POLITICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL

My commission read, "Ambassador to Germany."

It is characteristic of our deep ignorance of all foreign affairs
that I was appointed Ambassador to a place which does not exist.
Politically, there is no such place as "Germany." There are the
twenty-five States, Prussia, Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Saxony, etc.,
which make up the "German Empire," but there is no such political
entity as "Germany."

These twenty-five States have votes in the Bundesrat, a body
which may be said to correspond remotely to our United States
Senate. But each State has a different number of votes. Prussia
has seventeen, Bavaria six, Wurttemberg and Saxony four each,
Baden and Hesse three each, Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Brunswick
two each, and the rest one each. Prussia controls Brunswick.

The Reichstag, or Imperial Parliament, corresponds to our House
of Representatives. The members are elected by manhood suffrage of
those over twenty-five. But in practice the Reichstag is nothing
but a debating society because of the preponderating power of the
Bundesrat, or upper chamber. At the head of the ministry is the
Chancellor, appointed by the Emperor; and the other Ministers, such
as Colonies, Interior, Education, Justice and Foreign Affairs,
are but underlings of the Chancellor and appointed by him. The
Chancellor is not responsible to the Reichstag, as Bethmann-Hollweg
clearly stated at the time of the Zabern affair, but only to the
Emperor.