The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-08-19
By KURT SCHMIDT, "A leading Bavarian Socialist, Jour
 nalistO

AAdAAot.J
 ImIne edtately after my arrest, I was hurried to the great school building of the Luitpold Gymnasium, and I was held there as q hostage. It was about four in the afternoon. To- gether with four other hostages, who, plike myself. were dragged from their beds after midnight, I enter class room lighted with a dim gas lamp, There are eighteen or twenty beds, most of them placed in pairs as they are in barracks. In addition, the fur niture consists of three round porch tables and ten chairs, part of which are broken. The air is hot, smoky, and dusty. Around a table near the door sit four guards with red arm bands and two others are standing near by. All have rifles in their hands, Most of them wear uniforms, but some are fin civilian clothing. On the bed lie men sleeping and snoring. On one bed sits a young intelligent looking soldier with a very red coun- tenance. Behind him, at one of tho round tables, is a young aviator, whose left eye is blackened Dy a tre- msndous fist blow.
 We five hostages sit down in the chairs that are not occupied and try AO oASCps w oI 70 lOA bAudtll lO COIl- verse. However, the guards talk free ly among themselves.
 One of the workingmen with red arm band and a round black hat who is standing at the door says, These woTkmen are all towards. Twenty-seven of them remained in the factory to guard it as if there were anything to guard. I am the only one that reported here, and I shall be on duty twelve hours between yesterday noon and today noon.'
 The soldier with the red face in terrupted: Tomorrow is the first. Are WIG going to get our pay. or will the White Guards shoot us first2 They shot old men and women at Starnberg. They shot twenty of us whom they had captured at Grumwald. All they did was to stand them up against a tree and shoot them. The blood hounds, they'll pay for 1t! Wen not leave one of their men alive if we capture them, the scroundrels! Noske has offered a reward of fifty marks for every one Of our leaders and thirty marks for every Red soldier. our heads are worth thirty marks and those people call themselves wor- k!ngmen, who shoot at their fellow worl<ingmeu for thirty or fifty IiltlI h0s NEAAA AAAt man D 6tfhttliASA4N5 were false.)
 Finally morning comes. The gas light is extinguished. A little Red guard. whose dialect indicates that he is a Saxon, with little malicious eyes and long blond hair cut in the Rus sian fashion, shouts, Where are the two Prussian bloodhounds. the dra- Con of the guards and the others? out with you, you swine, you scoun- drels!'
 Two powerful, vigorous men in long cavalry coats rise from one of the beds. The first is very young, perhaps nineteen years old, with a chubby, good-natured peasant coun- tenanco The other has a heavy blond moustache and looks like the peasant he says he is, with a woman and four children at home.
 The Saxon forces the young caval- ryman, with 0 torrent of abuse, to leave the room. The poor chap en- dures this flood of insult in silence and complies obediently with every order Ho takes a broom and begins to sweep. Thereupon. the little Saxon leaps at him. hits him in the nose so that he bleeds, and shouts. You swine! don't you know that you must sprinkle first 9 Suppressng his tears,
 
 his nose with his dirty hands. gets a basin of water md sprinklcs. then quickly returns, the Saxon abusing him all the time saying. You scoun- drel. youI soon be lined up against the wall and shot'
 Other Red soldiers express their contempt for the second cavalryman of the national forces. How can an old man be such a fool as to sell him self for money to shoot his brothers?'
 Thereupon a pale young Munich Red Guard, with a black gCatee, be- gins to talk. He had been regarding with particular interest the nineteen year old slender soldier, who first sat on the bed and now on ta- ble. his head upon his hands. and had fallen asleep. Comrade, youll sleep away all your sense. This man stood shoulder to shoulder with us in the fl d. and now he has become a spy for the Neslsc dogs and wants 10 betray us, his old com-ades!'
 A political discussion is going on 1t tho sentry's table. Even Eisner was not quite reliable. He was a good man. but after all he kept helping the bourEeaisie.' That was Inc judg- ment of young Red Guard upon the once dcified leader of tho Indc- pendents. Another man contradicted him violently. but thc first stuck to his opinion. Trs just as l tell you: everybody says it.'
 Yes. everyone that has no more brains than you
 One man after another rises from the beds. Don't act as if you all had uneasy conSciences'
 To judge by his speech. appear ance. and manner. this speaker was a well-fed former sergeant from Ber- iin- He addressed the words 10 his companion. a great. slender. sailow man. with a heardless face that had been unshnven for several days. He