Omaha daily bee., 1918-12-27
Scrappiing of Small Crowns
New York Evening Post.

Amid the crash of the imperial Hohenzolern
and Hapsburg throne s, little noise was made by
the collapse into rubbish of the petty kingly
ducal, or prncely seats of the lesser German
states. Besides the kaiser. three kings went to
the scrap-pile, seven or Sight princes, and too
many dukes and grand dukes to be counted
easily. History will devote its paragraph each
to the exits, varying in degrees of ungraceful-
ness, of the rulers of Bavaria, Saxony, Wurttem-
berg. Baden, and Brunswick. Scarce line
will go to the ErnSts and Adolfs, Friedrichs
and Augusts who held sway over the Anhalts
and Waldecks, Lippes and Reusses; and to all
the lesser fry of hgh-titled nobility scarce a
word. Yet thus passes into oblivion one of
Europe's most interesting vestiges of medae-
valism, a system of microscopic sovereignties
humorous or historically picturesque or ana
chronisticay repellent according to ones point
of view. Most of these petty rulers were hum
orous enough before 1870. Since then they had
been more than ever matter for an Offenbach
comedy.
About these princpalities of opera bouffe
and costume romance hangs an aroma of dis
lance in time and space that makes revolution
airy socialism seem impossible. The regning
family Of Reuss (area l22 square mhes) decided
about 1900 that, all the sovereigns being named
Heinrich, the list should be numbered up to 100
and start with again. Must it stop with Helm
rich XIV? Surely, his Grand Transparency
the Duke Of Schppen Schloppen starts off each
everAng still in his ducal paintpeeled, Gathering
coach, with his spindle shanked gentlemen in
waiting and officers of state, from his weather.
beaten Schloss on its Schlossberg Surely, he
still arrives in customary state at his Hof-
Theater, and watches with somnolent approval
his withered Hof-Ballet, Surely, he still talks
grandiloquently with his Hof-Arzt or Chamber
lain about his moribund Painting Academy
Thackeray is the authority most people rely up
Rouge et-Noirbourg, Pumpernickel and Pot
zenthal. Like other Observers he was little
caustic. Apropos of the Kinckleburys on the
Rhine, he observed that it was discreditable for
Noirbourg sovereign to have so little money
"A fugitive prince, prince struggling with the
storms of fate, prince in exile, may be poor;
but prince looking out of his palace windows
with dressing gown out at elbows, and dunned
by his subject Washerwomen-th is painful
object" His Major Dobbin marked with con-
tempt the statue of Victor Aurelius XIV, sur
rounded by nymphs and emblems of victory
and gazing over the atrocious Aurelius Platz to
where the Aurelius Paast had been started
none had ever had money to finish it,
History with steady spitefulness has refused
| to look on these sovereigns, posing grandoseb,
as impressive, heroic or romantic The prince
lings and dukelets first defined their character
after the Thirty Years War, when most sur
vivng noblemen became local despots Their
ability at drinking was proverbial when Portia
descrl bed her sutton the German noble Their
morals were notorious; every little tyrant had
his intriguing court and his mstresses la Au-
gustus of Saxony and George of Hanover. Leb-
nltz declared that they thought it beneath their
dignity to improve their minds" Partly in con-
heir du1p
by their vices. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's
letters present some appalling hints of the
yawning life of little German courts, as at
Blankenburg, where "the duke taillys at basset
| every night and the duchess tells me she is so
we'll pleased with nay company that it makes her
play less than she used to do" Pollnitz and
Casanova supplement them in their Memoirs
But the hitler courts became funniest when they
went in heavily for the new fashion Of culture
Some of the better situated rulers did so we'll
and played noble part in history of German
thought and art; as the Wemar dukes, who
made for Gothic such a pleasant familiar So
| ciety and the great houses which founded uni
versitieS, patronzed the theaters and orchestras
and rewarded musicians and poets But when
not merely Lippe-Detniold, Stuttgart and Des-
sau, but smaller seats, began to make culture
hum, the effect was likely to be unexpected
Heine satrized even the great Bavarian who
built the Valhalla and omitted Luther as some
museums omit the whale. He drew his picture
of the typical .princelet in King Long Ear"
who rected his cultural achievements, stopped
| to belch, and concluded with warning against
instruction.
1t has been in times of revolution that these
monarchs Of vest-pocket realms have appeared
at their worst When Napoleon or Bismarck
clanked his sword their eagerness to get
into frightened line was pitiful. When demo-
cracy toppled over the King of Prussia, they
fell like line of wooden dominoes They will
grace the Almanach de Gotha as the French
nobility have graced it; and for some their
magnificence will not be much empter their
luxury more faded, than when they had their
toy armies, legislatures, and courts.
TUrlnQ Child Labor Profits