Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-04-28
Germany'S State of Mind.

Efforts to forecast the ending of the war, with
any degree of accuracy, on a basis of financial and
economic exhaustion have been altogether unsuc-
cessful. II was predicted at the outset that the
tremendous strain upon the capital of the bellig
erents and the fearful destruction of wealth would
make the conflict inevitably brief. Yet, after
" eighteen months of stress and havoc such as
we're unimagined in the summer of 1914, there is
no convincing evidence that either side is on the
verge OF surrender from mpOvershment or starva-
ton Indeed the economic resources of the Allies
are Just now fully organized and those of Ger
many while presumably ebbing, have not reached
the point of fatal shadows and mseries."
Berlin denounces the British blockade as an
inhumane plan to starve civilians and noncombat-
ants and on that plea attempts justify lawless
and barbarous campaign of submarine war. But
at the same time Chancellor Won Bethmann-Holl-
veg declares that the Empire has ample supply
of food necessaries and that far this aspect
of the struggle is concerned the German people are
capable of indefinite resistance. Evidently, they
have been constrained to unusual and even severe
measures of frugaity but there is wide difference
between rigid self denial and the pinch of actual
hunger. Prof. J. Laurence Laughlin, head of the
department of political economy in the University
of Chicago observes in this connection that al
though the enforced giving up of luxuries COM
forts may give rise to loud grumblings, it will not
in itself directly reduce the ability of nation to
continue war.
The habituaI coffee drinker,' he says,
may not be able 70 have coffee for breakfast;
many may have to give up butter or jam on
their bread; habitual meat eaters may be very
largely cut off from meat; the woman of
society may not only fail TO get the color
effects in her dress, but even may be cut from
buying new clothes; the heavy income tax may
nd
reduction in servants. But the war will not
thereby be stopped. So far as noncombatants
are concerned, the war can on as long as
they and the laboring classes in particular
can satisfy only their primary wants.
1t is doubtful, indeed, that economic pressure
alone would force country to surrender
until the point was reached where these primary
wants could not be satisfied. 1t should be remem-
bered therefore, that although prices in the Cen
trail Empires have risen seventS-fve and one hun
bred per cent despite government regulation, that
although their paper currency has deprecated stead
lily in purchasing power, that although the mass of
the people are suffering deprivations and some of
them positive hardshps, these circumstances with
in themselves do not spell exhaustion and defeat
But as Prof. Laughlin aptly notes, such condi-
tions may lead to a state of mind in which the
power of endurance and resistance is fatally weak
ened. This is a psychological rather than an
economic question" And evidences are not lack
ing that German restlessness grows as the regime
of privation tightens and month after month goes
by with no sign OF ultimate victory in the field.
There is good reason believe that the desperate
and sacrifciaI onslaught upon Verdun under
taken primarily in the hope of reminding the
fdence Of a people whose hearts we're Swallowed in
doubt and whose questioning became more and
more darkly insistent. That desperate adventure
having failed what will be Germanys state of mind
as the months crowd on, and war that was ex-
pected to be brief and glorious offensive becomes
a smothering ordeal for the Teutonic Powers?
There lies Germany's peculiar peril. She
plunged into the war confident that few, swift,
mighty strokes would bring the end. For years
and decades past, her military leaders had cacu-
lated on that basis. They never imagined the
struggle lasting eighteen months or two years
three years. From the outset they nursed the pop
ular mind in brilliant expectations. The people
looked for conclusive victory long ago. They now
realize the emptiness of their dream. They
we're fed upon hopes of huge and glitterng tributes
to be paid by a conquered foe; instead, they find
their own tax burden increasing and likely to be-
come heavier and heavier in the future They
were promised royal triumphs; they experience
ing beggarly privation. The Teutonc people are
as capable of any of high sacrifice and heroic
durance. but those stern virtues would come more
easily now, had Prussian militarism been less am
bilious and candid at the outset. 1t is not the
hardships they must endue but the illusions from
which they have been awakened that .darken the
consciousness of the German people.
England continues to demonstrate that large
navy is still the best protection country have.