mention this only to claim
the indulgence of those who are perfectly justified in expecting more,
and possibly in striving for more. But, above everything, do not be
premature, and do not act in haste. Let us cling for the present to
what we have.

The men who made the biggest sacrifices that the empire might be born
were undoubtedly the German princes, not excluding the King of
Prussia. My old master hesitated long before he voluntarily yielded
his independence to the empire. Let us then be thankful to the
reigning houses who made sacrifices for the empire which after the
full thousand years of German history must have been hard for them to
make; and let us be thankful to science, and those who cultivate her,
for having kept alive on their hearths the fire of German unity to the
time when new fuel was added and it flamed up and provided us with
satisfying light and warmth.

I would then--and you will say I am an old, conservative man--compress
what I have to say into these words: Let us keep above everything the
things we have, before we look for new things, nor be afraid of those
people who begrudge them to us. In Germany struggles have existed
always, and the party schisms of today are naught but the echoes of
the old German struggle between the noble families and the trade
unions in the cities, and between those who had and those who had not
in the peasant wars, in the religious wars, and in the thirty years'
war. None of these far reaching fissures, which I am tempted to call
geological, can disappear at once. And should we not be indulgent with
our opponents, if we ourselves do not desist from fighting? Life is a
struggle everywhere in nature, and without inner struggles we end by
being like the Chinese, and become petrified. No struggle, no life!
Only, in every fight where the national question arises, there must be
a rallying point. For us this is the empire, not as it may seem to be
desirable, but as it is, the empire and the Emperor, who represents
it. That is why I ask you to join me in wishing well to the Emperor
and the empire. I hope that in 1950 all of you who are still living
will again respond with contented hearts to the toast

LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR AND THE EMPIRE!

THE LIFE OF MOLTKE

BY KARL DETLEV JESSEN, PH.D.

Professor of German Literature, Bryn Mawr College

To relate, in detail, the story of the life of General-Fieldmarshal
Graf Helmuth von Moltke--or, as we shall briefly call