The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1918-09-17
The Kaiser as | Knew Him
for Fourteen Years
~%9
- By ARTHUR N. DAVIS. D. D. S.


He was very much Interested, for
instance. in the experiments and dis
coveries of Luther Burbank. To make
Gerinany self-supportng us far as
, IOf>1>reSpurceS We're coscerned was one
OF his dearest ambitions. He realized
that In the event of world war his
1ople would probably suffer more
from lack of food than they would
from hostile bullets, and he was hoping
that he would be able to obviate that
condition before his country was put
to the test. He was constantly preach
Ing simplifled diet and the conserya-
tion OF food reserves. and he had great
hopes that much could be done in a
scientific way to help solve general
Df3ood problems. When attending din
81 ers given him by his officers, his
hes respecting simple menus were
"a ,ays carefully followed.
( The kaiser enjoyed American hu.
Ror. He was very fond of Mark
= Twain, and he followed one or two of
the American monthlies and weeklies
, more or less regularly. He told me
that, one evening while I'm his sitting
Epom in the Berlin palace, reading
something In an American magazine,
ne ran across story which caused
him to laugh so much and so LOUD that
the ladies of the court, who heard him
.4S an adjacent room, came running in
with their knitting to see what the
matter was.
The kaiser had little respect for our
architecture. He thought our sky
scrapers, Of which he had seen illus
tratiOns, were hideous.
"How terrible to desecrate the land
scape with such tall buildings" he
commented. "They hurt the eye. How
can people live in them?"
I explained that most of the build.
! ings to which he referred were Office
buildings, but that We did have four
zen and fifteen-story apartment houses
and hotels, and even higher ones, in
which~the upper floors were used for
living purposes just the same as the
lower ones. He couldn't believe It
possible that people would consent to
live so far above the ground, and from
his own aversion to visit a place that
was even one story above the ground
floor, i rather got the idea that he was
. aid of height. Under the building
laws prevailing In Germany no build
Ing of more than five stories may be
erected.
y Perhaps the quality that he envied
most in us was our inventive genius.
When Orville Wright was flying at
'Tempelhofer Field, in Berlin, in the
early days of aviation, the kaiser
could not restrain his admiration.
IL wish i could encourage my people
to become great inventors, such as
America has produced" he declared.
rather hOpelessly. 81 admire your
wonderful inventive genius"
The kaiser objected very much to the
fact that many of the foreign opera
singers ..ere attracted to New York
by reason of the fabulous sums paid
them at the Metropolitan opera house
Despite the fact that the kaiser &C.
cused us of spending our money too
Iavishly, he repeatedly charged the
English as well as ourselves with be-
Ing money! y-worshipers.
"The Anglo-Saxons worship NAM
mon, and they try to gloss 1t all over
with show of religion" he said.
Your rich Americans nave SO much
money, Davis, that they really don't
know what to do with 1T. Why, re-
Gently one Of your millionaires saw
my castle at Corfu and sent one of his
representatives to the court with the
presumptuous message, please tell the
kaiser that / will buy his castle at
Corfu, and ask him what's his price
had word sent back that the castle
was not for sale. The American then
told my representative that he wouldn't
take mo- for an answer. The cheek of
the mani He said he didn't care how
much 1T cost. 1 sent word back to
that man that there were not enough
dollars In the world to buy that castle
There are some things that your dol
lars won't buy, Davis. and one Of them
fs my beautiful castle at Corfui"
cuAprEe va.