It is with particular pleasure that I find myself among you again on this historic anniversary. It always gives me new strength and vigor when I feel around me the dashing spray and bubbling life of one of the cities of the Hanseatic League. It was a solemn act that we have just witnessed when we gave over to its element a new portion of the floating defense of the Fatherland. Every one who was present must have been impressed with the thought that the proud ship would soon be able to take up its calling. We feel its lack, and bitterly do we need a powerful German fleet.
Its name reminds us of the first glorious days of the old empire and of its mighty protector. The first beginnings of Hamburg date from that time, even though it was merely the point of departure for the missions in the service of the powerful Emperor. Now our Fatherland has been newly united through Emperor William the Great and is in a position to take up its glorious outward development. And right here in this great emporium of trade we feel the sense of power and energy which the German people are capable of putting into their enterprises through the fact that they are bound together and united. But here, too, we can most readily understand how necessary it is that we should have powerful support and that we can no longer continue without increasing our fighting strength upon the seas.
But this feeling penetrates all too slowly into the German Fatherland, which unfortunately wastes its strength in fruitless party strife. I have had to watch with deep concern how slow is the progress of interest in, and political comprehension of, the great world problems among the German people.
If we look about us we can see how in the last few years the face of all the world has been changed. Old world empires are disappearing and new ones are arising. Nations have appeared among the peoples and are taking their place in the competition—nations which previously the layman had scarcely noticed. Events which change the whole field of international relationships and the whole field of our national economy, and which formerly were accomplished only in the course of centuries, now take place in a few months. Through this fact the tasks of the German Empire and the German people have grown greatly in extent and demand from me and my government extraordinary and serious efforts. They can be crowned with success only if the Germans stand behind us firmly united and give up their party divisions. But our people must make up their minds to make sacrifices. Above all things, it must give up the attempt to find the highest by dividing itself more and more sharply into parties. It must cease to put the party above the good of the nation. It must put a check upon its old hereditary failing to make everything the occasion of unrestrained criticism, and it must realize the boundaries which its own vital interests draw for it. For it is precisely these old political sins which are now being visited upon our interests on the sea and upon our fleet. I insistently requested and warned that it must be strengthened in the first eight years of my reign, and if these requests had not been continually refused, and refused in ways which heaped scorn and ridicule upon me, we would have been able to advance our growing trade and our oversea interests far differently.
But my hopes that the German will choose the manlier way have not yet disappeared, for in him love of the Fatherland is great and powerful. The October fires which to-day he lights upon the hills and by which he celebrates the noble figure of the Emperor[27] who was born on this day bear eloquent witness to this fact.
[27] Frederick III.
And, in fact, Emperor Frederick with his great father and his great paladins did help to build a wonderful edifice and left it to us as the German Empire. It stands before us in glory, as it had been yearned for by our fathers and celebrated by our poets! Let us no longer, therefore, as heretofore, dispute uselessly as to how the particular rooms, halls, and apartments of this building are to look or how they are to be furnished; but may the people, burning like these October fires with an ideal enthusiasm, strive to follow its ideal second Emperor, and above all things let it rejoice in the beautiful edifice and help to protect it. Let it be proud of its greatness. Let it be conscious of its inner worth. Let it watch every foreign state in its development. Let it make the sacrifices which our position as a world-power demands. Let it give up the spirit of party and stand united and firm behind its princes and its Emperor—then only will the German people help the Hanseatic cities in carrying out their great work for the benefit of the Fatherland.
That is my wish to-day, and to it and the health of Hamburg I raise my glass.