The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-09-25
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

l
 ! It is really surprising to know how far some of the supposed leading authorize lively writers failed to discern the com ing events or shadowed forth the thing which was to be when peace finally came. I daresay it is bit humiliating for some of them 10 re-read their fore { casts or to father the things they gave to us as happening.
 It's always a dangerous thing to try and write history in the making Any one who tries it is apt to be laughed at for his pains. SonYe of our big men who were in the midst of the chancel- | leries in the big 12 days when diplomatic notes were flying from capital to cap- i ital would not like to be held strictly to account if confronted with the tele- | grams which they fired back to their papers.
 l nave in mind one noted correspondent who had made his home in Berlin for Is years, and who thought he was in the very center of everything taking place ] at Wilelmstrasse before war was de- clared, and who raced from Berlin to Vienna, and from Vienna to Budapest, and from Budapest to Sofia, and from Sofia to Constantnople and back over the same route checking up on what he saw and learned only to be worse fooled about what would happen 1T the Kaiser in Germany.
 
 I was surprised with the unanimity of the English and American correspondents at Berlin that it made no difference whether Germany won or lost the war, that the government would stand, and that those who looked for a German re- public were pinning their hopes to an ir- redescent dream. Most spoke with a cocksureness that was absolutely con- vincing, for each gave many reasons why the automatons who posed as citizens would never think for themselves 'or SUD- ply the iniative to go against constituted ! authority.
 This being true I was interested after the coming of Carl w. Alderman, and particularly so after my talks with him, to look into his work, Germany, the Next Republic,'' for the title itself went ! In the face or the conservative war cor respondents who had lived long in the fatherland. I had bought it when 1, came out, but had put it away with many other volumes on the war to await an opportunity to look into them. In | fact, have gotten together quite an ex- | tensive library on the great war which hope to be able to dip into during the long winter evenings
 
 In spite of the fact that Alderman had made a name for himself by his l letters and articles home, was wholly unprepared to believe that any one so f close to stirring world events could keen his head and write with such clarity and sanity about current events. start ed to say it Is a gift, but it is more, it is genius; and yet such praise would be waived aside by the modest young man who recently paid Birmingham a flying visit on his tour throughout America to get line on the labor situation.
 It is true that he had wonderful in- sight into the heart of the central pow CTS, for in Berlin, Vienna and Budapest he met the highest government officials. leading business men and financiers He knew Secretaries of State Won Jagow and Zimmerman, Generals von Kluck and von Falkenhayn. Phillip Scheideman, leader of the Reichstag socialists; Count Stefan Tiza, Minister President of Hun gary, and Count Albert Apponyi, and was in the closest touch with Ambassa- dor Gerard in the troublous days before Germany saw red.
 While making his headquarters in Ber- lin. he made frequent journeys to the front in Belgium, France, Poland, Rus ] sia and Roumania being 10 times on the battlefields during important military en- gagements. He got to see Verdun, the Scmme battlefield, General Brusiloffs of- I.fensive against Austria and the invasion of Roumania, almost as we'll as g soldier This with frequent visits to the neutral lcountries of Holland and Belgium, to- gether with stops at Berne, Paris and Madrid on his way home with Mir Ger ard, put him in touch with many first hand sources of information.
 But while many others had similar ad- vantages they failed to see that Ger many was on the verge not merely of a military but a political debacle. He was at the beginning of the war before Amer ica got into it sympathetic with the cen- tral powers, and particularly so with Germany; but he somehow got his eyes opened to the iniquity of the Prussian war lords, and saw under their spell the | transformation of the German people from world citizens to narrow-minded, deceitful tools of a ruthless government He saw the old Germany of Goethe dis iappear while the new Germany of Bis marck built on "iron and blood'' arose.
 
 Others saw the same transforma ton take place, but somehow the great Ger man machine seemed to them to be run so automatically that there was not a gimmer of hope for democracy to even be born in such an atmosphere impreg- mated with the divine right of kings read writer after writer who sand that the German was no longer capable of thinking that his thinking was done from above and handed down to him; that all Fritz had to do was to obey, and any thought of his revolting against the Kaiser or the military leaders was out of the question.
 But Alderman, when Germany was seemingly on her way to victory, boldly tary dicxators would only postpone the ,.;e Nfa for tba day