Stevens County tribune. (Morris, Minn.) 1877-1880, 1879-05-15


in that eventful year. After the final ruin
of Napoleon in 1915 he had little more to
do with administration or diplomacy in
Prussia, though he gladly would have
taken part again. He was too powerful a
dose for any hut the most critical times.
and when those We're over the kings and
prime ministers got along without him
gladly -for he was too much of school
master for them, except when his disci-
pline was needful to their safety. He
could scold and grumble as well as Carlyle
ever could and he had special sharpness
for bureaucrats whom he found govern
ing Prussia, and who had stood in the
way of his reforms.
Scarcely any man has ever drawn
more distinctly the portrait of those
bureau-peOple, who are not yet an extinct
race in Europe or in Massachusetts. In
" BtTeaucrdts, sataTted, book learned, soith-
out Interests and aofthOut property. These
four terms express the spirit of our soul
hess government machine and of Others
like 1t. Salaried, that means tendency
to maintain and increase the number of
the salaried. Book learned, that is liv-
ing in the world of words, not of realities.
Without interests, for they are not con-
nected with any of the classes of citizens
that make up the State, but are a caste
by themselves, the caste of writers. With
out property; that means that all the
movements of property leave them I'M
affected, whether it is rain or sunshine,
whether taxes rise or fall. All this does
not concern them while they draw their
salary out Of the treasury and sit writing,
writing, writing, unknown, unnoticed,
unhonored, in a quiet Office with n good
lock to it, and bring up their children
| lie thtm to be equally expert writing
machines. One machinery, the military
one, saw fall in 1896, on the 14th of
October, battle of Jena, and should not
wonder if the writing machinery had its
14th OF October, too" This is close
passage, and so far too is that in which
he describes one of his old colleagues in
the government who had mrny of these
bureau-men about him. He kept all good
people at distance, and surrounded
himself solely with mediocre and often
with bad people; he undermined the old
Prussian spirit of parsimOney and Obedi-
ence, and when he died he left the finance
in disorder and public affairs in the
hands of multitude of ill-chosen officials
He was not one who aimed at what was
great and good for its own sake, but only
as a means to personal fame, and for that
reason he could not conceive it nor attain
to it,"
OF Metternich, with whom he was
brought into close relations at one time,
Stein said, ''He is a man who shrinks
from every vigorous measure, sets his goal
near, and concerns himself with contemp-
tible patchwork" 1t seems that Meter
Mich got from the allies the rich vine
yards of Johannisberg, which should
have gone to Stein, though the duke of
Weimar, Stems old friend, Hardenberg,
had undertaken to secure Johannisberg
for him, and as Stein says, "entirely ne
elected at Vienna and Paris, either from
jealousy or want of thought, AN affair had
undertaken with the strongest expression
of readiness" No wonder Stein felt
piqued. Metternich himself said in 1888 !:
"Stein hated me; that followed from his
character; he belonged to the class of peo-
pile who are properly described by the
English word impressionable. l never
hated the Baron Won Stein, for love and
hatred of individuals are weaknesses
which exert no influence on my conduct
of business; and my relations to the de-
ceased were purely those of business"
Prof. Seeley remarks, rather archly, for
him, that lit was often Metternich's for
tune to be misunderstood, and he enjoyed
posing in the character of Statesman
whose high serenity could not be appre-
ciated by those who were themselves
slaves of passion" Perhaps the professor
had read his conversation with George
Ticknor in 1886, wherein the old Austrian
| assured our Bostonian as follows: II have
much calmness. do not apply passion
to anything. I love truth and ensue it;
hate falsehood. l do not like my bust
ness. If | did l should not be able
to preserve the calmness of spirit
necessary to it." Metternich added /:
"When | was five-and-twenty years old /
foresaw nothing but change and trouble
in my time, and l sometimes thought then
that I would leave Europe and go to
America, or somewhere else, out of the
reach of it." 1t would have been remark
able indeed, if Metternich and Stein had
both taken refuge in Kentucky, in order
to escape the troubles and resi- disabilities
of Europe!
These Germans did not then take many
lessons from America-man more in fact
from England. SchOn, one of the early
coadjutors of Stein in his land reforms,
says: at was through England that be-
came Statesman. Where the laborer,
busy among his cabbages, called out to
me in exultation that he had read my
king was about to join the coalition
against France along with England
there you have, in the truest sense of the
word, public life" This was in 1898
too, when England was far from being al
her best. The good man would be still
more astonished at some of the evidences
of true public life in America, could hi
see us now. Schon complains that Steir
knew little of political science, and adds
"Stein would have been much embarrass
ed if he had been required to give al
! answer to the question, What is State
and to what end do we live and ought VIZ
to live in State?" Toanswer such conun
drums was not his business in life, but
on the contrary, to see that theorists like
Schon had state to live in.
/ w n