n, so
far as the insult concerns our Party, we are so far above it,
that the mudslinging--no matter from what direction it may
come--cannot touch us."

The defence pointed out that the defendant "had considered each
word carefully before he had made the speech, and that in doing
so, wanted to avoid any possibility of lese-majeste."

The Supreme Court held that although the defendant carefully
selected his words and tried to evade prosecution, he must be
adjudged guilty, because his audience could not have misunderstood
the insinuation. The sentence was affirmed.

Dangerous as it is to say anything that can be construed as
derogatory of the authority, of the Kaiser it is equally
dangerous to attack the dead members of the Royal House.

The editor of the _Volkswacht_ had published in his paper an
article entitled "The German Characteristics of the Hohenzollerns"
which the Lower Court interpreted to be a reply to a statement of
the Kaiser, which had referred to a group of people considered
unworthy by him to be called "Germans." Without doubt the editor
was alluding to the Kaiser's speech, made at Koenigsberg to the
newly enlisted army recruits, in which he called the socialists
"vaterlandslose Gesellen," i.e., scoundrels without any country.
The writer, however, discussed "the conduct of the Elector
Joachim of Brandenburg and of his brother Albrecht, Elector of
Mainz, before and during the election of Emperor Charles V."

The defence claimed that the defendant could not be held guilty
of lese-majeste against the Kaiser since the defendant "criticised
the Kaiser's ancestors and not the Kaiser himself." But the Court
held that it was the intent of the defendant to discredit the
"House of the Hohenzollerns, and that the Kaiser by implication,
being the living head of the Hohenzollern family, was thereby
insulted." The Court further states that the defendant's article
could not be regarded as a scientific or historical contribution
since the _Volkswacht's_ subscribers, consisting chiefly of
workingmen, had neither any understanding of nor interest in
dynastic intrigues of the sixteenth century.

Even those Americans who have expressed themselves freely about
the Kaiser will, after the war is over, be compelled to take
their "cures" in some country other than Germany, for in one
case it was held that an American citizen was rightfully
convicted in Baden of lese-majeste because of statements made by
him in Switzerland