Kaiser decreed,

"And the young king said:--'I have found it,
the road to the rest ye seek:

The strong shall wait for the weary, and the
hale shall halt for the weak;

With the even tramp of an army where no man
breaks from the line,

Ye shall march to peace and plenty, in the
bond of brotherhood--sign!'"

Whatever the reasons, the criticisms, or the causes, the man whom we
have been describing was as certain to dismiss Bismarck from office,
as a bird is certain to fly and not to swim. The ruler who at a
banquet May the 4th, 1891, proclaimed: "There is only one master of
the nation: and that is I, and I will not abide any other"; and later,
on the 16th of November, in an address to recruits said: "I need
Christian soldiers, soldiers who say their Pater Noster. The soldier
should not have a will of his own, but you should all have but one
will and that is my will; there is but one law for you and that is
mine." Again, in addressing the recruits for the navy on the 5th of
March, 1895, he said to them: "Just as I, as Emperor and ruler,
consecrate my life and my strength to the service of the nation, so
you are pledged to give your lives to me." Such a man could not share
his rule with Bismarck.

Bismarck left Berlin amid groans and tears. A prop had been rudely
pushed from beneath the empire. The young Emperor would stumble and
sway, and fall without this strong guide beside him. Men said this was
the first sign of an imperious will and temper.

There is an Arab proverb which runs: "When God wishes to destroy an
ant he gives it wings." The Kaiser was to be given power for his own
destruction. But what has happened? Absolutely nothing of these evil
prophecies. In 1884 Bismarck was saying to Gerhard Rohlfs, the African
explorer: "The main thing is, we neither can nor really want to
colonize. We shall never have a fleet like France. Our artisans and
lawyers and time-expired soldiers are no good as colonists." If the
ideas of William the Second were to prevail, it was time that Bismarck
went over the side as pilot of the ship of state. The Kaiser in
appropriate terms regretted the loss of this tried public servant and
said: "However, the course remains the same-- full steam ahead!"

Three days after the Jameson raid, on the 3d of January, 1896, the
Kaiser telegraphed to President Krueger: "I beg to express to you my
sincere congratulations that, without help from foreign powers, you
have succeeded with your own p