Imperial Valley press., 1918-12-09

Certainly the harvests just gathered must
give the German people some food reserves, if
they were expected to carry the army and the
civilian population through another year OF
war.
We have a suspicion that the cause of the
present German uneasiness is not food starva-
ton, but industrial starvation 1t is probable
not so much things to eat as things to feet the
idle machines throughout Germany that IS CIV
ing the new government its greatest concern
The supply of raw materials that was NOV
forward in an even regular manner on an exact
schedule before the war has been entirely stop
ped. Certain metals. cotton, wool, and great
variety of raw materials are essential to indus
trial activity in Germany. From east to west
and from north to south the machines through
out the Fatherland are covered with cobwebs.
Not only that, but the German people, including
the soldiers who are returning. are learning OF
the hate that exists throughout the world for
the German nation and the German people who
have conducted this frightful war.
In the first place they must get their supply
of raw materials started and in the second place
they must begin the slow, arduOuS process of
making friends with the people of the world.
If made in Germany is badge to provoke
immediate antagonism, something besides Ger
man propaganda must be employed to relieve
the tense feeling of resentment and loathing that
has been built up by four years of the most
vicious methods of warfare written down on the
records of the worlds historian
To excite pity is something to wipe out hate
If the people of the world might believe that
the German people were actually facing starva-
ton there would undoubtedly be less protest
aginst supplying them with raw materials.
This cry for food may be an honest cry and
it may be an ingenious method of placing the
German people at the mercy of the world and
pleading for help.
We shall Jump to no conclusions in a matter
of sucsh Importance. We have been preaching
the superiority of democracy over autocracy
We have held out hands aghast at the atrocities
Of madmen. If now it is our turn to act, we
must be guided by the better inspirations and
the kindlier promptngs of our nature. We do
no intend to be mised into any excess Of emotion
or stampeded into unWarranted action. But we
shall learn the truth which we are entitled to
know and we shall act in accordance with the
situation as it is. And our conduct will be hu-
name and the result of better civilization than
Germany has flouted in our faces as being the
only true-blue culture.
Mr. Hoover is now abroad and we are quite
assured that he will probe the food situation to
the depths 1t has not been his custom to be mis-
led by American profiteers, nor English house
wives who wished to renig. We have no fear
that the Germans will be able to mslead him
by any of their clumsy pretensions. The testi-
mony which now cOnvinces the food administra-
tor must be bona a-fde and stand the acid test
of intelligent and searching investigation.
Undoubtedly Germanys problem in more
ways than one has become the problem of the
world. We must assume our share of it and we
shall be called upon to do much that would have
seemed impossible year ago.
But we are not going to be misled by cries of
''wolf," and the sooner Germany begins to deal
with us in a spirit of honesty and shows us that
her representations may be depended upon, the
sooner she will advance the cause of her popula-
tion now dispirited and more or less jobess.