The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-06-29
William Bayard Hale Believes
Such To Be the Case.
GERMAN CROPS UNCERTAIN
If They Fail People viii De-
mand Submarine Activity.
Starving TeutOns Would Not
See England Well Fed.
BY WILLIAM BAYARD HALE.


Berlin, June 29.-Does peace in the
United States depend on the weather
in Europe?
This question is perhaps an over
sure formulation of a distressing inn
a succession of rainy days which have
made the present the coolest June
Germany has ever known.
Happily for Germany. the sun has
returned in his strength. There is in
fact no special danger of the failure
of the seasons crops. The grain is
standing everywhere tall and thick
and If the law of compensation holds,
the sunshine that may naturally be
expected in July will mature a splen-
did harvest.
Yet in the minds of many dark
thoughts were raised, as during the
past month anxious eyes were Il Led
toward the skies which withheld their
ripening warmth, and to the con-
seriousness of all was ought wildly
home the contrast between nation
dependent upon its own soil and
benign weather and its enemy able to
draw supplies of food from the wheat
fields of the world
Should Worst Come.
The danger is that should the un-
toward weather indeed continue, there
might arise popular clamor for
resumption of submarine activity
which the government might find ex-
tremely difficult to resist. 1t would
be a great deal to expect of a people
actually feelingthe pinch of insufficient
food that they should view with
equanimity the procession of ships
carrying to British ports the lie sus-
tanning grain of the United States and
Canada while their government pos
sessed and refrained from using a
means of preventing that food from
reaching the enemy.
And even now, with the danger of
serious food shortage exceedingly re-
mote it is evident that the question
of the submarine policy has not been
fully and finally settled. 1t is evident
that powerful considerations and in
fluences are at work to reopen the
discussion before the American wheat
begins in midsummer to move across
the Atlantic.
People Want Action.
The last paragraph of the German
government note may never in Ger
many have been regarded as a threat.
That note did not say that should the
government of the United States not
succeed in. securing respect for the
laws of humanity at the hands of the
British government, the German gov
eminent would then recede from the
concessions it had made to the sem
timent of the United States. The note
only said that in such "A case, the
German government would then be
facing a new situation in which it
must reserve to itself complete liberty
of decision The distinction of reced-
ing from the concessions and receding
the whole position is kept explicitly in
mind here.
Now the German government Off
cially may not be, but the German
people apparently are receding from
the position. It is with no little hest
tation and only a matter of news
of highest Importance which cannot
be ignored without prejudice to the
honesty and candor SO necessary to
any understanding between nations
that I send this dispatch. 1t is due to
everybody concerned that the people
in the United States should be in
formed that the submarine question is
far from being closed.