¶ To those who make light of Bismarck’s theory of blood and iron, in government, it should be pointed out that all governments that endure, regardless of what theory you may work under, in the end fall to the strongest;—just as in a family fight the estate goes to the strongest, or in a partnership fight, or in religion, science, social affairs, love or war, the strong man has his way over the weak; and it is still to be proven that the American democracy, which at best is only another of manifold experiments in self-government, is to survive as long as have in the past royalist ideas—already that have persisted for thousands of years.
¶ So, we have invented Democracy out of a thousand costly expenditures of blood and treasure. We protest that this latest experiment in government is to endure forever more, but not one man in a thousand has any real conception of the Democracy in which all men shall work for a common National end.
Thus, Democracy is fully as large an experiment as any other in the Halls of Time; and today we are still nursing childish ideals, attempting to level men by legislation, and incidentally taking satisfaction in stoning our public servants, decrying wealth, and robbing the individual of any broad conception of responsibility.
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Parallel elements that make for power in America and Germany.
¶ It is difficult for a certain type of American mind to get Bismarck’s point of view. This is because of the failure to recognize that in whatever respect Absolutism and Republicanism may differ, as forms of government, the fact remains that it is society, and not human nature, that has been transformed. The old motives, ambition, love, war, marriage, pride, prejudice, still sum up underlying conditions, however firmly any government may seem to be established, called by whatever name, and led by Crown or Crowd. In addition, all history forecasts the ultimate ruin of any régime founded on human nature.
¶ As between the share which belongs to each man, and the share which does not belong to him but to the body politic, expressed in a reciprocal concession, upon each side, for the good of the state—that dream of governmental idealism has never yet been attained, even in free America, to say nothing of Germany, France, England or Russia, and men will continue to annex the spoils to their private estates as long as men are what they are, at heart.
¶ The elements that make for a desire to grasp power, in free America, are essentially the same, though in a different dress, as they were in Prussia, in Bismarck’s day.
We are wont to dismiss this matter with a shrug and charge all the turmoil up to a senseless desire on the part of the King of Prussia to force, for his own aggrandizement, his rule on an unwilling people, and we therefore call Bismarck a tyrant, as though in this conclusion we thus elevated our own virtues by a shuddering “May-God-forbid!” sort of recognition of Bismarck’s political vices.