Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-03-10

proper estimate. For myself, I
think the Kaiser's speeches neither
distinguished for elegance of die
ton or for originality. The most
offensive sameness pervades them.
and not ipfrequently they abound in
missstatements."
could have furnished Her Royal
Highness at least one very good rea-
son for the faults pointed out: these
speeches are of the Kaiser's own
making.
Only very rarely would he take the
trouble TO jot down minutes. More
Some months after the exploit in
Schlitz, His Majesty and a great
number of friends were hunting near
Castle LeiZlingen, the band of the
saltzwede! Lancers furnishing the
table-music. At that time, the OFF,
cial papers reported, the Kaiser
again proved his eminent musical
talent by conducting the grand
march from Aida" One of the
party, General Won Haenisch, how
ever, tells me that this is not true.
The Kaiser took up the baton to
lead the Observation-Disclosures" and
Count Moltke's Riders March,"
compositions of quite a different
caliber to Verdi's great work, and
which. besides. the band could have
played in the dark and with eyes
shut.
To return to the observations of
Princess Frederick Charles: There
is, among the numberlesS speeches
and sayings reported of the Kaiser,
not one pithy remark that has
become n by-word in everyday
speech or in letters. In all this
dreary wilderness of imperial ver-
hncifx- Ex,I
lived the hour of its birth, and the
Kaiser's observations, as a general
thing, are too commonplace and in-
significant even to permit dressing
up.
other important persons are
made to say clever things, often
without their knowledge or consent,
but Williams friends and admirers
scour his speeches vainly for peg
or some flash of genius that might
eventually be credited to the royal
tattler.
The Emperor, who claims to be a
student of the older French litera-
ture, probably got far enough in
Rivarol to learn that "it is an
immense advantage to have never
said anything" The sentence fol-
lowing, namely, but one should
not abuse it," he must have over
looked, for he certainly did abuse
the privilege. And in a twofold
manner, too; he kept on saying
nothing, and habitually misquoted
history.
l have not kept a minute account
of the missives, but, if memory
serves me right, I should say that
fully one-third of the mysterious
anonymous letters that caused the
great Court scandal of which L
will speak presently, contained caus-
tic references to the Kaisers as
sassination of historical facts.
So was, during a Christmas sea-
son, Her Majesty's holiday humor
seriously disturbed by an epistle
hauling the Kaiser over the Goals
for a speech he had made in Kiel,
at the swearing-in of recruits. and
which referred to the battle of Ver-
celia Q01 B. c. as having been
fought between Germans and Rom
ans (mistake No. -, and wherein
the Romans were vanquished"
(mistake No. p by the enemy's
superior valor" (mistake No. 81.
After pointing out a half dozen
other errors, the writer of the anony-
nous note suggested that Augusta
Victoria buy her husband a small
reference-libraTy; at the same time
the correspondent thanked William
the-Sudden" for having garbled his
tory in order to pay homage to
the arms of ancient France, for"
said this writer, 1.-THE barbaric tribe
which opposed the Romans at Yer
celia were not Germans. but Cimbri,
or Gauls; that is, they belonged to
the same family as the French of
day"
Similar anonymous notes emptied
the Walls of sarcasm over the COM
poser of the Song to Aegir," which
latter, it was pointed out, was not a
god of the sea, but a miserable land
lubber, who never had so much as
sniff of the ocean.
The Empress used to turn over
these epistles to her husband, with
an aching heart; but if she, like
most of her friends, hoped that
these missives would make William
more careful, her expectations were
not realized, for the Kaiser went
bravely on blundering and exposing
himself to ridicule.
Much as one might be inclined to
look upon this sort of coxcombry as
harmless affectation liable to wear
off in the course of time, it's real
purport is too glaring to be over
looked; his parading with plumes
borrowed and stolen, his many bids
for popular applause through news
paper adulation smacking of the
methods of the press agent, Will
liam's public lecturing and preach
ing his coquetting with the stage
and letters,-all was but part of a
system carefully pieced together to
uphold the pretence of imperial
Omnipotence and omni-knowledge.
This whole life of pretensc and
fraud will be exposed in the continu-
alton of this series of revelations of
the true character of the Kaiser.