Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1

by Andrew Dickson White

The chancellor's discussions at such times were frequently of a humorous sort. He seemed, most of all, to delight in lively reminiscences of various public men in Europe. Nothing could be more cordial and hearty than his bearing; but that he could take a different tone was found out by one of my colleagues shortly after my arrival. This colleague was Herr von Rudhardt, the diplomatic and parliamentary representative of Bavaria. I remember him well as a large, genial man; and the beauty and cordial manner of his wife attracted general admiration. One day this gentleman made a speech or cast a vote which displeased Bismarck, and shortly afterward went to one of the chancellor's parliamentary receptions. As he, with his wife leaning on his arm, approached his host, the latter broke out into a storm of reproaches, denouncing the minister's conduct, and threatening to complain of it to his royal master. Thereupon the diplomatist simply bowed, made no answer, returned home at once, and sent his resignation to his government. All the efforts of the Emperor William were unable to appease him, and he was shortly afterward sent to St. Petersburg as minister at that court. But the scene which separated him from Berlin seemed to give him a fatal shock; he shortly afterward lost his reason, and at last accounts was living in an insane asylum.

On another occasion I had an opportunity to see how the chancellor, so kind in his general dealings with men whom he liked, could act toward those who crossed his path.

Being one evening at a reception given by the Duke of Ratibor, president of the Prussian House of Lords, he said to me: ``I saw you this afternoon in the diplomatic box. Our proceedings must have seemed very stupid.'' I answered that they had interested me much. On this he put his lips to my ear and whispered: ``Come to-morrow at the same hour, and you will hear something of real interest.'' Of course, when the time arrived, I was in my seat, wondering what the matter of interest could be. Soon I began to suspect that the duke had made some mistake, for business seemed following the ordinary routine; but presently a bill was brought in by one of the leading Prussian ministers, a member of one of the most eminent families in Germany, a man of the most attractive manners, and greatly in favor with the Emperor William and the crown prince, afterward the Emperor Frederick. The bill was understood to give a slight extension of suffrage in the choice of certain leading elected officials. The question being asked by some one on the floor whether the head of the ministry, Prince Bismarck, approved the bill, this leading minister, who had introduced it, answered in the affirmative, and said that, though Prince Bismarck had been kept away by illness from the sessions in which it had been discussed, he had again and again shown that he was not opposed to it, and there could be no question on the subject. At this a member rose and solemnly denied the correctness of this statement; declared that he was in possession of information to the very opposite effect; and then read a paper, claiming to emanate directly from the chancellor himself, to the effect that he had nothing whatever to do with the bill and disapproved it. Upon Bismarck's colleagues in the ministry, who thought that his silence had given consent, this came like a thunderbolt; and those who had especially advocated the measure saw at once that they had fallen into a trap. The general opinion was that the illness of the chancellor had been a stratagem; that his sudden disclaimer, after his leading colleagues had thus committed themselves, was intended to drive them from the ministry; and that he was determined to prevent the minister who had most strongly supported the bill from securing popularity by it. This minister, then, and the other members of the cabinet at once resigned, giving place to men whom the chancellor did not consider so likely to run counter to his ideas and interests.

Indeed, it must be confessed that the great statesman not infrequently showed the defects of his qualities. As one out of many cases may be cited his treatment of Eduard Lasker. This statesman during several years rendered really important services. Though an Israelite, he showed none of the grasping propensities so often ascribed to his race. He seemed to care nothing for wealth or show, lived very simply, and devoted himself to the public good as he understood it. Many capitalists, bankers, and promoters involved in the financial scandals which followed the Franco-Prussian War were of his race; but this made no difference with him: in his great onslaught on the colossal scoundrelism of that time, he attacked Jew and Gentile alike; and he deserved well of his country for aiding to cleanse it of all that fraud and folly. On a multitude of other questions, too, he had been very serviceable to the nation and to Bismarck; but, toward the end of his career, he had, from time to time, opposed some of the chancellor's measures, and this seemed to turn the latter completely against him.

At the opening of the Northern Pacific Railway, Lasker was one of the invited guests, but soon showed himself desperately ill; and, one day, walking along a street in New York, suddenly dropped dead.

A great funeral was given him; and, of all the ceremonies I have ever seen, this was one of the most remarkable for its simplicity and beauty. Mr. Carl Schurz and myself were appointed to make addresses on the occasion in the temple of the Israelites on Fifth Avenue; and we agreed in thinking that we had never seen a ceremony of the kind more appropriate to a great statesman.

At the next session of Congress, a resolution was introduced condoling with the government of Germany on the loss of so distinguished a public servant. This resolution was passed unanimously, and in perfect good faith, every person present—and, indeed, every citizen in the whole country who gave the matter any thought—supposing that it would be welcomed by the German Government as a friendly act.

But the result was astounding. Bismarck took it upon himself, when the resolution reached him, to treat it with the utmost contempt, and to send it back without really laying it before his government, thus giving the American people to understand that they had interfered in a matter which did not concern them. For a time, this seemed likely to provoke a bitter outbreak of American feeling; but, fortunately, the whole matter was allowed to drift by.

Among the striking characteristics of Bismarck was his evident antipathy to ceremonial. He was never present at any of the great court functions save the first reception given at the golden wedding of the Emperor William I, and at the gala opera a few evenings afterward.

The reason generally assigned for this abstention was that the chancellor, owing to his increasing weight and weakness, could not remain long on his feet, as people are expected to do on such occasions. Nor do I remember seeing him at any of the festivities attending the marriage of the present Emperor William, who was then merely the son of the crown prince. One reason for his absence, perhaps, was his reluctance to take part in the Fackeltanz, a most curious survival. In this ceremony, the ministers of Prussia, in full gala dress, with flaring torches in their hands, precede the bride or the groom, as the case may be, as he or she solemnly marches around the great white hall of the palace, again and again, to the sound of solemn music. The bride first goes to the foot of the throne, and is welcomed by the Emperor, who gravely leads her once around the hall, and then takes his seat. The groom then approaches the throne, and invites the Empress to march solemnly around the room with him in the same manner, and she complies with his request. Then the bride takes the royal prince next in importance, who, in this particular case, happened to be the Prince of Wales, at present King Edward VII; the groom, the next princess; and so on, until each of the special envoys from the various monarchs of Europe has gone through this solemn function. So it is that the ministers, some of them nearly eighty years of age, march around the room perhaps a score of times; and it is very easy to understand that Bismarck preferred to avoid such an ordeal.