The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1914-11-30
CLASS PREJUD|CES.
ARE BEING W|PED0UT
IN EUROPE IAN WAR
German Princelings Fight
Side by Side With Clerks.
Aristocrats In Ranks
NO REAL SHORTAGE
OF TROOPS IN BRITAIN
Where Pinch Comes Is In Lack of Of
ficers and Observation-Disclosures
able Maps and Plans at the
Buckingham Palace
BY E. l.. HEITKAMP

by E. l.. HEITxAMP
London, November 20.-(Special)
War is great ieveller. German
princelings are fighting in the line
with German clerks, the English aris-
tocracy, untutored in the ways of war.
are volunteering for service in the
ranks and are marching to their death
shoulder to shoulder with the sons of
the butchers, bakers and candlestick
makers And by no means the least
of all the revolutions in customs and
habits, British cabinet ministers are
shipping harmless and delightful tea
with the London correspondents Of the
leading American newspapers.
This official condescension is due
primarily to the happy thought and eff
fort of two Englishmen-St. Loe
strachey, editor of the Spectator. and
Harry Britain, founder and honorary
secretary of the Pilgrims. The weekly
teas at which the American newspaper
men are brought into fleeing but none
the less pleasant contact with the high
and mighty, were first held at the home
Of ST. Loe Strachey, but they have now
been transferred to the little old world
in quiet street behind Westminster
Abbey and the houses of Parliament.
There this week several of us met and
talked with Herbert Samuel, president
of the Board of Trade, and Walter
Runciman, president of the board of
agriculture. OF course these meetings
ere not arranged to furnish us with
any inside information, but rather to
give us a small bond of sympathy with
nh w
from week to week and whose efforts
in the way of government we are con-
stantly called upon to discuss and even
to criticise.
Some such movement has long been
wanted in England. Many of the edi-
tors of the London papers are personal
friends of certain members of the cabi-
net and because of their large part in
politics. are constantly being brought
into contact with holders of responsible
public positions. But for the American
correspondent nothing has been harder
AT critical moments than for him to
zach the men higher up, not neces-
rily for an expression of opinion, but
lher for authoritative information
would be useful in helping him
\ly to judge the trend of affairs.
only thus, of course, that corre-
ence can be made to serve its
lest usefulness
remember colleague who, not
by months ago. succeeded, not as a
kwspaper man but as an agent for the
time being of the United States gov
eminent, in reaching Sir Edward Grey.
NV colleague took the opportunity OF
telling the British foreign secretary
that he thought something ought to
be done in the way of making the
British heads of departments as ac-
ccssib1e to American newspaper men IN
London as are American government
officials, including even the President,
to British correspondents in Washing
ton. "You astonish me-" declared Sir
Edward, st never knew that American
correspondents wanted to talk to us
or that they had any difficulty in doing
SO IL they did"
No Real Shortage of Troops
Although many of the papers here
ore making a bother about the al
ltged lack of recruits you would be
we'll advised to accept their state
nients with caution. 1t Is prett, GER
tain that the British authorities have
about all the troops they can handle
and train for the time being. or
course. on the face of it,, one would
agree that 1t would be a fine and de-
sirable thing for the recruits to roll
ul their thousands every day, go
through their training with as little
delay as possible and take their places
in the firing line sometime early next
bring the war to a close. That say,
would be a fine thing from the British
viewpoint, although l am not at all
certain that it would please the Ger
msns
ever there are many considerations
that make it a much more complicated
matter than one would suppose. In the
first place there is woeful shortage
of officers to train the men, short
age that is becoming greater ano
greater as casualties at the front in
crease and the supply of officers II
England are drawn upon to make good
the wastage. Secondly, there Is bound
to be shortage even next spring, o.
equipment. Rifles. for instance. are
by no means plentiful. / was told BY
high German official before the
war started that full equipment. in
Gliding rifles, we're in storage In the
fatherland for about 100000 men
That may or may not be true, out II
Is probably a fact that Germany pre-
Jared much more thoroughly than any
OF the allies for "the inevitable war
OF course, it is easy to see the col.
ored man in the woodpile in all this
newspaper agitation about the alleged
cearth of recruits. Certain powerful
interests. who preached Consumption
many months before the war think th'
present time favorable to forcing the
hands of the government And 1T mus
be acknowledged by an onlooker tina
these same interests have been re
r1arkably successful in the past three
months in imposing their will upon thu
members of the cabinet and the wal
office They forced the government t
change their original and reasonable
attitude toward enemy aliens and com
PEELED the arrest of thousands OF NOR
ar less harmless Germans and Aus
TRANS, many of whom hadn't even cor
responded with Germany for man.
years. These same papers, before tn
war, declared that England was over
run by German spies who immediatel
,,nou the outbreak Of war would com
init all manner of outrages. Yet de
spite the fact that thousands OF Ger
n,ans walked England unmolested 10
waeI. after the outbreak of war, &C