Face to Face with Kaiserism | Page 3

a dream of world empire.
They failed. I have dreamed a dream of German world empire and my
mailed fist shall succeed."
Could any declaration of a life's ambition be more explicit? It seems
impossible for human ambition to stand still. Either a man loses all
stimulus of self and becomes as spiritless as a fagged animal or
ambition drives him always on--he is never content with any success
achieved. The millionaire to whom the first million, when he was a boy,
seemed the extreme limit of human wealth and desire, presses on
insatiably with the first 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