Sunday Washington globe., 1902-05-25
Emperor Williams oTer.

Emperor Williams Offer.
The offer of the German Emperor to pre-
sent the United States with a statue of
Frederick The Great demonstrates that the
Kaiser is laboring under a misapprehension
touching the sentiment of the citizens of
this republic towards himself, his country
and his people.
The visit of his brother Prince Henry and
the cordial welcome he received by all
classes has but served to heighten the EN-
peror's delusion that the ovations and out
ward expressions by representative public
men and officials in this country, towards
Germany and the German people, were in
the nature of endorsements of his semi
feudal and wholly military rule by Divine
right over the German empire Piqued, too,
by the elaborate arrangements announced
for the uuveiling of the Rochambeau statue
and unable to distinguish the difference in
the motives which have moved Americans
to honor the gallant nation, race and re-
public which Graded and gave birth 70 the
brave and chivalrous Rochambeau, the Em-
peror imagined that we would receive with
equal enthusiasm the statue of a king be-
cause we acknowledged to his brother and
to the world the splendid qualities of the
German epigrauts who have made this land
their homie.
The German people and the German I'M
migrants alike are respected and appre.
ciated by the United States. We have
welcomed and will continue to welcome
the citizens of that country who elect to
live among aud be of US, for not better
citizens live under the flag of our Republic.
For the German people in their native land
we have the kindest feelings Of friendship
and amity, and for the German people who
have become an important factor in our
population we have the brOtherly feelings
and fellowship which their virtues and their
splendid citizenship deserves.
But towards kings, princes and potentates,
whether they are German, British, Italian,
Russian, Danish or other nationality we
have the same undying political hostility
our fathers manifested from Lexington and
Concord to Saratoga and Yorktown. We
deny the greatness" conferred on Fred
erick or on the other kings in the royal
calendars of Europe. Such are not our
ideas of greatness. WASHINGTON THE
GREAT is the standard by which we
measure chiefs, generals and rulers and by
that standard no king who has ever worn a
crown and welded scepter is GREAT or
worthy Of a statue on the soil Of this
Republic.
Frederick has been dubbed great" by
royal parasites and aristocratic and heredi-
tary rulers. He, like all other kings to the
present William of Germany and Edward
of England, belong to the blasphemous
class styled the lords annointed," 4" whose
senseless mummeries and sacrilegious
claims of divine right etc, this mighty
Republic Of eighty millions of people stand
impregnably firm in defiant and successful
protest against the feudal lie
No statue of European King, prince, OF
pOtentate shall ever dishonor the land Of
Washington while the spirit OF freedom
exists in the breasts of the American peo.
pie And if erected under the bayonets of
an administration, which seems TO have en-
tirely lost its head the peoples naked
hands will Taze it to the ground in twenty.
four hours after its dedication.
If the emperor desires to honor this Re.
public by the presentation Of a statue Of
German, whose title to greatness we revere
and acknowledge and which is infinitely
superior to that Of all the kings who have
reigned from Pepin to Williams self, let
him have cast in enduring bronze the heroic
figure Of the brave aud gallant Steuben,
nobleT Prussian and more worthy Of inn
mortality, from our point of view, than all
the members of the house Of Hohenzellern,
who have ever. lived from its founder to the
present monarch, including Frederick, mis-
called the Great.
We want no statues of kings and we will
have none erected on the sacred soil Of this
Republic.