ifestation of it is all that is
new or surprising. We Americans and English look upon it as dangerous,
but the Germans, more mystical and far more lethargic about liberty
than are we, are not greatly disturbed by it. The secular press,
largely in Jewish hands, and the new socialist members of the
Reichstag, jealous of their prerogatives but unable to assert them,
criticise and even scream their abhorrence and unbelief; but I am much
mistaken, if the mass of the Germans are at heart much disturbed by
their Emperor's assertions of his divine right to rule. A conservative
member of the Reichstag speaks of, "a parliament which will maintain
the monarch in his strong position as the wearer of the German
imperial crown, not the semblance of a monarch but one that is
dependent upon something higher than party and parliament -- one
dependent upon the King of all kings."

To a thoroughbred American, with two and more centuries of the
traditions of independence behind him, this question of the divine
right of kings is a commonplace. He is a king himself, he holds his
own rights to be divine, and his influence and his power to be limited
only by his character and his abilities, like that of any other
sovereign. He may rule over few or many, he may control the destiny of
only one or of many subjects, he may be well known or little known,
but that he is a sovereign individual by the grace of God, it never
occurs to him to doubt. It is perhaps for this reason that the real
American is placid and unself-conscious before this claim. It is those
who admit and suffer from the exactions and tyrannies of such a claim
that he pities, not the man who makes it, whom he distrusts. I carry
my sovereignty under my hat, says the American; if any man or men can
knock off the hat and take away the sovereignty, there is a fair field
and no favor; for those who whimper and complain of tyranny he has
long since ceased to have a high regard.

That William the Second is the chief figure of interest in the world
to-day is due, not alone to this assumption of a divine relation to
the state, or to his own vigorous and electric personality, but to the
freedom to develop and to express that personality. Men in politics
have dwindled in importance and in power, as the voters have increased
in numbers and in influence. Genius must be true to itself to bloom
luxuriantly. It is impossible to be seeking the suffrage of a
constituency and at the same time to be