The Days of a Man 1:1913 



Leading Other prominent speakers were Professor Walther 

 ^pldPs Schiicking of Marburg, one of the most independent 

 thinkers in Germany, Professor Robert Peloty of 

 Wiirzburg, Dr. A. von Harmer, an esteemed attorney 

 at Mannheim who removed to Argentina at the 

 outbreak of war, and the scholarly and courtly 

 Edouard de Neufville, a leading citizen of Frankfort, 

 member of a Huguenot family long since banished 

 from France. Dr. Leo Denairo of the editorial staff 

 of the Frankfurter Zeitung was also present, rep- 

 resenting his journal, the ablest in Germany and, 

 as I have also said, friendly toward peace. 



I also m.et for the first time Fritz Rottcher, a 

 pharmacist of Wiesbaden, an energetic and devoted 

 young man whom I may fairly claim as a personal 

 disciple. Later he became secretary of the Peace 

 Society of Southern Germany, and at his request I 

 promised shortly to return to deliver a certain number 

 of lectures under the auspices of the Friedensfreunde. 

 Noble plea The cvcut of the congress was D'Estournelles de 

 of^-French Constant's address in the great city hall, the effort of 

 his life — a most eloquent plea that Germany and 

 France, laying aside military rivalry and ancient 

 enmities, should make of Alsace-Lorraine a bridge 

 connecting two great civilizations. The real interests 

 of both nations were so closely interwoven, he said, 

 that the persistence of war talk might endanger their 

 very existence. The speech was given in French, a 

 concise German translation being distributed through 

 the audience. Nuremberg lying far from the center of 

 Pangermanism, some 3000 people heard him with 

 approval. Schiicking's response was in a similar vein, 

 and scarcely less eloquent. 



Returning to Wesen, I occupied a compartment as 



c 522 ;] 



