Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-12-14

brutal cgoism of these wealthy up
starts has been Il potent agent in
stirring up the latent revolutionary in.
stincts of the masses In the German
cities, and it is extremely probable
that their overbearing insolence and
utter disregard of even the rudlments
of patriotism and citizenship will one
day bring upon them terrible retribu,
tion.
Big Pay for Workers
The Berlin workingmen. who as a
class used TO be Numerically op.
posed to the rich, have moved up to
the second place In the social scale
and now really form the middle class.
They earned high wages in the war
industries, often so much as three
marks an hour, a days work bring.
ing them twenty-five or thirty marks,
which they spent freely in amuse.
ments and drink in the evening. This
represents a much larger income than
the majority of the old German mid
die class-ofilcials, school teachers,
lawyers. doctors, Judges and profes.
sional men generally-have at their
disposal. for their salaries and earn
ings have remained almost stationary
since the outbreak of the war.
In Berlin, the numerous class of sub.
ordinate officials and employees with.
small fixed salaries is reduced to~ab-
solute misery. They are today the
real proetarians. living in hopeless,
sordid indigence and scarcely able to
exist at all without having recourse to
criminal practices. For they have
neither money enough to buy food
like the successful speculator and the
highly paid workman, nor goods to eX
change for food, like the small trades
man and merchant. This new prole
tartan class of low wage-earners, most
ly with large families, is sunk today
in q great city like Berlin, in the
deepest abyss of want.
The natural consequence is that
while its members formerly supported
and represented the bourgeois element
in German politics, they have now be
come converts TO extreme socialism
and Bolshevism. and enthusiastic fol
lowers of Haase and Liebknecht. They
form the real revolutionary element
today but their very misery serves to
COW them and they are not organized
for action like the workingmen with
their trade unions under the leadership
of the astute Legien.
Workmen Overbearing
The revolutionary danger will sub
sist even if really democratic gov
ernment is established throughout
Germany. The Berlin workingmen
for the very reason that they have
been so long pampered and spoiled by
the Governments according them eX
cessiVe wages, extra food rations, ant
even donations of clothes, are ami
mated by an overbearing and aggres
sive spirit. The best illustration o.
the transformation the classes have
undergone in Germany is afforded by
the audience at any of the Berlir
theatres today. The scene is already
almost worthy. of Bolshevistic Petro
grad or Moscow.
In the boxes sit magnates of tn,
"Schleichhandel," flashing diamond
rings from their thick fingers, dis
coursing boisterously, devouring frui
and nonchalantly Tipping orange peel
and cherry stones over the balustrad'
into the pit. The stalls and the bal
cony, where in olden times the intel
lectual and professional classes use,
| to dominate, are now almost eXclus
/ lively filled with male and female work