THE MAN OF THE HOUR IN GERMANY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13625, 19 December 1907, Page 7

THE MAN OF THE HOUR IN GERMANY.

MAXIMILIAN HARDEN, PURMER OF PUBLIC LIFE. Maximilian Harden, editor of the Zukunft, is the man of the hour in Germany, and lie is so because ho lias smashed a pernicious ring which surrounded the throne and hurled down from their high places titled, men of low degree with minds like satyrs. Count Kuno von Muitko tried to clear his reputation by bringing a libel action against Herr Harden, but the editor has been acquitted and the Count is ordered to pay tho costs of the trial. Hero aro some most interesting facts about Herr Harden, taken from the London Evening Standard: — ABOUT HERR HARDEN'S PAPER. " Maximilian Harden is the most talented contemporary political writer in Germany, and he exercises far-reaching influence through the Zukunft, which he founded 15 years ago, and has conducted with, conspicuous success since that time. " Week after week Herr Harden .treats a circle of readers drawn from the most intellectual and most critical classes in t Germany to brilliant essays on current affairs, written in an exquisite literary style peculiarly his own. Politically lie may be said to represent those German Imperialists who regard tho personal regime and policy of the present Emperor with disapproval, and there exists no more relentless critic of German foreign policy, as it has been conducted during the reign of the Kaiser, than Maximilian Harden. Week after week the editor of tho Zukunf pours satire and scorn on the German Government, on the Emperor's advisers, and on the bureaucrats, who, according to his belief, mismanage affairs in the Wilhelmstrasse, and there have been many occasions when his criticisms have proved justifiable arid his prophecies of failure, resulting from errors of policy, correct. CRITICISING THE KAISER. " Herr Harden has no sympathy with tho Social Democratic party, nor is ho a ' Little German'; ho advocates a strong" forward foreign policy in harmony with the feelings of 'National' Germans, but conducted by different methods from those now employed by the Kaiser and! his chosen advisers. "His criticisms of the Emperor have brought him into conflict with tho law of the land on three occasions; once he was acquitted and twice ho was sentenced to six months' detention in a fortress for leee-majeste. His stinging criticisms of bureaucratic blunders have provoked the enmity of many important and influential personages of the Empire, and Herr Harden is perhaps the best-hated man in Germany. On tho other hand, he has a host of warm admirers, who applaud his political activity, and regard him as the champion of efficiency. A REMARKABLE CAREER. " Maximilian Harden, now 46 years of age, has had a most romantic and chequered career. His father was a wealthy merchant, but domestic troubles parted the parents, and brought much misery upon the son, who, at 13 years of age, ran away from tho father to rejoin his mother. The all-powerful police arrested the boy and brought him back by main force, in Bpito of his desperate struggles, to , the, angry father. , , . • , .'., *~

" Young Maximilian was taken away from school and sent to work in" a merchant's office by way of punishment for his attachment to his mother, but on his fourteenth birthday he ran away from home at Breslau, and tramped several hundred miles to Berlin, living on the small sum of money in his possession. On the way and alter his arrival in the capital he slept many nights under hedges and hayricks, ■on the benches in the Berlin parks, and in other haunts of the homeless and destitute. ■ '-,', "Finally, he obtained employment in;, a touring theatrical company which presented melodramatic plays at fifth-rate theatres in the provinces, Having ascertained that his* father had enlisted the help of the police to trace and recapture him, the fugitive sort abandoned his real name Witkowski , and assumed the one which he now bears, and which was legalised with all the necessary formalities some years afterwards. " Embracing journalism as his profession, Herr Harden devoted himself at first to dramatic criticism, but soon drifted into political work. His letters to the review' Gegenwart, contributed under the pseudonym of "Apostata," attracted general attention, although it lasted several, years before the identity of the writer was discovered. ' \ : ' SUPPORTING BISMARCK. ■:" "After founding the Zukunft, Herr Harden espoused the v cause of Prince Bismarck (who had been driven from office a year or two previously) against the Emperor, who had suddenly dispensed! with the services of his greatest statesman. Bismarck, as is well known, conducted a bitter campaign against the 'new course' which the young Kaiser was - following, and Herr Harden was his most effective supporter in the press. .. ■ ,I',-V *"' " At this period there arose between the fallen statesman and the young writer a close friendship, which lasted, with 'one interval, till Bismarck's death. Herr Harden was a frequent visitor at 'Bismarck's country home at Fricdrichsruh, and spent many hours walking with tho creator 'of the German Empire through the surround-; ing forests and absorbing the fallen Chancellor's ideas on national and international affairs. "Three years after the Zukunft was founded Bismarck and. Harden quarrelled, and Bismarck repudiate in his organ, the Hamburger Nachrichten, all sympathy with the articles which Harden had contributed to tho Zukunft condemning the proposal to rovive exceptional coercive legislation ■to crush tho Socialist movement by repressive, measures. SUCCESS WHERE FOUR CHANCEL. LORS FAILED. "The dispute lasted more than a year, but the old friendship was renewed after Bismarck had sent a message to Herr Harden that in spite of their differences of opinion on political questions the editor of the Zukunft would again be wekomeid as. a visitor at Friedrichsruh. During hia long and brilliantly successful career as a politician and journalist, Herr Harden has' never achieved so great a triumph as his victory over the group of courtiers headed by the omnipotent Prince Philip Eulenburg. Four successive Chancellors of the German Bismarck, Caprivi, Hohenlohe, and {iulow— struggled in vain to overthrow this irresponsible adviser of the Crown, but none of them succeeded in doing what Herr Harden has accomplished."