Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1919-07-16
MOST GERMANS
NOW UNBALANCED
Swiss Back From Leipzig Fair
Report 80 Per Cent Men
tally Twisted.
ARE BEWILDERED BY CHANGES
Declare Everything Is in Disorder and
Streets Are Lined With Begging
Soldiers and civiians-Be-
have Like Children.

VI eo"ioo AAS1-
chants, who for years past have regu-
larly attended the famous Leipzig fair,
have now just returned, hardly able
to express their amaZement at what
they saw there. 1t was not that there
Was nothing to interest them at the
fair, but that while they were in Ger
many they could hardly believe that
they were not in some other country,
they did not quite know which. The
merchants, manufacturers and others
at the fair, with whom they had to
deal, seemed to be mentally unbal-
GnceG
Ninety per cent Of the people with
whom / had to DEAL" said one mer-
chant, ''really did not know what they
were about. In visiting the various eX-
hibits in Leipzig would give an order
for something. would tell the man in
charge that would take say 500 gross
of certain article, No. 100. l would
write the number down myself, and
then of course i expected him to write
it down too. Then l would order some
thing else, and by the time had fin
ished giving my orders would ask to
compare my notes with his. Then, to
my great establishment, / would find
he had either not written down the or.
ders at all, or had written them down
all wrong.
Mental Confusion.
Eat first / thought had merely to
do with a careless individual, but af-
forwards / found that nine out of ten
persons were in just the same state of
mental confusion. i then talked to
some of the other Swiss who were Wis
iting the fair and found that they had
had similar experiences. Once l lost
patience and spoke very sharply to
one man, whereupOn he simply broke
down and said he was sorry but he
had been four years in the trenches
and that he was no longer capable of
doing his work as he did it before
the war;"
Judging by all that these Swiss mer-
chants observed in Germany, this men,
tai weakness and incapacity is affect
ing no only men who have been q
long time in the trenches, but also
civilians-women who were at home
and men who, for one reason or an
other, were never at the front. Some
Germans known to these merchants
before the war as shrewd, energetic,
capable business men, now, they say,
talk like children, as if they knew
nothing whatever of the outside world
or what has been taking place during
the last four or five years.
In short, the German merchants
seem completely dazed, bewildered
and confused at present and do not
know what they are doing.
What particularly struck all these
Swiss merchants who have known
Germany for many years past, was
the lack of Orderliness everywhere,
not merely at the Leipzig fair but in
the streets-a change for the worse
which is commented upon now by all
visitors to Germany. In the halls
of the great Fair, which before the
war used to be neat as the proverbial
new pin, disorder and even dirt are
everywhere.
The streets leading to the Leipzig
fair were this year lined with wound
ed, crippled and blinded soldiers, sell
ing postcards, bootlaces and all man
ner of other trifles, or playing barrel
organs with their military caps on
the ground before them for people to
throw in anything they could afford.
And this in a country where mendi-
cants never used to be tolerated.
Act Like Children. ,...s'
Every Swiss merchant who went to
the Leipzig fair this year was allow
ed by the government to take with
him twenty-five pounds of provisions.
One with whom i talked took with
him five pounds of chocolate, know
ing what precious gift it would be
to some of his old acquaintances. In
visiting one of the leading manufac-
turers he presented three of his
daughters with half pound each. The
girls grasped him by the hand, with.
tears in their eyes. 1--WE haven't seen
anything like it for years." they said.
ut will make us WE'LL"
One evening this Swiss merchant,
with two others, was sitting in one of
the best restaurants in Leipzig when
q lad walked around the tables offer
ing postcards and matches for sale.
He was very sickly looking, and the
Swiss merchant put his hand In his
coat pocket took out block Of choc-
olate (abOut half pound) and hand
ed ii to him. Immediately all the
guests in the restaurant got up and
surrounded the lad, gazing with
amazement at the chocolate. Some of
them asked the Swiss how he man.
aged to get it.
Even in the restaurant, he said, the
people who collected around the boy
with the chocolate behaved like chill
dren. All this points to what is now
being more and more clearly recog'
nized-that the war and its conditions
have caused more or less abnormal
mental state in the case of manV Der-