Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1919-01-02
Here'a Character Study Of
biggest Villain in History

SuiHe IN public the sterlleSt C~I.rnplan
brow.
AS language, always e~Xtravagant,
was often that OF a mere bambastes
IuIioso, ana those who watched him
most closely suspected long ago that
behlnd The bully lurked the coward.
HIS fcrocious exhortation, a~bundantly
carried out, to the Geruan troops be-
tore they sailed for China at the tiEne
@f the Boxer troubles gave Il fore
taste OF the methods of frightfulness'
which have covered the German name
as wen as his own, with infamy dur
ing the last -four years. He revelled
III the ~paSeantry of royalty. and es-
peciaily in the pomp and circum-
stance of foreign travel, but always
with the bagman's eye TO the chance OF
doing business Straight, for in
stance. from ~Constantinople. where he
had not shrunk from embracing the
'iSed sultan still dripping with the
blood of the Armenian massacres as
the price of the famous Bagdad rail-
way concession, he made a solemn en-
try into Jerusalem in 1898 masquerade
ing as a Crusader, and a fortnight
later at Saladin's tomb in Damascus
proclaimed himself the protector of
the a00,00o,0oo @ Malomedans who
revere in the Sultan Abdul Ilamid the
spiritual head OF their religion"
Dealt With Base and Weak.
1t was chiefly on the baser or weak
err sides Of human nature that he
knew how to play. Unlike Bismarck,
who admitted the existence of certain
imponderabilia with which ven he
was bound to reckon, William III re-
fused TO believe that there We're moral
and spiritual forces in the world which
he could not bend to his own will or
shatter with his mailed fist" He
could Eve read behind the superficial
vanities of cosmopolitan Paris int the
great soul of France Whilst some
some features of English life appealed
to the better instincts he had inherited
from the mother in whom, neverthe-
less, he always resented die Bingham
derin, he loathed and despised British
ideals OF freedom and the political in
situations which embody them. He
knew the value of British sea power,
and was doubtless one Of the very few
Germans who appreciated the impor-
lance of Helgoland when he obtained
it's surrender from Lord Salisbury in
1890. AT first he hoped to cast Great
IoIlldlH lOE lAe part VI 1Si 1ildAS .
naval AUSTRIA" but from a false
friend he grew to be u bitter and
implacable enemy, and built up a fleet
that. when der tag came for it, should
destroy the British empire.
A Law Unto Himself.
Innumerable were his activities, and
he pursued them all with the feverish
strenuousnes of an unbridled imag-
s-a%;>- $500 N nr;l1;o nt h,Nf ,,nho To mood
intellect. No man worked harder than
he did in a country of hard workers.
| But. to his own undoing and to that Of
Germany. he acknowledged no respon-
| sibility to anyone but himself. Volun-
tas regis suprema lex was the motto
he wrote in the Golden Book present.
ed to him once at Munich, and on the
Order of the Day Of the first reich
stag he opened he inscribed, with a
meaning very different from St. Paul's
the words from l Corinthians, XIV, 10:
by the grace Of God l am What l am"
For William II God vas indeed, little
more than a tutelary deity privileged to
be the ancient ally of my house,"
Truth was not in him. AS his moth
err, the Empress Frederick, once bitter
IN remarked: THE trouble with Willy
is that he has never been able t tell
the truth, not even to himself" With
his Machavellian ancestor. he was
Iconvinced that the world is governed
only by trickery and deceit" Then,
when trickery and deceit had done their
work, the last word-das erlosende
| Wort-belonged to him who welded
the mightiest sword. And what sword
could have seemed to him mightier in
! August. 1914. than the German army
/ with the whole German nation behind
It. drilled. equipped and tutored through
and through to war?
His sword has persisted, and he him
self survives. a fugitive and an outcast,
the last. and. history probably will
say. The meanest Of the Hohenzollerns.
That he has been doomed. or has
chosen. to survive the abject humilia-
ton he has brought upon himself as
well as the hideous ruin he has
brought upon his country. and the I'M
told sufferings he has brought upon
the whole world. completes the measure
Of ais downfall. unredeemed az his
whole conduct throughout the war has
been by q single spark Of chivalry or
humanity.
Christians Of Armenia and Syria d
Turkish rule would excite the warmest
indignation all over the country, and II