The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-11-01
DYING HISTORIAN.
Momnnsen Is Still Unconscious and His
Wife Also Near Death.

BERLIN, Oct. 31.-Prof. Mommsen,
the historian. who suffered a severe
apoplectic stroke yesterday, still lin
gers unconscious His wife is near
death from dropsy. Her illness Sc
verely affected the professors general
health. The professors work table has
been pushed to one corner, On 1T lies
half q page of manuscript of the unf1n-
ished Lives of the Roman EmperorS"
on which Mommsen was working be-
fore he suffered from the apoplectic
stroke. His power for steady and ac-
curate work continued until that mo-
ment, although the quantity of his out
put was restricted to an inconsiderable
fraction of the prodigious results of his
middle life.
He wrote thirty-fvea works. His
great one, Corpus hscTiptionum Lat
inarium," which, alone composed fifteen
volumes, was issued by the Berlin
academy thirty years, ending in 1898.
Mommsen was assisted in this by other
scholars, but nearly the whole text was
in his own hand writing. A friend
looked over a hundred odd volumes of
which Mommsen is the author and told
him that they contained 24,000,000
words in German, words which average
a third longer than in English.
81 did not know was SO wretchedly
verbose" replied the professor. Il am
sure no person has ever read them ALL"
During the Spanish american war
MommSen wrote an article intended
for magazine which was then appear
ing in French German and English in
London, in which he attacked the
United States, saying his faith was de-
stroyed in the republic, as the leader
Of the worlds humanitarian movements
and adding that he had lost his belief
in Americans as race of free men too
just and too proud to use their power
for grabbing what belonged to Others"
He asserted that the United States
had become robber power, "a pratt
cal power" and that 'by pouring its in
comparable resources into military de-
signs might menace the worlds quiet
and might, like Rome, carry forays
into every continent
DR.. Barth, the Radical leader, the
editor of the Nation, to whom Momm-
sen sent the proofs of this article,
showed them to Andrew d. White then
American ambassador here and Mr..
White handed them back to DR.. Barth,
saying the article would not hurt the
United States and might hurt Prof
Mommsen with the people who are his
greatest admirers outside of Germany"
DR.. Barth advised Mommsen not to
have the article printed, on the ground
that it would affect the relations be-
tween the United States and Germany
unpleasantly and Mommsen recalled
the article. He afterWard said he was
glad he did so.
Mommsen's stormy feelings caused
him to use immoderate language, as,
for instance, few days ago in an ar
ticle on the reconciliation between
Great Britain and Germany when he
called the Pan-Germans national
FOOLS"
Mommesn's political heat found am
pie employment from the short time
he was editor of the Schleswig- Hol-
stein Zeitung, in the revolutionary year,
1S4S, and his expulsion from a pro-
fessorship at the University of Leipsic,
the same year, through a long success
sion of incidents of which the most
notable was the prosecution Prince
Bismarck brought against him for
SANDER, which ended with Mornmsen's
complete vindication.