The Winslow mail., 1911-07-15

NNNH77ssstZ
ern industrial state in Europe; to one
the incarnation of Prussian etiquette
and the military caste, to another the
gayest and most affable of German
gentlemen.
The truth seems to be that he is all
these things and many others with
equal conviction and energy on oc-
casion Some of the incongruities dis
appear on examination. His speeches
mislead the English reader who goes
to them armed with a British concep-
ton of German stolidity and common
sense. The German is not afraid of
poetry and sentiment; nor even OF
high-f1own metaphor on the ordinary
occasions of life. So when the Ger
man emperor chirstens a battleship
there is no reason for him to contine
himself to dreary commonplace.
"Springing from the old German
sagas are the names of ships be-
longing to thy class. Therefore shalt
thou likewise recall to us the gray
past of our ancestors and the puis-
SAINT deity whom our Germanic fore
fathers in their ignorance supplicated
and worshipped, when the battles of
the north were fought on the polar
seas, and death and ruin carried into
the land of the enemy The potent
name of the name of this great deity
thou shalt bear. | christen thee with
the name of Aegir." An imaginative
flight of this kind in christening a bat
tleship stirs and pleases German
patriotic feeling, nor does it seem to
the average German incongruous with
more practical qualities Every Ger
man knows that the kaiser Is a good
technical expert in matters relating to
the navy. Sir Edward ]. Reed said he
possessed "a perfect farseeing pene-
tration and more thorough informa-
ton than either his own technical
minister of myself possessed, and this
knowledge had been gained by expert
ence in a practical and trustworthy
way"
1.-THE DIvIne-Right" Theory.
Profound conviction in the divine
right of the house of Hohenzollern
makes the kaiser live up to the spec
tacular conception of the kingship
which was reflected in the pesudo-
mediaevalism Of his favorite drama
tist, the late Ernst Won Wildenbruch;
it was not in the kaiser's case incom-
patible with a very modern practical
ability. Himself a successful manu-
facturer and a model farmer, the kais-
er takes the keenest interest in i'm
provements in industrial processes, In
the organization of industry and in
legislation for the security and pro-
lection of the workers.
Every one who has lived in Ger
many knows the exclusiveness of mil
itary circles, but the emperor who is
the feudal chief of the Prussian aris-
tocracy, numbers among his intimates
some of the captains of German in
dustry. His affection for the late Herr
Krupp is we'll known and he ad-
dresses with the familiar thee and
thou of ordinary life Herr Wormann,
the great Hamburg ship owner, and
Herr Ballin, the head of the Hamburg
american lluS. l1ClA 1OoAlllJ
is of Jewish descent. The emperor
knows every ship-building yard on the
coast.
He takes his meter of Landesvater
and of monarch very seriously and If
Prussian tradition involves a certain
aloofness absent from the intercourse
between the English court and the
English people the difference is not
fundamental The German people
recognize behind the parade and mag
nificance of Potsdam a home life of
exceptional brightness and simplicity.
distinguished from the life of the or
binary German household most of all
by the unceasing and untiring in
dustry of It's head, for whom no task
seems too arduous, no detail 200
| trivial.