The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-23

world. 1t is scarcely fair to call it restora-
tion, for the reason that Germany was never
before under any form or forms of govern
ment, what she is to-day. There has been a
German Empire, a Holy Roman Empire; but
the German or Holy Roman Empire always
was heterogeneous or incoherent mass from
the days of the First Ohio to the days of the
Second Francis. To-day, if we except the
Austro-German States, Germany is one as
she never was one before.
Up swels the Belt the Baltic Sea;
Up swells the German wave;
Elbe runs to battle merrily,
And Oder grasps the glaive
Eeckar ard Weser tarry not
And Main flows eager on!
All old dlsunion is forgot
The German race is one.
What is the Germans Fatherland
No one need ask to-day.
What Charlemagne and the Saxon Othos
and the Franconian Caesars and the Hohen-
stauffens and the Hapsburgs vainly attempted,
the Hohenzollerns, one of the youngest of
the royal houses of Europe, have, in the per-
son of King William, been able to accomplish.
The German empire is not so much an old
institution revived as a new institution which
has been sprung upon the world. In one
sense it is giant awakened from his
slumbers; for in the person of King William
the simpler minds among the German people
recognize the resurrected Frederick of the
Red Beard. In another sense it is a new
giant created afresh and flung upon the world
with powers mightier than any the world has
known before. The power is reflected from
the Hall of Mirrors of the palace of the Kings
of France.
The restoration cannot be properly under
stood without q reference to the past. The
German empire some would date from the
year 800, when Charlemagne received at the
hands of Pope Leo the Third the imperial
crown-a crown which in the estimation of
the Holy See had not been worn sincesCon-
stantine abandoned the ancient Rome of
the West for the new Rome of the
East. Others again, and as we think, with
better reason, date it from the year 93G, when
Ohio the First was crowned by Pope John
the Twelfth. Certain it is that the empire of
Charlemagne crumbled to pieces under his
feeble descendants. The Bard, the Siam
merer, the Fat, the Simple were unequal to
the task imposed upon them, and the mighty
fabric reared by the great Charles fell, and tho
fall was great. The restoration, or rather the
re-establishment of the empire-which then
unquestionably became German as well as
Roman-under Otho proved more enduring;
for, in spite of the change of dynasties and
the social and political revolutions which
marked the interval, the empire established
under Ohio virtually remained until the year
of our Lord SOC. During all those years the
German and Holy Roman empire was grand,
living fact, and mighty power-the associate
and companion of the Papacy. The history of
the world for well-nigh ten centuries was the
history of the German or Holy Roman empire.
In the year 1906 the successes of the First
Napoleon, and his ruinous innovations in
Germany-innovation which eliminated in
the act of the Confederation of the Rhine
Francis the Second bowed to fate, and by a
declaration dated August the 9TH resigned the
imperial dignity and retired to the govern
ment of his hereditary dominions as Emperor
of Austria. The crown then let fall was
the crown of Augustus, of Constantine, of
Charles, of Otho, of Barbarossa, of Maximilian;
eight hundred and seventy years after Pope
John had crowned the first Saxon, one thou
sand and six years after Pope Leo had
crowned the Frankish monarch, eighteen
hundred and fifty-eight years after Caesar had
conquered at Pharsalia, the German, or, as
we must again call it, the Holy Roman
empire perished. From that day Germany
became less a unit than ever.
The German people, however, believed in
and loved the same Fatherland, as they spoke
the same language, and their desire of
national unity was strengthened, not weak
ened, by the fall of the empire. Their poll
ticisns schemed and worked for this unity;
their philosophers dreamed of it; their poets
-Korner and Arndt and Ruckert and the
rest-sang of it; their historians read and in
terpreted history in favor of it; their soldiers
have ever been willing to fight for it.
Hitherto dynastic jealousy has been too
strong for popular sentiment and desire
The year 1913 seemed for moment to have
brought about realization of German dreams
but the year 1S4S in German, as elsewhere,
proved year of revolutionary failures. The
year 1866 startled Germany herself. 1t tore
her asunder but it revealed to her her
strength. The Hapsburgs were found to be
weak, but the Hohenzollerns were found to
be strong. The war which still wages has
done more for German unity than all the
dreams and schemes and projects of all the
past. The war is not ended; but the French
ravens have disappeared from the brow of the
hill underneath which the Great Frederick so
long has slept; the Emperor himself lives
again; the resurrection is complete, and Ger
! many is one. In this year of our lord 1871 ,
and Just one hundred and seventy-nne years
since the coronation of the first Prussian
king, the head of the house of
Hohenzollern becomes Emperor of Germany
After a lapse of sixty-fve years the empire
of Ohio and of Charlemagne is revived; but
the new empire is not and will not be in any
sense Roman or holy. King William has
made very sensible proclamation. Let us
hope that the German empire will prove
blissful to the German people; and let us also
hope that the German people, united, will be
powerfully instrumental in advancing the
great cause of human civilization. They have
! yet an unfinished task on their hands The
result is not doubtful. Privilege and respon-
sibility are both great with them. 1t will be
well for them, and we'll for humanity, if. in
the hour of their triumph, they remember
! mercy rather than iudpment A oraat naOnIa