Curiously enough this is actually the
position in which the Prussian stands in Europe. No argument can alter
the fact that in three converging and conclusive cases, he has been on
the side of three distinct rulers of different religions, who had nothing
whatever in common except that they were ruling oppressively. In these
three Governments, taken separately, one can see something excusable or at
least human. When the Kaiser encouraged the Russian rulers to crush the
Revolution, the Russian rulers undoubtedly believed they were wrestling
with an inferno of atheism and anarchy. A Socialist of the ordinary English
kind cried out upon me when I spoke of Stolypin, and said he was chiefly
known by the halter called "Stolypin's Necktie." As a fact, there were many
other things interesting about Stolypin besides his necktie: his policy of
peasant proprietorship, his extraordinary personal courage, and certainly
none more interesting than that movement in his death agony, when he made
the sign of the cross towards the Czar, as the crown and captain of his
Christianity. But the Kaiser does not regard the Czar as the captain of
Christianity.
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