an merchant in a free Germany
would have thought that all the trade of the East, all the riches
of Bagdad and Cairo and Mosul could compensate him for the death
of his first-born or restore the blind eyes to the youngest son
who now crouches, cowering, over the fire, awaiting death? For
there was no trade necessity for this war. I know of no place in
the world where German merchants were not free to trade. The
disclosures of war have shown how German commerce had penetrated
every land, to an extent unknown to the best informed. If the
German merchants wanted this war in order to gain a German
monopoly of the world's trade, then they are rightly suffering
from the results of overweening covetousness.

Experts in insanity say that the Roman Emperors as soon as they
attained the rule of the world were made mad by the possession of
that stupendous power. The sceptre of Emperor William is mighty.
No more autocratic influence proceeds from any other monarch or
ruler. But you will say how about our President in time of war?
Great power can safely be given to a president. Our presidents
have all risen from the ranks. Usually they have gone through the
school of hard knocks. And there are ways of keeping them abreast
of the people.

It is told that hidden from public view, crouched down in the
chariot in which the successful Roman pro-consul or general drove
triumphantly through the crowded streets of Rome, was a slave
celebrated for his impertinence, whose duty it was to make the
one honoured feel that, after all, he was nothing more than an
ordinary mortal blessed with a certain amount of good luck.
Probably as the chariot passed by the forum the slave would say,
after a thunderous burst of applause from the populace: "Do not
take that applause too seriously. That is the T. Quintus Cassius
Association whose chief received a hundred sesterces from your
brother-in-law yesterday, on account, with a promise of a hundred
more in case the Association's cheers seemed loud and sincere."

So in America the press, serious and comic, takes the place of
the humble slave and throws enough cold water on the head of any
temporarily successful American to reduce it to normal proportions.
Besides, the President knows that some day he must return to the
ranks, live again with his neighbours, seek out the threads of a
lost law practice or eke out a livelihood on the Chautauqua
circuit in the discomfort of tiny hotels, travelling in upper
b