y, a people, a
nation, is based on force and by force alone can prosper, or even be
held together. Neither Bismarck nor the Emperor could ever sympathize
with those who look to a time when one strong and sensible policeman
will be of more value to a community than a thousand unproductive
soldiers.

Long before he became Imperial Chancellor Bismarck had done masterly
and important work for the country. In 1862 he began his career by
filling the post of interim Minister President of Prussia at a time
when the present Emperor was still an infant. It was on taking up the
position that he made the celebrated statement that "great questions
cannot be decided by speeches and majority-votes, but must be resolved
by blood and iron." Born in April, 1815, two months before the battle
of Waterloo, at Schoenhausen, in the Prussian Province of Saxony, not
far from Magdeburg, he studied at the universities of Gottingen and
Berlin and passed two steps of the official ladder--Auscultator and
Referendar--which may be translated respectively protocolist and
junior counsel. His parliamentary career began in 1846, two years
before the second French Revolution. At that time Prussia was an
absolute monarchy, without a Constitution or a Parliament. There was
no conscription, that foundation-stone of Prussian power and of the
modern German Empire. Then came the agitated days of 1848, the
sanguinary "March Days" in Berlin. Frederick William IV was on the
throne, and in 1847 permitted the calling of a Parliament, the
forerunner of the present Reichstag; but only to represent the
"rights," not the "opinions," of the people. "No piece of paper,"
cried the King, "shall come, like a second Providence, between God in
heaven and this land!" That, too, was Bismarck's sentiment,
courageously expressed by him when the Diet was debating the idea of
introducing the English parliamentary system, and proved by him in
character and conduct until the day of his death. He would have made a
splendid Jacobite!

The three "March Days," the 18th, 19th, and 20th of March, 1848, form
one of the few occasions in Prussian or German history on which Crown
and people came into direct and serious conflict. According to German
accounts of the episode the outbreak of the revolution in France was
followed by a large influx into Berlin of Poles and Frenchmen, who
instigated the populace to violence. Collisions with the police
occurred, and on March 15th barricades began to