through the carelessness or neglect of the human conscience.

"Long ago the German people turned over their consciences to the Kaiser and the Bundesrath with a license to use them as they thought best. The people said to themselves: 'The Kaiser enjoys the special protection and favor of the Lord. He is an intimate friend with a pull. He ought to be able to make a more expert use of our consciences than we could ourselves. Therefore, we will appoint him our representative and proxy at the Court of Heaven. If he and his friends decide, after due consultation with God, that we had better violate good faith and break our treaties and seize the property of other races and indulge in murder, rape, arson and piracy, we will do it. To be sure such action would seem to be wrong, but that is only because we are common cattle. We are the best herd of common cattle there is, but we are not supermen. The Bundesrath, the Kaiser and God ought to know what is right.

"Now that, in effect, is exactly what they said to themselves. A people may prosper and come to no violent trouble under such a plan. But the fact is, they are living around the crater of a moral Vesuvius.

"For two generations all seemed to be going well with the Germans. William I was a fairly decent-minded man. Bismarck was unscrupulous but careful. He stepped softly after he had bitten a chunk out of France. He held the throne in restraint until William, the Godful, jumped upon it with a wild yell of heavenly inspiration that startled the world. He was going to take no advice from Mr. Bismarck—not a bit! Right away he appointed himself secretary of war and attorney general of the Almighty. No such astonishing familiarity with omnipotence had been seen since the time of Moses.

"There is an ancient legend which says that, when Cæsar invaded Gaul, an old bowman of the north, having been captured and brought to the headquarters of the great Consul, said:

"'Hello, Julius! I am with you.'

"It was like Bill Hohenzollern, only Bill didn't say 'Hello, Julius!' The whole world stood aghast.

"Bismarck stepped down and out. He must have seen what was coming.

"Now this young lunatic should have been examined and condemned and sent to an asylum as a paranoiac. Instead of that, he was given full power and allowed to endow and develop a school of bribed historians and lunatic philosophers to justify his plans—-Treitschke, Nietzsche, Bernhardi, backed by the throne and all the supermaniacs that surrounded it. They created the new morality of Williamism in which all human decency was disemboweled and God and the devil exchanged crowns. Gosh almighty! It seems incredible now that we look back upon it.

"From the beginning there has been a flavor of the little tin god about these Hohenzollern fellers. Frederick the Great had a menacing rattle of self-assertion, like that of a Ford car going to a country picnic. His favorite dissipation was kicking soldiers. It was a way he had of advertising his superiority.

"Macaulay tells us that he needed proximity and not provocation to kick a soldier. What a brave Captain he was! Funny, isn't it, how the great Captains have managed to take care of themselves. Died on hair mattresses, every one of them except two, Gustavus Adolphus and Stonewall Jackson.

"The only man who ever insulted me by just shaking my hand was a mule-eared Hohenzollern chap known as Prince Heinrich of Prussia. I can never forget that you-to-hell air of his as he took my hand as if it was a clod of dirt, without even a look at me. I have always been sorry that I didn't invite him to the sidewalk.

"William II began to strut in the military and hot-air game as soon as he ascended the throne, and lost no opportunity to tighten his hold upon the consciences of his people.

"Let me tell you the story of

THE MISLAID CONSCIENCE.

"I used to know a feller here of the name of Sam Hopkins. He worked for a client of mine who ran a lock factory. Sam had been a poor lad—sold newspapers on the street night and morning. My client liked him and took him over to the big shop and taught him the trade of making locks and paid his board until he was able to earn it. Sam became an expert mechanic and shoved money into his coffers every Saturday night. By and by he had a wife and three children and a comfortable home and a goodly amount of spondoolix earning interest. Now for the chance to accomplish all that he was indebted to my friend and client.

"By and by Sam joined the Trade Union. Nobody could find any fault with Sam for uniting with his fellow workers to accomplish any fair and reasonable purpose. But Sam had given to the Trade Union exactly what the Germans had given to the Kaiser and the Bundesrath. He had, in effect, turned his conscience over to the Union, which had full authority to do as it thought best with this sacred piece of property. Sam didn't realize what he had done until the Union ordered him to strike.

"To be sure it was a limited proprietorship over his conscience which Sam had given to the Union. He could keep and use it until the Union called for it. He had given a kind of note payable in the use of his conscience on demand.

"Sam had no quarrel with the works—no more quarrel than the Germans had with the Belgians—not a bit. He was more than satisfied with his wages and his hours and his general treatment His conscience told him that his duty was to keep at work. But he discovered suddenly that he had no right to the use of his own conscience. He had deeded it, on demand, to the Union—lock, stock and barrel. Sam had become a kind of German soldier.

"War was declared. Some of the faithful servants of the big shop were slain. Others were injured; a part of the properly was wrecked. Sam tried to do the right thing, but couldn't. He went with the German army.

"Now, a man's conscience is given to him for his own use—exclusively for his own use. There's nothing truer than this: A man's conscience is like his tooth-brush—it should have but one proprietor. You can not leave it lying around like an old pair of shoes. Your umbrella is not as easily lost. It is like your right hand. You can not lay it away—you can not lend it, and the more you use it the better it is and the less you use it the weaker it is. Either disuse or misuse will injure it and possibly deprive you of its service.

"Now, Sam's conscience got mislaid in the shuffle. He suddenly discovered that he hadn't any. I guess it was rather small at best. It was through this loss that I came to know about him. He was out of work for seven months and got to drinking. Idleness and regret and the loss of friends turned him toward the downward path of women, wine and song. He is now in a Federal prison for counterfeiting—the victim of Williamism.

"Now just what had happened to Sam had happened to every man in the German army. In that deal with the Kaiser his conscience had got mislaid. He was ready to cut off the hands of a child or torture a wounded man or shoot an inoffensive civilian. His officers encouraged him to do it and his conscience was not on duty. It had been turned over to the Kaiser and the Bundesrath. It had got lost in the shuffle.

"I have told you that William had made the ideal of Germany that of the insect. Let me be sure that you get my meaning.

"Have you watched a hive of bees in bright summer weather? Well, you will find that the workers wear out their wings in two weeks and die. The hive has only two purposes—storage and race perpetuation.

These purposes are carried out with ruthless and perfect efficiency.