New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-11-23

and as a sovereign. who was literally the
father Of his people, however narrow MS
vision and limited his ideas
To-day, when death has at last over
taken him. the first thought in all minds
must be for the future. He was the centre
about which gathered all that was national
and independent in Austrian life his
family was older than the Hohenzolern,
and there chung TO it dignity not yet &C
o,,ired bv the latest ruler Of house when
v,as but a small German affair two cen
h,ries ago. when the Hapsburg princes
mounted the throne of the Holy Roman
Empire in regular rotation.
VIII the passing Of Francis Joseph De
followed by the actual subordination IN
nermanence Of the Hapsburg to the no
benzollern? Will Berlin, joining hands
with Budapest, reduce Vienna TO place
of relative unimportance? Will an Allied
victory in the future bring about that DIS
solution Of the Austrian Empire so many
frres threatened, so often imminent! Al
readv the meaning of an Allied victory Is
NOT hidden. Galicia, the Bukovina, Tran
svlvania. Temesvar, Croatia AMI SlaVo-
MIA Dalmatia. Bosnia and Herzegovina,
rs+,ia and the Trentino, these are marked
nv the foes of Austria and beyond this lies
Tho over present threat Of Hungarian Sc
cession.
Like Louis XIV, Francis Joseph has
nassed at a dark hour, leaving PLAIN
heritage of danger and suffering for his
neonle But his own suffering has PER
hans surpassed that of any of his subjects.
I"Fate is not kind to old men" Louis XIV
said 70 one of his marshals returning after
a disaster, and fate has been singulariy
unlind 70 Francis Joseph. Yet through
all the storm and stress of national ana
personal grief he has lived on. Ihere Is
a legend that in all the recent months his
active mind has followed on the map the
progress of the war, but that memory has
so far failed him that he has continued
20 believe that it was the Prussians, and
not the Russians, that his armies were
fighting.
In his later days Talleyrand was once
asked what he did during The Terror, and
HE answer was 81 lived" And If one
should seek to sum up in phrase the lie
work of Francis Joseph, one would say Of
his empire that through him and under
him it lived; for sixty-eight years 1t sur
vived a ruin that seemed imminent when
he mounted the throne and certainly does
NOT now seem nearer than then. The OLD
Emperor was not thinker, he was not
leader, but he became an institution. ana
in later days he has come to seem the I'M
mortal emperor of dying empire.
Men will ask the world over whether the
passing Of Francis Joseph makes for peace
or for war Actually it is hard to see now
how his death will affect the situation.
The flames that are still mounting higher
and higher are beyond the control of one
man or many men: it is to be doubted II
William II himself could much influence
the course Of the gigantic struggle now
In truth. the event to which the world has
looked forward with apprehension so long,
the death of Francis Joseph, seems now,
when at last it has come, to be but minor
detail in the tragic history of his country
and of all European countries.
As for the young archduke who sue
ceeds to the Dual Monarchy, he does not
find its fortunes more desperate than did
Francis Joseph. About him the world
knows next to nothing, less than was known
of that other archduke who persisted at
Seraievo; but now that races and nations
are struggling, with full consciousness
Of the issues at stake, it is hard to believe
that their sovereigns can in any large
way shape the course of human history
AS for Francis Joseph, it would seem that
the story is told in the fact that an old and
tired King has at last laid down burden
beyond the weight of any man, having
borne it bravely and with dignity, if never
with supreme skill or profound statesman
ship.