The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-05-27
LAST DAYS0F IN EMPRESS
THE MOTHER OF THE KAISER DY-
ING IN OBSCURITY OF A
CANCER
KEPT ALIVE BY HER WILL
Cause of Her UnpOpuIarity With the
German PeOpIe-Her Fight for
q Throne With Bis
mnrck.

Every now and then one sees in the
morning papers a telegram, dated from
Berlin or from Main, an
nouncing the speedily approaching death
of the dowager empress of Germany.
For many months the wife of Frederick
the Noble and the mother of the present
kaiser, has been given up periodically by
the doctors, writes the Paris correspond
ent of the New York Sun. Cancer is
is slowly destroying her. She is as much
under sentence of death as a condemned
murderer, but she has one resource that
the murderer has not. She can. and
does. stave off death by the exercise Of
her indomitable resolution. An English
doctor who recently assisted for brief
period her regular physician, said the
other day at a medical congress in Paris:
THE dowager empress ought TO have
died months ago; but even death cannot
pierce at one stroke the defense of her
granite will: he has to bore slowly to
get at the citadel of that life.
This empress with the formidable will
is one of the most unhappy women in
the world. She clngs desperately to
life but her heart was broken long ago,
and her last days are STEPPED in Utter
ness Her whole career has been a bril-
liant misery Now that she is dying
slowly-a widow, an abandoned mother
and an eX-SoVereign detested by the
people she tried faithfully to serve-she
may well have said, as is reported:
Il mean to live as long as I can; but
when I die, no one win be sorry, least of
all myself
This iron will, which keeps her alive
now. has been directly and indirectly the
cause of all her misery. No doubt it
came to her from her mother, the late
queen of England Anyhow, it is certain
that very early in life the present En-
press Frederick of Germany, then Prin-
cess Victoria of England, came often
into conflict with ner mother. When she
was only six she dared to oppose the will
Of her queen mother.
Queen Victoria, the Prince Consort Al
bert, the Princess Royal and the present
king of England were present IN state
at a review at AldersEot. A brilliant
cavalcade Of officers gallcped by the side
OF the coach as royal guards. The little
princess dropped her handkerchief to the
ground for the pride of seeing field mar
sh9ls and generals pulling up their
horses and dismounting to restore the
object. The queen observed the Incl Gent
and motioned to the officers not TO graft
fy her caprice Then she stopped the
carriage and addressed the princess:
Get out my child, and pick up your
handkerchief" The little girl refused
Mamma I can't; I'd be ashamed she
said
The queen insisted, the prince consort
entreated, but the princess pouted,
blushed and refused this time fatty.
II won't"
Her majesty had to let the carriage
drive ahead, leaving the handkerchief
on the ground.
IN 1855 Princess Vivtoria was married
ct the age of seventeen to the crown
prince of Prussia, Frederick the son
and heir Of King Wilhelm. 1t was
brilliant marriage. But happy though
it was for the princess in the un1ailing
love between herself and her Fritz, it
was made bitter by the intense hatred
she excited in Bismarck.
From beginning to end the iron chan
celior sought to thwart the EneIish
woman" as he called her 1t was a
bitter blow to him that the heir of the
house Of Hohenzollern should have made
q marital alliance with princess of his
enemys country.
She has poisoned" said ne, "the fIo-
henzollern blood at its source"
And through the press he stirred the
whole people of Prussia against the
crown princess She was represented as
traitor on the steps of the throne. an
lnterfoping foreigner bent on DESTROYING
Ching it. This was the more ready
believed in that the crown princess was
really trying to introduce into Prussia
many liberal ideas prevalent in England.
Herself woman Of strong intellect and
remarkably educated, she sought to pro-
cure for women in Prussia an enlighten-
ed system of education and some consid-
cradle degree of political influence She
had set her face against many survivaIs
of teudal privileges still lingering in Prus-
sia and practically proclaimed herself i
democrat
The English woman said Bismarck.
sis not only rights of-man woman; she
is also rights of-woman woman,
which is worse 1t is red revolution en-
throned at Berlin
She was Kissed in the streets of Ber-
lin, stones were thrown at her carriage,
she could not appear at a public func-
ton even by the side of the crown prince
whom the people adored, without risk of
insult. A curious complaint of hers has
been recorded. From an early age she hal
been a diligent student of the works of
John Stuart Mill, the great English re-
publican philosopher and advocate of
woman's rights. One day in the height
of her appropriately at Berlin she wrote
to him and invited him to pay visit to
herself and the crown prince. Mill de-
clined. In a respectful letter he explain
ed that such a meeting would do harm
both to him and to her; people would
charge him with selling his republican
principles for royal smiles and would
say of her that she allowed philosophical
faddisms to lower the royal dignity.
Unhappy woman that I am she cried
to her secretary; the chancellor and my
future subjects hate me because they
think me democrat; and the democrats
will have nothing to do with me because
may one day be a Queen!''
1t is said that she wrote letter to the
English philosopher which he would new