leon like a house of cards,
and that the country's humiliation was stamped in bold outlines when
Napoleon was received in Berlin with the ringing of bells, the firing
of cannons, and he himself greeted as a savior and a benefactor. That
was only a hundred years ago. Is it an indiscretion, then, when the
present ruler, speaking at Brandenburg the 5th of March, 1890, says:
"I look upon the people and nation handed on to me as a responsibility
conferred upon me by God, and that it is, as is written in the Bible,
my duty to increase this heritage, for which one day I shall be called
upon to give an account; those who try to interfere with my task, I
shall crush"?

On his accession to the throne his first two proclamations were to the
army and the navy, his third to the people. On the 14th of July, 1888,
he reviewed the fleet at Kiel, and for the first time an Emperor of
Germany and King of Prussia appeared there in the uniform of an
admiral. In April, 1897, Queen Victoria celebrated the sixtieth year
of her reign, and Prince Henry represented Germany, appearing as
admiral of the fleet in an old battle-ship, the King William. On the
24th of April the Emperor telegraphed to his brother: "I regret
exceedingly that I cannot put at your disposition for this celebration
a better ship, especially when all other countries are appearing with
their finest ships of war. It is a sad consequence of the manoeuvring
of those unpatriotic persons who have obstructed the construction of
even the most necessary war-ships. But I shall know no rest till I
have placed our navy on a par for strength with our army." From that
day to this he has gone steadily forward demanding of his people a
strong army and a powerful fleet. He now has both. He has pulled
Germany out of danger and beyond the reach, for the moment at least,
of any repetition of the catastrophe and humiliation of a hundred
years ago. This is a solid fact, and for this situation the Emperor is
largely, one might almost say wholly, responsible.

One hears and one reads criticisms of the Emperor's habit of speaking
and writing of "my navy." It is said that the other states of Germany
have borne taxation to build the fleet, and that it is no more the
Emperor's than that of the King of Bavaria, or of Wuertemberg, or of
Saxony. This is the petty, pin-pricking babble of boarding-school
girls, or of those official supernumeraries who have turned sour in
their retirement. Even the honest d