Excerpt from Captain Bickel of the Inland Sea

But the German people were not yet prepared to carry a revolutionary movement to success. The demand for political union, for constitutional gov ernment, for democratic institutions, for the re moval of the disabilities under which the common people laboured and the elevation of the peasantry from the condition of practical serfdom in which they were held, was bitterly opposed by the rulers and courts of the various kingdoms and princi palities, to whom, after the fashion of such folk, the continued enjoyment of their little brief nu thority was of more moment than the welfare of a nation. Bismarck, that man of blood and iron, already secretly planning to erect a German Em pire under Prussian hegemony, led the Prussian court against the popular demands, whether for a united or for a democratic Germany, and his hos. Tility to the reform movement was copied in the other states. The heavy hand of government came down upon those who preached the revolutionary doctrines. Many were imprisoned. Others suf fered the spoiling of their goods. Some sealed their testimony with their blood. Some escaped the edge of the sword by flight, exile the reward of their patriotism. Across the sea to the New World, to find refuge under the shadow of Old Glory, came some of the choicest spirits of Germany, who by their ability and energy were to make a splendid contribution to the development of their adopted country, and to win for themselves position and influence. As notable instances may be mentioned Edward Bets, and Karl Schurz, of the latter ofwhomithasbeensaidthatonlythefactofhis foreign birth stood between him and the highest office in the gift of tng American commonwealth. It is of interest to note also, in this connection, the case of Hans Kudlick, - not a German indeed, but an Austrian, - who at the time of the revolutionary movement among the German States championed the cause of freedom and democracy in his own Fatherland, and brought about the liberation of fourteen millions of Austrian peasants from a con dition of serfdom, but who also found it discreet to join the procession of emigrants to the New World, and who died the other day, in his adopted country, at the ripe age of ninety-four.

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