MY RECOLLECTIONS OF BISMARCK-1879-1881 575 



with a pleasant smile, they seemed to join kindly in the 

 welcome. 



His first remark was that I seemed a young man to 

 undertake the duties of a minister, to which I made the 

 trite reply that time would speedily cure that defect. The 

 conversation then ran, for a time, upon commonplace 

 subjects, but finally struck matters of interest to both our 

 countries. 



There were then, as ever since, a great number of trou 

 blesome questions between the two nations, and among 

 them those relating to Germans who, having gone over to 

 the United States just at the military age, had lived there 

 merely long enough to acquire citizenship, and had then 

 hastened back to Germany to enjoy the privileges of both 

 countries without discharging the duties of either. These 

 persons had done great harm to the interests of bona-fide 

 German- Americans, and Bismarck evidently had an in 

 tense dislike for them. This he showed then and after 

 ward; but his tendencies to severity toward them were 

 tempered by the minister of foreign affairs, Von Billow, 

 one of the most reasonable men in public business with 

 whom I have ever had to do, and father of the present 

 chancellor, who greatly resembles him. 



But Bismarck s feeling against the men who had ac 

 quired American citizenship for the purpose of evading 

 their duties in both countries did not prevent his taking 

 a great interest in Germans who had settled in the United 

 States and, while becoming good Americans, had pre 

 served an interest in the Fatherland. He spoke of these, 

 with a large, kindly feeling, as constituting a bond between 

 the two nations. Among other things, he remarked that 

 Germans living in the United States become more tract 

 able than in the laud of their birth; that revolutionists 

 thus become moderates, and radicals conservatives; that 

 the word Einiglteit (union) had always a charm for them; 

 that it had worked both ways upon them for good, the 

 union of States in America leading them to prize the 

 union of states in Germany, and the evils of disunion in 



