Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1919-07-23

power that it could determine their
production and tariff policy to its
own advantage. The stretch from
Antwerp to Bazias was to be under
the pinions of the Prussian eagle.
The wartime efficiency Of Rhenish-
Wesphalian industry earned and mer-
tied great admiration The strongest
captains of industry live there. De-
spite the blockage all essential army
material was supplied. Iron was sub
stituted for copper, silk and paper for
cotton, oil was obtained from coal,
substitutes were found for mangan-
csc, saltpeter, even for rubber. The
proud captains of industry scorned no
means of gaining the favor of Social
lists who conduct our trade unions and
thereby reached an understanding
with labor. At all times they had the
ear of the highest leadership whose
creative brain, Ludendorff, had early
recognized that in this material war
the Rhenish- Westphalian industry
was his most powerful weapon.
War Profits Huge.
Its performance proved colossal,
tremendous beyond all expectation
The lions share of the billions ex-
pended flowed into Rhineland and
Westphalia, the gigantic profits in in
dividual cases exceeding a quarter of
a billion and creating hundreds of
new millionaires. The extended field
of activity, the joy in successful work
and in the end, the increased politi-
cal power all clouded the clear vision
of these men and made them drunk
among their wine hills They were
against every peace of understanding,
against premature" end of the war.
They sWore by Germany's triumphal
victory and dreamed Of an Ell Dorado
with Germany as world master.
The awakening was frightful. The
whole continent, as your Vanderlip
has rightly recognized, is on the
verge of bankruptcy and famine. Ger
many is the worst off, in debt, almost
without ores, without the means to
pay for raw materials, without the
possibility of feeding, by the fruits
of export, one-third of the population
which it cannot feed and clothe by
its own production Labor is rebel
lious, industry is ruined, steel pro
duction reduced from 20,00000O to
100000 tons.
All threads of foreign commerce
are cut off, all property abroad is
threatened with confiscation and all
our neighbors are hostile
Wish to Escape Burden.
Just as Understandable as was the
joy in the long, glorious and profit
able war, is now the wish not to be
weighed down with the wars crush
ing heritage, not to be barred from
tHn OVa1d \, rho 11~r - -
empty, with unlimited demands for
wage increases, with stormy pressure
for the specialization of great indus
tries, with the tax screw in the fist
of the masses.
Figures are mercilessly severe edu-
Gators to true realization. With all its
thoroughness Germany could achieve
unprecedented economic expansion
only because the rulers of markets
for raw materials and finished prod
ucts in America and England did not
handicap Germany and, for the most
part, even favor it. Even in 1914 the
boundaries of Germany contained for
too little food and raw materials to
attain the rank of a great industrial
power with its own strength. In 1919
this rank is utterly unattainable with
out the goOd Will OF the great world
powers.
Workers Want Freedom.
The worker wants to conquer the
right of determination over the labor
r arket and production and with his
mass weight to sink the scale of the
state. He wants no longer to serve
for the enrichment of the few, but to
materialiZe his ideal of Socia1ictic
democracy. This hope is attainable
in completely demilitarized Ger
many, decapitalized by paper money
system and skyscraper capital tax
and slipping into a rule of factory
soviets, but none in a Rhine league
leaning politically and economically
on the western powers.
Hence the strange picture The
most fiery patriots of yesterday are
deserving Prussian Germany and the