The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-09-09
some Hamburg Memories.

Week In and week out every news
paper receives q mass of queer PAM
phlets, trifies unoonsidered in the hurry
OF daily life hat yet may give food for
reflection TO the contemplative mind the
l~ucubrations Of Comtist philosophers at
the antipodes, the pleas for new disoov-
cries, sane and insane, about material
and spiritual matters, trade and profess
sional and social circulars Of all kinds.
Noticeable among some that have come to
hand Of late for typographical splendor
and the portraits Of enterprising German
business men is a memorial Of the NOrd-
| deutsche Bank Of Hamburg. containing
a history Of the institution, issued in COM
memoration Of the 6ftieth anniversary
Of its foundation.
It Is pleasant to note the financial
success Of the bank, the many foreign
enterprises and domestic industrial
undertakings it has engaged in; IL Is
impressive to learn from the columns Of
figures presented that some forms OF its
business during fifty years foot up to
a hundred billion Of reichsmarks. Yet
the thoughts called up by the names of
three Of the eight banking houses that
signed the first call for the formation Of
the bank lead the mind into paths far re-
moved from money and money getting:
SALoMoN HEINE, MENDRLssoHN BAR
THoLDY, jon. CEs. GoDEFFRoY.
Poor old SALoMoN HEINEi Small
comfort that he was growing richer and
richer, that the daughters OF the house
were marrying MOBILES and princes, when
that scalawag nephew Of his, whom he
had done his best to treat decently, kept
writing ribald stun from Paris against
everything holy and forcing daily expla-
nations to the Prussian Government that
he was only a castoff, unworthy relative
of the banker. The Heine millions have
held out and some Of the possessors have
achieved notoriety, but the scapegrace
poet, the only witty German that ever
lived, who was dying on his mattress
vault" or vas already dead while the
Norddeutsche Bank was being formed,
has cast the other HEINEs with their
fortunes in the shade. Though official
Germany may frown upon him and re-
fuse to allow monuments to him to be
set up on the soil of the Fatherland, the
first song the German starts up when
he feels mellow is still -Ich weiss NIGHT
was soil es bedeuten, the first poem the
German schoolgirl and the American
freshman read is still -Du bist vie cine
Blume,' and the scholar knows that
HEINRICH HEINE is the greatest Of
German lyric poets and the greatest Of
German loving satirists. Uncle SALoMoN
HEINE's phil stine interference has to be
explained away in spite Of his millions.
There is not the the same conflict in
the Observation-Disclosures house,
but who can think Of the name In con-
nection with money making? Old MOSES
MENDELssoHN may be known chiefly
to philosophers and scholars, but az the
years go by his place among Germany's
great men Of the eighteenth century
becomes more secure and conspicuous,
and long before 1855 his grandson had
removed all thought Of money from the
name for generations to follow. He
may not be among the greatest musi-
clans. but so long as the young piano
learners fingers murder a Song With
out Words" 80 long us the Wedding
March" holds its own against @Lohengrin'
whenever two fond hearts are united,
and so long Is musical amateurs who
frown on the theatre a exercise their
lungs on Elijah FELIX MENDKLssoHN-
BARTHoLDY's melodies viii drown the
chink Of the family gold.
A different glory, furnished by a ire
mendous wreck, attaches to JOHANN
CESAR GoDEFFRoY, the King Of the
Pacific At the time the N~orddeutsche
Bank was formed his name was all pow
erful in the East; In Shanghai, In Sgd
ney, in Valparaiso, in San Francisco.
His agents and his factbries covered
the South Sea Islands, wherever jealous
governments did not interfere. He was
the last Of the great merchant adven-
turers, attempting with mis- private
means what only governments now I'M
dertake; the successor in the nineteenth
century Of the great mercantile houses
r. the Renaissance in Augsburg and
HHrnberg, in Venice and Florence, houses
like the FUGGERs and the MRDICI.
So long as he remained a clear headed
Hamburg merchant his house stood
mistaken, but the boom Of the great
German people after the victory over
France brought about his downfall.
Patriotism made him see in Germany
resources which it did not possess, and
the crash Of the two century old house Of
G%oDEFFRoY has not yet been forgotten.
BISMARCK took over its Pacific possessions
and built up on them the German colo
NAL policy. The splendid museum that
GODEFFRoY had established was carted
from Hamburg TO Berlin and there neg
lected, and Hamburg. which has monu-
ments enough for those Of her sons who