an example to avoid. They had pointed to the 
 kaleidoscopic changes in the commerce and industries of this 
 country, its fat years and lean years, the rising and falling column 
 of our imports and exports, the "booms" and "panics" that 
 spread all over the big Republic — in a word, the quick and sud- 
 den shifting in the tide of American national wealth. And then 
 these sober-minded German economists had gone on, for the hun- 
 dredth time, holding this country up as a "fearful example," 
 as the incarnation of "how not to do it." Many have been the 
 prophetic warnings as to the awful fate tliat was sure to befall 
 this rash and venturesome 3'oung giant. They proved it mathe- 
 matically to their own satisfaction and that of the whole German 
 nation. "The country of millionaires and of beggars," they 
 called us, and showed minutely how unhealthy and abnormal 
 was our growth in all that goes — so far as statistics can ever 
 show that — to make a nation more prosperous. But then came
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURING 179 
 
 this last decade of phenomenal material progress in Germany 
 herself. 
 
 The rise was so sudden and unlooked-for by the nation at large, 
 nay, even by the very men who brought it about, that for the 
 first two or three years of it the ruling sentiment was one of sur- 
 prise, mingled with another and somewhat curious feeling, a 
 feeling of apprehension that this rise was too good to last. The 
 admirably correct and promptly issued Imperial statistics were 
 studied, month after month, by every business man in Germany 
 with a dread that the flood time must be passed, and that the 
 figures must begin to tell the disagreeable story of retrogression. 
 But when, month after month and year after year, the barometer 
 continued to indicate a rise, steady and yet greater and greater, 
 this first sentiment of diffidence began to wear off, and by and 
 by it was replaced by its reverse, by a recklessness and daring, 
 by a wild speculation in all the values that could be traded in and 
 forecast, and by an absolute confidence in the permanence of the 
 "boom" which by this time had percolated down to every stratum 
 of the population. Of course, it would be saying too much to 
 include the whole nation in the above statement. Cool-headed 
 men there remained, and prophets of evil as well, just as they 
 had remained with us during every period of excessive inflation. 
 But the great masses of the people, including the great majority 
 of the commercial classes, were so affected. 
 
 Shares in every class of industrial home enterprises, even the 
 worst of wild-cat ones, rose to fabulous heights, and found ready 
 takers. The bourses of Frankfort and Berlin were swamped 
 with industrial papers some of which had but a very slender 
 financial basis, and the nation abandoned its old favourites, the 
 government securities, which jaelded but a paltry three and 
 one-half or four per cent., and bought shares in mining, elec- 
 trical, and every other kind of industrial enterprise, making 
 returns for years, some of them, at the rate of fifteen, twenty, 
 and more per cent., while these shares had risen in the market 
 to twice, thrice or four times their nominal values. 
 
 And at last the great crash came. It came otherwise than it 
 would have done in most other countries — it came slowl3% re- 
 luctantly. And there was no panic. Instead there was desper- 
 ate and stout resistance to what panicky feeling appeared here
 
 i8o GERMANY 
 
 and there. The great financiers and banks of Germany reso- 
 lutely put their backs to the wall and fought catastrophies inch 
 by inch. 
 
 Yet what a showing there was ! Such a gigantic and foul 
 failure as that of the Leipziger Bank in Leipsic, with its filial 
 institution, the Trebertrocknungs Company in Cassel, occupies 
 a unique place in financial history. Here was one of the oldest 
 and staidest banks of Germany, which for generations had been 
 considered, especially throughout Saxony, as secure as the Bank 
 of England, and which had again and again been the fiduciary of 
 the Royal Saxon government itself. Through all the rapid rise 
 of Germany's material resources this bank had remained what 
 it had been — ultra conservative, extremely cautious and set in 
 its ways — until a new man got into it. This man's sole claim 
 to consideration had been that he, as a member of the German 
 Merchants' Commission which had gone out to China a few 
 years ago, had written on his return a pamphlet filled with glitter- 
 ing generalities as to the chances of German trade with China 
 and the far East. That was all the recommendation and intro- 
 duction he had on entering the old bank. He had not even any 
 capital to invest in it. And yet this man had it all his own way 
 in the Leipziger Bank. Somehow the staid old gentlemen there 
 had been induced to look upon him as a very bright representa- 
 tive of the new school of German bankers, and in their blind 
 confidence in liim they permitted him to manipulate the funds 
 and the credit of the bank in an utterly reckless and dishonest 
 way. 
 
 They allowed him to advance to the concern in Cassel, which 
 had virtually been bankrupt ever since it started, millions upon 
 millions, and let him strain the bank's credit to the utmost, un- 
 til not only the Cassel concern but the Leipsic bank itself failed 
 with a shortage that ran into the hundreds of millions. Among 
 the depositors who lost considerable by this failure was the 
 Saxon government and court, the Leipsic municipal govern- 
 ment, and scores of the oldest and most respectable private 
 societies. The chief culprit is now serving a term in jail, and 
 two of his victims and fellow directors committed suicide. 
 
 This was but one of a score of similar failures, nearly all show- 
 ing a large admixture of dishonesty, of loose business methods,
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURING i8i 
 
 of wild speculation, etc., although none reached in magnitude 
 or rascality the case above described. 
 
 Yet through it all there has been displayed by the German 
 business world a splendid courage and a calmness of judgment 
 which have done much to retrieve the nation's faults — faults 
 bred by a season of inflation, and which seem to pass away in a 
 measure in a season of penitence like the present one. It is a 
 wholesome sign that the press of Germany, both daily and 
 financial, has not been afraid to speak out, but on the contrary 
 has been reading many a severe lesson of late to the nation, 
 among them being this, that there is no occasion hereafter to 
 throw stones at the English or American merchant, the German 
 merchant sitting himself in a glass house. 
 
 While this period of depression in Germany is not yet com- 
 pletely over, there are already signs of recovery. A pretty 
 thorough and extensive reform has been wrought in German 
 business circles, and one of the chief causes of the present de- 
 pression itself, viz., the artificial creation of companies entrusted 
 with the task of inducing cities, towns, and private concerns 
 to use electric motive or lighting power, even in cases where such 
 advanced methods are intrinsically needless, and were going far 
 in advance of present requirements, merely in order to find 
 employment for capital, seems to be undergoing a process of 
 extirpation. 
 
 In any event, despite the set-back which came temporarily 
 to German industry and commerce, the figures for her trade last 
 year and this present one show scarcely any abatement in her 
 upward movement. For 1901 there is still a total exceeding the 
 $2,500,000,000 mark, the decrease all told amounting to but 
 $140,000,000 for exports and imports combined, and there has 
 been this present year again a slight upward movement. In- 
 deed, it looks as if her imports and exports this year will be some- 
 what larger than ever. The figures for her iron and steel pro- 
 duction in 1900 show a similar tendency. In iron Germany pro- 
 duced last year 8,520,390 tons, as against England's 8,959,691, 
 and this country's 15,878,354; and of steel she produced 6,394,222 
 tons, as against England's 4,850,000, and against this country's 
 
 13.369.613 tons. 
 This period of depression is tantamount to a rather severe
 
 1 82 GERMANY 
 
 castigation of the German people for losing temporarily their 
 mental and moral balance under a strong and honeyed dose of 
 rapid prosperity. But it evidently has not seriously checked 
 the nation's progress in the path of commercial advance.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 KRUPP AND SIEMENS 
 
 Eminently illustrative of the high degree of industrial effi- 
 ciency which contemporaneous Germany has attained, are the 
 two mammoth firms of Fried. Krupp and Siemens & Halske, 
 firms which have achieved a world-wide reputation and whose 
 growth and present capacity are the distinctive outcome of those 
 characteristics of the modern German by which he has climbed 
 to his enviable position of to-day, viz., persistence, enterprise 
 coupled with caution, scientific and thorough methods applied 
 to technical pursuits, and infinite painstaking in the mechanical 
 execution of his work. 
 
 There are, as briefly referred to elsewhere, a number of other 
 giant establishments in the Germany of to-day, all of which 
 exhibit the same characteristics, and a brief history of which 
 might be fully as interesting and to the point as the above two. 
 Inasmuch, though, as the two named are best known on this 
 side of the water, they have here been selected for the purpose. 
 
 The firm of Fried. Krupp is now nearly a century in existence, 
 having been founded in 1810 by Peter Friedrich Krupp in Essen, 
 then a small place unknown beyond a radius of a few miles. 
 Its beginnings were extremely humble, and though the first 
 smelting furnace for the manufacture of cast steel was already 
 built in 181 1, and the first workshops were constructed in 18 18, 
 it was not until 1843 that the first application of cast steel to 
 small arms barrels was made, and only in 1847 that the first 
 finished gun, a three-pounder, entirely made of cast steel, was 
 turned out. The first universal exposition, the one of 1851, held 
 in London, gave the firm the long-coveted opportunity of at- 
 tracting the attention of the world to this new and path-breaking 
 industry. The exhibits made there by Krupp accomplished 
 that purpose, and henceforth, with orders coming in from foreign 
 countries, progress was rapid. 
 
 183
 
 1 84 GERMANY 
 
 Meanwhile, however, the founder of the firm had died, in 1826, 
 of a broken heart, at the early age of thirty-nine, having sunk 
 his entire slender fortune in these early and experimental days of 
 the firm. His ill star had willed it that his time was one of pro- 
 found peace, when there was no call for arms, good or bad, and 
 when Prussia's slumbering ambition had not yet made the reor- 
 ganization and new equipment of her army a watchword. His 
 son, Alfred, born in 181 2, and early matured in the school of 
 adversity, bravely continued his father's work. The small cot- 
 tage in which Alfred was born, and in which his father had known 
 much care and sorrow, still stands to this day, in the very heart 
 of the present giant works, as a memento of the humble origin 
 of the family. Alfred Krupp, who died himself in 1887, left 
 testamentary provisions to keep this tiny cradle of his race intact. 
 
 It was in 1848 that he had taken over the works as sole pro- 
 prietor, and in 1853, two years after the London Exposition, 
 he took out his famous patent for the making of weldless steel 
 tires, and in the next year constructed his first twelve-pounder 
 gun. In 1861 he started his fifty-ton hammer, "Fritz," at that 
 time a marvel, to work, and made in the succeeding year his 
 flat-wedge breech-closing arrangement, which was soon followed 
 by the round-wedge one. In 1864 the rail and plate mills were 
 erected, and in 1867 he introduced prismatic powder with seven 
 perforations, and adopted the ring construction for larger guns. 
 In 1886 he incorporated the existing great steel works at Annen 
 with his own, and his son and successor, Friedrich Krupp — the 
 present owner and head of the firm — has since then done much 
 to enlarge the works, its field of operations, and to improve 
 methods. In 1889 he introduced smokeless powder and the 
 horizontal breech-closing arrangement for quick-firing guns; 
 started in 1890 the manufacture of armour plate, using newly 
 built 2,000 and 5,000 ton hydraulic forging presses for the pur- 
 pose, and purchased in 1893 the existing Gruson Works, near 
 Magdeburg, and in 1896 the Germania Shipyards in Kiel and 
 Berlin. By the census of 1900, the firm employs nearly 50,000 
 all told, and this figure has since been exceeded. The Germania 
 shipyards in Kiel and Berlin, in 1898 with a force of 2,651, have 
 now more than doubled this number. The firm owns, besides 
 its main works in Essen, whose working army totals 30,000, and
 
 KRUPP AND SIEMENS 185 
 
 besides the works in Annen and the Gruson works and the 
 Germania yards, four other gigantic blast furnace plants at 
 Rheinhausen, Duisburg, Neuwied and Engers, and also big iron 
 works, foundry and engineering w^orks near Sayn — all lying close 
 to the original establishment. It moreover owns large coal and 
 iron mines in Germany, and likewise iron mines producing ore of 
 exceptional quality at Bilbao, Spain; also a number of quarries, 
 clay and sand pits, and three large sea-going steamers. The 
 Krupp proving grounds near Meppen, Prussia, of a length of ten 
 miles, and with further facilities for firing to a distance of fifteen 
 miles, is a unique feature in itself, of the greatest interest to all 
 army and navy men the world over. 
 
 The present owner is in the enjoyment of the largest income 
 within the German empire, paying an income tax on clear annual 
 profits of close on to $4,000,000. He has refused, on repeated 
 occasions, all titles of nobility and other distinctions of a similar 
 kind, preferring to remain plain Herr Krupp. But he has seen 
 the Kaiser and a score of other crowned heads as guests under 
 his roof, in his splendid estate of Villa Huegel, near Essen, 
 and has dispensed a lavish and tasteful hospitality on these and 
 many other occasions. 
 
 The oldest specialty of the Krupp works was the production 
 of crucible steel — that is, of steel made by melting together, in 
 closed crucibles, iron and steel specially produced for this pur- 
 pose, which is poured from these crucibles into ingot moulds, 
 the largest blocks thus made weighing about ninety tons. It 
 was a block of this criicible steel, faultless in the minutest 
 particular, which first attracted the attention of experts at the 
 London Exposition of 1851 to the then unknown German 
 manufacturer. 
 
 In this process only the best raw material is used, all taken 
 from the firm's mines. The ingots and blooms thus obtained are 
 absolutely homogeneous, close-grained and uniform throughout. 
 Such reliability cannot be obtained by any other method of 
 steel production. It is for this reason that this type of steel 
 is used for all purposes where reliability is of the first importance, 
 especially for guns, rifle barrels, and armour-piercing shells, also 
 for the more important structural parts of locomotives, steam 
 engines, marine engines, hoisting machinery, for tool steel and
 
 i86 GERMANY 
 
 spring steel, tires and axles for locomotives, tenders and cars, 
 dies of various kinds, etc., and for all such machinery parts where 
 a minimum of wear and tear is desirable, and which demand the 
 greatest possible safety against breakage. The Martin-Siemens 
 (or open-hearth) steel produced at these works is generally used 
 for similar purposes as crucible steel, with the exception of guns. 
 The last-named steel is also much used in fashioning steel parts 
 of ships. 
 
 Puddled steel is also produced in enormous quantities, and 
 while mainly used as raw material for crucible steel, there is a 
 great demand for it abroad, where it is sold under the name of 
 Milano and Bamboo steel for the manufacture of tools. The 
 Bessemer steel turned out in large quantities is especially em- 
 ployed in railroad building, such as for rails, fish-plates, sleepers, 
 etc. Besides the grades of steel mentioned, alloys of steel, with 
 nickel, chrome, manganese, tungsten, molybdenum, etc., are 
 produced for particular purposes. Of these alloys, nickel steel 
 is by far the most important, being considered the ideal metal 
 for all constructions. It shows not only higher qualities in the 
 tension tests than the best cast-steel, but possesses that extreme 
 toughness formerly only obtained in the sinewy wrought iron. 
 It is as tough as leather. Krupp has improved on the methods 
 of production, so that his nickel steel has a tensile strength and 
 an elastic limit of 92,500 and 62,600 pounds, respectively, per 
 square inch, which considerably overtops any other record. 
 
 This nickel steel makes incontestably the best material for 
 ships' main shafts, and for all such parts of machinery as are 
 obliged to withstand extraordinary strain and yet must be made 
 absolutely secure against the possibility of sudden fracture. 
 Crank shafts weighing up to fifty tons and intended for large 
 steamers are turned out at the Krupp works. The only item 
 telling against a more extensive use of nickel steel for all structural 
 purposes than at present obtains is its vastly increased price. 
 
 However, the chief article made of nickel steel at the Krupp 
 works is armour plate. Krupp sold his patent rights to both 
 this country and England, while he is working at more than 
 full capacity in manufacturing plate of this nickel steel for the 
 German navy, for a number of foreign navies, including the 
 Russian, and for private customers. For the German navy
 
 KRUPP AND SIEMENS 187 
 
 alone scores of thousands of tons of this best of all armour plate 
 will be made by him between this and 1908. The 5,000-ton 
 hydraulic press and the smaller ones of 2,000 tons each are at 
 work on these plates. All the tool machines used in their mak- 
 ing are driven by separate electric motors. When the plates 
 made here are ready for reception, careful tests show that, 
 superior to the product of former years, their face is absolutely 
 invulnerable to the hardest steel tools. This laver of hardened 
 steel reaches to about an inch under the surface, and thence very 
 gradually changes to the original material, a soft, tough nickel 
 steel of extraordinary resistance. This excellent quality of the 
 plate is the result of the treatment it undergoes after being 
 rolled, a treatment which has been developed at Krupp's during 
 these last ten years and put into practice by marvelous novel 
 appurtenances. No modern armour-piercing shell can drive its 
 point through the skin, hard as flint, of these plates, and the 
 fragments of projectiles fired against such plates show that their 
 heads have been completely flattened. It is a question of the 
 energy saved in the body of the projectile after such action 
 whether it may still be able to punch a hole into the plate in the 
 way a punching machine will. At any rate, the upsetting and 
 flattening of the shell's head consumes a very considerable part 
 of its energy and changes it into heat, and this explains why 
 these plates offer a resistance equal to that of common steel 
 plates twice their thickness, or of wrought iron armour thrice 
 their thickness. Besides, each plate as a whole possesses, like 
 leather, a toughness in consequence of which even a number of 
 hits close together fail to crack or break it. With such results 
 it is easily understood what extraordinary reduction in the dead 
 weight of armourclads is obtained by the use of this latest 
 product of armour plate manufacture. 
 
 But Krupp is popularly known as the "Gun King," and the 
 making of guns is even now his main business. Up to the present 
 he has sold over 50,000 of them, from the smallest quick-firing 
 guns of two-inch calibre up to the largest turret guns of twelve- 
 inch calibre and over, coast guns (up to fifteen inches in calibre) 
 siege and fortress guns, field and mountain artillery, especially 
 the quick-firing varieties. He turns out complete batteries 
 including their accessories and ammunition, projectiles of every
 
 1 88 GERMANY 
 
 kind, such as armour-piercing and half-armour-piercing shells, 
 common steel shells, mining shells, high explosive shells, steel 
 shells, common cast-iron shells, case shot, fuses and ammunition 
 ready for use, and also rifle barrels. The manufacture of war 
 material is not confined to the Essen works. At the Gruson 
 works Krupp turns out, as a specialty, armoured turrets, 
 chilled cast-iron armour for coast and inland fortifications, 
 gun carriages of special construction, etc. 
 
 At Essen and at the other establishments along the Ruhr and 
 Rhine, Krupp manufactures, besides, railroad material of every 
 description, ship-building material, such as plates, stems, stern 
 posts, cylinders, piston rods, crank shafts, and many other things 
 that enter into the construction of a vessel; parts of machinery 
 of all descriptions rough or finished; sheet steel and sheet iron, 
 from the thinnest to a thickness of over thirteen feet ; rolls of hard 
 steel for plate-rolling mills, and also hardened rolls for rolling 
 gold and silver; tool steel, files, rock drill steel, steel in bars for 
 all industrial purposes, and many other objects. A rudder frame 
 of cast -steel, twenty-six feet high, and weighing over eleven 
 tons, is among the sights just now at his Essen works of special 
 interest to an expert. Altogether, the works at Essen alone 
 comprise the following shops, viz.: 
 
 Two Bessemer steel works (fifteen converters), four Martin 
 steel works, two steel foundries, puddling works, welding shops, 
 foundry for crucible steel, iron foundry, projectile foundry, brass 
 foundry, two annealing shops, hardening shop, crucible shop, 
 rail mill, plate mill, rolling mill for fish-plates, etc., spring shop, 
 hydraulic presses and armour plate mill, hammer shop, wheel 
 forge, hearth forge, horseshoe forge, tire rolling-mill, turning 
 shop for wheels and axles, boiler shop, shop for portable railway 
 material, machine shop i, file factory, four repairing shops, 
 repairing shop for railways. 
 
 Next, the ordnance works, consisting of: Machine shops 2 to 
 4, gun shops I to 6, emery shop, boring shop, hoop shop, fuse 
 shop, burnishing department, gun inspection department, gun 
 carriage shed, gun carriage shops i and 2, limber workshop, forge 
 for gun shops, galvanizing and pressing shops, engravers' shop, 
 laboratory workshop, nickel-plating shop, tool store, projectile 
 turning shop, smithy for projectile turning, lead melting shop,
 
 KRUPP AND SIEMENS 189 
 
 projectile inspection department, gun store, packing shed, straw 
 rope manufacturing shop, proof butts; and test house, chemical 
 laboratories, carpenters', tinsmiths', builders', joiners', cart- 
 wrights', painters', mortar shops, saw mills, saddlers' shops, 
 tailor's shop, electrical plant, steam producing plant, gas works, 
 water works, fire department, shops for telegraphs, telephones, 
 lithographic and photographic institutions, cooking plant, and 
 so forth. 
 
 An idea of the magnitude of the whole establishment may be 
 obtained when it is mentioned that the coal and coke consumed 
 is now about 1,500,000 tons per annum; that the water con- 
 sumed is about 9,000,000 tons, or as much as a city of half a 
 million would use; that the gas consumed for lighting purposes 
 alone is over 500,000,000 cubic feet, and that the plant for elec- 
 tric light includes over 2,500 incandescent lamps and 700 arc 
 lamps. 
 
 One particular feature of the whole cluster of Krupp enter- 
 prises deserves special and more than passing mention. It is 
 that which explains in large part the prodigious and unbroken 
 success of the firm, and furnishes the key to its steady policy 
 as an employer of vast bodies of workmen. All over Germany 
 the mechanic's and laborer's dearest wish is to be inscribed on 
 the Krupp pay-roll. This is not so much caused by the high 
 rate of pay in vogue there, but rather by the admirable and 
 minute manner in which the firm takes care of its employes of 
 every grade, from the humblest to the highest-priced There 
 are some high officials in Krupp 's pay — former colonels of the 
 regular German army artillery, for instance — whose salary and 
 emoluments rise into the scores of thousands every year, and 
 there are others, humble puddlers or stokers, who earn but a 
 modest couple of marks per diem. But they all share in propor- 
 tion in the far-sighted arrangements made by the firm to shield 
 all the employes against the reverses of fortune — prolonged ill- 
 ness, incapacitation for toil, accidents of a serious nature, death, 
 invalidity, the feebleness of old age, the lack of provision for 
 widows, orphans, aged parents, etc. There is no possibility 
 whatever in the line of adversity that has not been discounted 
 in advance by the firm and its benevolent or semi-benevolent 
 institutions, so that a toiler of common fibre, as well as a skilled
 
 190 GERMANY 
 
 and brainy technician, on entering the service of the firm has the 
 moral certainty of being well and even tenderly taken care of for 
 the rest of his natural life, and that this care will apply after his 
 death to his loved ones — always providing, of course, that his 
 behaviour is v/hat may be reasonably expected, and that his ser- 
 vices last for longer than a short spell. 
 
 It would require a good-sized volume to describe in detail 
 these institutions and provisions and their genesis, and, indeed, 
 books have been written on this subject ere now. Space, how- 
 ever, will permit of but a cursory glance at the whole interesting 
 topic, a topic of transcendent interest to all large employers the 
 world over, for there can be no doubt that it has been owing 
 chiefly if not solely to this comprehensive care taken of the work- 
 men that such a thing as a strike or even a threat of one has never 
 troubled the firm in the long history of its existence, and this 
 despite the greatest efforts made on many occasions by labour 
 agitators and by the entire Socialist press of Germany to foment 
 dissatisfaction and precipitate strikes. The relations between 
 the Krupps and their hosts of toilers have remained unvaryingly 
 cordial and intimate, differing in this respect enormousl}'- from 
 those commonly obtaining in the empire between the wealthy 
 employer and his men. 
 
 To quickly run over this chain of institutions specially created 
 by the Krupps (in the course of three generations), it must be 
 mentioned that they consist of seventy-three supply stores, of 
 of which fifty-one are in Essen and the surrounding colonies and 
 twenty-two at the other works; two slaughter houses, one ice 
 factory, one brush maker's shop, one paper bag factory, two 
 tailors' workshops, one shoe maker's shop, one hotel, one club, 
 seven refreshment houses, two cafes, one laundry, one industrial 
 school for adults, three ditto for school children, one household 
 training-school, two infirmaries, barrack hospitals for epidemics, 
 workmen's barracks, dining-rooms for workmen, lodgings for un- 
 married superior workmen, and the dwelling-house colonies for 
 his workmen at Baumhof, Westend, Cronenberg, Schederhof, 
 Alfredshof (all within or near the confines of Essen), and the 
 Altenhof, a pretty colony for invalid and retired workmen. 
 
 On the erection of these various workmen's colonies above 
 enumerated the firm has laid out altogether a sum aggregating
 
 KRUPP AND SIEMENS 191 
 
 considerably over three million dollars, yielding interest of be- 
 tween I 1-2 and 2 per cent, only, and in the planning of buildings 
 and the choice and embellishment of sites for this purpose the 
 unflagging practice has been one of steady improvement. The 
 first colonies of Baumhof and Westend were nothing better than 
 closely packed tenements, plain and unpretentious exteriorly 
 and interiorly, though provided with every hygienic device and 
 kept scrupulously neat and in good repair. The later colonies, 
 Cronenberg, Alfredhof, and Schederhof, are far better in every 
 respect — laid out with gardens, the streets wide and lined with 
 trees, and the houses themselves largely on the cottage and 
 one-family plan, avoiding that uniformity and sameness which 
 characterized the earlier efforts in this line. 
 
 At the stores the employes obtain every species of goods and 
 provisions at the wholesale cost price, but strictly on a cash basis. 
 Of late years the firm has successfully inaugurated the s^^stem of 
 enabling its workmen to purchase their own houses on ground 
 belonging to the Krupps, about a thousand such houses being 
 now in such hands. This policy was persistently frowned upon 
 by the late Alfred Krupp, he fearing all sorts of unpleasant com- 
 plications, but the present owner has broken with this, and by 
 exercising reasonable caution has avoided these dreaded con- 
 sequences. 
 
 Of course, the firm has to conform, like every other in Germany, 
 with the provisions of the Imperial Workmen's Insurance Law, 
 which, as elsewhere stated, yields the sick, aged or incapacitated 
 toiler a minimum of financial security. But its own policy in 
 this respect, antedating that of the empire by half a century, 
 is far more comprehensive and generous in scope. The firm 
 pays, under the imperial law, a matter of half a million marks, 
 or about one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, annuall}^ 
 into the public treasury for this purpose. But its own exclusive 
 and voluntary provisions demand an annual outlay of about six 
 times that sum, divided and subdivided into sums large and 
 small, so as to fit the exact needs of every case. These various 
 institutions are constantly added to by tlie present owner, who 
 on one special occasion donated no less than one million marks, 
 or about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, to one single 
 fund alone, and who has lately enlarged the Altenhof colony,
 
 192 GERMANY 
 
 built invalid and convalescent homes, erected a new workmen's 
 colony (the finest and most homelike of all) in memory of his 
 father, and constructed a score of other buildings for special 
 benevolent purposes besides. 
 
 Nevertheless, the consistent policy pursued by him as by his 
 father before him, is to rob all these institutions as far as may be 
 of their purely eleemosynary character, and to exact a certain 
 cash payment, no matter how small, for the enjoyment of the 
 rights and benefits of all these institutions, excepting a very few 
 where the case absolutely required it, as in the Altenhof, for in- 
 stance. By thus enlisting the cooperation of his men for the 
 financial support of these institutions, he has served two very 
 important ends. He has conserved the sense of self-respect of 
 his employes, and he has made them feel a far greater interest in 
 their success and proper management than if they were supported 
 solely out of his own pocket. 
 
 The firm's care, however, did not end with the common grade 
 of toiler in its employ, but extends likewise to its salaried officials. 
 There are a number of funds that were specially created for that 
 purpose, such as compulsory life insurance, sick and accidental 
 insurance benefits, etc., and the cooperation of this higher and 
 highest class of employes is insured by the signing of a contract 
 on entering the service of the firm, whereby a small percentage 
 of the salaries is deducted each pay-day, the firm contributing as 
 much or more towards the fund thus created. 
 
 A special colony for this class of well-paid employes has also 
 been built, forming a beautiful thoroughfare in Essen called 
 Hohenzollern Strasse, each house being surrounded by a pretty 
 garden, constructed after special plans of the firm's architects, 
 and presenting a very handsome appearance in every case. The 
 rents charged for these houses also represent about two per cent, 
 on the investment. A very fine and well-appointed club house 
 has also been built by the firm for these high-grade employes, 
 and likewise a theatre and other resorts. 
 
 In carrying out such an extensive benefit scheme for its em- 
 ployes of every class, the largest possible opportunit}'' was pre- 
 sented of testing practically a number of mooted questions and 
 of trying all sorts of benevolent and humane experiments. One 
 of these is a system of premiums, awarded in proportion to the
 
 KRUPP AND SIEMENS 193 
 
 industry, fidelity to duty, and intelligence shown by individual 
 workmen in their allotted fields of labour. The system has, on the 
 whole, worked very satisfactorily. Another has been the regular 
 distribution on special occasions — such as the end of a strenuous 
 campaign for the purpose of finishing an important and remuner- 
 ative piece of contract work within a certain specified time and 
 of a certain specified quality — of a portion of the profits accruing 
 to the firm, a portion determined beforehand. This has also 
 produced very favourable results, in spite of many predictions to 
 the contrary, and in spite of the fact that elsewhere in German 
 establishments of some magnitude the experiment had miscarried. 
 In short, various incentives, rarely afforded the common work- 
 man elsewhere in the empire to intenser and more thoughtful 
 work, have been held out by Krupp to his men, and in almost 
 every instance with good results. 
 
 To actively aid in rendering the homes of his men more home- 
 like, and in making their family life more harmonious, purer, 
 and more comfortable than is the case in most of the homes of the 
 industrial toiler, has been another ambition of this remarkable 
 firm, and in this, too, the success attained has been far greater 
 than the firm itself had dared to hope for in the beginning. The 
 industrial and the household and cooking schools in which the 
 wives, daughters and sisters of the employes are trained under 
 competent instruction have been a great boon in this respect. 
 Instruction in every department of domestic work, in sewing, 
 embroidery, in mending and dressmaking, in millinery and other 
 advanced female art, is regularly imparted with excellent result, 
 and in this as well as in the training of nurses, in kitchen and 
 bakery work, the wife of the present owner, a niece of one of the 
 Kaiser's favorites. General von Ende, has all along been taking 
 an active and intelligent interest, so much so that the Empress, 
 on a recent visit, declared this part of the firm's humane en- 
 deavors a model for all industrial employers in Germany. 
 
 In fine, the brutish, grossly sensual and spendthrift manner in 
 which the average industrial toiler lives and has his being in most 
 of the towns of the empire that are given over principally to 
 manufacturing has been greatly modified for the better by these 
 systematic efforts of the firm to foster the purely human in- 
 stincts of its army of workers. In this respect, in fact, the Krupp
 
 194 GERMANY 
 
 establishment presents a contrast with similar establishments 
 in Germany which is as striking as it is satisfying, and which 
 seems to give the lie to those in Germany's high councils who 
 maintain that nothing but force and severity will answer with 
 the labouring man. It is, perhaps, in teaching this lesson that the 
 Krupp establishment is most remarkable of all, although to the 
 world at large its chief claim to distinction lies in the fact of hav- 
 ing been the pioneer in that vast and all-important field of a 
 highly developed and technically perfected steel industry, an 
 industry which as a matter of fact lies at the root of modern 
 economic progress, and which made its triumphs and successes 
 possible, and furthermore in having carried this industry to the 
 furthest present limits. 
 
 In another though in some respects allied field of human ac- 
 tivity, the brothers Siemens, pioneers like the Krupps, and like 
 them, too, eminently successful, may stand as the highest type 
 of German industry where industry comes closest to art and 
 science. Their rise, growth and triumph would likewise fur- 
 nish plenty of material for a book of all-absorbing interest, but 
 for present purposes it will suffice to sketch the bare outlines of 
 the life of this firm. 
 
 It consists to-day of three allied establishments — the parent 
 one at Berlin, under the firm name of Siemens & Halske, with 
 large works in Germany and Austria; the London house, Siemens 
 Brothers & Co., and the St. Petersburg house, likewise called 
 Siemens Brothers. Together they have at present 19,000 em- 
 ployes, of v»rhom 4,000 are officials, engineers, scientists, and 
 technicians, and 15,000 are workmen, mechanics, etc. The 
 three brothers, Werner, Carl, and William, have done more than 
 anybody else in developing the field of electrotechnics in its prac- 
 tical application to the needs of the race. 
 
 The firm was founded on October 12, 1847, by the artillery 
 lieutenant, Werner Siemens, associating himself with the me- 
 chanical engineer, J. G. Halske, both in Berlin. Of the two, 
 however, it was Siemens who had by far the best scientific equip- 
 ment, and who was possessed of a daring inventiveness and a 
 marvelous power of utilizing resources and entering hitherto 
 untried spheres of activity. Halske was a man of no initiative, 
 timid, and of narrow horizon, and when the first great inter-
 
 KRUPP AND SIEMENS 195 
 
 national successes came to the young firm, and its range of view 
 and its financial enterprises extended beyond the limits he 
 was able to grasp, he withdrew and left Werner Siemens with 
 his two younger brothers in sole possession of the field. 
 
 Werner Siemens and his partner began with a borrowed 
 capital of 6,000 thalers, or about $4,200, and began the manu- 
 facture in Berlin, on a small scale, of the needle telegraph, which 
 Werner technically improved. During the Prusso-Danish war 
 of 1848 he laid the first submarine mines in the harbour of Kiel 
 and in the Rhine near Cologne, following this up with sub- 
 marine cables for telegraphy, the first ever laid. In 1849 he con- 
 structed the first long telegraph line in Germany, between Berlin 
 and Frankfort-on-Main, placing it underground. In 1850 the 
 firm began experimenting with the Morse writing telegraph. 
 
 At the London Exposition of 1851 the firm was awarded the 
 council medal, one of the highest prizes. Their first phenomenal 
 work, however, was done during the Crimean War for Russia, 
 laying in a short time telegraph lines between the Prussian fron- 
 tier to Warsaw, St. Petersburg (a distance of over 1,000 miles), 
 and later to Odessa, Kieff, Reval, Helsingfors, Kovno, and to 
 Sebastopol itself, where at a certain time Siemens' perfected tel- 
 egraph apparatus was worked during the siege both on the Russian 
 and the British sides. Owing to the speedy and reliable manner 
 in which the firm had served Russia in those early days, the 
 Russian government appointed them contractors for the erection 
 and maintenance of telegraph lines within the whole empire, 
 and from that time on the firm did a steady and flourishing 
 branch business in St. Petersburg. 
 
 In 1853 another brother, William, after doing a successful 
 business in England with the telegraph and cable apparatus 
 of the Berlin home firm, was entrusted with the management of a 
 branch house in London, one which steadily grew until at times 
 it outvied the parent in size and earnings. The first two im- 
 portant strokes of business done there by the firm was the fur- 
 nishing of all the material needed in the government telegraph 
 lines in India, and later on in the manufacture and invention of a 
 water meter. In 1857 they laid, for an English firm, the cable 
 connecting Sardinia with Bona in Africa, at a depth of 10,000 
 feet below the sea surface, and after an English contractor had
 
 196 GERMANY 
 
 thrice failed. In the execution of this difficult task Werner 
 Siemens discovered and fixed for all time the scientific founda- 
 tion for the laying of cables. In 1859 the firm built the cable 
 line from Suez via Aden to Kurrachee in India, a total length of 
 about 3,500 miles. 
 
 In 1866 the firm showed the first little dynamo-electric ma- 
 chine, a mine exploder, to a body of scientists in Berlin. Shortly 
 afterwards they laid the overland telegraph line between England 
 and India, via Germany, Russia, and Persia, as far as Calcutta, a 
 distance of about 7,000 miles, fitting it out with the new auto- 
 matic telegraph system, likewise an invention of the firm. From 
 that time on, the business of the firm having grown enormously 
 both in bulk and in intricacy, the policy was inaugurated of ad- 
 mitting to partnership or entrusting with the direction of various 
 departments, young and ambitious men of talent, such as the 
 two electrical engineers, Carl Frischen and Hefner- Alteneck, 
 who later on made some inventions of extraordinary importance, 
 which the firm subsequently exploited. 
 
 Early in the seventies the firm devised some startling improve- 
 ments on the Morse telegraph, such as the perfecting of the ink 
 writers and embossers, and constructed a new instrument for 
 automatic fast writing, the chain fast writer, the relay fast writer, 
 and fast printers, all of which was accomplished by Hefner- 
 Alteneck, while Frischen successfully devoted his attention to 
 the railway block-system. In 1874 the firm succeeded in break- 
 ing the monopoly of the existing British cable ring, built its own 
 cable-laying steamer, the Faraday, and erected its own large 
 gutta percha works in Charlton, near London, so that its em- 
 ployes there numbered 2,500, and enabling them to lay a number 
 of big cable lines to America and elsewhere. The firm went on 
 devising improvements both in the material used and in the man- 
 ner of laying submarine cables, and the most perfect of these lines 
 was laid in the summer of 1900, for the Commercial Cable Co., 
 which formed a supplement to the cable which the German gov- 
 ernment had ordered at the same time. The firm also laid, from 
 1876 on, a network of underground telegraph lines through 
 Germany. At the Paris Exposition of 1900 the firm placed, side 
 by side, the two great inventions of its own, the differential lamp 
 of the eighties and the electric tramways of the nineties, both
 
 KRUPP AND SIEMENS 197 
 
 from an economic standpoint of vast importance in the devel- 
 opment of modern industry, and received for its exhibits the 
 highest awards granted by the jury to any exhibitor, of what- 
 ever nationahty, in cognate hnes. 
 
 For considerable time past, since about 1890, the best energies 
 of the firm have been engrossed in the construction of electric 
 plants, of electric railways, trolleys, central stations, etc., and in 
 this respect it has done more in Germany, Austria, Hungary, 
 Italy, England, South America, and elsewhere than any other 
 single firm, and has been the chief factor in raising German 
 electrotechnics to its present height. The firm has been con- 
 structing dynamos in Berlin and Vienna at the rate of 200,000 
 kilowatts per annum. In applying themselves to this task 
 Siemens & Halske created, as the first 1,000 h. p. electrical 
 engine, a totally new type of dynamo machine, the so-called 
 inner-pole machine, leading to a new era in dynamo construction. 
 In order to display a more intense activity in the line of dynamo 
 building, the firm found it necessary to encircle the inland and 
 foreign countries with a net of technical branch offices, a novel 
 and bold move, which at the time and since has been much 
 criticized. Among the later achievements of the firm, the im- 
 provement of the Hughes apparatus deserves to be mentioned, 
 and the large telegraph offices at Berlin, Munich, Nuremberg, and 
 Stuttgart were equipped with it. They also invented a con- 
 trivance supplying ships with electric power transmission, espe- 
 cially for operating armoured turrets of men-of-war, and invented 
 and practically applied the rotary current plant to railway sta- 
 tions, the first successful instance on a large scale being in the 
 new and enormous central station in Dresden. They have con- 
 structed electric elevators as early at 1880, electric hammers, 
 rock drills, electric ploughs, etc. They were also the first in 
 the world to solve the problem, to a certain extent at least, of 
 operating long-distance railways by electricity. 
 
 Much has also been done by the firm in railroad signals, night 
 signal apparatus for ships, railroad safety appliances, electric 
 switches, electric signals, telephones microphones (of which 
 last year they manufactured 60,000 each for the Berlin postal 
 authorities), megaphones, and loud-speaking telephones. The 
 firm was the inventor of the cyanide of potassium process of
 
 198 GERMANY 
 
 extracting gold from tailings and slime, and they lead in the 
 matter of constructing electric smelting furnaces. 
 
 Thus the firm has maintained up to the present, all through 
 the long space of fifty-five years, an unbroken reputation of 
 being alwa^^s abreast of the times in both scientific research and 
 in technical fructification of the latest inventions, although in 
 its composition it has undergone great changes. Werner, the 
 greatest genius of the family, both in theory and practice, 
 is dead, and his two brothers likewise. The sons of these men 
 are now at the helm, and the financial management has been 
 greatly modified. 
 
 As to the relations subsisting this long time between the found- 
 ers of the firm and their employes, they have, as in the case of the 
 Krupps, been uniformly characterized by a spirit of mutual 
 kindness and forbearance. No strikes have ever troubled the 
 firm, and as early as 1872, while the concern was still in its in- 
 fancy, the stockholders first created a beneficiary fund for their 
 employes. From that on a spirit of fairness and a willingness to 
 assist employes in distress has been uniformly shown by the 
 Siemens. So that in this respect, as in others, the firm resembles 
 that of Krupp. Both seem to be, indeed, living and powerful 
 exponents in Germany of the fact that it pays employers to 
 treat their employes with more than mere justice.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 SHIPPING 
 
 Over the portal of the Navigation House in Bremen may be 
 read the Latin device: " Navigare necesse est." And, indeed, 
 to Bremen and Hamburg and some other German cities navi- 
 gation is a necessity. But not only to them — to the whole of 
 Germany to-day, an absolute necessity. For the recent develop- 
 ment of that country on industrial and commercial lines has been 
 such that the cessation of German marine transport, if only for 
 the short space of a month, would be a very serious national 
 disaster. It would stop her manufactures ; it would work tem- 
 porary ruin to her trade ; it would bring her people to the brink 
 of starvation, and beggar thousands of her merchants. Those 
 beehives of human industry along the Rhine and its tributaries 
 would become mute, and the long freight trains which now at all 
 hours wend their way, laden with the spoils of every clime, from 
 the seaboard to the inland towns, supplying their toilers with the 
 rawstuffs to be wrought into finished fabrics, and empty stom- 
 achs with the wherewithal to live, would idly clog the rails. 
 Hundreds of thousands of tons of manufactured products, in- 
 tended for shipment to the four quarters of the globe, would 
 encumber warehouses and docks, unable to leave for their desti- 
 nation. For Germany is now essentially an exporting and 
 importing country, unable to live for even a month without 
 supplies from abroad, just like England. 
 
 Time was when Germany, like this country, "was sufficient to 
 herseh '; when her fields and meadows brought forth enough 
 nourishment to all her people. That time, however, is past. 
 She now cannot feed all her hungry mouths. She woidd have 
 to let die of starvation every third inhabitant of the empire, 
 were she to rely solely on her own agricultural produce. This 
 is a truth which has not yet been sufficiently recognized within 
 her borders. But unpalatable as it is to her, it is, nevertheless, 
 
 199
 
 200 GERMANY 
 
 a truth. The imperial census of 1895 and the one of 1900 pro- 
 claim the fact in unmistakable language to the whole world. 
 No legislation will change this, or if changed it would at the 
 same time precipitate a gigantic economic crisis, a crisis so piti- 
 less and far-reaching that one stands aghast at the mere idea of 
 it. Germany had the ambition to become a great commercial 
 nation, a vast emporium and centre of international trade. 
 Well, she has become that, but with the incalculable benefits 
 thus accruing to her she must also accept the inevitable penalties. 
 
 The enormous and rapid rise of shipping has gone parallel with 
 the rise in industry and commerce. It is the growth of the last 
 two decades, and more especially of the last one. When the 
 nineteenth century dawned, German seafaring had almost be- 
 come a lost art. Hamburg, till then one of the most prosperous 
 and important shipping centres on the European continent, had 
 been doomed to almost annihilation by the Napoleonic policy of 
 shutting off the whole continent from English sea trade. But it 
 is precisely Hamburg which to-day illustrates most strikingly 
 Germany's rise in shipping. Up to 1872 Hamburg was more an 
 English than a German harbour. In that year 5,913 ships put 
 into that leading German port, with a total capacity of 2,100,000 
 register tons. Of these the English vessels showed 1,100,000 
 tons and the German vessels but 658,000 tons, the remainder 
 being vessels of other nationalities. Fifteen years later the 
 point had been reached where the German vessels exceeded the 
 English both in number and capacity, for out of a total number 
 of 7,308 ships, with 3,900,000 tons, that arrived in Hamburg in 
 1887, there were 3,674 German with 1,734,271 tonnage, and but 
 2,509 English, with 1,696,181 tonnage. Since 1895 German 
 superiority has become a settled feature. In 1900, of the 13,102 
 ships that arrived in Hamburg, having a joint capacity of 
 8,000,000 tons, there were 7,640 German ships with 4,300,000 
 tons and 3,442 English with 2,800,000 tons. Of these English 
 vessels about one-half, viz., 1,816 with 1,300,000 tons, were 
 colliers. And as in number, the German vessels have also 
 increased in size. In 1872 the German vessel averaged about 
 one-half the size of the English one. To-day the German vessel 
 averages fifty per cent, more in size than the English one. 
 
 Up to 1872 the London shipper and trader was the middleman
 
 SHIPPING 20I 
 
 for Hamburg. In London the goods arrived first, from the 
 British colonies and from nearly all far-away countries, and after 
 selecting from this wealth of goods the choicest and best for 
 the English market, the London merchant sent a portion of the 
 remainder over to Hamburg, to supply the continental market. 
 The development of Hamburg and Germany as a whole wrought 
 an entire change in this. The direct transatlantic trade of 
 Hamburg grew by mighty bounds. It grew at a much larger rate 
 than the city's trade with England, although that, too, has in- 
 creased wonderfully. Between 1899 and 1901 the transatlantic 
 trade of Hamburg increased by 279,000 tons, while its trade with 
 English ports increased but 210,000 tons. In 1901 there arrived 
 in Hamburg 1,612 vessels of a total tonnage of 3,600,000, with 
 transatlantic freights on board, and 11,235 ships of together 
 4,800,000 tons from European ports. 
 
 The receding wave of English trade to Hamburg is also seen in 
 the figures given for Hamburg's quay traffic. These quays, 
 because of the relatively high dues exacted, are only used by 
 ships with costly cargoes. In 1897, of the 4,341 ships with 
 3,500,000 tons which there loaded and unloaded, there were still 
 1,768 English ones with 1,300,000 tons, as against 1,715 German 
 ones with 1,900,000 tons. But in 1901 out of the total of 4,973 
 ships that put in at these quays, having a combined tonnage of 
 4,700,000 tons, there were 2,116 German with 2,900,000 tons, as 
 against only 1,862 English ones, having a tonnage of but 
 1,300,000. 
 
 Hamburg is indeed the best illustration to be found of 
 Germany's rise as a seafaring nation. It is now by far the largest 
 harbour on the European continent, having left Marseilles and 
 Bordeaux far in the rear years ago, and being exceeded in number 
 of ships and in bulk of value of traffic by only one other harbour 
 in the world, viz., London. But she has done, too, everything 
 which enterprise and wise foresight could do to bring this about. 
 Hamburg has spent more money than any other two harbours in 
 the world together during the last score of years to perfect her 
 technical facilities. Her system of quays and docks is the best in 
 existence, and the twenty-five million dollars laid out by her 
 municipality and her shipowners in these improvements are 
 bringing rich fruit. All these improvements are made of durable
 
 202 GERMANY 
 
 material, stone and iron and steel, are handsome in appearance, 
 and are equipped with hydraulic machinery, with cranes and 
 other hoisting apparatus, that are equal to any emergency. In 
 fact, to-day hydraulic engineers the world over go to Hamburg 
 just to study these triumphs of professional skill, as they for- 
 merly used to go to London and Liverpool. The water front of 
 Hamburg, with its miles of docks and quays, is a modern marvel 
 of practical genius, and may stand for a fitting and eloquent type 
 of material progress in Germany. American engineers are par- 
 ticularly struck with that fact on their first visit to Hamburg, 
 and with patriotic qualms they draw involuntary comparisons 
 with the ragged and ill-appointed water fronts of our leading 
 American harbour cities, in whose management unfortunately no 
 such prevision and wisdom is shown. 
 
 And there is another thing that needs pointing out. Hamburg 
 is now drawing a steady and ever-increasing revenue from these 
 costly improvements, revenues which are even now equivalent 
 to a good percentage on the capital invested, while the indirect 
 gain accruing to the city in attracting a larger and larger volume 
 of shipping is many times greater. The thing has paid in every 
 sense of the word. 
 
 What is said here of Hamburg is equally true of the other 
 German harbours, though not in the same ratio. It applies to 
 Bremen, whose growth, too, in every respect has been remark- 
 able. It has grown to almost 200,000 population, as against 
 Hamburg's 700,000, and its shipping has more than doubled since 
 the empire was founded. It applies to Stettin, whose popula- 
 tion is a quarter of a million, and whose trade has grown four- 
 fold, and which not only has appropriated to itself a large portion 
 of the Scandinavian and Russian Baltic trade formerly possessed 
 by Copenhagen and Gothenburg, but has reached out to America 
 as well and includes a regular freight and passenger steamer line 
 to New York. It applies to Dantzic, now a city of 150,000, 
 and whose shipping interests are again what they were in the 
 Middle Ages. It applies to Elbing and Pillau and some other 
 Baltic harbours of Prussia near the Russian border, and it applies 
 to -a dozen smaller ports on the North Sea, like Geestemlinde, 
 Vegesack, Emden, Wilhelmshaven, and others. It applies above 
 all to Kiel, the terminus of the Baltic Canal, the scat of the im-
 
 SHIPPING 20 
 
 o 
 
 mense imperial navy yards, and of the Krupp Gennania ship- 
 yards, and now a city of 120,000, having quadrupled its size 
 since 1870. 
 
 Rapid and yet steady progress is seen everywhere in the 
 German shipyards, and intense activity as well. From very 
 small beginnings they have risen step by step until they equal 
 the British ones in efficiency and capacity. Nay, in the light of 
 recent experience it must even be admitted that their claim of 
 building the finest and speediest ocean greyhounds seems well 
 founded. 
 
 At the close of 1901, Germany had 4,017 seagoing vessels 
 afloat, with a tonnage slightly exceeding the two million and a half 
 mark, and has attained second place in the world, England 
 alone surpassing her. Of these less than 400,000 tons fall to the 
 share of her Baltic fleet, the rest having their home in some North 
 Sea harbour. A total of over 50,000 men formed the crews of 
 these ships. At the end of the war with France, in 187 1, 
 German shipping was still so far behind that it was largely con- 
 fined to that inland sea, the Baltic. Of the ships then, but few 
 were steamers and hardly any of iron. But 147 were steamers 
 in 187 1, and 4,372 sailing vessels, the total tonnage for all 
 German seagoing vessels then being considerably below 500,000, 
 having since quintupled. Now there are 1,293 steamers, against 
 2,288 sailing vessels, and of the steamers all but a few are built 
 of steel, while even the sailing vessels are for the most part of 
 the same durable material. In size, too, there has been the same 
 rate of increase. Of her sailing vessels, 15S are 2,000 tons or 
 over, and the largest sailing vessels afloat to-day are German. 
 They are leviathans of 4,000 tons, and trade only between the 
 west coast of South America and Hamburg. 
 
 The larger part of our American shipping plies on the big lakes, 
 the tonnage of these vessels exceeding the seagoing ones. 
 Germany, too, has besides the above ocean ships a very large 
 number attending to her river and inland lake traffic. No later 
 figures exist than those for 1897, but in that year there were 
 22,564 such vessels, with a total tonnage of 3,370,447, of which 
 20,611 were propelled by wind and 1,953 by steam or electricity. 
 Many of these steamers are of good size and well appointed for 
 the passenger traffic, and 2,519 of these river ships were over
 
 204 GERMANY 
 
 300 tons in size. The passenger steamers on the Rhme, on the 
 Elbe and on the Weser and Oder are handsome and substantial 
 vessels, and equipped with a high degree of comfort. The ex- 
 traordinary development of this internal system of water com- 
 munication has been greatly aided, of course, by the fact that all 
 the larger German rivers are navigable by good-sized vessels for 
 great distances, and that they flow through densely settled 
 parts of the country. Such relatively unimportant rivers as the 
 Pregel, the Vistula, and the Ems have, for instance, navigable 
 parts of a respective length of 273, 508, and 274 kilometres. 
 The navigable canals constructed to connect the Oder and Elbe 
 rivers and their tributary systems have a length of 150 kilo- 
 metres, and the Elbe system alone has navigable parts of over 
 3,000 kilometers, or about 2,000 miles, while the Oder system 
 shows navigable parts of a total length of 2,300 kilometres, and 
 the Weser of 1,100 kilometers, while the Rhine navigable sj^stem 
 on German territory is 2,700 kilometres in length. 
 
 The quantities of goods of every description that are trans- 
 ported on these internal waterways are simply enormous. Thus, 
 at Emmerich, the German-Dutch frontier station on the lower 
 Rhine, there passed in 1899 altogether some 7,000,000 tons of 
 various wares on board of German Rhine vessels, ores, cereals, 
 petroleum, coal and flour being the leading products among 
 them. The goods reaching Berlin by water on the Spree (a 
 tributary of the Elbe River) and Havel, amounted last year in 
 bulk to about 9,000,000 tons, and in value to some $120,000,000. 
 From Hamburg the Elbe ships brought in 1899 goods amounting 
 to some 4,200,000 tons in weight and about $56,000,000 in 
 value. These are but figures taken at random. 
 
 After all, though, it is Germany's ocean traffic that the world 
 at large feels mainly interested in. And brief mention of some 
 of her largest shipbuilding firms and of her leading steamer lines 
 will be necessary to give an adequate idea of that. 
 
 Of the latter, the Hamburg- America and the Bremen Lloyd 
 companies are, of course, best known to Americans. They are, 
 too, the most representative and the largest German lines. 
 
 There had been, prior to the founding of these two companies, 
 a sort of regular ocean passenger and freight communication 
 between New York on the one side and Hamburg and Bremen
 
 SHIPPING 205 
 
 on the other. The first of these regular Hnes was started in 
 1828 by some Hamburg capitahsts, but after a few years failed. 
 Next, the Hamburg firm of Sloman & Co. organized another line 
 in 1836, but it never amounted to a great deal. Then, the Ocean 
 S. S. Navigation Company was started, in 1S74, for traffic be- 
 tween Bremen and New York, the shareholders being the Bremen 
 municipality and a number of wealthy German merchants 
 both in New York and in Germany. They built the steamer 
 Washington, which thereafter plied regularly, for a number of 
 years, between those two ports. It was a paddle steamer of 
 some 1,500 tons, and rather slow. The Washington flew the 
 American flag. 
 
 These were the first modest beginnings in regular ocean traffic 
 between this country and the two enterprising German Hansa 
 towns. 
 
 On May 27, 1847, the Hamburg- America Line was founded in 
 Hamburg, the initial capital being 465,000 marks, or a little 
 over $100,000. With this money they built two sailing vessels 
 intended primarily for steerage passengers — /. e., emigrants, and 
 for freight. The first of these vessels was the Deutschland, of 
 717 register tons, and with a capacity for 200 steerage and 20 
 cabin passengers. It cost 132,000 marks, or about $32,000. This 
 ship was then the first, and out of it has grown under that cau- 
 tious and wise management for which that line as well as the 
 Bremen Lloyd Company have ever been noted, the present 
 enormous fleet. The Hamburg- America Line is to-day the 
 largest in the world, no British or French company comparing 
 either in size or in steamer connections with it. 
 
 Success and growth came slowly. The company increased 
 the number of its sailing vessels to six, with together 4,000 regis- 
 ter tons capacity, and each of these six vessels made three trips 
 back and forth per annum between Hamburg and New York. 
 They required about forty-two days for the western and thirty 
 days for the eastern, the homeward, trip. In 1855 the company 
 started out on the "new tack," with two steamers. One of them 
 was the Borussia, of 2,026 tons, and of twelve knots speed. This 
 ship had to be built in England, no German shipyard those days 
 being able to construct a vessel of this size. It had a crew of 
 seventy-seven men, and the English government hired the
 
 2o6 GERMANY 
 
 Boriissia during the Crimean War to transport British troops. 
 But in March, 1856, the Borussia started on regular trips be- 
 tween Hamburg and New York. Soon after, with growing suc- 
 cess, the Hamburg-America Line got a formidable rival in the 
 North German Lloyd, founded in 1857, and the competition thus 
 resulting between the two companies proved a very material 
 element in the increasing efficiency of both lines. 
 
 The Hamburg- America Line grew apace. In 1880 the com- 
 pany's capital had been raised to 15,000,000 marks, or nearly 
 $3,750,000, and its fleet consisted of twenty ocean steamers, with 
 which they sent 58,000 passengers and 273,000 cubic metres of 
 freight to this country. The first rapid steamer built by the 
 company was the Hammonia, which began her trips in 1883, 
 and from that time on the company built one fast steamer after 
 another. But it was particularly the last decade during which 
 the Hamburg-America Line, simultaneous with the empire's 
 phenomenal rise in coinmerce and industry, made its most 
 rapid progress. New branch lines were started to Boston, 
 Philadelphia, Baltimore, Canada, Mexico, Genoa, far Asia, 
 South America, etc., and the freight traffic to New York rose 
 stupendously. 
 
 Up to the time the Kronprinz Wilhchn began to run, not long 
 ago, the company had, too, unquestionably the fastest and 
 largest steamer afloat in the world — the Dciitschland. The 
 Kronprinz now contests that claim. The Dciitschland was 
 constructed by the Vulcan Works in Stettin, and in 1900 began 
 regular trips to New York. The Dcutschland measures 686 feet 
 in length, 67 feet in width, and 44 feet in depth. She carries 
 16,502 register tons, which enormous space is, however, almost 
 entirely reserved for passengers and their requisites, so that 
 hardly anything is left for freight purposes. She has a recorded 
 speed of 23.36 knots, and her machinery has 35,600 horsepower. 
 She has a crew and other personnel of 525 people, and room for 
 767 cabin and 300 steerage passengers. She requires 485 car- 
 loads of coal on every trip, and cost $3,000,000 to build. 
 
 It is interesting to note the rate at which the steamers of this 
 company, as their cost, size, and machinerj^ were gradually 
 increased, have gained in speed. In 1858 the Hammonia made 
 her fastest trip between Southampton and New York in 13 days
 
 SHIPPING 207 
 
 and I hour. In 1867 the second H ammonia made It in 9 da3-s 
 and 3 hours. In 1891 the Fiicrst Bismarck, one of the company's 
 new fast steamers, reduced this for the same trip to 6 days, 11 
 hours, 44 minutes. And in 1900 the DeutscJiland further 
 reduced this time to 5 days, 7 hours, 38 minutes. 
 
 The increase in vessels and tonnage has proceeded at an accel- 
 erated pace with the Hamburg- America Line of late. During 
 
 1900 some 145,000 tons were added to its capacity, and during 
 
 1 901 the increase was even larger. In 1900 it sent 160,000 persons 
 across the seas. Besides its branch lines mentioned before, it 
 now sends seven or eight steamers per month to the West Indies, 
 has regular communication to Galveston, to the west coast of 
 America, including San Francisco ; undertakes regular passenger 
 pleasure trips as far south as the Mediterranean and as far north 
 as the North Cape ; and sends two other lines of steamers around 
 Africa, one along the east coast, via Suez, and another along the 
 west coast. 
 
 On December 31, 1901, the annual report of the company 
 showed that it had worked with a capital of 160,000,000 inarks, 
 or about $40,000,000, and had earned profits from the trips un- 
 dertaken by its vessels to the amount of $4,500,000. Its fleet of 
 ocean steamers at that date numbered 127, with a capacity of 
 630,091 register tons, and 152 river steamers of together 31,264 
 tons. This includes thirteen vessels now under construction, of 
 together 77,730 tons. The number of its employes ashore is over 
 10,000, and on the seas about 7,500. 
 
 But slightly behind the Hamburg-America is the North 
 German Lloyd in Bremen. Its beginnings also as humble, 
 its growth as gradual, the Lloyd started in 1857 with three 
 small steamers, the /Idler, Moive, and Falke, which plied regu- 
 larly between Bremen and the English ports, while four good- 
 sized propeller steamers had been ordered built in English and 
 Scotch yards, intended to inaugurate regular and relatively fast 
 steamer communication with New York. The Bremen was the 
 first of these vessels, and she made her initial trip on June 19, 
 1858, having 94 passengers and 100 tons of freight on board. 
 This vessel had the respectable length of 334 feet, and a depth 
 of 42, measuring from the upper deck, and was of 700 horse- 
 power. There was considerable comfort on board, for besides
 
 2o8 GERMANY 
 
 luxurious furniture and good beds, there was also a fine piano, 
 two bath-rooms, and a good library. The trip to New York took 
 15 days, but the return voyage was made in 12 1-2 days. Dur- 
 ing the same year three other steamers were put into service, 
 the Hudson, the Wcser, and the New York. The service was a 
 fortnightly one. The next year the United States and the 
 British governments entrusted the carrying of the mails to the 
 Lloyd, a fact which helped it greatly in business and prestige. 
 
 The Lloyd started the building of fast steamers soon after the 
 Arizona, of the Guion Line, in 1878, had shown a speed of 16 
 knots, and in 1881 the Elbe made the first fast trip to New York, 
 two other speedy steamers, the Wcrra and the Ftilda, following 
 soon. At that time, too, the service was changed to a weekly 
 one, and the duration of the trip to New York had been reduced 
 to eight or nine days. It was then that the Lloyd scored the 
 triumph of carrying the United States mail to Southampton and 
 London in the shortest time on record — till then, of course. An 
 increasing number of these fast steamers was built, and the capi- 
 tal stock of the company was several times raised. In 1885 the 
 German empire made a contract with the Lloyd for regular mail 
 steamer lines to a number of ports in East Asia and Australia. 
 
 The Deutschland of the Hamburg Line was answered by the 
 Lloyd with the Kronprinz Wilhehn. Its dimensions are: 663 feet 
 in length, 66 feet in width, and 43 feet in depth. It holds 15,000 
 register tons, and is considerably larger than the Kaiser Wilhehn 
 der Grosse, exceeding that leviathan slightly in speed as well. 
 Her machinery shows 35,000 horsepower, and her bunkers con- 
 tain 4,450 tons of coal on leaving either port. Her crew numbers 
 500, and she can accommodate 650 first-class passengers, 350 
 second-class, and 700 steerage passengers. 
 
 At present the Lloyd operates twenty-seven steamer lines — 
 five lines to North America, two to South America, two to far 
 Asia, one to Australia, four branch lines connecting with the far 
 Asia lines, nine branch lines in the coast and archipelago service of 
 far Asia, and four European lines. Last year Lloyd ships made 
 4,707,000 sea miles, and transported 253,225 passengers, thus 
 beating the world record. In all, up to 1901, the company's 
 ships transported 4,160,431 passengers. The consum.ption of 
 coal during 1900 amounted to 20,750,000 marks, or over
 
 SHIPPING 209 
 
 $5,000,000, and for provisions it spent some $2,300,000. 
 The company's capital now reaches 110,000,000 marks, or 
 about $26,000,000. Their combined fleet is manned by over 
 10,000 persons, of whom 505 are captains and 522 engineers. 
 On shore the Lloyd employs 320 clerks and managers, 2,000 
 technical employes, and over 6,000 hands as stevedores, long- 
 shoremen and so forth. 
 
 There are seventy-seven large-sized ocean steamers in the 
 Lloyd, forty-six coastwise steamers in the Chino-Indian trade, 
 and forty-three river steamers with a tonnage of 598,457. As 
 a specialty it deserves mention that the Lloyd has also a training 
 ship of 2,581 tons, the Duchess Sophie Charlotte, in continuous 
 operation, whereon the future officers and engineers to man the 
 Lloyd vessels are learning their business practically and theo- 
 retically, and very thoroughly at that. This ship, under the 
 command of one of the best old seadogs of the Lloyd, Capt. G. 
 Warnecke, is undertaking trips around the Vv^orld with this 
 crew, more or less advanced from its embryo state, of course. 
 The pressure to be enrolled in the ranks of this future elite corps 
 of the German merchant marine was so strong that but one out 
 of every six could be actually chosen. Another similar vessel 
 is now in construction. This idea, which originated with the 
 management of the Lloyd, is so sound and sensible that it will 
 doubtless be imitated by other big lines, as it seems to vouchsafe 
 a regular and perfectly trained corps of men for every branch 
 of the company's service, which means, of course, the perpetu- 
 ation of efficient service on the part of the concern itself. The 
 pension system of the Lloyd — although not an exclusive feature, 
 since it occurs also in the Hamburg and all other German lines 
 — is brought to a high degree of excellence, and every one of its 
 employes knows on entering the company's service that he is 
 — barring serious misbehaviour — practically provided for for life, 
 and his family, present or prospective, as well. That, of course, 
 is an enormous incentive for its men to do their best, and to die, 
 if need be, in fulfilling their duty — a thing which has been 
 repeatedly exemplified by Lloyd captains and men. 
 
 It is of interest to note that, contrary to statements made in 
 the English and American press, the German steamer lines are 
 not subsidized at all by their home or any other government.
 
 210 GERMANY 
 
 Hence their success as competitors cannot be accounted for in 
 that way. And the payments they do get from the imperial 
 German treasury are confined to an adequate remuneration for 
 carrying the mails to America, Asia, Africa, and Australia. But 
 this remuneration is by no means as large as the one paid by the 
 EngHsh government to British lines. In the year 1899 the sum 
 paid by the British government to British vessels for mail service 
 amounted to $3,810,000, as against $1,920,000 paid German ves- 
 sels for the Hke service by the German government — just about 
 one-half the former sum. Besides that, the British government 
 obligated itself to a further annual payment to British steamer 
 lines of $300,000, for which sum the latter agreed to put such of 
 their steamers as are suited for the purpose at the government's 
 disposal as cruisers in time of war, while the German steamehip 
 companies are under the same obHgation without receiving any 
 specific payment therefor. 
 
 Whether the " Morganizing " of the leading British steamer 
 lines, and the special agreement made also with the Hamburg- 
 America and the North German Lloyd lines, will have an altering 
 influence upon the management of the latter, and especially 
 whether it will tend to stop progress in the further development 
 of speed and efficiency in steamer service, remains to be seen. 
 It is not unlikely that that, in a measure, might be one of the 
 effects of that gigantic deal. But at any rate, data so far at hand 
 do not indicate a tendency toward retardation, and it may be 
 expected, on the other hand, that competition with the companies 
 not comprehended in the "pool," as well as competition with new 
 lines to be started, may counteract such a tendency, if it should 
 become apparent. Another thing — the German companies 
 have vigorous!}^ disputed, and do so still, that their understand- 
 ing of the "pool" is of a nature to in any way curtail their inde- 
 pendence, or to make it superfluous for them to go on doing their 
 best. 
 
 It is quite possible, however, that the latest conjuncture 
 brought about by the efforts of ]\Ir. J. Pierpont Morgan ma}'- 
 have the effect of gradually increasing again the rate of steamer 
 freights, which, indeed, have of recent years sunk to a point never 
 before equaled in low compensation. Some figures will show to 
 what an extent this is true.
 
 SHIPPING 211 
 
 According to some statistics lately published by the Hamburg 
 Chamber of Commerce, the average freight per ton on wheat or 
 maize from New York to Liverpool was thirty-three shillings in 
 1873, and went down steadily until in 1894 it amounted to only 
 six shillings. According to figures collected by the New York 
 Chamber of Commerce, the above data were correct for those 
 commodities, while the decrease in freight charges when measured 
 by the cubic foot was fifty per cent. Cereals from the lower Danube 
 were freighted in 1870 to Hamburg at 37 marks (equal to so many 
 shillings) the ton, while in 1895 the rate had sunk to 11 marks. 
 The cost of water freight on a ton of rice from Rangoon to 
 Hamburg was in 1872 between 73 and 80 marks, and had fallen 
 to between 25 and 26 marks in 1895. Since then there has been a 
 further decrease, and water freights now have reached the lowest 
 ebb on record. In the fall months of last year a ton of cereals 
 was transported from New York to Hamburg at 5 marks. That 
 was the average, but in many cases the price paid was con- 
 siderably lower than that. In May of 1899, when the official 
 rates between New York and Hamburg varied between 15 and 
 17 shillings, Berlin corn merchants paid but 4.40 marks (a trifle 
 above one dollar) per ton of maize from Boston to Hamburg, and 
 but 2.48 (or sixty cents) per ton from Portland to Hamburg. 
 Large steamers leaving New York on the home trip to Germany 
 have often taken freight at even lower rates than the above, 
 making a virtue of necessity; na3^ in many instances they have 
 transported freight gratis. The same applies to British steamers ; 
 so that last year, on a number of occasions, Liverpool houses 
 had wheat delivered from New York at ninepence the ton. Of 
 course, the scant crops in this country last year had considerable 
 to do with this. 
 
 It is impossible, of course, for German internal trade and 
 transport to compete with such figures. At present, for instance, 
 a ton of German cereals going by water and rail from Insterburg 
 (East Prussia) to Berlin has to pay 32 marks for freight alone, 
 and from the same point to Mannheim (Grandduchy of Baden) it 
 costs even 48 marks, or twelve dollars. Thus, corn or wheat 
 brought from American ports to Germany, even after paying the 
 inland railway freight, can be laid down much cheaper than 
 when brought from points in her agricultural east and north.
 
 212 GERMANY 
 
 Germany is now contemplating the construction of the Rhine- 
 Weser Canal. After the completion of this waterway there will 
 be a great reduction in internal freights. It is estimated that 
 a ton of cereals can be sent from Bromberg (Province of 
 Posen, in Eastern Prussia) to Heme in Westphalia for 13.70 
 marks, which would mean a reduction of about 250 per cent. 
 
 To further her shipping, and likewise to render her navy more 
 independent of England in the matter of coal supply, Germany 
 is now bending her energies to the acquisition of coaling stations. 
 Of late she has made arrangements for large German coal de- 
 pots at Port Said, at the end of the Suez Canal. She is erecting 
 similar depots or coaling stations in the Pacific Ocean, more 
 particularly in the Bismarck Archipelago, in Samoa, on the 
 Carolines, and on the Marshall Islands. The possession of 
 Kiao-chau has enabled a German company to build a railroad 
 to the wonderfully productive mines of splendid hard coal in 
 Wei Hseen, and she counts on supplying in the near future not 
 only her own ships, merchant and naval, with this coal, but 
 also all the other nationalities that have need for it. She will 
 have a virtual monopoly in that line along the whole coast of 
 China, at least until some more good coal mines are opened up by 
 other enterprising nations having large interests in China. 
 
 Having thus outlined the resources and present status of the 
 leading German steamer lines, and also the extent of German 
 shipping, it is needful to say a few words about the principal 
 German shipyards, their humble origin, and their present ca- 
 pacity. Along the coasts of the North Sea and of the Baltic, 
 Germany has now about a score of shipyards, of which six or 
 seven are of large size and high efficiency, while the others are 
 of medium capacity. The small ones, numbering about 150, 
 are here left unconsidered. 
 
 The Vulcan Works near Stettin are the largest and in a sense 
 the most efficient. They have been in existence fifty-one years, 
 but for a long time the building of locomotives and other ma- 
 chinery was the leading feature. They have built and sold 
 some 2.000 locomotives. It was with the rise of Germany as a 
 seafaring and naval power that the Vulcan gradually developed 
 as a constructor of large and fine vessels. From the start the 
 German government, recognizing the disadvantages and dangers
 
 SHIPPING 213 
 
 of relying on a foreign country in the building of vessels, both 
 for the navy and merchant marine, systematically set to work 
 to emancipate itself from this state of dependence. It was up- 
 hill work, of course, and it was only within the past two years 
 that the end was fully attained. During its chrysalis condition 
 German shipping was largely dependent on British yards. In 
 1870 the Vulcan was still insignificant when compared with its 
 older, more experienced and much wealthier rivals across the 
 Channel. Since its inception, the works have been enlarged 
 fifteenfold, and its capital has increased from $500,000 to 
 $7,500,000. The works cover now nearly 100 acres, and the 
 number of its toilers has risen to over 8,000. 
 
 The Vulcan began the construction of its first naval vessels 
 in 1866, for the then North German Confederation, but these 
 were all of small size, and it was not until 1869 that it constructed 
 the first large-sized machinery for the iron-clad Hansa. In the 
 following year, 1870, during the war with France, the Vulcan had 
 increased its capacity and efficiency to the point of being 
 able to solicit and execute an order for a large iron-clad, the 
 Preussen, that being one of the first new vessels to enter the 
 newly formed imperial German navy. Altogether, the Vulcan 
 has built 250 large vessels — of which sixty-two were for either 
 the German or foreign navies. The rest were merchant marine 
 steamers. 
 
 Among the men-of-war built for Germany there were the bat- 
 tleships Brandenburg and Weissenburg, each of 10,500 tons, and 
 which are among the finest in the German navy. They are now 
 building a larger one for Germany of 1 1 ,700 tons. For the trans- 
 atlantic fleet of the North German Lloyd the Vulcan has biiilt 
 such leviathans of acknowledged speed and efiiciency as the 
 Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, of 14,500 tons; the Friedrich der 
 Grosse, of 10,500 tons; the Konigin Louise and the Konig Albert, 
 of similar capacity; the Prinzess Irene, of 11,000 tons; and the 
 Kronprinz Wilhelm, of 15,000 tons. For the Lloyd the Vulcan 
 has now a ship in construction which will be named the Kaiser 
 Wilhelm II, and which will overtop all previous efforts of any 
 steamer line or shipyard in the world. It is 706 feet in length, 
 and of 20,000 register tons; its machinery will be 42,000 horse- 
 power. This vessel, just launched, will begin its trips to New
 
 214 GERMANY 
 
 York next spring It is expected to reduce the duration of the 
 journey to an even five days, or less. 
 
 For the Hamburg- America Line the Vulcan has, amongst 
 others, built the Fuerst Bismarck, the Patricia, of 13,293 tons; 
 the Hamburg, of 10,599 tons; the Deutschland, of 16,500 tons 
 and of 36,000 horsepower, and the Kiao-chau, of 1 1,000 tons. 
 
 Thus, then, the Vulcan has successively and within the space 
 of a few years constructed the largest and fastest, the best and 
 the most luxuriously ecj[uipped steamers afloat, and this unde- 
 niable fact speaks, of course, for itself. 
 
 For the Chinese navy the Vulcan has built more than one-half 
 of all its vessels, and it has also built a number of the most effi- 
 cient Russian, Greek, Japanese, and other foreign naval vessels. 
 
 Next to the Vulcan in size are the Schichau Works, which 
 originally were started in a small way in Elbing, a town of me- 
 dium size to the east of the Baltic shore. In 1891 the firm 
 enlarged its capacity greatly by founding a vast shipyard in the 
 large harbour city of Dantzic, and it has besides extensive repair 
 shops in Pillau, likewise on the Baltic coast. Altogether, they 
 have now some 7,000 men in their employ, and a technical corps 
 of 181, with their central offices in Elbing. 
 
 The Schichau Works' specialty is torpedo boats. Of the 800 
 sea and river steamers built by them, no less than 300 were 
 torpedo boats. They have sold these both to the German navy 
 and to the navies of Russia, Austria, China, Chile, Italy, Brazil, 
 Argentina, Turkey and the United States. Their torpedo boats 
 of recent build have achieved as high a speed as the best English 
 ones, with a maximum of 36.7 knots. 
 
 The firm of Blohm & Voss in Hamburg is third in size and im- 
 portance amongst the private shipbuilders of the empire. This 
 firm has now been in existence twenty-five years, and has con- 
 structed in that time no less than 153 large vessels, of which sixty- 
 seven alone had a joint capacity of 200,000 tons and 1 60,000 horse- 
 power. They have now in construction one large iron-clad 
 battleship and one large iron-clad cruiser for the German navy, 
 and ten big steamers, whereof two of unusual size are for the 
 Hamburg- America Line. The firm has 5,000 men in its employ, 
 and is now in condition to construct vessels of any size, both for 
 warlike and peaceful purposes.
 
 SHIPPING 215 
 
 There is also the large shipbuilding firm of Tecklcnburg in 
 Vegesack, and the Germania in Geestemiinde, but far larger is 
 the other Germania yard in Kiel, owned by Friedrich Krupp, 
 and recently enlarged enormously, so that his works there oc- 
 cupy all told some 120 acres, with about 4,000 workmen. This 
 branch of the big Krupp firm is very young, hardly more than 
 five years, but it promises to rival the older yards within a very 
 short time. Certainly, the fact that the German government 
 has given this Krupp Germania Works in Kiel recent orders for 
 the construction of several large naval ships of the line as well 
 as cruisers, and that the firm is going to turn these out within 
 eighteen months, speaks favourably for its capacity. 
 
 Of course, in this survey the large imperial navy 5^ard in 
 Kiel and the smaller one in Wilhelmshaven must not be forgotten. 
 The one in Kiel employs at present, during the "rush times" in- 
 duced by the strong desire to complete as soon as possible the 
 makeup of the new and powerful fleet which Germany is enabled 
 to build up under the operation of her naval act of 1898, and 
 complemented by the amendment of 1900, some S,ooo men, and 
 there are now in process of construction there some seventy-two 
 vessels, large and small. The technical outfit of this Imperial 
 Navy Yard in Kiel is spoken of in enthusiastic terms by American 
 experts who enjoyed the greatly coveted opportunity of viewing 
 and inspecting it in its essential parts not long ago. The navy 
 yard in Wilhelmshaven is much more circumscribed in size and 
 capacity, and is largely used for repairing. The small im- 
 perial navy yard in Dantzic does not amovmt to a great deal, 
 either, so far as the construction of good-sized new vessels is con- 
 cerned. 
 
 From the above it will be clearly apprehended that Germany, 
 as a seafaring and naval power, has nearly reached the goal of 
 her ambition. She has now enough well-appointed shipyards in 
 her territory to enable her to build and equip, repair and alter, 
 all the ships she needs; nay, more, she has seriously set out as a 
 competitor with England in the building and repairing of foreign 
 vessels as well. She must hereafter be reckoned with as one of 
 the most serious and formidable factors in this respect.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE ARMY 
 
 One of the most striking features of German life is the pres- 
 ence everywhere of the regular soldiery and the great place the 
 army holds in the thoughts and affections of the nation. Neat 
 and tidy in appearance, you will see in every town officers strut- 
 ting the streets with a look of conscious dignity, jingling their 
 spurs and clanking their sabres. In conversation, too, reference 
 is often made to the drills and parades and other military spec- 
 tacles, or to some more serious question affecting the army. 
 The average German — and most of all the Prussian — speaks 
 with a certain affectionate pride and confidence of the arm}'", 
 and every change, even the slightest, made in it, every promo- 
 tion or retirement among the higher-grade officers, is commented 
 upon with evident interest. At longer intervals, radical changes 
 that are proposed cause an intensity of discussion which, I think, 
 is unparalleled elsewhere. "When, a few years ago, the period 
 of actual military service was, after long debates in the Reichstag, 
 finally reduced from three to two years for the infantry, this 
 step — whose far-reaching importance no military man will, 
 of course, underrate — formed for a long time the daily conversa- 
 tion at every German fireside. During the first eight years of 
 the present Emperor's reign, nothing contributed so much to his 
 unpopularity as his famous "rejuvenation" of the army — i. e., the 
 systematic process of gradually retiring nearly every one of the 
 older generals and regimental commanders. Chamberlain's incon- 
 siderate strictures on the methods employed by the Germans 
 during the war in France, in 1870-71, which he made the 
 past winter, occasioned an outbreak of fury throughout the em- 
 pire which astonished no one so much as Chamberlain himself. 
 His remarks were considered in Germany in the light of a deliber- 
 ate and unjustified insult hurled at that noU-me-tangere, the 
 German army. On that point every German is extremely sen- 
 
 216
 
 THE ARMY 
 
 217 
 
 sitive. The daily press in Germany, while often ignoring po- 
 litical topics that seem to touch the masses more closely, is for- 
 ever devoting much space and time to a discussion of the different 
 phases of army life, and their readers demand this. 
 
 It is at first difficult for an American or Englishman to under- 
 stand this. With them the army, certainly in times of peace, is 
 about the last subject that would be likely to be discussed in 
 general conversation, and no great interest is evinced by the 
 great public in details of army management. But a little re- 
 flection will show how natural it is for the German to feel so 
 keenly about his army and about all that stands in any relation 
 to it. For nowhere else in the world is the army so much identi- 
 fied with the nation, and nowhere else is respect and tender re- 
 gard for the army so deep-seated and general. It was due to the 
 popular uprising of 181 3, through the length and breadth of 
 Germany, to "a people in arms," in fact, that the yoke of the 
 first Napoleon, which had rested for a decade so heavily on the 
 German neck, was finally thrown off. And when the great 
 Corsican had been sent off to St. Helena, there on its rocks to 
 gnaw out his heart, the old mediaeval conception of the soldier 
 as a mercenary was buried in Prussia forever. Instead, those 
 great military organizers, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, shaped 
 the military system on the broad plan of general and compulsory 
 service. Every strong and healthy young man, whether of high 
 lineage or low birth, was to bear arms for his country during a 
 term of years, and subsequently to be enrolled in the subsidiary 
 bodies for national defense — the reserve, the landwehr, and the 
 landsturm, until the completed forty-fifth year. That was 
 their novel scheme, and they carried it out practically. This 
 system of virtually making army and nation synonymous terms 
 has endured, with slight modifications, to this day, and has since 
 been adopted by France and other powers as well. 
 
 In a country like Germany, where every father sends his sons 
 to military service, and where almost every maiden has a soldier 
 for a sweetheart, it is but natural that the thoughts and longings 
 of the nation gravitate toward the army. This is truest in 
 Prussia, for that country undeniably owes its rise to power and 
 its present dominating position in the empire to its army insti- 
 tutions, whereas the rest of Germany adopted these institutions
 
 2i8 GERMANY 
 
 only since 1866. In Prussia the profession of arms is looked 
 upon as the most honourable and glorious of all. The Prussian 
 kings have ever emphasized this estimate on all public occasions, 
 and the "king's coat," or uniform, is to-day considered on 
 Prussian soil as the proudest badge indeed. 
 
 The German army officer deserves to be specially discussed. 
 He holds throughout the empire the most enviable position in the 
 eye s of the masses. Socially he ranks first. This is often carried 
 to ludicrous extremes. A simple beardless lieutenant of twenty 
 has, at all social gatherings, the social precedence over the vener- 
 able greybeard of a millionaire banker, of a distinguished scholar 
 or scientist, or any other sort of government official, merely on 
 the strength of the uniform he wears. The fashionable German 
 hostess will not mourn deeply if a score of celebrated professors 
 or a half-dozen of real "privy councillors" do not put in their 
 appearance at her five-o'clock tea or her soiree dansante, but she 
 will shed tears in secret if only one of the lieutenants she expected 
 fails to come. Naturally, the officer is not slow in using his 
 advantages. He has, if of fairly distinguished family, untar- 
 nished reputation, and an average share of good looks, practically 
 the pick of all the good things in hfe. Above all, he rules the 
 matrimonial market. Penniless officers of the kind spoken of 
 above find no difficulty in securing life partners with big for- 
 tunes. The pursuit and capture of this sort of game is technically 
 known among army officers as "catching a goldfish." A hand- 
 some youth of respectable family, afflicted with a deficiency in 
 money, cannot do better in Germany than to enter the army, 
 after a few years spent in preliminaries at any one of the military 
 academies, a lieutenant at twenty. He will from that hour on 
 have his unlimited choice of all the marriageable young ladies 
 that cross his horizon. He will, of course, take his time about it, 
 and usually first devote himself, for the space of ten or fifteen 
 years, to the pleasant task of accumulating the average load of 
 personal debts. But the usurers having at last become fractious 
 and unmanageable, the handsome officer, meanwhile promoted 
 first lieutenant, captain, or, perhaps, even major, will make his 
 choice deliberately. It is the father-in-law's invariable privilege 
 to settle the aforesaid debts — American and English fathers-in- 
 law of German army officers bear the reputation of being some-
 
 THE ARxMY 219 
 
 times rather backward in fulfining this "duty" — and to furnish 
 his daughter with a " respectable " dowry. The size of the latter 
 will depend, of course, on all sorts of circumstances, such as the 
 rank and the family connections of the fiance, etc. It may, and 
 frequently does, run up into the hundreds of thousands, but it 
 cannot fall below a minimum which the government itself has 
 fixed. This minimum is lower for officers of the line than for 
 those in the guards, lower for infantry than for cavalry. But in 
 any case a sum, which is called a marriage "Kaution," must be 
 converted into safe government bonds, bearing interest ac the 
 rate of three or three and a half per cent., and then placed in 
 some mone^^ed institution specially designated for the purpose, 
 where it is at all times subject to the control and inspection of 
 the army officials. The smallest "Kaution" amounts to about 
 Sio,ooo, and its interest, together with the meagre pay of the 
 officer himself, is supposed to enable the latter with his family 
 to make both ends meet, with rigid economy and frequent 
 presents from the inexhaustible purse of the wealthy father-in- 
 law, who is never supposed to grumble at this slightly one-sided 
 arrangement, but on the contrary expected to always cheerfully 
 contribute, at all crucial moments of the young couple's existence, 
 to the latter 's exchequer. And as a matter of fact, the German 
 father-in-law at least knows his part too well to ever become 
 obstreperous. 
 
 This whole matter is conducted strictly on a business basis, 
 without reserve or sentimentality on either side. The fortunate 
 young woman on whom the handsome officer's choice has fallen 
 knows about the transactions, which sometimes require con- 
 siderable time, in a general way, but she is usually spared the 
 details. The matter is spoken of in family circles and in general 
 society as any other fact established by the inscrutable ways of 
 Providence would be. As a rule, officers, no matter how young 
 and unsophisticated otherwise, display great talent in ascertain- 
 ing the exact size of the dots fathers are known to hold ready iu 
 the event of a union of their daughters with an officer. If the 
 amount appears insufficient to one officer, he will leave the track 
 clear for a comrade whose expectations do not run so high. An 
 impecunious officer serving in a crack regiment, say in Berlin or 
 Potsdam, requires with his bride a marriage portion of at least
 
 2 20 GERMANY 
 
 500,000 to 1,000,000 marks. He will wait a reasonable time 
 until he meets and conquers such a girl or widow, If, however, 
 he is gradually getting into the sere and yellow leaf with his hopes 
 still unrealized, he may lower his estimate, and then he has him- 
 self transferred to a provincial regiment, where less money goes 
 further. 
 
 Occasionally the "goldfish hunter" is unable, despite all his 
 cunning and all his social and official sources of information, to 
 determine the exact amount of the dot held in store. Then he 
 will have recourse to one of those astute agents or hrocanteurs de 
 mariage swarming in large German cities. If that fails as well, 
 he will seize both horns of the dilemma, request a private inter- 
 view with his prospective father-in-law, and unmask his bat- 
 teries, so to speak. He will, in plain but respectful language, tell 
 that worthy that he has met and learned to appreciate his daugh- 
 ter Gretchen; that he would like to marry her, believing that a 
 certain amount of mutual regard exists, but that, unfortunately, 
 he himself is penniless; that, therefore, the girl he marries must 
 have a certain amount of money; that he, under all these circum- 
 stances, would deem it a great favour if Herr . . . would 
 kindly divulge to him the precise amount of money he is able and 
 v/illing to settle on his daughter Gretchen, together with any 
 other cognate information he is willing to vouchsafe — all this, 
 of course, in confidence. The future father-in-law will there- 
 upon tell the truth, and whether the amount mentioned was 
 large enough for the young officer's needs will soon be seen, for 
 if his attentions to Gretchen do not abruptly terminate after 
 that interview it is proof positive that it was. 
 
 "Goldfishes" are not so very plentiful in a country like 
 Germany, and so it has happened that the foreign "goldfishes," 
 American or English preferred, are also hunted to some extent. 
 There are to-day to be found in every garrison town in the em- 
 pire numbers of American or English women married to German 
 officers, and often playing a conspicuous social role. Their 
 special delight is going to court, even if it be only a tiny one 
 like the courts at Strelitz, Weimar, Coburg, or Schaumburg, 
 where an income of 6,000 marks is held semi-royal, and where 
 weak punch is abotit the height of dissipation indulged in at the 
 winter functions. Curiously enough, as a matter of fact these
 
 THE ARMY 221 
 
 pseudo-Germans of American or English birth and education 
 take as a rule an even intenser joy than do the native German 
 ladies in the ridiculous and inane court intrigues and cabals 
 that form the chief occupation of those admitted to these 
 Lilliputian mockeries of royalty. At the duodecimo edition of 
 a capital where one of the German Emperor's sisters, Princess 
 Victoria, is holding dread sway over her few subjects of 
 Schaumburg-Lippe, the American wife of a German official is 
 noted for her eagerness in attending. And her case is but one 
 of many that could be mentioned. 
 
 It is a mistake to think, as so many American editors and 
 others do, that these American ladies married in Germany live 
 unhappily and are pining away in vain sighs for a good scream 
 of the American eagle. With very few exceptions, they have 
 there found the life they wanted, and are thoroughly happy 
 and contented. The American women are more adaptable and 
 of nimbler intelligence than their English sisters, and as a conse- 
 quence they more quickly learn to feel at home in their new sur- 
 roundings and thus become more popular and socially influential. 
 But this influence has altered in nothing the peculiar code of 
 honor held by the German army officer, including his firm be- 
 lief in the duel as an ultima ratio in private affairs. 
 
 The number of duels fought in the army is steadily but slowly 
 decreasing. But the duel as a fixed institution remains. In 
 Germany, duels, both inside and outside the army, are usually 
 not such trifling affairs as in France. The German thorough- 
 ness betrays itself even there. Many of the most promising 
 younger officers have fallen on this field of mistaken honour. It 
 would cost the Kaiser but a word to drive the duel out of the 
 army forever, and with its disappearance from there it would 
 also cjuickly die out in civilian circles. But the Kaiser is un- 
 willing to say that word, as his earlier education in the army has 
 made him share the same set of prejudices on which the army 
 code is largely built. That is why he uses only palliatives and 
 half -measures in fighting the evil, or rather what he considers 
 its excrescences. His decree, issued a few 3^ears ago, has merely 
 a tendency to diminish the number of victims. 
 
 One of the strange ideas held by the German armj^ officer, as 
 part of his professional code, was picturesquely illustrated by the
 
 22 2 GERMANY 
 
 Briisewitz tragedy. That officer, being somewhat roughly 
 jostled by a half-drunken plumber, in a miscellaneous crowd that 
 sat back of him in a cafe at Carlsruhe, followed the offender 
 out of the place and ran his sword through his body, killing 
 the man on the spot. In doing this, Lieutenant von Briisewitz 
 had acted in strict accordance with the code of honour valid to 
 this day in the German army. For the offender, being of too lovv? 
 a social caste to be admitted to the privilege of a duello with an 
 army officer, had to be killed, so that his blood would wash away 
 the dark stain made on the officer's escutcheon by the affront 
 offered. His procedure, cowardly as it seemed to the world 
 at large — for it was the slaying of an unarmed and at the mo- 
 ment defenseless man — was perfectly en regie, viewed from the 
 German army officer's habitual point, and that accounts, of 
 course, for the fact that the court martial sentenced him to but 
 a few years of mild incarceration. 
 
 Briisewitz had, however, some conscience left, and his deed 
 weighed heavily on his soul. He sought and found a sovereign 
 remedy; he enlisted as a volunteer on the Boer side, soon after 
 the outbreak of the war in South Africa. The reports all agree 
 that he conducted himself in an exemplary manner, dying 
 eventually the death of a brave man on the battlefield. His 
 body was found on the veldt, and later conveyed home to 
 Germany. The military press commented widely on his 
 expiatory death, and he was generally represented as a victim 
 of unfortunate circumstances. 
 
 The Briisewitz case, on account of its dramatic and unusual 
 features, occasioned world-wide interest. It was, however, but 
 one of many that have happened, and are still happening, in 
 Germany. A couple of years ago, for instance, there was an 
 occurrence in the old city of Konigsberg, close to the borders of 
 Russia, which in some of its details was more atrocious than the 
 Briisewitz case. A group of officers, slightly under the influence 
 of liquor, encountered on the street, late at night, several civil- 
 ians. These citizens, too, were not quite sobre, and one of them, 
 whether purposely or by accident, stumbled against one of the 
 officers. The latter immediately drew his sword and stabbed the 
 offender twice, wounding him dangerously. The other citizen 
 meanwhile had vainly attempted to prevent this outrage by
 
 THE ARMY 223 
 
 grasping hold of the officer's arm. Thereupon the other officers 
 tore their weapons from their scabbards and inflicted such in- 
 juries on the would-be peacemaker as to cause his death a few 
 days later. As in the case of Briisewitz, no very severe punish- 
 ment was meted out to them, although a number of the most 
 influential newspapers had demanded adequate retribution, and 
 the Kaiser subsequently remitted part of the sentence. 
 
 Such cases and the dueling habit are among the unhealthy 
 growths on a code of honour which in many other respects em- 
 bodies a high standard of ethics. It is not too much to say that, 
 viewing them as a body, the German army officers are men of the 
 highest integrity and of charming manners. They are deservedly 
 popular in German social life. No gathering in the upper strata 
 of German society is complete or fully enjoyable without at 
 least one or two representatives of the army. The corps used to 
 recruit itself very largely from the nobility, and this is still true 
 to a certain extent. There is, all over Germany, a part of the 
 nobility specially designated as the "Militaradel," owing to the 
 members serving their sovereign and country, generation after 
 generation, as officers in the army. From this section of the 
 aristocracy have sprung perhaps the majority of successful sol- 
 diers. But the size of the German army on a peace footing has 
 more than doubled since 1870, and thus it has been found neces- 
 sary to admit as officers an increasingly higher percentage of men 
 drawn from the middle classes. These now form considerably 
 more than half the total number, and that, it is interesting to 
 note, is gradually altering the character of the whole corps. It 
 will not be many years hence when this change will become more 
 apparent. There is, however, one whole class of the population 
 which is still rigourously excluded from the body of active officers 
 in the army, namely, the Jews. The German constitution recog- 
 nizes no such invidious distinction, and the Liberal factions in 
 the Reichstag annually take the army administration, and that 
 indirectly means the Kaiser as well, to task for consistently dis- 
 criminating against the Germans of Hebrew race or faith ; but all 
 to no purpose. The Jewish press of Germany has, now and then, 
 pointed to the large number of German soldiers of the Hebrew 
 race who signally distinguished themselves during the Franco- 
 German war, among them being a long list of men who received
 
 224 GERMANY 
 
 the highest decoration for bravery, viz., the iron cross, and the 
 German army surgeons are, I beheve, in their majority, Jews. 
 There is nevertheless a strong prejudice in the army itself, and in 
 government circles, including the Emperor, against the appoint- 
 ment of Jews as field officers, and on various occasions, when in 
 exceptional cases young Jews had presented themselves for ad- 
 mission in certain regiments as officers, they have been black- 
 balled by the corps, and thus effectually excluded. 
 
 While according all due praise to the German army officers as a 
 body of men showing a number of sterling qualities, it must be 
 conceded that in several important respects their influence on 
 national life is not wholesome. By their entire training, their 
 traditions, their social and professional surroundings, but above 
 all by their peculiar ethics, they form a body apart, which does 
 not usually amalgamate with the ideas and aims, still less with 
 the customs and convictions, of the population as a whole. This 
 spirit of separatism, which from the monarchic point of view may 
 be deemed desirable, militates against the democratization of the 
 army. It brings it about that the officer on his part as a rule 
 does not share those sentiments which for the time lie uppermost 
 in the breast of the nation, but makes him stand aside, an indif- 
 ferent spectator. It also brings it about that every now and 
 then some typical event in army circles is pointed out by the more 
 enlightened and progressive part of the German press to be in 
 direct contravention to the convictions of the civilian population. 
 
 Life in the German army, though by no means as luxurious as 
 in the English crack regiments, has ceased to be frugal and simple, 
 such as it was before 1870. Gaming is much indulged in, and a 
 large number of the tragedies acted within army circles is caused 
 by it every year. Racing and betting and the most expensive 
 forms of sport are also much followed. The Union Club and the 
 Jockey Club in Berlin, both largely composed of officers belong- 
 ing to the guard corps, and of whom the majority are scions of 
 the leading aristocratic families, are perhaps the worst centres of 
 fashionable dissipation in the empire. During the winter 
 "hazard" games, such as vingt-et-un, lansquenet, ecarte, baccarat, 
 and, of late, poker, are played, often for very high stakes. Tens of 
 thousands change hands at one table in a single night, and on 
 the turn of one card frequently depends a small fortune. In the
 
 THE ARMY 225 
 
 summer-time, outdoor sports and the betting on their results 
 engross the members. It is at these clubs, and at hundreds of 
 smaller ones in the provinces, that the fatal taste for gaming and 
 betting is first acquired by the young sprigs of nobility, who sub- 
 sequently "go to the bad." The complete financial ruin of five 
 of the oldest and most renowned Prussian noble families was 
 accomplished at one of the above clubs in the course of a single 
 season, not many years ago. It was from there that the coterie 
 later known as the Club clcr Harmlosen, or Club of Innocents, 
 first graduated. One of its most noted victims was a young 
 grandson of Queen Victoria, the late heir-apparent of the Duchy 
 of Coburg, young Prince Alfred. Thoroughly debauched at 
 these clubs, he died a miserable death soon after. The picture 
 of incessant and disgusting dissipation which these "Innocents" 
 presented, when a number of high-life scandals came to be venti- 
 lated in the Berlin courts, was shocking enough to stir the public 
 conscience, and for months the German press of every shade of 
 opinion was ringing with the general indignation felt at the hor- 
 rible details brought out at the several trials. One of the 
 Kaiser's personal aides-de-camp was implicated, and the attend- 
 ant disgrace led to his retirement from the army, as well as that 
 of a score of other young officers. 
 
 One of the most dangerous features of fashionable club life in 
 the German army is what is called playing "on parole" — i. c., 
 without visible stakes, solely on notes of hand or word of mouth. 
 The iron-clad custom is to redeem these bits of paper within 
 twenty-four hours, on pain of dishonour or exposure. This is one 
 of the most prolific causes of suicide among the young and reckless 
 but otherwise promising officers. One of the favourite forms 
 this ending to a brief season of dissipation takes is the so-called 
 "American duel." This is about the most senseless and un- 
 American invention of the Continental rake, and how the legend 
 ever originated that this species of suicide came from this side of 
 the Atlantic nobody seems able to tell. 
 
 The "army usurer" is another peculiar institution in Germany. 
 This type of vampire preys on the reckless and inexperienced 
 young officers of good family. The law reaches him but seldom, 
 for his methods are cunningly devised to fit the needs and 
 prejudices of his victims. His customary procedure is about
 
 226 GERMANY 
 
 this : By his ramified connections he knows the precise financial 
 and moral status of every ofiicer in town. This includes reliable 
 information about family relations and family wealth, regular 
 monthly or quarterly allowances from home, habits, tastes and 
 possible "entanglements," and so forth. With this fund of 
 absolute knowledge to start with, the risk run by the usurer in 
 advancing money is relatively small. He will first politely and 
 repeatedly offer his services, and this failing to produce any 
 effect, he will bide his time till the prospective victim is tem- 
 porarily straitened for ready money owing to a run of "bad luck," 
 etc., and then renew his offers in a tempting form. The terms he 
 will then make depend, of course, on circumstances, but he is 
 always willing to "renew," at least so long as he thinks it will be 
 to his eventual advantage. The usury law is gotten over by 
 having the debtor sign for a larger amount than actually paid. 
 Gradually the net will become tighter and tighter. The loans 
 have grown larger and more frequent, and the terms more un- 
 favourable. Finally the victim reaches the point where desperate 
 measures have to be resorted to. That may mean the relinquish- 
 ment of his "golden bachelor days" and a "money marriage," 
 or it may mean a family council at home, a council called for the 
 purpose of extricating the black sheep from the toils. In any 
 case, the usurer will get his money back, plus the enormous profit 
 he is sure to reap out of the whole affair, a profit rising often into 
 the hundreds per cent. At such a reckoning the officer's assets 
 will frequently consist of "valuable" oil paintings, hundreds of 
 cases of vile champagne, etc., etc., which the usurer made it a 
 cojiditio sine qua iion for his victim to take as part of his loans. 
 There may then be a new mortgage on the paternal acres, or the 
 whole family at home may be obliged to skimp and save for years, 
 until sooner or later there comes the catastrophe — a bullet, 
 resignation from the army, and penury, or, if not before con- 
 cluded, a "money marriage." That is the average winding up. 
 There are, unfortunately, no statistics to be had of this phase 
 of army life, but the percentage of officers who, through the 
 "friendly and timely" services of these money sharks, and 
 through their own gullibility and recklessness, of course, are either 
 permanently ruined for life or else — which is not much better and 
 less creditable — forced to contract one of those loveless matri-
 
 THE ARMY 227 
 
 monial unions which, based on both sides on mercenary and 
 unworthy motives, figure as a travesty on honest wedlock, is 
 astoundingly large in these present days. The whole army is 
 honeycombed with such cases. 
 
 There is, also, too much drinking and feasting in the German 
 army. That is one of the points wherein the Kaiser fails to 
 set a good example. The regulation mess is, in most cases, not 
 extravagant, but there are too many special occasions sought 
 and found when the contrary is true. The main source of evil in 
 this respect are the so-called "Liebesmahler," or "love feasts," 
 — anniversary days of battles in which the regiment, company, 
 or squadron figured conspicuously; birthday or farewell parties 
 given by members; anniversaries of the birth of the Emperor, 
 king, chief of the regiment, etc. On all such occasions the eat- 
 ing and, more particularly, the drinking is beyond all reason and 
 good sense, and so, too often, is the toasting and the table talk, 
 followed by card-playing for high stakes. The Kaiser is amaz- 
 ingly fond of these carousals, attending scores of them during 
 every year, and a large number of his most extravagant speeches 
 and remarks were made at the wassail bowl on these occasions, 
 when everybody was flushed with cheer and when he was not 
 afraid of publicity. He has, however, been growing more cau- 
 tious of late. 
 
 In a word, the old-time Spartan simplicity of life that was one 
 of the chief characteristics of the Prussian officer during the fifty 
 years between Waterloo and Sadowa, when he was training for 
 his magnificent feats against Austria and France, has departed. 
 In too many cases spendthrift methods and riotous and luxurious 
 living have replaced it. The Kaiser vainly issues decrees and 
 orders against it. Every autumn, after the big manoeuvres, 
 when the bulk of the changes in the army — promotions, re- 
 tirements, and forcible discharges — are promulgated, there is 
 quite a number of names of officers made known whose dismissal 
 has been caused by profligacy or worse. All this does not augur 
 well for the future, although it would be going too far to say that 
 the army spirit, as a whole, is already seriously affected by it. 
 Still, viewing the various tendencies at work within the German 
 army — and particularly the Prussian part of it — calmly and 
 judiciously, one does find several striking traits of similarity with
 
 2 28 GERMANY 
 
 the period following the death of Frederick the Great, and which 
 led to the complete downfall of the Prussian military prestige 
 at Jena. Prussia has not, so far, had her Dreyfus affair, it is 
 true, but there have been noticeable a number of symptoms of 
 their kind nearly if not quite as alarming. 
 
 There is, however, one other feature of the German army 
 which usually escapes the observer, and yet which is of great 
 moment. In 1901 the German army cost the taxpayer directly 
 a matter of 559,000,000 marks, or, roughly, $135,000,000; of 
 this sum about half was for rations and pay of the soldiers. 
 But the indirect cost in this respect was several times greater. 
 For the food furnished the private soldier is coarse and not very 
 palatable, and the small pay — amounting to between six and 
 twelve cents a day — is entirely inadequate. To make up the 
 deficiency the relatives and friends of nearly every one of the 
 604,000 private soldiers furnish, out of their scant means, ad- 
 ditional food and money. Again, as to the 25,000 officers. 
 Their rations, their rents and their pay are totally insufficient, 
 especially in the lower ranks up to that of major. A lieutenant, 
 for instance, needs at the very least double or treble the amount 
 given him by the government to pay his way. The difference 
 must be made up by his parents, his friends, or by his own private 
 means. The sums thus taken indirectly out of the pockets of the 
 German people, to maintain their rank and file in the army, are 
 estimated at about $200,000,000 annually. Thus the army 
 drains the purses of the producing population of vast sums in 
 addition to what is raised by taxation for the purpose, and this 
 drain works as a great hardship, especially on the labouring and 
 the lower middle classes. 
 
 Taking, then, a bird's-eye view of the German army as a whole, 
 the close observer is struck by the fact that it is an enormously 
 more expensive institution than official statistics would lead one 
 to suspect. True, it has, as Moltke was ever fond of pointing 
 out to the popular representatives in the Reichstag, great edu- 
 cational value for the nation. Those habits of discipline, that 
 sturdy health and powerful digestion, that sense of order and 
 cleanliness of person which distinguish the modern German of 
 every class, are in large measure due to his military training at 
 the period of early manhood. But this very training, too, has a
 
 THE ARMY 229 
 
 tendency to harm in other directions. It is inimical to that in- 
 dividuahsm which, until military service became general and 
 compulsory throughout the empire, was one of the chief points 
 of strength in the German national character. Military life 
 breeds "Heerdenmenschen" — i. c, men who are accustomed to 
 follow a leader under all circumstances, not men who are taught, 
 under the stress of an individual struggle of competition, to 
 think and act for themselves, as is the case, for example, in this 
 country and England. The influence of militarism in Germany 
 in this respect is, indeed, very powerful, and the subject is one 
 of peculiar interest to the psychologist. There is an astonishing 
 uniformity of mediocre ideas in modern Germany, with little of 
 that daring flight of thought, that love of speculative philosophy, 
 little of that poetical sentiment, which the world was wont to 
 consider a special province of the German mind. There has been 
 at work a process of mental leveling down. This prevailing 
 sameness, this dearth of genius — although it cannot be denied 
 that it is coupled with a great increase in hard common sense and 
 in a practical turn of mind — can be traced all through German 
 literature, art and science of to-day. Since the close of the 
 Franco-German war no really great poet, author, artist or scientist 
 has arisen in Germany. Nearly all her great names antedate that 
 war. This, I believe, is in part owing to the influence of military 
 training on the mind of the nation at the formative period of life. 
 
 About the general character of the German army, especiall}^ its 
 morale, its appearance and organization, the world is pretty well 
 informed, and I do not intend to go into any details here. But 
 a few remarks about some features specially distinguishing it, 
 and which are often misunderstood abroad, may be appropriate. 
 
 First of all, then, as to the cadet schools. There are no less 
 than eleven of them. The three largest are located in a suburb 
 of Berlin, called Gross-Lichterfelde, in Munich, and in Dresden, 
 respectively, the last two named, as well as those in Carlsruhe 
 (Baden) and Ludwigsburg (Wiirttemberg), serving as training 
 institutions for officers in the Bavarian, Saxon, Wiirttemberg, 
 and Baden armies, which still enjoy some small remnant of their 
 former autonomy. The pupils in all these eleven cadet schools 
 are admitted at an early age, usually between ten and twelve, 
 and when graduating are enrolled in the army as ensigns or
 
 230 GERMANY 
 
 "Fahndrich," and average then about seventeen to eighteen In 
 age. The discipline they have to submit to in these cadet schools 
 is very strict indeed, and their uniforms are not very becoming, 
 at least so far as those training for the Prussian army are con- 
 cerned. They are only taught the rudiments of their profession 
 in these institutions. They receive instruction in Latin, French, 
 and English, in mathematics, drawing, geometry, in history, 
 geography, etc., and also in fencing, horseback riding, dancing, 
 swimming and other physical exercise. A large number of the 
 pupils are sons of deceased army officers or other servants of the 
 State, and these usually receive everything free of cost, at the 
 government's expense, provided they are without means. The 
 others pay a sum which is rather low, and probably does not 
 even cover expenses, something between $250 and $300. Their 
 board is plain but palatable and nourishing. 
 
 After serving in the army as ensigns for a year or tv/o, and 
 having acquired the practical work of a soldier, the young men 
 are then sent to the "war school" or "Kriegsschule," an insti- 
 tution where they receive tuition in the higher branches of mili- 
 tary science, such as in strategy, tactics, fortification science, the 
 use of instruments, Russian and other difficult languages, etc., 
 and all sorts of physical exercise is continued. There are also 
 eleven such schools, the pupil averaging in age, at admission, 
 about nineteen to twenty. The largest and best equipped 
 of them are situated in Potsdam, Munich, and Hanover. After 
 graduating thence the young men usually receive appointments 
 as lieutenants, and are assigned to some regiment. 
 
 Quite another institution is the War Academy in Berlin, and 
 the smaller one in Munich. Attendance there is voluntary, and 
 must be preceded by a successfully passed examination, in which 
 the main point is to determine whether the candidate is gifted 
 with more than the average intellect and energy, as well as 
 special qualifications for the higher military career. This in- 
 stitution is under the direct authority of the General Staff, and 
 its main purpose is to prepare young officers for entrance into 
 the General Staff, the War Ministry, and other military posts 
 requiring unusual gifts of mind and character, and also to serve 
 as the first stepping-stone for higher and responsible positions 
 in the army. Officers from every branch of the service go there
 
 THE ARMY 231 
 
 for the purposes stated. Attendance during one or more years 
 means very hard but ambitious work, and whatever of rare quali- 
 fications is in a young officer is bound to come out there. It is 
 there the Kaiser, who very often visits the War Academy, and 
 who not infrequently lectures there on some particular topic, 
 usually historical, and the commanding generals first become 
 acquainted with budding military genius, and from thence on 
 keep an eye on such promising young men. 
 
 One of the chief studies pursued by the pupils of the War 
 Academy — men averaging twenty-five or more — is the so-called 
 "Kriegsspiel." This consists of strategic and tactical tasks given 
 to opposing officers, each one being given — in theory — a body of 
 troops, and locality, circumstances, provisions, etc., being stated, 
 and the task assigned being to conquer, retire, manoeuvre, etc., 
 with the one against the other, the decision as to how each man 
 has fulfilled his theme resting, of course, with the teacher. For 
 playing this "war game," boards, men, and other appliances are 
 employed which mimic real life as closely as possible. This 
 game, or this mingling of theory and practice, has been in vogue 
 in the War Academy and in the German army generally for the 
 last twenty years, and has since been adopted as a fine means of 
 developing the nascent military talent by nearly every other 
 army, with the exception of the British — at least up to the out- 
 break of the Boer war. Since then, I understand, it has also 
 become a feature of that army, which for generations had been 
 the most unprogressive of all. 
 
 The highest "theoretical body" in the German arm}?" is, of 
 course, the General Staff. Its organization differs from that 
 of most other countries. It is not a fixed body, but its make-up 
 alters continually. Officers from every branch of the army 
 are sent there for indefinite periods, ranging from one to ten 
 years and more, according to circumstances. Its chief, General 
 Count Schlieffen, is a pupil of Moltke, and considered the brain- 
 iest man in the army to-day. He is coordinate with the 
 Minister of War, and his well-defined duties rest on his shoulders 
 exclusively. These duties are assigned to different depart- 
 ments, and consist in (i) procuring the fullest obtainable infor- 
 mation about the organization and the changes occurring in all 
 the armies of the world; (2) preparations of every kind to keep
 
 232 GERMANY 
 
 the army in a permanent state of readiness for war; (3) perfecting 
 the means of transportation for the army in the event of war, 
 especially the railroad lines of strategical importance. There 
 are also a number of minor duties assigned to the General Staff 
 of the army, such as the topographical surveys of the whole 
 empire, and special departments exist for military history, 
 geography, etc. 
 
 The Kaiser alone, as chief commander of the whole military 
 forces of the empire, has the right to interfere or direct the affairs 
 of the General Staff, and he, indeed, does so very often. Reports 
 are constantly made to him, and much of the work done by the 
 General Staff is traceable to special instructions received from 
 him. 
 
 The theoretical military education of the German army ofificer 
 is, however, not confined to these institutions above mentioned, 
 but comprises more or less every rank among the field officers as 
 well. The younger officers, up to the grade of captain, are given 
 special tasks at regular intervals, usually essays on a given topic. 
 These are sent in, and a choice made from them all, and their 
 quality affords a pretty exact means of measuring the brain 
 power of each and every one of them. This again is of use in 
 many ways. 
 
 The German army uniform is still nearly the same as it was 
 during the Franco-German war of 1870. The military overcoat 
 has been changed, though, being now gray instead of black. The 
 army rifle, too, is another one — the Mauser of the latest type. 
 The calibre has been reduced again and again in size, until at 
 present the limit seems to have been reached. 
 
 But Germany is now on the eve of a great departure in the 
 matter of uniform and accoutrements. The campaign in China 
 and the South African war were the immediate causes that led 
 to the resolve of introducing in the whole German army the so- 
 called "field uniform." By that is meant the uniform to be worn 
 in future wars. The British khaki and the other innovations 
 made in that line during the struggle between the Boers and 
 British showed that the day of glittering, conspicuous and hand- 
 some dress for the actual fighter is gone, and that with our far- 
 reaching rifles of to-day this species of military vanity can no 
 longer be indulged in with impunity. As an experiment, there-
 
 THE ARMY 233 
 
 fore, the German contingent sent to China was clad in a German 
 variety of khaki. On the whole the experiment proved success- 
 ful, and since then the Kaiser, in consonance with the other 
 German sovereigns and commanding generals, has ordered that 
 the entire army be fitted out with a khaki uniform for field and 
 manoeuvre use. This means a radical change in appearance, for 
 besides the showy and high-coloured regimentals, everything else 
 will go that glitters and scintillates — epaulets, bright metal but- 
 tons, the present spiked helmet, and the bright gun barrels and 
 sword scabbards. Nobody regrets this change, which is even 
 now being effected, as much as the gentle German maiden, for 
 it robs the warrior in her eyes of ninety per cent, of that glamour 
 and romance which had clung to him for lo ! these many years.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE NAVY 
 
 Acting on the impulse given by the Kaiser, the German Naval 
 Society, or Flottenverein, was organized a couple of years ago. 
 This organization, although membership is wholly voluntary, 
 now counts some 845,000 members, and collects some $1,250,000 
 in dues. Its directors comprise a number of the sovereign 
 princes of the empire, and nearly every person of any prominence 
 in public life. Its purpose is to encourage the movement for the 
 steady enlargement of the navy, and the moneys contributed are 
 partly devoted to supporting that movement by unceasing and 
 varied agitation, and party to defraying the expenses of con- 
 structing torpedoes and other harbour defenses. Last year 
 another volunteer body of naval enthusiasts collected, by small 
 public subscriptions and within a month or so, enough to donate 
 to the country the sum needed for the building of several vessels. 
 
 These facts speak for themselves. They show better than 
 long arguments could that Germany's naval aspirations have 
 deep hold of the nation as a whole. A mighty longing for 
 larger sea power, a determination to brook no longer the over- 
 whelming and resistless supremacy of England on the main, has 
 seized upon the Teuton soul. 
 
 This sentiment is so strong in the Germany of to-day that 
 even the Ultramontane part}^ averse as it is to a world policy, 
 could not withstand its impact, and voted, in 1898 and 1900, 
 almost to a man, for the Naval Increase bills, which, since they 
 became law, are the broad base upon which the powerful new 
 German navy will rest. Without the 107 votes of these 
 Ultramontanes the bill at that time could not have been carried 
 in the Reichstag. 
 
 Not much is heard these days of efforts on the part of the lead- 
 ing powers of the world to increase their land forces. The times 
 are gone when, in Germany, France, and Russia, a warlike spirit 
 stirred the masses, and when, after heated debates, new army 
 
 234
 
 THE NAVY 235 
 
 formations were sanctioned, and hundreds of thousands of sol- 
 diers were massed, a standing menace to international peace, 
 along both sides of tlie Vosges and of the Vistula, like unto 
 heavily sheathed gladiators spoiling for the fight. The conti- 
 nental powers of Europe live since the middle of the last decade 
 in a period of "saturation," so far as their armies go. There is 
 no absolute stagnation, but in Germany, as in the neighbouring 
 countries, the numerical increase and the improvement in arma- 
 ment and military institutions take their unsensational course, 
 being principally based by tacit mutual agreement on the pro rata 
 of natural increase in population. The only powers who at 
 present are seriously occupied with the task of enlarging their 
 land forces are the two which had neglected this for generations, 
 viz., Great Britain and the United States. 
 
 It is sea power which nearly all great nations simultaneously 
 strive for. It is a very singular and significant symptom, one 
 which thoroughly characterizes the epoch in which we live, this 
 suddenly awakened but steady and powerful current of senti- 
 ment. And in its leading features it is identical in all those 
 countries. The motives are the same, and the aims are very 
 similar. It has led to a race between the great powers, and the 
 attainment of the object — namely, the creation of so great and 
 efficient a navy as to vouchsafe perfect security on the seas to 
 an expanding export trade, and to give emphasis to political 
 demands abroad, is largely bound up in the winning of this race. 
 At no time since the world began has there been such a unanimous 
 endeavour to achieve sea power, and at no time has the interest 
 called out by this endeavour been so general or so intense. 
 
 The instinct, however, which has impelled the broad strata of 
 each nation to seek these new paths is, like most powerful in- 
 stincts of the masses, perfectly justified by the circumstances. 
 The transition, first, from a continental to a colonial power, then 
 from a continental to a world policy, and from supplying the 
 home market to catering to the markets of the world, necessi- 
 tated its correlative, a powerful navy. England's development 
 in the past furnished the object lesson, and pointed the way for 
 all her lately arisen competitors. 
 
 From the gigantic Napoleonic struggle at the dawn of the 
 past century, England issued the undoubted victor on the seas.
 
 236 GERMANY 
 
 The French fleet had disappeared from the ocean, and so had all 
 the other fleets of the continental powers, with the single excep- 
 tion of Russia, whose ships, though, remained confined to the 
 Baltic in their sphere of activity. With no rivals to dispute its 
 absolute sway, the island empire was enabled to gather leisurely 
 and uninterruptedly the fruits of its blood-bought achievements. 
 During a century England was forming her world empire, and 
 girding the earth with an unbroken chain of prosperous and 
 profitable colonies, and her commerce made the entire globe 
 tributary to her merchant princes in the city. Her industry 
 rose to fabulous heights, and London became the emporium of 
 the world. Nobody stood in her way. The continental powers 
 were still bleeding from the awful wounds which twenty years of 
 incessant warfare had struck, and when these at last had closed 
 and healed, internal troubles arose, striving for a measure of 
 that constitutional liberty which England had enjoyed so long, 
 and then aspirations for national unification — all these engross- 
 ing the attention and monopolizing the energies of these less 
 favoured peoples to the exclusion of all transmarine adventures, 
 and of a naval policy. 
 
 It was only during the reign of Napoleon III that England's 
 old rival, France, appeared once more on the field with a very 
 respectable navy. Oddly enough, its first achievements were 
 not directed against England, but on the contrary it acted during 
 the Crimean War as her faithful ally, accomplished considerable, 
 and was in point of strength but very little behind that of the 
 insular power. It was France which at that time, on the occa- 
 sion of the bombardment of Kinburn, first employed iron-clad 
 batteries, and which soon after built the first iron-clad vessel, 
 the Gloire. In England, where they had allowed the fleet to 
 gradually diminish to half its former size, the new danger of this 
 marine rivalship was clearly apprehended. From that time on 
 it became the naval policy of England, a policy scarce influenced 
 by changes in party administration, to maintain at whatever 
 cost that naval supremacy which had brought the country to the 
 pinnacle of political and material power. 
 
 This for many years was no hard task for England, for after 
 her crushing defeat in 1870-71 France was in no condition to 
 resume her former colonial and naval ambitions, but was com-
 
 THE NAVY 237 
 
 pelled to rally all her energies in recovering from the awful blow 
 she had sustained. And outside of France there was no power 
 which owned a navy at all commensurate with England's. 
 There came a time, however, when these favourable conditions 
 ceased to exist. That was in the middle of the eighties, when' 
 France's navy once more took her stand on the oceans, grown 
 again to man's size, and when Russia suddenly began to deploy 
 considerable naval forces both in the Baltic and in the Black Sea. 
 It was, too, precisely at that time that the attitude of both these 
 powers toward England became nothing less than threatening. 
 As another rather formidable naval power Italy had come to the 
 front. It is certain that at this particular turn in the wheel, 
 England's sea supremacy was most seriously endangered, es- 
 pecially as Gladstone's weak and vacillating foreign policy then 
 extended to the naval policy as well, and the steady enlargement 
 of the British fleet came for a period to a halt. If France at that 
 time had not continued to anxiously stare at the "gap in the 
 Vosges," left there after 187 1, England's practical seizure of 
 Egypt would not have been possible, and the Suez Canal would 
 still remain what it since has ceased to be — neutral in the full 
 sense. 
 
 But fortunately for England, this state of temporary weakness 
 came soon to a close. In 1S89 there advened, under strong 
 public pressure, the passage of the Naval Defense Act, which 
 enabled the British Admiralty to begin the immediate con- 
 struction of 10 large battleships, 42 cruisers, and 18 torpedo 
 destroyers. At that time, too, the demand for the two-power 
 standard was first formulated, meaning thereby that England 
 at all times must remain navally strong enough to bid defiance 
 to her (at that time) strongest rivals, France and Russia. This 
 demand, then only in the mouth of English naval experts, has 
 now become a national shibboleth, and every cabinet since, no 
 matter what its other creed, has practically lived up to this pro- 
 gramme. 
 
 The enormous naval armaments of England were at first not 
 imitated at the same ratio by the Dual Ahiance, France and 
 Russia. For while between 1 881-1890 the dual powers had 
 built 233,144 tons against England's 196,440, the last decennium, 
 1S90-1900, shows England with 715,150 tons added to her naval
 
 238 GERMANY 
 
 strength, against her adversaries' but 495,611. The practical 
 consequence was an enormous strengthening of England's sea 
 power, a fact which received a very vivid illustration on the 
 occasion of the Fashoda incident. England's navy had not only 
 attained the two-power standard, but considerably exceeded it. 
 At that time, a couple of years ago, England was twice as strong 
 navally as France, and more than thrice as strong as Russia, 
 while she had at least quadrupled the strength of any of the 
 minor sea powers, Germany and the United States included. 
 
 Within the short time since, however, a change has been 
 wrought in the situation, a change which comprises above all a 
 new grouping of naval powers. In 1898, Germany, the United 
 States, and Russia decided simultaneously on radical naval 
 measures, especially on increases so large and for such long 
 periods in advance as to alter the complexion of the whole very 
 materially. France followed two years later with a similar plan 
 of increase. The Russian plan contemplated the construction of 
 eight large battleships, ten small cruisers, and thirty torpedo 
 destroyers, they costing altogether about $100,000,000. These 
 battleships are now all in process of construction, and several 
 are almost completed. Russia's main motive in this increase is, 
 however, less dictated by her always latent antagonism to 
 England than by the maintenance of her paramount power in 
 East Asiatic waters, and this more in antagonism to Japan than 
 to England. That England, however, has regarded this as her 
 own affair is attested by the recent Anglo- Japanese agreement. 
 Every new vessel, and every available older one, has been sent 
 by Russia since the outbreak of the Chinese troubles to East 
 Asiatic seas, to the almost entire neglect of her former strong 
 position in the Baltic, a fact at which Germany is justly inclined 
 to congratulate herself, for that in the possible event of a war 
 with Russia or France, or with both, practically increases 
 Germany's naval powers in those waters, both for offensive and 
 defensive purposes, tremendously. Russia's position in far 
 Asia, on the other hand, is now impregnable, since her naval 
 strength there is far greater — counting in, of course, France's 
 tready aid for this purpose — than that of Japan and that portion 
 of the English fleet together which England could spare for the 
 purpose, so far from the more important and pressing interests
 
 THE NAVY 239 
 
 nearer home. England cannot deceive herself about that. She 
 could not, and would not if she could, jeopardize her very ex- 
 istence and her dearest home interests for the sake of a far- Asia 
 adventure. 
 
 Our own naval increase plan it is not necessary to discuss here, 
 since a general knowledge of that may be presumed. As to 
 France, her naval law of 1900 provides for an increase by 1906 
 of five battleships, six iron-clad cruisers, twenty-five torpedo 
 destroyers, and a large number of submarine torpedoes. 
 
 Germany, on her part, went much further than the other 
 powers, for she complemented her naval law of 189 8 by another 
 one passed two years after, and which enables her to build for a 
 term of fourteen years, three battleships (or two battleships and 
 one large iron-clad cruiser), as well as their concomitants of small 
 cruisers, torpedoes, and harbour defense vessels, every year. 
 
 On the strength of these various naval increase laws, whose 
 speedy execution seems beyond a doubt, the year 1906 would see 
 the effective naval fighting strength of these four powers as 
 follows, counting only the battleships of 10,000 tons and over, 
 and iron-clad cruisers of 8,000 tons and over, and none of these 
 launched later than 1890: 
 
 France ... 18 battleships, 17 cruisers 
 
 United States . 20 " 10 
 
 Germany . , 19 " 7 " 
 
 Russia ... 16 " 3 " 
 
 This would not be an exact scale of measurement, for a num- 
 ber of attendant circumstances have also to be taken into account. 
 For one thing, both France and Russia would have, besides 
 the above, reserves of great battleships which, though old, 
 would still possess a certain degree of efficiency. For France 
 especially this is the case, for this republic would have the 
 big liners Neptiuie, Marccan, Hoche, Formidable, Admiral Baudin, 
 and Russia would have the Sinope, Tchcsmc and Jckaterina II. 
 The German navy would have as reserve formations two entire 
 classes of battleships, the so-called "Sachsen" and "Siegfried" 
 classes. The eight vessels composing themi are not as large as 
 the French ones, it is true, but they are much more efficient, and 
 have been renovated of late so thoroughly as to be practically 
 reconstructed, and as good as new, according to American expert
 
 240 GERMANY 
 
 opinions. Anyway, it is one of the admirable tricks of the 
 German naval department — and this practically includes the 
 Kaiser as well, who virtually dictates the entire naval policy of 
 that country — to persistently and systematically understate 
 (instead of overstating, as is the case in France and some other 
 countries) the real naval strength. This policy is one of the cun- 
 ning ways they have of keeping the country and the Reichstag 
 in the present mood — i. e., the mood of generosity in granting 
 appropriations. 
 
 One striking illustration of this may be found in the fact (not 
 taken into consideration in the above list) that the rate of con- 
 struction pursued by Germany in carrying out her present naval 
 plan is by no means as slow as the law fixed it, and as it was 
 stated above. Of this important fact the United States Naval 
 Attache in Berlin, Commander Wm. C. Beehler, obtained con- 
 vincing proof last year, and conveyed the startling information 
 to our Navy Department in Washington. Chairman Foss, of 
 the Congressional Committee on Naval Affairs, during a recent 
 visit to Germany, which included inspection of the main German 
 shipyards, government and private, also gathered a great 
 deal of valuable information in this line, and obtained con- 
 firmation of the above. The German government, in fact, recog- 
 nizing the importance of completing, if possible, her naval in- 
 crease at as early a date as can be, made arrangements without 
 consulting the Reichstag about it, to hasten construction much 
 before the originally contemplated time, so that by igo6, in- 
 stead of nineteen there will probably be twenty-one or twenty- 
 two battleships and nine instead of seven large iron-clad cruisers 
 ready for action. The motive in this will be obvious, and the 
 incidental misleading of public opinion, both at home and abroad, 
 is under the circumstances excusable, nay, patriotic. Some 
 of the Reichstag leaders, who recently obtained proof of the 
 above, had their lips sealed for similar reasons. Suffice it to say 
 here, that the German naval law, when its wording is strictly 
 interpreted, provides for the completion of the naval increase by 
 1914, but that in all probability this term will be advanced by 
 six years, and in case the international political situation should 
 meanwhile assume a complexion to make it specially desirable 
 and pressing, the period of construction may be still further
 
 THE NAVY 241 
 
 abbreviated. Both the German government yard in Kiel, and 
 the leading private ones, the Germania in Kiel, the Vulcan in 
 Stettin, and the Schichau in Elbing and Dantzic, have made 
 preparations for that contingency. In strenuously adhering to 
 this plan of action, Germany and the Kaiser are only repeating 
 what Prussia and William I did in the early sixties, when pre- 
 paring at long hand for the decisive struggle for supremacy with 
 Austria. 
 
 The weakest really in the list in all excepting the one item of 
 battleships and large new cruisers is this country, providing, of 
 course, that by the joint efforts of President Roosevelt, the 
 Navy Department and Congress our present naval construction 
 plan is not also modified. For we have no reserves at all, with the 
 single exception of the "Texas," that being the only vessel in 
 lieu of a good-sized reserve, which with our very extensive coast 
 line we need more than either Germany or France. 
 
 A striking fact in the above showing is the dropping behind of 
 France. This is largely due to her indecision for many years, 
 and to the wavering and often contradictory naval construction 
 policy she has pursued. During a number of years she utterly 
 neglected the building of battleships, and has only begun to 
 remedy this suicidal policy during the past eighteen months, 
 but too late to make up for lost time. The views of her navy 
 department and of her experts as to the wisest course to pursue 
 in the matter of strengthening her navy have changed radically 
 several times during the past ten years, and an undue indulgence 
 in her special fad, that of submarine torpedoes, has cost her dear, 
 and is likely to cost her still dearer in the future. 
 
 One of the chief points of Germany's rapidly growing naval 
 strength is, on the other hand, the chief weakness of both the 
 American and the English navies, that is, her abundance of 
 efficient human material for manning her navy. In England, 
 it is well known, the limit in this respect has been reached some 
 time ago, and assuming that England is willing to spend the 
 money for maintaining her present rate of ship construction, 
 and thereby her two-power standard — of which there can be 
 but little doubt— that she furthermore is able to maintain 
 the rate of speed of such construction, which, with all her ship- 
 yards strained to the utmost at present, is somewhat doubtful,
 
 242 GERMANY 
 
 there still seems hardly any doubt that she has not, and could 
 not in a time of war, find the crews to man and adequately 
 handle her huge fleet. All experts in England seem to be agreed 
 on that point. Hov/ it is here in the United States the frequent 
 and formal complaints and memoranda of the Navy Department, 
 and the President's last message to Congress, attest in unmis- 
 takable language. The deficiency in both men and officers in 
 our navy is a matter which, while steps have been at last taken 
 to remedy the evil, cannot be adjusted within five or even ten 
 years, especially when the present rapid rate of increase in the 
 vessels themselves is taken into consideration. Nowadays the 
 training of men for the navies of the world is a matter requiring 
 much time, technical knowledge, and trouble, both for men and 
 officers, and, for one thing, our American navy urgently needs 
 several training institutions for naval crews, such as Germany 
 has in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven. The mere call for 3,000 or 
 5,000 enlisted men, of which we hear every 3^ear through the 
 naval appropriation bill, will not meet the requirements of the 
 case. It is the long and carefully adjusted course of drilling this 
 naval raw material which we want to see provided for. And 
 it is in precisely this respect that the Kaiser and his present naval 
 secretary, Rear Admiral von Tirpitz, have been admirably far- 
 sighted. Of course, with compulsory military service, as ob- 
 taining in Germany, and which includes the men drawn every 
 year for her navy, the task of adequately providing for the cor- 
 responding regular increase of men, keeping step with the in- 
 crease in vessels, becomes far easier than here, where every man 
 is a volunteer. And the proportionate increase in naval officers 
 is also less difficult to attend to by the Kaiser, enjoying as he 
 does discretionary powers in admitting naval cadets to the train- 
 ing schools, and appointing officers later on, and the pressure 
 for the naval career is in Germany rather too strong than other- 
 wise. Still, admitting all that, the prompt and systematic 
 manner in which the heightened needs of the growing German 
 navy have been met deserves all praise. The men in the 
 German navy are excellent material. No navy has better. 
 This is the deliberate judgment of Rear Admiral "Bob" Evans 
 and of all those naval experts who have had a chance to study 
 the German navy from the inside.
 
 THE NAVY 243 
 
 As for England, she will have in igo6 — the year taken here 
 for comparison — provided she can maintain her intended rate 
 of speed in the matter of shipbuilding, forty-three modern battle- 
 ships of 10,000 tons or over, and each not older than fifteen years, 
 and twenty-six iron-clad cruisers, whereby she would still stand 
 by far in the first place, and still adhere to the two-power stand- 
 ard. But all the same, her position as a naval power will be no 
 longer what it was. Up to the present she has been not only 
 the first naval power, but she has had only one formidable foe 
 to consider, namely, France. In 1906 she will have four rivals 
 to consider, whose joint naval strength will be double her own, 
 and adding Italy and Japan, her supremacy is still further cur- 
 tailed. It stands to reason that, no matter how these new strong 
 naval powers will group themselves, the naval situation of the 
 world will be practically a new one. 
 
 In a list of the ships possessing first-class fighting value, 
 it will be noticed that the number of battleships of a 
 certain size and date is made the chief standard. This is in 
 accordance with the view held to-day by the overwhelming 
 portion of naval experts, a view very largely based upon the 
 experiences made in the war with Spain. The modern battle- 
 ship of a certain type is the real representative of actual sea 
 power. It combines all the elements of success: Rams and 
 torpedoes, powerful gunnery, and extensive armor protection, 
 speed and ability to execute ever}^ species of manoeuvre — these 
 qualities together make the modern battleship indeed the ultima 
 ratio populonim so far as the watery element is concerned. It 
 can be used for any and every emergency in naval warfare, 
 strongly contrasting in that respect with the old ship of the line 
 in the time of Nelson, whose availability was greatly circum- 
 scribed and hampered by its lack of steam power, its complete 
 dependence on the erratic whims of wind and current, and its 
 frequent inability to approach the opponent within fighting 
 distance. Against that unfavourable showing, the modern ship 
 of the line is able to locate and approach its foe with great speed, 
 can choose whichever mode of attack suits best, either by circling 
 around the adversary or by passing and firing simultaneously, 
 can fight him or escape him if too strong, follow him and com- 
 pletely destroy him, as was done at Santiago — in fine, the new
 
 2 44 GERMANY 
 
 naval tactics are as flexible and comprehensive as the greatest 
 enthusiast can demand. The only weak point this latest terrific 
 fighting machine exhibited until recently, viz., its small radius 
 of sea-going power, owing to insufficient coal supply, has been 
 overcome. The newest type of battleship is so constructed as to 
 enable it to carry enough fuel for an uninterrupted trip to points 
 thousands of miles away. It can now cross the ocean without 
 replenishing its supply — a manifest advantage of immense im- 
 portance. 
 
 It is, therefore, not astonishing that with the conviction of the 
 prime importance of the battleship all naval powers are now 
 concentrating their efforts mainly in the direction of acquiring as 
 many of these as possible. France was the last to follow. To- 
 day the former diversity of construction and armament — the 
 ships of the line, the floating batteries, casemate vessels, turret 
 ships, etc. — has given place to a uniform type, substantially the 
 same with all nations, and only differing somewhat in degree, 
 not in kind, as technical difficulties are overcome more and more. 
 
 The type of battleship below 10,000 tons has been abandoned 
 for good, as lacking that measure of fighting power and intensity 
 of action required to destroy an able-bodied enemy. Germany 
 has given up her smaller type, and is now constructing battle- 
 ships of 13,000 tons and over. The United States exceeds this 
 with her i6,ooo-ton vessels, some of which are to be completed by 
 1905. Russia, like Germany, is building 13,000-ton battleships, 
 while the largest vessels ordered by France will be 15,000 tons, 
 and England even exceeds this maximum with several of her 
 latest orders. Italy, on the other hand, after astonishing the 
 world in the middle of the eighties with her giant "Italia" and 
 "Lepanto," has now gone down to 13,000-ton liners, like 
 Germany. 
 
 Germany chose the smaller type of 13,000 tons because in 
 comparison with the slight increase in armour and fighting 
 strength for the 1 6,000-ton vessel, an increase which is deemed 
 non-essential, the disadvantages accruing to the larger ship, 
 viz., much higher cost, decrease in mobility, difficulties in navi- 
 gating near flat coasts, lack of docking facilities in foreign waters, 
 etc., play no decisive figure. This, at least, is the German 
 official view of the hour. She believes that her 12,000 and
 
 THE NAVY 245 
 
 13,000-ton fighters are equal, if not superior, to ours, and to the 
 EngHsh 15,000 and 16,000-ton ships, because her type allows of 
 a more voluminous and diversified artillery outfit, and because, 
 as she thinks, her gunners are more thoroughly trained in the 
 use of these more diversified weapons. And while this country, 
 following England's example, has concentrated the main effort 
 upon a few very heavy guns (in this again being led b}^ the ex- 
 perience of the war with Spain), Germany has made a specialty of 
 developing the use and the quality of her medium-quality artil- 
 lery. The ships of her "Kaiser" and " Wittelsbach " classes 
 (11,500 and 12,500 tons each) have been fitted out each with no 
 less than eighteen 15-centimetre rapid-firing guns, while the 
 British "Royal Sovereign" and "Duncan" classes, although 
 4,000 tons larger, can boast of but twelve such. Germany 
 believes in this superiority of quick-firing guns, because her naval 
 campaign system is entirely built up on the principle of the 
 offensive, just as is her army. The above calibre for medium- 
 power artillery has been increased in Germany to 1 8 centimetres 
 in the larger vessels now under way. France has chosen the 16- 
 centimetre type for the same class of her artillery, while we and 
 Italy have 20-centimetre guns of the middle variety, and 
 England even 23 centimetres. Germany believes this is going 
 too far, as it robs these medium-size guns of their chief virtue, 
 viz., rapidity, abundance of ammunition, and ready availability. 
 The heavy battery in the centre of the ship is about the same 
 with the different nationalities, up to 28 and 30 centimetres, and 
 fired from behind steel-proof turrets. 
 
 The armour, too, is substantially the same for England, 
 Germany, Russia, and America, viz., nickel steel made by the 
 Krupp process. The thickness of the plates on the German 
 battleships is between six and eight inches on the water line, 
 above that four to five inches, and the turrets and other specially 
 exposed parts up to twelve inches. This is about the same on 
 our American vessels of the newest type, as well as on the English 
 and French battleships. The new German battleships are all 
 capable of a speed of eighteen to nineteen knots, whereby they 
 equal or surpass the best English or American ones. 
 
 As to cruisers, Germany's policy differs materially both from 
 the English and American one. She believes that cruisers are
 
 246 GERMANY 
 
 not able to protect adequately the commerce of a naval bel- 
 ligerent, but that the sole use of cruisers consists in acting as the 
 vanguard of the heavier and less speedy squadron of battleships, 
 ascertaining the strength, the intentions and movements of the 
 enemy for the information of the latter. Germany has definitely 
 adopted this view for considerations which in her case at least 
 seem valid enough. To effectively protect her transmarine 
 commerce she would really need more cruisers than battleships, 
 and even then, with the cable betraying the whereabouts of 
 vessels everywhere, she deems such a task an impossibility in the 
 case of a much stronger adversary like England. In any case, 
 Germany argues, the decision will come in a pitched naval battle, 
 and all her large cruisers are needed for that. No matter who 
 her future naval adversary, the great danger to her commerce 
 will be a blockade of her chief harbours and adjacent coast lines. 
 If she is able to successfully withstand such an attempt, routing, 
 utterly defeating, or scattering her enemy, that great danger 
 would be eliminated. This, be it understood, is part and parcel 
 of Germany's naval plan of action in case of war with a naval 
 power greater than hers. 
 
 At any rate, it is Germany's intention to increase her present 
 number of large cruisers only so far as these are needed to 
 assist her battleships, and not with a view of protecting her sea 
 trade. That is one vital point of difference between the 
 German naval plan of campaign and the English as well as the 
 American one. But she again differs in this, that she does not 
 believe in such monster cruisers as both this country and 
 England are now building — leviathans of 14,000 and 14,500 tons, 
 like the "Drake" class in England and the "California " class 
 here. Instead, she confines the maximum size of her armoured 
 cruisers to 9,000 tons (just as Italy and Japan do), whereby she 
 is enabled to give them greater speed and a greater radius of 
 action. In all other respects, though, Germany tries to make 
 her iron-clad cruisers as strong as possible, giving them an 
 unusually powerful armament. But there is another very 
 important difference — Germany continues to construct small 
 cruisers of great speed, whereas England, the United States 
 and France have abandoned that. These small cruisers do not 
 exceed 3,000 tons in size, and their armour is light, but they
 
 THE NAVY 247 
 
 have a speed of twenty-two to twenty-three knots, thus enabling 
 them to perform excellent service as the "hussars of the sea," 
 quickly gaining information about the enemy, and successfully 
 avoiding pursuit by their greater velocity. Of this type of extraor- 
 dinarily mobile cruisers Germany is now making a specialty, and 
 intends to use them not only in home waters, but also in far- 
 away seas. Within a few years she will have some sixty of these. 
 
 The torpedoes built by Germany have now the uniform size of 
 300 tons, like England's latest, but against the i , 000-ton torpedoes 
 which the United States is now constructing. The German 
 navy department does not believe in submarine boats, at least 
 not in the types so far evolved by this country and France. The 
 reasons advanced for her disbelief are that these boats do not 
 possess swiftness, that their radius of vision is too confined, and 
 that their motions lack precision, and hence their efficiency can 
 be but slight under any circumstances. In this judgment the 
 best English experts so far agree. But in this as in other mooted 
 points in naval lore Germany is awaiting proof either way. 
 
 The German navy is at present increasing at the annual rate 
 of about nine or ten vessels, with a tonnage of between 75,000 
 and 80,000. In other words, the rate of speed is greater for 
 Germany than for us, and the total tonnage for her navy is 
 larger to begin with. Although in the number of vessels we are 
 still ahead of her, the proportion being 136 against 122, we have 
 but eighteen battleships (whereof five are slow and antiquated), 
 eight armoured cruisers and twenty-one protected cruisers (the 
 latter being of but secondary value), the rest being practically 
 worthless as fighting machines. Unless Congress bestirs itself, 
 there will be a steady dropping behind Germany. It is estimated 
 on the best secret information obtained in Washington, that 
 within six years from now, in 1908, Germany will have 
 twenty-eight battleships, with a corresponding number of 
 armoured cruisers, whereas at our present rate of increase we 
 shall have but twenty-two battleships and twelve cruisers, 
 although it must be taken into consideration that our vessels 
 will average larger than theirs, both battleships and cruisers. 
 Still, the discrepancy will be considerable. 
 
 The main difference in Germany's favour, though, as pointed 
 out before, and one which it is very difficult to change, is our
 
 248 GERMANY 
 
 insufficient supply of efficient men for the navy, both officers and 
 men, and Germany's abundance in that respect. 
 
 Another American weakness, as compared with Germany, is 
 our lack of a steady naval policy, and our complete dependence 
 each year on the whim and on the political complexion of 
 Congress. The adoption of her naval laws of 1898 and 1900 gave 
 the German navy department the coveted opportunity of map- 
 ping out and then consistently carrying throtigh a uniform and 
 far-sighted programme of naval enlargement and improvement, 
 and this, of course, is now bearing fruit. With us there is ab- 
 solutely no guarantee that even the present rate of increase will 
 proceed uninterruptedly. A revulsion of popular feeling, or the 
 election of a Congressional majority on the crest of a wave for 
 retrenchment, or any other radical change in the political com- 
 plexion of the country, may bring the present modest move- 
 ment for naval expansion to a sudden halt. Against all such 
 accidents German naval expansion is secured. 
 
 But Germany possesses some great advantages outside of all 
 this in any future naval war, no matter with which power or 
 powers. Her Baltic Canal is the most important of these. This 
 narrow but perfectly practicable waterway joins the Baltic to 
 the North Sea, the route being from a point not far from Kiel on 
 the Baltic to Brunsblittel, near the mouth of the Elbe River, 
 some distance out toward the North Sea from Hamburg. This 
 canal is worth another fleet to Germany. Instead of having two 
 water fronts to protect, as before, it virtually reduces, for 
 defensive and offensive purposes in all but rare cases, these two 
 to one, and doubles the effectiveness of her navy. It makes it 
 possible for Germany during any naval war of the future to con- 
 centrate her entire naval forces, within the space of thirty-six 
 hours or even less, at any given point — either along the shore 
 of the North Sea or of the Baltic, and gives her a water trans- 
 port way for her shipping which would be practically exempt 
 from the danger of blockades. It does more than that even. 
 For in case of an overwhelming naval superiority of the enemy, 
 this canal puts it, if the worst came to the worst, always within 
 Germany's power to find with her fleet a temporary refuge within 
 this canal, where she could, by placing subaqueous torpedoes, etc., 
 safely defy her bigger foe, and save her entire navy from ruin,
 
 THE NAVY 249 
 
 from such a sweeping disaster as the French met with at Trafalgar 
 and Aboukir. The enormous strategical advantage of the 
 Baltic Canal has been clearly apprehended, of course, not alone 
 in Germany, but in all other countries that might some time or 
 other become her foes on the water or by land, and it is in no 
 small part due to this knowledge that Germany is recognized as a 
 formidable naval power, far beyond the actual number of her 
 vessels. The canal and her extensive system of coast defense, she 
 possessing no less than eight armoured vessels of 3,000 to 4,000 
 tons each for such defense, besides some fifty smaller ships for a 
 like purpose — make her powerful in a defensive naval cam- 
 paign, and the same canal allow^s her to quickly concentrate her 
 naval forces for purposes of attack so long as she confines her 
 operations to home waters. 
 
 Another great advantage for her is the flat and dangerous 
 character of her coasts, more particularly the line along the 
 North Sea, between her two principal ports of Hamburg and 
 Bremen and further west toward Holland. This makes navi- 
 gation and coast approach very difficult for an enemy at a time 
 when all protective measures for navigation have been removed. 
 That whole stretch of coast, as well as certain parts of her Baltic 
 coast, is one of the most prolific in loss of life and ships, and it 
 would prove ten times as inhospitable, of course, in time of war. 
 
 The fact that nearly all the steamers of the North German 
 Lloyd as well as of the Hamburg- America Line, together forming 
 a very large fleet of over one hundred vessels, are enrolled by 
 the German government as auxiliary cruisers in the event of 
 war, is seldom mentioned, but it is nevertheless a fact. This is 
 also of importance, as our experience with the few auxiliary 
 vessels of the kind during the Spanish war strikingly proved. 
 The "Morganizing" of these two chief German lines has in nowise 
 altered these facts, it must be remembered. 
 
 The only question about the German navy that is still in a 
 sense an open one is the question of its personnel. Germany 
 has never had a naval war, and hence never enjoyed the 
 opportunity of demonstrating before the eyes of the w^orld ex- 
 actly what she amounts to as a sea fighter. In that respect, 
 then, she may be called an unknown quantity, despite all that 
 is theoretically known about the technical excellence and the
 
 250 GERMANY 
 
 spirit of her men and officers. England, the United States, 
 France, Spain, Holland, have all shown their naval mettle, but 
 it remains for Germany to win her spurs. However, everything 
 points to the strong assumption that she will give a good, and 
 perhaps a very good, account of herself whenever the time should 
 come for her that tries men's souls. The discipline in her navy is, 
 of course, second to none, and may be better than any. Whether 
 she will equal the English in bulldog courage, or America 
 in valour, dash, initiative and brilliant performance, remains to 
 be seen. At any rate, the bulk of the men composing the German 
 naval crews, engineers, etc., are the descendants of those men 
 from the shores of the Baltic and North Sea who, as the sturdy 
 fighters for the Hansa, centuries ago, waged fierce and bold war 
 upon the Scandinavian shores. These are the same men, too, 
 who in the British and to a less extent in the American merchant 
 marine have all along been held the most efficient and reliable 
 seamen. So, to be sure, the presumption is on all accounts a 
 strong one that the men of the German navy will some day pluck 
 laurels in a mighty wrestle on the deep
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 EDUCATION 
 
 Her high status of education, the thoroughness of instruction 
 given in her schools and colleges, and the matchless excellence 
 of her universities, are among the chief glories of Germany. 
 In this respect, as in some others, she is recognized the 
 world over as the leading country. Teachers from this land and 
 from every other visit her educational institutions for the pur- 
 pose of studying the methods and the men that have made her 
 great as the "schoolmaster of the world," and then return home 
 and advocate more or less important modifications in consonance 
 with what they have seen. Every summer, when American 
 schools are closed and their superintendents or principals are off 
 on a European trip for recreation and professional profit, scores 
 of them may be seen wandering through Germany's public and 
 private schools, under the escort of more or less willing and 
 courteous officials, inquiring, verifying, taking notes. The 
 German universities are still regarded by American students and 
 professors, despite the enormous advances made here, as their 
 second ahnae matres, where they take postgraduate courses, and 
 complement the sum of their knowledge on any given topic. It 
 is this country especially which owes to Germa^ny's unrivaled 
 educational system a vast debt, and one which the scientific 
 world of America has always been more than ready to acknowl- 
 edge, both in public and private. In every one of our American 
 colleges and universities a number of the ablest professors and 
 tutors received at least a part of their mental and moral equip- 
 ment in German halls of learning. 
 
 The German scientific spirit, the German thirst for knowl- 
 edge, and the German earnest search for truth have become an 
 integral portion of American science, and in some departments, 
 such as psychology, astronomy, and biology, the pupil of late 
 has begun to distance his teacher. This fact has been pointed 
 
 251
 
 2 52 GERMANY 
 
 out by Professor Miinsterberg and others best able to judge. 
 And the vivifying and bracing influence of Germany upon 
 American scientific thought is unabated to this day. 
 
 Ilhteracy has practicaUy been stamped out in the empire, and 
 the day is not far distant when every normahy endowed child 
 and adult there will possess at least the rudiments of an educa- 
 tion. The official statistics as to the knowledge of reading and 
 writing among the recruits to the German army, published 
 annually, show this convincingly. In the year 1879 the number 
 of analphabets, out of 140,881 recruits, was still 2,217 o^ i-S!^ per 
 cent. In 1889, ten years later, out of 170,494 recruits, the num- 
 ber had gone down to 869 or .51 per cent., and last year the 
 number had further diminished to 213, or .08 per cent., out of 
 a total number of 255,103 recruits. There were still great differ- 
 ences between the various parts of Germany. In ten of the 
 twenty-six states of Germany there was not found a single illiter- 
 ate person, and in the most progressive and populous provinces 
 of Prussia, namely, Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover and 
 the Rhineland, the percentage had dropped to .01 or .02. From 
 that it rose to the highest figure in Posen, East Prussia and West 
 Prussia, where the Poles predominate, and where the figures 
 amounted to .41, .36, and .31, respectively. But even this 
 maximum of illiteracy is far lower than the minimum in the 
 most advanced parts of all the other civilized countries, and 
 neither France, Great Britain, nor the United States, although 
 in each and every one of them immense strides have been made, 
 can at all be compared in this respect with Germany, 
 
 While this is true of elementary school education, there has 
 also come a much greater diffusion of higher knowledge in the 
 empire since the war with France. The intermediate schools 
 particularly, the "gyntjiasia" (or lower colleges), "realgymnasia'' 
 (or schools imparting instruction both in classic and modern 
 branches, up to a certain degree), and "real schools" (or insti- 
 tutions teaching mathematics, modern languages, history, 
 chemistry, geography, etc.) are overcrowded, though several 
 hundreds of new ones have been built and endowed of late years. 
 This is due to a number of causes. The tuition fees charged for 
 attendance at them are low. In the best of them, even in cities 
 like Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, etc., where prices in nearly every-
 
 EDUCATION 253 
 
 thing else have enormously risen, these fees do not exceed 130 
 marks, or less than $32, per year of eleven months. Attendance 
 at either these public schools or at more high-priced private 
 schools of siiTiilar scope, is required to obtain the maturity 
 certificate enabling the pupil to matriculate at any of the German 
 universities, or the lower certificate entitling to one year's volun- 
 teer service in the army. 
 
 The i^ressure to study at the universities is almost as keen. 
 The attendance at all the German universities and technical 
 high schools has greatly increased. It is now more than double 
 that of thirty years ago. Berlin has now nearly 7,000 students, 
 and Leipzig and I\Iunich follow with 4,000 and 5,000, respectively. 
 The four faculties into which the sum of studies is divided at 
 every German university have, however, profited at a very un- 
 equal ratio. The greatest increase has been, relatively speaking, 
 in jurisprudence, that branch which every one entering the gov- 
 ernment administrative career must have gone through with. 
 Next in the ratio of gain is the medical faculty, a profession which 
 though it entails the longest preliminary preparation of all in 
 Germany, and which neither in financial profit nor in popular 
 estimation stands as high as the first-mentioned, opens up an 
 independent and honourable career. The most unprofitable 
 faculty, that of philosophy (which is, however, much more com- 
 prehensive in scope than the name would imply, since it com- 
 prises not only philosophy proper, but mathematics, astronomy, 
 literature, philology, etc.), comes next in the scale of increase; 
 and the fourth, that of theology, shows not only no gain, but 
 an absolute loss. This last fact is quite significant, for from 
 the merely practical point of view theology has grown in attrac- 
 tiveness. Incomes, salaries, and emoluments of Protestant 
 clergymen and Catholic priests have become much higher in 
 Germany than formerly. The unwillingness of the educated 
 classes to engage in the profession of spiritual adviser is, there- 
 fore, due to other causes. The main reason doubtless is the 
 growing spirit of atheism or religious indifference and the spirit- 
 ually unsatisfactory conditions for young men devoting them- 
 selves seriously to their high task of nurturing the religious long- 
 ings of those who have remained firm in the faith. The bitter 
 strife that is being unceasingly waged between the two great
 
 2 54 GERMANY 
 
 currents of theological thought in Germany, the orthodox and 
 unprogressive on the one side, and the critical and liberal on the 
 other, has also something to do with the falling off in the num- 
 bers of theological students. 
 
 Perhaps the most serious drawback to this general diffusion of 
 higher education is the birth and steady increase of that element 
 of the population which has been dubbed the "educated 
 proletariat." This already amounts to a serious danger, and if 
 present conditions are allowed to go on unchecked the danger will 
 intensify. The process is a perfectly natural and unavoidable 
 one. The annual output of young men highly equipped in all 
 knowledge which books can teach is simply greater than the 
 number of vacant places within the sphere of the empire which 
 they would be competent to fill. The surplus of such men, 
 unutilized human material of the higher kind, is therefore left in 
 a more or less serious predicament. Many of them remain for 
 years a burden on their parents or friends, until they are in the 
 end provided for in a more or less befitting manner. Others 
 emigrate, or obtain temporary employment in foreign countries. 
 But the large bulk of these unfortunates drift into spheres of 
 activity for which they are not trained, and in which they 
 feel unhappy and misplaced. In other words, to become self- 
 sustaining they have to descend one or two rungs in the social 
 ladder, and then almost invariably lose caste with their former 
 fellows, lose in self-esteem, and swell the ranks of the dissatisfied. 
 Socialism is the great gainer by this process. The accessions 
 to the Socialist party from this intellectual "proletariat" are 
 large when numerically considered, but of still greater impor- 
 tance from the fact that they bring a constantly self-renewing 
 elite of highly educated men within the fold. From these men 
 the Socialist editors, agitators, and party managers, etc., are 
 now largely drawn. Some of the more violent and combative 
 ones among these "misfits" also join the anarchist ranks, or 
 become extremists of an individual type. 
 
 There are, however, other features in the German educational 
 system which call for comment. It is a very remarkable fact 
 that the number of persons in Germany who declare the prevail- 
 ing system ill adapted to the needs of our time is constantly 
 growing. It may be remembered that the German Emperor
 
 EDUCATION 2 55 
 
 after his accession for a time led the movement for a radical 
 change in this respect. He had clearly discerned the fact that 
 an educational system, no matter how good in itself, and how well 
 adapted originally to the requirements of practical life, does not 
 remain so permanently; that the rapidly growing importance of 
 technical knowledge in all the sciences which have come to the 
 front within the past decade urgently demands a greater amount 
 of theoretical and practical education in this regard than the 
 existing system contemplated, and that, unless Germany in the 
 practical application of this fact again led the world, the nation 
 would soon drop behind in the race with competitors. The 
 Kaiser elaborated these ideas in public, and Professor Hinzpeter 
 (his former tutor), as well as Professors Riedler, Slaby, and 
 others, were commissioned by him to carry them into broader 
 strata of the nation. He also induced the Prussian Cabinet to 
 take up this matter, and many months were consumed by the 
 professional pedagogues entrusted with the task of thoroughly 
 investigating the whole matter, and then reporting on it. 
 
 The Kaiser, however, met with the determined opposition of 
 all the "old fogies " in the empire and these unflinching defenders 
 of the prevailing system proved more powerful in the end 
 than he. For they held all the responsible posts in the wide 
 educational field, and in the government offices as well. Their 
 arguments were the same that are always advanced under such 
 circumstances. Summarized, the burden of their lay was that 
 Germany had become great under and by the prevailing system 
 of education; that it was the envy of all other nations and the 
 pride of Germany herself; and that a serious diminution in the 
 amount of classics taught meant an irretrievable loss in the 
 mental and moral equipment of the whole nation. There were 
 prominent educators in Germany who withstood this train of 
 reasoning, and who made on conspicuous public occasions power- 
 ful and closely reasoned appeals to the better and more unbiased 
 understanding of the nation. Professor Riedler, for instance, 
 when installed as rector of the Technical High School in Charlot- 
 tenburg, the leading one in the empire, delivered a carefully 
 prepared oration on tlie need of throwing a good deal of the 
 classical ballast in German school life overboard, and devoting 
 more attention to the study of applied science, to modern Ian-
 
 2 56 GERMANY 
 
 guages, etc., and his pronouncement was echoed from the Vistula 
 to the Moselle, and commented on for months in every German 
 newspaper and periodical, but mostly adversely. The Kaiser, 
 now and then, made declarations, like the one that he did not 
 ' ' want young Germans to be taught how to become Greeks and 
 Romans," and that the "main thing was to fit them for the 
 struggles and ambitions of practical life." Some attempts, too, 
 were made to embody these new teachings into concrete form, 
 and a number of so-called reform schools were called into 
 existence. 
 
 But, as above hinted at, the Kaiser finally yielded to the 
 unbending opposition on the part of the professional pedagogues 
 and teachers of Germany, and abandoned, for a number of years 
 at least, his efforts. However, the conviction has been steadily 
 gaining ground of late that a thorough change must be wrought 
 in educational methods in Germany, on pain of being outclassed 
 in the keen race between the leading nations during the new 
 century. This conviction is shared now (which may be looked 
 upon as a hopeful sign) by a growing percentage of high govern- 
 ment officials — men of middle age, or past it, and, of course, 
 wholly trained according to old methods. The recent book by 
 one such official shows beyond a doubt that neither the existing 
 schools or universities, nor the technical high schools, prepare 
 their pupils sufficiently for the practical needs of life, or for the 
 employment of that universality of knowledge which formerly 
 was looked upon as the great mission of German universities. 
 He recommends as a remedy the complete reorganization of 
 the whole system. The universities especially he proposes to 
 remodel. He advises the creation in technical faculties, above all, 
 and he wishes that the teaching in the middle and lower schools 
 be reshaped in accordance with this plan, so that graduates from 
 them shall be better prepared for independent scientific work in 
 the technical branches and in the natural sciences. He recog- 
 nizes the great difficulties in the way of realizing his programme, 
 but he deems these difficulties by no means insurmountable, and 
 at all events he claims that something must be done in the direc- 
 tion indicated, and the sooner the change be inaugurated the 
 better. 
 
 Since that time things have progressed far enough in the new
 
 EDUCATION 257 
 
 direction to clearly show that a break with the past is coming. 
 Besides the "reform high school" in Frankfort-on-the-Main, 
 which for years was operated against government influences and 
 led a struggling existence, Prussia is now founding two similar 
 institutions herself, one in Breslau and the other in Dantzic, and 
 appropriations for them have already been made by the Prussian 
 Diet. Both these new institutions will be started on a large 
 scale, and liberally endowed. They will in their main features 
 be organized on the lines advocated by Professor Riedler. 
 
 Public education in Germany has been seriously suffering of 
 late from repeated attempts made to curtail that freedom of 
 scientific research and of publicly disseminating its results, no 
 matter what its social or political trend, which has been the chief 
 glory of German culture during the past century. The Kaiser 
 and his government were pov/erfully assisted in these systematic 
 efforts by all the reactionary forces in German political and social 
 life. The Lex Arons, as that particular bill was called which 
 was introduced in the Diet and which threatened the greatest 
 danger, went further in this direction than any other government 
 measure ever had. Its outspoken aim was to demolish at one 
 blow liberty of scientific research at the universities. It was to 
 subject the " privatdocenten," or tutors and independent lecturers 
 at the universities, to a rigid system of supervision, and was 
 to make the Minister of Education the sole arbiter as to their 
 fitness as public teachers. The long and acrimonious debate 
 on it in the Diet gave the government as well as the opposition 
 the much coveted opportunity to expound their views. The 
 Prussian Minister of Education openly declared it to be the main 
 mission of the universities to train young men into good servants 
 of the state and of the monarchy, into men of orthodox views on 
 all important questions, political and otherwise, and not men of 
 science alone. 
 
 The late Professor Virchow, one of the most renowned veterans 
 of science in Germany, flayed the Minister of Education because 
 of this frankly utilitarian admission, and the other leaders of 
 scientific thought, almost to a man, strongly sided with him. 
 Prof. Ludwig Buechner made a powerful appeal to the mature 
 intellect of the nation, and after a very hard fight in the Diet 
 and in the press of the country, which produced protests against
 
 2 58 GERMANY 
 
 the bill from every university, the measure was finally defeated. 
 As a curiosity it deserves mention that this bill took its name 
 from one of the university tutors, Doctor Arons, a lecturer on 
 economic science at Berlin University, and one of the most lavish 
 contributors to the Socialist party fund. Doctor Arons is a 
 wealthy man, the son of a banker, and under existing conditions 
 he cannot be removed from his position, which he has success- 
 fully held for a number of years. 
 
 Although, however, this attempt to squelch "academic liberty" 
 was foiled, and one in the Reichstag, despite the joint aid of the 
 Conservatives and of the Centre, met a similar fate, these plans 
 have by no means been abandoned by the Kaiser and his 
 advisers, and they will doubtless again come to the surface at 
 a more opportune moment. This has engendered a feeling 
 of unrest and of insecurity in the whole scientific world 
 of Germany, and has proved a seriously disturbing element. 
 
 Nor is this all. The whole spirit has greatly changed in 
 German schools and higher educational institutions. This is but 
 natural in a nation whose conditions of life have been so greatly 
 modified of late. And this change is even more noticeable 
 among the students and pupils than among their teachers. The 
 spirit of bald utilitarianism is rampant among these boys and 
 young men. For the specific fonn it has taken the word 
 "Streberthum" has been coined in Germany, which in its 
 generally accepted meaning stands for a hard striving after 
 material success, no matter what the means employed to that 
 end. There is, indeed, no disguising the fact that German 
 youth of to-day is no longer distinguished for that idealism, 
 that love of science and knowledge for their own sakes, which 
 formed one of its prime characteristics until not many years ago. 
 The present generation of young Germans has discarded old aims 
 and ideals, and indulges no longer in illusions of any kind. 
 They are severely matter-of-fact. This change is most pro- 
 nounced among the university students. They, too, are the most 
 loud-voiced jingos, the blind admirers of unscrupulous success. 
 
 There are compensating features, however. One of them is 
 the newly awakened love of sport. This is the Kaiser's doing, 
 and he has shown an admirable amount of tact and perseverance 
 in this matter. Fifteen years ago nearly every form of healthful
 
 ^ EDUCATION 259 
 
 physical exercise, excepting fencing, was unknown among 
 the youth in German universities and intermediate schools. 
 Patiently and persistently the Kaiser set to work, and first awak- 
 ened, then vigorously fostered, a liking for every form of manly 
 sport. He organized the aquatic clubs, the football and lawn 
 tennis clubs, foot races and rowing matches, not alone among 
 the university and college youth, but among the pupils of the 
 lower schools, and among the rest of the population. He gave 
 the best example himself, and he spared neither trouble nor time 
 to attend and in every way encourage intercollegiate sporting 
 events, founding and personally distributing appropriate prizes 
 to the winners. 
 
 The movement is young as yet, and it is not to be expected 
 that these young Teuton athletes will just yet do as well at 
 international contests as their English or American cousins. But 
 they are making steady progress, and within another fifteen or 
 twenty years these young Germans will give a good account of 
 themselves. The incidental gain, however, has perhaps been 
 even greater. The German student is gradually weaning him- 
 self from a number of his former vices and senseless customs. 
 The process is necessarily a slow one, but in the two points here 
 specially referred to, the dueling nuisance and the enormous 
 beer-guzzling, there has been a very perceptible improvement. 
 The number of students not belonging to a "schlagende 
 Verbindung" — /. c, a club imposing on all its members the 
 obligation to fight members of all similar clubs on the slightest 
 provocation, has been largely on the increase. Federations of 
 students' clubs tabooing this barbarous form of amusement have 
 been formed, thus adding to the organized powers of resistance 
 against the stupid custom, and greatly heightening their moral 
 influence. The membership of the fighting clubs is steadily 
 decreasing, at least in the larger universities, and it is no longer 
 deemed a shame for a young fellow of spirit to keep aloof from 
 them. At Berlin University, for instance, the non-fighting 
 students now outnumber the fighting ones six to one. In the 
 smaller university towns, largely because life there would other- 
 wise be too dull, and also because they are sought by students 
 less for their educational advantages than for the purpose of 
 having "a good time," the old and time-honored brawlings and
 
 2 6o GERMANY 
 
 slashings still survive to a large extent, but it is otherwise in the 
 larger and more important universities, where students go to 
 really work. This reform, for such it is, must be, besides, visible 
 to every one now visiting Germany, for the scarred and cut 
 faces among the present generation of German students are now 
 in a decided minority. I do not intend to convey the meaning 
 thereby that the students' duels are a thing of the past. Far 
 from it. I remember reading, not long ago, a typical advertise- 
 ment in one of the most widely read of German papers, wherein 
 an ambitious university student asked for the services of some- 
 body who could produce in his face, by acids or otherwise, but 
 without endangering his life, a "permanent and formidable 
 looking cicatrice," a so-called "Renommir-Narbe." The con- 
 sideration for this service he fixed high enough to cut very deeply 
 into his next monthly allowance from home. And this young 
 man's case is not an isolated one. It is still customary with 
 many students to estimate the value of a man by the number 
 of well-marked cuts in his face, and to feel a sovereign contempt 
 for the "Finkenschaft" — /. c, the non-fighting students. But, 
 as stated above, the number of these silly young fellows is 
 steadily diminishing, and another generation will probably 
 eradicate them entirely from the life of the German universities. 
 It would be an exaggeration to say as much about the beer- 
 drinking habits of the German students. These habits, though 
 here brought into peculiar forms, and with a narrowly circum- 
 scribed etiquette that has many curious features of its own, 
 are really based on the national character as it has been 
 described since the days of Tacitus. And as such they will prob- 
 ably endure through the centuries to come. The "commers," 
 or drinking, singing, and orating according to a certain formula; 
 the "beer comment," or the rules and regulations governing the 
 sociable meetings of a club of students ; and all the other quaint 
 and partly charming customs that are binding on the organized 
 university men, flourish to-day as formerly. But in their grossly 
 exaggerated forms there has been effected an unmistakable 
 amelioration. "Beer duels," where men would drink against 
 each other out of sheer bravado, sometimes fifty large tankards 
 of it at one session, until one or both of them would roll over 
 like a log, are rare nowadays. Young men do not, as a rule, ruin
 
 EDUCATION 261 
 
 tlieir stomachs for life with continued beer orgies, as many used 
 to do. Nor do they now acquire other dissolute habits quite to 
 the same extent. There is distinct improvement in all this. 
 
 There is, however, still a world of jollity in student circles for 
 all that. It is but necessary to pay a flying visit to those quar- 
 ters of many a German city where students most do congregate 
 to become convinced of that. The old devices for "tying the 
 bear," that is, "raising the wind," are still in vogue, and im- 
 portunate creditors are stayed off or hoodwinked with the same 
 skill. In one of the Berlin streets much affected by students, 
 pulleys reaching from garret to garret across the street may be 
 observed. They are "telegraphic connections" between the 
 quarters occupied by impecunious but happy students, enabling 
 each camp to assist the other with eatables, "drinkables," and 
 even clothes. A small basket is frequently seen traveling 
 through midair, and bringing succour in every shape to that side 
 of the street requiring it most. 
 
 In comparison with the cost of college life in England or 
 America, the German tmiversities, even the most expensive, are 
 low-priced. Berlin is about at the top in this respect, but $350 
 to $450 will pay all the required expenses of a student there for a 
 year, with close economy, of course. At Griefswald, Giessen, 
 Tubingen, Wiirzburg, and some others of the smaller ones, $250 
 to $300 per annum will, at a pinch, do the trick. This a large 
 number of German students, as well as many of the foreign 
 ones, do. The Russian ones are said to often get along on much 
 less than that; but then, of course, not every one likes a perma- 
 nent diet of weak tea and cigarettes. At any rate, several 
 American students I knew in Berlin got along on the sums men- 
 tioned above. It is amazing at what low prices many restau- 
 rants specially frequented by university students sell substantial 
 and appetizing meals in the German cities, especially when the 
 cost of meat is considered. But it is a simple fact that many of 
 these restaurants furnish good food for ten to fifteen cents per 
 meal, and a quart of foaming and choice beer can there be had 
 for another four cents. In a word, Germany is still a Dorado 
 for the poor and ambitious American student who is sure of him- 
 self and knows how to avoid the pitfalls of metropolitan life. 
 For the morally weak and impressionable American youth the
 
 262 GERMANY 
 
 German university, no matter where and which, is the worst 
 possible place, unless he happens to be supplied liberally with 
 paternal funds, and be pulled out of the slough of despond in 
 time. The writer has seen some curious cases over there, which 
 convinced him that not every American young man is able 
 to stand transplanting from his native heath to a German 
 university, with its total lack of supervision and moral restraint 
 — at least, not without grave danger. 
 
 Everybody has seen the German professor, of course — I mean 
 in Fliegende Blatter. The typical German professor with his 
 goggles, his cane, his long hair, his absent-mindedness, his gruff 
 good-nature and his colossal erudition. Of course. He has done 
 duty as a national type lo ! these many years, and the whole world 
 knows him now better than he ever knew himself. Well, it is a 
 pity, but this German professor no longer exists. He has utterly 
 vanished, and his place knows him no more. He is gone with so 
 many other things once distinctively German. Personally, I 
 regret it. He was of his kind perfection, the best receptacle for 
 holding an enormous amount of learning, and the best and 
 readiest squanderer of it as well. He was a type, and a fine one. 
 He is no more. 
 
 In his place stands the modern German professor, almost 
 the antipode of his predecessor. He is alert, often commercial, 
 sleek; frequently elegant and fastidious in his bearing and get-up, 
 a connoisseur in the matter of a dinner, of a fine painting, of a 
 horse, even of a Havana cigar or an Egyptian cigarette. At a 
 state dinner the writer once met some thirty of the most promi- 
 nent Berlin university professors. They were a revelation to 
 him. Faultless in their attire, they were bright conversational- 
 ists, and in every detail thorough men of the world. One of 
 them led in the lady of the house with the courtly grace of a 
 Chesterfield. They knew to a nicety e\^ery wine served, even 
 the vintage. They discoursed with acumen about the most 
 bewildering dishes. They knew everything that a gourmet 
 could possibly know. After the banquet they drank their small 
 cup of cafe noir and smoked their Henry Clay with it in a way 
 that showed long training. 
 
 These men were typical. They represented the new German 
 professor. He is more charming and more elegant than his fore-
 
 EDUCx\TION 263 
 
 runner, and his gold-rimmed eyeglasses are more becoming to him 
 than the other's clumsy specs, but still — on the whole, I preferred 
 the other. Why, this new professor is sometimes so infernally 
 smart that he has been known to cheat even his Yankee 
 confrere. A Philadelphia professor of note, an eye specialist, 
 was neatly done by one of these new-fangled German professors. 
 He had come to Berlin for the sole purpose of attending the 
 clinic of this famous man, and to see him perform operations. 
 He went to see him. The Berlin celebrity charged him a very 
 steep fee for the privilege of watching him at his clinic with his 
 patients, but the Philadelphia man gladly paid it. This mood 
 gradually changed to disgust, however, when he discovered that 
 it was not the famous professor at all whom he had paid for 
 seeing perform miracles, but merely one or other of his assistants, 
 men who knew no more than he, the Philadelphian. This sharp 
 Berlin professor was but one of a kind. With the growing at- 
 tendance at the larger German universities, their incomes have 
 climbed to figures which would have seemed fabulous to their 
 predecessors, and most of this is derived from individual tuition 
 fees paid by the students. Some of the more famous professors 
 in Berlin — for instance, men like Professor von Bergmann, 
 Professor von Leyden, etc. — are credited with annual receipts 
 between $50,000 and $100,000. Professor Koch (the "cholera- 
 bacillus" man), Delbriick, Schiemann, Rontgen, Behring, 
 Slaby, Schmoller, and others, are all in the enjoyment of 
 incomes which some years ago would have been called princely. 
 Nowadays it pays to be a German professor.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 SOCIAL CUSTOMS 
 
 It is, of course, inevitable that the greatly altered conditions 
 of life in Germany should have had a corresponding influence on 
 the national character and customs. Both have, in fact, changed 
 so greatly that a native German, returning after the lapse of 
 twenty-five or thirty years, feels himself simply lost. The people 
 around him think and feel differently on most subjects than was 
 their wont, and as the fact is more and more brought home to him 
 that he lacks community of ideas with them, he feels amazed and 
 stunned as by a blow to his tenderest sensibilities. That explains, 
 too, why so very few of these returned exiles feel at home in the 
 Germany of to-day, and generally are glad after a spell to leave 
 the country of their birth a second time and to bid a final fare- 
 well to the scenes of their childhood. Without exaggerating in 
 the slightest, one can say that there is no modern nation which 
 has altered so much in essential respects within a generation as 
 Germany has. The framework of the national character has 
 remained the same, it must be admitted, but a score of new quali- 
 fications have been brought into existence, and a number of 
 others have been eliminated. Among the latter there are some 
 which the world has regarded as distinctively national traits, 
 and among the former are several which the Germans themselves 
 all along considered wholly un-German. 
 
 Yet if one were asked what the leading German characteristic 
 is, the answer even to-day must still be: Deliberate slowness. In 
 that respect there has been little change, at least among the vast 
 majority of the people. To an American, accustomed to rapid 
 and intense work, there is probably nothing more annoying and 
 exasperating in Germany than the constant recurrence of this 
 systematic tardiness. He meets with it in all his dealings with 
 the authorities ; he encounters it at every step in his intercourse 
 with the people; he finds it an insurmountable barrier in the 
 transaction of any business which may have brought him over. 
 
 264
 
 SOCIAL CUSTOMS 265 
 
 So much is this part of the very fiber of the people that they are 
 unable to understand how anybody can be in a hurry. They 
 actually look with suspicion upon tlic unwary stranger in the 
 street who, not acutely alive to this bent of the national mind, 
 displays haste in his movements. They think he must be an 
 escaped criminal, or at any rate somebody who is on some unlaw- 
 ful errand. If our American has an unusual fund of humour 
 and patience, he will derive much quiet enjoyment from all tnis. 
 To give himself a good treat, for instance, let him watch, now 
 and then, a gang of labourers at work. They eat six meals a 
 day, and this, naturally enough, demolishes a not inconsiderable 
 fraction of their time. After their midday repast each one of 
 the men indulges in a one-hour's nap in the cool shade of a tree 
 or on the soft side of a board, sleeping soundly and peacefully. 
 When he resumes work, he will, as a rule, leisurely thump the 
 asphalt or set some paving-stones, then stop, calmly surveying 
 the landscape, pufifing like a porpoise, and filling his lungs with a 
 new supply of fresh air. Like as not he will then slowly fill a 
 pipe, set it aglow, and begin a bantering conversation with his 
 fellow "toilers," who instantly stop work to enter into it with all 
 their faculties undisturbed. From time to time one of the men 
 will take a good swig from his side-pocket flask of Nordhauser 
 (cheap corn spirits), and then hand it to his comrades, who just 
 as deliberately will imitate his example. Then, perchance, they 
 will all try another bit of work, and thus the long summer day 
 of fourteen hours will pass right pleasantly. The foreman or 
 overseer who superintends their task is to the manner born. To 
 him, as to them, their interpretation of the term "work" appears 
 the natural and normal one. He joins in their six meals — break- 
 fast, "second" and "third" breakfast, dinner, "vesper," and 
 early supper, often to be followed on their return home by a 
 later and more substantial evening meal. The amount of actual 
 labour accomplished in this way in a working day of nominally 
 fourteen hours is about half or two-thirds that done by the aver- 
 age American labourer in eight hours. This explains, too, the 
 curious fact that it costs more in wages to pave a street or build a 
 house in a German city than in an American one, notwithstand- 
 ing that the scale of payment is a much lower one. German 
 labourers seldom earn more than three marks, or seventy-two cents
 
 266 GERMANY 
 
 a day, and the best mechanics rarely more than 21 to 24 marks, or 
 about five or six dollars a week. Of course, there are exceptions, 
 such as jewelers, makers of optical and other instruments of pre- 
 cision, skilled mechanics in the electrotechnical, machine-build- 
 ing, typewriter, sewing machine or watch-making lines, some of 
 whom earn as high as forty marks per week, or about ten dollars. 
 But the above wages are the rule, and considering the small 
 amount of work done, this is not astonishing. 
 
 As the common labourer works, so work the tradespeople 
 and mechanics of every kind. Bricklayers, stonemasons, black- 
 smiths, horseshoers, joiners, carpenters, etc., all work leisurely; 
 this shows the force of habit and example, for these same men, 
 when later, perhaps, transplanted to this country, learn quickly 
 enough to toil to more purpose and to do their best. In factories, 
 too, the same thing may be noticed, although there, because of 
 "piece work" having been adopted in many places, a change has 
 been slowly operating for some years past. What is true of this 
 class of the population is true in a still higher degree of the 
 German master mechanics. It is, for instance, next to an impos- 
 sibility to get a tailor, a shoemaker or a paperhanger to finish a 
 piece of work in the time agreed upon, no matter how high the 
 pay offered, nor how alluring the inducements held out to him. 
 Curiosity prompted me several times during my stay in Berlin 
 to try and get at the reason impelling these men, often showing a 
 fair amount of intelligence in other matters, in thus standing in 
 their own light. The answer was with some: What is the use? 
 No matter how hard we might work, we could not earn any 
 higher wages. Others again said: How can you expect us to 
 have any ambition ? We cannot rise. We must always remain 
 what we are — drudges. 
 
 These answers seemed to me a powerful sermon on the unfor- 
 tunate continuance of the caste and class spirit in Germany. 
 For in other walks of life where ambition had a legitimate field 
 to expend itself, there has been undoubtedly a change in this 
 matter. In fact, the higher one goes in German society to-day, 
 the more one will find a greater incentive to work, and an 
 intenser application to it — in fact, an Americanization in methods 
 and spirit. This is notably true of German manufacturers, and 
 also of the higher employees in industrial enterprises of every sort.
 
 SOCIAL CUSTOMS 267 
 
 The race for wealth is not yet as keen there as here, but 
 when comparing present conditions with those a generation ago 
 the change wrought is immense. With material progress has 
 come a more materialistic view of life. A surprising degree of 
 luxury is evident in the higher classes. Men of wealth now 
 occupy a different position in popular estimation from that for- 
 merly held. The German public is as much interested in their 
 millionaires and industrial dynasties — in the Krupps, Stumms, 
 and Siemens; the Loewes, Bleichroders, and Warschauers; the 
 Mendelsohns, Scherls and Wertheimers — as Americans are in 
 theirs. Luxury is everywhere apparent — in the stores and 
 shops, in the display of fine clothes and jewelry, at social gath- 
 erings, in the appointments of houses, exteriorly and interiorly. 
 Fine palaces are reared by her wealthy merchants and manu- 
 facturers in the large cities and towns, and beautiful country 
 residences in the fashionable suburbs, with spacious grounds 
 adjoining. Nothing is more astonishing to the foreigner visiting 
 Germany than this feature of present German life. The enter- 
 tainment of guests has become more of a fine science there than 
 here. The cuisine and the table appointments to be seen on 
 festive occasions in wealthy German homes would have made 
 the Germans of the last generation gasp with amazement and 
 disapproval. Art patronage has become extensive and liberal, 
 and, I will add, intelligent as well. The 3^oung German artist now 
 finds at home a good market for his product. Private galleries 
 and costly collections of every description are numerous and 
 choice. Just to name a few at random, there are those of Raven^ 
 and Jaffe in Berlin, either of them worth a million or more, and 
 the Jaffe collection, though rich in fine Murillos, Velasquez, 
 Rembrandts, Reynolds, Turners, Rubens, Titians, and other 
 masters of earlier days, practically unknown to the general 
 public ; the fine collections owned by Arthur Krupp in his Villa 
 Hiigel near Essen; by the great bankers, Bleichroder, Robert 
 Warschauer, and Kaskel, the Cologne publisher Dumont- 
 Schauberg. The Count Schack collection in Munich was recently 
 left to the Kaiser, but by him presented to the municipality of 
 Munich. Then there are many special collections of carvings in 
 wood and ivory, old and artistic furniture, gobelins, intaglios, 
 etc., like those of Prince Radziwill, Jacobi, Prince de Sagan, and
 
 268 GERMx\NY 
 
 others. As a curiosity might be mentioned the collection of 
 "historical corsets" belonging to the wife of the Berlin publisher, 
 August Scherl, of which one, once the property of unfortunate 
 Queen Marie Antoinette, cost her $12,000. 
 
 But the same love of luxury is visible in public establishments. 
 The old-fashioned German "Kneipe," with its smoke-stained 
 ceiling and musty odour, has made room for veritable beer 
 palaces. Berlin especially excels in this. In the leading thorough- 
 fares of that capital imposing structures built in the purest 
 architectural style, of costly brownstone or other expensive and 
 durable material, exquisitely sculptured and fitted up with cor- 
 responding elegance inside, meet the eye; and the guest finds 
 there every imaginable creature comfort. It was at first thought 
 that such palatial "beer restaurants," as the Berliner calls them, 
 would not pay; instead, they have proved gold mines to their 
 owners, and the best classes frequent them. The same is true 
 of the new cafes in Berlin and the other German cities. They 
 at first were modeled after the large Vienna ones, but they soon 
 surpassed their models in every way. Such an artistically fur- 
 nished and beautiful cafe as the Kaisercafe in Berlin, opened 
 about three 3'ears ago, does not exist anywhere else, for instance. 
 The man who started it had been head waiter at an older Berlin 
 establishment, the Cafe Bauer, for about ten years, and the 
 $200,000 spent in its fitting represented ten years' "tips." The 
 Austrians now go to Berlin when they want to see a fine Vienna 
 cafe. 
 
 In hotels there has been the same rise in luxury. Ten years 
 ago there was not in the whole of Germany a hostelry which 
 either in size or comfort could be compared with our leading 
 American hotels. To-day there are scores that will bear such a 
 comparison in every respect. At the Palace Hotel in Berlin, the 
 finest dinners and wines in Europe are served, so connoisseurs 
 claim, and there is nothing in either London or Paris that equals 
 the Hotel Bristol there. The German hotel used to be dreaded 
 by fastidious foreigners because of its poorly prepared fare; 
 to-day it is precisely the cuisine in which her better hotels excel. 
 The Reichshof, the Savoy, the Metropole, the Kaiserhof are 
 hotels which in that respect have hardly their equal elsewhere. 
 
 The obverse and unpleasant side of this picture is the simul-
 
 SOCIAL CUSTOMS 269 
 
 taneous and very general lowering of the national standard of 
 honesty, trustworthiness, truthfulness, and morality. To bear 
 out this charge it is but necessary to point to the official statistics. 
 They show a steady and enormous increase in crimes against 
 property and against morality; in the case of the former there 
 has been since 1870 an increase of 500 per cent., and of the latter 
 the fourfold number is now being committed. Not only have 
 thefts, burglaries, pocket-picking, and all the ordinary forms 
 of dishonesty become frightfully common throughout Germany, 
 but the most cunningly devised crimes of that nature, and the 
 "slickest" cases of cheating, embezzlement, and sv/indles of 
 every kind that we hear of in this country, are now every-day 
 occurrences in erstwhile innocent and unsophisticated Germany. 
 Such a case of gigantic and successful swindling as that by the 
 president of a large Cassel bank, by which some 130 millions of 
 marks (about $32,000,000) were diverted from the rightful 
 owners, criminal history does not tell of a second time. 
 
 But even more astonishing is the showing Germany makes in 
 the matter of morality. The simplicity and purity of manners 
 on which she justly prided herself in former days, and which 
 enabled her writers to draw many a parallel with France flatter- 
 ing to their own self-respect, must be looked for in vain to-day. 
 The relations between the sexes have never been in Germany, so 
 far as history teaches us, as lax as they are to-day. Certainly, 
 Berlin in this respect is far worse than any other city in the 
 empire, and there is no denying the fact that in many of the 
 small towns and in some of the country districts conditions will 
 even to-day compare rather favourably with those in some other 
 countries that could be named. But on the whole the preva- 
 lence of immorality in every form is simply amazing. In Berlin 
 particularly, where the increase in wealth and in luxury has been 
 most rapid and marked, conditions are well-nigh on a par with 
 those in Paris. A canker is gnawing there at family life in every 
 shape. The number of women of loose morals has been esti- 
 mated by local writers at 150,000, and they not only infest the 
 leading streets at all hours of the day and night, but they pene- 
 trate private houses in the most respectable neighbourhoods, and 
 this to an almost incredible extent. Young and unmarried men 
 of the middle and higher classes almost without exception lead
 
 2 70 GERMANY 
 
 dissolute and immoral lives, and the horror and disgrace of that 
 peculiar form of union which Alphonse Daudet has so powerfully- 
 depicted in his "Sappho," and which in Berlin is euphoniously- 
 styled "feste Verhaltnisse," permeates there every strata of 
 society, and often leads to vile tragedies. It saps the vitality 
 of and morally destroys young and otherwise promising men of 
 the better classes by the hundred thousand. 
 
 Here one touches, in fact, upon one of the sorest spots in the 
 social fabric of the Germany of to-day. While the labouring 
 classes everywhere marry too early, often before attaining 
 maturity, the reverse is the general practice with the middle and 
 higher classes. Primarily this custom of late marriages is due 
 to the increasing difficulties of earning enough to support a 
 family in decent comfort. This is the main obstacle in the road 
 for the average young man, and it is a great one. With the 
 present conditions it seems, indeed, impossible to overcome it. 
 For with an educational standard so high as to keep the youth 
 at school till eighteen or twenty, a heavy charge upon his parents, 
 and then, for another four or six years, either at the university, at 
 some technical or commercial high school, or in apprenticeship, 
 still entirely supported by his family ; then serving his one-year's 
 volunteership in the army, again at great expense to his parents ; 
 and next to partially or wholly support him during the first five 
 or ten years of his official or unofficial career — and these are 
 about the average conditions in the struggle for existence with 
 the young man of the better classes — there seems indeed no way 
 to make the young man self-supporting, less still to put him in a 
 financial condition to marry, before he is thirty or thirty-five 
 years of age. Indeed, the present average age of marriage with 
 him shows a tendency to advance still further — many thousands 
 can only afford to marry at forty and after. By that time, given 
 the general indulgence shown by society toward his vices and 
 toward his laxity in morals, and given further the constant and 
 many-sided temptations and allurements of bachelor life in 
 Berlin and in all other large German cities to-day, the candidate 
 for wedlock is in most cases a whitened sepulchre, a man possess- 
 ing a great fund of knowledge as to every form of dissolute city 
 life, but usually also a physique which is no longer intact. 
 
 To partially, and in many cases wholly, overcome the difficul'
 
 SOCIAL CUSTOMS 271 
 
 ties of a financial nature that prevent marriage, the dowry has 
 become a settled institution. Daughters receive marriage por- 
 tions, wherever German fathers can manage it, large enough to 
 yield an income which added to the modest earnings of the young 
 man himself would support the couple in comparative ease. 
 Such portions vary, of course, greatly, according to circum- 
 stances, but at the present rate of interest they usually amount 
 to a minimum of 100,000 marks, or about $25,000. The standard 
 of life being much higher than formerly, and prices of necessaries, 
 above all foodstuffs, having also risen enormously in price, it 
 takes about 10,000 marks per annum nowadays for a couple 
 belonging by birth and position to the better classes to make 
 both ends meet. Hence, in large part, the keen race for wealth 
 in this part of the population. However, the great majority of 
 German fathers even in the higher stratum of the middle class, 
 do not possess fortunes large enough to enable them to give 
 their daughters such portions, and that again leads to an 
 enormous number of women of marriageable age who arc con- 
 demned to single blessedness. The latest official statistics com- 
 puted their number at considerably over two millions. These 
 unsatisfactory conditions have also led, so far as the unmarried 
 women are concerned, to the acute character of the woman 
 question, and of the movement resulting therefrom. However, 
 it ought also to be mentioned that the German girl of to-day has 
 greatly altered in character. She is no longer that nice, simple 
 and unassuming creature which the novels of Marlitt have 
 acquainted Americans with. She sees luxury all around her, 
 and she naturally wants her share of it. Love in a cottage is no 
 longer her ideal. She desires the comforts of life, and would 
 rather not marry at all than forego them. 
 
 This is just a bare outline of the gravely disturbing factors that 
 are exerting a most unwholesome influence upon the marriage 
 market in Germany. With the present trend of things these 
 conditions are much more likely to increase in difficulty than to 
 mend. They form a constant and favourite theme of discussion 
 for German writers on social and economic questions, and no 
 less a personage than the most noted of living German philoso- 
 phers, Eduard von Hartmann, has devoted a whole book to the 
 subject. All sorts of solutions have been proposed, including the
 
 2 72 GERMANY 
 
 most impracticable and futile. The imposing of special high 
 taxes on the wilful and well-to-do bachelor has been a favourite 
 proposition in this connection, and it was stated at one time that 
 various German state governments had seriously considered the 
 subject. But nothing so far has come of it, nor is it probable 
 that anything like such a remedy would effect even a partial 
 cure of the evil, since that lies much deeper, and is really an out- 
 growth of fundamental conditions of the German life of to-day. 
 
 The gross immorality in the capital of the empire also aroused 
 public attention, and some time ago things had got to such a 
 pass that the women of the city felt it their duty to solicit the 
 aid of the government in protecting themselves and their daugh- 
 ters from the contamination, and their sons from the dangers, 
 of daily contact with the enormous number of "ladies of easy 
 virtue." For this contact was not only on the public streets, 
 but as well in the houses where they and their families inhabited 
 apartments. The "Sittenpolizei" — i. c, that branch of the metro- 
 politan police supposed to keep a close control of the fallen 
 women, were then given new instructions, but that had a most 
 unfortunate effect, for outrageous arrests of perfectly respectable 
 girls and married women began to multiply, not only in Berlin, 
 but, under similar instructions to the local police, in Cologne, 
 Frankfort-on-Main, and other cities. Finally, a national league 
 of German women was formed to combat the whole evil, and a 
 petition was presented to the Kaiser, bearing the signatures of 
 about 25,000 of the most reputable ladies in the higher walks of 
 life, in which a regulation of the matter was asked for. But 
 nothing was done either then or since, and it is even to-day 
 risky for respectable women to appear without male escort, after 
 sundown, in the leading thoroughfares of the larger German 
 cities. 
 
 The two criminal trials in which aristocratic members of the 
 Club der Harmlosen (Club of Innocents) were involved, let in 
 a flood of light on some of the darkest features of high life in 
 Germany. The dissolute habits in vogue there to-day rival those 
 of the same classes in nations whom the Germans had all along 
 held their moral inferiors. Scandals of the worst type, and dis- 
 closing the prevalence of depraved tastes in those upper circles 
 whom the Kaiser once called the "Edelste der Nation" (Loftiest
 
 SOCIAL CUSTOMS 273 
 
 of the Nation), are of frequent occurrence, although the pohce 
 in most cases squelch judicial investigation. Another notable 
 fact is the great increase of divorces, and the ease with which 
 they are obtained. Under the operation of the new Civil Code, 
 in force throughout the Empire, this increase has gone on at 
 an accelerated pace. 
 
 Thus, there is no denying the palpable fact that under 
 new conditions the moral standard of the nation has been very 
 perceptibly lowered, and this is true of all classes of the 
 population. 
 
 Under the political and social preponderance of Prussia another 
 peculiarity has become very noticeable in the empire. The 
 police exerts such an amount of power, and plays such a promi- 
 nent role in public and private life, as to have led to the charge, 
 frequently made in the various legislative bodies of Germany, 
 that the country is a "Polizeistaat," viz., one where the police is 
 paramount. And there seems, indeed, good reason for making 
 this charge. The police in Germany fills a much more con- 
 spicuous place than anywhere else in the world, with the single 
 possible exception of Russia. According to the best official 
 authority, the standard work of Count Hue de Grais, Roj^al 
 Prussian Government President, the police is purposely so organ- 
 ized as to permeate and to a certain extent control the whole 
 political and social fabric of the country. Its functions are so 
 manifold, they so constantly intertwine with those of the civil 
 and military authorities, and its aid is so unceasingly required by 
 every department of the Government as well as by the mass of 
 subjects, that one may well say the German police is omnipotent 
 and almost omniscient. It is divided into the criminal depart- 
 ment (with its large and important secret branch), the "security 
 and accident" police, the "public order" and the "morality" 
 police. There are subdivisions, too, such as the sanitary police. 
 The organization of this vast body of police, numbering in all 
 several hundred thousands, is not uniform. It differs not only 
 in the various States of Germany, but also in the urban and rural 
 districts. For the latter there is a separate body of "gensdarmes," 
 mostly mounted, and armed with sword, carbine, and revolver. 
 The urban police is usually uniformed very much in the style 
 of the Prussian infantrv, and armed with a short sword, and in
 
 2 74 GERMANY 
 
 some cases with a revolver as well. The mounted police in the 
 towns and cities forms only about five per cent, of the total. 
 
 The system is peculiar, too, in this, that while the central 
 government has in all cases the appointive power, the police is 
 not paid out of state funds but out of local and provincial ones. 
 As to its personnel, it is recruited entirely from the army — i.e., 
 from the large corps of non-commissioned officers who have 
 served a certain term of years and thereby acquired the claim to 
 subordinate government positions. This fact accounts for the 
 strong military spirit pervading the entire German police, and 
 this is increased by the fact that the officers — i. e., lieutenants, 
 captains, majors, colonels, and presidents of police, formerly 
 held similar commissions in the regular German army. The uni- 
 forms worn by these officers differ greatly from those of their 
 men, both in color and cut, and are very handsome and dressy. 
 The pay, both of men and officers, is low. The men get on an 
 average not more than fifty to sixty cents a day, besides their 
 clothes. The officers receive about thirty dollars per month in 
 the lower grades, and from that up to fifty or sixty. They are 
 entitled to pensions when invalided or disabled, and in case of 
 death their widows receive small annuities. 
 
 As might be expected from their antecedents and exclusively 
 military training, the German police is autocratic, puffed up with 
 a sense of its extreme importance, and efficient only in routine 
 work, but utterly lacking initiative, tact, or higher brain power. 
 Their hours are long, but the amount of real work expected is not 
 as large nor as arduous as that of an American policeman. They 
 are nearly always honest, truthful, and well-meaning, and cor- 
 ruption and venality are not conspicuous characteristics of the 
 force. The discipline maintained is very strict, and insubordina- 
 tion practically unknown among them. Their attitude toward 
 the public differs wholly from that in other countries. They 
 regard citizens in the same light as recruits, as beings who need 
 constant surveillance and a rough sort of verbal instruction in 
 all their duties toward the government. In a word, they do not 
 consider themselves as the servants of the public, but distinc- 
 tively as the organs of the public's master, the government. It 
 is this mental attitude, no doubt, which accounts for the unpop- 
 ularity of the police in Germany. It is exceedingly rare that
 
 SOCIAL CUSTOMS 275 
 
 the public will side with, or assist, policemen in the discharge of 
 their duties, in cases of arrest, or in the maintenance of public 
 order. 
 
 But that does not alter the fact that everybody almost is 
 forced to come in daily contact with the police. Just to enu- 
 merate a few such occasions, there is the domestic help, which is 
 strictly controlled by the police of each district; there is the 
 system of state pensions for the labouring classes, which is also 
 rigorously supervised by the police; there is every detail of the 
 internal management of each dwelling, and the relations between 
 landlord and tenant, which the police superintend; there is the 
 question of the discharge of each citizen's military duties, and 
 of his tax burdens; there is the question of contagious diseases, 
 of the hundreds of sanitary regulations which are severely 
 enforced in every German household; there are the thousands of 
 minute police regulations, and, of course, the whole broad field 
 of criminality — in all of these matters it is the police which 
 the public has to deal with primarily, often exclusively. Each 
 inhabitant of Germany, whether native or foreign, must, besides, 
 furnish, at stated intervals, documentary proof of his identity, 
 etc., and each hotel or boarding-house owner must do the same 
 regarding newly arrived guests. With all this network of in- 
 formation, extending down to the most intimate details of private 
 life, the police, as a body, is always in possession of absolute and 
 precise "knowledge as to everybod}'- residing within the confines 
 of the broad empire, or merely sojourning there for a brief 
 spell. They have discretionary powers of the most far-reaching 
 importance, and can expel obnoxious foreigners, or German 
 subjects from other parts of the empire, without vouchsafing any 
 explanation. In a word, to lead a moderately quiet and undis- 
 turbed life in Germany, one does wisely to maintain as friendly a 
 footing with the German police as they will permit. Of course, 
 there are the courts of the land, both civil and criminal, and in 
 many cases these may be appealed to, and in some cases they 
 may amend or annul the first police decision. But such appeals 
 necessarily involve great loss of time and money, are always 
 uncertain in their final issue, and may only be entertained within 
 specified limits. So that it may be truly said that the police is, 
 in nine cases out of ten, the only arbiter between man and man
 
 2 76 GERMANY 
 
 and between government and subject in Germany. Its tre- 
 mendous influence will therefore be apparent to the reader. 
 
 Another radical change wrought in the German character by 
 the events of the last thirty years is the elimination of that 
 charming spirit of cosmopolitanism which used to be one of the 
 distinguishing traits of the nation, and the substitution of 
 jingoism for it. Of all the civilized peoples on the globe, the 
 German alone was the prophet and the bearer alike of that high- 
 est fruit of mental culture, a universal mind and an unbiassed 
 appreciation of the good to be found in every nation. The greatest 
 names in German literature, science and philosophy, men like 
 Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Humboldt, Hegel, were the embodi- 
 ment of this conception, and nearly all the qualities that have 
 made Germany eminent in every department of thought were, 
 directly or indirectly, the outflow and product of this cosmo- 
 politan spirit. One may rejoice at the unification of Germany, 
 and at the vigourous development of national pride, but from 
 every point of view the disappearance of that higher form of 
 amor patriae is to be regretted. Above all, however, the present 
 type of jingoism, rampant everywhere in the empire, is unlovely, 
 and totally out of accordance with the best qualities of the race. 
 
 The spectacle is all the more inexplicable as jingoism of this 
 irrational kind militates against all the instincts of the race, 
 and it is utterly without excuse in a country of the geograph- 
 ical position and the historical past of Germany. For jingoism 
 is usually due to ignorance of the real character of other nations. 
 The Germans possess the best and most diffused knowledge of 
 other nations. Their very position in the heart of Europe, and 
 their great love of travel, of a knowledge of foreign languages 
 and literatures, has kept them from that insular bent of mind 
 which is the heirloom of their British cousins, and from that 
 similar trend of thought which, owing to his wide separation 
 from Europe, used to distinguish in a minor degree the American. 
 Even to-day, deep down below that thick veneer of disdain 
 affected for all other nations, the typical German harbours an 
 instinctive appreciation of those traits in other nations which 
 he lacks. But the difference between former days and now is 
 this, that he stifles this inner consciousness in favour of his self- 
 created ideal : the German of to-day.
 
 SOCIAL CUSTOMS 277 
 
 It must, however, not be assumed that jingoism has it all to 
 itself in the Germany of to-day. The best minds of the nation 
 are arrayed against it. The government, strong and to a great 
 extent independent of public opinion, has not yet capitulated 
 with it. The weightiest and best reputed publications war 
 against it. But the jingoistic current of thought is so potent 
 just now (and seems to gather more momentum each year) that 
 at present it seems only a question of time when this newly 
 engrafted sentiment will sweep everything before it, as the same 
 sentiment has repeatedly done in France. That this would be a 
 most unfortunate thing for Germany needs hardly pointing out. 
 
 There are other newly acquired characteristics in the latter- 
 day German. I will mention the fact that from a preeminently 
 reading nation the Germans are becoming the very reverse. 
 There is an ever-swelling chorus of complaint going up among 
 publishers and authors that the demand for reading matter is 
 diminishing all the time. The magazines are full of this plaint ; 
 so are the more serious newspapers. And there can be no doubt 
 that there is truth behind it. Teachers and university professors 
 echo the lament. Since that new and untranslatable German 
 word: "schneidig" was coined, a word which covers a multitude 
 of sins with a cloak of nationalism, whole strata of German 
 society have begun to affect, or to really feel, a deep contempt for 
 books, for book learning, and for all that books can teach. This 
 curious feeling is particularly prevalent among the higher classes, 
 and among them men like Dr. Carl Peters, who hanged his negro 
 servants in Africa when they crossed him, and Hermann von 
 Wissmann, who made bloody campaigns against defenseless 
 negro races in German East Africa, and obtained the highest 
 honours and decorations from the Kaiser for it, are pointed out to 
 the young generation as patterns to follow. 
 
 Among the characteristics acquired and worthy of all praise, 
 a greater degree, and a much wider spread, of politeness, and 
 a higher regard for the amenities of life, must be mentioned. 
 The German of the better classes is to-day almost outdoing the 
 French, among whom a retrograde movement in this respect 
 is noticeable, in fine and polished manners. Intercourse has 
 become more ceremonious than it used to be, and the amount 
 of courteous phraseology indulged in on social occasions is truly
 
 2 78 GERMANY 
 
 overpowering. Gallantry toward the fair sex is also among 
 these recent accomplishments, and the fine gradation of bows, 
 the correct amount of honeyed words, and the number and 
 quality of the hand-kisses in his intercourse with ladies forms 
 to-day an important item in the teachings given the German 
 youth. Pleasant observances on festive occasions, such as 
 birthdays, after balls, at anniversaries, and the like, have been 
 brought into a regular system, and tend to make life more of a 
 pleasant illusion than it is in more matter-of-fact countries. 
 Social hypocrisy, in fact, and what Max Nordau so harshly 
 termed "conventional lies," form a leading and growing feature 
 in the life of the higher classes there. 
 
 With that, however, a much greater attention is also paid to 
 the "substantials" of social intercourse. German hospitality, 
 once hearty but rough, is now refined and dainty. It will no 
 longer happen to you, in visiting Germany with a bunch of good 
 letters of introduction in your pocket — and without them you 
 had better postpone your visit, as nobody would extend any 
 courtesies to you — that Professor Cloudland will at once receive 
 you, enter into an intimate conversation of two hours' length 
 with you, and then press you to stay and share an informal dinner 
 consisting of boiled beef and carrots. No ; to-day he will re- 
 quire you to first notify him of j'-our arrival in town. He will 
 then invite 3^ou to call, exchange for five minutes the badinage 
 of the hour ; then he will leave his card at your hotel, and a week 
 or so later he v/ill send you a formal and exquisitely phrased 
 invitation to an excellent dinner, where you will also meet some 
 men worth talking to. He will not wear a frowzy and ink-stained 
 dressing gown on any of these occasions, but will be most cor- 
 rectly and becomingly attired.. His study will not be reeking with 
 dust and stale tobacco smoke from an antediluvian porcelain 
 pipe ; neither will disorder reign supreme among his musty tomes. 
 He will instead be seen in a cosily furnished room where every- 
 thing appeals to a refined taste, and his dining-room will be the 
 perfection of gastronomic appropriateness. 
 
 These are the changed conditions you will find — and not 
 wholly to your sorrow. But the choice flavour of that un- 
 conventional hospitality of old is gone, and you may miss it 
 in spite of the pate dc joie gras and the bottle of exquisitely
 
 SOCIAL CUSTOMS 279 
 
 frapped Moet et Chandon. Asthetics is one thing, and genu- 
 ineness is another. 
 
 An intense modernness pervades social intercourse. The 
 topics of conversation alone show that. It is no longer on 
 such unprofitable themes as philosophy, literature or art 
 in the abstract — but it runs on the latest sensation on the 
 stage, on the races or some other sporting event, on the fashion- 
 able fad of the hour, or on the morning's flurry on 'change. 
 Country life and customs are not what they once were. How 
 could they in an age when Agrarianism and wily politics have 
 become synonyms, and when the larger rural estates get their 
 help every spring from far-away Poland or Russia ? In lieu of 
 a smiling, pastoral landscape, redolent with the scent of wild 
 thyme, and peopled with rosy-cheeked folk who were charmingly 
 ignorant of city ways, you will find to-day the tall smokestacks 
 of the distillery, and will hear the steam escaping from the beet- 
 sugar factory. These rustic denizens know every move of the 
 stock market, and usually receive daily telegraphic reports from 
 their agent in town. Their egotism and their greed for wealth 
 are just as keen as, but perhaps a trifle more outspoken than, 
 that of their city prototypes. The social question, too, has 
 penetrated the rural districts, and the "hands," male and 
 female, have begun to join the Socialist ranks. The German 
 country parson, that glorious and mild old man, is the only 
 person in the new picture who has not appreciably changed. He 
 has remained the same lovable idealist, and from his grey- walled 
 manse, hidden in grapevine and honeysuckle, the breed still 
 goes forth to do battle with the phiHstine world. In him and 
 his kind lies the redemption of Germany from her present creed 
 of bald utilitarianism. 
 
 The last official census gave Germany a million more females 
 than males. This alone will account for the acuteness of the 
 movement for the emancipation of woman there. But, as 
 pointed out above, the marriage question itself is much more 
 difficult than in most other countries, owing to a variety of causes, 
 but mainly to the late age at which men of the middle and higher 
 classes are in a financial condition to marry. And with spinsters 
 to the tune of over two milhons, it is quite natural that the 
 German women seek new fields of activity. This fact has come to
 
 28o GERMANY 
 
 be generally recognized, even by the most conservative of both 
 sexes. Several years ago there was an international woman's 
 congress in Berlin, and that showed the world for the first time 
 that Germany had on her part entered in earnest on the task 
 of reforming social conditions which hold back from woman what 
 rightfully belongs to her — a chance to earn a living when her 
 chance in the marriage lottery has narrowed down more and 
 more. 
 
 The old avenues have, of course, remained open to her, those 
 of teacher, governess, ladies' companion, housekeeper, seam- 
 stress, milliner, dressmaker, etc., as well as the stage, the broad 
 field of domestic service, the management of restaurants, cafds, 
 and hotels. But of late years she has cut more and more into 
 those domains formerly wholly or overwhelmingly claimed by 
 men. The retail trade is now very largely in female hands. 
 Several hundreds of thousands have found employment in 
 factories and industrial establishments of every kind. In jour- 
 nalism the German woman has conquered quite a large field of 
 her own, and of the professional writers of fiction about fifty per 
 cent, are women, among them many who enjoy popularity and 
 its emoluments. Several branches of the lower government 
 and municipal service have been opened to her, and the tele- 
 phone operators are nearly all women. Among the trades, too, 
 she has secured her share. The typesetters, for instance, show 
 a growing percentage of women, and among the lithographers, 
 draughtsmen, and artists of every description they have found 
 an increasing sphere of usefulness. She has made her way, even 
 in such trades as landscape gardening and horticulture; in cer- 
 tain lines of manufacture she has taken the lead, and the census 
 showed at least three female blacksmiths and coppersmiths in 
 the empire. Of late, too, she has obtained the government 
 permission, against the violent opposition of the men, to become 
 an apothecary or druggist, of course only after passing the 
 rather rigourous government examination. 
 
 But it has been the fight for admission to the learned pro- 
 fessions, and to the public or private institutions which equip 
 their inmates for them, which tested the mettle of the German 
 woman, as it did that of her English and American sister before 
 her. The German governments, national and State, took for
 
 SOCIAL CUSTOMS , 281 
 
 many years a consistently hostile attitude as to this. Both 
 the German professors and their male students were likewise 
 adverse to the admiss'on of women on terms of equality. The 
 question was ventilated in the Reichstag and in nearly every 
 other German legislature, year after year, always in a sense 
 hostile to the innovation. However, the more enlightened part 
 of the German public gradually modified its views on the matter 
 and a portion of the press followed. A more vigourous and better 
 directed campaign was made during the past five or six years, and 
 the force of public opinion won in the end. Doctor Bosse, the 
 former Prussian Secretary of Public Instruction, who had opposed, 
 on scriptural grounds, the admission of women to the professions, 
 was at last displaced, and his successor has proved more amenable 
 to reason and to progressive ideas. The authorities of the other 
 German States had either preceded him in this respect, like those 
 of Baden and Saxony, or they followed suit. 
 
 To-day the larger number of the German universities and 
 technical or art high schools are open to women, and in some of 
 them they are admitted to examination and graduation. They 
 can now practice medicine and dentistry, under certain limita- 
 tions, and may become doctors of philosophy in all its branches. 
 The practice of the law is still forbidden them, and the govern- 
 ment career in all its higher branches is also closed to them — as 
 yet. There are at this present writing some 300 female students 
 in Berlin University alone, and a goodly number in Heidelberg, 
 Gottingen, and several other universities. In some others, 
 like Munich, they are still excluded. The attitude of professors 
 has on the whole become somewhat more friendly, especially 
 if the woman happens to be a foreigner, but the students them- 
 selves have not so far qualified their tone of enmity, and there 
 are still quite often such scenes enacted by them as when they 
 left, with a great show of ostentatious indignation, the clinic of 
 a famous Berlin professor of medicine, when they saw the first 
 female student enter it. But this remnant of the old feeling of 
 opposition will likewise disappear within a few years, no doubt. 
 Woman is winning her way, slowly but surely, in Germany as 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Of course, with all these changes the character of the mar- 
 riage relation has not been exempt from them. A generation
 
 282 GERMANY 
 
 ago the German wife was by. no means the equal of the husband. 
 She knew her place, and confined herself to it. The rights of a 
 mother were always conceded to her rather fully, and they are 
 to-day. But her wifely position was that of distinct inferiority 
 to the husband. She was not allowed to exert influence on his 
 public career. Her advice was neither sought nor accepted on 
 business or financial questions. Wherever the intellect is the 
 decisive factor, she had to remain mute and tamely submit. At 
 home it was similar. Her subserviency to the master and 
 husband, to the brother or father, were traits of national life 
 which shocked the female guest from other lands. Manifesta- 
 tions of anger or of serious disapproval at unpalatable decisions 
 made by her lord were rare, and if at all indulged in were 
 severely frowned upon. As soon as her sons were grown, the 
 moral serfdom under which the husband had held her was 
 enlarged in its sphere, for she then became the dutiful slave of 
 her own male offspring as well. 
 
 It would be going too far to claim that all this has been quite 
 done away with. The German wife is still much more humble 
 and submissive than either her French or American sister. It is 
 amusing, even to-day, to listen to the conversation of a bevy 
 of German wives at one of their well-beloved "afternoon coffees." 
 Every third phrase begins with "Mein Mann" (my husband). 
 It is "my husband thinks this," "my husband says so," "my 
 husband in such a case always does so and so" — ad infinitum. 
 Never by any chance does one of them say "/ think this," etc. 
 Even the widowed ladies are still so much wedded to this self- 
 abasing habit of thought and action that in order to give emphasis 
 to what they wish to inculcate they call up the manes of their 
 deceased husbands and make them give point and substance to 
 their own views. The day has not yet passed when German 
 sisters will voluntarily or under but slight family pressure relin- 
 quish all their own aspirations in life, turn governess or else 
 eke out a miserable and joyless spinster existence as a maiden 
 aunt, just to enable one of her brothers to go to the university 
 and afterward choose an honourable government career — and 
 the entire family council, women foremost, will approve of 
 such self-sacrifice, and would regard her as one morally lost if 
 she showed a disinclination in the premises.
 
 SOCIAL CUSTOMS 283 
 
 Still, for all that, the marria;;e relation has undergone a great 
 change in Germany, partly for the better, partly for the worse. 
 There is a diminution of that strong family sense and family 
 affection which used to be chief cliaracteristics. There is a 
 diminution of wifely and unquestioning obedience. There is a 
 diminution of martial happiness and affection. There is also a 
 diminution of mutual solicitude and of that extreme care as to 
 all creature comforts which distinguished the German wife from 
 all others. There is instead a beginning in independence on the 
 part of the wife — and this in spite of the fact that the new 
 Imperial Civil Code has in nowise altered or bettered the status 
 of the wife — and of a recognition on the husband's part of equal 
 rights on the part of both. There is a widening of the wife's 
 sphere of influence and of activity, and a broadening of her 
 mental horizon and of her mental equipment. She is in many 
 cases no longer satisfied with the mere title of "housewife," which 
 the Kaiser has exclusively vindicated to his spouse, but her 
 ambition has begun to soar for something higher — i. ^., to become 
 the real partner of her husband, his sharer in all that moves and 
 concerns him. So, on the whole, the change has been a whole- 
 some and beneficial one, and the tendency in this direction is 
 manifestly not of an evanescent nature. It will continue. 
 
 One more pleasant feature of German life must here be men- 
 tioned. It may unhesitatingly be said that Germany is to-day 
 the neatest and tidiest country in the world, excelling even 
 Holland's proverbial qualities in this respect. The most casual 
 visitor cannot fail to notice this. Such wonderful order and 
 cleanliness as meet the eye in every German city and town is 
 nowhere else to be met with. There was a time when Coleridge 
 coined a little distich severely reflecting upon the ancient city 
 of Cologne, and for which then existed abundant cause. But 
 Cologne to-day is far cleaner than is New York or London, and 
 as for Berlin, it is a marvel of neatness and wise municipal econ- 
 omy. Go where you will in the whole empire, and the same 
 facts will strike you more or less forcibly. 
 
 A few facts about Berlin, whose municipal management might 
 stand in almost every respect as a model for the other capitals of 
 the world, may be of interest in this connection. When comparing 
 it with Paris, London, or New York, the entire costs of administra-
 
 284 GERMANY 
 
 tion are, considered per capita, fifty per cent., thirt^^-five per cent., 
 and sixty-six per cent, less, respectively. Yet the results accom- 
 plished at this much smaller cost are immeasurably greater. 
 Take, for instance, the matter of street-cleaning. The trained 
 and efficient corps of employees attending to this important item 
 in municipal management is composed of uniformed youths 
 working under the supervision of trusty and experienced men. 
 Every street in Berlin is swept and washed at least once daily. 
 The streets in the busy quarters and those in the better resi- 
 dential portions are asphalted, and are kept in perfect condition, 
 both winter and summer. But the stone pavements, too, are 
 never allowed to run down. Both stone and asphalt or con- 
 crete pavements are laid down in the first place as smooth as a 
 billiard table, and then kept so by frequent mending. Between 
 April and October every street and avenue is sprinkled and 
 washed twice a day, and the refuse then removed so carefully as 
 to leave the roadbed devoid of every foreign matter. A special 
 subcorps of boys is busy during the entire day picking up all 
 litter and depositing it in cast-iron and neat-looking chutes 
 placed in every block at convenient distances along the side- 
 walks. No single street in the whole city and its suburbs, even 
 in the poorest districts, is allowed to present at any time an 
 unkempt appearance. There are no orange peels, no waste paper, 
 no animal refuse, no empty lunch bags, encumbering the 
 streets. As for the removal of snow in winter, the arrange- 
 ments are so perfect that falls of one or two inches are carted 
 away within twelve hours, and heavier ones of from three to 
 five inches usually before the lapse of four of five days. And this 
 removal of snow is thorough. It applies not only to the leading 
 arteries of traffic, but to every street, important or unimportant. 
 The primitive appliances used in removing snow in American 
 cities have been displaced in Berlin by efficient labour-saving 
 machinery of special construction and of various kinds, and the 
 results thus attained are much more satisfactory. 
 
 It is in the matter of street-cleaning that Berlin leads every 
 other place on the globe, and it is in this that the contrast pre- 
 sented is most striking. But there are many other features in 
 the city's household which seem worthy of commendation. 
 Throughout the whole municipal service the distinguishing
 
 SOCIAL CUSTOMS 285 
 
 traits are a judicious mingling of economy and liberality in 
 expenditure ; a systematic and unceasing vigilance on the part 
 of the city for its entire population, in all those things properly 
 coming under its guidance, and a cautious progressiveness which 
 is perhaps the most astonishing trait of all. Faud, jobbery, 
 cliques and injurious nepotism are conspicuous by their absence, 
 and downright stealing or other forms of open dishonesty have 
 not been heard of for a generation or more. 
 
 But this characteristic tidiness in German cities and towns 
 is not confined to the above. There are other praiseworthy 
 things in which it manifests itself. One ai them is the uni- 
 versal presence of flowers and prettily kept gardens surrounding 
 dwelling houses. Even the poor and humble share in this. 
 Nowhere else is window-gardening carried on to the same ex- 
 tent. Berlin again is most conspicuous in this regard. All over 
 the city you see blossoming flowers everywhere, on windows, in 
 gardens, but particularly lining the many thousands of balconies 
 and loggias that form such a charming feature of the city. Again, 
 the extensive use of trees lining the sides of streets is a thing in 
 which the German cities of to-day excel. These afford shade 
 in the summer, are of great sanitary value, and brighten and 
 beautify what would otherwise be but a mighty desert of stone 
 walls. The tidiness of the nation, though, shows itself, too, in 
 the manner everybody, high or low, is clad. Exquisite taste is a 
 gift denied to the German race, and hence you will not see in 
 the streets of German cities women and men dressed with that 
 elegance and chic other cities like Paris, New York or Vienna 
 show. But you will see something even better, namely, an utter 
 absence of raggedly, slovenly attired persons. The poorest even 
 wear clothes that, though mended perhaps, are clean and whole, 
 and the mendicant does not ply his vocation except his face be 
 washed and his hands devoid of grime and dust. 
 
 No money could be more wisely spent by the common councils 
 of a score of our leading American cities than to provide the 
 means for a number of municipal experts to visit German repre- 
 sentative cities, make a close study of the secret to their successful 
 administration, and then report precisely what they have found, 
 and secure the widest publicity for such reports. That would 
 go a great ways in smoothing the way for municipal reform here.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 GERMANY S COLONIES 
 
 Colonial aspirations in Germany date back less than a score 
 of years, for they arose in the middle of the eighties, after some 
 Hamburg and Bremen merchants of enterprise had given the 
 determining impetus by land purchases from native chiefs and 
 by the settlement of small and modest trading-posts on the west 
 coast of Africa and in the Polynesian archipelago. Colonial 
 enthusiasts in the empire point, of course, to the historical fact 
 that once before, on January i, 1683, the Great Elector of 
 Brandenburg hoisted his flag over a portion of the Guinea 
 coast, and proclaimed it German soil. As an historical incident 
 this is of interest, for it proves that even in those earlier days 
 it was a Hohenzollern who was far-sighted enough — he alone 
 among all the rulers of Germany — to feel the need and impor- 
 tance of transmarine possessions. But practically this first 
 experiment in colonizing proved fruitless, and after some years 
 the fort and settlement of Gross- Friedrichsburg in that torrid 
 part of the Dark Continent was abandoned, and every trace of 
 it was lost. 
 
 Bismarck and old Emperor William I did not at first take 
 kindly to the idea of acquiring German colonies. They felt that 
 it was one thing to get and another thing to hold them; one thing 
 to own fragments of stray land under the name of colonies, and 
 quite another to make self-supporting and profitable property 
 out of them. They were afraid of British jealousies, and of 
 embroiling the relations of the empire for the sake of what might 
 prove barren and even costly experiments. Bismarck at that 
 time said a number of shrewd things in a pithy way, by which he 
 meant to throw cold water on this newly awakened colonial 
 ardour. In the Reichstag and in conversation he strongly 
 deprecated the notion, pointing otit the almost insuperable 
 difficulties standing in the way of successful colonization for 
 
 286
 
 GERMANY'S COLONIES 287 
 
 Germany. A large and influential portion of the German press 
 sided with him in this. Attention was called to the fact that all 
 the parts of the world which as colonies were of value had already- 
 been acquired by England, France, Spain, or Portugal, and that 
 without war this fact could not be shaken. Also, that what 
 Germany needed was not mere trading-posts flying her flag, 
 not mere points whence her commerce could radiate, for such she 
 already had in abundance, and the field for commercial extension 
 was large enough for even her ambition, with free-trading 
 England holding the most valuable colonial tracts, but colonies 
 that could afford a second home of comfort for the steadily 
 increasing surplus of her teeming population. With an annual 
 increase in population of nearly a million, such colonics would, 
 indeed, prove a great and lasting blessing to her, and would be 
 worth all the financial and other sacrifices she could make. But 
 such colonies, unfortunately, were not in the market, and there 
 seemed to be no way of stopping the continuance of that regular 
 stream of German emigration to the United States, Canada and 
 Australia which the keen minds of Germany are all the while 
 earnestly deploring. Emigration from the empire at that time 
 was still very large, amounting to about a quarter of a million per 
 annum. Independent of the colonial movement, it has since 
 steadily gone down, and for five or six years past has hardly 
 exceeded twenty or thirty thousand. 
 
 However, in the middle of the eighties the movement had 
 become so strong, and had seized hold of such influential 
 classes of the population, that it swept away all objections. It 
 literally carried Bismarck and the wdiole government off their 
 feet. The first acquisitions of colonial territory were made, and 
 since then Germany — excepting during the brief chancellorship of 
 Count Caprivi, who opposed colonies and was not afraid to say 
 so — has consistently held to a policy of colonial aggrandizement, 
 even though this has meant the annual expenditure of large sums, 
 growing yearly larger, without any adequate returns. 
 
 In size the German colonies at present are very respectable, 
 since they — roughly speaking — comprise a territory about five 
 times as large as that of the empire itself. To the vast tracts of 
 land in tropical and semi-tropical Africa which were first placed 
 under the protection of her flag have come successively other
 
 288 GERMANY 
 
 territories likewise situated in far-away and torrid zones. Besides 
 the German portion of New Guinea and many islands in that 
 region, she acquired, during the chancellorship of Count Buelow 
 the small Chinese colony of Kiao-chau — intended doubtless as the 
 nucleus of other and more extensive ones — which may prove in 
 its commercial and political value of greatest benefit to her; next, 
 the larger portion of Samoa, consisting of the two islands of 
 Upolu and Savaii, by the well-remembered tripartite agreement 
 between her and England and the United States; and lastly, 
 shortly after the close of the Spanish- American War, by purchase 
 from Spain, the Carolines and Marianes, with the exception of 
 Guam. 
 
 Still, comparing her acquisitions, even territorially considered, 
 with those made by England and France during the same space 
 of time, Germany has remained far behind, especially in Africa. 
 True, she has not met with a Fashoda, doubtless in consequence 
 of the moderation displayed all this time. But she had to see 
 since the middle of the eighties enormous stretches of far more 
 valuable African territory "gobbled up" by both England and 
 France. The irony of fate is shown distinctly in this, for 
 Germany it was which first, through Bismarck, pointed France 
 the way to a new colonial empire. Bismarck in his writings tells 
 all about that. He intimated to the then French ambassador in 
 Berlin, and to Jules Favre, that instead of "staring in a hypno- 
 tized way at that gap in the Vosges," left by German conquest, 
 they had better acquire beyond the seas a hundred times the size 
 of that strip of land, and that Germany would not stand in their 
 way in such a laudable ambition. The French statesmen took 
 the hint, and the Tonquin adventure, closely followed by a 
 score of others, was the consequence, but unfortunately with- 
 out thereby inducing France to cease "staring at the gap in the 
 Vosges." If it had not been for this direct encouragement given 
 by Bismarck, France, it is safe to say, would not have embarked 
 on her late career of colonial conquest, and neither the whole vast 
 territory to the south of China proper, nor that immense belt 
 of land now brought under French sway in Africa, would have 
 become the prey of the adventurous Gaul. Germany did not 
 divert, as Bismarck intended it, France's attention from her lost 
 provinces and from her dreams of revenge, and helped her lusty
 
 GERMANY'S COLONIES 289 
 
 neighbour indirectly to immense and valuable possessions in other 
 parts of the globe. Perhaps, however, it might be counted a gain 
 in the Bismarckian sense that France, by thus assiduously pur- 
 suing a colonial policy traced for her by the Iron Chancellor, did 
 become the inconvenient rival of England, and by meeting in 
 consequence, at a certain critical point in this career, with the 
 Fashoda reverse, has once more turned the bitter foe of proud 
 Albion. That, if it be a gain, is, however, the only tangible one 
 that has accrued to Germany in the wake of France's new colonial 
 policy. 
 
 But while by no means as large as either England's or France's 
 acquisitions made during the same short period, in point of 
 size Germany now holds a goodly colonial empire. In point of 
 intrinsic worth, though, that cannot be maintained, as a hasty 
 survey of the facts, drawn from the latest official sources, will 
 demonstrate. 
 
 In Africa she has Togo, a territory lying on the Gulf of Guinea, 
 about one-sixth the size of Gennany, with a coast of only fifty- 
 two kilometres in length. The climate is tropical and murderous. 
 There are no harbours and the coast is fiat and inaccessible. 
 Part of the interior is fertile, but in the absence of almost any 
 navigable rivers — for the Mono, Sio, and the tributaries of the 
 Volta are not useful that way — and of all other means of com- 
 munication, excepting footpaths, the production is commercially 
 not very available. As a matter of fact, the only things of 
 commercial value there are products of the oil palm. The negro 
 population belongs to the Ewe tribes, and is indolent, super- 
 stitious, and fetish-worshiping. This colony costs the empire 
 annually some 2,500,000 marks, which is likewise the total value 
 of its exports, while the imports figure up a trifle higher. There 
 are but 135 whites in the w^hole colony, 127 of them being 
 Germans. The colony is bounded by English and French 
 territory. In the 127 Germans are included the civil and 
 military officials. The native population has never been ascer- 
 tained as to size, but is not very large. 
 
 Cameroons, or Kamerun, as it is spelled in German, is a more 
 valuable possession, in fact, intrinsically the most valuable under 
 the German flag. It is located between 4.40 and 2.21 degrees north 
 latitude, like?wise on the Gulf of Guinea and has a coast exten-
 
 2 90 GERMANY 
 
 sion of 320 kilometres, or about 220 miles. In size it is almost 
 as large as Germany. The population numbers, however, only 
 about 3,000,000 all told. It consists of various tribes of the 
 great Bantu negro family, who occupy the coast regions, and of 
 Soudan negro tribes in the mountainous and plateau districts of 
 the interior. Among the former there are still some cannibal 
 tribes, and all of them are fetish worshipers of the most 
 degraded type. The Soudan tribes are warlike and difhcult to 
 manage, and are under the lead of a Mohammedan tribe, the 
 Fulbes. Their main industry is slave hunting and selling. 
 The colonial troops have had several bloody wars with the 
 Fulbe.s. A dangerous and rebellious chieftain named Tibati 
 was finally brought to submission in 1899. The coast tribes are 
 unused to labour or agriculture, but do some trading. The whole 
 coast belt is low, swampy and very unhealthy, and malaria and 
 dysentery make the average duration of a white man's life there 
 very short indeed. The mortality rate among the of^cials and 
 planters is, despite the fact that they never stay longer than a 
 year or two in the country before taking long leave of absence at 
 home, simply frightful. The interior is partly volcanic and 
 throughout mountainous, up to an altitude of 13,000 feet, and 
 much more healthful. It is the coast region, however, which 
 •is alone commercially valuable. Owing to various causes it has 
 so far only been partially exploited by German planters and 
 dealers, but it produces cocoa of excellent quality, fine rubber, 
 palm oil and pits, ivory, kola nuts, etc., and of late the culture of 
 cotton has been introduced under the tuition of coloured experts 
 from this country. The labour question plays, however, a great 
 part in that whole region, and is very difficult of regulation. 
 The coast belt produces, besides, everything typically tropical 
 for local consumption. 
 
 One additional difficulty of Cameroons is the scarcity of means 
 of communication, the waterways being almost the whole year 
 around unsuitable for navigation. However, the Benue, the 
 Rio del Rey, and the Sannaga can be utilized to some extent. 
 The culture of the commercially very valuable ramie fiber plant 
 has also been lately introduced by a plantation society, and 
 promises well. The exports amounted last year to over 6,000,000 
 marks in value, and the imports to about 12,000,000. The
 
 GERMANY'S COLOiNIES 291 
 
 German government received some 1,600,000 marks in duties, 
 and some 2,000,000 of marks had to be contributed from home 
 for administrative expenses; of this the maintenance of the 
 colonial troops — amounting to about 1,200 men, largely coloured 
 • — swallowed up the largest part. 
 
 The main drawback to Cameroons is its coast climate. With- 
 out that it would, indeed, be a most valuable possession, for 
 large districts in it are extraordinarily fertile, and the abundance 
 of rain permits from three to six crops per year. Cape 
 Debundja and vicinity shows an average annual humidity of 
 about twenty-eight feet, being one of the highest on the face 
 of the earth. The European inhabitants of this colony number 
 nearly 600, of which 452 are Germans, the rest mostly English. 
 
 Some thirteen degrees farther south, between 17.16 and 28.38 
 latitude north, and with a long coast, is German Southwest Africa, 
 in size almost double that of the empire. Its northern boundary 
 is partially formed by the Kunene River, and its southern one by 
 the Orange River and Cape Colony. The climate is much more 
 healthy than that of any other German colony, but is still semi- 
 tropical. Germany hopes to there settle in the course of time a 
 large and prosperous number of German agriculturists and cattle 
 raisers. The colony was in part first acquired from native chiefs 
 by the Bremen merchant, Luderitz. Portuguese territory is to 
 the north of this colony, and England owns the so-called Walfish 
 Bay, which is the most valuable harbour. Swakopmund is the 
 only German port there at all practicable. The main trouble 
 with this colony is its dearth and the unproductive soil, which 
 requires abundant artificial irrigation. The population, whose 
 size is not known, is also a hindrance, being partly hostile, and 
 the rest indolent and unprogressive. It is Hottentot in the 
 south, and Herrero and Namaqua in the north. There are 
 copper mines of value, and it is suspected that both gold and 
 diamond bearing land is within the borders of the colony, but 
 the prospecting done so far has failed to locate it. Graphite 
 and silver ore have been found in some quantity. Part of the 
 interior is very mountainous, the Omatako being some 8,500 
 feet high. 
 
 The only export article of value so far traded in is guano, of 
 which over a million marks' worth left the colon v last vear. The
 
 292 GERMANY 
 
 empire only received about 1,000,000 marks' worth in duties, 
 etc., and had to make up a deficit of over 9,000,000 by Reichstag 
 appropriation. In fact, this colony, next to German East Africa, 
 has so far proved the worst "elephant" of all, requiring every 
 year large appropriations, and yielding little. The colonial troops 
 kept there are German, and number nearly 1,000 all told. In all 
 there are some 3,388 whites residing in the colony, of whom 
 over 2,000 are Germans. 
 
 On the eastern coast of Africa, opposite Zanzibar, and between 
 4.40 and 10.41 latitude north, stretches another vast territory 
 owned by Germany, viz., German East Africa, bounded on the 
 north by English, on the South by Portuguese, and on the west 
 by Congo State territory. Its population counts about 4,000,000, 
 and in size the colony is almost twice that of Germany. The 
 coast line is also unfavourable, being low and accessible for ships 
 at only a few points, the principal harbour being Dar-es-Salam, 
 with Tanga, Lindi, and Mikindani as of secondary importance. 
 While the coast is low and malarial, and tropical fevers are there 
 endemic, the interior is partly a high and barren plateau and 
 partly crossed by high chains of mountains. This colony can 
 hardly ever pay in the commercial or any other sense, for both 
 soil and climate seem to preclude such a possibility. The interior 
 has, it is true, large districts which are, owing to their high eleva- 
 tion, healthy and suitable enough in that respect for habitation 
 by the white man, but the soil is sterile, and the rainfall is fre- 
 quently so insufficient as to produce famine. The grasshopper 
 plague is also one of the features of the country, and the 
 rinderpest and other cattle diseases prove ruinous. Since German 
 occupation began, there have been several famines of so severe 
 a nature that whole tribes starved to death, and the total 
 mortality from this source alone has been frightful. In the 
 interior rises, from amidst a group of almost inaccessible 
 mountains, the giant of Africa, the Kilimandjaro, about 20,000 
 feet high, and to the extreme west are the lakes Victoria, 
 Tanganyika, and Nyassa, spread in direction from north to 
 south. The trade of these lakes, however, has of late been 
 largely diverted to English or Congo territory. 
 
 The population is mainly Bantu negro, with warlike Massai in 
 the north and Zulus in the south, and the mixed race of Suaheli,
 
 GERMANY'S COLONIES 293 
 
 which is largely of Arab blood, along the coast. The latter 
 is by far the most civilized, and its dialect forms the liw^ua jranca 
 in the whole of East Africa. There has been an almost unceas- 
 ing warfare carried on in this colony since Germany acquired it, 
 either with tribes in the interior or with the dominant Arab 
 element on the coast, and conditions are by no means settled as 
 yet. This colony, in fact, has been the most expensive and 
 relatively the most unprofitable. But for some inscrutable 
 reason it is precisely the one on which the colonial enthusiasts 
 and the Central Government in Berlin have wasted their great- 
 est efforts. Count Goetzen, formerly German military attache 
 in Washington, and his American wife, the former Baltimore 
 belle, Mrs. Lay, do at present the honours in the gubernatorial 
 palace in Dar-es-Salam, and there is more military splendour, 
 more red tape, and more imported Prussian-bureaucracy in this 
 ' colony than in all others combined. But that does not alter 
 the facts as to the unfavourable climatic and geologic conditions. 
 Nearly everything that has been tried in German East Africa 
 has proved a financial failure. It has been so with sugar, with 
 indigo, and especially with coffee and tobacco. The rivers of the 
 colony, the Pangani, Wami, Rufidji, Rovuma, are not navigable. 
 There are hardly any roads besides the caravan roads. The 
 native interior population is miserably poor and unprogressive, 
 and the railroads now building and projected will, under the most 
 favourable circumstances, not pay for generations, if they ever 
 will. The trade has greatly decreased since German occupation, 
 and the imports from and exports to Germany likewise. The 
 total exports now amount to barely 3,000,000 marks, and consist 
 in the main of ivory (brought by caravans from the interior), 
 rubber, copra, copal, sesame, and other raw products. The 
 imports amounted to some 10,000,000 marks, but consisted 
 one-half in foodstuffs and articles of every kind for the white 
 population, especially the numerous civil and military ofhcials. 
 The empire has to make good an annual deficit varying between 
 six and ten millions. Out of these sums the colonial troops, 
 numbering about 2,500 men, are paid. 
 
 That cluster of colonies termed administratively New Guinea, 
 and comprising the German portion of the large island of New 
 Guinea, the so-called Bismarck Archipelago, and the Carolines
 
 2 94 GERMANY 
 
 and Marianes, is together about half the size of Germany. The 
 New Guinea part of it is by far the most valuable, though that 
 does not mean a great deal, inasmuch as the whole trade amounts 
 annually only to a couple of million marks, counting both 
 imports and exports. The islands variously s^tyled Salomons Isles, 
 or Bismarck Archipelago, are inhabited by cannibals for the 
 larger part. The Carolines and Marianes may in course of time 
 amount to something in the commercial way, but so far they do 
 not. There are almost as many missionaries as natives living 
 there, remnants of the Spanish regime. The Marshall Islands 
 are also commercially very insignificant. The same remark 
 applies to Samoa, although Germany is now making strenuous 
 efforts to improve matters there. The total exports from the 
 German part of Samoa was last year but 1,500,000 marks, and 
 the imports a trifle over 2,000,000. The empire's contribu- 
 tion to balance Samoa's exchequer was for the same period 
 146,000 marks, and the revenues fell even short of that small 
 amount. 
 
 It is expected that Kiao-chau, Germany's small slice of China, 
 taken by force in 1898, will some day be commercially the most 
 important of her transoceanic possessions. The intention is 
 to make of it a second Hongkong. It has one of China's most 
 populous, fertile, and salubrious provinces. Shantung, for 
 Hinterland, and Germany is grudging neither money nor men to 
 make something of the new colony, of its free harbour, Tsingtao, 
 and of the extremely valuable mines, which are at an accessible 
 distance behind it. During the four years of German occupa- 
 tion the Reichstag has granted altogether some $10,000,000 for 
 the improvement of this colony, which is, territorially consid- 
 ered, the smallest of all, comprising but 100 square kilometres, 
 and that body has appropriated another 13,000,000 of marks for 
 the current 3^ear. The harbour there has been deepened and 
 made accessible during winter as well. Docks and wharves are 
 being built, large warehouses are being constructed, and besides 
 government enterprise there is also cj^uite a deal of private 
 German enterprise shown there. The civil and military adminis- 
 tration has been consolidated and perfected on German models, 
 and the military and naval safety of the place has been vouch- 
 safed by a garrison numbering 2,352 men, and by strong
 
 GERMANY'S COLONIES 295 
 
 defenses in the harbor and its approaches, as ■^^'eII as by 
 fortifications on tlic land side. 
 
 In fine, the preHminaries are all being properly attended to 
 by Germany, to make something worth while of Kiao-chau, but 
 the future alone will tell whether the hopes entertained will ever 
 be fulfilled. Meanwhile the trade of Kiao-chau is as yet ridicu- 
 lously small, amounting to something like $25,000 only — always 
 excepting, of course, the imports for the above purposes from. 
 Germany and elsewhere. But it must be admitted that Germany 
 has every reason to expect a great influx of trade to Kiao-chau 
 within a relatively brief period. The coal fields of Shantung 
 which are now being reached by the new German railroad 
 from Tsingtao will alone bring a great deal of shipping to her 
 harbour, as this coal is unequaled in quality on the whole eastern 
 coast of Asia. The iron ores from mines within a radius of fifty 
 miles of Kiao-chau are also said to be of exceptional richness. 
 The agreement made between China and Germany after the 
 seizure of Kiao-chau virtually granted Germany the sole right 
 of exploitation for Shantung, and although this paragraph has 
 been strongly demurred to by the United States, England, and 
 Japan, the probability is that, practically at least, Germany will 
 be able to do pretty much as she likes in "milking" Shantung 
 and all there is to be gotten out of that province of 20,000,000 
 population Russia and France understand, and acquiesce in, 
 that this is Germany's "sphere of influence" in China. 
 
 Summarizing, then, this brief survey of Germany's present 
 colonies, it is quite evident that they are, looking at them in the 
 present light or that of the future, a rather poor bargain for 
 so much money, men and energy expended — with the possible 
 exception of Kiao-chau. There are several conclusions that may 
 be safely drawn regarding them. Not one of them is suitable for 
 the German settler and emigrant, at least not in large numbers. 
 German Southwest Africa is the only larger colony whose climate 
 is nearly moderate and adaptable to the German physical make- 
 up, but there the poverty of the soil seems to forbid fructification 
 of that advantage. The German government advises only such 
 farmers or cattle growers to emigrate to that colony who have 
 to invest there a ready capital of at least $3,000. So that it is 
 quite certain that the colonies which Germany has been thus far
 
 296 GERMANY 
 
 able to acquire do not solve the main problem — i. e., how to dis- 
 pose of Germany's surplus population in a manner best serving 
 the nation's political, racial and commercial advantages. That 
 problem to-day is, in fact, as far from its solution as ever. There 
 is, to be sure, a general readiness, or plan, to acquire other and, 
 for the above purpose, more suitable colonies in some way and at 
 some time, no matter from whom. Germany is in the market 
 for this end. She Vv^ould like nothing better than to become 
 Portugal's or France's colonial heir. There is, it may be recalled, 
 some sort of understanding between England and Germany 
 on the one side, and Portugal on the other. The purport of 
 this agreement is, roughly speaking, that Portugal has given 
 these two powers, to both of whom she is under heavy financial 
 obligations, first option rights in purchasing any or all of her 
 colonies, whenever she should get in such serious straits as to be 
 forced to sacrifice her national pride to her national honour and 
 independence. Portugal has still, as the map shows, some 
 pretty good tidbits for a connoisseur in colonies — Goa in the 
 Indies, Macao in China, the Azores and Cape Verdes, and im- 
 mense and in part very valuable possessions in Africa. Some 
 day there will be a dividing up of all this crude wealth between 
 England and Germany, England getting the lion's share. That 
 much is reasonably certain. A good deal of these Portuguese 
 possessions in Africa border on German territory, and hence 
 will greatly enhance the value of the latter. With Spain, too, 
 Germany has a sort of understanding — as the result of lengthy 
 negotiations — regarding the Island of Fernando Po, situated 
 opposite the Cameroons colony. 
 
 But all this, and the other schemes and half-formed plans 
 of Germany as to additional colonial acquisitions, lie veiled in 
 the future. Just now her colonial possessions are practically 
 worthless, worse than worthless, for they cost her a great deal, 
 and she will probably never get out of them again what is being 
 put into them one way and another. 
 
 Besides, it can hardly be said that Germany has shown a 
 lucky hand in her colonizing endeavours. Without really intend- 
 ing to do so, merely following the natural bent of her political 
 and social mind, she has taken pattern much more largely from 
 those unfortunate French colonizing methods than from the
 
 GERMANY'S COLONIES 297 
 
 only successful ones that modern history tells us about, viz., the 
 English ones. Bismarck from the start warned against that. He 
 always maintained that the English way — letting the merchant 
 and planter, settler and prospector, show the way, lay the 
 practical foundation, create trade and vested interests, and have 
 the flag then follow them, in a modest and inexpensive manner — 
 was the one for Germany to imitate. But the spirit of the nation 
 tended in another direction. It tended to at once set about 
 creating an expensive, cumbersome and useless but well- 
 organized and perfectly graded government apparatus, scaled 
 and working very much as at home in Germany — a duplication of 
 the bureaucratism and militarism left behind, in fact. Germans 
 are used to this, just as Englishmen are unused to it. And so 
 the central authorities in Berlin unconsciously, almost instinc- 
 tively, copied the French method of organizing and managing 
 colonies — a method which has always failed in the long run. 
 Thus you see in every German colony to-day, even in the smallest 
 and most unimportant, a whole administrative machinery, 
 colonial troops and police to preserve public and private peace, 
 judges, governors, and so forth, and the rough and ready settler, 
 instead of being left to fight out his battles alone and thus 
 become what he couldn't be at home — a man of sturdy inde- 
 pendence, strong will, and indomitable courage, the man able 
 to cope with the new situation — has to ask the permission of these 
 colonial authorities at every step, and thus remains in leading- 
 strings. Germany has yet to prove that she can successfully 
 organize, manage and foster colonies. The spirit of her home 
 institutions, of the nation, seems to forbid it. There are many 
 in Germany who see and feel this. In the Reichstag the leaders 
 of the Left have often pointed it out. One of the most original 
 and ablest of her colonial politicians and writers, Gustav I\Ieinecke, 
 in a series of powerfully written pamphlets demonstrated 
 it. The term of "assessorism," meant to convey the above idea, 
 was coined and is in a portion of the press invoked against it. 
 But the prevailing system will probably remain in force, simply 
 because it is in conformity with the present status of the 
 German political and social conditions. 
 
 But whether or no, the colonial fever is still in tlie German 
 blood, and with millions of Germans it is a fad to which they are
 
 298 GERMANY 
 
 willing to sacrifice something, irrespective of the tangible, the 
 commercial value therewith connected. As witness, for instance, 
 the German Colonial Society. Its membership rises into the 
 hundreds of thousands, and branches exist in almost every 
 German town and village. Its presiding officers include an 
 uncle of the Empress, also Duke John Albert of Mecklenburg, 
 and a score of the highest men in the empire. The object of the 
 society is to further colonial interests. There are dozens of 
 other organizations which nominally exist for the exploitation 
 of some colony or other, or to conduct a plantation on com- 
 mercial lines, but which are really gotten up and run just for the 
 purpose of affording the members a chance to vent their patriot- 
 ism, nobody expecting any returns on the sums invested, and 
 each concern managed in a most unbusinesslike manner. Many 
 millions of capital are thus frittered away which yield no returns, 
 or only very inadequate ones. This, as above stated, is a fad, a 
 popular craze, and probably some years hence sober sense will 
 reassert itself. For one thing, though, the large capitalists in 
 Germany do not go into these colonial mercantile ventures. 
 They continue to treat business and patriotism as separate 
 things.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 GERMAN COURTS 
 
 When compared with the days of old, court life in Germany, 
 as elsewhere, has been stripped of much of its imposing features. 
 The day is past when it was one continuous round of pleasures 
 and dissipations. The gay court of Napoleon III at Compienge 
 and the Tuileries finds no duplicate in the Germany of to-day. 
 Nor is there any such ruler there like Jerome, the whilom king 
 of Westphalia, whose motto on bidding his guests leave at night 
 was, in his broken German, "Morken widder lustick" (to-morrow 
 there will be lots of fun again). The glories and splendours of 
 the Dresden court, once rivaling those of Versailles, are now 
 cut down to very modest dimensions. And in the majority of 
 the smaller courts life has become insufferably dull. 
 
 Of course, this decline of magnificence and this utter lack of 
 spendthrift methods is not alone attributable to a more serious 
 turn of mind that has taken possession of the sovereigns, though 
 there is no denying the fact that a great sobering process has been 
 going on among them for several generations. It is more largely 
 due to the political awakening of the peoples ruled over, and to 
 the much slenderer incomes of the rulers. In the eighteenth 
 century, whenever a petty German tyrant found an ebb in his 
 treasury, he simply sold so many thousands of his faithful sub- 
 jects to the highest bidder, which usually meant England, and 
 then he had once more the wherewithal to give splendid fetes, to 
 pay the excessive salaries of his French and Italian ballet dancers, 
 and to build another fairy palace or two for the latest favourite 
 It was in that way, as the youthful Schiller so dramatically 
 showed in his "Cabale und Liebe," that mihions upon millions 
 were annually wasted at the courts of small duchies and princi- 
 palities, whose legitimate public revenues did not run into such 
 figures within a score of years. In those days and until the 
 middle of the last century, rulers were, indeed, potentates, for 
 
 299
 
 300 GERMANY 
 
 they could do as they pleased, and there was no Reichstag, no 
 State legislative chambers, to say them nay. 
 
 But those days are irrevocably gone. Even in Germany, 
 intensely monarchic as they are, the people have become chary of 
 their substance, and will not permit their dear rulers to squander 
 it. The sovereigns of Germany are now limited in their 
 expenditures to those constitutionally fixed appropriations and 
 revenues which their subjects saw fit to leave them, and to the 
 income from their private fortunes, which in many cases are very 
 considerable. Indeed, there are several ruling sovereigns in 
 Germany who scorn voted appropriations and "appanages," and 
 prefer to pay their own way altogether out of their own pockets. 
 The grand duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin is one of these. The 
 larger half of the king of Saxony's income is derived from his 
 private fortune. In Mecklenburg-Strelitz, too, the ruling grand 
 duke is not voted any sum from the public revenues, nor do the 
 rulers of Saxe-Altenburg, of Anhalt, of the two Reuss princi- 
 palities, and of Schaumburg-Lippe receive any annual remunera- 
 tion out of public funds, excepting such as accrue to them from 
 certain domanial estates. It results from this, as may be inci- 
 dentally mentioned, that a number of these petty German rulers 
 are Agrarians; nay, for that matter, all of them are, for the 
 income from their crown lands, domanial estates, forests, dairies, 
 etc., plays a large role in the annual revenues of every one of them. 
 And since American competition has greatly cut down the prices 
 their tenants and farmers are able to obtain for every sort of 
 agricultural product, the revenues of their august employers 
 have shrunk correspondingly. As an irreverent American once 
 tersely put it : The king business no longer pays. 
 
 Nevertheless, there are still numberless persons who look 
 upon courts as the earthly equivalent for paradise, and upon 
 the privilege of attending a court as the acme of bliss. And all 
 these persons do not dwell in Germany, either. Some of them 
 live in republics. 
 
 The Berlin court, as the largest and most important, may be 
 mentioned first. Under this present Kaiser it has become much 
 more magnificent and gay than it was during the reign of his 
 grandfather. The latter made it a practice to always save a 
 considerable portion of his revenues, and to put them by for a
 
 GERMAN COURTS 301 
 
 rainy day, and for his progeny as well. Thus it was that his 
 grandson on ascending the throne discovered quite a nest-egg, 
 rumour said 60,000,000 marks. This went partially to his brother, 
 Henry, but the Kaiser's own share has helped him greatly to 
 tide over temporary stringencies in his particular money market. 
 As king of Prussia the Kaiser receives an annual revenue of 
 15,719,296 marks, or nearly $4,000,000, which sum is regularly 
 appropriated by the Prussian Diet. His income from his do- 
 manial and private estates, mines, forests, lakes, etc., has shrunk 
 greatly during the past ten years, but it still amounts to another 
 million and a half. As Kaiser, the Reichstag merely votes him 
 annually a sum "for representative purposes," as the phrase goes, 
 and he is expected to defray out of that a number of expenses 
 which naturally devolve on the imperial crown, including prizes to 
 artists or literary men, gifts to charitable institutions or pensions 
 to individuals, and other matters. 
 
 As head of the Hohenzollern dynasty the Kaiser has to take 
 care in a suitable manner of all the members of the royal house- 
 hold, so far as there is need of it. There are, however, as it 
 happens, but one or two distant relatives of his who claim a 
 share of his revenues, while all the others are very well pro- 
 vided with this world's goods, and one of them. Prince Frederick 
 Leopold, who is married to a younger sister of the Empress, 
 has a much larger independent fortune of his own than that 
 of the Kaiser's family. His uncle, too. Prince Albrecht, the 
 Regent of Brunswick, is very wealthy. 
 
 The imperial court is usually held either in Berlin or in 
 Potsdam. In Berlin it is the ancient Castle, orSchloss, situated 
 in the centre of the oldest portion of the city, on the banks of the 
 Spree, where the imperial family resides during its regular 
 stay in town, which lasts as a rule from shortly after New Year's 
 until the middle of April or May, according to the early or later 
 arrival of spring weather. During these three months, then, the 
 large court festivities take place. The Berlin Schloss consists 
 of three main portions, the oldest and most picturesque 
 dating back some 500 years, and being now exclusively used as 
 residential quarters for court officials, superannuated chamber- 
 lains, ladies-in-waiting, etc.; its rooms are small and devoid of 
 modern comforts. The central and the northern portions are
 
 302 GERMANY 
 
 architecturally much more pretentious; they enclose spacious 
 courts, and the total number of rooms in them runs up to nearly 
 600. However, only about fifty of them are large enough for 
 big assemblages, It is in these that the court festivities are 
 held, and a number of them, such as the White Hall, the Black 
 Eagle Hall, the Red Eagle Hall, the Order Hall, the Branden- 
 burg Chambers, are indeed very fine, and contain not only a 
 wealth of objets de vertu, noble paintings, carved and heavily 
 gilt furniture, costly gobelins and other precious hangings, 
 but show likewise artistic decorations on walls and ceilings. 
 However, intrinsically the interior of the so-called Stadtschloss 
 in Potsdam is more valuable, where there is an enormous amount 
 of solid silver used in the decorations. 
 
 During the short court season in Berlin are given about ten 
 large and as many smaller fetes, consisting of several big court 
 balls, at which the attendance usually reaches two or three thou- 
 sand ; the more exclusive balls given for the more intimate circle 
 of the imperial court, where the number in most cases does not 
 exceed three or four hundred ; the regular round of banquets, and 
 possibly several special ones in honour of distinguished guests ; 
 the series of court receptions, and the court concerts and 
 masquerades just before the beginning of the Lenten season. 
 During Lent itself noisy and particularly frivolous gayeties are 
 not indulged in. This programme not infrequently suffers 
 considerable curtailment, in case the death of near relatives 
 of the imperial house or of leading members of allied or friendly 
 dynasties has necessitated court mourning, lasting in some 
 instances for six weeks or several months. 
 
 The court festivities are always solemnly announced in the 
 official press, with all their attendant details, such as the hours 
 and days, the separate entrances to be used by every class of the 
 invited guests, the costumes to be worn, the preliminary visits to 
 be paid by the ladies to the first lady-in-waiting of the Empress, 
 and by the men to the chief chamberlain and chief master 
 of ceremonies; and so forth. They open with the first "Defilir- 
 Cour," or ceremonious reception, at which all persons entitled to 
 presentation at court make their first obeisance to majesty. 
 Those entitled to admittance at court, by reason of birth or 
 official station, are the members of the royal household ; members
 
 GERMAN COURTS . 303 
 
 of other German dynasties present in Berlin; members of the 
 aristocracy; all officers of the army and navy; all members of the 
 Prussian and of the imperial cabinets; all persons on whom a 
 high decoration has been conferred ; court and higher government 
 officials; members of the Prussian Diet, of the Bundesrath, and 
 of the Reichstag. All these persons are termed "courfahig," 
 or entitled to appearance at court. As the members of the 
 Reichstag, too, are so entitled, the sixty members belonging to 
 the Socialist Faction there might also go; but not one of them 
 has ever tried it. 
 
 At the initial receptions, of course, the ddbutantes of the 
 season are also presented, usually by their mothers. Much 
 expensive finery is displayed on these occasions, and some youth- 
 ful charms as well. However, it may be truthfully said that 
 there is more beauty, more elegance, and a finer array of glitter- 
 ing gems seen at many a ball in the upper circles of society in 
 republican America than at any of these court festivities in 
 imperial Germany. For the men, of course, the choice in 
 costume is narrowly circumscribed by court etiquette. There 
 is a certain cut and material, a certain sword and shoe buckle, 
 prescribed for each category of male guests, and they may not 
 transcend these limits. They must, of course, wear smalls and 
 silk stockings, all their German or Prussian decorations, and 
 their coats (style Louis XVI) must have a certain hue and show 
 a certain amount and manner of embroidery, either in gold or 
 silver. Most of them look extremely foolish in this antiquated 
 and unbecoming gear. With the ladies, of course, it is different. 
 Except when obtaining special indulgence from the Empress 
 on account of bodily infirmity or old age, they must be in low- 
 cut corsage, and their train must neither be below nor above 
 a certain length. But otherwise they can indulge their fancy, 
 and the result is by no means always pleasing. Court dresses 
 come high, and from $800 up to $2,000 is often expended on 
 such a costume in the first place. But such dresses generally 
 do duty in Germany for several generations, and are bequeathed 
 as heirlooms by mothers and maiden aunts. Then the material 
 is turned perhaps for the sixth time, and the cut altered to fit 
 new fashions and new physical proportions. With many of 
 these ladies such economy is absolutely necessary, for the large
 
 304 GERMANY 
 
 majority of them are by no means possessed of great wealth. Thus 
 the total effect of such a court representation is not overpower- 
 ing, and there is even a tinge of shabbiness perceptible now and 
 then. 
 
 At the smaller court affairs it is different, for they are exclu- 
 sively attended by men and women of high social position and of 
 means. The diplomatic fetes are a matter per se. Once every 
 year the Kaiser gives a fine banquet exclusively to the heads 
 of embassies and legations, and another one to the military 
 and naval attaches, and they are also invited to several of the 
 large balls and receptions, but only in exceptional cases to the 
 smaller and more enjoyable functions. On state occasions, 
 such as the visit of honoured guests, allied monarchs, etc., there 
 are given gala performances at the Royal Opera and at the 
 Royal Theatre, when much floral decoration and other luxury 
 is indulged in, and special banquets, etc., when the best wines 
 and the choicest gold plate are produced. On the occasion of 
 the visit of the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, eighteen 
 months ago, to help celebrate the coming of age of the German 
 Crown Prince, a gala performance was given at the Royal Opera 
 House. Some $5,000 had alone been spent in choice roses, with 
 which the whole interior had been prettily decorated. Huge 
 garlands of fragrant roses hung from the ceiling, and the walls 
 and galleries were festooned with them. The three-days' visit 
 is said to have cost the Berlin court a matter of half a million 
 dollars There are also some special court fetes every year, 
 hallowed by tradition, such as the co-called "Ordensfest," in 
 the middle of January, when all those who have received 
 orders and decorations during the preceding year or on that 
 day are the Kaiser's invited guests, a crowd usually running into 
 six or seven thousand; the Black Eagle Day, when the new 
 knights of that most prized of all Prussian decorations are 
 installed and feted ; and the day when the Knights of the Order 
 of St. John, an aristocratic organization of benevolent tendencies, 
 are invested with their new dignity at the solemn annual chapter. 
 
 At all these occasions the ceremony to be followed is minutely 
 prescribed and rigidly adhered to, and the court officers whose 
 special function it is to watch over the proper observance of the 
 rules laid down do so with great severity and with a devotion
 
 GERMAN COURTS 305 
 
 beyond words. The present Kaiser is a great stickler for these 
 formaUties, and has materially elaborated them. Generally 
 speaking, too, his court has become more exclusive than it was 
 during his grandfather's time, and this is especially true as regards 
 the admission of foreigners. The greatest caution is exercised 
 by the Berlin court functionaries, acting under the instructions 
 of the imperial couple, to exclude undesirable elements, and 
 before invitations are issued a rigid examination has to be 
 undergone as to antecedents, social position, and other points. 
 As regards Americans, the rule is to admit to the Berlin court 
 only those few persons every season who have either become 
 personally acquainted with the Kaiser and have been found to 
 possess no objectionable traits of any kind, or who are strongly 
 recommended by the American ambassador. He again is 
 expected to recommend only such of his countrywomen or men 
 who have some special claim for this sort of recognition, and their 
 number in any one year hardly ever exceeds two or three. The 
 lines are drawn not nearly so severely at several of the German 
 minor courts, such as Dresden, Stuttgart, and Weimar, where ten 
 or twelve American ladies are often presented during the season, 
 but even there a good deal of social or political influence is usually 
 required to overcome the latent reluctance to admit the daugh- 
 ters or sons of a republic to these gatherings of royalty. A 
 couple of years ago, I remember, the prayers of about thirty fair 
 American ladies in Dresden for attendance at court were rejected. 
 This was, however, largely owing to the unfortunate behaviour 
 of a reckless American girl tiie season before, who had actually 
 snubbed the mild old King Albert of Saxony, not having recog- 
 nized him. 
 
 Between Easter and Pentecost, as soon as the weather has 
 become settled and mild, the Berlin court is transferred to 
 Potsdam, where the imperial headquarters are at the New Palace, 
 that being the largest and best appointed, and being surrounded 
 by a beautiful and very extensive park. There are near by 
 some smaller palaces, and they are made use of more or less 
 during the season as well. The fetes given in Potsdam are not 
 such large affairs, and for the most part consist in small luncheon 
 or dinner parties, though occasionally large garden parties or 
 so-called "Venetian Nights" are held. The Kaiser has of late
 
 3o6 GERMANY 
 
 years, though, acquired a prejudice against lengthy stays in his 
 Potsdam palaces, because of their insufficient drainage, a defect 
 which the architects have been so far unable to completely over- 
 come, although a matter of about a million has been unavailingly 
 spent in the task. He prefers Wilhelmshohe, near Cassel, the 
 quondam prison residence of Napoleon III, after Sedan and 
 until peace had been concluded. And he is quite right in pre- 
 ferring it, for in beauty of scenery and in convenience and com- 
 fort that chateau is far in advance. He is also much less exposed 
 to vulgar curiosity, for since bicycles have become inexpensive 
 thousands of Berlin youths and maidens ride out to the New 
 Palace in Potsdam on Sundays, whenever the Kaiser is known 
 to be there, staring at him and his family through the iron 
 railing that separates them from their ruler. And the Kaiser 
 has become cautious, besides, since the assassination of King 
 Umberto of Italy near his country residence of Monza. 
 
 While he is on his annual summer trip to the Scandinavian 
 seas, the Empress and some of her younger children either 
 remain in Wilhelmshohe, or make an outing somewhere in 
 pleasant lines, or go yachting. Later on, when the shooting 
 season is in full blast, she may accompany the Kaiser to 
 one of his northern estates, to Cadinen in West Prussia, or to 
 Rominten, perhaps, whither, however, but a small retinue 
 accompanies them. 
 
 Thus, on the whole, the imperial couple of Germany and their 
 court lead a quite unostentatious life, when compared with that 
 of the rulers of former generations. 
 
 The Bavarian court at Munich is the only one in Germany 
 which is even more exclusive than the one of Berlin, and that 
 court has a ceremonial, a costume, and a series of fetes quite 
 elaborate and more or less copied from those obtaining in Vienna. 
 The old regent of Bavaria, Luitpold, reigns in place of the 
 demented King Otto, and his son, Louis, will succeed him. King 
 Otto is not the only insane German sovereign. The other is 
 Prince Alexander of Lippe, in whose place the former Count 
 Lippe-Biesterfeld is now regent The present Duke of Coburg, 
 Charles Edward, who was the British Duke of Albany before 
 succession, is one of several minors among the German 
 sovereigns, and Prince Hohenlohe-Langenburg is for the present
 
 GERMAN COURTS 307 
 
 relieving him of the cares of governing the few thousands of his 
 subjects. 
 
 There arc several oddities among the other petty German 
 rulers, as, for example, the two principalities of Reuss. The 
 elder line, that of Reuss-Greiz, was represented in 1866 by a 
 bitter enemy of King William of Prussia, who sent his score or 
 so of soldiers to give battle to his haughty foe. His men accom- 
 plished nothing, however, and when Bismarck later on came to 
 make peace with all of Prussia's enemies, little Reuss and its ruler 
 were forgotten. So that to this day there is, in theory, war 
 between that tiny principality with its seventy thousand inhabi- 
 tants and Prussia with her thirty-four millions. Henry XXII, 
 the potent ruler of Reuss (elder line), never forgave that slight. 
 He would rather have preferred to be dethroned than to be 
 treated with such nonchalance. He died recently of a broken 
 heart. A curiosity of this petty dynasty of Reuss — much older 
 and at one time more powerful than the Hohenzollerns— is that 
 every member of it must be called Henry. The elder line goes 
 on counting Henrys until there have died a hundred of them, 
 when they begin to number anew; while the younger line, that of 
 Reuss-Schleiz, counts Henrys only for a century, then recom- 
 mences the count. 
 
 The creeping in of democratic ideas and customs into this 
 coterie of monarchs and princes, until recently so extremely 
 exclusive, may also be observed nowadays. There is much 
 evidence of that. It is nothing new, of course, that every member 
 of the Hohenzollern dynasty, like ill-fated Louis XVI, has to 
 learn a trade during boyhood, for this curious custom is two cen- 
 turies old. The present crown prince is a skilled cabinet-maker, 
 so that if at any time he should lose his bigger and more profitable 
 "job," he might turn his hand to this honourable trade and 
 earn another living. He keeps up his proficiency by constant 
 practice, and his rooms are full of small and cunningly devised 
 specimens of his skill, such as cupboards, bookshelves, etc. His 
 uncle, Prince George, of Prussia, recently deceased, was, however, 
 the only member of the house who followed seriously and 
 by natural preference a calling humbler than that of officer in 
 the army or navy, the two professions regarded in Germany as 
 the only ones not dishonouring noble blood. This rara avis,
 
 o 
 
 08 GERMANY 
 
 in fact, was a man of exclusively literary and artistic tastes; he 
 wrote a good deal under the pseudonym of G. Conrad, and some 
 of his historical dramas had quite a run in Berlin at one time. 
 He was a bibliophile, and has left fine old editions of early date. 
 He also collected early prints and engravings, and was forever 
 "mousing" around the shops of antiquaries and booksellers, 
 hunting bargains. These tastes of Prince George of Prussia, it 
 is almost needless to point out, were looked upon as decidedly 
 low by his noble relatives of the Hohenzollern family, but the 
 prince did not care a button about that. His friends and asso- 
 ciates were almost exclusively writers and artists, and he never 
 appeared at any court festivity since his nephew, the present 
 Kaiser, ascended the throne. In his vest pocket he always 
 carried a microscope, with which he was in the habit of deciphering 
 dim inscriptions and signatures on old coins or books. 
 
 Duke Charles Theodore of Bavaria is another man of similar 
 type. He is quite wealthy, and there is no need of his v/orking 
 for his bread, but he hates idleness, and has a great love for his 
 profession. He is a noted specialist in eye and ear diseases, and 
 practises incessantly, even when away for the summer on his 
 picturesque estate in the Bavarian Alps. Some time ago he 
 suitably commemorated the thousandth eye operation per- 
 formed by himself by issuing a pamphlet describing some of 
 the most interesting cures wrought by him. While in Munich, 
 during the rest of the year, he assiduously cultivates the acquaint- 
 ance of his colleagues, the other physicians, and is a frequent 
 attendant at the noted clinics there. His patients come to him 
 from every walk of life, and he treats them all alike. The poor 
 he charges nothing, but the wealthy patients are expected to pay 
 the usual fees. His earnings are devoted to charitable purposes. 
 
 The reigning Duke of Saxe-Meiningen is a great lover of the 
 stage, and is considered the best stage manager in Germany. 
 He made his little court theatre in Meiningen a model institution 
 in some respects, and reformed stage methods, especially so far 
 as historical truth in the costuming and scenery part goes, and 
 as regards the intelligent use of the stage chorus and of groups 
 intended to represent crowds, such as are called for in most 
 Shakespearean dramas, as well as in those of the German classics. 
 They talk of a Meiningen School of Acting in Germany — i. c, the
 
 GERMAN COURTS 309 
 
 one which pays special attention to this part of stagecraft. 
 The old Duke George got his wife, too, from the stage, she having 
 been a popular actress, and made her Baroness Heldburg. There 
 are several children from this union. Of course, their mother 
 being only " morganatically " joined in wedlock, these children 
 have no chance of ever succeeding to the throne, but they are in 
 all other respects treated by him as the children from his two 
 previous wives, who were of royal rank. Duke George has made 
 for years theatrical folk almost his only companions, and when in 
 trouble or financial difficulties he has often stood their friend. 
 The subjects of this unprejudiced ruler are perfectly satisfied 
 with these doings of their duke, and the little duchy is indeed 
 one of the happiest and best-governed in the empire. 
 
 The Kaiser himself, however, has in a certain sense done more 
 than any other ruler in Germany to democratize monarchy. 
 In many respects he is an autocrat and of tyrannical instincts, 
 while in others he is the most democratic ruler of them all. As 
 the humour takes him, he will invite the darkest reactionaries 
 among his suite, or he will choose the most liberal-minded 
 captains of industry to accompany him on one of his frequent 
 pleasure trips. On a recent occasion he selected as guests on a 
 yachting tour the leading men in German manufacture and 
 trade, two of them, viz., Isidore Loewe and Georg Bleichroder, 
 being Jews. On another occasion he showed great favour 
 to three other enterprising Jews, viz., Albert Ballin, the 
 director of the Hamburg- America Line; L. M. Goldberger, a 
 leading Berlin merchant; and Ernst von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, 
 a relative of the famous composer and a prominent German 
 banker. In this he gives grave offense to the Prussian nobility, 
 and they have not minced matters in their particular organ, the 
 Adelshlatt, in which they predicted the impending downfall of 
 the monarchy, owing to such consorting with the canaille. 
 
 Perhaps, however, "morganatic" unions among the rulers and 
 princes of Germany have made more serious inroads into the 
 "divine right" theory than any other factor. Such marriages 
 have become more and more frequent, and what is still more sig- 
 nificant, they now create hardly any sensation. In the Hapsburg 
 dynasty some cases have occurred of late that drew the attention 
 of the world, and it is remembered, of course, that the present
 
 
 
 lo GERMANY 
 
 heir to the imperial crovvii of Austria-Hungary married not many 
 months ago a Czech lady of inferior station. But on a smaller 
 scale the same thing is happening all the time in Germany as 
 well. The fact is deeply deplored by the dyed-in-the-wool mon- 
 archists there, but by nobody else, for almost every one of these 
 unions, in which the dictates of the heart triumphed over dynastic 
 scruples, has turned out well. The marriage of the late Prince 
 Albrecht of Prussia and the ladv of humble birth who was after- 
 wards created Countess Hohenau stood for fifty years as a 
 living illustration of this. The charming villa owned by this 
 couple on the borders of the Elbe, in Saxony, was for many years 
 the abode of almost unalloyed inarital bliss, and the fact that he 
 and his wife were virtually ostracized at the Prussian court 
 mattered very little to Prince Albrecht. 
 
 Erroneous opinions are held widely as to the precise meaning 
 of a morganatic union, or, as it is frequently termed in Germany, 
 "marriage on the left hand." Such a union is in all respects save 
 one the same as another marriage. It is solemnized by the 
 priest, and figures as a marriage in the full sense in the records 
 and civil registers. The issue is held as bom in lawful wedlock, 
 and they are entitled under the laws of Germany to their proper 
 and equitable share of the private fortunes of both father and 
 mother. The only exception is this: The father or mother 
 being of royal lineage, while the other partner is not, the latter 
 does not enter into the prerogatives and enjoyment of the higher 
 rank, and the children born to such a couple cannot inherit the 
 throne, if in the direct line of succession they would otherwise be 
 entitled to such inheritance. In other words, their civil status 
 is perfect, and the union itself is considered as an honourable one 
 for both sides, but for dynastic and political reasons, as pre- 
 scribed partly in constitutions and partly in dynastic house 
 regulations, the issue of such marriages is excluded from the 
 right of succession. Many of the children of such unions have 
 made names for themselves, of which truth the Battenbergs are 
 a striking exemplification. 
 
 Just to cite a few such cases of recent occurrence. Princess 
 Elisabeth of Bavaria, granddaughter to the present regent of 
 Bavaria, may first be mentioned. She married, in the face of the 
 strenuous objections of her whole family, Baron Seefried, then
 
 GERMAN COURTS 311 
 
 a young and handsome lieutenant in the Bavarian army, but 
 of ancient and noble lineage, and owner of several fine estates. 
 Although her aunt, Crown Princess Stephanie of Austria, and 
 the old Emperor Francis Joseph both espoused her cause, her 
 family did not relent, and the young couple were forced to leave 
 the country and to seek refuge in Austria, where Baron Seefried 
 was given an honourable position in the army. They are living 
 very happily together. Another Bavarian princess, Elvira, 
 married a Bohemian nobleman. Count Wrbna, owner of the 
 large estate of Holloschau in Austria, and lives there a quiet 
 and domestic life. 
 
 Prince Charles, brother of the grand duke of Baden, likewise 
 contracted a morganatic marriage with Baroness Beust, and he 
 and his children relinquished all claims to succession. A sister 
 of the reigning grand duke of Hesse, Princess Victoria, married 
 her cousin, himself the issue of a morganatic union. Prince 
 Battenberg. A granddaughter of the reigning grand duke of 
 Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Princess Marie, married, not a long while 
 ago, and under somewhat sensational circumstances, an 
 adventurer who was subsequently created Count Jametel. Duke 
 Constantine of Oldenburg is married morganatically to a former 
 cook, now created Countess Zarnekau. One of the sons of Duke 
 George of Saxe-Meiningen, Prince Ernst, is married to a former 
 governess, now Baroness Saalfeld. His father, as mentioned 
 above, has a former actress, Baroness Heldburg, for wife. 
 
 From these and other facts it might be supposed that mon- 
 archism is dying out in Germany, but it would be rash to draw 
 such a conclusion. Monarchism is unquestionably in process of 
 transformation there, and much of the needless formalism and 
 of the elaborate ceremony still attaching to it at this hour will 
 probably be lopped off within a generation or two. But the 
 roots of monarchism lie too deep there, and are too firmly 
 entwined around the historic past of the nation, to fall as quickly 
 into 'innocuous desuetude" as casual visitors to Germany are 
 often apt to imagine.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE PRESS 
 
 It is one of the anomalies of German public life that the press 
 is on a rather low plane. Not low morally, by any means, but 
 financially and in point of influence. The enormous and rapid 
 development of Germany during the past decade as a com- 
 mercial and industrial country ought to have had a similarly 
 stimulating and expanding effect in the development and growth 
 of the German press. And it must be admitted that in some 
 respects at least an effect of this kind is noticeable. But this 
 effect is so slight and so out of all proportion with the astound- 
 ing growth in the other directions mentioned as to make the 
 inference irresistible that some gravely disturbing factors have 
 been at work. 
 
 Looking the broad field over, there are, above all, three facts 
 that strike the observer. The first is the very large number of 
 periodical publications and, per contra, the very small number 
 of them that rise above mediocrity. Next, the amazingly small 
 amount of influence upon public and private life exerted by all 
 but a few of them. And lastly, the comparatively low status 
 in the popular estimation occupied by the whole class of writers, 
 publishers, and contributors to these publications. 
 
 This at first sight seems all the more inexplicable when the 
 fact is taken into consideration that journalism is by no means a 
 plant of recent culture in Germany. Its roots, in fact, reach 
 back as far as in either England, France, or this country. It is 
 almost 300 years ago that the first newspapers were started in 
 Germany, and during the whole of the eighteenth century there 
 was a steady growth in every direction — increase in the number 
 of them; increase in circulation; and increase in influence. 
 During the murderous Thirty- Years' War, regular and irregular 
 newsletters describing battles, sieges, massacres, and all the 
 sensational events on the theatres of action as well as in the rest 
 
 ,12 
 

 
 THE PRESS 313 
 
 of Europe, were issued by enterprising publishers, and many of 
 these sheets were even quaintly illustrated. Something over a 
 century later, during the Seven- Years' War, the press of 
 Germany had already attained to that degree of development 
 and influence, that it was recognized by the belligerents as an 
 important factor in swaying the minds, the prejudices and 
 sympathies of the world. Frederick the Great particularly had 
 a keen appreciation of the power of printer's ink during his whole 
 reign of forty-six years, and had practically if not theoretically 
 proclaimed freedom of the press. His famous dictum: " Leave 
 the gazettes undisturbed !" was more or less strictly obeyed in 
 his dominions. It is on record of him that on one occasion, riding 
 leisurely through the streets of Berlin, and noticing a newspaper 
 placard pasted high on a wall, wherein he was handled rather 
 severely by the writer, he stopped his attendant courtiers from 
 tearing down the libel, grimly saying: "Hangit lower !" Through 
 the struggle of iS 13-15, when Germany, humbled into the dust 
 by Napoleon I, rose in her might for the restoration of her 
 national independence, the press all over the country did its share 
 nobly and patriotically. The same may be said of that second 
 great struggle with France that fell into the year 1870-71. 
 
 Naturally, though, a country that had been reduced to a mere 
 "geographical idea," as Germany had been for the fifty years 
 antedating the war with Austria in 1866, ruled over autocrati- 
 cally and split up into a large number of small and impotent 
 states, with hardly any national conceptions or aims in common, 
 was no favourable soil on which to raise a powerful and inde- 
 pendent press. Before 1870 few Prussian newspapers circu- 
 lated outside of Prussia. The Saxon and Bavarian papers 
 confined their literary and their "counting-room" efforts to the 
 circumscribed territory of their own "narrower fatherland," 
 as the phrase then was. The German press as it exists to-day 
 dates only since the establishment of the present empire, thirty- 
 one years ago. At that time, and soon after, nearly all the big 
 German newspapers that to-day enjoy large circulations and a 
 measure at least of influence upon the public mind of the nation 
 were called into life. Political parties were founded, such as the 
 National Liberal (for nearly a generation the leading party of 
 Germany), the Centre or Ultramontane party, the Socialist, and
 
 314 GERMANY 
 
 others, and party mouthpieces were founded at the same 
 time. The main periodicals, too, have come into existence only 
 since then. Thus, in a certain sense at least, the German press 
 owes its rise to the unification of the fatherland, as so much else in 
 Germany does, and is, in its points of weakness and of strength, 
 the creature and the mirror of political, social and economic 
 conditions that have developed since. 
 
 There are no such papers of vast wealth and world-wide 
 reputation published in Germany as the London Times, the 
 Paris Figaro, or the New York Herald, papers that stand in the 
 eyes of other nations as typical and as embodying, in a way, the 
 political aspirations, foibles, prejudices and leanings of the 
 average Englishman, Frenchman, or American. The foreigner 
 visiting Berlin for the first time is astonished at nothing so much 
 as when, noticing everywhere in the business centre of the city 
 the evidences of rapid progress and fast increasing wealth, the 
 handsome and often palatial structures reared of late years by 
 the banks, the leading merchants and storekeepers, he inquires 
 his way to some of the foremost newspaper offices, and finds 
 them, instead of being housed sumptuously and on a large scale, 
 as they are in the other leading capitals of the world, occupying 
 mean and cramped quarters in backyards of uninviting-looking 
 low bviildings, to all appearance eking out a miserable existence. 
 Often the passer-by hardly notices a small and cheap wooden 
 sign over the passageway towards the rear buildings, proclaim- 
 ing the name of one of the leading "arbiters of thought," the 
 organ perhaps of a powerful political party. The Berlin organ 
 of the wealthiest wing of the aristocratic Conservative party. 
 Die Post, whose stockholders are principally to be found among 
 the titled estate-holders and among the highest government 
 officials, occupies, for instance, quarters which a well-to-do 
 provincial paper is this country would scorn, and its editor-in- 
 chief is hidden in a little sparsely furnished room, with an oil 
 lamp on his desk, and as sole master of ceremonies outside in the 
 cold corridor a freckled and hungry-looking office boy. Eugene 
 Richter, the foremost Liberal leader in Germany, and editor of 
 the Freisiunige Zeitung, which is the mouthpiece of the financial 
 aristocracy of Berlin, has to climb up three steep and narrpw 
 flights of stairs of an old-fashioned house in a side street to hia
 
 THE PRESS 315 
 
 editorial sanctum, measuring about ten by twelve and in which 
 a small looking-glass, fly-bespecked and in a dingy frame, is the 
 costliest article. 
 
 The great government organ, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine 
 Zeitung {North German Gazette), y^^hich, since Bismarck's accession 
 to power, has been the thunderer employed to scare and terrify 
 the political opponents of the empire, is housed in a similarly 
 inexpensive manner. The same might be said of scores of other 
 important leaders of public thought all over the empire, and 
 this is true as well, and even to a greater extent, of the editorial 
 and business offices of nearly all the weekly or monthly periodi- 
 cals. Every American who has ever visited Munich must have 
 been amazed in locating the home of that ubiquitous dissem- 
 inator of German humour, the Flicgciidc Blatter, for on the out- 
 side it bears a striking resemblance to a second-rate pawnshop, 
 and if he has ventured inside he has found things nearly as 
 unpretentious. 
 
 These are external signs of the fact that the German press by 
 no means occupies that place of prominence in the thought of 
 the great public which it does in this country. There are many 
 other things pointing in the same direction. The amount of 
 revenue, for instance, derived by the newspapers from adver- 
 tising can by no means compare with that obtained by them in 
 some other countries. Where the income from that source alone 
 runs into the millions of dollars in the case of the most influential 
 papers in this country, England or France, in Germany it runs 
 but into the hundreds of thousands in all but one or two cases. 
 The advertising patronage does not come from every class of the 
 population, high and low, but almost entirely from the lower and 
 middle classes. The big German firms do not advertise at all in 
 the newspapers, excepting in the financial and trade sheets. 
 The small shopkeepers probably form the most important class 
 of newspaper advertisers. 
 
 The political influence of the press is also much smaller in 
 Germany. It is seldom that any paper there engages in the task 
 of ferreting out the truth about any important public question 
 which for the moment engrosses public attention, and cam- 
 paigns for the purpose of uncovering some gigantic piece of 
 political or economic fraud, plot, or jobbery, or of proving or
 
 3i6 GERMANY 
 
 disproving the justice of some great party or government 
 measure, and of paralyzing the poHtical influence of some party 
 leader or party shibboleth, are still more infrequent. In that 
 sense at least the German press shows a woeful lack of public spirit 
 and enterprise, and this quite naturally robs it of a great deal of 
 prestige. This fact is, however, not altogether the fault of the 
 press, but must be attributed to a large extent to the tendencies 
 of the Kaiser, the whole government, and of the ruling classes, 
 which are decidedly hostile to an independent and strong press, 
 and, of course, hostile as well to such important service by the 
 press as calculated to curtail their own influence, now para- 
 mount. The obstacles, too, which editors, reporters, and other 
 writers for the press find in their way in honestly attempting 
 to fulfil this, one of the most important public functions of an 
 untrammeled press, are vastly greater in Germany than in other 
 countries, owing to the reasons above alluded to, and to others. 
 
 It is but of recent occurrence that a high German court in 
 its decision in a sensational trial for an alleged press ofifense, 
 proclaimed in so many words that no such right as the enlighten- 
 ment of the masses on public questions or the criticizing of 
 public measures held of injury to popular rights, could be vindi- 
 cated to the newspapers, but that their sole business consisted 
 in disseminating and vending the news. This decision, amazing 
 as it appears at the beginning of the twentieth century, met with 
 but feeble protests even from the Liberal press, and it stands 
 uncontroverted to-day. However, with all these disadvantages 
 under which the German press undoubtedly is labouring, it 
 cannot be denied that if that keen rivalry and that broad 
 enterprise existed in it as a body which, for instance, is such 
 a characteristic quality of the American press, much might be 
 achieved by it even with present conditions which is now left 
 undone, and even unattempted. 
 
 The splitting-up of political thought in Germany is, however, 
 probably the most serious single factor hindering a healthy 
 growth of the press and of its influence. Where there are about 
 a score of political factions, as is the case in the empire, no single 
 paper, or group of papers, can acquire dominating influence, 
 very large circulation, or that ineasure of great wealth which 
 would render it capable of inaugurating and sustaining a thor-
 
 THE PRESS 317 
 
 oughly consistent and powerful policy, and of accomplishing 
 those big tasks in the field of journalistic achievements which 
 jointly enable a newspaper to become a real power in shaping 
 public thought. This fact has been demonstrated a number of 
 times in Germany. During that period, for example, when the 
 National Liberal party was the largest and most potent in the 
 empire, the leading organ of that party, the National Zeitimg, 
 likewise enjoyed a corresponding measure of public influence 
 and a large circulation. With the split of that party into two 
 unequal halves, and with its enormous decrease in voting 
 strength, has also come a great loss in every sense to that news- 
 paper, until to-day the paper is practically ignored all over 
 Germany. Each of the German political factions, each wing 
 of these factions, and again each shade of opinion represented 
 within, has its organs in the press, and each of them fights the 
 other factions, and often the other wing within the same faction, 
 tooth and nail, thus practically rendering impossible the con- 
 solidation of public opinion on nearly every important problem 
 that faces the nation. This discord within the press itself 
 hinders progress in political thought and ideals immensely, and 
 incidentally, of course, it hinders the growth of the German 
 press in power, wealth, and influence in the same ratio. 
 
 The party organ, then, is still the rule in Germany, and to 
 some extent at least the "organ" rises in importance and circu- 
 lation with the party whose cause it espouses. A somewhat 
 unique position is held by the Socialist press and by some indi- 
 vidual papers. Of the latter the Kreuzzeitimg deserves special 
 mention. This organ of the larger half of the Conservative 
 party is one of the oldest and most influential papers in the 
 empire. Its clientele is not nearly so large as that of a number 
 of other papers, but is made up almost exclusively of the rviling 
 elements — government officials, judges, army officers, persons 
 belonging to the immediate entourage of the Kaiser and of the 
 other sovereigns in Germany; the Kaiser himself reads it regu- 
 larly. In its influence in shaping the course of legislation and 
 nearly all other spheres of public activity the Kreiizzeitung out- 
 vies the rest of the German press combined. It is a real power, 
 if an insidious one, for it excels in a peculiar sort of journalistic 
 style, consisting largely in innuendo, and is hardly ever out-
 
 3i8 GERxAIANY 
 
 spoken or vigourous in its expressions, but instead sows its seed 
 in the mind of the reader by cautiously worded and half sug- 
 gested arguments, indirect more often than direct, but never 
 failing in its effect on the mo; t influential classes in Germany. 
 Bismarck for years was one of the regular contributors to this 
 paper, and among its anonymous writers are to be found scores 
 of the most prominent men in every department of public life. 
 The Kretizzeitung is, in fact, so influential a paper that it has, on 
 several critical occasions, dared to successfully oppose the kings 
 of Prussia and their successors, the German emperors, and 
 maintained so persistent and bitter a guerilla warfare in behalf 
 of the interests of the privileged classes as to defeat important 
 royal plans. This has been the case, too, during the reign of the 
 present ruler of Germany, and though for a time William II 
 proscribed the paper, and allowed no copy of it to be delivered 
 within his castles, the influence of the paper actually increased, 
 for it represented at that time quite faithfully the convictions of 
 the ruling classes as against those of the Kaiser. That was the 
 time when the Kaiser still indulged the hope of merging the con- 
 flicting class interests of the population into one homogeneous 
 whole, and when he believed in the feasibility of winning the 
 Socialist masses over to the support of the throne. That dream, 
 however, vanished into air after awhile, and then he found him- 
 self once more in consonance with the Krcuzzeitung, and he 
 resumed the daily practice of reading it. 
 
 The Vossische Zeitung likewise occupies a peculiar place. It 
 is older than the Krcuzzeitung, for it celebrated its centenary 
 some time ago. It was for many years the chief organ of 
 advanced political thought in Prussia, as the Kreuzzeitung is the 
 leading exponent of reactionism, and was largely instrumental 
 in precipitating the Berlin revolution of 1848, and in wresting a 
 liberal constitution from the then reigning king of Prussia, 
 Frederick William IV. From that proud eminence, however, 
 the paper, yielding to purely commercial reasons, sank some 
 years ago, and although still tamely Liberal in expounding 
 political thought, it no longer holds a prominent place as a 
 political organ, making itself instead the mouthpiece of the 
 industrial and manufacturing interests of the empire. In that 
 capacity it has, however, gained in circulation and wealth, and
 
 THE PRESS 319 
 
 is to-day one of the most profitable pieces of newspaper property 
 in Germany. The Berlin Tageblatt, on the other hand, which 
 has stood faithfully by its guns, and is still one of the main organs 
 of Liberali^xn. is now barely paying expenses, though its political 
 influence is great. 
 
 The rise of the Socialist press has kept step with that of the 
 party, and the number of papers published by it is greater than 
 that advocating any other form of political creed. Though 
 published in the main for the masses of the labouring population, 
 its intellectual level is relatively high, which speaks well for 
 the mental status of its readers. Though hampered in every 
 possible way by the imperial and by every State government in 
 Germany, and though nearly every Socialist editor has served 
 one or more terms in jail for lese majeste or other press offenses, 
 the general tone of the Socialist press is, nevertheless, vigourous 
 and independent enough. The enormous ramifications of the 
 party, reaching into every department of public and private 
 life, and into the very chambers of royalty itself, enables it more 
 often than the whole remainder of the German press to publish 
 important domestic news first. No document is so secret or 
 important that it escapes the friends of the party, and party dis- 
 cipline is so perfect that there has never been a case of betrayal 
 of its informants on the part of Socialist editors and publishers. 
 The Socialist press is owned and managed by the party itself, and 
 profits or losses of the various papers fall to the share of the 
 party. The central party organ, the Vonviirts in Berlin, is in 
 some essential respects a better newspaper than the great 
 majority of its German confreres, and boasts a deservedly large 
 circulation. All the Socialist members of the Reichstag, of the 
 various State legislatures, and of the municipal councils, are 
 regular contributors to the Socialist press, and it is partly to 
 this fact that much early and important information appearing 
 in it can be traced. But aside from that, in trenchant comment 
 and incisive editorial work the palm must be awarded to the 
 Socialist press in Germany. The pamphlets, too, and other 
 campaign literature issued by the Socialist press under the 
 guidance of its party management, is usually more to the point 
 and of greater effect than is the similar work of the other papers. 
 Most of this work is done as a labour of love by the keenest minds
 
 320 GERMANY 
 
 of the party, men like Bebel, Singer, Bernstein, David, Auer, 
 Vollmar and others. During times of political excitement the 
 Vorwcirts and other Socialist papers often issue extra editions 
 running into hundreds of thousands. 
 
 Of the so-called "independent" — i. e., politicahy indifferent, 
 press, which is of very recent growth in Germany, the Berlin 
 Localanzcigcr is the most conspicuous type. This paper is solely 
 a sensational one. It spends more money for news than any 
 other in the empire, and often lays out a small fortune in 
 obtaining a sensational piece of news earlier, or exclusively for its 
 own use. Its editor learned the rudiments of his profession in 
 this country, and its publisher has earned quite a number of 
 millions by his (for Germany) novel methods during the last 
 five years. Its circulation is about 300,000, and is the largest of 
 any newspaper in Gerinany. Though politically indifEerent. the 
 Localanzeigcr is intensely loyal in its comment on the Kaiser's 
 sayings and doings. 
 
 What is styled the "officieuse" press in Germany calls also for 
 some explanation. The term is habitually applied to those 
 German newspapers which are more or less controlled by 
 the government. Yet they differ much in degree. It was 
 Bismarck who first organized this system of influencing public 
 opinion at home and abroad. For Bismarck, although he had a 
 hearty contempt for the individual journalist, and although the 
 present era of practically nullifying the constitutional provision 
 guaranteeing freedom of the press was really inaugurated by 
 that inanof "blood and iron," nevertheless had a very lively and 
 correct appreciation of the importance of printer's ink. He 
 deemed it of the utmost consequence to have a number of papers 
 always on hand for his purposes. The system organized by 
 him, and the means employed, are still substantially the same 
 to-day. He had the interest from the Guelph Fund, or. as it 
 was popularly known, the "Reptile Fund" — i. e., the private 
 fortune of the dispossessed king of Hanover, amounting to 
 some $8,000,000, at his disposal in "influencing" newspapers, 
 individual correspondents and editors. These men and papers 
 he sought and found not alone in Germany, but in Austria, Italy. 
 France, England, Russia, and even in America. They had to do 
 yeomen's service for him, and he held them to strict account.
 
 THE PRESS 321 
 
 They aided him very materially in his work, and no dunce, any 
 more than a man of independent or unreliable tendencies, was tol- 
 erated by him in this international galaxy of journalistic bravos. 
 It was under his regime that the Norddeiitsche Allgemeine 
 Zeitiing in Berlin was started, largely with government money, 
 which paper then made a regular contract with him, placing 
 a certain amount of blank space on its first page permanently 
 at the government's disfjosal. This contract has since been 
 renewed several times, and is in force to-day. A similar under- 
 standing exists with the Cologne Gazette, but that paper, on 
 account of its old-time reputation for foreign news and because 
 of its large circulation in foreign countries, is mainly used for such 
 items of official news or for such attacks on foreign statesmen 
 or governments as are largely intended to have an effect 
 abroad, while the first-named paper is mainly used for official 
 thunder intended for home consumption. The Reichsanzeiger 
 is, on the other hand, a purely official paper, owned by the 
 government outright, and is used principally for formal and 
 less sensational government news. Imperial decrees and declara- 
 tions, the awarding of orders and decorations, etc., see the light 
 first in the Reichsanzeiger. 
 
 Besides papers, however, nurtured wholly or in part with 
 government specie, there are a number of " inspired " and 
 "semi inspired"' moulders of public opinion. These are either 
 regularly or occasionally used in disseminating news which the 
 German government wishes to publish, but not in a formal way 
 nor assuming responsibility for it. Often this class of papers is 
 skilfully employed in stretching out "feelers" toward other 
 governments. If these "feeleis ' meet with favourable reception, 
 and the Foreign Office in Berlin is sure of its ground, the 
 cautious 'feelers" are followed up later on with more formal and 
 explicit emanations in the regular organs of the government. If 
 the effect did not meet expectations, the matter may either be 
 dropped for good or temporarily, or else it may be kept alive by 
 further information given to the same "inspired" papers. It 
 would lead too far to point out all the advantages which the 
 government, and more particularly its Foreign Office and 
 diplomatic service, derives from this whole cautiously manipu- 
 lated system of guiding and shaping public opinion and influencing
 
 322 GERMANY 
 
 foreign governments, but it will suffice to say that its uses are, 
 indeed, manifold and undeniable. However, abuses are also 
 very liable to creep into it, and they have often brought it about 
 that serious mischief was done. Now and then the delicate 
 machinery has come out of gear, as when it happened, not very 
 long ago, that while one set of "officieuse" papers was attacking 
 one important member of the cabinet, inspired thereto by the 
 Chancellor, another set, by the clever work of the assailed cabinet 
 member's friends, published simultaneous justification of his 
 alleged offenses, intermingled with a few poisonous darts intended 
 for the Chancellor's own private delectation. One of the most 
 frequent uses, too, to which the "inspired" press is put is to call 
 to book individual foreign correspondents in Berlin, who, for 
 one reason or other, have incurred the displeasure of the German 
 government, or of one or more members of the cabinet, or 
 perhaps of the Kaiser personally. Such attacks are usually pur- 
 posely worded in an oracular style, lending itself to a variety of 
 interpretations, but as a rule sufficiently theatening to cow the 
 correspondent into submission, or to make him request his home 
 office to send a successor. 
 
 There are about a score of such "inspired" or "semi-inspired" 
 papers printed in Germany and elsewhere, and the rewards for 
 such services rendered to the Foreign Office and other branches 
 of the government vary in kind. Some of these papers and 
 correspondents consider themselves sufficiently paid by being 
 regularly fed with more or less important and accurate news 
 from official sources, while in other cases the quid pro quo is more 
 tangible. The whole matter is one which for the intelligent 
 sojourner in Germany is full of interest, and certainly illustrative 
 of certain phases of public life there. 
 
 As on every other sphere of public life in Germany, so, too, on 
 the press of that country has the impress of the Kaiser's mind 
 and influence been very strong. Bismarck, as the world knows, 
 did not deal gently with newspapers and newspaper writers 
 whom he could at all control, and his detractors and unwelcome 
 critics he scourged with scorpions. It is remembered how he, 
 during the last two decades of his official omnipotence, always- 
 carried a bundle of printed slips (containing formal charges) in 
 his breast pocket, requiring merely the insertion of the name
 
 THE PRESS 323 
 
 of the offenders and of the paper or papers in which the offense 
 had been committed. These sHps he would send to the State's 
 attorney, often several in the course of a day. The unlucky 
 wight who had thus incurred his wrath w^ould then, a few days 
 later, receive a visit from the bailiff, informing him that action 
 had been begun against him for "offending Bismarck," and in 
 due course of time a trial would take place the result of which 
 was a foregone conclusion, and by which he was consigned to 
 sequestration for terms varying between a few weeks and one 
 or two years. It was one of Bismarck's peculiar ways. 
 
 But in this, as in some other features of a character that knew 
 no will but his own, he has been outdone by the present Kaiser. 
 During the fourteen years of his reign some six thousand press 
 offenders in round numbers have been hauled before German 
 courts, and, with few exceptions, sentenced to terms in jail for 
 having found fault with some of the imperial antics, for applying 
 harsh terms to him, or for calmly and fairly criticizing his public 
 actions. This in most cases has been called by the subservient 
 judges adjudicating in such cases by the flexible name of Icsc 
 majeste, a term whose exact definition, tinder the present 
 practice of the German courts, is an impossibility, for the inter- 
 pretation put upon it by the judges themselves has varied in 
 hundreds of instances. The German press is now almost as 
 effectually muzzled as is that of Russia. 
 
 This is a matter which has been ventilated for years in the 
 Reichstag, the only place remaining in Germany where the 
 official and public acts of the Kaiser may be discussed pro and 
 con, though within rather narrow limits, without drawing upon 
 the heads of the disputants judicial thunderbolts. It has there 
 been pointed out to the apologists of the Kaiser that the latter 
 at no time scruples to criticize, however severely, the actions and 
 words of any of his subjects, and of whole classes of the population ; 
 that he has not hesitated to publicly brand with ignominious 
 names political parties or men who were opposing him in any 
 of his pet measures or ideas ; and that it was both unfair and 
 contrary to the spirit and the wording of the constitution to deny 
 to them in turn the right of defending themselves against these 
 aspersions. It has been pointed that in not a single instance 
 has the Kaiser pardoned any of these convicted press offenders,
 
 324 GERMANY 
 
 nor even shortened their sentences by a single day, although 
 exercising his pardoning prerogatives very generally and exten- 
 sively in favour of officials and non-officials sentenced for exceeding 
 their authority, for dueling, for brutally maltreating their subordi- 
 nates, and for many other crimes of a similar nature. But the 
 Kaiser's champions in the Reichstag, while unable to gainsay 
 these facts, have always carried the day in that body, squelching 
 such criticism with the sole argument that the monarch is a 
 privileged person and can do no wrong, and that it is under all 
 circumstances needful to maintain the authority of the monarch. 
 The courts have concretely embodied the same train of reasoning 
 by their sentences, and have steadily become more and more 
 hostile to the press. The highest court of the empire, the 
 Imperial Court in Leipzig, has especially distinguished itself in 
 this respect. The members of this tribunal, as those of the lower 
 courts, are appointed by the Kaiser, and this fact, of course, goes 
 a great way in explaining things. Yet even in that body there 
 have been, and are, men who could not find it within their con- 
 science to thus habitually aid in overriding the constitution of 
 the empire. One of these chief judges possessed enough of the 
 old-time sturdy German independence to rather resign his life- 
 long, lucrative and honoured office than remain impotent to sway 
 his colleagues longer in such a tribunal. He went into retire- 
 ment and comparative poverty, and was bold enough to publish 
 in a liberal magazine the reasons which determined him in 
 retiring. But, unfortunately for Germany's bench, his example 
 has not found many followers, and the practice of the courts has 
 since then become even more illiberal. 
 
 It is no wonder that, with such powerful influences inces- 
 santly at work all over the empire, the German press, viewed as 
 a whole, has lost more and more that virile spirit, that "eternal 
 vigilance," which is the price of liberty, and that in its treatment 
 of domestic conditions it has become timid and cautious to a 
 degree. These unpleasant conditions have also done much to 
 lower the German journalist in the popular estimation of his own 
 country. The privileged classes especially regard him with a 
 certain contempt and dislike. In what light the Kaiser himself 
 sees the German newspaper man has been put on record 
 repeatedly b}- men of his immediate entourage. But it is also
 
 THE PRESS 32s 
 
 constantly illustrated by him in other unmistakable waj'-s. As a 
 class the publishers and editors of Germany fare worse at his 
 hands than any other part of the population. Not one of them 
 has ever received any signal sign of imperial favour. No high 
 title and no high decoration has been bestowed upon any of 
 them, not even upon the most abjectly cringing. When, in 
 midwinter of every year, the list of those upon whom titles, 
 decorations, and other honours have been bestowed is published, 
 it is almost always found that among the eight thousand or so, 
 comprising every station in life, there is not a single professional 
 newspaper writer or publisher. The man who for a generation 
 had sold his soul to the government on the Norddeutsche 
 Allgemeine Zeitung, got, shortly before his death, the ridiculous 
 title of ' 'Commissionsrath," a handle to his name which is usually 
 conferred by Prussian royalty upon a second-class tradesman 
 when he has given lavishly towards charities, especially those 
 favoured by the court. It fully describes the man — Doctor 
 Pinder was his name — when I mention that he felt proud of the 
 title. 
 
 Of course, with such press conditions it is not astonishing that 
 German parents of the higher classes encourage their sons in 
 choosing rather any other profession than that of a newspaper 
 writer, and that capitalists as a rule are unwilling to risk their 
 money in a business which offers scant profit and no honours. 
 Thus it is that very few men of acknowledged reputation are, or 
 have been, in the newspaper profession as a regular calling. No 
 posts of honour or emolument are ever offered them by the 
 government. As a rule the German newspapers are run on small 
 capital, and do not yield large profits. The men who have made 
 writing for them their life work are never in receipt of large 
 salaries, but manage to pay their debts b}^ writing books, or 
 theatrical plays, etc., in addition to their regular labours. 
 
 It is, under the circumstances, surprising that the newspaper 
 writers of Germany are, as a class, men of good or even excellent 
 education, many of them having passed through the universities 
 and taken their degree. They are also, with few exceptions, 
 men of integrity and of kindly disposition, and the papers are, 
 almost all of them, clean in tone and free from unhealthy sensa- 
 tionalism. The editorial matter in the better papers is well
 
 320 GERMANY 
 
 written and shows a large and varied fund of information, and 
 the criticisms on music, the drama, art and Hterature are nearly 
 always by men v/ho understand their subjects thoroughly. The 
 reporter alone is, as a rule, the distinct inferior of his American 
 confrere, both as a man and as a newspaper worker. In 
 Germany the reporter is still, as in England, a mere scavenger 
 of news, with whom it is best to remain on distant terms. His 
 field of labour is a much narrower one than here, and whole 
 domains of news are either slighted or entirely neglected by him. 
 A certain standing and good incomes are enjoyed among the 
 German reporters only by those who regularly attend the courts — 
 i. e., the law courts and the court of the sovereign in whose capi- 
 tal city his labours are performed. The latter reports, of course, 
 in a style of unvarying enthusiasm, the splendid fetes and other 
 functions and diversions given by "his" particular monarch, 
 and for that purpose certain narrowly circumscribed facilities 
 are vouchsafed him. The Kaiser and the other sovereigns of 
 Germany regard this branch of newspaper work as the most 
 honourable and difficult of all, and to testify to their belief it is 
 the reporter of this species, whose loyalty is, of course, above 
 suspicion, and which must have stood many previous tests, who 
 in some cases has an honourary title (that of "Hofrath," or 
 Court Councillor), conferred upon him by his sovereign, together 
 with an occasional medal or order of the lower designations. 
 This enables him to appear at court clad in the customary smalls 
 and pumps, and to consort, almost on terms of equality, with the 
 royal or ducal flunkeys, who will regale him quite affably on 
 the backstairs with the details of the particular form of dissipa- 
 tion at that minute indulged in by his betters upstairs. And I 
 don't know but what, with the peculiar views about the functions 
 and standing of journalism held in the empire, public opinion 
 there is not right in looking upon this "court reporter" as the 
 only member of that despised vocation who may be termed at 
 least "fairly respectable." 
 
 The periodicals of Germany partake in a general way of the 
 limits and qualifications of the daily press, and can compare 
 neither in dignity nor intrinsic worth, and still less in influence 
 or circulation, with those of either England or America. With 
 a couple of exceptions they lead a struggling existence. The
 
 THE PRESS 327 
 
 tourist might make an extensive trip througii tlic length and 
 breadth of the empire, and it is quite possible that he would not 
 have seen a single copy of any German review, nor even heard 
 one mentioned in conversation. Even in the bookstores one sees 
 them but rarely, and as for quoting them in legislative or other 
 representative bodies, as is often done in the British Parlia- 
 ment, that is out of the question. German reviews do not sway 
 the German mind to any great extent, and as for the German 
 government or the voting masses at a general election, they 
 usually ignore what any or all of the reviews may have said on 
 the questions of the hour. A man might write a lifetime for the 
 leading reviews and not become known outside a small circle. 
 All this at first blush may seem strange, but the fact, after all, 
 is easily susceptible of explanation. The absence of a free press 
 has a great deal to do with it. In a country where public 
 measures and men must be handled gingerly to avoid prosecu- 
 tion and incarceration, the air is not favourable to the growth of 
 periodical publications in which matters may be treated in a 
 trenchant, outspoken, forceful manner. The further fact that 
 in political education the average German is even at this day 
 behind the other leading nations, and that a public life, in the 
 broader sense, does not exist to the same extent in Germany as 
 elsewhere, also counts for something. Add to this that the German 
 reviews, like the daily papers, are run on small capital, and yield 
 small financial returns, and that they rely (as was the case in 
 England eighty or ninety years ago) exclusively on subscrip- 
 tions and hardly at all on advertising, and it will readily be 
 perceived why Germany in this respect has remained behind. 
 
 The leading German review, though by no means the 
 oldest, is the Deutsche Rundschau, founded in 1874 by Julitis 
 Rodenberg, and still edited by him. Rodenberg possessed 
 unusual qualifications for a venture of this kind. Born seventy- 
 one years ago, he early showed gifts of a versatile and graceful 
 writer, and extensive travels broadened his views, brought him 
 in contact with many interesting personages and gave him an 
 intimate acquaintance with Enghsh and French literature. He 
 did much good literary work during a long stay in England, being 
 then and for many years after on terms of friendship with 
 FreiHgrath, the refugee German poet and translator of English
 
 328 GERMANY 
 
 poetry. His London experiences he embodied in "Days and 
 Nights in London," and trips to Ireland and Wales produced his 
 " Isle of Saints " and "Autumn in Wales." He was largely instru- 
 mental in introducing to literary Germany romantic Great 
 Britain, and he has retained a great love of English literature. 
 He and Fontane rendered into German many of the old border 
 ballads, up to then quite unknown in Germany. After he had 
 started, in a modest way, the Deutsche Rundschau in Berlin, he 
 quickly gathered around him as contributors many of the 
 best writers, such as Paul Heyse, Gottfried Keller, Theodor 
 Storm, C. F. Meyer, Hermann Grimm, Wilhelm Scherer, Helrn- 
 holtz, du Bois-Reymond, Haeckel, Buechner, and discovered 
 many a promising talent, such as Helene Boehlau, Anselm 
 Heine and others, and this, in fact, was one of his chief merits, 
 and earned him the lasting gratitude of even the younger genera- 
 tion. His model had been the Revue des Deux Mondes, and in 
 choice of subjects — literary, artistic and scientific — many of his 
 issues will compare favourably with that admirable French pub- 
 lication. 
 
 The two rivals that were started by the younger talent in 
 Germany, first Die Gesellschajt, during the "storm and stress" 
 period of the eighties, and during the past decade the Neue 
 Deutsche Rundschau, although brilliant and intensely virile at 
 times, lacked a number of the essential qualities that go to make 
 up a uniformly good review. Die Gesellschajt, at first edited by 
 M. C. Conrad and Carl Bleibtreu, and for five or six years the 
 rallying point of fine writers and essayists like Wolzogen, 
 Sudermann and others, admitted, for the sake of encouraging 
 ambitious but extravagant young men, much that was crude, 
 outre and risque, and under its present editor, Ludwig Jacobowski, 
 in Dresden, it seems to be trying to become sedate and orderly, 
 but only succeeds in being dull. The short career of the Neue 
 Deutsche Rundschau is very similar. Its chief merit seems to 
 have been its championship of such writers as Ibsen, Hauptmann, 
 etc., and the introduction to literary Germany of some of the 
 younger and most talented Scandinavian poets and novelists. 
 
 A more serious rival to Rodenberg's Deutsche Rundschau was, 
 for a time, Paul Lindau's Nord und Sued, which saw the light in 
 1878 in Berlin. For six or seven years following, this publication
 
 THE PRESS 329 
 
 made serious inroads upon the older and sedater ones, and its 
 staff of contributors and its choice and variety of topics outshone 
 ten years ago the Rundschau. It was primarily owing to the 
 character of Paul Lindau himself that A^ord und Sued enjoyed but 
 a brief succession of halcyon daj^s. That brilliant feuilletonist 
 had earned his literary spurs, after passing through the German 
 universities, during a five years' stay in Paris, and had imbibed 
 some of the most charming characteristics as well as worst foibles 
 of his Gallic hosts. After a number of years passed as editor of 
 various papers, he came to Berlin in 187 1, and quickly achieved 
 a reputation as the cleverest journalist there. But as editor of 
 Nord und Sued he lacked seriousness of purpose and steadiness of 
 character, and a base scandal finally put an end to his Berlin 
 career and drove him out of the capital; since which his review, 
 too, has steadily declined. 
 
 Older than either of these publications, and still following the 
 placid tenor of its way, is Die Gegenwart. This was started in 
 1872 in Berlin by Theophil Zolling. Zolling, a graceful and 
 interesting novelist and general writer, had also made his earlier 
 reputation in Paris, where he had been an intimate friend of 
 Alphonse Daudet, who dedicated one of his best tales to him. 
 Die Gegenivart deals not alone with literature and art, but also 
 with politics, social studies and the like ; it is bright in tone, and 
 really deserves a larger circle of readers than it was ever able 
 to gather under its wing, owing for the most part to an unenter- 
 prising publisher. 
 
 About as old as the Deutsche Rundschau, and of the same gen- 
 eral tendency, is the Deutsche Revue, published in Stuttgart and 
 edited by Richard Fleischer. It has, though now in its twenty- 
 seventh year, only lately come to the front. General attention 
 was particularly attracted to it by its publication, in rapid suc- 
 cession, of several Bismarck articles, rather sensational in their 
 purport, the material therefore being supplied, as generally 
 surmised, by Prince Herbert Bismarck. This publication, too, 
 for the last few years, has made a specialty of weighty contribu- 
 tions by leading men in the German army and navy, and has 
 assumed a rather pronounced nationalistic and patriotic tone. 
 Its Hst of contributors is rather extensive and cosmopolitan, and 
 includes some eminent Frenchmen and Englishmen. As its
 
 330 GERMANY 
 
 scope became broader, and its taste more catholic, its circulation, 
 too, has greatly increased, and in South Germany, at least, it is 
 decidedly the leading review to-day. 
 
 A new review, with a very ambitious programme, was started 
 on October ist last in Berlin, by Alexander Duncker, and under 
 the editorship of Julius Lohmeyer. It is called the Deutsche 
 Monatsschrift, and in some of its features it goes beyond what 
 has hitherto been attempted in Germany. From the list of its 
 contributors for the first year, and there are among them such 
 names as Wilbrandt, Jensen, Stinde, Felix Dahn, Detlev von 
 Liliencron, Julius Wolff, Anton von Werner, and a number of 
 historians, social economists, and men of action, this new review 
 will rest on a much broader basis than any of its predecessors. 
 It will make, also, a specialty of colonial and political matters, 
 and cater to the tastes of the Germans residing in other 
 countries. It remains to be seen whether all these promises will 
 be kept. In his initial announcement the editor declares it to be 
 the chief aim of the Deutsche Monatsschrift to become the 
 radiating point for Germany's new position as a " world power, " 
 politically and commercially, and part of its mission to work 
 for the idea of Pangermanism. 
 
 There has been, however, for a number of years past, and is 
 still, a German review. Das Echo, published specially for the 
 millions of sons of Teutonland scattered all over the world. It 
 has been measurably successful in every way, and has, indeed, 
 been one of the intellectual ties that bind the expatriated 
 Germans and their progeny to the old home. The quality of it, 
 though, has been such that it has only appealed to the cultured 
 few and not to the masses of these foreign residents of German 
 extraction. 
 
 A special place among the German reviews must also be 
 awarded the Koloniale ZeitscJirijt, the leading organ for Germany's 
 transoceanic interests. The guiding spirit of this publication is 
 Gustav Meinecke, who, after a residence of years in this country, 
 returned to Berlin and became the brainiest and most far-sighted 
 of German colonialists. He has extensively traveled and inves- 
 tigated, with shrewd, practical sense, Germany's possessions in 
 Africa, and he is in close touch with the leaders of German 
 thought in South and Central America, as well as this country
 
 THE PRESS 331 
 
 and Australia. His publication is the only one of its kind which 
 exerts real and potent influence upon Germany's colonial policy. 
 
 The oldest of German political reviews is Die Grenzhoten, which 
 was started in 1848, and which for a couple of decades did much 
 in fashioning and influencing liberal German and Austrian 
 thought in the direction of accomplishing the political unity of 
 Germany. As it appeared in Leipzig, a city which then as now 
 was foremost in the very aims this publication held, and away 
 from the disturbing influences of the capitals of Prussia and 
 Austria, it was allowed, up to the Franco-German war of 1870-7 1 , 
 a fair measure of independence and freedom of expression. Its 
 palmiest days were under the editorship of Gustav Freytag, the 
 noted novelist and liberal publicist, who was an intimate friend 
 of both the late Emperor Frederick and his consort. The circu- 
 lation and the influence of Die Grenzhoten attained at that time 
 their high-water mark, but during the past score of years or so 
 it has steadily declined, and its dicta and counsels are no longer 
 considered in the political world of the young empire. 
 
 The Preiissische Jahrbnecher (Prussian Annals), in a sense the 
 leading political review of Germany, was founded ten years later, 
 in 1858, by Rudolf Haym, who presided over its destinies for 
 six years, being then succeeded by Heinrich von Treitschke, the 
 celebrated historian of Berlin University. For many years the 
 review was read and weighed by every political mind in 
 Germany, and Prof. Hans Delbrueck, likewise a noted historian 
 and teacher in the university of the German capital, who, after 
 a number of years' collaboration in editing the review, finally 
 succeeded Treitschke as chief, kept its helm turned in the same 
 direction, that of moderate liberalism and a greater homogeneity 
 of national political life in internal politics, and of concentration 
 and enlightened egotism abroad. But as times went on, and 
 men and methods changed in high places, Delbrueck was grad- 
 ually forced to abate his vigourous style, and a few years ago he 
 was even charged with Icse majcste and convicted by a prejudiced 
 court, for having expressed himself, it was said, with undue 
 frankness about one of the Kaiser's bizarre speeches. With 
 the virility thus gradually driven out of the columns of the 
 Preussische Jahrbuecher, it has lost most of its former prestige, 
 and is now but the shadow of its former self.
 
 332 GERMANY 
 
 Die Nation, owned, founded and edited by Theodor Bartli, 
 exists since 1888, and is now the leading exponent of German 
 advanced political thought. It was due to Bismarck's attempts 
 to kill politically this very inconvenient free-trader and liberal 
 leader of Bremen that Doctor Barth, a man of independent wealth 
 and fine social position, came to Berlin and there founded, in 
 the teeth of the autocratic Chancellor, his review. In its suc- 
 cessful conduct Doctor Barth has, in its political features, con- 
 sistently advocated a policy of close and friendly relations both 
 with the United States and England, and in the art and literary 
 columns of his periodical he has favoured the more or less 
 revolutionary ne\v exponents — the "secessionists" — without, 
 however, tabooing older merit. The matter to be found in Die 
 Nation is always original and frequently "path-breaking," and 
 much attention is given to the political, literary and artistic 
 life in Belgium, Holland and the Scandinavian North. While 
 Ludwig Bamberger was still alive, this brilliant essayist and 
 financier contributed much excellent matter to Die Nation, but 
 he has found a worthy successor in Dr. Paul Nathan, who 
 furnishes political comment of first importance. 
 
 An Ishmael, with its hands raised against everybody's and 
 everybody's against its, is Maximilian Harden's Die Zukunjt, 
 the youngest but for a time at least the most vigourous and 
 impressive of German political reviews. Harden is only forty, 
 and his publication exists but since 1892, two years after 
 Bismarck's enforced retirement, but when this brilliant young man 
 began to publish his handy and novel review, everybody bought 
 it — a thing almost unprecedented in Germany — and Die ZukiDift 
 became an immediate financial and literary success from 
 its first number — all due to the sensational and decidedly clever 
 series of slashing and bitterly anti-Kaiser essays published under 
 the diaphanous nom de guerre "Apostata." It is quite safe to 
 say that Harden would not have become such a heated cham- 
 pion of Bismarck if that grim old person had still been in office, 
 but as it was he made himself until and even after Bismarck's 
 death the powerful spokesman for the latter's resentment 
 against the young monarch and for the nation's indignation at 
 the manner of the old statesman's withdrawal. And it was this 
 happy vein which Harden worked, with great pecuniary and
 
 THE PRESS 333 
 
 literary profit to himself, for about eight long years. Then, 
 with that failing him, and after a number of convictions for Use 
 majeste, entailing many dull months in musty old fortresses by 
 the Baltic, Harden changed his cue and modified his language, 
 all of which has lost him his popularity and his dash. Die 
 Zuktinft is on the down grade. Harden has done a deal in 
 changing the taste of readers and of current political thought. 
 He abolished the anonymous contributor, and forced everybody 
 to fight with open visor, and he acted like a leaven in the 
 periodical literature of Germany. He championed with zeal 
 and success many a good cause. The so-called Free Stage in 
 Berlin was virtually his creation. 
 
 Thus, looking backward upon the relatively brief past of 
 German reviews and reviewers, there is much, too much, that 
 seems to call for criticism, but there is also much that deserves 
 praise — above all, the uniform honesty of purpose and of 
 methods, the cleanly and wholesome tone pervading these 
 German periodicals. And there are now many signs that predict 
 greater strength and greater influence for the review in Germany.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 LITERATURE AND ART 
 
 Germany is now experiencing the effects of a most important 
 movement in her art and hterature. It is a movement almost 
 amounting to a revolution, to an upsetting of old ideals and aims. 
 It is strongly iconoclastic in its nature and destructive in its 
 tendencies; yet it is not merely negative, but constructive as 
 well. 
 
 In art this movement was mainly set afoot by Arnold Boecklin 
 and his school of disciples. In literature it was, and is still, 
 headed by Sudermann and Hauptmann. They and their 
 followers have been, especially in their earlier stages of 
 development, strongly influenced by Ibsen and Tolstoi. The 
 hopeless pessimism of the one and the ascetic mysticism of the 
 other tinged their first work very perceptibly. Sudermann's 
 "Sodom's Ende" was frankly despairing in tone. His 
 " Heimath"(the " Magda" of the English and American stage) is 
 Ibsen through and through, a sort of Germanized " Doll's House," 
 differing from the original only in the degree of its pessimism. 
 The same author's "Die Ehre," whose magnificent technique 
 and powerful climaxes have secured for it an assured place on the 
 repertory of every German theatre even to-day, is as extrava- 
 gant in its ethical tenets as anything Ibsen or Tolstoi ever 
 wrote. It is similar with Hauptmann's initial dramatic efforts. 
 " Einsame Menschen " breathes the spirit of Tolstoi in its morose- 
 ness and in its condemnation of sensualism; and "Die Weber," 
 though, perhaps, in a certain sense the most vital play of the last 
 two decades written in any tongue, shows plainly the warring 
 influences of Ibsen's "Pillars of Society" and Tolstoi's "Anna 
 Kar^nina." In " Hannele's Himmelfahrt" (here given under 
 the abbreviated title of "Hannele"), than which no more 
 pathetic play has been written for an age, the Russian master's 
 peculiar vein of spirituality runs strong. Since Schiller's 
 
 334
 
 LITERATURE AND ART 335 
 
 "Robbers" appeared, late in the eighteenth century, no drama 
 has moved all classes of German society as deeply as have these 
 two. I distinctly remember a performance of "Hannele" in 
 the Deutsches Theatre in Berlin, the place where the dramas 
 of these German dioscures have been made a special cult of, 
 where their proper misc-en-scene has been attended to with a 
 reverent regard for the poet's intentions, and where the spirit 
 of their conceptions has been nurtured most carefully. The 
 performance was, therefore, flawless; nay, more, it was imbued 
 throughout with a sentiment rarely seen on any secular stage — 
 as pious as that evinced by the peasant actors of Oberammergau. 
 But the effect it produced on the audience, an audience repre- 
 senting the /z;/(? fieur of Berlin's intellectual elite, was even more 
 startling. Breathless, tense, stirred to the very fibre of their 
 being, this mass of cultured and critical men and women hung on 
 the very lips of the actors. During the last act, when the poor 
 waif who forms the central figure in the play, sees in the delirium 
 of her dying hours the embodiment of all her childish longings 
 and vagaries, the effect rose to even a higher pitch. This mass 
 of cultured cynics was sobbing. Tears spurted from the eyes of 
 men who had believed t'hemselves callous. And when the curtain 
 rang down, slowly and noiselessly, shutting out bit by bit that 
 quaintly pathetic scene of the deathbed, the illusion that had 
 been produced assimilated the reality so closely that the whole 
 audience sat spellbound, completely hushed, for another five 
 minutes in the darkened house, before any one of them found it 
 possible to tear asunder those tendrils of sentiment binding the 
 beholder to the stage. When they broke up, they left the house 
 as after a mighty penitential sermon. 
 
 Dramatic productions that achieve such results mean much 
 in the mental and moral development of a nation. They mould 
 thought and sentiment alike, and generate new impulses, or give 
 new currents to old ones. And as I remarked before, this 
 influence has been wrought upon every class of the population, 
 high and low alike. The labouring classes in Germany, in their 
 social clubs and societies, drilled amateur companies to perform 
 these striking plays of Hauptmann and Sudermann, and on the 
 street corners one could see groups of passers-by eagerly dis- 
 cussing the merits and demerits of a new play, after its initial
 
 336 GERMANY 
 
 performance, a thing not out of the ordinary in Milan, but 
 certainly phenomenal in Germany, where the average mind is 
 slow to respond to the fancies and creations of the poet. In fine, 
 the soul of the nation has been stirred to its depths by the 
 dramas of this new school. 
 
 And while in prose literature and in lyrics this new movement 
 has not quite kept step with its evolution in drama, there have 
 also appeared many works of unusual merit, but above all 
 showing originality in both conception and treatment. Outside 
 of Germany, for instance, Sudermann is scarcely known as a 
 novelist. But his "Katzensteg" is a powerful piece of writing. His 
 "lolanthe," a novelette of simple plot, is as unique and impres- 
 sive as anything Maupassant ever wrote, and leaving, besides, a 
 delicious flavour in one's memory. His "Frau Sorge" ranks with 
 the best fiction lately produced in any language. Conrad 
 Telmann's "Unter'm Strohdach" is as touching and true a picture 
 of rustic misery, and shows, besides, much more energy of action 
 than Zola's "La Terre." Many of Wolzogen's short stories are 
 as perfect bits of literary workmanship as anything in that line 
 extant, either in English or French. His East Prussian story, 
 "Ihr Einbrecher," is, for instance, a gem of quaint humour and 
 dainty sentiment. Bierbaum's "Pancrazius Graunzer" is the 
 equal of Jean Paul's quaint and fanciful novels. Max Kretzer's 
 "Das Gesicht Christi" and "Die Genossen" are powerful and 
 true in realistic sentiment. Heinz Tovote's "Die Geliebte" is a 
 masterpiece of erotic writing. Arthur Zapp's "Das Eiserne 
 Zeitalter" is the strongest arraignment of militarism which 
 exists in fiction. And there are scores of other works that could 
 be cited from among Germany's literary output of late. But 
 enough has been said to show that this literary reawakening of 
 Germany has by no means been confined to the drama. 
 
 Born in an age of unrest, and of strong currents and counter- 
 currents in the public life of the young empire, the keynote to 
 this latest school of literature is an aggressive frankness, some- 
 times almost amounting to brutality ; an earnest searching after 
 truth, both in matter and in expression, and a groping after 
 new vehicles and modes of such expression. As the fierce 
 struggle between contending interests mirrors itself in the minds 
 of these young writers, so, too, is their form of giving voice to this
 
 LITERATURE AND ART 1,7,'] 
 
 tumult of feelings. The traditions of the past and the aims and 
 recognized verities of the present struggle with each other in 
 their writings, and they are always partisans, often fanatics of 
 conviction. Tinted with the pessimism imbibed from Ibsen and 
 Tolstoi, there is yet, running side by side with it and frequently 
 dominating, a strong assertiveness, a consciousness of unbroken, 
 rugged strength. These young writers, genuine sons of regener- 
 ated Germany, by no means despair of better days, and their 
 heroes and heroines — for their heroines play a great part — fight 
 to the bitter end. Suderinann's "Tejas" is as much a fitting 
 type of the hard-dying Goth of old, as Hartleben's young 
 lieutenant in "Der Rosenmontag" is of the similarly resolute 
 German of to-day. Both show a trace of Nietzsche's "Ueber- 
 mensch," his "Supra-Man," and both are bound to "live out 
 their lives," as the catch jjhrase coined by the new school has it. 
 
 Yet there is a red thread of gloom and of disgust with existing 
 conditions interwoven through it all. Hauptmann's "Sunken 
 Bell" is typical in this respect. The bellfounder in his symbolical 
 play typifies the mental attitude of the thinking German of these 
 days. And the fact is not only palpable enough to the close 
 reader, but it is also easily explained. For in no other civilized 
 country to-day is there found such a piling-up of contrasts and 
 contradictions, such a ruthless struggle for supremacy among 
 the warring interests of caste and calling. But this highly 
 abnormal state of affairs furnishes precisely the potent impetus 
 which brings this army of talented writers into the heat of the 
 battle. When one keeps these facts in mind, the intensity of 
 feeling displayed by the vast majority of present German writers 
 in all their work is understood. 
 
 Both Sudermann and Hauptmann fill a recognized place in the 
 world's literature, and their work, while, for obvious reasons, 
 not apprehended in its full meaning outside of Germany, is being 
 followed with interest everywhere. Of the two, it has been truly 
 said Sudermann is the better playwright and Hauptmann the 
 greater poet. The latter' s work, judged merely by the criterion 
 of stage effect, is of very uneven merit. Some of his plays, in 
 fact, were dismal failures, even in Germany, where there exists 
 a large and enthusiastic following that swear by him blindly. 
 His "Florian Geyer," for example, is so diifusc and so devoid of
 
 338 GERMANY 
 
 stage effects that it had to be shelved after a few performances. 
 His "Schluck und Jau," a grotesque fantasia, met with hardly 
 better success. His "Sunken Bell" can only be appreciated by 
 a Teuton mind, so full is it of dreamy "nature philosophy." 
 But everything he has ever given to the world has been real 
 poesy, strangely intermingled and overlaid with realism. In 
 each one of his plays he attempts to solve a problem, usually a 
 social one, which confronts the student of German life at every 
 step. In some cases it has been an individual problem as well, 
 as in his "College Crampton." There are many crudities of 
 language and construction in his plays, enough, in fact, to con- 
 demn most of them in the eyes of the everyday theatrical 
 manager. But there are sublime passages in nearly all of them, 
 and the serious, deep thought behind it all, and the unaffected 
 human feeling, far outweigh these defects in the mind of those who 
 seek more than mere amusement in a stage production. He has 
 true democratic feeling, in the best sense of the word, and his plays 
 not only stimulate reflection but also heighten human sympathy. 
 It is but necessary to watch a German audience during the per- 
 formance of one of his pieces to become convinced of that fact. 
 Sudermann's work is more in accord with the accepted technique 
 of the drama, and the construction of most of his plays rivals 
 Sardou's in pith and point. Withal, he infuses a great deal of 
 genuine poetry into his dramas. His "Johannes" (John the 
 Baptist) stands preeminent in that regard. There are serious 
 flaws in this piece of work, but the grand and simple figure of 
 John himself is wonderfully conceived. Both Sudermann and 
 Hauptmann have barely reached the meridian of life, and much 
 more than they have thus far achieved may be expected of them. 
 But there are other talented dramatists of the new school, 
 men whom the larger fame of Sudermann and Hauptmann has 
 overshadowed in the estimation of men outside of Germany, 
 but whose merits are fully understood there. Ludwig Fulda is 
 of this number. The best known of his plays, "The Talisman," 
 is a satire, said to be meant for the special benefit of the Kaiser, 
 as another play, by Felix Philippi, was generally interpreted as 
 portraying the struggle between the Kaiser and Bismarck, and 
 ending with the latter's downfall. It is in blank verse, and 
 of an elegance of diction rather unusual in German literature.
 
 LITERATURE AND ART 339 
 
 It undoubtedly ridicules the godlike pretensions of royalty, but 
 probably is nothing but what it pretends to be — a satire on the 
 moral blindness of many crowned heads, and on the servility 
 displayed by courtiers. Max Dreyer, several of whose plays have 
 been performed in this country, shows a stronger virility in his 
 work. His "Der Probecandidat," in which the strife between 
 hard-and-fast orthodoxy, as a handmaid of the State, and the 
 spirit of untrammeled scientific research, as it is still fought 
 to-day in German schools, is portrayed, met with wide acclaim. 
 Richard Voss has written several plays that are keyed in the 
 spirit of protest against prevailing caste prejudices, and which 
 are powerful as stage productions as w^ell. Paul Hirschf eld's 
 "Die Mutter" showed decided talent and living force for so young 
 an author. The most talented, though, of these young writers 
 is Max Halbe. All of his plays, like those of Hauptmann, fight 
 for some principle. His tragedy, "Jugend," a fascinating 
 though depressing tale of boyish love heedlessly rushing into 
 sin and disaster, and in which the figure of a young priest is most 
 lifelike and striking, had a sensational success all over Germany, 
 and some theatres played it to crowded houses for hundreds of 
 nights. A later play, "Mutter Erde," leads into the very midst 
 of one of the great struggles that divide Germany into two 
 hostile camps, the struggle between the traditions of the past 
 and the ideals of the future. 
 
 The dramas of this new school of German literature have all 
 this one characteristic in common: The}^ protest against the 
 continuance of present social and political conditions; they 
 deprecate the prejudices still rampant in the ruling classes, and 
 demand greater freedom for the individual as against the 
 authority of government, caste, orthodoxy, and royalty. A 
 similar vein is also running through the lyrical productions of 
 these standard bearers in a new storm-and-stress period. The 
 ablest and most original of these champions of the future is 
 Baron Detlev von Liliencron. He is, too, the most versatile. 
 His poems have a charm all their own. Many of them are in 
 meter hitherto unattempted in German, and have a rhythm of 
 peculiar swing. So strong a hold has this poet on the affections 
 and on the imagination of the younger generation that, some 
 time ago, a national subscription was secured from his admirers,
 
 340 GERMANY 
 
 and the result, amounting to a goodly sum, presented to the 
 suffering and impecunious bard — an event almost unprecedented 
 in German literature. Ernst von Wolzogen, a direct descendant 
 of tlie father of Schiller's wife, is as unique in his way. His 
 verse is always graceful and full of point, just as his prose is, and 
 in the choice and treatment of his themes he is very daring. He 
 was one of the originators of the Berlin "Free Stage," where all 
 bold plays, tabooed everywhere else, are welcome, and started 
 the first "Ueberbrettl," modeled to a certain extent on the 
 homes of the chansonniers in Paris, in Germany. Richard 
 Dehmel, Johannes Schlaf, Arno Holz, 0. J. Bierbaum, Otto 
 Erich Hartleben, Rudolf Baumbach, Frank Wedekind and 
 Heinrich Seidel are all lyrical poets of peculiar gifts and disciples 
 of the new school. Seidel's poems glorify in an altogether 
 new vein the philistine of these latter days, and Baumbach's 
 "Tramp Songs" are, of their kind, inimitable, though often 
 reckless and rollicking. 
 
 In art it was Arnold Boecklin, Swiss by birth but German by 
 adoption, who set the pace for his whole tribe of followers. It 
 was his inspiration and the profound impression made b}^ his 
 matchless canvases upon the young generation of German painters 
 everywhere, which induced the younger German art to cut 
 completely loose from the leading-strings of the various orthodox 
 schools cultivated, respectively, in Munich, Dusseldorf, Berlin, 
 Dresden and Carlsruhe. For fifty years German art had 
 degenerated more and more into mannerism. Individual good 
 work was being done by a dozen men or more, like Knaus, Meyer 
 von Bremen, Defregger, Werner, the Achenbachs and others, 
 but, viewed as a whole, German painting had ossified and become 
 tame and uninspiring. This was true not only of its spirit and 
 of its choice of subjects, but also of its technique, the famous 
 "brown sauce" in which it reveled covering a multitude of sins 
 of commission and omission. But as in literature, a fever of 
 unrest seized upon the young men, and deep dissatisfaction with 
 prevailing methods. Then suddenly arose, like a brilliant 
 meteor, Boecklin on the horizon. Since the days of Diirer and 
 Holbein, no painter has lived who embodied so completely and 
 strikingly the Germanic idea in art as this man from Basle did. 
 His creative genius was sublime, and his work always earnest,
 
 LITERATURE AND ART 341 
 
 thorough, full of originality. His "Island of the Dead," perhaps 
 his greatest, and one of his somberest and thought-inspiring 
 works, won the day for him. The young generation of painters 
 in Germany took pattern by him. He became their great 
 teacher. He taught them, more or less perfectly, those 
 qualities in which he stands unrivaled in German art, and in 
 some of which he has not his equal in the art of any country 
 — boldness and originality of conception; vivid sense of colour; 
 harmoniousness and compactness of grouping; the luminous 
 charm of light and the grand effects of shade; and, above all, 
 that boldness of imagination and of execution which constitutes 
 the chief value, as an educational factor, of his paintings. With 
 him as a sure guide, there has been evolved during the past ten 
 or twelve years a real Germanic art, more distinctive even than 
 either the French, the Scotch-English, or the Spanish. It is 
 intensely truthful and sincere, this newest type of German art, 
 and that is why soine have tacked the label: Art for art's sake ! 
 to it. Some of its exponents have been more or less influenced 
 by French technique, and plcin-air treatment, symbolism, and 
 impressionism, so-called, have found their admirers for a time. 
 But the intrinsic Germanic quality of the work done by the men 
 styled "Secessionists," because of their separation from the old 
 and accepted schools of painting in the empire, has not thereby 
 been affected. Their "realism" has remained of the real kind. 
 Corinth, for instance, a young Munich painter, exhibited lately a 
 large canvas, "The Daughter of Herodias," whose realism was 
 so palpable as to create a shudder. Slevogt, another one of these 
 young artists, showed a triptych, descriptive of the parable of the 
 Lost Son, which is amazing in its lifelike realism. Liebermann's 
 old women mending Mechlin lace are fairly alive, and his large 
 picture showing an invalid Sailors' Home gives us the naked 
 truth. All this art, too, is Germanic in that it is not gay nor 
 sensual, but serious, vigourous, striving for truth. 
 
 Two Bavarians, Franz Lenbach and Franz Stuck, come in their 
 own way perhaps nearest to Boecklin, but each of them is a 
 master, and each shows distinctive characteristics of his own. 
 Stuck loves, like Boecklin, symbolism, and his striking paintings, 
 "War" and "Nemesis," dwell in the memory forever. Lenbach's 
 portraits, in their boldness and direct simplicity, and in their
 
 342 GERMANY 
 
 giving the soul, the very Ego, of the original, are sufficiently 
 well known in this country. Several of his Bismarck portraits 
 are among the best which contemporaneous art has furnished. 
 Max Liebermann is also a realist of great individuality, wonder- 
 ful truth, and marvelous technique, besides being most prolific. 
 He deserves to be better known in this country. So does Leibl, 
 another Bavarian, who combines with the sure brush of Defregger 
 and with the power of individualizing each figure he paints, a 
 freedom of conception and of execution which might be looked 
 for in vain among the German painters of the old schools. Hans 
 Thoma, Kalckreuth, Max Koner, Otto Vogel, Leistikow, are also 
 leading artists of this new type. Max Klinger and Joseph Sat- 
 tler are artists standing out in bold relief among these younger 
 ones. Klinger is perhaps the most imaginative and impressive 
 of them all. He excels in nearly every field — as a designer, 
 etcher, painter, sculptor, and illustrator. An intense virility 
 distinguishes all his work. 
 
 This whole "Secessionist" movement in German art has had 
 uphill work, of course, to conquer for itself the place of promi- 
 nence it now occupies. With all the old schools solidly arrayed 
 against them; with their opponents holding every advantage 
 and every important office of emolument and influence in the 
 art world; and with the different governments all over the em- 
 pire, national. State, and municipal, withholding patronage 
 from them, and discouraging them in every possible way, their 
 fight for recognition seemed, indeed, for a time, quite hopeless. 
 But there was one great ally working in their favour. So far 
 as it was unofficial, enlightened public opinion cordially wel- 
 comed the new men in the arena. Art-loving circles declared 
 in their favour in ever-increasing numbers. The press and peri- 
 odical literature, too, gradually was won over to their side, and 
 where official patronage continued, and continues to this day, 
 to discriminate against them, the purses and the sympathies 
 of wealthy and cultured private persons were opened to them, 
 and at every public art exhibition, no matter where held in 
 Germany, the paintings, drawings, etchings, engravings, illustra- 
 tions, etc., of representative men belonging to the new move- 
 ment are bought very largely. The fight between the old and 
 the new culminated, of course, in the art centres of Germany.
 
 LITERATURE AND ART 343 
 
 Both in Berlin, where Anton von Werner, the president of 
 the Academy of Art, and the artist exercising the most potent 
 influence with both Kaiser and government, strenuously opposed 
 them, and in Munich the "Secessionists" were finally forced to 
 formally separate from the bodies and organizations representing 
 art life. They had to arrange for special expositions of their 
 works, and these expositions have become during the last few 
 years pronounced social, artistic and financial successes. 
 
 Against the new men, the Kaiser, too, hurled his thunderbolts. 
 Quite recently in one of his public speeches that monarch con- 
 demned and ridiculed the idea of "art for art's sake" and 
 deprecated the aims and methods of the nev/ school. Similar 
 utterances by him were reported on many previous occasions. 
 To discourage them he has called in foreign artists to paint his 
 portraits or to execute other special orders, such as the Polish 
 battle painter. Von Kossak, the English portraitist, Herkomer, 
 the Hungarian, Parlaghy, and others. The Kaiser employed 
 similar tactics in discouraging the new aspirations in sculpture. 
 In a certain sense at least the past ten years has been a Medicean 
 age for German sculptors. The Kaiser gave the example, by 
 ordering many busts, monuments, bronzes or marble groups, etc., 
 for the decoration of his castles, parks, and public places, and he 
 thus set the fashion. Orders poured in from every city and town, 
 small and large, and nearly every week saw the dedication of 
 some new image in brass, stone, or even in tinted cast-iron rising 
 on the market square in honour of the defunct William I and of 
 his paladins — Bismarck, Moltke, Roon, the Crown Prince, or 
 generals that had individually distinguished themselves in the 
 days of the upraising of the empire. There was no sculptor of 
 even slight talent that has not had his hands, and his purse as 
 well, full these years, all due to the impetus given by the Kaiser. 
 But he favoured only mediocrity, and would have no deviation 
 from beaten paths. When the national monument to William I 
 was to be erected, he chose from the plans submitted the one by 
 Reinhold Begas, his favourite, and from the sum entirely secured 
 by popular subscription, and intended to pay for the whole 
 monument, he awarded, again on his sole authority, no less than 
 1,500,000 marks, or about $375,000, to Begas as an honourary 
 fee. The monument as it now stands, facing the main portal
 
 344 GERMANY 
 
 of the old Royal Castle in Berlin, is as inappropriate for the 
 commemoration of a simple-minded, modest, and wholly 
 unaffected old gentleman as William I unquestionably was, as 
 anything that can well be conceived. But it was to the 
 Emperor's taste. It was overloaded with allegorical figures, and 
 it showed the old monarch in an unnatural posture astride of a 
 horse led by the genius of peace, and the whole was flanked by 
 another score of allegorical or symbolical personages. The 
 German people, who had furnished the money for all this, were 
 dissatisfied with this theatrical monument, and the caustic 
 tongue of Berlin had quickly dubbed it by another allegorical 
 allusion — "William in the Lion's Den" they call it. The 
 Kaiser's ancestral gallery in marble, for which he personally 
 gave the funds, however, and which is now erected in that broad 
 and tree-lined artery of the Thiergarten called Sieges-Allee (or 
 Avenue of Victory), is another striking illustration of the 
 exclusive favour bestowed by him on tame mediocrity. All the 
 models for these thirty-six groups carved from finest Carrara 
 marble were approved and, to some extent, suggested by him, 
 and the sculptors engaged on them for several years, Begas and 
 Herter, Schaper and Eberlein, Uphues and Ulrich, etc., had to 
 strictly conform to his ideas. The effect of the total now pro- 
 duced is that of monotony and insipidity, though, of course, the 
 white gleaming marble against a background of dark foliage is 
 in itself very pleasing. This hobby cost the Kaiser a matter of 
 6,000,000 marks out of his own pocket. 
 
 The Kaiser's opposition, though, against this new movement 
 is with greatest vigour directed at the literary branch of it. 
 The Kaiser scents, and quite justly, danger, serious danger, in 
 this volcanic upheaval of literary life in Germany. He feels that 
 part of it is aimed against his own authority, and that it means 
 the shattering of many traditional idols, royal infallibility 
 included. It impresses him as a disorderly, as a revolutionary 
 movement, intended to throw off fetters of creed and thought 
 which he deems necessary to keep his people in subjection. The 
 satire of this new movement has not halted before the majesty 
 of his own person, nor before that of his ancestors. Even such a 
 mild representative of the new movement as Ernst von Wilden- 
 bruch has, in his historical dramas, "Der Generaloberst," "Die
 
 LITERATURE AND ART 345 
 
 Quitzows," and " Konig Heinrlch," said many things which to 
 an absolutist in theory and practice like the Kaiser must seem 
 illoyal, and it was because of this that he forbade the per- 
 formance of "Der Generaloberst " in Berlin and Prussia, and 
 would not permit the other plays named to be given in the royal 
 theatres. A play like Gerhart Hauptmann's "Die AVeber" acts 
 on him like a red rag. He deems it sacrilegious, and in its effect 
 weakening royal authority and the force of social convention- 
 alities. "Der Biberpelz," a gross satire on existing Prussian 
 police conditions by the same author, confirmed him in the 
 opinion that Hauptmann was preaching by his plays a dangerous 
 doctrine. Sudermann's dramas he held of similar import, with 
 their railings at hypocrisy in high places and their disregard of 
 the fables convenucs of modern society. The work of the other 
 representative men in this new movement, what he saw and 
 heard of it, only tended to drive the conviction of its harmfulness 
 deeper home into his soul. Ludwig Fulda's "Der Talisman" 
 he read in the manuscript, and he considers it to this day an 
 impious attack on himself, all the more reprehensible because so 
 cautiously worded and with the plot so astutely wrought as to 
 preclude the chance of legally prohibiting its performance. It is 
 said that Ludwig Barnay, the Berlin manager and actor, and a 
 personal enemy of Fulda's, instilled this erroneous idea in the 
 Kaiser's mind. When this play, nevertheless, was first given at 
 the Lessing Theatre, the Kaiser, to mark his displeasure, with- 
 drew his and his court's patronage from the house, where he up 
 to that time had a large box always reserved for him. He did the 
 same thing in respect to the Deutsches Theatre, after " Die 
 Weber" had seen its initial performance there. Extreme 
 caution is used by the police authorities — who still exercise strict 
 censorship regarding theatrical performances all through Prussia, 
 as well as to the variety theatres, and as to songs, etc., given 
 at other places of entertainment — before issuing permits to 
 managers. For a time nearly every new play possessing sensational 
 features was read, before the police pronounced judgment on 
 it, by the Kaiser and his entourage, and his personal judgment 
 has decided the fate of most of them. Years often elapsed before 
 the poor author was able to learn the verdict. I remember that in 
 the case of a talented young writer, Heinrich Lee by name, some
 
 346 GERMANY 
 
 tv/enty-eigiit months went by before the police "passed" his 
 play. It was a historical comedy, and the long hesitation was 
 due to the fact that in the last act the person of Frederick the 
 First, one of the Kaiser's ancestors, appeared on the stage. The 
 ofificial censorship, one of the police practices which is in direct 
 conflict with the Prussian constitution, has been strained to the 
 utmost tension, and has for years been a thorn in the sides of 
 both managers and authors. The matter, like many similar 
 ones, has been ventilated in both the Prussian Diet and in the 
 Reichstag, but no amelioration of conditions has been effected. 
 
 Thus the Kaiser has fought the new movement and the new 
 men in German literature tooth and nail, and has thrown the 
 enormous weight of his personal influence in the scale against 
 them. On numerous occasions he has branded it and the similar 
 movement in art as "harmful" and "despicable." A striking 
 illustration of the lengths to which he is willing to go in this 
 respect was his refusal to sanction the awarding of the Schiller 
 Prize to Hauptmann for his "Sunken Bell." This so-called 
 Schiller Prize, awarded every few years by a body of the leading 
 men in literature and thought in Germany to the one writer whose 
 most recent work is considered most original, "path-breaking,"and 
 withal of the highest excellence, was given twice to Hauptmann 
 for his "Sunken Bell." The Kaiser, on both occasions, annulled 
 this decision, and finally gave the prize to Wildenbruch, who, 
 however, was honourable and independent enough to send half 
 of the prize, consisting of a goodly sum, to his competitor, 
 Hauptmann, the fact being applauded by nearly every paper in 
 Germany. 
 
 In opposition to the new movement the Kaiser tried his hand 
 in originating a counter-movement. He laid down the lines for 
 it by defining what, according to him, was commendable litera- 
 ture and art. He encouraged a number of minor writers and 
 dramatists coming up to his ideas, just as he did in painting and 
 sculpture. Thus he has shown more or less favour to men like 
 Richard Skowronnek, FEans von Trotha, Baron Georg von 
 Ompteda, Fedor von Zobeltitz, Arthur Fitger, Felix Dahn, Ernst 
 Wichert and others. But the man after his own heart he has 
 found of late in Joseph LaufE, a retired artillery major. To 
 this gentleman lie imparted his ideas concerning a series of
 
 LITERATURE AND ART 347 
 
 dramas glorifying the Hohenzollcrn dynasty. He collaborated 
 with him on the first two of these plays. He had them mounted 
 with a disregard of expenses — costumes lavish and historically 
 correct; scenery gorgeous ; new and striking stage effects; the 
 best obtainable actors and actresses in the leading parts; the 
 crowds of people represented by large bodies of carefully drilled 
 soldiers; wreaths of fresh roses suspended from the ceiling; silver 
 trumpets blowing fanfares — and so forth. At the initial per- 
 formance he had an audience composed exclusively of his guests 
 and courtiers. And still the plays proved rank failures, 
 unquestionably so. Both at the royal theatres in Berlin and 
 Wiesbaden the public flatly declined to see these intensely 
 patriotic btit as decidedly bombastic and inane dramas, to the 
 Kaiser's intense disgust, while they nightly flocked in dense 
 crowds to hear his hated rivals, Hauptmann and Sudermann. 
 It was a galling defeat for the proud autocrat. 
 
 There is one feature of this new movement, however, that the 
 Kaiser is in sympathy with, and that is interior decoration. 
 There has been no Morris in Germany, and no Kensington Art 
 School, but the Gewerbe Museum, in Berlin, founded mainly 
 through the influence of the Empress Frederick, and containing 
 beautiful collections of specimens of applied art and of artistic 
 handiwork, has been very fruitful in its stimulus upon interior 
 decoration in Germany. That there was, and is, great need of that 
 nobody can doubt who has studied German life in its various 
 phases. The lack of taste, of artistic form given to intrinsically 
 valuable material, was everywhere apparent in the German home 
 of the middle, and, of course, in a higher degree, in that of the 
 lower classes. The rapidly growing wealth made this fact all the 
 more apparent and unpalatable. In all that constitutes interior 
 decoration — in furniture, in hangings and tapestries, in paint- 
 ings, frames and nippes, in carpets and rugs, in ceramics and 
 tableware, in all of these and in many things not here enumerated, 
 the German interior was, up to a few years ago, the distinct 
 inferior of the average French, English or American home. The 
 disproportion between the artistic understanding in theory and 
 the lack of concrete expression of it was often appalling to the 
 observer. But with the reawakening of life in German art came 
 also a strong desire to remodel the German interior on lines more
 
 348 GERMANY 
 
 in accord with the abundance of material means to gratify the 
 sense of beauty and the artistic longing of the person of education. 
 Laymen and artists jointly strove to work a change for the better. 
 Almost every one of the larger expositions in Germany during the 
 past decade contained a section devoted to the exhibition of fur- 
 niture, and of a vast variety of objects intended for home decora- 
 tion, and the effects of this have been strongly noticeable of late. 
 Artists and critics like Prof. Julius Lessing, Professor Eberlein, 
 Paul Schlenther and others, did not tire in teaching the gospel of 
 better taste and greater refinement in home appointments to the 
 cultured public, and men like Klinger and Sattler thought it not 
 below their dignity to actively further this movement. By a 
 variety of means, in fact, interior decoration became an integral 
 part of the new German art. The Grand Duke of Hesse grew one 
 of the chief apostles of this new creed of reshaping the German 
 home on artistic lines. He spent liberally of his means in starting 
 a whole colony of such model German homes, settled entirely by 
 artists whom he befriended, and who built their houses and 
 decorated them inside on purely artistic ideas. This colony, 
 perhaps in its way unique in the world, is near Darmstadt, and 
 last year it gave an exhibition, the one comprehensive exhibit 
 being itself, the colony. Harmoniousness of outline, appro- 
 priateness of form and material, and just apportionment of lights 
 and shadows in the interior, and originality of conception in design 
 and workmanship, always guided by taste — these were the things 
 taught those who visited this peculiar exposition. Dealers, 
 designers, and manufacturers were, of course, not slow to 
 respond to this new departure, and the results are to-day very 
 apparent. Nowhere else in the world, I believe, can be found 
 to-day furniture more artistic and original in design — but, 
 unfortunately, more expensive either — than in the shops of the 
 leading German cities. A series of local expositions, like the 
 one in Berlin in 1896, the several in Leipzig, Dresden, Munich 
 since, did much to make the well-to-do German public 
 acquainted with this enormous progress in interior decoration, 
 and it has to-day become an established feature in the life of 
 the German upper classes. 
 
 The new "style," if one may speak of it that way, diflEers very 
 materially from the old, and differs, too, much from the one seen
 
 LITERxVTURE AND ART 349 
 
 in wealthier homes in France, England, or this country. Its 
 leading features may be summarized thus : A thorough blending 
 of colours, with neutral or half -tints predominating; sinuous and 
 graceful lines in form; patterns and hangings showing wavy 
 lines, entirely fanciful, with no attempt to copy or suggest objects 
 of nature; half-lights predominating; every piece of appointment 
 or furniture fitted and shaped entirely to the place which it is to 
 occupy; designs always original. From all this it will be seen 
 that only the rich can afford such an intcriciir, but the sense of 
 colour, of beauty of outline, and of harmony awakened by them 
 has borne fruit in the other classes of the population as well, and 
 this again has stimulated the artisan, the maker and creator of 
 all the articles needed in a home. 
 
 The Kaiser has identified himself with this part of the art 
 movement in Germany, there being probably nothing in it, so 
 far as he has been able to discover, savouring of Icse majcstc, or 
 high treason, and he has furthered it considerably. It is a move- 
 ment which was, as pointed out above, more needed in Germany 
 than elsewhere, and it rounds out and complements the art move- 
 ment as a whole. Under its impetus the German artisan is now 
 beginning to recover some of that cunning in his fingers for 
 which, during the later Middle Ages, and particularly during 
 the Renaissance period, he was famed. Half-forgotten arts, like 
 carving in oak, ebony and ivory, are being revived; wood sculp- 
 ture and delicate bits of the turner's skill are again to be seen 
 in many shops, and while in other spheres the machine is in 
 Germany, as elsewhere, replacing man's handiwork, here are 
 trades and callings which require the nicest and most individual 
 workmanship, and which pay artist's wages, besides. Some single 
 bits of such artistic furniture sell as high as a thousand dollars and 
 more. And wealthy Germans pay these prices without grum- 
 bling, and their friends see in it nothing more extraordinary than 
 if the same price had been paid for a good painting.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 GERMAN CHANCELLORS 
 
 It is interesting to note the fact that the German Emperor, in 
 his unquestionably sincere desire for a close understanding with 
 this republic, has broken with another Bismarck tradition. 
 While the Iron Chancellor throughout life had a sincere liking for 
 the American as an individual — as witness his cherished friend- 
 ship for Motley and his amicable relations with George Bancroft, 
 Bayard Taylor, William Walter Phelps, Andrew D. White, and 
 other cultivated Americans — and while this nation had for him 
 the fascination of contrast, he nevertheless studiously avoided 
 anything like a rcapproachement with the United States during 
 the three decades when he almost autocratically shaped Germany's 
 foreign policy. It was, in fact, during Bismarck's regime that 
 relations between the two countries became rather strained 
 for the space of several years — the time when a nuinber of the 
 most important American products were shut out of the empire. 
 This is, however, readily accounted for, the chief reason being 
 that it was only shortly before Bismarck's death that this country 
 set out on its career as a world power and its political influence 
 began to be strongly felt beyond the seas. It is futile, of course, 
 to argue the question whether Bismarck, under like conditions, 
 would have courted the political friendship of this country. But 
 while his views on American national aims and ideals can no 
 longer sway the public mind in Germany, it is at least of his- 
 torical import to record here some pertinent remarks made by 
 the aged statesman, in the writer's hearing, in the course of vari- 
 ous conversations which it was his good fortune to obtain with 
 Bismarck during the last years of his life. These conversations 
 were three in number, and they occurred, respectively, on July 
 28, 1894 (while Bismarck was passing through Berlin, on his way 
 to his Pomeranian estate, Varzin); on September 16 of the same 
 year, in Varzin, at Bismarck's invitation; and at Friedrichsruh, 
 
 350
 
 GERMAN CHANCELLORS 351 
 
 on May 18, 1S98, during the Spanish-American War. This last 
 visit was brought about through the good offices of the American 
 ambassador in BerHn, Mr. White, and on this occasion Bismarck 
 spoke, so far as I have been able to ascertain, his last words for 
 publication. My purpose at that time had been mainly to secure, 
 if possible,, some expressions of opinion from Bismarck relative 
 to the war. In that, however, I was not measurably successful, 
 Count Rantzau (Bismarck's son-in-law) purposely deflecting 
 the current of talk when it ran into that channel. I was 
 subsequently given to understand that this was done because 
 Bismarck had, that very day at breakfast, become greatly 
 excited on the topic, after reading the latest despatches about 
 the war, and because excitement of any kind was deemed by 
 Doctor Schweninger, his attending physician, highly injurious 
 to him. 
 
 It was a great shock to me when I was led in to Bismarck that 
 day. His gnarled face, with its sallow, parchment-like skin, his 
 mighty body, bent and shrunken, and his great hands trembling 
 as if with ague, even when grasping his stout oaken staff — all 
 spoke of his approaching dissolution. His voice was raucous 
 and hollow, and his eyes alone showed that this was Bismarck ; 
 their steel-blue still shot fire. Yet his intellectual faculties were 
 unimpaired. Of that there was no doubt. The large table in 
 front of him was littered with German, Enghsh, French and 
 Russian papers, some of them blue-penciled in the text and on 
 the margins. Doctor Chrysander told me that his interest 
 in pohtics, both foreign and domestic, was as keen as ever, 
 excepting when the painful attacks of his destroying malady 
 seized him, which was sometimes for hours. 
 
 It was a bright, sunny day, and through the open window 
 of the morning-room floated the balsamic odor of the nearby 
 forest, the Sachsenwald, the breath of which the old man loved, 
 and beneath whose boughs he had been wont to wander every 
 day as long as strength permitted. But here he sat, propped up 
 in his easy-chair, and with now and then a wistful glance at the 
 green glory beyond. 
 
 After a few introductory remarks Bismarck told me, in his 
 curt and somewhat hurschikos manner, to take a seat opposite 
 him, and then gazed at me steadfastly, finally breaking silence
 
 352 GERMANY 
 
 by questioning me about the situation in America and Manila. 
 He accompanied this with a running commentary of exclama- 
 tions. I drifted into some talk about the attitude of Europe, 
 considered none too friendly toward America at that time; and 
 from that to the Monroe Doctrine was but a step. Then 
 Bismarck was roused. 
 
 "This whole war is indefensible," he snarled, "on grounds of 
 international equity. It is a war of pretext, undertaken against 
 a waning power for the sole sake of spoils. The United States 
 complained that Cuba, as a Spanish colony, was being maladmin- 
 istered. What of that ! Colonies have often been mismanaged, 
 and I suppose the Americans, when they shall have colonies, will 
 not be exempt. But that is no fair reason for dispossessing the 
 owner. Other powers have never interfered in such cases 
 before. The Creole and the West Indian half-breeds are difficult 
 to manage, and it would be impossible to satisfy them under any 
 circumstances. The Americans will find them, later on, a hard 
 nut to crack. Spoils, spoils — all else is pretense. That, too, 
 is seen by your procedure in the Philippines. The Americans 
 call this Europe of ours effete. Well, there must be some truth 
 in it, or else there would have been a united European front to 
 oppose and hinder this unrighteous war." 
 
 "And the Monroe Doctrine?" I ventured. 
 
 "That is a species of arrogance peculiarly American and 
 inexcusable," said Bismarck, wrathfully, and his eyes gleamed. 
 "You in the United States are like the English in that respect: 
 you have profited for ages from dissensions and ambitions on the 
 continent of Europe. That insolent dogma, which no single 
 European power has ever sanctioned, has flourished on them. 
 And how will you enforce it? And against whom? The 
 powers most interested, now that Spain is out of the way, are 
 England and France, the two leading naval powers. Will you 
 drive them off American waters with your pigmy navy? The 
 Monroe Doctrine is a spectre that would vanish in plain day- 
 light. Besides, the American interpretation of this presumptu- 
 ous idea has itself varied constantly, and has been buried out of 
 sight for many years at a time. There is no definition of the 
 idea that has ever been universally accepted in your country. 
 I remember an incident durins: the war between Chile and Peru
 
 GERMAN CHANCELLORS 353 
 
 which illustrates that at that time, for instance, the Monroe 
 Doctrine was virtually dead. We had some information which 
 made us suspect that the Washington government intended 
 to interfere either as an uncalled-for peacemaker or else as an 
 arbitrator. At that time, as now, Mr. White represented the 
 United States in Berlin, and I sent Lothar Bucher from the 
 Foreign Office to him to ascertain, if possible, whether these 
 rumours were true or not. Mr. White assured him that they 
 were not, but I insisted on something more definite than his mere 
 belief, and so Mr. White drew up a cablegram to his government 
 before Bucher's eyes, and in a short while got his reply, and it 
 emphatically denied these reports, and furthermore gave 
 assurances that no such step was contemplated. And so it 
 proved. At that time, then, the Monroe Doctrine was as good 
 as dead." 
 
 Here Count Rantzau broke in with a remark intended to shift 
 the conversation, which had that effect. Soon after I took my 
 leave, and two months later the bells all over Germany tolled 
 out the death of the old statesman. 
 
 When I had spoken with Bismarck in midsummer four years 
 before, he looked still hale enough, although almost an octo- 
 genarian. But to those who had known him in the days of his 
 power there was one ominous sign of senility ; for as the crowd 
 outside the gates of the Stettin railway station sent in volley 
 after volley of thunderous cheers, his eyes became moist. I 
 saw the tears glisten. Thus, then, these proofs of his unabated 
 popularity — a popularity which to the day of his fall he had 
 despised — moved him strangely. It was shortly after the grand- 
 son of his alter Hcrr had sealed the truce with some bottles of 
 rare old Rhenish; but that it had been only a truce, and not a 
 fast compact of peace, was apparent on that very occasion, for 
 the government had done ever3^thing it could in a passive way 
 to prevent a popular demonstration for the idol of the nation, 
 not alone by keeping secret the news of his coming through 
 Berlin that day, but also by rigidly enforcing police regulations 
 at and about the station where Bismarck's private car had to halt 
 for half an hour. But the delegations of university students 
 were not to be baffled, and they were there in full "Wichs," with 
 swords gleaming and colours flying, and the multitude beyond the
 
 354 GERMANY 
 
 gates was numerous and enthusiastic I had seen Bismarck 
 only once before. That was in 1876, as he was whirled on his 
 way from the palace through the Wilhelm Strasse, looking as 
 stern as Fate, and as rugged and long-lived as one of his 
 Sachsenwald oaks. He was then in the zenith of his power. 
 Now I saw him dethroned, but mighty still. Doctor Chrysander 
 had arranged things for me, and I climbed into the car and was 
 formally presented. Princess Bismarck, his faithful wife, who 
 was with him, cautioned him against the draft from the window, 
 and put his ample rustic cap on his head. She eyed me askance. 
 But Bismarck, during the five minutes he could give me, was 
 debonair, and spoke without restraint. Among other things he 
 said: 
 
 "Economically considered, I believe that the United States 
 has a great future. It is absolutely necessary for us people of 
 Europe to protect ourselves in time against your competition, 
 for whenever the point arrives that the United States is not 
 checked in its inroads on our agriculture, complete ruin will 
 overtake our land-holding classes. It was the knowledge of 
 American competition, with which, without protective lines, we 
 are unable to cope in our smaller and older and poorer lands, 
 which dictated my agricultural policy in Germany. There may 
 come a da}', however, when it will no longer be possible to keep 
 up artificial barriers against your cereals and meats, and that 
 will be an evil day for Germany." 
 
 A word having been thrown in b}^ me about American politics, 
 Bismarck said: 
 
 "Your politics over there have always remained a sealed book 
 to me. And it seems American politicians are not much better 
 off in that respect. But don't you believe 3'-ourself that the 
 whole edifice — I mean your political one — will some day tumble 
 about your ears? To me, at least, it rather looks that way. 
 What are your Coxey armies and your monster strikes, your 
 periodically returning business crises and panics, but signs of 
 exhaustion, of decadence — signs of vital defects in a machinery 
 which no longer is adequate to your needs and which, there- 
 fore, causes evil?" 
 
 The Chicago World's Fair prompted a question on my part, 
 and Bismarck said:
 
 GERMAN CHANCELLORS 355 
 
 "I do not believe in these large international expositions of 
 the kind of which we have already had more than enough. To 
 the world at large they do not bring much of lasting benefit, and 
 for each city in which such a large exposition is held it has 
 more of evil than of good in its wake. It increases the homeless 
 and penniless crowds in those cities, and after the thing is over 
 it is difficult, almost impossible, to get rid of them again. It 
 also leads to an increase in the price of necessaries of life, to a 
 temporary increase in wages, and to a permanent increase in 
 rents. All these are unhealthy consequences, followed later by 
 serious reaction." 
 
 His Agrarian views and his fears of unchecked American com- 
 petition Bismarck repeated, a couple of months later, when I 
 visited him, at his invitation, at his Varzin estate. To most 
 men of his past, life on this vast but dreary estate in the most 
 backward and feudal part of Pomerania would have proved 
 unendurably dull. His only regular intercourse, besides the mem- 
 bers of his family, was with Commercial Councilor Behrend in 
 nearby Hammermiihle, the pastor in Wussow, and the district 
 president in Panne witz, and they were very ordinary mortals. 
 But Bismarck, to whom love of a c|uiet rural life descended from 
 a long line of ancestors, evidently enjoyed it. He consorted with 
 his rustic neighbours, many of whom v/ere his tenants, on terms 
 of perfect equality, and entered with enjoyment into their local 
 gossip. His steam dairy and his distillery, and above all his 
 paper mill, engrossed his thoughts during the larger part of the 
 day. Though a special messenger brought his mail to him every 
 day from the nearest railway station, some seven or eight miles 
 off, he never complained about its tardy arrival. His wife's 
 failing health seemed to me to be the only shadow on his life 
 there. It was with a sad smile that, towering over the feeble and 
 attenuated form of his Johanna, he said, "You see, we're both 
 growing old." 
 
 After dinner, a very simple affair, he lighted his big porcelain 
 pipe — cigars and wine or beer, except a half Schoppcn of light 
 Moselle, were forbidden him — and chatted, often interrupting 
 himself to put questions that occurred to him, in that peculiar 
 style, a mixture of frank cynicism, bonhomie, and picturesque 
 humour that lent a spice to whatever he said, on a variety of
 
 356 GERMANY 
 
 subjects, touching them all quite lightly. He mentioned the 
 Wilson bill, then pending, and spoke of Cleveland in high terms, 
 saying that he had "the stuff in him out of which statesmen are 
 made," but that he was "thrown away in a republic." He 
 compared parliamentary methods in Germany and in America, 
 and deplored the fact that in the absence of two great parties, as 
 they existed in the United States, he had always been forced to 
 make Politik von Fall zu Fall. Having smoked his pipe, he care- 
 fully emptied the ashes, stood up the pipe in its place on a rack, 
 and kissing his ailing wife softly on the forehead, left the room, 
 and a minute later was striding along the path to the distillery. 
 Count Caprivi, Bismarck's successor, was a man of an essen- 
 tially different fiber. Strong common sense, the virtues of the 
 Prussian soldier — ^blind obedience and loyalty to his chief — 
 simple, unaffected modes of speech and living, coupled with 
 candour, seemed to me his leading characteristics. Doubtless 
 it was these qualities of the man which had induced the Kaiser, 
 after the irretrievable rupture with Bismarck, to pick him out 
 from among hundreds of other Prussian generals. Caprivi 
 achieved some lasting good for Germany during his brief term 
 of office, and with his commercial treaties, concluded with the 
 principal customers of the empire, he enabled Germany to attain 
 to that commercial prosperity and expansion which she enjoyed 
 for a decennium. It is matter of history that his downfall was 
 due to the bitter hatred and the unscrupulous intrigues of the 
 powerful land-holding aristocracy. They had, in derision of his 
 poverty, dubbed him dcr Mami ohne Ar und Halm (the man 
 without a foot of soil or blade of grass), and wilily insinuated, 
 on all occasions, that a man who owned not even an acre of soil 
 could of necessity have no sympathy with agricultural interests. 
 Caprivi was the most accessible chancellor Germany has yet had, 
 and, strangely enough for a man who had served half a century 
 in the Prussian army, he was liberal in his political and social 
 ideas. The German press and foreign correspondents enjoyed 
 during his short regime a degree of comparative freedom which 
 formed in itself a striking contrast with the era of Bismarck, 
 when expulsions and jail terms for press offenses were of too fre- 
 quent occurrence. Caprivi was clear-sighted enough to perceive 
 that Germany, as a world power, as a country whose industry
 
 GERMAN CHANCELLORS 357 
 
 and trade had become paramount interests, could not in the logic 
 of things remain under the dominance of an Agrarian party, 
 whose narrow egotism would keep the empire in a commercial 
 feud with all its neighbours. 
 
 A fortnight before he laid down the heavy burden of an ofifice 
 which he had never sought, and which he had taken up only in 
 the same spirit in which he would, on command, have stormed 
 an enemy's position in war time, Count Caprivi intimated to me 
 that his position with the Emperor was "shaken," and that he 
 expected any day to step down and out. He rightly attributed 
 the lack of confidence which the Emperor had shown him of late 
 to the insistent and insidious machinations of the Agrarians, 
 whose influence at court and everywhere else was undeniable. 
 He added: "The Agrarian party did very well when Germany, 
 and especially Prussia, was still preeminently an agricultural 
 country ; but to-day to yield in essentials to their influence would 
 mean ruin to Germany. We can no longer exclude the agricul- 
 tural products of other nations, whether it be Russia or the 
 United States. Our labouring population — and that means the 
 bulk of the nation — imperatively requires cheaper foodstuffs 
 than our own soil will give us. To prevent this, as the Agrarian 
 party tries to do, is to prevent our rise as an exporting country. 
 Commercial treaties are feasible only on the principle of give and 
 take, and some interests are always bound to suffer. " 
 
 Caprivi was a sincere advocate of a close friendship between 
 Germany and both England and the United States, and on the 
 night of his leaving office, two weeks later, he granted me a short 
 interview, during which he made some significant remarks. 
 That stormy scene at the palace between him and the Emperor 
 had taken place only a couple of hours before, yet I found him 
 calm and unperturbed, just on the point of retiring. It was 
 about ten in the evening. With unruffled temper and smiling 
 quizzically, he shook hands and offered me a cigar, which his gray- 
 haired old valet brought in. Then, in his matter-of-fact way, 
 he chatted with m_e for a quarter of an hour. He said he was 
 honestly glad to be " out of it, " and to have the chance to spend 
 the remainder of his days in peace and quiet. " I have not had 
 an hour's happiness since I came into this house," said he, ''and 
 mv old bones can now take a little ease. "
 
 358 GERMANY 
 
 He ruminated awhile, blowing the wreaths of smoke before 
 him thoughtfully. "Of course," he then remarked, "I under- 
 stand why the Agrarians hate ine. As long as my influence 
 prevailed with the Emperor the commercial interests of the 
 country predominated. The Agrarians are driving the country 
 into a tariff war, and they fear a close understanding with 
 America and England. And yet that is bound to come, and it 
 will be of great advantage to Germany, not only politically, 
 though that alone is an important factor, but in its educational 
 influence on the masses. Contrary to Bismarck's views, who 
 always considered a close friendship with Russia of paramount 
 importance to us, I think Russia's political influence on us has 
 always been deleterious. We must assimilate with nations 
 that are politically and commercially more advanced than we. 
 The influences of the English-speaking races on our thought, 
 our literature, our political development, have always been 
 wholesome ones, and with England and the United States as 
 our fast friends we need not fear either France or Russia, no 
 matter whether the Dreibund lasts another ten years or not. 
 And the Emperor personally feels the same way about this ; but 
 his whole political surroundings are against the idea." 
 
 Prince Hohenlohe, too, was not ill disposed toward this 
 country; but as a very old man, whose political education and 
 diplomatic training fell into a time when the nineteenth century 
 was still young and this republic only a stripling, he knew very 
 little about the United States, and his political thoughts turned 
 mainly upon the old orbits — Russia, Austria, France and 
 England. At a garden party given in the extensive park behind 
 the Chancellor's palace, he once engaged me in conversation 
 about America, and I discovered, to my amazement, that his 
 ideas regarding its civilization and customs were rather crude. 
 They seemed to date from the time Dickens paid his first visit 
 here, and what I told him about American universities and other 
 evidences of advanced culture he seemed to take cum grano salts. 
 Besides, though he was a charmingly liberal man in most things, 
 he was a grand seigneur of the old school, and he evidently held 
 in small esteem a country of such democratic institutions and 
 manners as ours. But in his economic convictions he came very 
 near to Caprivi's, and he favoured a close commercial treaty with
 
 GERMAN CHANCELLORS 359 
 
 this country, as he told me, though on new lines and not based 
 on the old treaty with Prussia of 1828. However, the infirmities 
 of old age prevented more and more, during his chancellor- 
 ship, the full exercise of his constitutional powers, and Count 
 Buelow, during the last six months of the Hohenlohe rdgime, was 
 virtually both Chancellor and Foreign Secretary. 
 
 In January of last year I paid my respects to Prince Hohenlohe 
 for the last time. He was then staying at a hotel in Meran, in 
 the southern Tyrol, to benefit his failing health. Like many men 
 of his stamp, he liked gossip and personal anecdote, and he 
 listened with rapt attention to my little budget of Berlin stories, 
 frequently putting his hand to his ear to aid his defective hearing. 
 Then he said, when the talk drifted to America: 
 
 " We are likely to have a good deal of trouble with our Agrarians, 
 who are dead set against any economic understanding with 
 the United States. This tariff bill now in preparation goes too 
 far. It yields too much to the interests of our large land-holders. 
 These are not the interests which ought to prevail in such a 
 matter. I told the Emperor so, and I fought Buelow's ideas on the 
 subject, who sees too much couleur dc rose in the matter. What 
 will the Ainericans say to a tariff which bears so heavily on their 
 exports to this country ? Buelow gives way too much to the 
 Agrarians, who would like nothing better than to embroil us 
 with every nation that sends us foodstuffs. The Emperor is 
 against the bill, but Buelow has persuaded him that he cannot 
 get along without the Agrarians in home politics. Well, I wash 
 my hands of the whole affair." 
 
 Count Bernhard von Buelow has become somewhat enigmatical 
 since he rose to the post of Chancellor. He loves to express him- 
 self in metaphor when giving public utterance to his thoughts, 
 and in Germany his oracular sayings furnish endless opportunity 
 for interpretation. His mind is far more sinuous than that of 
 his predecessor, and he has now and then contradicted himself 
 in his speeches. But while he has frankly confessed himself an 
 Agrarian, and while his family traditions and leanings and his 
 personal affiliations are altogether on the side of the Agrarians, 
 he nevertheless would like to see a better and closer political 
 understanding established between Germany and this country. 
 Of this, I think, there is no doubt. On one occasion, not many
 
 36o GERMANY 
 
 months after the close of the war with Spain, taking President 
 McKinley's message to Congress for his text, he expressed himself 
 to me in this way: " Anything which will tend to bring the two 
 nations closer together must be welcomed on both sides of the 
 ocean. This is a sentiment to which I have given repeated 
 expression. Misunderstandings of a political or economic nature 
 are liable to arise now and then between Germany and America, 
 as between other countries; but with good will on the part of 
 both governments — and there is every evidence of such good will 
 — these misunderstandings are sure to be amicably adjusted. 
 The two nations have much in common, and the millions of 
 Germans who have found a second home in America are alone a 
 tie that ought to bind very closely. There is absolutely nothing 
 of a serious nature, so far as I can see, that ought to breed discord 
 between the two countries, and there are many reasons which 
 ought to unite them. The press can do much in furtherance of 
 this."
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE OUTLOOK FOR GERMANY 
 
 What after all is the immediate outlook for Germany ? What 
 horoscope can be cast in view of all the points of undeniable 
 strength, and of as undeniable weaknesses, possessed by the young 
 world power ? 
 
 To play prophet is under all circumstances a ticklish and 
 generally a thankless task. The difficulty of venturing upon a 
 prognostication is, however, greatly augmented in the case of 
 Germany, as the reader will probably conclude for himself 
 after perusing the contents of this book. 
 
 With such rapidly changing conditions and such a strong 
 element of uncertainty in nearly all departments of public life, 
 the whole situation must of necessity appear hazy in its out- 
 lines, and the sphere of vision greatly circumscribed thereby. 
 With a Kaiser who is abnormally impulsive and prone to sudden 
 and radical changes of front ; with a Reichstag composed of a 
 shifting and wavering majority; with the former sheet anchor 
 of Germany's foreign policy, the Dreibund, tearing from its 
 moorings ; and with the necessity of modifying her whole course 
 of action, as her powerful rivals modify theirs, it seems at first 
 sight, indeed, next to impossible to predict Germany's future, 
 even if but the immediate future be meant by that. 
 
 Yet there are certain things that may be foretold with some 
 degree of confidence. 
 
 As to the Empire's foreign policy, that in the main seems 
 marked out for it by the irresistible logic of events, present and of 
 the recent past. To put it in a few words, Germany must and 
 will seek a close and intimate understanding with this country 
 and England, and she will not fail in effecting it. Where there's 
 a will, there's a way. The Kaiser will find that way. He must 
 be given credit for considerable shrewdness in his foreign policy 
 hitherto, though it has not been exempt from serious mistakes 
 
 361
 
 362 GERMANY 
 
 and even some signal failures. Still in the main, he has known 
 how to steer the German ship of state well beyond cliffs and 
 shallows, and we may be sure that he will sagaciously act on the 
 conclusions reached some time ago. At present he is still merely 
 posing as the friend of this country, no important opportunities 
 having arisen of late to prove the substance as well as the 
 semblance of friendship. But the first opportunity that shall 
 present itself he will seize with a vim and a vigour all his own 
 In the case of England the same opportunity will also come, 
 and probably soon. With that exhausting and execrated war in 
 South Africa over, England will be herself again; the present 
 rancor in Germany will subside, and so will the extreme sensi- 
 tiveness to criticism in England. Normal relations will quickly 
 be followed by friendly and intimate ones. 
 
 The three great Germanic powers will then be the dictators 
 of the world. Strong in their peaceful aims and transcendently 
 strong in their joint material and moral equipment, this union 
 of forces will have nothing provocative of armed resistance in 
 its character, and the world will needs bow and submit to its 
 benign sway. Civilization with all its blessings will then be 
 carried to the farthest corners of the globe, and the advance of 
 progress will be unchecked. Russia has a gigantic mission of 
 her own, amply sufficient in its scope to satisfy even her vaulting 
 ambition, and one with which the three dominating powers will 
 have neither right nor inclination to meddle. France, as Russia's 
 satellite, will have to march in Russia's wake. It will be France's 
 cue to place no stones in the path of the new political constella- 
 tion, for her interests will coincide with such a policy of non- 
 interference. And the three powers, whose joint potentialities 
 for good are matchless and resistless, will calmly proceed on their 
 own manifest mission. They will be the "Culturtrager," the 
 bearers of culture, to the universe. 
 
 In her domestic policy, Germany must gradually conform to 
 her standing as a modern world power, with all that this word 
 implies. A new Liberal party will arise, powerful and creative 
 in its tendencies, not merely negative as the present one. Both 
 Count Caprivi and Prince Hohenlohe, essentially Liberals in 
 political conceptions and aims, had the desire to govern with 
 the aid of the Left in the Reichstag. But there was no way of
 
 THE OUTLOOK FOR GERMANY 363 
 
 accomplishing this. The Liberals themselves were numerically 
 too weak to carry out any poHcy whatsoever, even with the 
 Socialists and extreme Radicals as their allies, and the attempt 
 had to be abandoned. The Liberal party in Germany is now 
 undergoing slow transformation. It must first rid itself of its 
 inept leaders, and of a habit of thought and action which knows 
 only to deny and never to affirm; only to oppose and never to 
 frame legislation; only to criticize and never to create. The 
 coming Liberal party will present a real and tangible programm.e 
 to the voters, and it will comprise the living forces of Germany 
 in thought and deed. Millions of voters in the empire are 
 impatiently waiting for such a Liberal party, and will hail its 
 advent with joy. Its programme will be imbued with fresh and 
 realizable ideas, and will powerfully represent that moderate 
 and rational progress which alone bears fruit and wins decisive 
 battles. This party will have thrown off the thraldom of old 
 and sterile leaders hke Eugene Richter and Heinrich Rickert, 
 fossilized in the issues of the past, and will have turned to the 
 younger men, like Theodore Barth, whose thoughts and aims 
 dwell in the present and in the near future. 
 
 The ranks of the Liberal factions contain even now much indi- 
 vidual merit and a very great percentage of just those elements 
 which have made the young empire what it is. The thinkers 
 like Virchow and Mommsen, the economic path-breakers like 
 Siemens and Doctor Koch, and the men of initiative like 
 Ballin and Wiegand, are of it. The great manufacturers and 
 merchants, bankers and financiers are Liberals. But as soon as 
 their present ineffective party methods have been discarded and 
 replaced by aggressive and modern ones, as soon as the broad 
 middle classes of Germany are confronted by a Liberalism with 
 a live programme and with the chances of success in its favour, 
 such a Liberal party will sweep the country. Millions of voters 
 who now secretly vote the Socialist ballot, as standing for the 
 only party that believes in itself and its mission, and which has 
 backbone enough not only to speak its mind on all subjects, but to 
 act in strict accordance with its convictions, will then flock to the 
 Liberal banners. With such a party the Kaiser and his advisers 
 will indeed be able to govern and to carry out those measures 
 of internal improvement, economic and political, which are at
 
 364 GERMANY 
 
 present consistently frustrated by that conclave virorum ohscu- 
 rorum consisting of reactionary Prussian younkers and of men 
 who make their religious faith their sole political confession. 
 Such far-reaching plans as the Kaiser's Midland Canal, as the 
 reform of the Prussian election laws and many others will then 
 be quite feasible. 
 
 Of course, the Socialist party will be affiliated with the coming 
 Liberal party, as it usually is noy\^ on all crucial questions. There 
 will be no harm in that, for the Socialist party will by that time 
 have thrown off most of its old and useless shibboleths and 
 Utopian aims, and will be ready to make a pact with existing 
 conditions, as their brethren, the Socialists of France, of Belgium 
 and of Holland have done in a measure. They will have become 
 in fact, if not in name, what the Socialist party in Germany is 
 largely even to-day, a radical labour party, with nothing in their 
 programme that cannot be realized some time or other, and with- 
 out first aiming at the obliteration of the present system of 
 society. There will then occur questions on which the Socialists 
 will differ from the Liberals, as there do now, and in some cases 
 the Reactionists of every stripe will vote with the Socialists for 
 selfish or partisan reasons. In the main, though, the interests 
 of the nev\r Liberal party, based as they are going to be upon 
 those of the largest stratum of German society, will run parallel 
 with those of the then Socialists. 
 
 The left wing of the present National Liberal faction, which 
 means the really liberal and progressive portion of it, will leave 
 their faction and amalgamate with the big Liberal party, and 
 the right wing will go where it belongs — i. c, to join the 
 Conservatives. This will further simplify matters and make a 
 really parliamentarian form of government possible for the first 
 time, permitting the government to reckon with known or easily 
 ascertained factors in projected legislation and in all political 
 questions of importance. As to the Centre, or Ultramontane 
 party, at present a tower of parliamentary strength and by far the 
 largest fraction of the Reichstag, all these events will not come 
 to pass without altering, too, its party complexion. One portion 
 of it, the one even now responsible for whatever progressive 
 legislation the Centre has fathered, will leave it and join the 
 Liberal party.
 
 THE OUTLOOK FOR GERMANY 365 
 
 Freed thus from those shackles of a many-hued factionism 
 which makes parHamentary government, properly so-called, an 
 impossibility in the Germany of to-day, the empire will be much 
 stronger at home, as it will be stronger abroad. It will then not 
 run the constant danger of loosening or breaking the ties of 
 friendship which unite Germany with other nations, just to 
 humour her privileged class of landowners, whose votes the 
 government cannot do without in its domestic policy. Her 
 foreign and her domestic policies will not contradict each other, 
 but will present a homogeneous front, words tallying with acts. 
 The Liberal party in Germany has ever favoured a close under- 
 standing with both England and the United States. Harmony 
 of relations will be reestablished. Liberalism dominant once 
 more in Germany, a Liberal policy abroad would be a matter of 
 course. The Prussian younker party would sigh, as it does 
 now, for the "traditional friendship" with Russia, but there 
 would be no particular harm in that. 
 
 Commercial and manufacturing advance in Germany will then 
 be unchecked. The nation will reach out further and further. 
 The latent hostility of Russia and France would be more than 
 discounted by the friendship of England and the United States. 
 Her trade would no longer fear a cataclysm in the event of war with 
 either of the two English-speaking nations, and the normal con- 
 dition would prevail of the best man winning his way in the world. 
 
 Specializing in manufacture and commerce will become more 
 of a feature in Germany then than it is now, and this for obvious 
 reasons. Germany's strengtli in manufacturing, as in her science 
 and art, lies naturally in her capacity of taking infinite pains. 
 Therefore all such commodities in the manufacture of which 
 this capacity may be fully exercised, and in which minute exact- 
 ness and thorough workmanship, coupled with special skill and 
 vast experience, plays a leading part, are the kind Germany will 
 excel in, and naturally enough these are the ones to which her 
 manufacturers will in the main confine themselves. Science 
 will be utilized in her industry even more than is now the case. 
 Such articles, for instance, are all instruments of precision, 
 scientific, optical, medical implements, toys, minute tools, chem- 
 ical products, dyes, carvings, tapestries, chinaware, and a host 
 of new wares yet to be invented or practically applied.
 
 366 GERMANY 
 
 Specialization being the evident trend in manufacturing every- 
 where, and this being in perfect accord with the spirit of the 
 age, as seen clearly in the most advanced countries, such indus- 
 trial development in Germany will be perfectly normal. The 
 further consolidation of capital and the extension of industrial 
 syndicates there, being really in its essence but a concomitant 
 and outgrowth of specialization, will hasten and promote this 
 movement. There is, besides, plenty of evidence in the Germany 
 of to-day that such is the course events are to take. Trusts and 
 syndicates, though their coming was later than here, and though 
 with one or two exceptions they are not of such gigantic dimen- 
 sions, have multiplied in the empire of late years, so much 
 so that they have become an important topic of political dis- 
 cussion, and that the Reichstag in its last session appointed a 
 committee to investigate the problem and study the effects of 
 their operations. The latest figures give a total of several hun- 
 dred such combinations in the empire, and the Sugar Trust and 
 several others represent hundreds of millions of invested capital. 
 
 As her own rawstuffs give out, or at least are no longer to be 
 obtained as cheaply as these same rawstufifs can be procured from 
 younger countries with greater natural fertility and resources, 
 and as she then will be forced to import them in ever-increasing 
 ratio, she will have to turn her attention altogether to the task 
 of working up these rawstuffs into finished fabrics of such incom- 
 parable beauty, durability and ever-changing novelty and felicity 
 of design as to hold present markets and win new ones by these 
 qualities. Many young and half-civilized countries are yet to be 
 commercially conquered and assimilated. The field is large. 
 German capital, like British and American, will help to develop 
 these countries and to make better and larger purchasers of them. 
 The untold millions of Asia are alone enough to engross the 
 commercial ambition of the more advanced nations, and there 
 are, besides. South and Central America, Africa and Australia 
 to be thought of. The semi-savage peoples to the north, in 
 Asiatic-Russia and elsewhere, will need more of manufactured 
 commodities, and will be able to pay more for them as rapidly 
 increasing means of communication with them will bring them 
 within the pale of civilization. There lie Germany's chances, 
 as those of other leading trading nations of the world, and
 
 THE OUTLOOK FOR GERMANY 367 
 
 with her awakened enterprise she will not be slow to avail herself 
 of them. 
 
 Regarding agriculture, the present Agrarian movement will 
 never solve the problem for Germany. In fact, it may be con- 
 fidently predicted that the resistless march of events will shortly 
 dispose of that movement for good and all, and this irrespective 
 of the question whether just at present a small but powerful 
 clique might triumph for awhile. Germany has outgrown her 
 agricultural clothes, and is marching in a powerful column along 
 with the rest on the highroad to the fullest industrial develop- 
 ment. She cannot retrace her steps, and she cannot again 
 become a land of preeminently soil-tilling proclivities. To be 
 able to compete on even terms with her commercial rivals, she 
 must have for her labour plenty of foodstuffs at low prices, and 
 since her own soil will not produce that, she must take it from 
 countries of virgin soil. There is no overcoming that simple but 
 portentous fact. 
 
 The pacific tendencies of our age are indisputable. This fact 
 is nowise vitiated by recent events. The Hague conference 
 showed that, for it was the first event of the kind which history 
 chronicled, and its influence on the thought and convictions of 
 the leaders of men, its enunciation of the universally accepted 
 theorem that war except in defense is wrong and bloodshed a 
 sin, has been lastingly powerful, though the time has not yet 
 come when all the world, under all circumstances, is willing to 
 translate this theoretically apprehended truth into its concrete 
 realization. Axioms are one thing, and to consistently act on 
 them is another. Much, immensely much, is gained by the gen- 
 erally expressed desire to avoid open hostilities on a large scale 
 wherever possible. But innumerable other manifestations show 
 the growth of pacific ideas. In fact, it is not too much to say 
 that there is a universal movement going on in the minds of all 
 nations tending to the preservation of peace. From this even 
 such inveterately quarrelsome peoples as those in Latin America 
 are not exempt, as recent occurrences have proven. 
 
 War on a large scale has become a form of suicide for any 
 powerful nation. In that respect the South African campaign 
 teaches a much-needed lesson to the world. But still less can a 
 nation nowadays afford to go to war with an adversary nearly or
 
 368 GERMANY 
 
 quite its own size. Even if victorious in the end it would have 
 been such a blood-letting, such an enormous financial and 
 economic depletion for both sides, that a generation or more 
 would be required to recoup. And at the present gait of progress 
 such a loss of time and of opportunities would be irrecoverable. 
 Whoever loses time is lost. Germany will not need her enor- 
 mous army forever. The time is fast approaching when an 
 honest and lasting truce with France and Russia can be made. 
 A strong standing army which on a peace footing requires the 
 annual expenditure of nearly a fourth of the total revenues is 
 an anomaly. It saps the vital forces of the nation to the point of 
 making in the long run competition in all essentials of power, 
 viz., accumulated wealth by successful toil, impossible. Germany's 
 youth will then be brought up to peaceful pursuits exclusively, 
 all but a small fraction of it, and this will strengthen her much 
 in the race with her rivals. 
 
 The navy, of course, she must keep. The reasons for that need 
 no pointing out. The brazen mouth of guns and the iron-clad 
 walls of ships must back up her trade on the seas, and the 
 savages of the Pacific isles can only thus be induced to listen to 
 reasons more cogent. Navies are potent teachers afar. And 
 Asian despots are much more likely to conclude treaties of 
 friendship and of regular commercial relations when such 
 requests are coupled with a naval demonstration in their 
 principal harbours. 
 
 As to the immediate future of science, the qualities that have 
 made Germany preeminent in that will continue to keep her so. 
 Educational reform is coming there, thorough and sweeping. 
 Discarding wholly or in part much of her previous efforts in 
 certain departments of mental research and mere speculation 
 as barren of tangible results, her savants will yet remain strong 
 in all those fields in which she has achieved high distinction in 
 the past — in history, philosophy, social economy, medicine, and 
 in all the analytical and comparative sciences of every kind. 
 With that, however, a larger and larger number of her powerful 
 minds will turn to the practical fructification of discoveries and 
 inventions and apply them to everyday uses. This is the 
 tendency now in Germany; it will grow stronger all the time. 
 The man of ideas has a better future in Germany than formerly.
 
 THE OUTLOOK FOR GERMANY 369 
 
 German literature will soon emerge from its present transition 
 stage. Casting off much of that hollow and cumbersome tradi- 
 tion which no longer tallies with her living forces, with the aspira- 
 tions and the habits of thought of the age, German literature, 
 always deep and always tinging the brain life of the nation more 
 decisively than in most other countries, will soon attain heights 
 never reached before. Everything points to that. Her writers 
 will rid themselves of the strong and unhealthy influences of 
 Ibsen, Tolstoi, and of the whole school of French erotic novelists, 
 and her drama will, continuing on the present lines but with the 
 additional infusion of a more hopeful spirit, become the powerful 
 exponent of progressive Teutonism. Taken as a whole, her liter- 
 ature will once more approximate, as it did in the period of 
 greatest glory, with the literature of the English-speaking 
 nations, a literature now almost wholly ignored in Germany. 
 And on her own part again, German literature will in the near 
 future much more potently influence England and the United 
 States than has been done for several decades. It will materi- 
 ally help to oust cant, and help to prevent the growing feminiza- 
 tion of both American and English literature. In that respect 
 as in some others its influence will be eminently wholesome. 
 
 In art, too, Teutonic influence will be stronger in the future 
 than it has been in the recent past. Germany is now slowly 
 recreating a distinctive art of her own. The scum and foam of 
 fermentation is still too much observable on its surface. But 
 the period of fermentation once over, the world will be amazed 
 to see how much real beauty and how much of solid worth is 
 concealed by this turbid surface. The new German art will be 
 more virile and more pure than either French or Italian art, 
 more definite and with more soul and thought than English art. 
 Above all, it will be original and full of suggestion. There will 
 be no mere form and colour on her canvases and in her marbles, 
 as is the case with Latin art. There will be ideas and convic- 
 tions, and there will be truth expressed in the lineaments drawn 
 by brush and chisel. A decadent nation cannot have a virile 
 and strong art; the form may be there in dainty outline, but 
 never the soul, without which all art is like sounding brass and 
 tinkling cimbal merely. German art will again furnish inspira- 
 tion to our own students, as it did fifty years ago.
 
 370 GERMANY 
 
 In character, too, Germany will have changed still further 
 within a few additional years. For one thing, her people will 
 lose that passion for petty savings, that smallness in money mat- 
 ters which clings to them from a long period of abstemiousness 
 and poverty, without losing at the same time a wholesome and 
 sapient regard for economy. As their political and commercial 
 horizon widens more and more, German views will become ampler 
 and broader. That ridiculous chauvinism now raging and roar- 
 ing whom it may devour, and which is so entirely at variance 
 with the innermost being of the nation, will be outgrown. It 
 is in Germany's case an infantile disorder, and will disappear as 
 the average German feels more secure of the world's esteem. In 
 its place will come a more rational, a stabler and more self- 
 sufficient patriotism. 
 
 All these things will come to pass, provided, of course, no 
 gravely disturbing events are precipitated by an unkind fate. 
 But there is a law of compensation working in the destinies of 
 nations as of individuals. Germany has had her long, long 
 period of misfortunes and reverses; she will have her period of 
 good fortune. 
 
 FINIS.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Agrarianism, nature, rise and growth 
 of, 109-112 ; its home, 114 
 
 Agrarian party, reasons for its dis- 
 like of America, 116-117; its 
 strength in legislative bodies, 118 
 
 Agrarian press, its power and make- 
 up, 119. 
 
 Agriculture, German, necessity of 
 conforming to new conditions, 
 
 367 
 
 Ahlwardt, Hermann, his agitation 
 71-72 
 
 Albrecht, Regent of Brunswick, 301 
 
 AUdeutscher, Verband, its pro- 
 gramme in Pan- Germanism, 142 
 
 Alsace-Lorraine, process of assimi- 
 lation, 67-68 
 
 American students at German uni- 
 versities, 261-262 
 
 American wives of German army 
 officers, 220 
 
 Anglophile policy, Kaiser's desire for 
 
 , it' 53 
 Anglophobia, prevailing in German)^ 
 
 . 53 
 
 Anti-Semitic movement, nature 
 thereof, 71 
 
 Applied art, revival of, in Germany, 
 347-349 
 
 Army duel as a peculiar German 
 institution, 221 
 
 Athletics in German schools, 258- 
 260 
 
 Austria- Hungary, attitude of Pan- 
 Germanism toward it, 143 
 
 Austria's policy, as to Dreibund, 51 
 
 Balkan States, their prosperity fos- 
 tered by Germany, 169 
 
 Baltic Canal, its advantages in 
 
 future wars, 14, 24S 
 Baltic Provinces, in their relation 
 
 to the Pan-German movement, 
 
 151 
 Barth, Dr. Theodore, as Radical 
 Liberal leader, 62; as editor Dia 
 Nation, 332 
 
 Battleship, type of German, 244 
 Bavaria, its legislative bodies, 75 
 Bavarian Court, manners and cus- 
 toms of it, 305 
 Bebe.i, August, as orator, 61 
 Beehler, Commander William C, 
 
 secret information conveyed, 240 
 Bernstein, as Reichstag leader, 62; 
 changing the Socialist creed, 84-85 
 Bismarck Archipelago, resources, 
 
 etc., 293-294 
 Bismarck, retireinent of, i 
 Biohm & Voss, some data, 214 
 Boecklin, Arnold, as leader in a new 
 art movement in Germany, 334- 
 340 
 Briisewitzcasc, and how it ended, 222 
 Buclow, Count von, declarations be- 
 fore Reichstag as to Dreibund, 50; 
 in Reichstag, 63-65; confessedly 
 Agrarian, 117; his remarks on a 
 closer tmderstanding with the 
 United States, 360 
 Bundesrath, functions of, 25 
 
 Cadet schools, German, character- 
 istics of, 229-230 
 
 Cameroons, description of, 2S9-290 
 
 Canned goods, American, incident in 
 German tariff legislation, 163 
 
 Capri vi, Count von, in relation to the 
 Socialists, 87; creator of commer- 
 cial treaties, 88; details of these 
 treaties, 160; his remarks on 
 Agrarianism, 357-358 
 
 Carolines, their value to Germany, 
 294 
 
 Centre party, strength and make-up 
 thereof, 6S-69; its prospects, 364 
 
 Cities, Germany's, growth of, 170 
 
 Class legislation, glaring instances of 
 it, 92-93 
 
 Club der Harmlosen, sensational trial 
 of, 225 
 
 Cologne Gazette, used by the gov- 
 ernment for news intended to in- 
 fluence foreign countries, 321 
 
 371
 
 372 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Colonial fever, how it attacked 
 
 Germany, 287-289 
 Colonization fund, German, as a 
 
 means of Germanizing, 107-108 
 Colonizing societies in Germany, 156 
 Conservatives, as political facaons, 
 
 69 
 Construction plan for the new Ger- 
 man navy 240 
 Cosmopolitanism, loss of, in modern 
 
 Germany, 275 
 Cretan trouble, Germany's part in, 2 
 Cruiser, Gernmn type of, 246-247 
 Culturkampf, its influence on the 
 Poles, 101-102 
 
 Das Echo, 330 
 
 Decorations, fete of, 29 
 
 Delbruck, Prof. Hans, as editor 
 of Prussian Annals, 331 
 
 Democratic ideas creeping into 
 German courts, 307 
 
 Deutsche Bank, its rise and growth, 
 168-169 
 
 Deutsche Monaischrijt, 330 - 
 
 Deutsche Revue 329 
 
 Deutsche Rundschau, leading German 
 periodical, 327 
 
 Deutsche Theatre in Berlin, cradle of 
 a new German stage, 335 
 
 Die Gegenwart, 329 
 
 Die Gesellschaft, 328 
 
 Die Grenzboten, 331 
 
 Die Nation, leading Liberal periodi- 
 cal, 332 
 
 Die Post, 314 ■ 
 
 Die Zukunft, ^2^ 
 
 Dorpat, University of, in its German- 
 izing influence, 151 
 
 Dreibund, decadence of, 9, 50-52 
 
 Dual Alliance, its policy in far Asia, 
 10 
 
 Duke Charles Theodore of Bavaria, 
 the oculist, 308 
 
 Duke of Saxe-Meiningen as stage 
 manager, 308 
 
 Earnings, average, of labour in Ger- 
 many, 266 
 
 Educated "proletariat," growth of, 
 in Germany, 254 
 
 Emden, and the great harbour pro- 
 ject, 158 
 
 Emigration, German, and the losses 
 inflicted thereby on the mother 
 country, 153; reasons for decline 
 innimibers, 154 
 
 Entente cordiale, Germany's, neces- 
 sity of an, with England and the 
 United States, 361 
 
 Ethics in the Gennan army, 223-224 
 
 Ethnological features of modern 
 Prussia, 1 30-1 3 1 
 
 Exclusion of Jews from the corps of 
 army officers, 223-224 
 
 Exports, growth of German, with 
 statistics, 159; to America, 164 
 
 Financial depressions in Germany 
 
 and its causes, 1 78- 179 
 Flemish niovcinents in its relation to 
 
 Pan- German aspirations, 146 
 Fliegende Blatter, typical of German 
 
 humour, 315 
 Foreign commerce, Germany's, 167- 
 
 16S, iSi 
 Frederick Leopold, Prince of Prussia, 
 
 301 
 Frederick William IV, King, inter- 
 esting parallel with Kaiser, 18 
 Freight, cost of, by land and water, 
 
 21 1-212 
 Frcisinnige Zeitung, Eugene Richter's 
 
 organ, 314 
 Fricdrichsruh, a conversation with 
 
 Bismarck at, 351 
 Fulda, Dr Ludwig, dramatist. 338 
 
 Gaming in the German ariny, 224- 
 
 225 
 General franchise schemes for its 
 
 ctirtailment, 81 
 General Staff of the German arnij-, 
 
 231 
 German army, fighting strength of, 
 
 4-5 
 German East Africa, population, 
 
 climate, etc., 292-293 
 Germania AVorks, in Kiel, some data, 
 
 215 
 
 German Naval Society, its character- 
 istics, 234 
 
 German navy, actual efficiency of, 
 
 5-6 
 Gennan Southwest Africa, resources, 
 , etc., 291 
 Germany's commerce, figures quoted 
 
 from German official statistics, 7 
 Germany's population, from official 
 
 census, 7 
 
 Hague conference, its meaning for 
 the future, 367
 
 INDEX 
 
 373 
 
 Halm, Doctor, as an Agrarian Icack-r, 
 
 122 
 
 Halbe, Max, dramatist, 339 
 
 Hamburg, some statistics of its ship- 
 ping, 200-201 
 
 Hamburg-America Line, facts and 
 figures quoted. 204-207 
 
 Harden, Maximilian, 332 
 
 Hasse, Professor, Pan-German leader 
 in Reichstag, 61 
 
 Hauptmann, Gerhard, as leader in 
 the new literary movement in 
 Germany, 334-340 
 
 Haussmann, Conrad, in Reichstag, 
 
 63 
 
 Hohenzollern, dynasty of, and how 
 
 provided for, 301 
 Hospitality, esthetics of, 278 
 Husbandry League, its spread in 
 
 Prussia, 121 
 
 Illiteracy, statistics of, in Germany, 
 
 252 
 Imperial ccnsvis, a page from it, 177 
 Imperial Civil Code, Germany's new, 
 
 170-171 
 Imperial cottrt, where and how held, 
 
 301-305 
 Imperial Navy Yard, somt facts 
 
 about it, 215 
 Imports, American, 163, 166, 167; 
 
 general, 165, 168 
 Income tax, how applied in Prussia, 
 
 171-172 
 Increase , Germany's, in naval 
 
 strength. 247 
 "Inspired" press in Germany, and 
 
 how made useful .321-322 
 Investments of German capital 
 
 abroad. 169-170 
 Italy s policy as to foreign conquests, 
 
 9 ; as to Dreibund. 5 1 
 
 Jewish aristocrats in Germany. 309 
 
 Jewish population in Germany, cen- 
 sus figures. 72 
 
 Jingoism, alarming increase of. 276. 
 infantile disorder in Germany s 
 case, 370 
 
 Journalist in Germany, his inevitable 
 position, 324-325: personally man 
 of high character and education, 
 326 
 
 Kaiser, how misunderstood. 15-17; 
 sayings and mottoes, 18-22; his 
 influence in the Federal Council 26 
 
 Kaiser's addresses from the throne, 
 30 ; how he influences tlie army and 
 navy, 30-3 1 jhisimpulsivespeeches, 
 32-33; personal defeats, 34-35; 
 qtiiet family life, 37-49; his demo- 
 cratic mannerisms and innova- 
 tions, 309; his influence on press, 
 322-323; inimical to new art and 
 literary movement in Germany, 
 343; his sculptui-ed ancestral gal- 
 lery, 344; the Kaiser and the 
 Schiller prize, 346; Joseph Lauff, 
 346; his Wiesbaden performances, 
 
 347 . . , , . 
 
 Kiao-chau, acquisition of, 3 ; descrip- 
 tion and prospects, 294 
 
 Klingcr, Max, ai'tist, 342 
 
 Kolonialc Zeitschrijt, 330 
 
 Kotze, Baron von, in relation to 
 court scandal, 37 
 
 Kreitzzeitimg, vmique position, and 
 why, 318 
 
 Kriegspiel, as a means of military 
 training. 231 
 
 Krupp, Fried.. 183; Alfred. 184 
 
 Labour conditions in Germany, 174" 
 
 175 
 Lenbach. Franz, painter, 341 
 
 Leipzeger Bank, reasons for its 
 
 failure, 180 
 "Lex Arons," failure of. 257 
 Liberalism in Germany, decrease of 
 
 it. 70; necessity and prospects of 
 
 a revival of. 363-364 
 Liebermann von Sonnenberg, Reich- 
 stag leader. 61, as agitator, 71-72 
 Liebknecht, as a Socialist leader, 82 
 Lindau. Paul, 328 
 Living, average cost of, at German 
 
 universities. 261 
 Localanzeiger , a recent departure in 
 
 German journalism. 320 
 Luitpold. Prince- Regent of Bavaria 
 
 relations with the Kaiser, 127-128 
 Luxemburg, in its relation to the 
 
 Pan-German movement, 150 
 Luxury, growth of, in Germany, 
 
 267-269 
 
 Mahan. Captain, Kaiser's adoption 
 
 of his books, 40 
 Manufacturer, German, a typical 
 
 case 176-177 
 Marriage, difficulties of in the 
 
 empire. 269
 
 374 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Marriage relation, changes wrought 
 in the, 2S1-283 
 
 Marshall Islands, 294 
 
 Meinecke, Gustav, 330 
 
 Memoirs of Bisinarck, fears of anti- 
 German alliance, 9; as to Drei- 
 bund, 50 
 
 Midland Canal, Diet's refusal to 
 sanction project, 34. 75 
 
 Military cabinet, Kaiser's relations 
 to it, 28 
 
 Miguel, Dr. von, in relation to Polish 
 question, 100; originator of Pi'us- 
 sia's new tax system, 171 
 
 Monroe Doctrine, Germany's atti- 
 tude toward it, 54-55; Bismarck's 
 remarks apropos of it, 352-366 
 
 Morality, decline of, in Germany, 
 269—272 
 
 Morganatic unions, their increasing 
 frequency in German}-; examples, 
 309-310 
 
 Municipal management, Avith illus- 
 trations and comparisons, 2S3-285 
 
 National debt, Germany's, 170 
 
 National Liberals, reason for decline, 
 70-71 
 
 Nathan, Dr. Paul, 332 
 
 Naumann, Pastor, as anti-Socialist 
 leader, 94 
 
 Naval service, compulsory, in Ger- 
 many, 242 
 
 Newspapers, in Germany, their rise 
 since 1870, 313; absence of power- 
 ful sheets. 314; revenues small, 
 political influence likewise, 315- 
 316; the party organ. 317; low 
 estimation in which held, 324 
 
 Norddcutsche Allgenieine, how it 
 originated. 315; Bismarck's bar- 
 gain with it, 321 ; its editor created 
 "commissionsrath, '325 
 
 Nord und Sud, 328 
 
 North German "^Lloyd, in its further- 
 ance of German immigration in 
 South America, 156; its rise and 
 growth, 207-209 
 
 Offlcieuse press in Germany, 320-321 
 Outlook, Germany's, as a manufac- 
 tviring centre, 365-367 
 
 Pan- Germans, sources of their influ- 
 ence, 140; attitude of goverment 
 toward them , 1 3 8-1 44 
 
 Pan-Germanism, its professed creed. 
 142-143 ; its proselytism in Austria, 
 PloUand, Belgium, 143-148; its 
 real aims, 148; its aims in the 
 colonizing line, 153—155; its aims 
 as to South and Central America, 
 
 155-156 
 Pan-Poland, dreams of, 102-103 
 Part}^ grouping, in Reichstag, 58-59 
 Party rule, absence of it, 58 
 Periodicals in Germany, of small 
 
 influence, 327 
 Pessimism, new German literature. 
 
 tinctured with Tolstoi's and 
 
 Ibsen's, 337 
 Peters, Dr. Carl, as a Pan-German 
 
 leader, 141 
 Plan of campaign, Germany's naval, 
 
 246 
 Police, omnipotence of, in the 
 
 empire, 273-275 
 Polish policy of Prttssia, 10 1 
 Polish population in Prussia, where 
 
 located, 97 ; its growing prosperity, 
 
 98-99; educational advance, 100; 
 
 its disaffection and causes thereof, 
 
 102-105; influence of clergy on it, 
 
 106 
 Polonizing process, in Prussia, 107 
 Posadowsky, Count von, in Reich- 
 stag, 65 
 Postal system, German, recent im- 
 provements, 173 
 Potsdam, as the second residence of 
 
 Kaiser, 306-307 
 Presentations at German courts, 306 
 Prince George of Prussia, 307 
 Prince Henry, visit in America, 50 
 Prince Regent of Lippe, struggle 
 
 between Kaiser and, 34 
 Professor, new type of German, 262- 
 
 263 
 Protestant proselytism in relation to 
 
 Pan-Gerinanism in Austria, 144 
 Protesting factions in Reichstag, 66 
 Prussian Annals, 331 
 Pi-ussian Diet, genesis and functions 
 
 thereof, 73-74 
 Prussian electoral system, defects 
 
 thereof, 74 
 
 Radziwill, Prince Antonin and Polish 
 
 " Court Party, " loi 
 Railroad System, Germany's, 170; 
 
 profits accruing to State, 172; 
 
 improvements, 173 
 Regencies in German States, 305
 
 INDEX 
 
 375 
 
 Re i sanzeiger, an t! i t s uses , 3 2 1 
 Reichstag, functions and powers of, 
 
 26 
 Reichstag building, description of it, 
 
 56-57 
 
 Reptile fvind, feeding the govern- 
 ment press, 320 
 
 Reuss, odd customs of enumerating 
 rulers of these principalities, 307 
 
 Revenues of Kaiser, as King of 
 Prussia, 301; for "representation 
 purposes" as Kaiser, 301 
 
 Revolution of 1848, its small influ- 
 ence, 95 
 
 Richter, Eugene, as orator, 62 
 
 Riedler, Professor, as to school 
 reform, 255 
 
 Rodenberg, Prof. Julius, 327 
 
 Russia atid France, colonial policies 
 of, 10— I I 
 
 Samoa, resources, etc., 2Q4 
 
 Schichavi Works, some data, 214 
 
 Schlieffen, Count von, 231 
 
 School reorganization in Germany, 
 255 
 
 Siegl, Doctor, as anti - Borussian 
 leader, 127 
 
 Siemens, Werner, 194 
 
 Social legislation, nature and defects 
 thereof, 89-90 
 
 Socialist movement, modification in 
 it, 82-85 
 
 Socialist party, its growth, 79; its 
 conquest of industrial centres, 80; 
 representation in Reichstag, 81; 
 attitude toward social legislation, 
 89; outlook for it, 95-96; chances 
 of its alliliation with Liberalism, 364 
 
 Socialist press, 319 
 
 Sohm, Prof. Rudolf, advocating 
 justice to labouring element, 94 
 
 "Sokols," as a means of Polish 
 agitation, 105 
 
 Stablevski, Archbishop von, influ- 
 ence on Poles, 106 
 
 Stoecker, Adolf, methods of agita- 
 tion, 71-72 
 
 " Streberthum" in Germany, 258 
 
 Strikes in Germany, 174 
 
 Stuck, Franz, painter, 341 
 
 Student duels, decrease of, 260 
 
 Stumm, Baron von, as a social and 
 legislative factor, 91 
 
 Sudermann, as leader in a new 
 literary movement in Germany, 
 334-340 
 
 Switzerland in its relation to the 
 Pan-German movement, 149-150 
 
 Tariff Bill, pending in Reichstag, 
 
 161-163 
 Tax system, new Prussian, how 
 
 beneficial, 171 
 Telmann, Conrad, novelist, 336 
 Tidiness, phenomenal growth of, 283 
 Togo, description of, 289 
 Tonnage of German vessels, 203-204 
 Traffic on German interior waters, 
 
 204 
 Treaty of 18 28, between Prussia and 
 
 the United States, 160 
 Tuition fees in German schools, 252- 
 
 25s 
 Turko-Greek War, Germany's part 
 in, 2 
 
 United States, Germany's desire for 
 
 intimate relations with, 21, 53-55 
 
 University attendance in Germany, 
 
 253 
 Usurers in the German army, 225- 
 227 
 
 Virchow, Professor, his opposition to 
 utilitarianism. 257 
 
 Von Bodelschwingh, Pastor, as anti- 
 Socialist leader, 94 
 
 Von Hartmann, Edward, on wilful 
 bachelors, 271 
 
 Von Hohcnlohe, Prince, Chancellor 
 of the Empire, his remarks on the 
 Agrarian movement, 359 
 
 Von Liliencron, Baron Detler, poet, 
 
 339 
 Von Tirpitz, Admiral, scheme of 
 
 crew supph^ 242 
 Von Treitschke, Professor, as a Pan- 
 Prussian factor, 135; as editor of 
 
 Prussian Annals, 331 
 Von Vollmar, in Reichstag, 62-63 
 Von Wangenheim, as an Agrarian 
 
 leader, 121 
 Von Wolzogen, Hans, 336 
 Vorwarts, main Socialist organ, 85; 
 
 characteristics, 319 
 Vossische Zcitung, why its influence 
 
 diminished, 318-319 
 Vulcan Works, history of, 212-213 
 
 War Academy, of Berlin, scope of it, 
 
 230 
 Wetterle, Abb^, in Reichstag, 63
 
 376 
 
 INDEX 
 
 William I, Emperor, his predilection 
 for "Old" Prussia, 113 
 
 Woman question, a new factor in 
 Germany, 2 7 9-2 Si 
 
 Workingmen's libraries, founded by 
 Socialist party, p8 
 
 World's Fairs, Bismarck's depreca- 
 tory remarks on them, 355 
 
 Wiirttemberg, absence of j'ounger 
 
 element, 75 
 
 "Younker" party, its make-up and 
 influence, 87 
 
 ZoUing, Theophil, 329
 
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