Hospital, the largest civilian hospital in New York City.

The American hospital is a model city in itself, and it is to remain in France after the American Army has been withdrawn, as a permanent memorial to the co-operation of the two republics in this war. Its facilities will be able to care for about 30,000 French patients when the Americans have left. Instead of being a single hospital, this vast institution became a series of ten hospitals, each able to care for more than 2,000 patients, while the big convalescent camp, capable of caring for more than 5,000 patients, became also a baseball field, a football gridiron, and a general sports centre to aid in the rehabilitation and convalescence of wounded men. Each of these units had its own administration buildings, kitchens, mess halls, bathhouses, operating rooms, laboratories, officers' and nurses' barracks, in addition to twenty separate buildings for patients.

One of the units in the institution is a laundry capable of doing all the work for 30,000 persons, and since it was started it has been doing the work for approximately that number. In addition to the work for its staff and patients of about 15,000 in December, 1918, it served the wooden barracks hospital near

Beaune, where about 17,000 patients were being cared for. The estimate of Lieut. Col. Henry Keep, who planned the work, was that all the units of this institution, including the laundry, at the prices of labor and materials in the United States, would have cost $6,000,000.

All the work was done by the American Army engineers who directed the construction of the other army buildings in France, and their force of men comprised about 5,000 American negro troops, with some French civilian labor and some Chinese. Railways were run to the tract and concrete mixers were kept going day and night until the last unit was finished.

Each of the ten units of the hospital has a staff of about thirty officers of the American Medical Corps, ninety-six nurses, and 200 enlisted men of the Army Medical Corps or the Sanitary Corps. The units have their own commanding officers and surgical staffs, but the entire hospital is under the direction of Colonel Clarence J. Manly of the Army Medical Corps, who has his own staff of surgeons and inspectors. He has been in the service more than twenty years.

April, 1919.

A

Berlin, April 3, 1890.

My Dear Friend: In view of the intimate and cordial friendship which unites our countries, and chiefly both of us, and in view of the great confidence which you have always shown specially to me, I regard it as my duty to give you frankly and clearly a confidential survey of the development and final accomplishment of the retirement of Prince von Bismarck. I do it all the more gladly because it is almost impossible for an outside observer to extract a palpable and intelligible kernel from the confusion of the assumptions and conjectures of the press, coupled with semi-official and demi-semi-official entrefilets. My account professes to be only a simple description or collation of facts, without polemics or criticism, which I leave to you. I will say at once in advance that it was no question of foreign policy which was the occasion of differences of opinion between the Prince and me, but purely internal, and, for the most part tactical, points of view.

When the coal strike broke out in May of last year, and quickly assumed great dimensions, threatening the whole State in its entire

economic life, naturally, after the usual measures of safety had been taken by the dislocation of troops and so on, investigations were set on foot as to its causes. In the State Ministry there were deliberations as to which for the time being I did not trouble myself, while I, through my friend-and especially through my tutor, Privy Councilor Hinzpeter, who is a Westphalian and lived on the spot-had inquiries and researches made as to the relation of employer to workman, condition of industry, and so on. Soon, however, the Ministers begged me to come to the deliberations, as the Prince was quite intractable and the negotiations were not moving a step forward.

I appeared and took part. It at once appeared that the Prince took up a standpoint diametrically opposed to that of myself and

the Ministers. He wanted the strike to rage and burn itself thoroughly out," without hindrance all over the country. He rejected every idea of intervention by the power of the State, and expressed the opinion that that was the business of our industry, which must be allowed to fight out its private feuds. I, on the contrary, was of the view that this movement had already gone beyond the bounds of the private conflict of a branch of industry, and was in agreement with the entire State Ministry that, if the affair was not quickly taken in hand by the King, endless injury and misfortune would befall the country. Accordingly, the old officials, whose loss of nerve had made the confusion still greater, were dismissed and replaced by the best initiated forces. As soon as that had been done, I received the workmen's and the mine owners' deputations with the success of which you know. This enterprise, too, was disapproved by the Prince, who obviously went even further and further on to the side of the big industrials and regarded the workmen's movement as in part even revolutionary and as a wholly unjustifiable one, which must be checked and cured only by blood and iron, that is to say, with cartridges and repeating rifles.

A LABOR QUARREL

After the close of this affair the Prince retired into the country, where he remained eight or nine months, till Jan. 25 of this year. During this period he had as good as no intercourse with the country, and in connection with the suggested protection of labor only had touch with old Kommerzienrat Baare-one of our biggest employerswho was the most sworn enemy of this idea. This time I employed to have material assembled as to legislation for the protection of the workmen, got myself posted up from all sides as to the position of the workmen, their possible and impossible desires, got into touch with the Reichstag through its heads, and so on. In the Autumn I reached the clear perception and conviction that time was precious, and peremptorily demanded an early dealing with the law for the protection of the workmen ; that the Social Democrats must not be allowed to steal a march on us and inscribe this affair on their banners, as, according to precise information, they intended to do. Consequently, in the course of the Autumn and down to January, on three different occasions, I had the Prince first begged, then requested, and finally informed that it was

my wish that he should take in hand a bill to amend the law with regard to workmen's protection and lay before me an order for publication. He refused this three times in a very curt way; he didn't want it, and was opposed to it in principle, and there was nothing to be done.

Thereupon I sat down and in two nights worked out a memorandum, which gave a description of the conditions of our industry in historical form, and at the same time indicated a series of the chief points which, in the view of all, contained the chief evils that must at once be tackled by legislation. As soon as I had finished the work I called a Ministerial Council and the Prince from Friedrichsruh. During this time were taking place in the Reichstag the debates on the Socialist law, which were very unedifying, and during which the Kartell parties, driven by the unbending stubbornness of the Chancellor, went into opposition. They had undertaken to carry the bill for him if he would have it announced that the expulsion clause would be "taken into consideration -not abandoned. On Jan. 25 I held the Council of the Ministers of State and developed my views with the aid of my memorandum, and I closed with the wish that the Ministry should, under the Chairmanship of the Chancellor, deliberate my points, including that with respect to the calling of an international conference, and then submit to me two rescripts about it for publication. A discussion followed, in which the Prince at once emphasized anew his hostile attitude of the Spring, and described the whole affair as impracticable. The Ministers were so terrified of him that none of them would express themselves on the subject. Finally I came also to the expulsion clause in the Socialist law, which was to be passed or thrown out on the following day, and most earnestly begged the Prince to make it easy for the Government parties, and to save the Reichstag from such a miserable close with a discord, by holding out a prospect, at the final vote, of the clause being taken into consideration"; at the same time mentioning that I had been directly and most earnestly petitioned to that effect by men true to King and Government.

"FLUNG HIS RESIGNATION"

As answer he flung-it pains me to use the expression-his resignation at my feet in the most disrespectful manner and with harsh (dürren) words. The Ministry kept silence, and left me in the lurch. Naturally, I did not grant his request. The Prince had his way, the law was rejected, and, amid general embitterment and discontent, of which an assortment came my way, on the grounds of (unter der firma) slackness, &c., the Reichstag broke up, to spread these feelings through the country as a preparation for the new elections. The direct consequences of

this we now see before us in their fullest

scope.

Naturally, I did not accept. From that moment you can probably appreciate my deep pain, as I was obliged to realize that the Prince did not wish to go my way. For me there now began an awful time. While the rescripts were being discussed he tried to introduce all sorts of other matters, and continually irritated the Ministers. When he finally brought the two rescripts for signature, he told me he was absolutely opposed to them, that they would mean misfortune and destruction for the Fatherland, and that he advised against them. If, notwithstanding, I should sign them, he would only cooperate in this policy so long as he could reconcile that with his views; if that was impossible he would go. The rescripts were published, and the enormous success which they had taught the completely astonished Prince that he had been quite in the dark (auf einem Holzwege,) that his whole opposition had been useless, and that I had been in the right.

And now came the preparation for the invitation to the conference, the calling of the Council of State under my Chairmanship. He at once commenced against me a petty coulisse war, not always carried on with honorable means, which grieved me most bitterly, but which I accepted tranquilly. On the one hand, I was too proud to descend to that; on the other, I still had too much love for the man I had idolized. Soon, however, conflicts became more numerous in all quarters. He suddenly prevented the Ministers from reporting to me direct, by dragging out an order which had been buried for thirty years and forgotten. He took from the Imperial Secretaries of State all their work, and wanted to do and countersign everything himself. At the same time, his health got worse from week to week, he could no longer sleep. his nerves gave way. He got convulsions of weeping at night, and even at audiences. His doctor declared that if this situation lasted another three weeks the Prince would die of a stroke.

Finally, toward the end of February, the Prince declared to me at an audience that, with his nerves and his health as they were, he could not go on any longer, and begged for partial relief from affairs. I begged him to make me proposals entirely in accordance with his will and wishes, as I wished to avoid even the appearance that I was sending him away or longed for his departure. After long negotiations, he came to an agreement with the chief of my Civil Cabinet, whom he had sought out for the purpose, that he would lay down the Presidency of the State Ministry and retain only the Chancellorship and the Foreign Office. A few weeks later he wished to give up that, too, and retire completely about Feb. 20 or the beginning of March. With a heavy heart I agreed to his proposals, and accordingly an order was drawn up in consonance with his own state

ments, and got ready with the exception of the date, the right to determine which he had reserved to himself.

He expressed himself completely satisfied with this solution, and told me that he would now communicate these facts to the Council of Ministers. Two days later he came to report, and told me in curt words, to my astonishment, that he was not even thinking of going-that he would remain. As ground, he replied to my surprised question, that the Ministry of State had not, on learning of his departure, at once begged him to stay in all circumstances, and that the gentlemen, at the same time, had made "too delighted faces." From this he had concluded that the gentlemen wanted to get rid of him, and the old spirit of opposition had revived in him; and he would now certainly stay "only to annoy the Ministers." So he closed. I could only answer that I was very glad to know that he was still at my side, but hoped that the increasing burden of work and excitement would not injure his health.

THE STRUGGLE BEGUN

From that day the struggle broke loose. At every audience the Prince attempted to dismay the gentlemen whom he had himself selected twelve years ago and trained, and attempted to force on me a mass dismissal, which I did not acquiesce in. The time of the conference was approaching, and he tried, by all the means of diplomacy, to prevent it from taking place. When at last the sittings of the Council of State passed off brilliantly, and the minutes showed conclusively that with my above-mentioned memorandum I had hit the nail on the head, envy of his poor young Emperor overcame him, and he decided to destroy his successes.

He attempted first, behind my back, to induce individual diplomats to report home against the conference, and finally tried to persuade the Swiss Minister, Dr. Arnold Roth, to request the Berne Government not to abandon its conference in my favor, so that my conference might collapse. The Swiss, a fine, honest fellow, who accidentally is a good acquaintance of mine, disgusted at such treacherous, unpatriotic conduct toward the German Emperor, telegraphed at once to the Berne Government that if the official abandonment of the Swiss Conference was not in his hands within twelve hours he would retire, but would also say why. The next morning the desired announcement was there, and my conference was saved.

As this plan had failed, the Prince flung himself upon another. The new Reichstag had been elected; he was disgusted with the elections, and wanted to smash it up (sprengen) as soon as possible. For that the Socialist law was again to serve. He proposed

to me that a fresh and still more drastic Socialist law should be introduced; it would be rejected by the Reichstag, which he would then dissolve. The nation was already excited; out of irritation the Socialists would

get up riots, there would be revolutionary turmoils, and then I was to shoot into it all without any nonsense (ordentlich dazwischen schiessen) and let the cannon and rifles play. Thereby-that was his secret intention -the conference of the labor protection law would be lost, and, as an election manoeuvre or a Utopia, would be for long rendered impossible.

I did not acquiesce, but declared straight out that that was impossible advice to give a young neophyte King-who was under all kinds of suspicions-that he should answer the petitions and wishes of his laboring subjects with quick-firers and cartridges. At that he was very angry; declared that it must come to shooting in the end, and therefore the sooner the better, and if I would not do it, then he gave in his resignation then and there. There I was again faced with a crisis. I sent for the leaders of the Kartell parties and put to them the question whether or not I should bring in a Socialist law and smash up the Reichstag. Unanimously they declared themselves in the negative. They said that the rescripts and the Council of State were already having a tranquilizing effect, and the conference would do the same. There was no question of riots or revolutionary movements, and the labor protection legislation would be passed like play by the Reichstag, which would behave quite sensibly if the bills laid before it were not too extreme. They empowered me to repeat this to the Prince as the opinion of their electors, and to warn him against any provocation (Brüskierung) with Socialist bills, as he would not get a single vote for them.

The Prince came, and, full of anxiety as to the issue of the conversation, I let him know that I could not accede to his wish to bring in the law. Thereupon he declared that the whole thing was a matter of indifference to him. And if I didn't want to introduce the law there was an end of it. The whole attitude which he had taken up toward me in this matter only a few days earlier had vanished from his memory. And he let drop like a trifle an affair over which he had kept the Ministers, me, and the Government parties in the greatest excitement for four weeks, and for the sake of which he wanted to dismiss Ministers and conjure up conflicts.

UNPARALLELED EXCITEMENT

Through these machinations and intrigues, friction, and eggings-on in all possible spheres, also through the failure of his little embassades," the Prince had got into an unparalleled state of excitement. The Ministers had to put up with outbursts of anger and rudeness of the grossest kind till they refused to work any further. Affairs stood still and accumulated; nothing more was completed. No project, however great its urgency, could be laid before me, as direct reports were forbidden to the Ministers. N. B.-Behind my back. Everything had to be submitted to him, and what he didn't

want he simply rejected and prevented from being brought to me. There arose in the circles of officialdom a general discontent, which even spread to Parliamentary circles. Moreover, I received through my body physician news of the great anxiety of his doctor that the Prince was in such a state that he was approaching a complete collapse, which would end with nerve fever and a stroke. All attempts my in any way to procure the Prince relief by greater participation in affairs he interpreted as attempts to force him out. Gentlemen and councilors whom I sent for fell, for that reason, into disgrace with him, and came under the suspicion of intriguing against him.

Finally it came to a crash, the accumulated electricity was discharged on my guilty head." The Prince, fired by the love of conflict and guided by the motives adduced above, prepared on the quiet, and to the dismay of all the initiated, and in spite of my opposing orders, a campaign against the new Reichstag. All were to be irritated and whipped. First, the Kartell parties tramped, and then the Socialists annoyed, till the whole Reichstag went up into the air, and H. M. was compelled, nolens volens, to shout. Add to that the interview with Windthorst, arranged by the Jew, Bleichröder, which liberated a storm of indignation in the Fatherland, and which was semi-officially surrounded with a mystery that permitted all possible conclusions. Moreover, the attempt was made to raise the appearance that I had known about it and approved it, whereas I learned the fact only three days later through the newspapers and eager inquiries which I received from all sides.

STORM BREAKS LOOSE

When, three days after this affair, which was continually spreading, and began to have a very unpleasant aspect for the Prince, I had a meeting with him, he brought the talk around to Windthorst's visit, and represented it as if he had, as it were, unexpectedly appeared in his anteroom and surprised him. I had learned definitely, however, that Bleichröder had arranged this interview for him, with his consent. When I told the Prince this, and begged that he would inform me of such important matters by some kind of a billet or oral communication by a secretary, the storm broke loose. Without any regard for courtesy or consideration, he told me he would not allow himself to be kept by me in leading strings; that he forbade this once and for all; that I had no idea of parliamentary life; that in such things it was not my business to give him any kind of orders; and so on and so on. When he had at last worked off his rage I tried to make it clear to him that here there was no question of orders, but that what I wanted was not to learn afterward through the press of such im

portant steps-that in the end might have as a consequence for me binding decisions from which I could not escape-but to hear it from him, so that I could make my verse accordingly.

But it was no good. When I described to him what commotion and confusion this visit had caused among the people, still excited by the elections, and (suggested) that this could not be his intention, there escaped from him the following words: On the contrary, it is my intention. There must be such complete confusion and such a hullabaloo in the country that nobody knows what the Emperor is driving at with his policy." As I thereupon stated that that was not at all my intention, but that my policy must be open and as clear as daylight to my subjects, he declared that he had nothing more to say, and roughly flung his resignation at my feet. I did not react to this third scene in the course of six weeks, and passed over to the Council of Ministers and to the order by which he had prevented the direct reports. He declared that he did not trust "his" Ministers; they were, behind his back, bringing the things which "he" could not approve, and therefore he had had to teach them a lesson.

SEPARATION INEVITABLE

When I then pointed out to him that therein lay a grave insult to me, his so faithful and warmly affectionate sovereign, whom he accused of secret intrigues behind his back, he would not admit it. He would, however, if I demanded it, at once send me, in the course of the day, the order, so that it might be canceled; after all, it mattered nothing. When I once more-solely with the object of taking from the obviously seriously ill and nervously strained man a portion of his work and cares-begged him to let me share more in the business, and to initiate me and let me listen when important decisions were taken, he refused decisively, with the remark that he must have his resolutions already firmly fixed before he came to me.

In deep pain and with a sore heart I now saw clearly that the demon of the love of power (Herrschsucht) had seized this sublime great man, and that he used every matter, whatever its nature might be, for his struggle against the Emperor. He wanted to do everything and rule alone, and not even submit it to the Emperor. From that moment it was clear to me that we must part, if everything was not to be morally ruined and perish. God is my witness how many nights I wrestled in prayer, and entreated that the heart of this man might be softened, and that I might be spared the terrible end of letting him leave me. But it was not to be. As two days later the order had not been sent in by the Prince to be canceled, I had him asked if he would not send it. He replied that he would never think of doing so; he needed it against his " Ministers. There my patience gave way, my old Hohen