Face to Face with Kaiserism | Page 3

million in his pocket, more restless, more dissatisfied, than the hungry farmer's boy who first carries his ambitions to the great city.
When these zealous, scheming men gain the power of kingship, they usually bring disaster to their country. Their subjects find no compensation in the personal ambitions which hurry a nation into the miseries of war. Better Charles II, dallying with his ringletted mistresses, than an Alexander the Great; better Henry the Fourth of France, the "ever-green gallant," than Frederick the Great, bathing his people in blood. "Happy nations have no history."
William the Second, the present German Emperor, might well be called the Restless Emperor. He is never satisfied to remain more than a few days in any place or in any occupation. He commands his armies in person. He has won distinction as a writer and a public speaker. He is an excellent shot. He has composed music, written verses, superintended the production of a ballet, painted a picture; the beautiful Byzantine chapel in the Castle of Posen shows his genius for architecture; and, clothed in a clergyman's surplice, he has preached a sermon in Jerusalem. What ruler in all history has exhibited such extraordinary versatility?
In my conversations with the Emperor I have been struck by his knowledge of other countries, lands which he had never visited. He was familiar not only with their manners, customs, industries and public men, but with their commercial problems. Through his conversation one can see the keen eye of the Hanseatic trader looking with eager envy on the trade of a rival merchant. The Emperor, incidentally, while instinctively commercial, has an inborn contempt, if not for the law, at least for lawyers. In October, 1915, for instance, he remarked to me, "This is a lawyers' war, Asquith and Lloyd George in England, Poincaré and Briand in France."
In appearance and conversation Emperor William is very manly. His voice is strong, with a ring in it. He is a good rider. Following the German custom, he puts on his nightshirt every afternoon after lunch and sleeps for two hours--for the German is more devoted to the siesta than the Spaniard or Mexican. The hours of the Berlin Foreign Office, for example, were from eleven to one and from four to eight. After a heavy lunch at one o'clock all the officials took a nap for an hour or two. Also, the hours of the bank where I did business were from ten to one and from four till six. This meant that after six o'clock the clerks had to sit until perhaps eight making up the books for the day.
In 1916, the Olympic games were to have taken place at Berlin, and in September, 1913, before sailing for Germany, I attended a luncheon at the New York Athletic Club, given by President Page, with the members of the German Commission who had come to America to study athletics and to see what could be done in Germany so that the Germans could make a good showing at the games in their own city.
After my arrival in Germany one of the members of this commission told me that it was impossible, he believed, to organise the Germans as athletes until German meal and business hours had been changed. He said that with us in America young men leaving business at four-thirty, five or five-thirty, had time in which to exercise before their evening meal, but that in Germany the young men ate so much at the midday meal that they required their siesta after it, and that they did not leave their offices until so late in the evening that exercise and practice were impossible.
On the Emperor's table his wine glasses or rather cups are of silver. Possibly this is because he has been forbidden by his physician to drink wine. The Germans maintain the old-fashioned custom of drinking healths at meals. Some one far down the table will lift his glass, look at you and smile. You are then expected to lift your glass and drink with him and then both bow and smile over the glasses. As the Emperor must reciprocate with every one present, his champagne and wine are put in silver cups in order that those drinking wine with him do not see that he consumes no appreciable quantity of alcoholic liquor on the occasion of each health drinking. Some people in America may have often wished for a similar device.
The Emperor is out of uniform only on rare occasions. Occasionally, when in a foreign country, he has appeared in civilian dress, as shown in the accompanying photograph, taken in 1910 at the small town of Odde in Norway, where he had landed from his yacht. He appears to much better advantage in uniform than in civilian attire. Although uniformed while at