Maurice Francis Egan

“ Good women have never made successful rulers, as a rather cynical Russian said to me, à propos of the Empress Catherine. The nobility disliked her because she kept aloof from them. The glitter and the pomp of court life which the Russian aristocracy loved, the consideration which monarchs are expected to show for the social predilections of their subjects were disregarded by her. Living in perpetual fear, her nerves were shattered. All her interests centred in her family and in the unbending conviction of a German princess that the divine right of kings is a dogma. ”

“ You Americans call yourselves Christians,' he broke out, 'and yet your bombs from Bethlehem have shattered my son's leg and they killed thousands of our children. Your nation is Protestant. You ought to be with us against impious France and idolatrous Italy—I spit on Italy—the cocotte of the nations, the handmaid of the Papish prostitute of Rome! And yet you say that our most Christian nation is not Christian! How can you say it? We are not at war, yet you treat us as enemies!'
'We shall soon be at war. The Ambassador of the United States at Berlin is sending Americans out of that city. ”

“ The Socialists can never explain this away. His prestige, as the apostle of peace and good-will, is gone; he is no longer international; he is out of count as an altruist. The Social Democrat is in a better position; he never claimed all the attributes of universal benignity; he was still feared in Germany, but in that harmless debating society, the Reichstag, with the flower of the German manhood made dumb in the trenches, he could only threaten in vain.
In our country, pure Socialism is misunderstood. ”

“ The Balkan situation was always burning; it was the Etna and Vesuvius of the diplomatic world; wise men might predict eruptions, but they were always unexpected. To most people in the United States the Balkans seemed very far off; Bulgaria with her eyes on Macedonia, the Tsar Ferdinand and his attempt to put his son, Boris, under the greater Tsar, him of Russia; Rumania and her ambitions for more freedom and more territory; Serbia, with her fears and aspirations, appeared to be of no importance—of less interest, perhaps, than other petty kingdoms. ”

“ To the Danes it was almost as if Holger Dansker, who, as everybody knows, is waiting in the vaults of Hamlet's castle at Elsinore to protect Denmark, had burst into the light.
From the European point of view, which took no account of our home politics, ex-President Roosevelt was not only the most important figure in America, but in the world, and the most picturesque. Even under the New Democracy, men will probably count more than nations in the minds of our brethren across the sea. ”

“ And, when one thinks of the Swedish aristocrat, one almost says, as Talleyrand said of the talons rouges, 'when the old order changes, much of the charm of life will disappear.' Under a monarchy, life is very delightful—for the upper classes. It is no wonder that they do not want to let go of it. It must be remembered, in dealing with European questions, that the Swede and the Spaniard are probably the proudest people on the earth. Another thing must not be forgotten: the educated classes are imperial-minded. And of this quality German intrigue makes the most. ”

“ There must be a broad law for the Christian divine; a narrow one for the humble believer. We may not accept miracles, we of the learned, but we may not disturb the belief of the people in them. Culture must come from the top. The Catholics among us still accept the miracles, but they are most retrograde of the Germans. We are gaining upon them. It is the Zeitgeist; when we have conquered, with their help, we shall teach them the real lesson of Christianity! The German God will not brook idolatry. Our scientists disprove myths, but we work in the line of Luther still. ”

“ The world was deceived by an unscrupulous Assembly and the German press into the belief that Slesvig was German, lovingly German, and that the Danes were merely restless malcontents, hating the beneficent Prussian rule simply from a perverted sense of their own importance.
The crucial moment came in 1864. Denmark had no real friends in Europe. The United States, if her people had understood the matter, would have been sympathetic; but, at the moment, she was fighting for her own existence as a nation. The European powers, in spite of all their statecraft, allowed themselves to be blinded. ”

“ Neither art, literature nor music has been Germanised in Norway. Art, of later years, has been touched by the French ultra-impressionists. There is no humble home in the mountains that does not know Grieg. And why? When you know Grieg and know Norway, you know that Grieg is Norway.
Norway is the land of the free and the home of the brave. There was no fear that German ideas would control it, and the Prussians knew this. What is good in German methods of education the Norwegians adopt, but they first make them Norwegian. ”

“ German propaganda had little influence in Norway, but German methods have been used to an almost unbelievable extent in the attempt to lower the morale of this self-respecting and independent people. The German propaganda could get little hold on a nation that cared only to be sufficient for itself in an entirely legitimate way. The Norwegian can neither be laughed, argued, nor coerced out of an opinion that he believes to be founded on a principle, and he looks on all questions from the point of view of a free man thinking his own thoughts. ”

“ When Norway threatened to secede, its attitude very largely due to the bad management of the very charming and indolent King Oscar, the Swedish army began to mobilise. The Swedes—that is the minority of Swedes, the governing body—would not brook the thought that Norway might become a real nation. 'We must fight!' Young Sweden said. The Young Sweden, intolerant and imperious, did not realise that it had Old and Young Norwegians to contend with. Now, if the Spaniard and the Swede are the proudest folk in Europe, the Norwegian and the Icelandic are the most stiff-necked. ”

“ You may call it "constructive Socialism," but I call it Social Degeneracy. We, following the sacred principles of Marx and Bakounine, different as they were, must destroy before we can construct. In the future, every honest man will drive in his own car, and the best hospitals will not be for those that pay, but for those who cannot pay. Cagliostro said we must crush the lily, meaning the Bourbons; we must crush all that stands in the way of the perfect rule which will make all men equal. We must destroy all governments as they are conducted at present ”

“ He had been in Washington only a few months. I suffered as to prestige in the beginning only, as every American minister and ambassador suffers from our present system of appointing envoys. No representative of the United States is at first taken seriously by a foreign country. He must earn his spurs, and, by the time he earns them, they are, as a rule, ruthlessly hacked off!
Each ambassador is supposed by the Foreign Offices to be appointed for the same reason that so many peerages have been conferred by the British Government. ”

“ We were told that the Kaiser loved Mark Twain. To love Mark Twain was to be American. To be sure he turned his back very pointedly on Mark on one occasion because Mark had dared to criticise the pension system of the United States. Pensions for the army should not be criticised, even if their administration were defective. All soldiers must be taken care of. This was the first duty of a nation, and Mark Twain forgot himself when he censured any system that put money into the pockets of the old soldiers, even of the wives of the soldiers of 1812! ”

“ I pity you,' the amiable pastor continued; 'I have the deepest commiseration for you neutrals, that you should remain outside of this wonderfully great experience of God's glory, you, above all, who call yourselves Scandinavians and are of the stock of the German Martin Luther. You hold nought of the mighty things that God has now for a year and a half been bestowing on the Fatherland. He who has little, from him shall be taken away what he has. This war is not a kaffeeklarch, and the work of a soldier is not embroidery. ”

“ Most of us have fixed ideas; if they are the result of prejudice, they are generally bad; if they are the result of principle, that is another question. When I went to Denmark at the request of President Roosevelt, I had several fixed ideas, whether of prejudice or principle I could not always distinguish. I had been brought up in a sentiment of gratitude to Russia—she had behaved well to us in the Civil War—and in a firm belief that her people only needed a fair chance to become our firm friends. ”

“ If a man is not a genius, he cannot have the intuition of a genius, and, while I accepted the opinions of my more experienced colleagues, I imagined that their fears of a probable war were exaggerated. Besides, I had been impressed by the constantly emphasised opinion—part of the German propaganda, I now believe—that our great enemy was Japan. ”

“ That he would be the next President of the United States nobody in Europe doubted. These people were not welcoming, as they thought, a man like General Grant, who had merely done a great thing. The American who was coming was not only a man of splendid past, but one with a future that was rising up like thunder. You can imagine the excitement in Copenhagen when it was announced that he would pay that city a short visit. From Copenhagen he was to go to Christiania to make a Nobel Prize speech. ”

“ The further acquisition of Denmark would have been only a question of time, had not the march of the Despot through Belgium aroused the civilised world to the reality of the German imperial aggression—until then, unhappily, not taken seriously. Had Germany followed the policy which induced her to hold Slesvig, in spite of the promise that the Slesvigers, passionately Danish, might by vote decide their own fate—and seize Denmark, the Virgin Islands, not American, would have been German possessions. ”

“ In the provinces, on the same day, half a million Swedes sympathetically joined in this protest against the pro-German attitude of the Government.
When we entered the war the ruling classes declared, either privately or publicly, that we had made a 'mistake'; they hinted that Germany would make us see this mistake—this out of no malevolence to America as America, but simply from a complete lack of sympathy with our ideals. It must be remembered that an aristocracy, a bureaucracy without privileges is as anomalous as a British Duke without estate. ”

“ However, religious discipline is strong, and it is the business of those set apart from the world to overcome even their righteous anger. Still, when I saw the expression on the face of the Abbé de Noë, who had been a Papal Zouave and was still at heart a French soldier, on a great festival, as he gave the kiss of peace to two German priests on the altar steps, I felt that the grace of God is compelled sometimes to run uphill! ”

“ Queen Louise, the wife of Christian IX., new king of an old line, was not born in the purple, though her blood was the bluest in Europe. The beautiful princesses, her three daughters, later the Empress of Russia, Dagmar, the Queen of England, Alexandra, and the Duchess of Cumberland, Thyra, made their frocks and were taught all the household arts—for their father, royal by blood as he was, was a poor officer.
These princesses hold lovingly in remembrance the time of their poverty; these princesses love the old times. ”

“ A pleasant prospect when we knew that Germany regarded the Monroe Doctrine as the silly figment of a democratic brain unversed in the real meaning of world politics.
Again, I saw exemplified the fact that in the eyes of the Kaiser, a German emigrant was a German colonist. Once a German always a German; the ideas of the Fatherland must follow the blood, and these ideas are one and indivisible. Consequently, no place could have been more interesting than the capital of Denmark. Here diplomatists were taught, made, or unmade. ”

“ What have you to do with the Teuton and Slavic quarrel? Do you believe for a moment that the ultra-Bismarckian policy which controls Germany will consider you anything but a pawn in the diplomatic game? I think that, as Swedes, you ought to help to consolidate Scandinavia, and your diplomatists, instead of playing into Germany's hands, ought to make it worth her while to support her, as far as you choose. You are selling yourself too cheap.'
His eyes flashed. 'You do not talk like an American,' he said. ”

“ His culture is Danish, and part of his life. He keeps it up wistfully even when he swears allegiance to another nation. The Danes in Denmark will never cease to regard Slesvig as their own. It is one flesh with them; but Prussia has torn this one body asunder. Fancy a 'free election' being permitted in a country ruled by Prussian autocrats or a 'free election' in Alsace-Lorraine under German rule!
The geographical position of Denmark is unfortunate. There are imperialists of all countries who hold that the little countries have no right to live; Junkerism is not confined to Germany. ”

“ And every now and then an extract from an American paper, containing the account of a lynching with all the gruesome details described, would be translated into Danish. I never believed in censoring the press until I came to occupy a responsible position in Denmark. I confess, mea culpa!—that I wanted many times to have the right to say what should or should not be reprinted for foreign consumption! The newspapers seemed to have no regard for the plans of the diplomatists, believing news is news! There will always be the irrepressible conflict! ”

“ Heaven forbid!' said Count Szchenyi, 'but we tolerate the U-boat war only as an instrument for obliging England to make peace. Peace,' he said, 'we must have peace or all the world will be in anarchy,' I do not think he 'accepted' the U-boat war, except diplomatically. Another distinguished representative of one of the Central Powers, making a flying visit, said, first assuming that the 'North American' and English interests were identical—'Peace may bring Germany and England close together. We are too powerful to be kept apart. ”

“ Sweden, then, fearing Russia, doubtful of England, full of German propagandists, her ruling classes looking on France as an unhappy country governed by roturiers and pedagogues, and, except in a commercial way, where we never made the most of our opportunities, regarding our country as negligible, Sweden, divided violently between almost autocratic ideas and exceedingly radical ones, was in a perilous position from 1914 to 1918. Frankly, there are no people more delightful than the Swedes of the upper classes whom one meets at their country houses. ”