, but
overreaching in its greatness? Will our destiny be like the snowball,
accumulating as it rolls till it becomes immovable in its immensity?
Then--stagnation! And yet the start of that snowball was but 50 years
ago.

"I remember as a boy when Bismarck was Prime Minister of Prussia, and he
forced through the Reichstag his great army re-organisation scheme. In
'64 he attacked Denmark and took Schleswig-Holstein. That is how we got
Kiel. Two years after he crushed the Austrians in six weeks, and took
Hanover, Hesse, and Nassau; and four years after that he smashed the
French and took Alsace-Lorraine.

"Flushed with victory, proud Deutschland, with Denmark, Austria and
France humbled in the dust, wiped her sword and peered at the Dawn. But
she did not sheath that sword. No! In the ecstasy of triumph she was
trying to formulate a policy of carving a destiny great and glorious.
She looked first to peaceful development by legislation; and then, in
that passing period of uncertainty, Bismarck threw out his famous
declaration that the destiny of Deutschland was to be won, not by votes
and speeches, but by Blood and Iron.

"It was what you call a 'happy hit.'

"It appealed to the animal strength of the German race. Bismarck knew
that beneath the surface most of the men of Germany were of a wild
nature; he knew that in less than a century they rose from the
degradation of conquered barbarians to the heights of victors of three
nations, and the 'blood and iron' policy ran through Germany as a new
inspiration.

"Bismarck floated the great new Ship of State, and stood at the wheel
peering keenly into the troublous waters of the future. There was one
great rock of which he wished to steer clear, so on the Ship of Destiny
he placed a maxim. It was: 'War not with England.'

"There were other simple rules of navigation that irritated a new young
officer on the bridge, who felt that the Bismarckian policy, though
perhaps sure, was not speedy enough for his vaulting ambition.

"I remember well this young Kaiser, a man of wonderful vitality, who
revelled in the strength of developing manhood, and who early began to
assert himself. Those who tried to curb his youthful impetuosity went
down before him till there was but one great personality left who could
talk to him as a father would to his wayward son. It was Bismarck, he
who dragged Prussia from the depths and gave her the ideal for a world
power. The cool calculating wiseacr