everything was all right allowed the Social Democrat to go his way to meet the emperor. The latter had noticed the little scene and when his visitor turned after the conversation was over, the emperor called him back once more and said: "It may interest you to know on what kind of guards I have to rely for the protection of my person." When the delegate showed his perplexity in trying to understand what the Kaiser meant, the latter remarked: "All these sentinels whom you see throughout the garden are Social Democrats."

The truth is that every one in the German empire has a right to hold his own views and he may elect a conservative representative or a Social Democrat, but with all the radicalism of the Social Democrats the king might walk into one of their assemblies and they would hail him without exception. He would not be in the slightest personal danger. They might express their preferences for the introduction of socialistic principles into the laws or even for the introduction of a democracy as the best form of government, but they would feel that personally the emperor stands in the place of the representative of the nation, to whom they look up as children to their father. A nation needs a department which is commonly called the government or the administration, and it is pretty indifferent whether we call the man at the head of it Kaiser or President. The history of Germany has adopted the former title under the influence of contact with Rome and a deep-felt respect shown for Christianity. That the dignity of a Kaiser, or chief of the administration should be hereditary, or in other words that a family should be chosen to furnish the incumbants of this office is a secondary matter which may have its drawbacks but is not without good features. It renders the election campaign unnecessary and makes it possible that a man may be educated for his high duties so as to raise him above the very suspicion of using political intrigues to attain what the the law of the country gives him as his birthright—an advantage which has in many respects worked well and has produced men who though born to a throne have done their governmental work in a most outspoken way as "first servants of the state."

This is a truth which is well recognized all through Germany, even in the circles of those who are professed Social Democrats and would prefer to have a republican form of government.

After all, the difference between a republic and a monarchy is not so important as is generally represented in republican states. The liberty of the people is not conditioned by the form of govern

ment, but by the people themselves and the application of the laws. We Americans are in the habit of misrepresenting all monarchical governments with the possible exception of the English government, which is erroneously said to be like a democracy. But the truth is, there is more liberty, more independence, more freedom in Germany than in England, and the ideal of liberty has come down to us from ancient Germany. It is only in the misguided mentality of the present war that we are blind to facts and distort history in favor of our own and of British prejudices.

Another lecture by the same author is entitled America's Debt to England. He claims that our schoolchildren are taught that the foundations of liberty are based upon the revolution; they ought to know that "the fathers fought for the rights of Englishmen and won. They not only secured to us imperishable blessings, but they freed every English colony from a selfish colonial policy." Our author does not forget that Saxon freedom is a Teutonic heirloom. He says: "No youth should leave school without knowing that our Anglo-Saxon forefathers carried representative government from the forests of Germany into England."

The principle of a judgment by peers is an old Germanic law. When our author says "the germ of the jury appeared in France" he ought to have said in "the institution of the Franks," which is a little different, for it existed before France originated. Our author forgets to point out that Germany to-day is in many respects freer than the United States, and the laws by which it is administered are more than in England or any English-speaking nation a product of the people's will in a regular course of parliamentary methods and according to a logical system of acknowledging the inalienable rights of all people. There are more important and broader documents in the history of the European continent than the Magna Charta which contained little more of the spirit of liberty than did the claim of the southern slaveholders for the liberty to keep slaves, in which England supported them. Would it not be better to speak out bluntly that the Saxons are a Teutonic tribe and claim that they originated somewhere else and that the American revolution was not directed against England, but that England made this revolution against the Kaiser who threatend to take possession of the country by his Hessian soldiers who came here under the sly pretext of having been imported by the English government?

Mr. Swift's case is not an exception; it is typical of pro-British literature. Most of the essays and books that take the British side

in the present war betray gross ignorance and exhibit a curious bitterness toward Germany.

There is a common belief that truth will always prevail in the end, that lies have short legs; but the end is sometimes far away, and misrepresentation is as efficient as picric-acid bombs. They are not good weapons and may be efficient for a while only, but they are very powerful and their greatest drawback consists in the fact that they are mostly used by those whose cause is both indefensible and hopeless. Are we justified in drawing a conclusion from the obvious fact that pro-British literature (with very few, but no glaring, exceptions) is extremely one-sided, lacking in logic, based upon error and involving lamentable ignorance? Read the wild denunciations of the German cause, and Horace will speak out of the recollection of your school days:

"Difficile est satiram non scribere."
('Tis hard not to become satirical.)

MISCELLANEOUS.

THE FIRST TREASURER OF THE UNITED STATES.

BY EMIL BAENSCH.

Whenever good fortune brings within your view a ten-dollar bill, one of those yellow-backed ones called a Gold Certificate, take a good look at it. You will find on it the likeness of a gentleman of the old school, with these words underneath: "Michael Hillegas, First Treasurer of the U.S."

He was born in Philadelphia whither his father had emigrated in 1724 from near Heidelberg, in Germany. Pennsylvania was the Mecca of German emigration in the eighteenth century, as many as 12,000 arriving in one year. The elder Hillegas became one of the merchant princes in the city, and his prominence, as well as his inclination, rendered him a friendly adviser and helpful guide to the newcomers.

His death in 1749 transferred the management of his business to his son, then barely twenty-one years of age. An administrator's bond of forty thousand pounds and an inventory of personal property covering fifteen pages of the probate records, attest the value and extent of the estate. This was considerably increased under the skilful and energetic direction of the son. He acquired substantial interests in sugar refineries, iron forges, land companies, fishing companies, etc. He was one of the organizers of the well-known Lehigh Coal Company and was a charter member of the Bank of North America, still one of our strong financial institutions.

Like the father, the son became one of the leaders in the colony. In those days it was the custom to raise funds frequently for public purposes, even for the building of churches, by means of a lottery, and public confidence instinctively pointed to Hillegas as the proper manager. For ten years, from 1765

to 1775, he was a member of the provincial assembly, and an active and aggressive one. He was chairman of the important committees of public accounts and of taxation and was consulted in every move relating to the public finances.

When war was seen to be approaching he promptly enrolled in the militia, was placed on the Committee of Safety, and on the Commission to erect Fort Mifflin for the defense of the city. Saltpeter was a necessary material for warfare, and he was made chairman of the committee to procure a supply, and was also delegated to provide arms for the soldiers.

The finances of the young nation were at first in charge of a Board of Treasury, displaced in 1781 by a Superintendent of Finance, three years later by a Board of Commissioners, and in 1789 by the Treasury Department as at present constituted. Under each of these systems were the offices of Treasurer, Auditor and Controller, who were elected by Congress during the earlier years.

In July, 1775, Michael Hillegas was elected Treasurer and annually reelected until the present constitution was adopted,—a period of fourteen years. His powers were gradually enlarged; he was authorized to borrow money and to issue and sign bills of credit; when the office of Treasurer of Loans was discontinued its duties were devolved upon him; when the Mint was established he was directed "to receive and take charge of all coin made by the Master Coiner."

His wealth enabled him to furnish the large bond required and to aid the public credit. His ability and business experience were a guarantee that the duties would be well performed. Proof of the faultless fulfilment of this guarantee is found in the fact that such men as Samuel Adams and Roger Sherman were among his warm supporters, and in the fact of his frequent re-elections, often by unanimous vote.

Thus from the very beginning, through the struggles of the Revolution, through the floundering of the Confederation, and until the nation was safely anchored under the Constitution, the official treasure of our people was intrusted to the care and guidance of this faithful and patriotic German-American. The first books he kept, a blotter, a journal, and a ledger, are now reverently preserved in the archives of the Treasury Department.

A few years after his retirement he was again drafted, serving as alderman of Philadelphia until his death in 1804. As such he was active in furthering the improvement and beautifying of what was then the capital of the nation. His leisure was devoted to educational and philanthropic matters, and the Pennsylvania Hospital is a landmark of his efforts. He left, surviving him, one son and four daughters, and his descendants are to be found among prominent families in the East, though the male line is extinguished and no one now living bears his name.

Hillegas was jovial and genial in temperament. He was expert with the flute and the violin, author of an "Easy Method for the Flute." John Adams writes of him: "He is a great musician, talks perpetually of the forte and piano, of Handel, and songs and tunes." Optimism and thrift breathe through the lines which he sent to his daughter, Henriette, on her marriage to Joseph Anthony of New York:

"No trivial loss nor trivial gain despise,

Mole-hills, if often heaped, to mountains rise;
Weigh every small expense, and nothing waste,
Farthings long saved amount to pounds at last."

AN EROS OF LATER GREECE.

The Metropolitan Museum of New York contains a beautiful bronze statue of Eros which dates from the Hellenistic period of Greek art. While not belonging to the strictly classical period this bronze is so typical of the traditional conception of the youthful deity that Professor Fox has chosen it for reproduction in his volume on Greek and Roman mythology (Vol. I of The Mythology of All Races, edited by Dr. Louis H. Gray and published by the Marshall Jones Company of Boston), and it is from this publication that we have taken it for the frontispiece of our present issue. The statue has been thus described by Miss G. M. A. Richter in her account of the Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

"He is springing forward, lightly poised on the toes of his right foot. The left arm is extended forward and holds the socket of a torch; the right is lowered and held obliquely from the body with fingers extended. He is nude and winged, the feathers of the wings being indicated on the front side by incised lines. His hair is curly and short, except for one tuft which is gathered about the center of the head and braided.

"This famous statue is one of the finest representations of Eros known. The artist has admirably succeeded in conveying the lightness and grace associated in our minds with the conception of Eros. Everything in the figure suggests rapid forward motion; but this is attained without sacrificing the perfect balance of all parts, so that the impression made is at the same time one of buoyancy and of restraint. The childlike character of the figure is brought out in the lithe, rounded limbs and the smiling, happy face."

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES.

Krieg dem Kriege is the title of a collection of German poems by W. L. Rosenberg of Cleveland, Ohio. The author, in this little volume of 188 pages, dwells for the most part, though not altogether, on the subject of war, especially the present war, and the tendency of his sentiment is toward the cosmopolitan and the universally human. In one poem Sir Edward Grey is criticized. "England's 'Holy Duty" is the satirical title of another. "The German People" is characterized as a nation that has been forced into the war, and which fights for liberty and the reestablishment of peace. In "A Colloquy of the Czar in Tsarskoye Selo" the Czar receives news of the horrors of the battle of Tannenberg, where a whole army is driven into the swamps of Masuria; but such a little accident does not ruffle a Czar. The poem ends thus:

"Es war eben diesmal ein klein Malheur,
Et cela ne touche pas un empereur."

"The Two Brigades" describes the death-ride of two Russian cavalry brigades into the German lines, where they meet a tragic end. Following this is a poem telling the romance of two Russian lovers, in which a young lieutenant is followed by his sweetheart who in the disguise of a soldier acts as his attendant. Faithful to the end they meet death together on the battlefield, where the German surgeon discovers in the dying soldier a woman with a picture of the dead lieutenant by her side. There is a poem dedicated to the memory of the Social Democrat member of the German Reichstag, Dr. Ludwig Frank. He joins the army, not for the Kaiser but for the German people-the people that is surrounded by envious enemies. On page 15 we find a poem in the