BISMARCK-SCHOXHAUSEN. 



BOLIVIA. 



feat it. His parliamentary conflicts revolved not 

 about the question of keeping up or strengthening 

 the army, for which Parliament was never disposed 

 long to withhold the means, but about t lie control 

 of the public purse. He wanted septennates or 

 other votes for long terms of years in advance, and 

 to gain this he shifted his majority, made deals and 

 concessions, and usually had to be satisfied with a 

 compromise or brought the Reichstag to submis- 

 sion, as had done his sovereign, by threatening to 

 resign. His most mischievous and unscrupulous 

 drvice for winning consent to an increase in the 

 army was to stir up dangerous foreign complica- 

 tions or troublous questions in order to produce a 

 war scare. In the organization and direction of the 

 Prussian and imperial administrations Prince Bis- 

 marck's executive genius and power of accom- 

 plishing work brought the system founded by his 

 Eredecessors up to a degree of perfection excelled 

 y no other governmental machinery on earth. 



Bismarck's " old master," whom he had served 

 and loved with the devotion of a feudal retainer, 

 died on March 9, 1888. The relations between the 

 old Emperor and his minister were singular. Wil- 

 lidm. who had an obstinate pride in his own 

 judgment and a sense of duty and responsibility 

 which compelled him to weigh and decide every 

 question in his own mind, and who was controlled 

 in an excessive degree by the women of his family, 

 all keen politicians and hostile to Bismarck, suffered 

 every important decision of his reign to be over- 

 borne and reversed by his Chancellor, but only after 

 a conflict of wills so earnest and exciting that both 

 were usually verging on a state of nervous collapse 

 when Bismarck at last clinched his exhortations 

 and arguments by threatening to resign. Thus he 

 compelled the King to give up twice his intention 

 of abdicating, to tear up a list of Liberal concessions, 

 to refuse to attend the Congress of Princes at 

 Frankfort, to intervene in Schleswig-Holstein, to 

 agree to the Austrian alliance against Russia. All 

 the three wars were brought about against the will 

 and desire of the King, who was willing to make 

 concessions to preserve peace when his minister was 

 plotting war. In the Spanish-throne question and 

 all the incidents leading to the French war he was 

 circumvented by Bismarck at every step. 



Friedrich, who had seen all the hopes and ambi- 

 tions of his life thwarted by the Iron Chancellor, 

 felt bound by patriotic duty during his brief invalid 

 reign to trust everything to the guidance of his old 

 enemy, even the matter of his daughter's marriage. 

 Wilhelm II succeeded to the throne on June 15, 

 1888, when not yet thirty years old. He had been 

 Bismarck's pupil in state affairs, and the old Chan- 

 cellor thought his place secure with his young 

 master, who at first deferred to him in everything. 

 The younger \Villielm, however, felt himself a king 

 by divine right, one of the ancient kind, whose will 

 is the highest law. and with a more masterful will 

 than his grandfather, he was equally determined to 

 know all about every question of state and to decide 

 it himself. He found that Bismarck had concealed 

 from him the action to be taken against (ieffcken 

 for publishing his own father's diary. He could 

 not get him to tell what steps he intended to take 

 in important matters of foreign policv. He was 

 nettled at Bismarck's interference with his schemes 

 of social legislation and his revision of the labor re- 

 scripts. Quarrels occurred between the two, and 

 the Chancellor's stock threat of resigning failed of 

 its usual effect. In ls<)() Prince Bismarck found 

 himself eonfronte.il with a hostile majority in the 

 Reichstag. His political star was sinking. He 

 held a conference with his old enemy, Dr. Wind- 

 horst, being ready to bargain for the support of the 

 Centrum. The Emperor demanded an explanation of 



these negotiations, which Bismarck refused to give. 

 The Emperor discovered that there was a secret 

 entente with Russia, one repugnant to his candid 

 nature. He insisted on having all the secrets of the 

 Hismarckian diplomacy unfolded to him and was 

 determined henceforth to direct foreign affairs him- 

 self. The inexperienced and impulsive young 

 monarch was the last person whom the veteran 

 arbiter of European affairs would trust to decide 

 momentous state questions. Another difference 

 between them was in regard to Wilhelm's consulting 

 with the Prussian ministers regarding the business of 

 their several departments. Prince Bismarck point- 

 ed out that this was unconstitutional and insisted 

 on the strict observance of the Cabinet order of 

 1852, directing ministers to report to the Crown 

 only through the President of the Ministry of State, 

 who was responsible for the entire policy of the 

 Cabinet. After a final breach on a question of 

 German policy in the East, Prince Bismarck made 

 this constitutional question the ground of his resig- 

 nation of his offices of Imperial Chancellor and 

 President of the Prussian Council of State, explain- 

 ing that the two could not be separated, and adding 

 that if they could, he could not carry out the Em- 

 peror's views of foreign policy without imperiling 

 all the successes of importance that had been 

 achieved in the relations with Russia. His letter 

 of resignation was sent on March 18, 1890, and was 

 accepted by the Emperor with protestations of regret, 

 gratitude, and praise, and the bestowal of the title of 

 Duke of Lauenburg and the rank of general of 

 cavalry. 



The fallen Chancellor spent the remaining years 

 of his life at Friedrichsruh and Varzin, not in dig- 

 nified quiet, but in a state of anger toward the 

 Emperor and his new Chancellor, with which he en- 

 deavored to inflame the country, which was indig- 

 nant at his summary dismissal. He denounced the 

 policy of the Government to the thousands who 

 flocked to pay him homage wherever he went. In 

 his organ the " Hamburger Nachrichten " and in 

 other newspapers inspired by him he criticised and 

 belittled the new Government and the men who 

 composed it, and published the secret treaty with 

 Russia at the risk of being prosecuted for revealing 

 state secrets. He constantly dwelt on the necessity 

 of a good understanding with Russia for the future, 

 security of Germany. He lent his name and influ- 

 ence to Agrarian agitators and other malcontents. 

 When he went to Vienna in 1892 to attend his son's 

 wedding the Emperor Franz Josef denied him an 

 audience, and the German ambassador ignored him. 

 In 1896 a formal reconciliation took place between 

 him and Wilhelm II. After his death Dr. Morit;: 

 Busch published a volume of his table talk contain- 

 many frank disclosures. He left manuscript memoirs 

 of his life. 



BOLIVIA, a republic in South America. Tho 

 legislative power is vested in the Congress, composed 

 of a Senate of 18 members, elected for six year?, 

 and a House of Representatives containing 64 mem- 

 bers, elected for four years by all adult male Boliv- | 

 ian citizens who can read and write. The President 

 is elected for four years by the direct vote of th 3 

 people. Severo Fernandez .Mouse was inaugurated 

 as President on Aug. 15. IS'.Xi. His Cabinet at tli 

 beginning of 1898 was composed as follows: Foreign ; 

 Delations and Worship, Dr. Manuel M. Gomez; 

 Finance. L. Gutierrez ; Interior and Justice, Maea- 

 rio Pinilla: Public Instruction, Colonization, Publi 3 

 Works, and Industry, Dr. J. V. Ochoa ; War, G . i 

 Sanjines. 



Area and Population. The area of the republic.'' 

 is 567,360 square miles and the population, accord- ] 

 ing to an official enumeration, is 2,019.549, not in- j 

 eluding the uncivilized Indians, numbering about 



