Then the young man rose up in the smoker, and showed me how the private had stood in his place, rigid, staring straight ahead, not daring to change his position or expression while enduring the kicks and spits of the officer. Not a word of protest or complaint did he venture to utter. _That’s Militarism, gone crazy._ Not long ago one of our high-priced city preachers declared publicly that we Americans needed an Emperor to head our army. * * * * * Do you recall a story which went the rounds of the newspapers a few years ago? In substance it hinted that William Hohenzollern, Emperor of Germany, had compelled one of his young officers to kill himself. My traveller related to me the particulars as he had learned them in Germany. The Emperor was holding a banquet, a revel, on board his yacht, the _Hohenzollern_: wine had been drunk freely; loose talk was going on. The Emperor made some insulting reference to the mother of a lieutenant who was seated near him. Upon the impulse of the moment, the brave boy did a most natural thing—he slapped the brutal defamer of his mother in the mouth. Consternation paralyzed the Emperor and all his guests. The lieutenant left the yacht; no one tried to stop him. Going ashore, he made ready to quit the world; and next morning he rode his bicycle deliberately off a precipice and fell headlong to his voluntary death. And the high-priced, city preacher declared that _we_ needed an Emperor! * * * * * Frederick the Great was really a great man. Riding along the streets of Berlin one day, he saw a crowd looking up at a placard on a wall, Reining his horse, the old King inquired, “What is it?” He was told that the placard contained a lot of violent abuse of himself. “Hang it lower, so that the people can read it better,” ordered the King, and he rode on. The pompous despot who now sits upon the throne of Frederick the Great puts girls and old women, as well as boys and men, in jail if they dare to say, or to write, anything disrespectful of _him_. * * * * * Is democracy gaining ground anywhere? Are not those historic allies, the Church and the State, encroaching steadily upon the masses? Are not the High Priest and the War Lord constantly putting a greater distance between themselves and the Common People? Does not _the individual citizen_ have less power and recognition now than at any other time since the founding of our Government? * * * * * Poor General Wheeler! After all his efforts to please Northern sentiment, they would not permit him to be buried with the Confederate flag in his coffin! * * * * * _The Nation_ is a mighty good paper, but it ought not to class General N. B. Forrest as “a scout” and “guerrilla.” General Forrest was named by General Lee, during the last year of the war, as the best soldier that the Civil War had developed.