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The curia is made up of the councillors of the Pope; a layman might be created Cardinal – it is not a sacerdotal office in itself – and while the Pope would reject with scorn the request that a temporal Government should nominate a bishop, he might accept graciously a request that a certain prelate be made a cardinal from the ruler of any nation.

If President Roosevelt had been willing to make such a request to Leo XIII. – he was urged to do it by many influential Protestants who saw what Archbishop Ireland had done in the interest of this country – there is no doubt that his request would have been granted. The Cardinals are 'created' for distinguished learning. One might quote the comparatively modern example of Cardinals Newman and Gasquet; for traditional reasons, because of the importance of their countries in the life of the Church; and they might be created, in older days, for political reasons. But the wide-spread belief that a Cardinal was necessarily a priest leads to misconceptions of the quality of the office.

If the French Republic were to follow the example of England and China, send an envoy to the Holy See, and make a 'diplomatic' rapprochement, neither Rome nor any nation in Europe would be shocked if His Holiness should consent to a suggestion from the President of the French Republic and 'create,' let us say, Abbé Klein a Cardinal.

Archbishop Ireland with his group of Americans saved us from the insults of the propaganda of Kaiserism. This name was synonymous with all things political and much that is social, loathed by the absolutes in Austria, Bavaria and, of course, Germany. The creation of Archbishop Ireland as a Cardinal would have been looked on by these powers as a deadly insult to them, on the part of the Pope. They made this plain.

The failure of the Cahensly plan caused much disappointment in Germany. The Kaiser, in spite of his flings at the Catholic Church – witness a part of the suppressed Century article and the letter to an aunt 'who went over to Rome' – was quite willing to appear as her benefactor. Much has been made of his interest in the restoration of the Cathedral of Cologne. This, after all, was simply a national duty. A monarch with over one-third of his subjects Catholics, taking his revenues from the taxes levied on them, could scarcely do less than assist in the preservation of this most precious historical monument.

He seemed to have become regardless of the opinion of his subjects. He had heart-to-heart talks with the world; one of these talks was with Mr. William Bayard Hale; the Century Magazine bought it for $1,000.00. It was to appear in December 1908. That its value as a 'sensation' was not its main value may be inferred from the character of the editors, Richard Watson Gilder, Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel – a group of scrupulously honourable gentlemen. This conversation with Mr. Hale took place on the Kaiser's yacht. It was evidently intended for publication, for the most indiscreet of sovereigns do not talk to professional writers without one eye on the public.

Speaking of his Impressions of the Kaiser, the Hon. David Jayne Hill says: 'It seemed like a real personal contact, frank, sincere, earnest and honest. One could not question that, and it was the beginning of other contacts more intimate and prolonged; especially at Kiel, where the sportsman put aside all forms of court etiquette, lying flat on the deck of the Meteor as she scudded under heavy sail with one rail under water; at Eckernforde, where the old tars came into the ancient inn in the evening to meet their Kaiser and drink to his Majesty's health a glass of beer.'

'Did you ever see anything more democratic in America?' the Kaiser asked, gleefully, one time. 'What would Roosevelt think of this?' he inquired at another.

'Hating him, as many millions no doubt do,' Mr. Hill continues, 'it would soften their hearts to hear him laugh like a child at a good story, or tell one himself. Can it be? Yes, it can be. There is such a wide difference between the gentler impulses of a man and the rude part ambition causes him to play in life! A rôle partly self-chosen, it is true, and not wholly thrust upon him. A soul accursed by one, great, wrong idea, and the purposes, passions, and resolutions generated by it. A mind distorted, led into captivity, and condemned to crime by the obsession that God has but one people, and they are his people; that the people have but one will, and that is his will; that God has but one purpose, and that is his purpose; and being responsible only to the God of his own imagination, a purely tribal divinity, the reflection of his own power-loving nature, that he has no definite responsibility to men.'

Nevertheless, in Copenhagen, we understood from those who knew him well that he was a capital actor, that he never forgot the footlights except in the bosom of his family, and even there, as the young princes grew older, there were times when he had to hide his real feelings and assume a part. In 1908, he was determined that the United States should be with him; he never lost an opportunity of praising President Roosevelt or of expressing his pleasure in the conversation of Americans. I think I have said that he boasted that he knew Russia better than any other man in Germany, and it seemed as if he wanted to know the United States to the minutest particular.

It is a maxim among diplomatists that kings have no friends, and that the only safe rule in conducting one's self towards them are the rules prescribed by court etiquette. It is likewise a rule that politeness and all social courtesies shall be the more regarded by their representatives as relations are on the point of becoming strained between two countries. How little the Kaiser regarded this rule is obvious in the case of Judge Gerard, who however frank he was at the Foreign Office – and the outspoken methods he used in treating with the German Bureaucrats were the despair of the lovers of protocol – was always most discreet in meetings with the Kaiser. I was asked quietly from Berlin to interpret some of his American 'parables,' which were supposed to have an occult meaning. There was a tale of a one-armed man, with an inimitable Broadway flavour, that 'intrigued' a high German official. I did my best to interpret it diplomatically. But, though our Ambassador, the most 'American' of Ambassadors, as my German friends called him, gave out stories at the Foreign Office that seemed irreverent to the Great, there was no assertion that he was not most correct in his relations with the German Emperor. Yet, one had only to hear the rumours current in Copenhagen from the Berlin Court just after the war began, to know that the emperor had dared to show his claws in a manner that revealed his real character. Judge Gerard's book has corroborated these rumours.

The fact that I had served under three administrations gave me an unusual position in the diplomatic corps, irrespective entirely of any personal qualities, and – this is a digression – I was supposed to be able to find in Ambassador Gerard's parables in slang their real menace. A very severe Bavarian count, who deplored the war principally because it prevented him from writing to his relations in France, from paying his tailor's bill in London, and from going for the winter to Rome, where he had once been Chamberlain at the Vatican, said that he had heard a story repeated by an attaché of the Foreign Office and attributed to Ambassador Gerard, a story which contained a disparaging allusion to the Holy Father. As a Catholic, I would perhaps protest to Ambassador Gerard against this irreverence which he understood had given the Foreign Minister great pain, as, I must know, the German Government is most desirous of respecting the feelings of Catholics.

'Impossible,' I said. 'Our Ambassador is a special friend of Cardinal Farley's and he has just sent several thousand prayer-books to the English Catholic prisoners in Germany.' Thus the story was told.⁸

It seemed that among the evil New Yorkers with whom the Ambassador consorted, there was an American, named Michael, whose wife went to the priest and complained that Michael had acquired the habits of drinking and paying attention to other ladies. 'Very well,' said the priest, 'I will call on Thursday night, if he is at home, and I'll take the first chance of remonstrating with him.'

The evening came; the priest presented himself, and entered into a learned conversation on the topics of the hour, while Michael hid himself behind his paper, giving no opportunity for the pastor to address him. However, he knew that his time would come if he did not make a move into the enemy's country.

'Father,' he said, lowering his paper, 'you seem to know the reason for everything that's goin' on to-day; maybe you'll tell me the meanin' of the word "diabetes"?'

'It is the name of a frightful disease that attacks men who beat their wives and spend their money on other women, Mike.'

'I'm surprised, Father,' said Michael, 'because I'm readin' here that the Pope has it.'

It was necessary for me to explain that this was one of our folklore stories, and could be traced back to Gesta Romanorum– merely one of the merry jests of which the German literature itself of the Middle Ages was so full, of the character, perhaps, of Rheinhard the Fox! This is an example of the way our Ambassador played on the Germans' sense of humour, as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tried to play on Hamlet's pipe!

The German propaganda went on in the United States. Look at France, look at Italy, in comparison with Germany's respect for religion! The Falk laws were no longer of importance; Catholics were to be encouraged to go into the political service, having hitherto been 'rather discouraged' and even under suspicion, as von Bülow admitted.

The German was obsessed by the one idea – the preponderance of the Fatherland.⁹ He was conscientious, he had for years cultivated a false conscience which judged everything by one standard: Is this good for the spread of German Kultur?

'What do you think of all this?' I asked one of the most distinguished diplomatists in Europe, now resident in Berlin, the representative of a neutral country. 'There will be no peace in Europe until Germany gets what she wants. She knows what she wants, and since 1870 she has used every possible method to attain it.'

To return to the indiscretions of the Kaiser – indiscretions that were not always uncalculated. Mr. Clarence Clough Buel, one of the editors of The Century, felt obliged, in justice, to give an authoritative explanation of Dr. Hale's suppressed 'interview.' His account was printed in The New York World for December 26, 1917: 'The proof of this interview had been passed by the German Foreign Office, with not more than half a dozen simple verbal changes. They were made in a bold, ready hand, but as there was no letter, we could not be sure that the proofs had been revised by the Emperor. The usual hair-splitting of great men and officialdom had been anticipated, so with considerable glee, the trifling plate changes were rushed, and the big "sixty-four" press was started to toss off 100,000 copies.'

The London Daily Telegraph 'interview' of October 28, 1908, was a thunderbolt, and the editors of The Century, at the urgent request of the German Government, suppressed the edition. I had been informed by Mr. Gilder of the facts. I was very glad of it, as I was enabled to explain this very interesting episode at the Danish Foreign Office. Mr. Clarence Buel writes (it was his duty to read the last galley proofs): – 'But in the last cold reading I had grave suspicion that the Kaiser's reference to the Virgin Mary might be construed by devout Catholics as a slur on an important tenet of their faith. So the sacred name was deleted, and the Kaiser's diction slightly assisted in the kindly spirit for which editors are not so often thanked by the writing fraternity as they should be. This incident is mentioned to show the protective attitude of the magazine, and also to indicate that the original "leak" as to the contents of the interview came from an employee of the printing office. Only some one familiar with the galley proofs could have known that the Virgin Mary had figured in the manuscript, for the name did not appear in the printed pages and consequently could not have reached the public except for the killing of the interview. Let it be said, with emphasis, that there was nothing in the Kaiser's references to the part taken by the Vatican in looking out for the interests of the Church in world politics which could have caused serious irritation in any part of Europe. As a student at the Berlin University, I had attended some of the debates in the Landtag during the famous Kulturkampf over the clerical laws devised by bold Bismarck to loosen the Catholic grip on the cultural life of Prussian Poland. Knowing the nature of that controversy, and the usual, familiar attitude of (Protestant) Europeans toward religious topics, I could believe that everything in the article bearing on Church and State, from the over-lord of most Lutherans, was offered in a respectful spirit, and would hardly make a ripple across the sea.'

Mr. Buel admits that the Kaiser criticised the action of the Pope and spoke slurringly of the Virgin Mary. Mr. Buel evidently means that the Foreign Offices of the world would not have been stirred by the censure of the Kaiser or by even some frivolous comments on the Blessed Virgin. Mr. Buel, who is discretion itself, having been one of those who practically gave his word of honour that the 'interview' should be suppressed, was evidently desirous that public curiosity should not be too greatly excited as to its tenor. He does not excuse the Kaiser, but as he is a very liberal Protestant himself, speeches coming from a ruler, that would excite indignation even among Catholics in Europe, naturally do not strike him as insulting. It leaked out long ago that in the 'interview' His Imperial Majesty alluded to Archbishop Ireland in rather disrespectful terms.

Only the staunch Americanism of the Catholics of this country saved them from this insidious propaganda. If this spirit did not exist among them, they would have been led to believe that the Central Powers were the only European countries in the world where a Catholic was free to practise his religion.

We know what the German propaganda working on politicians did in Canada among the French-speaking population. We saw, in the beginning of the war, how the Protestants of Ulster were used. There is a passage in Mr. Wells's Mr. Britling Sees It Through which illuminates this.

'England will grant Home Rule,' said a Prussian closely connected with the Berlin Foreign Office, 'and then Sir Edward Carson and his Ulsterites will, with his mutineering British army, keep England too busy to fight us.' They believed this in very high quarters in Germany.

But when the British Government did not put the Home Rule Bill in force, the propagandists turned to certain Irish Intellectuals. 'You had better be governed by Germany than England,' said the followers of Sir Roger Casement, and the sentiment, whether uttered academically or not, found a hundred echoes.

But first had been heard the German-inspired cry of the Ulsterites, 'We had rather be governed by Germany than the Irish, by the Kaiser rather than the Irish Roman Catholic Bishops.' Most of us knew that there was no such danger, for Home Rule would have naturally cut into the political power of the Irish Bishops by strengthening the secular element forced into the background by the unfortunate conditions in Ireland, which had prevented the Catholic laymen from acquiring higher education, and obliging the clergy to become political leaders. It made no difference. The fermenters of religious dissension in Ireland played into the hands of the Prussians; there was laughter in Hell.

We knew that the slogan, 'Better be governed by Germany than by Ulster,' was not echoed in our own country among men of Irish blood. But when Germany, through her agents, began to suggest an Irish Republic, protected by the Imperial Eagle, a small party formed in the United States, not pro-German, but anti-English. This was before we went into the war. 'Every defeat of the English is a gain for Ireland,' the German propagandist repeated over and over again. It sank in; the Ulsterites thundered, and Sinn Fein, which had been non-political, became suddenly revolutionary.

In our country the effect of all this was marked. Every sentiment of religion and patriotism was played upon. Only those who received the confidences of some of those deceived Revolutionists of the unhappy Easter Day know how bitter was the feeling against England generated by the conspiracies in the interest of Prussian domination. Then we gloriously took our stand and went in. The practical answer came. The Swedish Lutherans and the Sinn Fein Catholics took up their arms without waiting to be drafted; Ireland must look after herself until the invaders were driven out of France and Belgium!

If the Secret Service is ever permitted to take the American public and the world into its confidence, the strength, the cleverness, and the permeativeness of the propaganda, especially religious, in the United States, will be shown to be astounding. 'What, son of Luther, strikes at the German breast of your forefathers!' To use a phrase that would not be understood at the Berlin Foreign Office, the Prussian propagandist had us 'coming and going.'

One could not help admiring the skill of these people. We, in our honest shirt sleeves were left gaping. Shirt sleeves and dollar diplomacy were beautiful things in the opinion of people who believed that the little red schoolhouse and the international Hague Conference were all that were needed to keep us free and make the world safe for democracy! There are no such beautiful things now. If we are to fight the devil with fire, we ought to know previously what kind of fire the devil uses. That requires the use of chemical experts, and the German experts, before this war, were not employed on the side of the angels. We have won; but do not let us imagine that we have killed the devil.

The propaganda still went on, and honest people were influenced by it. 'The Pope belongs to us,' the German propagandists said. 'He has not reprimanded Cardinal Mercier,' replies some logical person, 'and Cardinal Mercier has done more harm to German claims even in Germany than any other living man.' 'The Pope sympathises with our claims; he is the friend of law and order, consequently, he is with us.' Easily impressed folk among the Allies accepted this. They believed the tale that the Italian rout in the autumn of 1917 was due to Catholic officers, who were paraded through every city in Europe with 'traitor' placarded on each back! A foolish story to direct attention from the efforts of the paid conspirators who did the mischief. They saw only the surface of things. They seemed to think that the theorem of Euclid that a straight line is the shortest distance from one point to another holds in the political underworld. The Pope was attacked, which pleased the propagandists. 'O Holy Father, see how I, Head of the German Lutheran Church, love you, and see! your wicked enemies are my enemies.' And so the German propagandist divided and discouraged!

CHAPTER VIII
THE PRUSSIAN HOLY GHOST

The Prussic acid had permeated every vein and artery of the Lutheran Church in Germany. Whatever religious influence that could be brought to bear on the Danes was used; but they look with suspicion on any mixture of religion and politics. Besides, their kind of Lutheranism is more liberal than the German. With the proper apologies I must admit that they are not, at present, easily accessible to any religious considerations that will interfere with their individual comfort. The union between the Lutherans in Denmark and the Lutherans in Germany is not close. The Danes will not accept the doctrine, preached in Germany, that Martin Luther was the glorious author of the war, and that victory for Germany must be in his name! I had many friends in Germany. One, a Lutheran pastor, wrote in 1914:

'Your country, though pretending to be neutral, is against us, and you, once dear friend, are against us. You are no longer a child of light.'

The effect of the religious propaganda has been too greatly underrated for the simple and illogical reason that religion, in the opinion of the people of the outside world, moulded for long years by the German school of philosophy, had concluded that religion had ceased to be an influence in men's lives.

The Pope, because he had lost his temporal power, was effete, reduced to the position of John Bunyan's impotent giant! Lutheranism, in fact, all Protestant sects, were giving up the ghost, under the blows of Hæckel, Virchow, Rudolf Harnack and the rest of the school of higher critics! These men laid the foundation stones for the acceptance of Nietzsche – Schopenhauer being outworn – and the learned as well as the more ignorant of the cultured seemed to think that, as German scholars had settled the matter, faith in Christianity was only the prejudice of the weak.

The Kaiser knew human nature better than this. While he believed in his Prussian Holy Ghost – Napoleon had his star – he was not averse to seeing the spiritual foundations of the world, especially the dogmatic part, which supported Christianity, disintegrated. Discussing the effect of this, I was forced, in March of 1918, to say publicly, 'The Kaiser is the greatest enemy to Christianity in Europe.' The reception of many protests from apparently sincere persons confirmed me in my belief that the propaganda had been more insidious than most of us believed. Let us turn now to the effect of the ruthless propaganda in Germany itself. Note this letter:

'You, I can almost forgive, because, as I have told you often, you dwell religiously in darkness; but your Protestant country, which owes its best to us, I cannot forgive. In the name of Bethlehem, you kill our sons, and corrupt our cousins, Karl and Bernhard, whom you know in America. Karl, when he was in my house last week, was insolent; he dared to say that the Germans in America were Americans, that, if Martin Luther sympathised with our glorious struggle, he was in hell! This is wild American talk; but I fear that too many of our good people in America have been "Yankeefied" and lost their religion. However, our glorious Kaiser has not been idle all these years; the good Germans in your misled country, not bought by English gold, will arise shortly and demand that no more ammunition shall be sent to be used against their relatives. I saw your relation, Lagos, in Fiume; he cares nothing for Luther or the Prussian cause, but he is only a Hungarian, with Irish blood, and he will only speak of his Emperor respectfully, and say nothing against our enemies in America; his son has been killed in Russia; it is a judgment upon a man who is so lukewarm. The Austrian Emperor is forced to help us; he, too, is tainted with the blood of anti-Christ. I have heard that, when the war broke out, and they told him, he said: "I suppose we shall fight those damned Prussians again!" Was this jocose? Lagos laughed; it is no time to laugh; Karl and Bernhard will go back to where they belong, in Pennsylvania, accursed for their treachery, – vipers we have cherished, false to the principles of Luther.'

An honest man, sincere enough, with no sense of humour, and a very good friend until one contradicted his Pan-Germanism. One might differ from him, with impunity, on any other question! 'Our pulpits are thundering for the Lord, Luther, and a German victory!'

There had been a movement in England for a union of the Anglican Church with the Lutheran branch of Protestantism in Denmark. It may have been extended to Norway and Sweden as well, but I do not know. There was much opposition on the part of the Germanised Lutherans: 'It would be giving up the central principle of Lutheranism to submit to re-consecration and reordination by the Anglican Bishops. It would be as bad as going to Rome or Russia or Abyssinia for Holy Orders. In Denmark, especially, Luther, through Bergenhagen, had cut off the falsely-claimed Apostolical succession. How could a national Church remain national and become English?'

If I remember rightly, Pastor Storm, a clergyman greatly distinguished for his character, learning, and breadth of view, was in favour of such a union; he did not think it meant the Anglicanising of the Lutheran Church. Men like Pastor Storm were placed in the minority. The Germans were against it. Bishop Rördam, the primate, Bishop of Zeeland, told me that German influence could have had nothing to do with the decision; he said, 'It is true that, if we wanted the Apostolical succession we could go either to Rome or Russia. We are well enough as we are.'

When the attempt at the union failed, those pastors in Germany who had watched the progress of the undertaking, rejoiced greatly. My former friend, the Lutheran pastor, wrote:

'The Anglican Church is a great enemy to our German Kultur, though German influence among its divines is becoming greater and greater. I am obliged to you for the American books on St. Paul. I read them slowly. I observe with joy that all the authorities quoted are from German sources; surely such good men as the authors of these books must see that your country is recreant to the memories of the great Liberator, Martin Luther, in not preaching against the export of arms from your country to the Entente and the starving of our children! I thank you for the books, and also for the one by the French priest, which is, of course, worthless, as he sneers at Harnack. Later, these French will know our Kultur with a vengeance! I gather from the volumes of Canon Sheehan, as you call him, that the influence on clerical education in Ireland is German. We have driven the French influence from your universities, too, and the theological schools of Harvard and Yale, thanks to the great Dr. Münsterberg, who is opposed by a creature called Schofield, are German. The power of our cultural Lutheranism is spreading against the errors of Calvin in the College of Princeton, and the Roman Catholic colleges in the States are becoming more enlightened by the presence of men like the late Magistrate Schroeder, who may be tolerated by us as the entering wedge of our Kultur. You have been frank; I am frank with you. I have received your translation of Goethe's Knowest Thou the Land and The Parish Priest's Work. As your ancient preceptor, I will say that both are bad.'

He is, after all, an honest man. Of course, I do not hear from him. His two sons are dead, in Russia; he probably talks less of 'judgments' now, poor soul! He was only part of the machine of which the Kaiser was the god!

The perverted state of mind of these honest men in whom a false conscience has been carefully cultivated was amazing. On December 23rd, 1915, a Danish Bishop wrote a letter of good-will to a colleague of his in Germany, saying, among other things, 'Even the victor must now bear so many burdens that for a generation he must lament and sigh under them.' The German pastor answered on December 27th:

'Do you remember, at the beginning of the war, you answered, to my well-grounded words, "We must, we will, and we shall win," "How can that ever be?" The question has been answered; from Vilna to Salonica, from Antwerp to the Euphrates, in Courland and Poland, our armies are triumphant; we take our own wherever we find it, and we hold it! 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. Our Lord God, who let His son die on the Cross is not the Chairman of a tea party, and He who came to bring, not peace, but a sword, is not a town messenger. He lives, He reigns, He triumphs! The chant of the Bethlehem angels, "peace on earth" is as veritable as when it was for the first time heard. There lay on the manger the Infant who as a Man was to conquer, that He might give peace to earth. Our Germans, who in 1870 bled, died and conquered, won for their own country and Scandinavia and Central Europe forty-four years of peace. For these nations and for a more permanent peace in this world our country is battling to-day. Gloria! Victoria! We will throw down our arms only when we have conquered, that this peace may reign.'

Bishop Koch, of Ribe – Jacob Riis's old town in Denmark – was the writer of the first letter. It is not necessary to name the writer of the second; his name is legion! It is not for the right, for the defence of the poor, the helpless, the forsaken, for the old woman, pitifully weeping, in the hands of the bloody supermen, to whom, according to this pious pastor, Christ sent the sword, that Germany may rule, and force her dyes, and her 'by-products,' and her ruthless, selfish brutality on the world. If John the Baptist lived to-day, and had asked these good pastors to follow him in the real spirit of Christianity, one may be sure that they would have found some excuses for the energetic Salome, who gloated over the precursor's head.

Frequently the German pastors made flying visits to Copenhagen – after the war began – not in the old way, when in the summer they came, with hundreds of their countrymen, bearing frugal meals, and wearing long cloaks and cocks' feathers in their hats. The day of the very cheap excursion had passed. Now, they came to 'talk over' things, to assure their Danish brethren of the stock 'of Luther' that it was a crime to be neutral.