¶ To bring the matter home, let us ask, "How is it in the United States?" Washington was an aristocrat of fortune, one of the richest men of his time, dispassionate, cold, aloof; Hamilton, an aristocrat of breeding, contributing his quota to democracy, as he saw it; Lafayette, an aristocrat of birth, helped us gain our liberty; and certainly Jefferson, an aristocrat of intellect as well as of fortune, the owner of 185 slaves, and the gifted author of the Declaration of Independence, offered inestimable services to the common people. ¶ Off-hand, the average biographer records this: "Bismarck had no confidence in the common people. He fought a written Constitution. He did not wish to see his King yield an inch to the masses. It was the Crown against the Crowd. Violently reactionary, he blocked progress--for there can be no progress without change. He was trying to force the stream of time backward, instead of going with the tide." * * * * * ¶ An American who for the first time follows the history of the Unifier of Germany begins very early in the investigation to have a feeling of apprehension. He is sure that Bismarck is a reactionary; his ideas are so out of "harmony" with the spirit of the times, the air full of the "liberty, equality and fraternity." Bismarck's attempt to sustain the monarchial system, especially the idiotic conception of "Divine-right" of kings, as against the rising tide of "confidence in the people," has about as much chance for success as that the slavery system could be re-introduced into the United States, after that question had been settled by five years' war. Thus you conclude, from the American view! ¶ As you read on and on, you feel that on the very next page, Bismarck will surely go to the scaffold, or will fall by the dagger of some "friend of the people," a thug ever after regarded as the veritable Savior of his country for the assassination of the enemy of the common people. * * * * * ¶ The much ridiculed "Divine-right" of kings is cognizable as a right based on the survival of the fittest, backed by the sword; filled with human weaknesses and shortcomings, but defensible as a system, withal; just as the real intent of the words "captain of industry" should mean one whose fatherly care over his laborers, his judgment, his risk of capital, his foresight in weathering bad times--redounds to the immediate prosperity of the workers with whom he can have no quarrel.