gainst a son who had clamoured for the horror
which his people had begun to realize, particularly as his promised
entry into Paris had failed. There can be no question which of the two
has the wise head.

The Crown Prince had passed into the background. He was
marooned with ennui in the face of French trenches in the West,
whilst all the glory was being won in the East. Indeed, father had put
son in his place. One day, the gossips said, son might have to ask
father, in the name of the Hohenzollerns, to help him recover his
popularity. His photograph had been taken down from shop windows
and in its place, on the right hand of the Kaiser in the Sieges Allee of
contemporary fame, was the bull-dog face of von Hindenburg, victor
of Tannenberg. The Kaiser shared von Hindenburg's glory; he has
shared the glory of all victorious generals; such is his histrionic gift in
the age of the spotlight.

Make no mistake--his people, deluded or not, love him not only
because he is Kaiser, but also for himself. He is a clever man, who
began his career with the enormous capital of being emperor and
made the most of his position to amaze the world with a more
versatile and also a more inscrutable personality than most people
realize. Poseur, perhaps, but an emperor these days may need to be
a poseur in order to wear the ermine of Divine Right convincingly to
most of his subjects.

His pose is always that of the anointed King of My People. He has
never given down on that point, however much he has applied State
Socialism to appease the Socialistic agitation. He has personified
Germany and German ambition with an adroit egoism and the
sentiment of his inheritance. Those critics who see the machinery of
the throne may say that he has the mind of a journalist, quick of
perception, ready of assimilation, knowing many things in their
essentials, but no one thing thoroughly. But this is the kind of mind
that a ruler requires, plus the craft of the politician.

Is he a good man? Is he a great man? Banal questions! He is the
Kaiser on the background of the Sieges Allee, who has first promoted
himself, then the Hohenzollerns, and then the interests of Germany,
with all the zest of the foremost shareholder and chairman of the
corporation. No German in the German hothouse of industry has
worked harder than he. He has kept himself up to the mark and tried
to keep his people up to the mark. It may be the wrong kind of a
mark. Indeed, without thresh