The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-09-11

ing the power of Amerfcav I re-
 piled.
 He turned to me indignantly, and
 in his most imperiOus manner ex-
 claimed.
 "We underestimate no one! We
 know exactly what we are dOing" How seriously he was mistaken in this respect has since been sufficiently proved.
 NO matter how gloomy the outlook for Germany, the Kaiser seldom showed con- cern. It is true that whenever things
 were going wrong, as when the Russians In the early part of the war were sweep ing everything before them in their ad- vance on the Carpathians, he and the rest of the royal family kept as far in
 the background as possible, whereas,
 when the German cause was triumphant, as in the CS of the offensive against Italy, he could not make himself too conspicuous at the front.
 ALWAYS A BRAVE FRONT
 But even when Germany's diversity
 was greatest, the Kaiser always put on brave front At such times 1 have seen him stop in the street. after leav
 ing my office, and before the hundreds of people waiting outside to greet him, ostentatiously put a cigarette in his mouth and light it. that everyone might notice how steady his hand was and how little he was worried by the turn things were taking.
 At the same time, on one or two oc-
 casions after the war started. l noticed that he acted differently when in the dental chair than had been his custom when everything was serene. Before the war he would talk to me
 necessarily during my work whenever it's nature enabled him to do so, and vet when I was all through and had ham mered the last piece of gold into his
 S.1i, I aatf. t,1.A An d of & cast inlay. and announced, Now. your majesty. l am through. he would frequently remark:
 DO you know, Davis, you hammered exactly 135 pieces of gold into that tooth. counted theml'
 After the war. however, he paid little attention to what I was doing for him, and I assumed that his mind was far away turning over perhaps some of the dire problems with which his people were beset, or contemplating some of the mis- cry he had caused, and I did not dis turb his reflections.
 The Kaiser once boasted to mo that not a building was erected in Germany, not a bridge built. not street opened, not park laid out but what the ITO iect was first submitted to him. He kept posted on everything that was going on. not only in Germany. but in the world at large, and. as far as he was able, he endeavored to have ms finger in every development or world d. wide importance. I cannot imagine that he was less interested in what ms countrymen were doing in connection wi-h the war than he was in their achievements in time of peace. If he did not actually order the sink l ing of the Lusitania, therefore, l am convinced that he was thoroughly aware of the plan to blow 1t up and sanctioned it. That he coult. have averted it If he had been prompted to do so is clearly indicated by another incident which left very deep i'm pression upon me.
 | I was informed by one Of the Ger man aviators that plans had been made to drop gas bombs on London which contained deadly gas which would penetrate the cellars of houses I in whict civilians were in the habit | of hiding during air raids.
 Shortly before this hideous idea was I to be put into effect the papers an- nounced that bombs of this character had been dropped by the allies on Baden Baden, but that. fortunately they had fallen into clunp of woods | in the center of the town and had failed to explode, which had given tho Ger I mans an opportunity to take them apart and ascertain their nature. The purpose of this announcement of course, was to forestall the storm of l condemnation which the Germans knew would follow their use of the bombs or 1 London--a ruse which they had in variably employed whenever they con | templated some fresh violation of th' rules of international law and the die | tates of humanity.
 It happened that one of my patients who resided in Baden Baden. called | to see me the day after the bombs hat been dropped on her town, and she tolt me all about it.
 ] The aeroplanes which dropped thu bombs had been flying over the city al the morning." she declared. w,