Blood and Iron Part 25

-- The times called for a hard-headed, dogmatic, tyrannical man with a plan large enough to subdue the thirty-nine warring parts, and weld the whole into a mighty Empire.

This meant a tyrant of the ma.s.sive Frederick the Great type. It called for a man erect and proud, keen of speech, with absolute self-confidence, who in a pinch was master at underhand dealing, and who could deliberately use harshness and malice.

The man had to understand the delicate art of flattery, and at other times be bl.u.s.tering and outspoken.

The roar of cannon should make him as cold as ice, but underneath his frozen exterior he should have a fiery nature, full of craft and guile, like a Gascon.

He should have a torrent of cutting words, his eyes should flash and his blood should boil, yet he should be able to wage a secret war, masked under compliments, or draw his dagger and strike for the heart.

He should have thousands of enemies and prevail over them all.

He should have boundless ambition; action should be the zest of his life, and at crucial times he should display an uncontrollable temper.

He should seek the path of glory; a man of fiery enthusiasm, who never forgives an enemy; has fits of rage; is jealous; a great swordsman, fights duels; a master horseman, able to ride day and night without fatigue.

He should be at once cautious and headlong, realizing that in the end it is the bold play that wins. He should be able to live down public utterances that would cause other men years of disgrace. He should be able to quell a mutiny, check a mob or stamp out a rebellion. And, above all, whether admired or detested, he should justify his career by succeeding in what he started to do.

-- In other words, he must be Bismarck, the greatest empire-builder since Caesar's day--yes, not even barring Napoleon, for Napoleon's empire crumbled to dust, yet Bismarck's, fresh with youth, still lives on!

CHAPTER XI

The Mailed Fist

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Supporting Bismarck's idea of the mailed fist; Democracy stems from and is supported by aristocracy.

-- Why is it that, in the American Republic, there is aversion to acknowledging the services of men sprung from aristocracy, like Bismarck? Are the facts unrecognized, or is the silence only another form of political quackery?

-- To bring the matter home, let us ask, "How is it in the United States?" Washington was an aristocrat of fortune, one of the richest men of his time, dispa.s.sionate, cold, aloof; Hamilton, an aristocrat of breeding, contributing his quota to democracy, as he saw it; Lafayette, an aristocrat of birth, helped us gain our liberty; and certainly Jefferson, an aristocrat of intellect as well as of fortune, the owner of 185 slaves, and the gifted author of the Declaration of Independence, offered inestimable services to the common people.

-- Off-hand, the average biographer records this: "Bismarck had no confidence in the common people. He fought a written Const.i.tution. He did not wish to see his King yield an inch to the ma.s.ses. It was the Crown against the Crowd. Violently reactionary, he blocked progress--for there can be no progress without change. He was trying to force the stream of time backward, instead of going with the tide."

-- An American who for the first time follows the history of the Unifier of Germany begins very early in the investigation to have a feeling of apprehension. He is sure that Bismarck is a reactionary; his ideas are so out of "harmony" with the spirit of the times, the air full of the "liberty, equality and fraternity."

Bismarck's attempt to sustain the monarchial system, especially the idiotic conception of "Divine-right" of kings, as against the rising tide of "confidence in the people," has about as much chance for success as that the slavery system could be re-introduced into the United States, after that question had been settled by five years'

war. Thus you conclude, from the American view!

-- As you read on and on, you feel that on the very next page, Bismarck will surely go to the scaffold, or will fall by the dagger of some "friend of the people," a thug ever after regarded as the veritable Savior of his country for the a.s.sa.s.sination of the enemy of the common people.

-- The much ridiculed "Divine-right" of kings is cognizable as a right based on the survival of the fittest, backed by the sword; filled with human weaknesses and shortcomings, but defensible as a system, withal; just as the real intent of the words "captain of industry"

should mean one whose fatherly care over his laborers, his judgment, his risk of capital, his foresight in weathering bad times--redounds to the immediate prosperity of the workers with whom he can have no quarrel.

-- To those who make light of Bismarck's theory of blood and iron, in government, it should be pointed out that all governments that endure, regardless of what theory you may work under, in the end fall to the strongest;--just as in a family fight the estate goes to the strongest, or in a partnership fight, or in religion, science, social affairs, love or war, the strong man has his way over the weak; and it is still to be proven that the American democracy, which at best is only another of manifold experiments in self-government, is to survive as long as have in the past royalist ideas--already that have persisted for thousands of years.

-- So, we have invented Democracy out of a thousand costly expenditures of blood and treasure. We protest that this latest experiment in government is to endure forever more, but not one man in a thousand has any real conception of the Democracy in which all men shall work for a common National end.

Thus, Democracy is fully as large an experiment as any other in the Halls of Time; and today we are still nursing childish ideals, attempting to level men by legislation, and incidentally taking satisfaction in stoning our public servants, decrying wealth, and robbing the individual of any broad conception of responsibility.

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Parallel elements that make for power in America and Germany.

-- It is difficult for a certain type of American mind to get Bismarck's point of view. This is because of the failure to recognize that in whatever respect Absolutism and Republicanism may differ, as forms of government, the fact remains that it is society, and not human nature, that has been transformed. The old motives, ambition, love, war, marriage, pride, prejudice, still sum up underlying conditions, however firmly any government may seem to be established, called by whatever name, and led by Crown or Crowd. In addition, all history forecasts the ultimate ruin of any regime founded on human nature.

-- As between the share which belongs to each man, and the share which does not belong to him but to the body politic, expressed in a reciprocal concession, upon each side, for the good of the state--that dream of governmental idealism has never yet been attained, even in free America, to say nothing of Germany, France, England or Russia, and men will continue to annex the spoils to their private estates as long as men are what they are, at heart.

-- The elements that make for a desire to grasp power, in free America, are essentially the same, though in a different dress, as they were in Prussia, in Bismarck's day.

We are wont to dismiss this matter with a shrug and charge all the turmoil up to a senseless desire on the part of the King of Prussia to force, for his own aggrandizement, his rule on an unwilling people, and we therefore call Bismarck a tyrant, as though in this conclusion we thus elevated our own virtues by a shuddering "May-G.o.d-forbid!"

sort of recognition of Bismarck's political vices.

-- The old man had a grand idea just the same; he devoted his life to building up a free and united Germany. His intense belief in German virtues made his task sacred. He met the desire for a National cause and for greater freedom. He had to carry men by storm.

-- However offensive, politically speaking, may seem in democratic America Prussia's "Divine-right" theory, it is a fact that we, also, appeal to the G.o.d of battles just as Bismarck did. We open our Congress with prayers often couched in conceited belief that G.o.d is on our side; while our historians have repeatedly dwelt on the fact that America has a "manifest destiny," a phrase reiterated by editors the land over till it has sunk deep into the public conscience. Therefore, in democratic America, we avow that we are in the hands of the Lord; an idea secretly nourished by millions of Americans who would publicly deny that any such Feudal conception as Divine-right of kings could possibly exist in related form, in the United States.

Surely we cannot mean that Divinity has anything to do with the majorities in an American election?

-- Then this "manifest destiny" must refer to the ultimate fact that, however we may blunder along, in times of crisis the Lord comes forth, to lead us out of the wilderness.

It is a familiar line of thought to find Grant, Sherman, and Lincoln and others, deified in the American press, as men "miraculously risen"

in storm and stress to preserve the "manifest destiny" of our Nation.

If there be any logical distinction between this hope on the part of millions of loyal Americans, expressing their patriotism in terms of Heaven's protective policy, and the att.i.tude of Bismarck in regard to his King, as ordained of G.o.d, to rule over the Prussian people, then it would require a high-power microscope to detect any essential variation.

-- Meantime, we go on building dreadnaughts and inscribe on our coins, "In G.o.d We Trust."

King William in Bismarck's day refused the people's paper crown of the Frankfort a.s.sembly, but plotted to have one offered to him by the princes of Germany. Was he, logically, any more inconsistent than is our own "manifest destiny" conception of America?

-- For it is ever the way with strong men to believe themselves the Lord's anointed, likewise with strong nations--and democratic America is no exception.

"Chinese" Gordon carried with him wood of the real Cross, as he believed, and read his Bible day by day, up to the last, confident that he was in the charge of some unseen power for good, as against the destroying African tribes around Khartum.

Henry M. Stanley's books are honeycombed with appeals to G.o.d as his guide and protector; he believed that G.o.d was with him in "Darkest Africa," would see him through at the price of how many negro murders it mattered not, warding off fever, discouragement, starvation, and standing ever on the white man's side.