Among my duties and pleasures during this period was attendance upon important debates in the Imperial Parliament. That body presents many features suggestive of thought. The arrangement under which the Senate, representing the various states of the empire, and the House, representing the people as a whole, sit face to face in joint deliberation, strikes an American as especially curious; but it seems to work well, and has one advantage in bringing the most eminent servants of the various states into direct personal relations with the rank and file from the country at large. The German Parliament has various good points. Some one has asserted that the United States Senate is as much better than the British House of Lords as the British House of Commons is better than the American House of Representatives. There is much to be said for this contention, and there are some points in which the German Parliament also struck me as an improvement upon our Lower House: they do less than we in committee, and more in the main assemblage; German members are more attentive to the work in hand, and spread-eagleism and speeches to the galleries which are tolerated at Washington are not tolerated at Berlin. On the other hand, the members at Berlin, not being paid for their services, absent themselves in such numbers that the lack of a sufficient deliberating body has been found, at times, a serious evil.
As to men prominent in debate, allusion has already been made to the chancellor, and various ministers of the crown might be added, of whom I should give the foremost place to the minister of the interior, Count Posadowski. His discussions of all matters touching his department, and, indeed, of some well outside it, were masterly. Save, perhaps, our own Senator John Sherman, I have never heard so USEFUL a speaker on fundamental questions of public business. As to the representatives, there were many well worth listening to; but the two who attracted most attention were Richter, the head of the "Progressist," or, as we should call it, the radical fraction, and Bebel, the main representative of the Socialists. Richter I had heard more than once in my old days, and had been impressed by his extensive knowledge of imperial finance, his wit and humor, his skill in making his points, and his strength in enforcing them. He was among the few still remaining after my long absence, and it was clear to me that he had not deteriorated,—that he had, indeed, mellowed in a way which made him even more interesting than formerly. As to Bebel, though generally disappointing at first, he was quite sure, in every speech, to raise some point which put the conservatives on their mettle. His strongest characteristic seems to be his earnestness: the earnestness of a man who has himself known what the hardest struggle for existence is, and what it means to suffer for his opinions. His weakest point seems to be a tendency to exaggeration which provokes distrust; but, despite this, he has been a potent force as an irritant in drawing attention to the needs of the working-classes, and so in promoting that steady uplifting of their condition and prospects which is one of the most striking achievements of modern Germany.
Among the many other members interesting on various accounts was one to whom both Germans and Americans might well listen with respect—Herr Theodor Barth, editor of "Die Nation," a representative of the best traditions of the old National Liberal party. He seemed to me one of the very few Germans who really understood the United States. He had visited America more than once, and had remained long enough to get in touch with various leaders of American thought, and to penetrate below the mere surface of public affairs. Devoted as he was to his own fatherland, he seemed to feel intuitively the importance to both countries of accentuating permanent points of agreement rather than transient points of difference; hence it was that in his paper he steadily did us justice, and in Parliament was sure to repel any unmerited assault upon our national character and policy. He was clear and forcible, with, at times, a most effectively caustic utterance against unreason.
While the whole parliamentary body is suggestive to an American, the Parliament building is especially suggestive to a New-Yorker. This great edifice at Berlin is considerably larger on the ground than is the State Capitol at Albany. It is built of a very beautiful and durable stone, and, in spite of sundry criticisms on the dome in the center and the pavilions at the corners, is vastly superior, as a whole, to the Albany building. It is enriched in all parts, without and within, with sculpture recalling the historical glories of all parts of the empire and calculated to stir patriotic pride; it is beautified by paintings on a great scale by eminent artists; its interior fittings, in stone, marble, steel, bronze, and oak, are as beautiful and perfect as the art of the period has been able to make them; and the whole, despite minor architectural faults, is worthy of the nation. The building was completed and in use within ten years from the time of its beginning. The construction of the State-house at Albany, a building not so large, and containing to-day no work of art either in painting or sculpture worthy of notice, has dragged along during thirty years, and cost nearly four times as much as the Berlin edifice; the latter having demanded an outlay of a trifle over five million dollars, and the former considerably over twenty millions.
The German Parliament House, apart from slight defects, as a great architectural creation is in a style worthy of its purpose—a style which is preserved in all its parts; while that at Albany is, perhaps, the most curious jumble in the whole history of architecture,—the lower stories being Palladian; the stories above these being, if anything, Florentine; the summit being, if anything, French Renaissance; while, as regards the interior, the great west staircase, which is said to have cost half a million of dollars, is in the Richardsonesque style; the eastern staircase is in classic style; and a circular staircase in the interior is in the most flamboyant Gothic which could be got for money. To be sure, there are rooms at Albany on which precious Siena marble and Mexican onyx are lavished, but these are used so as to produce mainly the effect of an unintelligent desire to spend money.
While in or near the Berlin edifice there is commemoration by sculpture or painting of a multitude of meritorious public servants, there is nowhere in the whole building at Albany a statue or any fit remembrance of the two greatest governors in the history of the State, DeWitt Clinton and William H. Seward.
The whole thing plunges one into reflection. If that single building at Albany, which was estimated, upon plans carefully made by the best of architects, to cost five millions of dollars, and to be completed in four years, required over thirty years and an expenditure of over twenty millions, what is a great "barge canal" to cost, running through the whole length of the State, encountering enormous difficulties of every sort, estimated at the beginning to cost one hundred millions of dollars, but including no estimate for "land damages," "water damages," "personal damages," "unprecedented floods," "unforeseen obstacles," "quicksands," "changes of plan," etc., etc., which have played such a costly and corrupting part in the past history of our existing New York canals? And how many years will it take to complete it? This was the train of thought and this was its resultant query forced upon me whenever I looked upon the Parliament House at Berlin.
CHAPTER XLI
AMERICA, GERMANY, AND THE SPANISH WAR—1897-1903
During the early days of this second official stay of mine at Berlin, Russia had, in one way and another, secured an entrance into China for her trans-Siberian railway, and seemed to have taken permanent possession of the vast region extending from her own territory to the Pacific at Port Arthur. Germany followed this example, and, in avenging the murder of certain missionaries, took possession of the harbor of Kiao-Chau. Thereby other nations were stirred to do likewise,—England, France, and Italy beginning to move for extensions of territory or commercial advantages, until it looked much as if China was to be parceled out among the greater European powers, or at least held in commercial subjection, to the exclusion of those nations which had pursued a more dilatory policy.