The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1898-05-26
BISMARCK FAILING.
THE MAN OF IRON BOWED DOWN BY
RELENTLESS TIME.


Affairs of State Characteristic of the
+. Man Who Changed the Geography ot
| Central Europe.
Bismarck is dying. The mighty
personality who changed the map Of
Central Europe will on April /, prob
ably celebrate his last anniversary.
He is losing his temper, his means Of
locomotion and his memory. He Is
fuse any longer to bear the weight OF
the great statesman's enormous body
and he has to be wheeled around from
one apartment to another at Fried
richsruhe.
Like other remarkable men Bis
marck was never a man Of very
agreeable disposition, and on his
eighty second year his nerves which
were as rigid as rod-iron. become so
huttered by the least reference to pub
lie affairs that no mention even OF
his own marvellous achievements can
be made in his presence. There are
only two persons outside the members
or his family who can converse with
him. These are his physician, DIR.
Schweninger, and Editor Hoffman, OF
the Hamburger Nachrichten. who
through all the trying period when
Bismarck's pride was sorely humbled,
when 1t was harder to part with that
diplomatic world which he had so
long moulded by his intellect and by
his mighty will than 1t is now to
hnally leave 1t, was the one close and
confidential friend of Bismarck. He
alone was the man upon whom the
Prince leaned in the days of his dis
tress, and it is to Hoffman that he in
stinctively clings in these days Of what
may be called his second childhood.
When even his dearest friends are up
braided in his periodic fits of de-
spondency no unkind word is address,
ed to the faithful family Editor.
OF the public and political life of
Bismarck little that Is new can he
written save by some such man as
Editor Hoffman. Bismarck is one of
the central figures of the century and
isolated and uncivilized will be indeed
. that land where the news of his help
less and stricken condition shall not
arouse d sympathetic response on this
probably one Of the last gatherings of
the family around its venerated Chief
tain. OF Bismarck 1t will be written
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
personality of his time. He was the
product of single idea-the unifica.
tlon of the thirty nine states of the
Germanic Confederation into a federa-
ton OF which Prussia was to be the
predominant partner. This was the
dream of his youth and the realization
of his old age; and though like Others
who have accomplished notable things
he saw ambitious youth prepared to
discount his marvellous life work
when that work was done, Bismarck's
fame lowered SO conspicuously that
that of the greatest of German mon-
archs is but as dwarf to q giant be-
side it.
Bismarck was about thirty years of
age when the people of Germany rose
to throw off that condition of SER
vitude in which they stood to a few
princely families who like the House
Of Hesse sold them for money to fight
the battles Of foreign sovereigns. The
German people could have no interest
tn hut
ed to obedience and were loyal and
true to the gonfalon of their chiefs
But in 1S4S they took a new view Of
their duties and when the masses
moved, the Australian family being
more powerful than the Hohenzollerna
secured the appointment of the Arch
Duke John Of Austria as admins
traitor of all the Germans"
From Administrator to Emperor was
but a step, and this event gave tho
starting point to. Bismarck's idea
though it was nineteen years later and
after the national activity of 1913 had
subsided and Koehiggratz was won
that Bismarck organized the northern
states into what was called the North
German Confederation. He had ten
years previously resolved upon form
ing a triple alliance between France.
Russia and Prussia. Neither Ma
poleon Ill nor Alexander " were
friendly to such an alliance, but as
soon as the Confederation was formed
with population of 29,OOO,OOO, and
Bismarck himself was its foreign min
lister he was in a better position to
deal with the two Emperors. The
subsequent events connected with the
Beneditti affair, the war of 1870, the
crowning Of the Hohenzollern 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 1t out bitter enemies among
his own countrymen who denounced