The Washington herald., 1918-02-03
The Strike as an Index.

Hunger-mad, the munition workers are trying
to launch mildly revolutionary movement in
Germany. Their strike is in no epidemic
that gnaws at the Teutonc vitals. 1t is rather
eczemic rash, mere surface Infection 1t will not
: force Hindenburg to swerve an inch from his pro-
gram nor threaten the grip of the military caste
Beyond the Prussian frontier the strike head
lined into the thought of the world, and given a
fantastic numerical strength, lends itself to super
fetal interpretation and leads to the idea that the
condition of Germany is much that it really
is The German censor nterposes bar against
strike news ftering outside the empire. Another
-iustance, doubtless, of German guile in manipulate
ing enemy thought into delusions regarding the
real extent of their internal difficulties
Americans should have drilled into them the
fact that goes the army, goes Germany-that
army revolt MUST precede national revolt
otherwise it falls, cumbrousy, of weight unbal-
TASTED The army today is Germany; the civilian
population is the tail and appendage of the
Fighting forces. The tail cannot wag the dog; but
at least this may be said in its behaf-tlte Teuton
war dachshund could not hold his legs long if this
particular tail were cut off. The civilians of Ger
many indispensable in the way
ants and serfs are indispensable
This toPsy-turvy land, of course, cannot forever
3 continue to make bricks without straw to lift
itself up by its boot-straps Through miracle of
discipline it already has confounded all economic
errors to which contemporary scientific thought
has been subject than the fact that nearly all the
leading economists predicted short war when it
broke out-possibly not exceeding few months
duration. 1t was military man, Earl Kitchener,
who grimly forccastcd a three-years' war-and got
laughed at for his pains. The Germans, beyond
doubt, subject to the same deluson of a short
war Is it to be believed, in the light of what
has happened in Germany in the past three years,
that any of her leaders contemplated of this
length?
+. Is the present German strike communicable
to the army? We do not think so. Anti-militarist
feeling among the German forces-any real insight
into tie chicanery of pan-German and annex
sationist purpose-has never made any Ieadway,
according TO the best information in the allied
capitals today. When the Kaiser shifted the pick
of his divisions from the Eastern to the Western
front last December, when peace with the Bolshe-
wiki seemed certain, there protest, re-
volt. The Hungarans mutnied according to Vic
tor Morgan, but not the Prussians, the Saxons,
the Bavarians. They are still utterly obsessed
with the superman idea.
When the army no longer sees the Kaiser in
Shining armor," demigod of war, it is time to
look for the munton workers strike break forth
into the red torch of revolution And then the
end. But today the strike amounts to nothing
than gas/escapng from open jet, which
will in due course be turned off, and that will be
the end Of it.
Not that would minimize the growing evil
dences of discomfort that is seething in Germany
today; but what it mean to us, when it can
not be converted into anything affecting the fight
ing fronts tighten for second the burden of
war preparation which is upon US?