petty treason trials. The simple fact is that German public
opinion, embodied in German law, has arrived at the conclusion
that it is not best to allow the head of the state to be the
sport of every crank or blackguard who can wield a pen or pencil.
The American view, which allowed Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley
to be attacked in all the moods and tenses of vituperation, and
to be artistically portrayed as tyrants, drunkards, clowns,
beasts of prey, and reptiles, has not yet been received into
German modes of thought. Luther said that he "would not suffer
any man to treat the Gospel as a sow treats a sack of oats"; and
that seems to be the feeling inherent in the German mind
regarding the treatment of those who represent the majesty of the
nation.

And here a word regarding the relation of Kaiser and people. In
one of the letters to John Adams written by Thomas Jefferson as
they both were approaching the close of life, the founder of
American democracy declared that he had foreseen the failure of
French popular rule, and had therefore favored in France,
democrat though he was, a constitutional monarchy. Had Jefferson
lived in our time, he would doubtless have arrived at a similar
conclusion regarding Germany, for he would have taken account of
the difference between a country like ours, with no long period
of history which had given to dominant political ideas a
religious character,--a country stretching from ocean to ocean,
with no neighbors to make us afraid,--and a country like
Germany, with an ancient historic head, with no natural
frontiers, and beset on every side by enemies; and Jefferson
would doubtless have taken account also of the fact that, were
the matter submitted to popular vote, the present sovereign, with