Kaiser, 25 Years A Ruler, Hailed As Chief Peacemaker.

New York Times 100 years ago today, June 8, 1913:
Men of Mark, in and Out of His Dominions Write Exclusively for The New York Times Their High Opinion of His Work in Behalf of Peace and Progress During the Quarter Century That Has Elapsed Since He Became King of Prussia and German Emperor.    King Victor Emmanuel II., while most democratic in his life, does not permit interviews with himself and does not give direct statements to the press. Therefore this expression of opinion from him on Emperor William for the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his reign could only be indirectly obtained through the entourage of his Majesty.
    Notwithstanding the fundamental difference in temperament and education between the German Emperor and the Italian King, the latter is a great admirer of the Kaiser and is sincerely attached to the German royal family. King Victor always remembers with emotion, that when he was still a child Emperor Frederick, then Crown Prince, having been sent to Rome in 1878 to represent Germany at the funeral of the Great Victor Emmanuel, appeared on the balcony of the Quirinal Palace before several hundred thousand people  crowded below, and raising him, a child of 9 years, in his arms, showed him to his future subjects, with a gesture of protection as though saying, "We will care for him."
    He also recalls that, eighteen years later, when Italy suffered the greatest Colonial reverse in her history at the battle of Adowa, and the country was in a state of general depression, the present Kaiser visited King Humbert in Venice, where German and Italian sailors fraternized while the Emperor expressed his firm confidence in the future success of the allied countries.

The impression of the King of Italy is that in a quarter of a century of reign the present Kaiser has completed and strengthened the great work of German unity achieved by his illustrious grandfather.    TWENTY-FIVE years ago, on June 15, 1888, the sudden death of the German Emperor Frederick, after one hundred days of reign, brought to the throne of the German Empire his son Wilhelm II., only twenty-nine years old, and looked upon as an autocratic and impulsive youth wrapped up heart and soul in military matters and thirsting for military glory. When, soon after his accession, he broke with Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, making it perfectly clear that he intended to be sole master in Germany, the apprehensions as to what his reign might bring became graver and more widespread. Within his own dominions and abroad Wilhelm was considered a menacing force — a potential war lord.
    Now, twenty-five years later, when Germany is celebrating the anniversary, he is acclaimed everywhere as the greatest factor for peace that our time can show. It was he, we hear, who again and again threw the weight of his dominating personality, backed by the greatest military organization in the world — an organization built up by himself — into the balance for peace whenever war clouds gathered over Europe.
    And, on every hand, this is enthusiastically acknowledged by his contemporaries. In this twenty-fifth year of his rule eminent men here and abroad are intoning a chorus of praise to him as the great peace lord of the world. On this and the following pages will be found how the German Emperor is looked upon by some of the most distinguished men here and abroad, who have written their estimates of the monarch and his work exclusively for The New York Times.

From Former President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    The one man outside this country from whom I obtained help in bringing about the Peace of Portsmouth was his Majesty William II. From no other nation did I receive any assistance, but the Emperor personally, and through his Ambassador in St. Petersburg, was of real aid in helping induce Russia to face the accomplished fact and come to an agreement with Japan — an agreement the justice of which to both sides was conclusively shown by the fact that neither side was satisfied with it.
    This was a real help to the cause of international peace, a contribution that far outweighed any amount of mere talk about it in the abstract, for in this as in all other matters an ounce of performance is worth a ton of promise.

Theodore Roosevelt

From Former President of the United States, Wm. H. Taft.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    The proof of the pudding is in the eating. When the German Emperor went upon the throne and developed his independence of Bismarck, and his intention to exercise his own will in the discharge of his high functions, there were many prophecies that this meant a disturbance of the peace of Europe. Instead of that, the truth of history requires the verdict that, considering the critically important part which has been his among the nations, he has been, for the last quarter of a century, the greatest single individual force in the practical maintenance of peace in the world.

Wm H Taft

From the Duke of Argyll, Brother-in-law of King Edward VII.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    The German Emperor's life has been worthy of his father and of his mother, and no higher praise can be rendered in grateful acknowledgment of a great career — great with the abounding blessings of peace through steadfast striving for strength, and duty done for his people and his justice to his neighbors.
    His mother's nation was enthusiastic, loyal to his ideals, and ever able to make honesty of purpose unite with poetic and artistic temperament. Her clear mind and wide discernment enabled her to place all matters in their true perspective. Her son inherited her gifts, with his father's truth and gallant steadfastness.
    This generation of Germans have good reason to be proud and to love their patriot Emperor.

Argyll

From Count Bernstorff, German Ambassador to the U. S.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    I very highly appreciate the courtesy of The New York Times in commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Emperor's accession to the throne. The German people with their whole heart join their sovereign in celebrating this day, as they are happy to be able to look back on twenty-five years of peace and prosperity, which have led to a development in all walks of life that is without a parallel in history for such a short period.

J. Bernstorff

From Sir Gilbert Parker, Novelist and Member of Parliament, England.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    The highest praise that I can offer concerning the Emperor William II, is that he would have made as good a King of England as our history has provided, and as good a President of the United States as any since George Washington.
    It was said of the Emperor William that he was medieval in his war spirit, but he has proved himself to be a modern keeper of the peace. He was declared to be reckless, and the worst that can be said of him after twenty-five years is that he is impulsive. The world has never been hard upon men of impulse who are not at the same time reckless and selfish, and the Emperor William is neither of these.
    When he became Emperor Germany— and Prussia particularly — was rigid, narrow, and pedantic in all too many respects. Under his enlightened, tolerant, and broad-minded guidance she has become — even Prussia has become — resilient, absorptive, and almost impulsively adaptable.
    The world owes the Emperor William a debt of gratitude. He might have found cause to reap advantage from European embroilment of his own making, but he has proved himself among the most civilized internationally patriotic of rulers.

Gilbert Parker

From Nicholas Murray Butler, Member of International Peace Commission.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    It was either a satirist or a cynic who said that European politics might best be described as the science of misunderstanding. No personality is so likely to be misunderstood as one called to occupy high position and so placed as to be unable to make explanation or defense when misinterpreted or personally attacked. It may safely be said that this is particularly true of a sovereign, especially of a sovereign in these twentieth century days.
    The German Emperor, who is now about to complete the first quarter century of a most eventful reign, will only be correctly understood when history is called upon for its calm, dispassionate judgment, and when those intimate revelations of mind and of character that private records contain are added to that which is made public as it occurs.
    To be hereditary ruler, monarch, of millions upon millions of highly intellectual, industrious, and ambitious people, is in itself, at this period of the world's history, an achievement of the first magnitude. To be monarch of such a people in a period of industrial and intellectual unrest, of economic and territorial expansion, and of unprecedented commercial development, avoiding armed conflict with other nations and preserving order and progress at home, rises almost to the heights of the miraculous. To be a King who rules, but does not govern, requires tact and grace; to be a King who rules, who shares in the task of government, and who represents the national life and the national aspiration, requires ability and character of the first order.
    Such a monarch must be at once a man of action and a student; he must be at once of judicial temperament and abounding in sympathy and imagination; he must have both sound ideas and true ideals; he must really care, and care profoundly, for the economic welfare, the happiness, the comfort, and the morality of his people; he must guide their thought and their action constantly forward, yet he must not get out of touch with the great mass of the population or fall out of step with their daily tramp.
    It must be left for history and the public revelation of that knowledge which is now confined to the few to support the statement that the German Emperor, in his reign of twenty-five years, has done all these things and has manifested all these traits. If the German Emperor had not been born to monarchy, he would have been chosen monarch — or Chief Executive — by popular vote of any modern people among whom his lot might have been cast.

Nicholas Murray Butler