laughed, the Kupenick robbery. A certain crook who had been a soldier
and was familiar with the drill and the passwords, obtained possession
of an old captain's uniform, walked into a provincial town of some
importance, ordered the first company of soldiers he met to follow
him, and then with that retinue, appeared before the town hall and
demanded of the mayor the keys of the treasury. These were surrendered
without question and he escaped with the money, representing, of
course, that he had orders from the Imperial government. It never
occurred to any one to question a soldier in full uniform, and it was
only some days later, when the town accounts were sent to Berlin to be
approved, that the robbery was discovered.

Such a thing could by no possibility have happened in England or with
us; the town treasurer would at once have demanded his authority, his
order from the civil authorities; the uniform would have failed to
impress him. Moreover, under our local self-government, under our
decentralized system, nobody is _above_ even a town officer, or a
State or city official at the head of his department, however small it
be, except the courts. State officers may not command town officers,
nor Federal officers State officers; nor soldiers give orders to
policemen. The president, the governor, may perhaps remove them; but
that is all. And even the policeman acts at his peril, and may be sued
in the ordinary courts, if he oversteps his authority. The notion that
a free citizen has a right absolutely to question his constraint by
any State officer is peculiar to the English and American people, and
this cannot be too often repeated; for it is what foreigners simply
fail to understand. And it rests on this chapter in the Great Charter,
originally, as amplified and explained by the courts and later acts of
Parliament, such, as the Habeas Corpus Act. If a man is arrested by
any official, that person, however great, has to justify the arrest.