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Show oo KAISER'S ILLNESS. (Salt Lakp Tribune ) The illness of Emperor William will win lor him widespread sympathy outside out-side the nations now at war. The Htraln of the mighty conflict is proving prov-ing too great for a monarch whose health never has been robust All his intellectual and physiqlal energies have been exercised to the utmost since he took upon himself responsi-bilit responsi-bilit for beginning the world's mott terrible war The very fact that his Imperial power pow-er was so vast in deciding the question ques-tion of peace or war has placed upon him a responsibility such as no mon arch ever before sustained. As a Christian monarch he realizes that hi part in the war is a question of conscience Even if he thoroughly satisfied his conscience at the outset his soul cannot but be torn bv horror hor-ror and doubt at times when he looks out unon the battlefields of France and Poland and sees the thousands and hundreds oi thousands of killed and wounded. Such scenes meant little to that prince of skeptic?. Fred erick the Great, who conducted wars of aggression with cheerful disregard for human rights or the particular righis of nations. The present Ho-henzollern Ho-henzollern emperor is of a differenc m"ti!.j. He has been noted for his personal efforts in behalf of peace, for a sincere religious spirit and for a somewhat genial and kindly nature. na-ture. To such a man the war must necessarily be an excruciating experience. experi-ence. Moreover, he feels a sense of overwhelming responsibility to his Buhjerts. He hai told them that the wnr is righteous, that the sword was forced into his hand, and that Germany Ger-many is fighting for her national existence. ex-istence. Having given his subjects this assurance of good faith, ho feels that he must leave nothing undone to help them win the war. The consequence con-sequence has been that he has taken upon himself a general supervision of the campaigns in the east and the west Ur has passed from France to Russia and from Russia to France in his special train every few days. He has Investigated all branches of the military service; he has been untiring in his efforts to see that the soldiers were well fed and well clothed; he has taken keen Interest in the torturing questions of strategy and he has experienced the pain and depression of seeing his most splendid splen-did plans turn awry and often fail utterly. ut-terly. Small wonder, then, that this remarkable re-markable ruler should have broken down under the strain. If he were the Gothic superman, of whom the modern German philosophers delight to talk, he might have borne the responsibility re-sponsibility v'ith the composure of a, god. Unfortunately there Is no such thing as a superman, and even so great a monarch as the present emperor emper-or of Germany must sink under a v. eleht too heavy for any human flesh The cold and cruel Napoleon might have endured the stress bettor, but he was a sort of aventurer. and never felt the moral responsibility to his people that is felt by Emperor Will-lam. |
