Show < EJiPEHOIl WILLIAM I TWO SCENES IN THE LIFE OF GERM GER-M NYS RULER All Deutschland Celebrating His Birthday Birth-day This Week How the Aged Sover elgn and His Helpmeet Appear at Their Present Advanced Time of Life All Germany is rejoicing over the fact that the Emperor William has passed his 90lh birthday and the aged sovereign has for I days been overwhelmed with expressions of good trill and esteem and sometimes wit more substantial evidences of regard I I EMPEROR AND EMPRESS The engraving of the emperor and empr ss that is given presents a very good idea of their present appearance although it is understood that his majesty has become a trifle more stooped and in some other ways shows greater traces of his extreme age than is indicated in the picture which is from a photograph taken I a year or more ago 1 KCENIGSBERG 180S I The other two pictures illustrate two very I imporfcuit scenes in the emperors l eone showing him as a boy in 1S08 looking out of a window at Koenigsberg and the other showing him looking out of the same window as law of Prussia in 1801 His emotions upon these two occasions must have been very different dif-ferent but he could not have felt that certainty cer-tainty as to the future when crowned king of Prussia that he did when a few years later and after Sadowa he was chosen emperor of Germany For in 1861 ho had yet to learn whether he could win the affection of his people or not Till that time he had been only a soldier without congenial occupation a prince of marked unpopularity When he was made emperor he had already made a conquest of the hearts of the Prussians Emperor William has been on the throne now twentysix years a reign of only average duration if measured by the lapse of time but one into which more has been crowded than all that occupied the years of two or three of his immediate predecessors He was a soldier when Napoleon was banished ban-ished to St Helena by the battle of Waterloo The number of those who were fighting men at that time and who still survive is small indeed and it is worthy of note that one of them is the ruler of a great empire I i KCENIGSBERG 1861 In these < days of progressive republican prin ciples royal personages are usually considered I as mere figureheads without much personal force or individuality And it has often been said that to Bismarck much more than to the emperor Germany has owed its present strength and position among European nations na-tions But it should not be forgotten that the emperor has always been in the field himself whenever there was fighting to be done and that he selected Bismarck for a political adviser ad-viser and representative at the same time that he chose Moltke to be at the head of his army And it should also be remembered that no matter how much genius they have shown in the administration of the important matters intrusted to then charge they have conformed I their conduct to the general lines laid down I for them by their royal master And no one however much he may dislike the emperors policy can fail to admire his I vigor his strength of purpose and his homely domestic virtues I |