New-York tribune., 1918-10-04
STOPPING to Democracy"

The Kaiser, too, is willing to pay a
gentleman's price for peace. So Germany
is now being made safe for democracy
under the astute stage management of
Potsdam's All Highest. A little kow-
towing to the majesty of the people, a
kindly rapprochement between the new
leading man, "Vox Populi, Vox Del" and
the old favorite of hundred seasons,
"Ich und Gott," few Max Reinhardt
lights and shadings-and those who
want to think SO can easily persuade
themselves that Germany has been lib
eralized, parliamentarized and democ-
ratized in spite of herself.
In his letter accepting Won Hertling's
resignation as Chancellor the All High
est called loudly for a new order of
statesmen--"men who have been borne
up by the peoples trust" Borne up, that
is to say. by and out of the masses whose
negligible political status they have hith-
erto shared. One of them, apparently,
has already come to the front. He is the
new Chancellor, Prince Maximilian of
Baden, the heir of the reigning Grand
Duke.
Prince Max has interested himself, in
an extra-official way, in the humane
treatment of prisoners of war. He has
also personally favored the restoration
Of Belgium He seems to lack something
, of the ferocity and arrogance which are
the hallmarks of the modern shepherds
of the German flock. SO he fits into the
stage picture of Germany turning away
from Kaiserism and Kultur and putting
her destiny into the hands of men who
are akin to the humble and are upborne
by their love and trust.
How can the Allies any longer say evil
things of Hohenzollernism when it gives
the post held by Bethmann- Hollweg and
Won Hertling to this blameless South
German prince? How can they question
Germany's honor and good faith now
that the Prussian Herrenhaus has at
last yielded it's opposition to giving every
Prussian under fifty who can qualify for
suffrage an equal and direct vote? At
present those who vote in Prussia are
divided into three classes. Each class
has equal power in an electoral college
which chooses Deputies, so that the
minute minority in the two higher classes
overbalances the great majority in the
lowest class. Once the Kaiser comedies
his subjects equality in the election of
members of the straitjacketed lower
branch of the Prussian Diet, who can
ever say again that Germany has not
joined the ranks Of the free nations and
that the peoples will is not her supreme
n law?
Germany, we also hear, is going to
have an Imperial Cabinet appointed from
the membership of the Reichstag and re-
sponsibe to that innocuous debating soci-
ETY. The Reichstag is a spare wheel in
the German governmental machine. The
Kaiser and the Federal Council furnish
all the momentum They will continue
to furnish it. Yet when the All Highest
gathers about him in his Cabinet few
pale Radicals, sycophantic Majority So
cialists and noisy Clericals of the Err
berger type he will be ready to boast
that Germany has already achieved
place in the sun" alongside the liberal
democracies of Western Europe
Yet it will be the same old Germany
under all these ingratiating disguises. So
long as Prussia is tied up to the Hohen-
zollerns it doesn't matter who is Chan
cellor, who votes in Prussia or who sits
III the Imperial Cabinet. All will still be
servants under the rod of taskmaster
who has no doubt that he derives his
authority exclusively from on high. The
word of the German government will still
be without meaning; it's pledges will still
be mockery. The Kaiser owns no ac-
countability to any earthly tribunal
legal or moral. In him the evil genius of
Germany is embodied. And we are war
ring primarily against that evil genius.
Camoufage it as he may, it is his
power which the Allied nations have
banded together to destroy. And until it
is destroyed and he and his dynasty are
relegated to outer darkness there can be
10 genuine peace in the world.