Omaha daily bee., 1892-12-15
BURYlNG THE ARMY BILL
Oaprivi Preparing to Give His Pet Measure a
Decent Iuterment Soon.
SPEECH HE WILL MAKE At THE GRAVE
Planning to Keep Himself Before the Coun-
try as II Martyr to Duty-kcttcrborn
in Disravor with the kaiser
Phelps Annoyed.
LConmipnted 1892 bn Jnmcs Gonion Rcnnett.l

copyrighted 1892 by James Gordon Bcmett1
BERLIN, Dee IL New York Herald Gable
Special TO The BEE -Caprivi will 90
down to history as u doclc chancellor. No
one was more surprised than the chancellor
at the exaggerated praise with which the ma
iority of the London newspapers have COW
cred him, The Berlin correspondent went so
far as to call him greater than Bismarck
Poor Caprivi! He may. well cry God save
me from my friends" There is no occasion
to cast him for part to which
he does not aspire. The quality which
above all commends Caprivi to the
kaiser is that which makes II good soldier
implicit attention to orders, He dcprccates
being placed on a pedestal. He says:
~ am simply soldier, doing my duty as n
soldier, which is to obey the superior officer,
! am here merely to carry out the wishes of
the kaiser"
The soldier-statesman is a very rare com
bination. Caprivi does not belong to that
race. Had he been so, he would have en-
ginecred the army bill more skillfully, and
have, if not carried it, suffered defeat
in less crude form.
Burying the Bill.
The latest about the military bill is it will
be referred to commission of twenty-eight
liberals. The translation of this is the bill
is dead and about to be buried without a
chance of being resurrected. 1t has, how
ever been cleverly embalmed, 50 as to give it
the appearance of vitality, in order not to
shock too severely the immediate friends of
the deceased. This is the first ceremony
which decency demands prior to the last, the
funeral With the commission, which will
n c iurV tho pollbporprS will bC
the members of the government, the chief
mourner will be Caprivi. There will be few
invitations to the last sad rites, owing to the
unfortunate circumstances under which the
deceased came to an end. Only a few pri-
vate friends will be present. Caprivi will
make a touching Grafton at the side of the
grave. He will say:
"In memory of our much regretted friend
] ask your favor. had expected by means
of our late lamented friend to be able to in
crease the army vastly You prevented
that, and it killed him In his memory l ask
now that you allow me to improve our ar
tillery. In these days artillery means
everything for the army" and it is quite
possible that, stilled by the emotion of the
moment, the crowd present in the grave
yard-otherwise the Reichstag-will cry,
ingly.
Katterborn In Disfavor.
The government lacks good orators at the
present moment. A case of this to hand is
the speech made by the minister of war on
the bill The emperor is nothing if not Il
shrewd observer and after he had read it he
was in no pleasant mood. At Potsdam, in
the presence of General Schliffc, he COM
mented upon the minister's speech with
frankness quite characteristic. After re-
marking upon the emptiness of the speech
he said, "Er hattie licher den mund halten
solden.n The imperial comment, if some
what harsh, was nevertheless correct. War
Minister de Katterborn had been SIN
gularly unfortunate in his discourse
at a vital moment when q rousing
speech, might have had powerful effect in
influencing the vote of the house, but this
was not the only reason for the emperor's
discomfort. He holds the minister of war
responsible for the abstraction of the now
famous Wesel letters, as also for the defec-
tive surveillance of arms charged in the
Ahlwardt trial. Caprivi supports the min
ister, but his position is very much shaken,
and he will very probably be superseded at
an early date.
Minister Phelps has been considerably an
noyed by newspaper paragraphs to the
effect that the United States was on bad
terms with the German government Such
reports appear to have been sent out
from here by irresponsible journalists and
are founded on the minister's Thanksgiv-
ing speech at the Kaiserhof banquet The
reports further state that Mr.. Phelps
speech was unfavorably commented upon in
the German press. The latter is perfectly
untrue. While the question of his popularity
with the government is shown by the fact
that the day following the banquet he was
invited to dine with Baron Won Marschall
minister of foreign affairs; the week follow
ing he dined with Baron Won Berdefeschs,
minister of the interior, and Saturday last
with Won Stephan, postmaster general.
The fact that Mr.. Phelps made
special alusion to Bismarck as "A
personal friend through whose support he
CPhelps) was able to effect the introduction OF
American pork in Germany in spite of strong
opposition is not remarkable. If as an
American, he gave thanks that the United
States was not called upon to support the
vast standing army, that was natural and
does not demonstrate that he is opposed to
the government which chooses to arm up to
the teeth.
The conclusions to be drawn from Min
ister Phelps common sense speech are made
Il strong argument against the military, but
by Phelps it was not so meant His ami
cable relations with the government here
! are unquestiOned.