There is not a single German journalist (and I wish to emphasise this fact most clearly), even in the ultra-Prussian party, who would have dared to put his signature to such an article as one of our greatest newspapers has published concerning William II, whom it describes as “a humanitarian thinker, a gentle philosopher, thinking only of the happiness of the human race, of appeasing ancient hatreds and removing old grudges.  How joyfully would he not have restored Metz and Strasburg had he not been prevented in performing this act by the historical necessities of his position.”  In proof of all which things, this article cites his telegrams of sympathy, the splendid bouquets which he has sent to our illustrious dead, his wish to pay homage to France in 1900, etc., etc.

The journalist grown old in harness, who has dared to write such monstrous things as well as such nonsense, will no doubt be greatly astonished when I inform him that no foreign reporter, however inexperienced, of any nation great or small, is ignorant of the fact that William II is relentlessly determined to achieve the re-establishment of absolute autocracy as it was conceived by certain Emperors of Rome and Byzantium.  His motto is Voluntas Regis Supremo Lex, which, on the occasion of his first visit to Muenich, he wrote there with his own Imperial hand.  On the first occasion of the opening of the States of Brandenburg, he declared that he counted on their fidelity to help him to crush and destroy everything that might oppose his personal wishes.  Is it necessary to say once more for the hundredth time that he never has the oath taken by his recruits without telling them that “they must ever be ready to fire on those who oppose his rule, even though they should be their own fathers, mothers and brothers”?  The other day, did he not make his brother Prince Henry read a letter to the sailors of his war-ship the Wilhelm Imperator (the vessel appointed to attend the Jubilee of Queen Victoria), in which letter he held up to the execration of the army and navy those “unpatriotic” Germans who refused to provide him with millions for his wild scheme of increasing the navy, that is to say, about nine-tenths of the Reichstag?  There is in Germany one institution which commands very general respect, and enjoys traditional liberty, viz. the University.  For the last year William II has opened a campaign against the liberties of University education, and the scandalous manner in which he has attacked the professors at Berlin because of the dignity with which they have defended their rights of scientific research, are known to every one except “this brilliant Chronicler of the Boulevards.”

From one end of Germany to the other they go into ecstasies whenever, either before, during, or after his acts of politeness to France, William finds some new pretext for humiliating, humbling, or threatening us. [10]