Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1898-08-04

to part with that diplomatic world
which he had so long moulded by hi:
intellect and by this mighty will thar
it was later to finally leave it, was tn;
one close and confidential friend OF
Bismarck. He alone was the man
upon whom the prince leaned in the
days of his distress, and it is tc
| Hoffman that he iustinctively clung
in the days Of what may be called hi;
second childhood. When even his
dearest friends are upbraided in his
periodic fits Of dependency no IN
kind word was addressed to the faith
full family editor.
Of the public and political life of
! Bismarck little that is new can be
written save by some such man as
! Editor Hoffman. Bismarck was one
| of the central figures of the century
and isolated and uncivilized will be
indeed that land where the news of
his death shall not arouse a pang of
sorrow. Of Bismarck it will be writ
ten that in an age prolific of great
men he was, measured alike by the
range of his intellect and the
| majesty of his achievements,
probably the greatest per-
sonality of his time. He was the
product of a single idea-the unifica-
ton of the thirUy-nine states of the
Germanic confederation into a feder-
alton of which Prussia was to be the
predominant partner. This was the
dream Of his youth and the realiza-
ton of his old age; and though like
others who have accomplished notable
things he saw ambitious youth pre-
pared to discount his marvellous life
work when that work was done, Bis
marck's fame lowered so conspicu-
ously that that of the greatest Of
German monarchs is but as a dwarf
to a giant beside it.
Bismarck was about 80 years Of age
when the people OF Germany rose to
throw off that condition of servitude
in which they stood to a few princely
families who like the house of Hesse
sold them for money to fight the bat
ties of foreign soyereigns. The Ger
man people could have no interest
in these wars but they were accus-
toned to obedience and were loyal
and true to the gonfalon of their
chiefs. But in 1848 they took a new
view of their duties and when the
masses moved, the Austrian family
being more powerful than the Hohea-
zollerns secured the appointment of
the Arch-duke John of Austria as
administrator of all the Germans"
From administrator to emperor was
but step, and this event gave the
starting point to Bismarck's idea. 1t
was nineteen years later after the
national activity of 1S4S had subsidized
and Koeniggratz was won that Bis
marck organized the northern states
into what was called the north Ger
man confederation. He had ten
years previously resolved upon form
ing a triple alliance between France,
Russia and Prussia. Neither Ma
poleon III. nor Alexander II. was
friendly to such an alliance, but as
soon as the confederation was formed
with a population of 100000, and
Bismarck himself was it's foreign
minister he was in a better position
to deal with two emperors. The sub
sequent events connected with the
Beneditti affair, the war of 1870, the
browning of the HollenZollern instead
of the Austrian monarch as emperor
Of Germany at Versailles, and Bis
marck's assumption of the office of
chancellor of the empire are familiar
to all readers.
Though all Germans now approve Of
Bismarck's masterpiece he had while
carrying it out bitter enemies among
his own cOuntrymen who denounced
him as the arch-enemy of freedom, as
cruel, tyrannical and inhuman, as a
man OF enormous appetite, Of over
mastering ambition. as modern
combination of Lucullus and Of
Caesar. The truth is that in the Ger
many into which Bismarck was born
there were only two classes, the
| rulers and the ruled, or the land
graves AID the peasantry. Bismarck
belonged to and was as much the liv-
ing embodiment of the aristocratic
Anglo-Saxon today in England Bis
marck's sweep -ag statements were
responsible for this feeling: All
cities should be swept away; too
many Of these burghers gather in one
place and they become centers of de-
mocracy and of constitutionalism, he
exclaimed. when he heard of the ma
tional ass mbly at Frankfort and of
weigh. B smarck was then a member
Of the diet and the diet was a parlia-
ment Of princes where the people had
neither rights nor representation.
The growth of a middle class was a
menace to aristocratic exc-usiveness
and to the perpetuation of its political
privileges. Hence Bismarck feared
the cities as ths storm centers of com
mercial activity. He viewed cities
only as places where burghers were
bred, where they talked and where
they were permitted to disturb the
! balance of political power. Peasants
surrounded and venerated the owner
of the schloss. They worked his
lands. They rejoiced when an heir
was born to inherit those feudal priv
! ileges which they freely yielded or
| they grieved at his decease. But
with the cities it was trade and not
land. They represented an entirely
fr1auT orCar IF and