The Washington herald., 1922-10-28
KAISER FAILURE
IN SIMPLE" ROLE
By An Ex-BUCK.

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Thes tkalseyss tfeneifs. by William
Hohenzollern tHarper Brothers.)
II were king in Europe would
pay good American press agent
800 oo1 TO prove that , Yves crazy.
II. on, Up of that. he could convince
the world public that was scoun-
drel ! would. make him. q prince Of
the realm. present him with . suit
Of silken pajamas, decorated with
green butterflies. and pin upon him
the order OF the speckled rattle
snake. irst class. Moreover. I would
try to persuade him to accept the
hand of my eldest daughter in mar
rlage 10 that he might become heir
apparent to the throne. / might
even give him the key to the palace
wine cellar.
His accomplishments, to my way
Of thinking. would be well worth the
price. The average king is sim
pleton. He is considered feeble
minded by the proletariat. A feeble
minded simpleton is the direct an
tithesis Of a crazy scoundrel. The
former has no brains. II he tried
to murder his mother-in-law he
wouldn't know whether to stab her
In the heart or in the thigh. II he
tried to rob tie state treasury the
first policeman who passed would
catch him red-handed in the act
The latter has brains. They may be
disordered--but they are in his
Uranium just the same.
1t Is difiicult for me to imagine q
man who wouldn't prefer the credit
of having upset brains to the repu-
tation OF having no brains at all.
But we have found such q person
Mr.. wilhelm .Hohenzollern. ex-
kaiser of Germany. He has written
his memoirs apparently with tho
single purpose Of proving that he
wasn't a crazy scoundrel after all,
but Just a king-conseQuently a
simpleton.
always had admired wilhelm
secretly. 1t may be as well to con-
fess this now that l havS changed
my opinion and become good
American again. l had given him
credit for being a throw-back in q
family Of feeble-minded degener-
ates-a man of evil genius forced
by accident of birth to spend his
life among morons. Now / am told
that he was only a trifle further ad-
vanced than the late Gear Of Russia,
the Sultan OF the Ottoman, or the
Mikado of Japan. And so this is
the man whose name / had rever-
enced as a little boy reverences tn 4
name of Jesse James.
am loath to take Wilhelm's own
word for 1t. He tries to prove that
he was as innocent as a little white
lamb of starting the late world war
That is true if, as he wishes us to
believe. he was an ordinary crowned
head. Any member of the king ge-
nus. as 1t exists today, couldn't start
even a pillow fight in a home for
epileptics. But I simply can't
transform the war lord of my imagi-
nation into a doddering old fool.
don't think Wilhelm Is as able a man
as the average member of the House
of Representatives or the average
track foreman employed by the Cap
ital Traction Company. But do
think he is a much smarter fellow
than former King Constantine OF
Greece, for example.
Mr Hohenzollern has made a bad
mistake. In spite of a slight grudge
which / bear against him. accentu-
ated somewhat by a little interrup.
tion in the orderly progress OF my
career for which he was responsible
five years ago. l offer him my serv-
ices to rectify this error at the fig
ure mentioned at the start of this
article. He has failed in his efforts
to prove himself fool. l will guar
antee to convince the American
people that he Is an insane rascal
or he need not pay me a cent.
Wilhelm makes some bad slips in
his book, at times. In spite OF his
evident desire. he can not conceal
the fact that. despite the trappings
of royalty which hampered him. he
was a fellow of real ability under
the surface. The circumstances at
tendant upon his kicking that old
fashioned top sergeant, Bismarck,
out of his way, are creditable in
deed. There was a decidedly human
touch about the poor fellow-a real
love for his fellow Germans. He
had been reared in the belief that
they were just pigs to Re fatted for
the slaughter. He never lost this
idea-but he did pity them to the
extent that he saw to it that they
had clean stys to sleep in and plenty
of appetizing bran mash and gar
bage to eat. In this he showed
himself enormously in advance Of
any other ruler of his time. The
most touching pages of the whole
book are those in which he describes
how his heart was hurt when he
was forced to listen to the squeals
OF his swine while the autumn kill
ing was on. 1t is hard to imagine
any other European sovereign CIV
ing a darn about what went on in
the barnyard.
Wilhelm succeeds in convincing
me that he has a swelled head. He
is vain as a peacock at the Wash
ington Zoo. He is crooked as a
bogus stock salesman. But he
wastes ink when he tries to tell me
that he attached any real impor-
tance to shaking the hand Of
Edward the Seventh. or eating din
ner with the Car of Russia, or that
the poor old chief clerk. Bethmann-