Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1896-03-19

THE GERMAN RElcASTAG
Win Celebrate 25th Anniversary. March 81
The Iron Chanceliors Health.

Berlin March IS On March 81 the
German Reichstag will celebrate the 25th
anniversary of it's first meeting. Elaborate
have been made for the day
there Will be an amount of speaking and
and hurrahing, and at public
and private dinners the tide of patriotic
feeling will run uolerably high. Yet no.
body living at this political center of the
empire can avoid the impressions that this
is not a happy season, that there is a
strong undertone of sadness and disap
pointment in the newspaper comments on
the approaching festival, and that, In
stead of hope and JOY and confidence, the
politicians who have lived through this
quarter century of imperial German his
tory are feeling the melancholy difference
between the forecasts of March, 1871, and
the reality of March, 1896. Probably
nowhere else is the feeling keener than in
the little circle gathered round the exile
of the Saxon forest, in whose fall, retire
ment and waning activity is typified the
change that the years have brought to the
German Empire. As the anniversary of
the crowning of his work has drawn
nearer Bismarck has shown evcr-increas-
ing signs of WEAKNESS, of failing interest
in the picayune turmoil of Berlin, of
weakening sympathy with the pygmics
who walk in Berlin where giants once
trod. "A hopeless mish-mash' has been
his repeated description of the purposeess
shifting hither and thither in the Will
helmstrasse and the tickle alienation of
smiles and frowns. advances and repulses
determination and resignation in the
Old Castle. But few months ago the
attentive reader of all that was new in a
dozen great German dailies, the cd
chancellor has let his interest fall off until
the Nachrichten of Hamburg. and the
Neuste Nachrichten of Berlin, satisfy his
desire for information of the course of
politics. Occasionally he glances at the
kreuzzeitung and the Hamburger Core
spondent, but only rarely
The sculptor Magnussen. who has Just
come from Friedrichsruh, took measure
ments Of the old chancellor for life size
figure. He was astounded to find the
muscles of this giant Of 81 still firm and
the limbs still unshrunken Physically.
says Magnussen, he is marvel of fresh
ness and strength. In spirit. however, he
seems to be Observation-Disclosures by the
chaos wrought in his life work by the
ministerial and imperial hands of today,
downcast by the progress of disloyalty and
the weakening of patriotism throughou,
the empire and apprehensivc of the fate
of his people under the guidance of a GOV.
ernment that is unable to do what it will
and, therefore, drifts impotently from one
unforeseen difficulty into another.
March 9, was the twenty fifth anniyer
sary of Bismarck return to Berlin, aftel
Witnessing ut Paris the proclamation ol
the empire The same day marked the
end of the eighth year since the old en-
peror passed from the political stage In
the shadow of the memories suggested by
these days and the contrast between the
hopes of 1871 and the disappointments OF
1896, the old chancellor remarked bitterly
to the sculptor:
care not for the many years you wish
me. | have had enough; do not want
any more.
Later he added Next week Tuesday
March ~ will be the sixth anniversary
.of my dismissal from office. That, too,
meant something for Germany
And again The reichstag reflects
many OF the changes for the worse that
have overtaken us in the last quarter OF
century"
For a man whose life work was the
erection and preservation of the German
Empire, whose only thought for forty
gears was his country's good and only
ambition his country 5 greatness, whose
whole detCrm ination had been one center
and every hope but one subject, and that
the crown Of the Hohenzollcrn sovereign
this disappointment and grief and resigna
ton to the end of all must be regarded as
the necessary outcome of what he has
suffered and what he now sees around
him.
With some bitterness and more regret
the newspapers Of the capital have been
commenting recently on the changes
which twenty five years have made in the
imperial parliament. The mere figures
tell more than all the sorrowful reflections
IF the loyal or all the self congratulations
of the socialists. To the first Reichstaa
che social Democrats sent hut two depu-
Ties, while the national liberals sent 1875
Then the social Democrats had but 1875,
900 voters behind them and the national
liberals had /, 300, 000. Today the social
Democrats have AZ deputies and / 500,
000 voters behind them, while the nation
al liberals have only 81 deputies and bare
ly 900, 900 voters. That comparison tells
a significant story for as the social
Democrats were organized to upset the
empire so the national liberals were or
ganized to uphold it; yet, while the social
Democrats have increased their strength
twenty fold the national liberals have
fallen away to one-balf their former
strength in parliament and three fourths
their former strength among the people.
Other comparisons tell similar story.
The Clercals, whom Bismarck was wont
to class with the ocal-democratic
traitors, but now are regarded simply as
ordinarily unpatrotic, have grown from
So to Z in the Reiohstag and from 735, 00U
TO / 10, 600 among the voters. The south
German Democrats, whose principal bust
ness is to show that Bavaria and Wurtem
berg would be better outside the empire
have multiplied from one to II in the
Reichstag and from 10, 900 to 1877, 600 out
sid it, The Radicals, whose business it is
TO profess loyalty while fighting every
thing the government proposes, have lost
strength in the Reichstag, to be sure, but
among the people they have increased their
strength from 342, 900 to 666, COO The
Poles and Separatists, also included in
Bismarck S old list of traitors, have multi
900