New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-06-08

IN a ABE good is, In the teIse
M phrase Of the man in the
IN1 street. the net tale Of the
German Emperor's twenty-five years OF
regning and ruling There have been
and there are to-day, much longer reigns
than his has been TO date. and there
have been those which were far more
spectacular and sensational. though, in
deed. his has not by any means been
devoid of those characteristics. But We
shall scan the worlds annals long and far
and wide before we find another which,
beginning in circumstances so distress
ful and menacing, has more notably dis
appointed the uniavorable forecasts Of
foes or more triumphanty indicated the
hope and faith Of friends.
The year 1855 was the blizzard veal"
in New York IT was a year Of OMNIBUS
unrest in Europe. France was wrestling
with the aftermath of the Wilson scan
dal which had compelled the abdicatOn
Of President Grevy; with the conspiracies
and agitation of Boulanger against the
constitution and with the beginnings OF
the unrivalled scandal and disaster Of
Panama. Russia, having driven AleXan-
der from the Bulgarian throne. was pro-
testing against the election Of Ferdinand
IN his place, and was supposed TO be on
the point OF a southwark eruption which
might involve all Europe. Italy was
struggling against foredOomed defeat in
Ably ssinia. England was battling with
Fuzzy Wuzzy at Suakim. Germany. or
Prussia, had been forced 10 go to CanoS-
L.. .
against Rome, ana was striving TO en-
force repressiye laws against the rising
mepace OF socialism. Incidentally, Ger
many and America were wranglIng and
even lighting ia Samoa over the IN de-
y.sed triple control Of those islands
THE INTERNATIONAL FIREBRAND.
Upon this troubled scene there came In
almost unresraIned put sance the man
Who by general consent was regarded az
the most dangerous Of international fire
brands Above all men. he was the heir
Of the Gruenderzeit. with all its amhi-
tons, aggressions, initiation and estrus-
goaded unrest His grandfather had died
IN January, and for months before that
time. because Of the invalidism Of his
father az san Reno, Prince William had
been much in the public eye as the repre-
sentative Of the Prussan and German
sovereignty. and the impression made by
nm had been disquieting, II not alarming
he was known TO be in almost bitter OPP
position 10 MS father and mother, and
vas believed TO stand for all the repres-
son and ahSOutism which the awakening
soul Of German Liberalism abhOrred.
During his fathers reign Of nnety-nine
days he had maintained something like a
nVal court with Countess Waldersee as
DIS Egeria and the notorious Jew batting
stoecker as his prophet And when Fred
erick the Noble was laid away with his
fathers, mourning for the loss of him was
not greater than. fear and distrUst of his
successor
The earliest acts of the young Emperor,
moreover, gave added color 10 the appre-
tensions On the very day of his aces
son he placed his own mother under mill
hry arrest At the side Of her husbands
Der anc arbitrarily seized his fathers
private p.spers. His first address was to
iDs army. that 10 the civil public being
deferred for several days, and in ii he
employed not the customary we OF
sovereignty, but the imperious "I'' Of au-
tocracy.
THE ACTIVITIES OF AN EGoTlST.
his every utterance was marked with
eef-conscicusness and self-assertion, and
seemed ominous Of despotism at home and
embrOilfneuf abroad The Geffckeu scan