The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-08
GERMANS AND THE KAISER.

| CleVer-Too Erratic for the Conser- vatives, Mistrusted by the Progress
 siVes.
 An interesting feature of the recent ! electioneering campaign in Germany | was the anxiety shown alike by the | ministers and party leaders lest the
 kaiser should in any way be drawn | into the fight. It is an open secret | that strong pressure was brought to bear on him to induce him to stand | aloof from the struggle, There is hard | ly doubt that he would have turned | his reichstag dissolution speech into
 an electioneering manifesto had he not | known that if he did so he would have | to face cabinet crisis. Dr. Von Mi | quel Herr von der Recke, and even | Prince Hohenlohe, it is said, were quite | prepared to resign office had he per sisted in disregarding their advice and trying to bring his personal influence | to bear on the electors. Then not only | was it rendered practically impossible for him to make political speeches him. | self while the elections were being held, | but any mention of his name Was as a rule, scrupulously avoided by the | candidates of all parties in the speeches they made. That progressives and so- | cial democrats should think twice be- fore speaking of his majesty is but | natural, as they have learned by pain ful experience that the subject Is one fraught with danger; but that staunch | conservatives and fervent reaotionaries should in this respect be even more on
 their guard than their opponents is, to say the least of it, remarkable. Evi- dently, even the most loyal of candi- dates was fully alive to the fact that, for the time being at any rate, Kaiser Wilhelm's is not a name to conjure with. Popular as he undoubtedly is with a certain somewhat noisy section of his subjects, by the great majority he is, as every political agent knows
 well, regarded with but scant affection and still less reverence. AS to the why's
 and wherefores of this state of things, l diverse opinions prevail among Ger l mans as we here have proof.
 Of course, the kaiser is unpopular,''
 Berliner-one who belongs to no par
 ty, and has no politics worth mention- ing, a mere flaneur in fact-remarked thC OlIlGI uuy III Icply u ei QucSllOIl How could he be anything else? We are beer-loving race, and he is the veriest champagne. He is much too clever for us too brilliant. We North
 Germans always look on the brilliant
 with suspicion we fancy it smacks of
 France Besides, he is all-round clever
 versatile as never another-and that
 we cannot forgive. He is restless, too,
 impulsive, always on the rush; where-
 as we have way of weighing pros and cons, and dearly love slow move
 ments We admire him, of course, inn
 mensely; but we don't understand him
 in the least, nor does he understand us.
 He has never been in touch with us as
 his father and his grandfather were.
 Perhaps that is why we are all a little
 afraid of what he may so or do. You
 should see how his ministers watch him
 as he is making a speech, and hear
 the sigh of relief that is heaved when
 the end is reached! Yet he is one of
 the finest orators in Germany
 A Prussian noble, Junker by birth
 but moderate conservative in politics,
 when asked why he and so many of
 his class looked askance on their pres
 ent ruler, replied testify: Because we
 never know what he will do next. We
 are steady-going people down here.'-
 he lives in the country-"and we object
 to surprises. We are conservatives,
 too, of course, and newell, whatever else he may be, he is certainly not a
 conservatice 'Echt reyolutionar.' T. call him. Think of his summing that labor congress! And the way he treat ed Bismarck But we won't talk about that Then we are old fashioned I suppose, but we don't quite like the way he dashes about from place to place, for all the world like an Ameri- can congressman, making speeches. Such speeches. too. When old Kaiser Wilhelm made speech he used to know what he was talking about"
 An asrarian when appealed to to ex-
 plain why the kaiser is less popular
 now than formerly, answered prompt ly that it was entirely owing to the way
 he has thrown over the agriculturalists
 When he founded the Agrarian league
 we had never a doubt but that We could count on his active protection
 and cooperation. He went out of his
 way, indeed, at the time, to encourage
 us in our work and assure us of his sympathy. And well he might; we cer-
 tainly deserve any thanks we get; for,
 if we are working for ourselves, we are
 working for him at the same time. l
 should like to know where Germany
 would be to-day if it were not for us
 agrarians. Then, just at the very
 moment we stood most in need of his
 support, he turned his back on us without word of warning. He refus- ed to allow our leaders to sit at the same table with himself, and he de- clared publicly that we were nothing but 'Brotwucherer' (men willing to starve the poor for the sake of in- creasing our own incomes.) And all because we objected to the Russian commercial treaty and refused to withdraw the Kanitz bill at government dictation The way we have been treated is quite disgraceful and, of course, these, things get noised abroad. There is not landowner or farmer in the land but knows that the kaiser has delibertely sacrificed agriculture for the sake of pleasing the czar and and Baron Stumm. Little wonder we are feeling rather sore"
 Among the progressives the prevail i