Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-03-14
If Germany Goes BoLheUist.

rHE Ebert Government, on which the
maintenance of law aid order in
Germany now depends, has been
truly described as unsatisfactory, but the
least unsatisfactory that we are likely to get"
1t represents, doubt, very crude and
hating sort of democracy, but it is incom-
parably more democratic and more RESPONSE
BILE than would be an ascendant Spartacus
group, which is now seeking, dispatches say,
to get possession of Konigsberg and the East
Prussian coast with view to opening way
for the Bolshevist army to enter Germany.
What might civilization expect we're union
thus to be effected between the frebrands of
Germany and the fireDrands of Russia? Who
could predict the course or outcome of such
confagration in Middle Europe?
The New York Times suggests not I'M
reasonably that should Germany go Bolshev-
ist it would mean that ''the extreme Socialist
elements in all the other countries of the
world would become pro-German-support-
ers and adherents of a Germany whose prin-
ciples would call for world conquest no less
than did those of the Kaiser" Further:
"Bolshevist Germany and Russia, with aid
and comfort from the revolutionar faction
in every country, would make world peace
impossible for many years, for Bolshevist
principle makes peace with the non-Bolshevist
impossible, and democratic world exhaust
ed by beating the Kaiser would find it almost
as hard to wage effective warfare against
this new movement as did the Roman empire
of the Seventh century, exhausted by its vic
tory over Persia, to combat the crusading re-
ligion that came out of Arabia"
1t is the part of expediency, therefore, as
we'll as of justice that the existing German
Government, which thus far has proved quite
Ill fI1n
armistice, be given all due support and, in
deed, encouragement by the Allied Powers.
For it is not only through that Government
Cor it's legal successor) that we must deal
in collecting war indemnities, but it is largely
through that Government that we must deal
in saving the world from the menace of
Bolshevized Central Europe. A practical step
in the way of such support seems to- lie in
the proposed restoration of commerce be-
tween Germany and the outside World-res-
toration, that is to say, in so far as military
prudence will allow. Not until this is done
can conditions of industry, of employment or
of any other province of that country's eco
nomic and social affairs begin a return to-
ward the normal and so long as the present
abnormal conditions continue, the seeds OF
Bolshevism will find fertile soil to grow in.
Those Draconian souls who insist that the
cry of the German people for bread should
be answered with stones reck little of the
grim realities and dreadful spectres which
stalk in that region of the earth. The ques-
ton which informed and thoughtful men are
asking is no longer, What can be done to pun
ish adequately the German people? (for that
punishment is certain but, What can be
done to save our hard-won peace and justice
and hope of human progress from rapacious
Bolshevism? We can no more leave Ger
many out of that problem than we could leave
her out of plans to safeguard the future
against militarism. There she stands, with
her sixty-odd million people, hard by the
western mouth of Russia's Bolshevist sewer,
and if those sixty million catch the plague,
what shall stay it's mortal spread to other
lands? Protection lies partly, of course, in
establishing well-buIwarked Poland between
the German and the Russian areas of con-
tagion; and the Peace conference cannot pro-
coed too promptly to that work. But this
alone will not suffice. Germany will never
be safe for the world until she is regenerated
from within, and that cannot be unless some
sort of morally responsible Government is
maintained there. Hence the practical i'm
portance of supporting the Ebert Government
as far as that consistently can be done, and
of enabling it to insure order and sanity
where chaos and madness are threatened.