THE KAISER AS I KNEW HIM FOR FOURTEEN YEARS By ARTHUR X. DAMS, D. D. S, (Copyright, 1918, by the McClurc Newspaper Syndicate) (Continued.) Later on, when 1 read of the in tercepted note from von Zimmer man to von Eekhardt in which the Foreign Secretary declared that "the employment of ruthless submarine warfare now promises to compel England to make peace in a few I months," I realized how high in the councils of the nation this optim-; istic Prince was, but whether he got his optimism from the Kaiser or imparted some of his own to that j arrogant monarch, I don't know. It j was quite evident, though, that! they were of the same mind on most i ot' the questions of the day. and the interesting part about it was (hat they were both almost invariably wrong! i From the beginning of 1916 until j about the middle of 191" the great army headquarters was located in the Prince's palace at Pless, and j during most of that period he was, there, too. Naturally he came in j contact with the Kaiser and was of the high command, and I felt that i at this time anything he said was merely an echo of what he had heard in the army councils. After the Kaiser issued his first peace note, which, because of its obvious purpose was summarily; turned down by the Allies, von Pless! called to see me, and our conversa-j tion naturally drifted to that devel- | opment. 1 "Of course, they refused it!' he j declared, in the most satisfied man ner. "We KNEW they would re- [ fuse it. We WANTED them to re-1 fuse it. If they hadn't refused it., we would have made our terms so ; harsh that they would have had to i jefuse it. But it accomplished its purpose just the same; it got the French and English into hot water 1 trying to explain to their people why they didn't make peace when Germany was willing to do so. In j this way. we may be able to split the; Allies. Russia is going to quit any way. There's going to be a revolu-1 tion and we'll be able to throw all j our forces on the western front and j crush the enemy there!" "I always liked England," he add ed, "but Lloyd George is ruining, that country and now he'll certainly j have his hands full explaining why he doesn't make peace." Shortly afterwards the Kaiser j came to me and said practically the ; same thing. "We've got the English j and the French governments in a nice predicament." he said, "trying j to explain to their people why they | don't make peace." He laughed hi- j lariously as he added, "They're wild i with rage at us for surprising them j in this way." The Socialist meeting | which followed at Stockholm was what Germany wanted, but the allied governments were clever enough to j s. e the ruse and prevented the dele- j gates from leaving their respective! countries." After America declared war. j Trince von Pless readily admitted j that his prediction in that regard j had been wrong, but he was never- | theless bold enough to venture an-; other one: "We didn't think Amer-1 ,oa would do it, I admit," he de- j dared, with all his old optimism, • but anyway, America won't fight. She had to go into this war to pro tect her honor, and she will avail herself of the opportunity, perhaps, to raise an army for use eventually j against Japan, but she won't fight in Europe—you may depend on that. She hasn't the boats to carry the: men, and boats can't be built over- j night, you know!" Since then, of course, the Prince has been shown again how unrelia ble his prognostications seem to be. but fortunately I am not on hand to crow over him. The day I left Berlin, I received a telegram from him asking me to reserve time for him on January 2 4—two days later —when no doubt I would have heard some additional prophecies. Referring to the Prince's optimism reminds me of an epigram that be came current in Berlin during the | war and which may not, perhaps, j have made its way across: "The Ber liners are optimistic and gloomy; i the Viennese are pessimistic and i gay!" There was one point upon which the Prince von Pless was more hon est in his statements than the Kaiser. I refer to the Kaiser's complaints against America for sup plying munitions and money to the Allies. "V.'e haven't a leg to stand on," he frankly admitted when we dis cussed that question. "Why, in the last twenty years we have supplied more munitions to warring nations \ than any other four countries in the world put together!" Despite his overweening confi dence. which at times approached j braggadocio, the Prince was sports- i man enough to admit his miscalcu- \ lations, and while he was German! through and through. In his convlc- j tions that might makes right and ! that "Deutschland ueber alles" was j a most worthy sentiment, he .had i much in him that distinguished him from the rest of his kind. I complained to him on one occa sion of the manner in which the; royal family played havoc with my practice by upsetting the routine of the day, sometimes without much ; previous notice. "Davis," he said, "you are foolish to tolerate it. It's all right, of course, to accommodate the Kaiser and the Kaiserin. and the Crown; Prince and the Crown Princess are perhaps entitled to similar consid eration, but as far as the other princes and the nobility are con cerned, if I were you I certainly wouldn't allow it. They may object terribly at first, but they will soon fall into line!" That was about as democratic a viewpoint as I had ever heard from a German prince. He was a nice fellow but a poor guesser, and must have proven a poor adviser on dip lomatic questions for the Kaiser. Despite the fact that the Prince was so thoroughly trusted by the Kaiser, the Princess was the subject of the most alarming rumors which, because of her English birth and as sociations, were not difficult to spread. It was remembered that j when King Edward visited Berlin in 1910, shortly before his death, j and was taken sick suddenly while i attending a reception, it was the; Princess von Pless who ran to his aid. She had studied nursing and knew Just what to do In the emer- j gency. She recognized the monarch's ailment, tore open his collar and j administered first aid, and it was said that her presence of mind saved the King's life. Incidentally, it was commonly reported at that time that! had King Edward died on that oc-, casion, war between England and ] Germany would have been inevtta-; ble, because Berlin would have been I blamed for the tragedy, but as the | King's illness occurred in the Eng- I •