Dined with Baron von Mumm Tuesday night at the Automobile Club. He is a fraud, and Count Montjelas with him, and I hope to see them both soon to tell them so. There was a crowd in the Leipziger Platz when I got there, and the two men were standing at the window. I asked what it was and they said: "Nothing, nothing, only the usual people going home from work." Now, whether they knew or not, I am not sure, but it really was the Socialists publicly demonstrating their disapproval of the imprisonment of Liebknecht for two years and a half. That shows what a Berlin riot is. I looked on and never knew it!
We've heard from Freiherr von B—— that there was a really recognizable one in Düsseldorf. All the women went to the City Hall and demanded more meat and potatoes. The Mayor stuck his shaved head out of the window and tried to calm them with tales of beans and peas, but they shouted they did not want them, they wanted potatoes and, when he said he hadn't any, they smashed all the windows that couldn't resist brick.
"That's just like the poor," said Von B——, "they won't eat anything except potatoes."
Baron Böcklin showed us pictures he'd taken on the front. In one little house in Belgium, which he'd made his headquarters, a woman sneaked in on him one night when he was sleeping. He heard her and, jumping up, caught her by the throat. She had a long knife in her hand. As Böcklin was taking it from her, a man crawled out from under his bed with a gun, but was covered by the sergeant who came to Böcklin's rescue. The Baron let both assassins go, instead of having them shot as he had the right to do. Böcklin's mother was an American, and his grandmother an Englishwoman....
Heard a delightful story about Mr. Gerard from Mrs. ——. She said that to tease Countess B—— he asked her why she hadn't married some nice stockbroker in New York, who could have provided her with much better-looking clothes, and more of them, than Count B——. She went home in a rage and told the Count, who also became furious and they both told all Berlin that Mr. Gerard was so anti-German that he disapproved of German-American marriages. Mrs. Gerard implores her husband to save his jokes for those who have a sense of humor but he says, no matter what resolutions he makes, Countess B—— is more than he can resist, and his remarks grow always worse instead of better.
XI—GUEST OF WARBURG, GERMAN BANKER
July 6th.
That night we went to the Max Warburgs' to dine. They are very delightful people; their house is large and nice, their sense of humor a joy to find, and besides that, Mrs. Warburg was well dressed and wore—oh, wonder of wonders in a German woman—silk stockings. Mr. Warburg is one of the biggest bankers of Germany, and is certainly the nicest. He declared American business men and American financiers to be the most charming and the most uninformed men in the world.
"They know nothing of international affairs, not one thing," said he. "And they do not even know their own country thoroughly. We wonder over here how they can possibly get along with such little knowledge of the affairs of the world." He said he told his brother, Mr. Paul Warburg, that it's easy enough for him to be a big man in America, where there is so little competition, but just let him come to Germany and try it. One may think America is work-mad, but it seems a shiftless, lazy place after Germany....