Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1888 — EMPEROR PAST AND PRESENT. [ARTICLE]

EMPEROR PAST AND PRESENT.

Probable Effect Upon the Polities of Europe of the Change of Rulers, w The King is dead! Long live the King I “Unser Fritz" has been taken to his fathers, and his son, Frederick William, reigns in his stead. Father and son ore seldom more unlike in character and disposition than were these two. “Linser Fritz” was of a gentle and lovable nature. A brave and capable soldier, inured to the hardships of the tented field, he was yet a home-loving and social man, imperious, perhaps, as it became a royal Prince to be, yet open and sunny, and withal faithful to his friends, whether German or English. He is dead now, after a brief reign, over which the shadow of death hovered even at its beginning, and fickle human interest turns from the Emperor that was to the Emperor that is. What will be the new Emperor'S policy? Will it be aggressive or conservative? Will he seek glory at the cannoli’s mouth or court her in the halls of diplomacy? The camp, it is safe to say, will have more charms for him than the court. He may not love war for war’s sake, but he will not shun war if it should come in his way. Thero is more likelihood that he will invito it rather than temporize with nations which have crossed or may cross German purjiosos. Should Prince Bismarck go his way his company will be welcomed, but should the Chancellor choose to take another path, whether from pique or patriotism, the new Emperor will own course unswervingly to his own ends. His mother is an Englishwoman, but in spite of this tlie new Emj>eror is rabidly anti-English —so much so, in fact, that even the mother is held in something less than eordial filial regard. The ex-Empress, on the other hand, is passionately devoted to her son, in whom she vainly sought to instill some measure of her own likings. So far from winning him ami his sympathies to herself and her party she drove him headlopg to the opposite side, where he stands a menace to every form of reaction. His advent will be taken almost instinctively by the Czar, and jierhaps by France and England us well, as the signal for an outbreak in the Balkans, which can scarcely end otherwise than in a general European upheaval. That Russia is pulling the string even now that sets her puppets a dancing in southeastern Europe goes without saying ; that she is maturing plans for larger demonstrations that only Wait an occasion for development is equally obvious; and thus the accession of William, with alibis military predilections and insular prejudices, scarcely softened by a liberal education, fs an event of the deepest and most far-reaching significance. 'l*he world will await with no ordiuary interest for an outlining of the new Emperor’s policy.