worse, to cause it to be scoffed at and treated with derision as
the vaporings of an inexperienced and altogether too generous-minded
youth, in German as well as foreign papers, which William knew derived
their inspiration from the chancellor's palace in the Wilhelmstrasse.

All this served to embitter the relations between the emperor and the
prince. The latter perceived that the kaiser was getting beyond his
control, and was subject to other influences, while the emperor
now commenced to appreciate the extent to which, he had been made
subservient to the policy and to the wishes of his chancellor.
Meanwhile the necessity became apparent of taking some immediate
step, one way or another, in connection with the prolongation of the
exceptional measures against the socialists which were just expiring.
The chancellor was determined that they should be renewed, while the
emperor felt that, with the international congress coming on, he would
be handicapped in his role of arbitrator, and his good faith would
justly be suspected by the socialists were he to consent to the
continuance of repressive measures against them that were extra-legal,
that is to say, beyond the laws of the land, and as such, strictly
speaking, unconstitutional.

Finally, William discovering that Bismarck was negotiating with the
various party leaders, notably with the late Dr. Windhorst, leader of
the Catholic party in the Reichstag, with a view to the prolongation
of the anti-socialist measures, made up his mind to dismiss him, and
called for his resignation for having ventured to negotiate with the
opposition leaders in the Reichstag, without his knowledge or consent,
in order to obtain their support to a measure about which he had
expressed his disapproval. That was the real cause of Bismarck's fall,
despite all other stories current on the subject, and had not Empress
Frederick engineered the meeting in the Westphalian capital between
her son and his former tutor, it is possible that Prince Bismarck
might have died in office.

It is scarcely necessary to remind my readers that, as predicted by
the old chancellor, the international labor congress resulted in
a fiasco, while the emperor ultimately became so embittered by the
failure of the socialists to appreciate his kindly intentions towards
them, that he now regards them as his most bitter enemies, and
practically calls upon every soldier who joins the army to be prepared
to use his rifle, not