He has always dreamed of world empire. He once said, "I have been raised upon the lives of Alexander, Theodoric, Caesar, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. These men all dreamed of world empire. They failed. I have dreamed of world empire, and by the might of the mailed fist I shall not fail." He and the clique of men whom he has gathered about him possess a marvelous amount of persistence and thoroughness, feeling also a superiority over other peoples, and they have depended upon might to bring them victory. Some delusion inherited from his ancestors and cultivated by his intimate friends caused the Kaiser, even when a very young man, to believe that he had a God-given right to possess anything that he could acquire, either by fair means or foul, and he has never taken any pains to control or diminish the conviction. As a matter of fact, on the contrary, he studiously cultivated and nursed it until it came to be the absorbing ambition of his life. When he came to the throne thirty years ago he announced himself as "Earth's supreme war lord." And because his empire continued to grow and develop rapidly, he seemed to take it that the forces of the universe were backing him up and that the Creator was with him and had given him special dispensation to manage the universe. In the beginning, doubtless, his conceptions had been more vague and abstract, but as time went on they became definite and concrete. He had seen the happy and prosperous lands of Belgium and France to the west, and he had wanted them. This settled the matter. It might shock the world and cost a terrific price, but that was incidental. Let others "pay the piper," he would reap the gain. His philosophy of "Might makes Right" cleverly disseminated through the empire, has caused many of his people to believe in it. When one examines for a moment this conception which these German people have been taught, it makes their attitude more understandable, although no more excusable. For a generation or more they have been taught the "blood and iron philosophy." The crime is to be laid at the door of the leaders and the thinkers, and the great men of the nation. These have been false teachers, and "when the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch." They have inculcated a system of thinking, into the minds of large numbers of people, which leads them to believe that they are especially designed to dominate the world. Any means which they may employ to attain, establish, and maintain their supremacy are justifiable.