MAXMILIAN HARDEN.

Shannon News, 22 November 1927, Page 3

MAXMILIAN HARDEN.

THE PEN AND THE SWORD. Maximilian Harden is dead. ; He was perhaps the most influential journalist; in Europe before the war, and in many ways he illustrated the old aphorisn?\ that "the pen is mightier than the sword' * (wi4#es "Bystander".in the Auckland Star)- Not all the junkers and field-marshals in Berlin could terrorise Harden. In his "Zukunft,' one of the most fantastic, violent, able, and readable of modern journals, he constantly defied, the "Kaiser, and, though he was himself a great devotee of force at heart, he continually criticised the great landowners, the soldiers, and the "new rich" who frequented the Kaiser's society, and challenged ;> them to do their worst against him. He Certainly did spend some time in gaol, but his enemies got much the worst ot the contest. Almost single-handed he <r broke" Prince Eulenburg, the millionaire degenerate who was the Kaiser's nearest friend, and-, drove other members of the "camarilla" which ruled the German Court to ruin and even to suicide. /When thd war came, like an honest man, he avowed openly _ and courageously that Germany had willed and prepared the war, and that it was her Tight and duty to put her foes beneath her feet and despoil them ot their possessions. But when the downfall came he modified his views, and in his last book, three years ago, \he advocated a friendly understanding tween Germany and France as the best guarantee for the world's future.. In spite of his extravagant and erratic manner, he was not only an able but a brave and honest man, and he deserved far more gratitude from Germany than he ever received.