conservative as he was, once termed the Prussian three-class voting-system "the most iniquitous of all franchise systems."

Around this a fight had waged for several years before the revolution. The Kaiser, as King of Prussia, flatly promised, in his address from the throne in 1908, that the system should be reformed. It is a matter of simple justice to record that he made the promise in good faith and tried to see that it was kept. His efforts along this line were thwarted by a small clique of men who were determined "to protect the King against himself," and who, lacking even the modicum of political prescience possessed by the Kaiser-King, failed to see that if they did not make a concession willingly they would eventually be forced to make a concession of much greater extent. From year to year measures to reform the three-class system were introduced, only to be killed by the House of Lords. Under the stress of the closing days of the war such a measure was perfected and would have become a law had not the revolution intervened. But it came too late, just as did scores of other reforms undertaken in the eleventh hour.

And thus, while the Kaiser's power as German Emperor was sharply limited, he enjoyed powers as King of Prussia which in some degree approached absolutism. The dominance of Prussia in the empire, while it could not transfer these powers to the Emperor de jure, did unquestionably effect to some degree a de facto transfer, which, while it did not in the long run have a very actual or injurious internal effect, nevertheless played a no inconsiderable part in the outside world and was responsible for a general feeling that Germany was in effect an absolute monarchy. German apologists have maintained that Wilhelm II had less actual power as German Emperor than that possessed by the President of the United States. This statement is undoubtedly true, but with an important limitation and qualification. The President's great powers are transitory and cannot—or in practice do not—extend more than eight years at the most. His exercise of those powers is governed and restrained during the first four years by his desire to be re-elected; during the second four years he must also use his powers in such a way that a democratic people will not revenge itself at the next election upon the President's party. But the Kaiser and King was subject to no such limitation. He ruled for life, and a dissatisfied people could not take the succession away from the Hohenzollerns except by revolution. And nobody expected or talked of revolution. The only real control over abuses of power rested with a Reichstag which, as has already been explained, was too faithful a reflex of a non-political and inert constituency to make this control of more than mild academic interest.

CHAPTER II.

The German Conception of the State.

We have seen how the whole manner of life and the traditions of the Germans were obstacles to their political development. Mention has also been made of their peculiar tendency toward abstract philosophic habits of thought, which are not only inexplicable by the manner of the people's long-continued struggle for existence, but seem indeed to prevail in defiance of it.

In addition to this powerful factor there existed another set of factors which worked with wonderful effectiveness toward the same end—the crippling of independent and practical political thinking. This was the conception of the state held by the ruling-classes of Germany and their manner of imposing this conception upon the people. It may briefly be put thus: the people existed for the sake of the state, not the state for the sake of the people. The state was the central and great idea; whatever weakened its authority or power was of evil. It could grant free play to individualism only in those things that could not affect the state directly, such as music and the fine arts, and to abstract philosophy and literature—particularly the drama—as long as they avoided dangerous political topics. Its keynote was authority and the subjection of the individual to the welfare of the state.

The tendency of this system to make for efficiency so far as the actual brute power of a state is concerned cannot be denied in the light of the events of the World War. We have seen how in America itself, the stronghold of political and religious liberty, individualism was sternly repressed and even slight offenses against the authority of the state were punished by prison sentences of a barbarous severity unknown in any civilized country of Europe. We have seen the churches, reinterpreting the principles of the New Testament, and the schools, rewriting history to supposed good ends, both enlisted in this repression of individualism for the sake of increasing the efficiency of the state at a time when the highest efficiency was required.

But the distinction between such conditions here and the pre-war conditions in Germany is that they obtained, although in milder form, in Germany in peace times as well. And the Anglo-Saxon conception of the state is as of a thing existing for the sake of the people and with no possible interests that cannot be served by the democratic and individualistic development of its people. Between this conception and the conception held by Germany's rulers there is a wide and irreconcilable difference.

Apart, however, from any consideration of the merits of the German system, it must be admitted that the world has never seen another such intelligent application of principles of statecraft to the end sought to be attained. That the system eventually collapsed was not due to its internal faults, but to abnormal and unforeseeable events. The extent of its collapse, however, was directly due to the structure of the system itself.

It has already been pointed out that authority was the keynote of the German system. This authority, embodied in school and church, began to mold the plastic mind of the German child as early as the age of six. "The Emperor is the father of his country and loves his children like a father; we owe him the obedience due to a father," taught the school. "Submit yourselves unto authority," said the church, using Paul's words to serve the ends of the state. The child came from school and church to his military service and found authority enthroned there. He had to obey the orders of every Vorgesetzter (superior in authority) from field marshal down to corporal. He found that, in the absence of officers or non-commissioned officers, he must submit himself to the authority of the Stubenältester, the senior soldier in the same room with him. Insubordination was punished rigorously.

Precept, example and punishment were but a part of a system calculated to make discipline and submission to authority advisable and profitable. The penalties prescribed by the German penal and military codes for infractions of the laws were far less severe than the penalties prescribed in the code of any American state, but conviction was followed by a consequence of great moment in Germany: the man who was vorbestraft, that is, who had been punished for any transgression, found himself automatically excluded from any opportunity to become a Beamter, or government official.

The system of punishment had always as its chief purpose the laying of emphasis upon duty, and this was often arrived at in an indirect way. For example, the soldier who failed to keep his valuables in the locker provided for him in his barracks and who lost them by theft, was punished for his own