-who was killed in the Richmond fights-said of this to me, that Hill was like a certain character in a novel of Scott, if I remember rightly, whose words were always believed until the listener looked at him.

I believe that the language of Hill's speeches was a mixture of premeditated and ex tempore expression. I often noted in him when listening to an adversary to whom he was to reply that his brow was knit, his eyes glazed, and all his manner showed that he was in the throes of composition, difficult only because he had to listen at the same time. At these times he seemed to be in pain. Once I said to him, "Uncle Benjamine," as I used to call him affectionately, "don't think so hard. It will give you the headache." The interruption irritated him a little, but he showed good will in his tone when he replied, "O, John, let me alone now." But I could never detect where the premeditated sentences commenced and ended. His art in joining what he had thought out beforehand with that which he thought out while on his legs, was perfect. To understand this wonderful double gift, note his fine written style, and the little trouble which it seemed to give him. Toombs told John I. Hall that Hill could both outwrite and outspeak Cicero.

His written style-perhaps it is seen at its best in the "Notes on the Situation"-is almost exactly like that of his reported speeches. The reader will note its tricks of antithesis, and of emphasis, and the shine and glitter of its plain words. It is deserving of close study by one who would acquire effective off-hand speech.

He had some weaknesses and defects. When a junior would start a suggestion of new testimony or a new law point, he would at once try to take it out of the junior's mouth. I never knew his anticipation to be right. Very different was Toombs. He was all attention and silence, until you had got about half done. Then his comment would show that he had accurately completed your communication.

Hill was very prone to over-state the favorable testimony, and to under-state-nay, mis-state-the unfavorable. To me he was very conspicuously different from Akerman, Linton Stephens, and Toombs in this respect. Those of us who had

grown up in the northern circuit had been trained to be so fair in statement of evidence that any one would permit his adversary to tell his side for him, either in an agreed case or a brief of evidence.

Usually Hill was very ready in emergencies, but I have seen him show extraordinary helplessness at times.

How he hesitated and showed weakness in his great reply January 11, 1876, to Blaine, when the latter interrupted him and inquired as to a resolution relating to prisoners which Hill, while senator of the Confederate States, had introduced! As Toombs said to me with some show of vexation, Hill ought to have disposed of the matter as soon as Blaine stated the resolution, by saying, "What if I did introduce such a resolution? It did not pass, therefore it cannot be, as you are trying to make it, proof of cruelty by the Confederate Government to Union prisoners."

I must agree with Joe Brown's saying that Ben Hill's judgment was bad. His visionary cotton planting just after the war, in which his son says that he lost a quarter of a million, is a proof. That address to the people of Georgia, already commented on, is another proof. In the consultation room just before the trial of a touch-and-go case, he was far inferior to Toombs, also to Linton Stephens, in suggesting the proper line of conduct.

He was merely a tactician. Let me distinguish by comparing Jackson and Longstreet. The former, even when away from Lee, always made wise moves. The latter, as instanced by his Knoxvillle campaign, was not made for independent command. Yet, when Lee could support his flanks, he would resistlessly brush away the most formidable force in his front.

Ben Hill was, I say, a mere tactician, though one of the most superb. What surprising victories he won! Remember the Metcalf case, his overthrow of Toombs and Linton Stephens in the Georgia Railroad Convention, his defeat of A. H. Stephens at Lexington. A hundred others might be mentioned.

What a marvel of a speaker he was! I have heard Thomas R. R. Cobb, A. H. Stephens and Robert Toombs, each one

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at his best. If opportunity were now given me to have a phonographic record made of that one of all the speeches which I have ever heard that in my judgment was the best model, and that would stand the highest in American oratory, I would select for that record Ben Hill's Bush Arbor speech.

That speech, except a few imperfectly reported fragments, is lost, and so many of his other great speeches are lost. But there is imperishable record of much of his greatness. The book by his son, Benjamin Harvey Hill, Jr., entitled "Senator Benjamin H. Hill, of Georgia, His Life, Speeches and Writings," is an enduring monument. The memoir is no better nor worse than an average memoir by a son. But the speeches and the writings are invaluable. And the memorial addresses, the tributes of the press, the poems called forth by his death, and the proceedings at the unveiling of his statue are likewise profitable and inspiring. This book ought to be daily accessible to every aspiring young man, not only in Georgia, but in the entire Union.

Some German Criticisms of America

BY WILLIAM H. WANNAMAKER,

Professor of German in Trinity College

For one great nation to be ignorant of another is most deplorable, and yet it is the rule rather than the exception. False judgments, ill timed criticism, outspoken condemnation are the result, and these unfortunately are cherished in the memory of the ill treated nation, where they rankle and grow with feeding on themselves. All the more regrettable is this false attitude when the nations concerned are in the forefront of civilization and keen rivals for commercial supremacy in the markets of the world. For bitterness caused by unfair, ignorant criticism and a failure to recognize aims and ideals striven for, may easily be fanned into glowing anger by real or supposed unfairness in trade, and result in disastrous war. Furthermore, it blinds each people to the soul of the other and the great and good of the one does not become a part of the spiritual food of the other.

Germany and the United States sustain to each other the attitude I have just indicated. No two nations of the earth need more to know the truth about each other, no two so closely affiliated by the ties of blood and of business are so ignorant of each other; no two could help each other so much. In many ways these nations are supplements of each other; one has just what the other has not and both need what they lack. And yet in both countries the notion is deep set that by nature they are enemies and that the advancement of the one must be at the cost of the other.

Of late, especially since the visit of Prince Henry to this country, much has been written by Germans regarding America and the Americans, and much of it, so far as I can judge, has done more harm than good. In this country, too, there is no lack of reading material about our great rivals on the other side of the ocean, but I have yet to find the book that reveals to us the soul of the people who gave the world a Luther, a Kant, a Goethe, a Beethoven, a Wagner or even a Frederick

or a Bismarck. In this age of commercialism-and I do not condemn it-I think it is not unwise to remember that each nation attempts to do more than trade, and to bring ourselves to seek in the other for that which we can bless, rather than

curse.

Realizing the great good that would come from a truer knowledge of the American nation, among the Germans, Ludwig Max Goldberger and Wilhelm von Polenz, both earnest men of fine spirit, have published in book form the results of their study of our nation.* They have the titles, "Land of Unlimited Possibilities," and "Land of the Future." These books have been widely read in Germany and have not been written in vain. They are also well known in this country, but have not perhaps received-especially the work of von Polenz-the attention they merit. This may be due to the fact that Prof. Münsterberg's "American Traits" somewhat supplied their place. And so I have thought it not unwise to give for the general reader the substance of the unfavorable criticism of us that occurs in these books. For the authors measure us by their standards, and where they find us weak they must think their nation strong. Hence it would be well for us to study them from the same standpoint and make good our failings-if they are failings. I should like to say emphatically that both books contain many flattering criticisms of us and that both men are generous in their recognition of our excellencies. I think I need not repeat these, for as a nation we are perhaps well enough informed on our virtues.

Of the two books, that by von Polenz is decidedly the more thoughtful. He has studied us from all points of view, while Goldberger has concerned himself almost entirely with a study of the American business and commercial world.

+What, then, are some of the most striking characteristics

"Das Land der unbegrenzten Moeglichkeiten," Ludwig Max Goldberger, Berlin, 1904.

"Das Land der Zukunft," Wilhelm von Polenz, Berlin, 1904.

†The writer does not pretend to translate exactly from the originals, though at times the translation is fairly literal. Quotation marks are therefore omitted throughout.