elected Emperor of Germany, but refused the honor on the ground that
he could not accept the title from the people, but only from his
equals. There followed riots and uprisings of the people in Prussia,
Saxony, Baden, and elsewhere throughout Germany. The Prussian guards
were sent to Dresden to quell the rioting there and took the city
after two days' fighting. The parliament itself was dispersed and
moved to Stuttgart, but there again they were dispersed, and the end
was a flight of the liberals to Switzerland, France, and the United
States. We in America profited by the coming of such valuable citizens
as Carl Schurz and many others. There were driven from Germany, they
and their descendants, many among our most valuable citizens. The
descendant of one of the worthiest of them, Admiral Osterhaus, is one
of the most respected officers in our navy, and will one day command
it, and we could not be in safer hands. In 1849 the German Federal
fleet was sold at auction as useless; Austria was again in the
ascendant and German subjects in Schleswig were handed over to the
Danes.
In 1850 both the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria called
congresses, but Prussia finally gave up hers, and the ancient
confederation as of before 1848 met as a diet at Frankfort and from
1851-1858 Bismarck was the Prussian delegate and Austria presided over
the deliberations.
A factor that made for unity among the German states was the
Zollverein. From 1818-1853 under the leadership of Prussia the various
states were persuaded to join in equalizing their tariffs. Between
1834-5 Prussia, Bavaria, Wuertemberg, Saxony, Baden, Hesse-Nassau,
Thuringia, and Frankfort agreed upon a common standard for customs
duties, and a few years later they were joined by Brunswick, Hanover,
and the Mecklenburgs. German industry and commerce had their
beginnings in these agreements. The hundreds of different customs
duties became so exasperating that even jealous little governments
agreed to conform to simpler laws, and probably this commercial
necessity did more to bring about the unity of Germany than the King,
or politics, or the army.
With the struggles of the various states to obtain constitutions we
cannot deal, nor would it add to the understanding of the present
political condition of the German Empire.
Prussia, after riots in Berlin, after promises and delays from the
vacillating King, who one day orders his own troops out of the capital
and his brother, later William I, to England to appease the anger of
the mob, and parades the streets with the colors of the citizens in
revolt wrapped about him; and the next day, surly, obstinate, but ever
orating, holds back from his pledges, finally accepts a constitution
which is probably as little democratic as any in the world.
Of the sixty-five million inhabitants of the German Empire, Prussia
has over forty millions. The Landtag of Prussia is composed of two
chambers, the first called the Herrenhaus, or House of Lords, and the
second the Abgeordnetenhaus, or Chamber of Deputies. This upper house
is made up of the princes of the royal family who are of age; the
descendants of the formerly sovereign families of Hohenzollern-
Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen; chiefs of the princely houses
recognized by the Congress of Vienna; heads of the territorial
nobility formed by the King; representatives of the universities;
burgomasters of towns with more than fifty thousand inhabitants, and
an unlimited number of persons nominated by the King for life or for a
limited period. This upper chamber is a mere drawing-room of the
sovereign's courtiers, though there may be, and as a matter of fact
there are at the present time, representatives even of labor in this
chamber, but in a minority so complete that their actual influence
upon legislation, except in a feeble advisory capacity, amounts to
nothing. In this Herrenhaus, or upper chamber, of Prussia there are at
this writing among the 327 members 3 bankers, 8 representatives of the
industrial and merchant class, and 1 mechanic; 12 in all, or not even
four per cent., to represent the industrial, financial, commercial,
and working classes. Even in the lower chamber, or Abgeordnetenhaus,
there are only 10 merchants, 19 manufacturers, 7 labor
representatives, and 1 bank director, or 37 members who represent the
commercial, manufacturing, and industrial interests in a total
membership of 443.
In the other states of Germany much the same conditions exist. In
Bavaria, in the upper house, or Kammer der Reichsraete, there is no
representative, and in the lower house of 163 members only 29
representatives of the industrial world.
In Saxony, the most socialistic state in Germany, the upper chamber
with 49 members has 5 industrials; the lower chamber with 82 members
has 40 representatives of commercial, industrial, and financial
affairs.
In Wuertemberg, in the upper chamber with 51 members there are 3
industrials; and in the second chamber with 63 members there are 17
industrials.
In Baden, of the 37 members of the upper house there are 6
industrials; of the 73 members of the lower house there are 23
representatives of commerce and industry.
This condition of political inequality is the result of the
maintenance of the old political divisions, despite the fact that in
the last thirty years the whole complexion of the country has changed
radically, due to the rapid increase of the city populations
representing the industrial and commercial progress of a nation that
is now the rival of both the United States and Great Britain. In more
than one instance a town with over 300,000 inhabitants will be
represented in the legislature in the same proportion as a country
population of 30,000. Stettin, for example, with a population of
245,000, which is a seventh of the total population of Pomerania, has
only 6 of the 89 provincial representatives. Further, the three-class
system of voting in Prussia and in the German cities, is a unique
arrangement for giving men the suffrage without either power or
privilege. According to this system every male inhabitant of Prussia
aged twenty-five is entitled to vote in the election of members of the
lower house. The voters, however, are divided into three classes. This
division is made by taking the total amount of the state taxes paid in
each electoral district and dividing it into three equal amounts. The
first third is paid by the highest tax-payers; the second third by the
next highest tax-payers, and the last third by the rest. The first
class consists of a comparatively few wealthy people; it may even
happen that a single individual pays a third of the taxes in a given
district. These three classes then elect the members of an electoral
college, who then elect the member of the house. In Prussia it may be
said roughly that 260,000 wealthy tax-payers elect one-third; 870,000
tax-payers elect one-third, and the other 6,500,000 voters elect one-third
of the members of the electoral college, with the consequence
that the 6,500,000 are not represented at all in the lower house of
Prussia. In order to make this three-class system of voting quite
clear, let us take the case of a city where the same principle may be
seen at work on a smaller scale. In 1910, in the city of Berlin, there
were:
931 voters of the first class paying 27,914,593
marks of the total tax.
32,131 voters of the second class paying
27,908,776 marks of the total tax.
357,345 voters of the third class paying
16,165,501 marks of the total tax.
Roughly the voters in the first class each paid $7,500; those in the
second class $218; those in the third class $11. The 931 voters
elected one-third, 32,131 voters elected one-third, and 357,345
elected one-third of the town councillors. In this same year in Berlin
there were:
521 persons with incomes between $25,000 and $62,500.
139 persons with incomes between $62,500 and $125,000.
22 persons with incomes between $125,000 and $187,500.
19 persons with incomes between $187,000 and $250,000.
19 persons with incomes of $250,000 or more.
Or 720 persons in Berlin in 1912 with incomes
of over $25,000 a year, and they are
practically the governors of the city.
As a result of these divisions according to taxes paid, of the 144
town councillors elected, only 38 were Social-Democrats, though Berlin
is overwhelmingly Social-Democratic, and consequently the affairs of
this city of more than 2,000,000 inhabitants are in the hands of
33,062 persons who elect two-thirds of the town councillors.
In the city of Duesseldorf there were, excluding the suburbs, 62,443
voters at the election for town councillors in 1910. The first class
was composed of 797 voters paying from 1,940 to 264,252 marks of
taxes; 6,645 voters paying from 222 to 1,939 marks; and 55,001 voters
paying 221 marks or less. These 7,442 voters of the first and second
classes were in complete control of the city government by a clear
majority of two-thirds.
It is this three-class system of voting that makes Prussia, and the
Prussian cities as well, impregnable against any assault from the
democratically inclined. In addition to this system, the old electoral
divisions of forty years ago remain unchanged, and consequently the
agricultural east of Prussia, including east and west Prussia,
Brandenburg, Pomerania, Posen, and Silesia, with their large
landholders, return more members to the Prussian lower house than the
much greater population of western industrial Prussia, which includes
Sachsen, Hanover, Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, Hohenzollern,
Hessen-Nassau, and the Rhine. Further, the executive government of
Prussia is conducted by a ministry of state, the members of which are
appointed by the King, and hold office at his pleasure, without
control from the Landtag.
How little the people succeeded in extorting from King Frederick
William IV in the way of a constitution may be gathered from this
glimpse of the present political conditions of Prussia.
The local government of Prussia is practically as centralized in a few
hands as the executive government of the state itself. The largest
areas are the provinces, whose chiefs or presidents also are appointed
by the sovereign, and who represent the central government. There are
twelve such provinces in Prussia, ranging in size from the Rhineland
and Brandenburg, with 7,120,519 and 4,093,007 inhabitants
respectively, to Schleswig-Holstein, with 1,619,673.
Each province is divided into two or more government districts, of
which there are thirty-five in all. At the head of each of these
districts is the district president, also appointed by the crown.
In addition there is the Kreis, or Circle, of which there are some
490, with populations varying from 20,000 to 801,000. These circles
are, for all practical purposes, governed by the Landrath, who is
appointed for life by the crown, and who is so fully recognized as the
agent of the central government and not as the servant of the locality
in which he rules, that on one occasion several Landraethe were
summarily dismissed for voting against the government and in
conformity to the wishes of the inhabitants of the circle in which
they lived! Though the Landrath is nominated by the circle assembly
for appointment by the crown, he can be dismissed by his superiors of
the central hierarchy. As his promotion, and his career in fact, is
dependent upon these superiors, he naturally sides with the central
government in all cases of dispute or friction.
Further, and this is important, all officials in Germany are legally
privileged persons. All disputes between individuals and public
authorities in Germany are decided by tribunals quite distinct from
the ordinary courts. These courts are specially constituted, and they
aim at protecting the officials from any personal responsibility for
acts done by them in their official capacity.
In America, and I presume in Great Britain also, any disputes between
public authorities and private individuals are settled in the ordinary
courts of justice, under the rules of the ordinary law of the land.
This super-common-law position of the Prussian official is a fatal
incentive to the aggravating exaggeration of his importance, and to
the indifference of his behavior to the private citizen. There may be
officials who are uninfluenced by this sheltered position, indeed I
know personally many who are, but there is equally no doubt that many
succumb to arrogance and lethargy as a consequence.
How thoroughly Prussia is covered by a network of officialdom, is
further discovered when it is known, that the entire area of Prussia
is some twenty thousand square miles less than that of the State of
California. The whole Prussian doctrine of local self-government, too,
is entirely different from ours. Their idea is that self-government is
the performance by locally elected bodies of the will of the state,
not necessarily of the locality which elects them. Local authorities,
whether elected or not, are supposed to be primarily the agents of the
state, and only secondarily the agents of the particular locality they
serve. In Prussia, all provincial and circle assemblies and communal
councils, may be dissolved by royal decree, hence even these elected
assemblies may only serve their constituencies at the will and
pleasure of the central authority.
It would avail little to go into minute details in describing the
government of Prussia; this slight sketch of the electoral system, and
of the centralization of the government, suffices to show two things
that it is particularly my purpose to make clear. One is the
preponderating influence of Prussia in the empire, due to the
maintenance of power in a single person; and the other is to show how
ridiculously futile it is to refer to Prussia as an example of the
success of social legislation. The state ownership of railroads, old-age
pensions, accident and sickness insurance, and the like are one
thing in Prussia which is a close corporation, and quite another in
any community or country under democratic government. What takes place
in Prussia would certainly not take place in America or in England. To
draw inferences from a state governed as is Prussia, for application
to such democratic communities as America or England, is as valuable
as to argue from the habits of birds, that such and such a treatment
would succeed with fish.
It was with this autocratic Prussia at his back, that the greatest man
Germany has produced, succeeded in bringing about German unity and the
foundation of the German Empire. As the representative of Prussia in
the Diet, as her ambassador to Russia, and to France, he gained the
insight into the European situation which led him to hold as his
political creed, that only by blood and iron, and not by declamations
and resolutions, could Germany be united.
"During the time I was in office," he writes, "I advised three wars,
the Danish, the Bohemian, and the French; but every time I have first
made clear to myself whether the war, if successful, would bring a
prize of victory worth the sacrifices which every war requires, and
which now are so much greater than in the last century. ... I have
never looked at international quarrels which can only be settled by a
national war from the point of view of the Goettingen student code; ...
but I have always considered simply their reaction on the claim of
the German people, in equality with the other great states and powers
of Europe, to lead an autonomous political life, so far as is possible
on the basis of our peculiar national capacity." In 1863 he writes to
von der Goltz, then German ambassador in Paris: "The question is
whether we are a great power or a state in the German federation, and
whether we are conformably to the former quality to be governed by a
monarch, or, as in the latter case would be at any rate admissible, by
professors, district judges, and the gossips of the small towns. The
pursuit of the phantom of popularity in Germany which we have been
carrying on for the last forty years has cost us our position in
Germany and in Europe; and we shall not win this back again by
allowing ourselves to be carried away by the stream in the persuasion
that we are directing its course, but only by standing firmly on our
legs and being, first of all, a great power and a German federal state
afterward."
After Napoleon and the interminable elocutionary squabbles of the
German states, first, for constitutional rights, and, second, for some
basis of unity among themselves, which were the two main streams of
political activity, there were three main steps in the formation of
the now existing empire: first, in 1866, the North German
Confederation under the presidency of Prussia and excluding Austria;
second, the conclusion of treaties, 1866-1867, between the North
German Confederation and the south German states; third, the formal
union of the north and south German states as an empire in 1871.
Although the Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist legally in 1806, it is
to be remembered that as a fiction weighing still upon the imagination
of German politicians, it did not wholly disappear until the war
between Prussia and Austria, for then Prussia fought not only Austria
but Bavaria, Wuertemberg, Saxony, Hanover, Nassau, Baden, and the two
Hesse states, and at Sadowa in Bohemia the war was settled by the
defeat of the Austrians before they could be joined by these allies,
who were disposed of in detail. Frankfort was so harshly treated that
the mayor hanged himself, and the Prussianizing of Hanover has never
been entirely forgiven, and the claimants to the throne in exile are
still the centre of a political party antagonistic to Prussia. The
taking over of north Schleswig, of Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Nassau
by Prussia after the Austrian war was according to the rough
arbitrament of conquest. "Our right," replied Bismarck to the just
criticism of this spoliation, "is the right of the German nation to
exist, to breathe, to be united; it is the right and the duty of
Prussia to give the German nation the foundation necessary for its
existence." In taking Alsace-Lorraine from France, Bismarck insisted
that this was a necessary barrier against France and that Germany's
possession of Metz and Strassburg were necessities of the situation
also.
The history of German unity is the biography of Bismarck. Otto Eduard
Leopold von Bismarck was born in Schoenhausen, in that Mark of
Brandenburg which was the cradle of the Prussian monarchy, on the
first of April, 1815. His grandfather fought at Rossbach under the
great Frederick. He was confirmed in Berlin in 1831 by the famous
pastor and theologian, Schleiermacher, and maintained all his life
that without his belief in God he would have found no reason for his
patriotism or for any serious work in life.
He matriculated as a student of law and science at Goettingen in May,
1832, and later at Berlin in 1834. He was a tall, large-limbed, blue-eyed
young giant, the boldest rider, the best swordsman, and the
heartiest drinker of his day. He is still looked upon in Germany as
the typical hero of corps student life, and his pipe, or his Schlaeger,
or his cap, or his Kneipe jacket is preserved as the relic of a saint.
His was not the tepid virtue born of lack of vitality. One has but to
remember Augustine and Origen and Ignatius Loyola, to recall the fact
that the preachers of salvation, the best of them, have generally had
themselves to tame before they mastered the world.
This youth Bismarck must have had some vigorous battles with Bismarck
before he married Johanna Friederika Charlotte Dorothea Eleanore von
Puttkamer, July 28, 1847, much against the wishes of her parents, and
settled down to his life-work. As was said of John Pym, "he thought it
part of a man's religion to see that his country was well governed,"
and his country became his passion. Like most men of intense feeling,
he loved few people and loyally hated many. More men feared and envied
him than liked him. His wife, his sister, his king, a student friend,
Keyserling, and the American, Motley, shared with his country his
affection. Germany might well take it to heart that it was Motley the
American who was of all men dearest to her giant creator. The same
type of American would serve her better to-day than any other, did she
only know it! In 1849 he was elected to the Prussian Chamber. In 1852
a whiff of the old dare-devil got loose, and he fought a duel with
Freiherr von Vincke.
In 1852 he is sent on his first responsible mission to Vienna, and
found there the traditions of the Metternich diplomacy still ruling.
What Napoleon had said of Metternich he no doubt remembered: "Il ment
trop. Il faut mentir quelquefois, mais mentir tout le temps c'est
trop!" for he adopted quite the opposite policy in his own diplomatic
dealings.
In 1855 he became a member of the upper house of Prussia, and in 1859
is sent as minister to St. Petersburg. In May, 1862, he is sent as
minister to Paris, and learns to know, and not greatly to admire, the
third Napoleon and his court.
On the 23d of September, 1862, he is appointed Staats-minister, and a
week later thunders out his famous blood-and-iron speech. On October
the 8th, 1862, he is definitely named Minister President and Minister
for Foreign Affairs.
William I had succeeded his brother as king. He was a soldier and a
believer in the army, and wished to spend more on it, and to lengthen
the time of service with the colors to three years. The legislature
opposed these measures. A minister was needed who could bully the
legislature, and Bismarck was chosen for the task. He spent the
necessary money despite the legislative opposition, pleading that a
legislature that refused to vote necessary supplies had ipso facto
laid down its proper functions, and the king must take over the
responsibilities of government that they declined to exercise. The
cavalry boots were beginning to trample their way to Paris, and to the
crowning of an emperor.
In February, 1864, Prussia and Austria together declare war upon
Denmark over the Schleswig-Holstein succession. They agree to govern
the spoils between them, but fall out over the question of their
respective jurisdiction, and the Prussian army being ready, and the
Moltke plan of campaign worked out, war is declared, and in seven
weeks the Treaty of Prague is signed, in 1866, by which Austria gives
up all her rights in Schleswig-Holstein, and abandons her claim to
take part in the reorganization of Germany. The North German
Confederation is formed to include all lands north of the Main;
Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, the Hesse states, Nassau, and Frankfurt-am-
Main become part of Prussia; and the south German states agree to remain
neutral, but allies of Prussia in war.
On the 11th of March, 1867, a month after the formation of the
Confederation of the North German States, Bismarck proclaims with
pride in the new Reichstag: "Setzen win Deutschland, so zu sagen, in
den Sattel! Reiten wird es schon koennen!"
October 13th, 1868, Leopold von Sigmaringen, a German prince of the
House of Hohenzollern, is named for the first time as a candidate for
the Spanish throne. Nobody in Germany, or anywhere else, was much more
interested in this candidature, than we are now interested in the
woman's suffrage or the prohibition candidate at home. But France had
looked on with jealous eyes at the vigorous growth and martial
successes of Prussia. It was thought well to attack her and humiliate
her before she became stronger. All France was convinced, too, that
the southern German states would revert to their old love in case of
actual war, and side with the nephew of their former friend, the great
Napoleon. The French ambassador is instructed to force the pace. Not
only must the Prussian King disavow all intention to support the
candidacy of the German prince, but he must be asked to humiliate
himself by binding himself never in the future to push such claims.