Poultney on Wilhelm

Two old men who played together occasionally as lads and have both retired to chop wood for amusement are Wilhelm II, 67, and Poultney Bigelow, 71, eccentric U. S. journalist-lecturer. While the onetime Kaiser fells a modest cord or two each year in Doorn, Mr. Bigelow is indefatigable as a log and kindling splitter at his 120-year-old rustic abode, "Bigelow Homestead," in Malden-on-Hudson, N. Y. (TIME, Feb. 22). Time was when his father, John Bigelow, was U. S. Ambassador at Paris; and young Poultney is said to have paddled the first U. S. canoe that ever skimmed through the Iron Gates of the Danube. Nowadays, however, he putters and chops in a fur-eared cap; and, like Wilhelm II, is writing his autobiography. Recently, as one autobiographer to another, Poultney Bigelow reviewed the onetime Kaiser's latest work,* wrote of him as follows: "It was William II's good fortune to know in his youth only pure women and clean, brave, loyal, highly educated men. . . . The mob howls at the Kaiser as our people did at the President of the late Confederate States [Jefferson Davis]. . . Each was charged with cowardice for seeking to make his escape. The same people would probably have said the same thing of Napoleon I, when he abandoned his troops in the Russian winter of 1812, or when he took refuge in the arms of England after the loss of Waterloo. It is a matter between these rulers and their conscience whether or not it had been better for Napoleon to have blown his brains out after his defeat by Wellington or for Davis to have done the same when Richmond fell. Brave men rarely question another's courage, particularly at such a moment as the downcrash of an empire. I have known many men of moral and physical courage--but none more personally chivalrous and brave than the now exiled Kaiser." Not content with this panegyric of Wilhelm II, Mr. Bigelow paused to eulogize the onetime Kaiser's grandsire, Wilhelm I: "He was a grand old monarch, that first Emperor William--Der Greise Kaiser as his people fondly called him. Nor can I recall without emotion how myself and other boys of my age, whether American or German--how proud we were when privileged merely to see his venerable form when he might be walking in the park. But when we were so fortunate as to catch his eye and have our salutation returned with a smile of ineffable charm, then our joy knew no bounds and we ran home to brag about it." Amused commentators recalled that while Wilhelm I was known as Der Greise Kaiser, "The Aged Emperor," his grandson Wilhelm II won by his incessant gadding about Europe the nickname Der Reise-Kaiser "The Tourist Emperor" or literally "The Trip Emperor."

*My Early Life--William II--Doran, ($5).