Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-08-22

! vast military establishment. con-
trolled by an irresponsible govern
| ment, which, having secretly planned
to dominate the world, proceeded to
| carry the plan out without regard
either to the sacred obligations of
treaty or the long esta ablished prac-
tices of the long-cherished principles
of international action and honor;
which chose it's own time for the
war; delivered it's blow fiercely and
suddenly; stopped at no barrier,
either of law or mercy; swept a
whole continent within the tide of
blood-not the blood of soldiers only.
but the blood of innocent women and
poor; and now stands balked, but
not defeated, the enemy of four
f1fths of the world.
I'VE cannot take the word of the
present rulers of Germany as a guar
antee of anything that is to endure
unless explicitly supported by such
conclusive evidence of the will and
purpose of the German people them
selves as the other peoples of the
world would be justified in accept
ing"
What gall and wormwood these
expressions were to the Kaiser can
be fully appreciated only by those
who know how completely he was
obsessed with medieval ideas and
how dearly he envied those "old, un-
happy days when peoples were no
where consulted by their rulers and
wars were provoked and waged in
| the interest of dynasties"-to use the
Presidents apt characterization.
I have referred in previous chap
ter to the "Sieges of Alice" the group
of statues of his ancestors which
the Kaiser had erected in the Tier
garten to show his veneration and
to inspire respect for the monarchs
of a bygone age. He was constantly
restoring old castles. and always
showed his contempt for everything
that was modern in art and music.
He sanctioned the appointment of
Richard Strauss as conductor of the
Berlin Opera House, but when, in
after years, that able composer pro-
duced number of operas of de-
cidedly modern tendency, which sad
ly hurt the Kaiser, that monarch
declared viciously: "I raised a snake
in the grass to bite mel"
IT is fact that before the war no
play was every permitted in Ger
many in which a royal prince mar
ried a peasant girl. The Kaiser
WOulu not cOuntenance even IN the
| drama any such dire assault on dy-
nastic dignity. Class distinctions
must be sustained at all costs. After
the war, however. the ban upon plays
of that character was removed. and
the rather ludicrous result followed
that hardly a play was produced in
which the marriage of royalty and
plebeian blood did not figure.
Although Germany is regarded as
the cradle of socialism, to the Kaiser
it was a cancer which was slowly
eating away the foundations of his
empire, and he viewed its progress
with the direct misgivings.
Before the war he steadfastly re-
fused to receive a deputation of So
cialists and never once gave an au-
dience to the leaders of the Socialist
party in the Reichstag, although the
heads of committees of all the other
political parties were at times re-
ceived in conference.
While the Reichstag was little more
than a children's debating society,
the growth and increasing power of
the Socialistic party. which was con-
stantly clamoring for the reform
vote. could not be ignored and, no
doubt had a great deal to do with