Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1888-06-20
HIS woRK ENDED.

After Iife's fitful fever Emperor Fred.
erick sleeps WELL. For months he has
been lowering between life and death.
Victim Of a disease that science know
no cure for, he has contested his life inch
by inch with the fell destroyer and at
last succumbs. The most eminent medi-
cal skill in Europe could avoil lim only
to this extent, that it prolonged his
agony and extended his life a few brief
months longer than would otherwise
have been the case. The world has seen
no more pathetic spectacle than that
presented by this Prince of the House of
Hohenzollern battling with disease and
~contending for every breath of life he
could draw. His life was not supposed
worth an hours purchase when he be-
anne Emperor by his fathers death, yet
he set before himself a task that a man
in robust health might well shrink from.
Differing from his father and his ances-
tors in his ideas Of government, he
sought to give his people s~elf-govern-
ment. To people in this land Of free
dom, exercising self-goyernment as an
innate right for over a century, the true
meaning Of what Emperor Frederick
aimed to accomplish does not come with
that full force of comprehension born of
experience Of what he sought to deliver
his people from. His father, Emperor
William, wa an absolute monarch, who
with his ministers moulded the destiny
of his people. His Parliament but regis
tered the royal edict. Frederick sought
to change this by making his people the
arbiters of their own destiny. He would
have given them free and untrammelled
liberty in the choice of their represen-
tatives in Parliament and have governed
through ministers responsible to Parlia-
ment for their actions. In this, it is
needless to say, he was hampered by the
old Court party, the adherents Of Crown
Prince William and Prince Bismarck.
One of his last official acts was to sign
Quinquennial Landtag bill, extending
the term Of the Prussian Parliament to
five years with an expressed hope to his
Cabinet that there would in future be no
interference in popular elections. His
reprimand OF Won Puttkamer for exert
ing undue official influence i'm a recent
parliamentary election led to that Min
listers resignation and was the begin
ming Of a reactionary movement in which
the Progressionists would have come to
the front, a movement dissipated. by the
monarch's death. His hand is stayed.
The Progressionists are now relegated
to the background. The Man of
Iron and his Imperial pupil will take di-
rection of affairs and entirely restore the
principle Of absolutism. 1t was a brave
task but a hopeless n that the Emperor
just dead entered upon. But it must in
spire all who witnessed it with admira-
ton for the self-abnegation OF the ruler
who, ignoring a malady that was killing
him by inches, set out to give a cOnstitu-
tional form of government to his people.
Conscious that his tenure Of life could
only be brief at the best, and that unless
he could live many years to watch the
progress of reform his efforts were fruit
less, he was willing to immediate himself
on the altar Of duty to show with his last
breath that he died faithful to the duty
placed upon him. Most men would have
conceded the impossibility of the task
and sought nepenthe and relief from his
sufferings to the exclusion Of all other
cares. But Frederick was a man of an
other mould from this. He saw only his
duty as God gave him to understand it,
and though it added immeasurably to his
sufferings by the conflict with privilege
and the opposition Of powerful minds in
trenched behind absolutism and oppos
ing him. at every step, yet he did not
finch even at the last moment. 1t is a
sublime example Of self-sacrifice and de-
vOtiOn to duty than which no martyrs
sufferings for his cause are more touch
ing. Frederick is dead and the good he
does dies with him. But his efforts to do
justice to his people are a noble legacy if
they are only a memory. At pres
ent, 1t does not seem likely that they will
bring forth fruit. But such martyrdom
has never been utterly in vain before
and the seed he sowed will be certain to
forth fruit some day.
IT was generally haliayad that Helena