Face to Face with Kaiserism | Page 8

has
been easy to arouse a great feeling of devotion for the royal house of
Prussia among all classes in Germany, with the possible exception of
the Social Democrats. The other kings and princes of Germany have
been overshadowed, mere puppets in the king business, by the
surpassing talents of the Hohenzollerns, and so the task of those who,
in Germany and out, hope for that evolution towards liberalism or even
democracy which alone can make the nations of the world feel safe in
making peace with Germany, is beset with numerous difficulties.
Before the war the Emperor turned much of his enterprising talent into
peaceful channels, into the development of commercial and industrial
Germany. No one has a greater respect for wealth and commercial
success than the Emperor. He would have made a wonderful success as
a man of business. He ought to be the richest person in the Empire, but
the militaristic system which he fostered gave that distinction to
another. For the richest person in Germany before the war was Frau
Krupp-Bohlen, daughter of the late manufacturer of cannon. She
inherited control of the factories and the greater part of the fortune of
her father and was rated at about $75,000,000. It was a contest between
Prince Henckel-Donnersmarck and the Emperor for second place, each
being reputed to possess about sixty to sixty-five million dollars. Most
of the Emperor's wealth is in landed estates, and of these he has, I
believe, about sixty scattered through the Empire. The Emperor is
credited with being a large stockholder in both the Krupp works and the
Hamburg-American Line. What a sensation it would make in this
country were the President to become a large stockholder in Bethlehem
Steel or the Winchester Arms Company!
The earnings of the Krupp's factory since the War have been immense
and doubtless the fortune of the Krupp heiress since then has more than
doubled. The subscriptions to war loans and war charities, thrown by
Frau Krupp-Bohlen and the Krupp directors as sops to public opinion,
are mere nothings to the fat earnings made by that renowned factory in
this war.
And what a sensation, too, would be caused in America if the

Bethlehem Steel Company or the United States Steel Corporation were
to purchase newspapers or take over The Associated Press in order to
control public opinion! Yet the German nation stands by, apathetic,
propagandised to a standstill, stuffed and fed by news handed them by
the Krupps and the alliance of six great industrial iron and steel
companies of western Germany.
* * * * *
A question which interests every inhabitant of the world to-day is,
where does the ultimate power reside in Germany?
Where is the force which controls the country? The Reichstag, of
course, has no real power; the twenty-five ruling princes of Germany,
voting in the Bundesrat through their representatives, control the
Reichstag, and the Chancellor is not responsible to either but only to
the Emperor.
Consider, for a moment, the personality of von Bethmann-Hollweg,
Chancellor of the Empire for eight or nine years. He lacked both
determination and decision. Lovable, good, kind, respected, the
Chancellor, to a surprising degree, was minus that quality which we
call "punch." He never led, but followed. He sought always to find out
first which side of the question seemed likely to win,--where the
majority would stand. Usually he poised himself on middle ground. He
could not have been the ultimate power in the State.
I have a feeling that the Kaiser himself always felt in some vague way
that his luck lay with America, and I imagine that he himself was
against anything that might lead to a break with this country. What,
then, was the mysterious power which changed, for instance, the policy
of the German Empire towards America and ordered unrestricted
submarine war at the risk of bringing against the Empire a rich and
powerful nation of over a hundred million population?
The Foreign Office did not have this decision. Its members, made up of
men who had travelled in other countries, who knew the latent power of
America, did not advise this step--with the exception, however, of

Zimmermann, who, carried away by his sudden elevation, and by the
glamour of personal contact with the Emperor, the Princes and the
military chiefs, yielded to the arguments of military expediency.
The one force in Germany which ultimately decides every great
question, except the fate of its own head, is the Great General Staff.
On one side of the Königs-Platz, in Berlin, stands the great building of
the Reichstag, floridly decorated, glittering with gold, surrounded by
statues and filled, during the sessions of the Reichstag, with a crowd of
representatives who do not represent and who, like monkeys in a cage,
jibber and debate questions