The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1898-05-26

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was then member Of the diet and the
| diet was a parliament of princes where
the people had neither rights nor rep
resentation.
The growth of a middle class was a
menace to aristocratic exclusiveness
and to the perpetuation of its political
privileges. Hence Bismarck feared
| the cities as the storm centres of COM
! mercial and political activity. lie
viewed cities only as places where
burghers were bred, where they talked
and where they were permitted to dis
| turb the balance of political power.
Peasants surrounded and venerated
| the owner of the Schloss. They work.
| cd his lands. They rejoiced when an
heir was born to inherit those feudal
privileges which they freely yielded
or they grieved at his decease. But
with the cities 1t was trade and not
lard. They represented an entirely
new order of things and landgrave
| who could control the minds and ac-
tions of several hundred peasants in
the country, found himself powerless
in the case Of those sturdy burghers
that dominated the commerce of the
cities. Bismarck who was a physical
giant was born in the country. He
loved the country and would preserve
it while sweeping away the city and
with it everything for which the city
stands. If from our wider American
standpoint Bismarck would be con-
sidered narrow we must also consider
the conditions into which he was born.
If the Iron Chancellor was afterwards
one Of the great master-minds of the
world he was Tot then in a scholarly
sense literally educated man. Bis
| marck, like Bright did not get his
education in the universities, but in
the world. Indeed he was no moro
highly educated than the average
bullock-breeding country nobleman Of
Europe. He then scorned books and
would while student fight a mere
bookworm with as much relish as he
would socialist guilty of lese majestic.
He loved his own wife and his own
country better than he loved any
other mans wife or any other country.
Bismarck differs from other states
men of the time chiefly in one re-
specific never humbugged the peo-
pie. His life was seriously threatened
by stepson of Karl Blind, a leader in
the Revolution of 1S4S, and he was not
really popular at any period of his Of
fetal life. He did not attain his ex-
traordinary honors and eminence
through the practice Of political Jug
glery like Beaconsfield, or through
passing popular measures or by brill
liant scholarship like Gladstone, or by
changing and afterwards reconstruct
ing the National Government like
Theirs. Bismarck has done none OF
these things. He did not depress his
country in order to elevate himself
and is the Brahma rather than the
silva of his people. He never courted
sions, but he raised Germany from a
recumbent position and bade her stand
erect, united and upon her feet. He
snatched his country from crisis in
which she might have become the prey
of revolution or the envy Of neighbor-
ing states. He reversed the march of
Empire from Austria's direction and
sent it towards Prussia detaching the
contending elements of a polyglot
state on one border and humbling her
threatening foes on the other, while
like a modern Archimedes lifting the
whole Teutonic race proper into an
unparelled position Of Imperial
strength in the councils Of Europe. At
the same time like another Vulcan he
forged upon the anvil of high oppor-
tunity the various component states of
the Germanic Confederation into one
homogeneous nationality with larger
liberties, with improved systems Of
education, more secure governments,
making of all one people with a COM
mon destiny and a common flag and
language. Bismarck may not have
been always a Chesterfield to the peo-
ple--but he was a benefactor. He
may not have been the greatest of
modern scholars, but assuredly the
first amongst constructive Europeon
statesmen.
TEAD. p. POWERS.