The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1913-12-05
IN The FATRERLAND
INTERESTING BITS OF NEWS
FROM THE GREAT GERMAN
EMPIRE.
WHAT'S DOING IN OLD HOME
Summary of the Most important Hap
penings in the Land of the Kaiser
Timely Items for the German
Readers.

Readers.
| The increasing Importance of Ger
many's relations with Latin-America
| is indicated by provision in the i'm
perial budget of 1914, raising to the
| rank OF full legations the minister
Residences now credited to Guatemala
| Venezuela and Peru. A German con
| sulate is established at Panama and
| the German consulate at Montreal is
raised to consulate general. Some
| other striking points in the prelimi
nary summary accompanying the bud
get bill are: The increase in the
annual subsidy for German schools
abroad from 100000 to $375,000; an
| appropriation for the Olympic games
to be held in Berlin in 1916; an appro-
| priation for the German exhibit at the
Baltic exposition in Malmoe, Sweden.
| in 1914, which is Nnsidered more wor.
| thy of support tnan the Panama-Pa-
cific exposition at San Francisco III
| 1915. No mention is made in the esti-
mates of an appropriation for Ger
man embassy building at Washington.
| Germany apparently Is about to aban-
| don her subsidy to the North German
| Lloyd Steamship lines running to the
| Orient and Australasia, as the esti
mates of $761 900 covers only the six
months until the expiration of the
present contract. The estimated reve-
nue and expenditure for 1914 balance
| at $91S,250,000, which compares with
| 1868, 100000 in 1913. To the army and
navy are assigned 1904, 100000 and
| s122.000,0 900 respectively making to-
gether almost half the years total ex
penditure. Only two new ships for the
navy are provided.
During the Civil war in the United
| States a young German lieutenant was
attached to Gen. Carl Schurz's brigade
| of the federal army of the Mississippi.
It was decided to send up a balloon to
spy out the confederate position This
/ young German not only volunteered.
but begged to be allowed to make the
ascent. He was permitted to go, al
| though he had never before made an
aerial flight Today that same Ger
man, Count Ferdinand Won Zeppelin,
crushed and broken in the evening OF
| bis life by the series Of tragic disas-
ters to his gigantic ships of the air, is
still mistaken in his confidence in his
aircraft. Zeppelin, whom the kaiser
not long ago characterized as the
4 greatest German of the century" is
undaunted by the destruction of the
navy's two aerial cruisers, l. / and J. 2.
1t is the sad loss of life in these two
disasters that for the first time has
| bowed him. Never easy of approach,
he is almost inaccessible now in his
home at Stuttgart or at the Zeppelin
works in Friederichshafen Count Yep
pelins unbroken spirit challenges the
worlds admiration. He is seventy-five
years of age Few inventors have en-
2ountered such relentless obstacles
and overcome them by so indomitable
a spirit. To none has fame come more
tardily and reluctantly. For years he
has wrestled and struggled unceasing
ly to be master. Once more in his
old age, he is down" Will he stay
| down."
The "Mittelstand," the middle-class
tradesmen all over Austria and Ger
many and in parts of Russia, are max
ing a tremendous fuss over the al
legged crushing to death by capitalistic
| undertakings of all enterprises of
moderate size. The basis of this Nit
| telstand" movement is a demand for
| TOD g.
penalties, prohibitions, and punitive
| taxation for all persons who, in their
commercial operations, exceed GER
tain limits of size. In addition, the
"Mittelstanders, as they are called,
are demanding state interference
against intrusion from below; and are
| doing everything they can to prevent
! The laboring class pushing it's way into
| their sacred field No month passes
without middleclass meetings being
| held somewhere in Germany or Aus
| tria. The middleclass revolt Is pri-
marily all economic revolt, for it's con
Germ is the pocket interest of a par
! ticular class. But it is allied with both
! politics and religion. 1t is mostly
conservative, always violently anti
| Semitic and, often, especially in south
Germany, Catholic-Clerical.
Representatives of the legislative as
semblies of Germany, Austria and Italy
| have held a conference at Vienna for
the purpose of having the three ma
| tons unite in erecting a monument of
Kaiser Franz Joseph, the only living
| formed the triple alliance in 1888 All
artists, architects and sculptors of the
three countries may compete for the
honor of designing the monument.
Germany has dispatched a general to
Constantinople, who will have full au-
thority over the Turkish military es-
| Enlistment The idea is, that former
| iy Turkey did not have enough OF the
German model, which explains her
last years defeat. Now she is to have
| the German model complete. If Ger
many can rehabilitate the Turkish
army through it's emissary, make it
| into such reality as it was before
| the war supposed to be, it will have
| succeeded in restoring the equilibrium
and in multiplying pretty nearly the mill
| tary consequences of Turkeys defeat.
The latest Of the Zeppelin war air
ships, the Zeppelin VI, assembled from
| Bodensee and started on it's first trip,