The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-02-27
MEN, WOMEN . AND THINGS

d that time to 1889, in the many times he had seen him. only once was he in civilian dfess.
 This is the view the world takes of the warrior statesman, the creator or an empire which came perilously near the world and was only | stopped when this great country or ours threw it's weight in the field and stopped the victorious legions of Ger many.
 Bismarck is dead, but in the zenith or l his lcareer was dismissed by the hea1- strong. youthful Emperor with as It, l tie ceremony and sense of obligation l as an ordinary man would use in get ting rid of his butler. But time has way of revenging itself upon those who do not play the game fair, and I dare say that William III in his enforced exile Is learning the feelings of the great chancellor who had to eat ms heart out in silence.
 Now, far be it from me to try ana draw a picture to create sympathy for Bismarck, the man of blood and iron, for if living he would be the last per- son to want anyone to do the "sob act for him. Hate him and the things for which he stood and much that he did and thought was to be reprobated' but for all that he was man who dealt strong blows and took punish ment without ever whining.
 But now I am thinking of him not as the warrior statesman, but as Herr Bismarck, the farmer at Schonhausen, the place of his birth and where he lived the greater part of his life, until the old Emperor William gave him Friedrichsruh, an estate about 40 miles by rail from Hamburg, consisting of 30,0Q0 acres, all in timbe without cul- tivated land. The expresses between Berlin and Hamburg pass within 100 yards of the entrance of the estate.
 But it is not Friedrichsruh that am home, which he gave to his son Her bert when he went to occupy the home bestowed upon him by the King whom he had made an Emperor. By the way, Herbert, who for years was his fath- CTS right-hand man, and particularly so while minister of state for foreign affairs, married an Austrian who is half English. My American chum at the University of Vienna had studied at the University of Berlin and was quite intimate with Count Herbert Bis marck, and from him I got some in teresting data about him and the at l tention he always gave to Americans Schoenhausen is only about two hours by rail from Berlin, but the es- tatapis- about 10 minutes drive from l the station. The village, consisting or 1 a few red-roofed sleepy looking hous- i es, lies just outside the gates of not castle but mansion built with sim l plicity of stone. Portions of the pres
 ent great house date back to the sev-
 enteenth century, and whenever the
 ground is broken, bricks and other l fragments of an ancient edifice come
 to light, which seems to substantiate
 the claim that buildings were erected
 upon the same spot as early as 1900. But I do not want to waste too much time in the description Of the build- 1 ings. but will hurry on to the farmer
 who was lost in the statesman war
 rior have pottered about in old
 bookstores for more than quarter of a century. An old bookshop fascinates me. can no more pass one than can a man with a thirst go by barroom I just have to take peep, and this lalways means a purchase. some day I will write about some of my eXper- jiences, but now I will limit myself tc
 one find I made about 30 years ago.
 It was a lucky find. It was Prince
 Bismarck's letters to hisrwife, his sis
 ter and others, from 1S44 to 1870, GOV
 ering the period before the great wal
 with France. Now I have alway'
 dotted on letters. that is if they were
 real ones written in intimacy to surt
 enough, flesh and blood people ant not turned out with view of later be ing collected edited and put in bool,
 Such effusions ought to be barred iron
 the mails and should subject the pub
 fisher to fine and imprisonment.
 The volume I got hold of was pub lished more than twoscore years ag'
 and I hadn't read it for quarter Q
 century, but recently I had to mak'
 a trip and put 1t in my grip to req i, on the train. I thought it would b'
 safe as the armistice had been signed
 otherwise I might have been spotted by some busybody or overzealous secre Service man as German sympathizer I greatly enjoyed reading the homei,
 letters of the outstanding German o
 the nineteenth century.
 Tn the early forties he writes to hi 5 sister. Frau Won Arnheim "It is ont with difficulty that resist the incli nation to fill whole letter with 0 farmers complaints touching night
 frosts, sick oxen. bad rape and wors n roads. dead lambs. half-starved sheer s want of straw for fodder for cattlt s want of money. of potatoes and a
 manure" I challenge you to find I r any biography of great statesma
 anything to show a hetter instance 0 :, the sorl of the true farmer. Up to hi : death Bismarck was selling cattle of
 his estate.
 Afte~ making his mark during tn T tFrankfort 4nission, and there was tai
 of shelving him in the interest of som d place-hunter. we find him writing 0 "After 20 years it will be assuredly in e different to myself whether I now pla
 the part of diplomatist of countr
 l~;+ %1 A nF