Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-09-26
is GERMANY GOING MAD?
Won Hertling's Address to the Reichstsg Is
Like a Plea 10 the Mildly Insane

OFFICIAL Germany has spoken again
through the Chancellor, Won Hert-
ling, for the ears of a world that has
waited vainly during four years for a
sign or q syllable adequate to prove that
the Berlin Government is not utterly
without conscience or decency. And
again, balanced uncertainty above the
tremors of earthquake, it has proved
merely tireless in falsehood and fanat-
ically devoted to lies and fraud, ~pretense
and Misrepresentation, as means of
eleventh-hour salvation.
If the German Reichstag were an
asylum for the mildly insane, the speech
which the Chancellor has just delivered
to its members would have been appro-
pirate enough. AS a eliminating appeal
to a doomed and drifting nation the ad-
dress is tragic and piteously futile.
The Reichstag is representative of such
free public opinion as is permitted to
exist in Germany. Its main committee has
just met to consider the red menace that
is closing in on the people, 1t had reason
to expect some manifestation of logic by
the Government. 1t was as surly, but
as necessarily docile, as the overalled
workers at Krupps, before whom the
Kaiser acted the part of a monumental
ass a few weeks ago. The dust of the
approaching whirlwind was in its nos
trils when Won Hertling arose to answer
| the indictment and the menace of a world
in arms.
And what the Reichstdg listened to
acre the prolonged, doddering 1ndn'ttes
of a corrupt and tired old man,, inter
mingled Nth mdleuolent propaganda of
the familiar high-dngle sort intended not
for the ears Of Germany at all, but for
the tdint-hearted in the Allied countries.
Of the war, of uictories. Submarines
lied like an old fashioned cab driver from
the beginning of his speech to the enc.
"Die on" he said in effect to Germany,
"rather than be crushed under the heels
of the tyrant Wilson,
The Chancellor began with the plain
tive assertion that "his acquiescence in
the four points laid down by President
Wilson as peace essentials had met with
no attention from the American Execu-
tive" Here he depended obviously on
the short memory of a hurried and abb
stracted world.
Won Hertling said in January that he
favored the Presidents terms "in prin-
ciple."
He wos explicitly answered BY Mr.. Viii
son.
The President had up to that time not
lost all hope of an adjustment, based
upon the reputation of Germany by Aus
tria. He appears to have given Won
Hertling the most careful sort of consid-
Grafton. On February II the President
answered the German Chancellor at
length in an address to Congress. He
said:
Count Won Hertling's reply is. ! must
say, very vague and confusing. 1t Is full
of equivocal phrases, and leads 1t Is not
clear where. 1t confirms, l am
sorry to say, rather than removes the un-
fortunate impression made by what we had
learned of the conferences at Brest-Litovsk.
His discussion and acceptance of our gen
eral principles lead him to no general con-
illusions. He refuses to apply them
He would without reserve be glad to see
economic barriers removed between nation
and nation, for that could in no way
impede the ambitions of the military party
with whom he seems constrained to keep
on terms.
In the course of his address the Presi-
dent reviewed the conditions necessary to
peace and the details of Won Hertling's
announcement and showed that they did
not run parallel at any point, and clearly
revealed the Chancellor as a word juggler
with a double purpose.
Detail by detail, Won Hertling now
reverts to his old address and plaintively
asserts that he was not answered. What
hypocrisy! He talked of the "age-old
sorrows of Ireland" but said nothing of
the sorrows of Belgium and France. He
babbled of the freedom of the seas, but
said nothing of the freedom of Russia
Arbitration is a principle dear to the
heart of the Chancellor-now after dis
ease germs and poison gas, flame throwers
and submarines and Zeppelins and
general slaughter have failed.
The voice in the Reichstag Was a voice
from the grave, in Which the World has
already buried the old order of corrupt
diplomacy. The processes of arbitration
which he suggested to the Reichstag are
the processes that would have been
seized upon a few years g by crooks in
frock coats and medals, who composed
the school of secret diplomacy which al
ways has directed the careers of pirate
nations. But they are no longer tolerable
to the civilized world.
Won Hertling and his Kaiser do moi
yet know this. They live in the past
The Chancellor's reference to the "pure
ambitions of 1917 in his latest addres!