The Alaska daily empire., 1919-02-07
Germany at the Ballot-b box
(New York World.)

By military defeat, by the collapse of it's fnan- cial and industrial systems, by hunger and naked ness by revolution and by what appears to be final victory over the red menace of anarchy, Germany has at last found it's way to the polls, the actual pOssessor of universal suffrage.
 In all the history of the races and tribes which under the Hohenzollerns carried the prin ciple to its extreme limit there is no record of such another civic triumph that which found ex- plession at the ballotbox. In the election of mem bers of the National Assembly which is to create a new Government, practically all men and women more than twenty years of age had right to vote equal terms
 Many issues have divided and will continue to divide the German people, but the election ties the greatest of them all. Hoping to profit by the chronic disagreements and suspicious of the past. anarchy decreed that there should be no election. In places the apostles of chaos seemed for a time to be in the ascendant, but poi- cal foes of description forgot ancient differences and by force of opinion and of arms insisted that the voice of the nation should be heard.
 The Assembly, corresponding with Constitutional Convention in the United States will be made up of numerous parties and factions with only here and there taint of Boshevsm. Some of them are violent and some of them conservative but the fact that nearly all of them-Junker Pan-German and Clerical no less than the more radical groups-have taken the name of peoples parties is highly sgnii- cant. When substantially the whole body of peo- pie agree that they must have government of law and not of license, the details of it's creation pain ful as they may be, are certain to be worked out.
 Reports of serious disorders attending yesterdays balloting were to have been expected It is prob able that terrorism of kind or another will sig
 
 blity In various localities Germany is peculiarly subject to riot and revolt This is due in part to the character of the people and the influences acting up- on them, and in large degree to the tremendous so- cial and economic upheavals resulting from defeat hardship and humiliation. Under much happier con dtions Thomas Jefferson wrote ''The boisterous sea of liberty is never without wave"
 Furthermore, there is reason to believe that these elections Will hasten an enduring peace as well as establish responsible government in Germany. The one depends upon the other. Replying to the Pope ID August ls17 President Wilson said that the word of Germany to any proposal for peace could not be taken unless supported by conclusive evil dence or the will and purpose of the German peo- pie themselves.
 With turbulence and confusion these people are now making the first logical movement toward the self-expression of that will and purpose. Strange as some of their ideas of democracy may be- they are headed In the right direction. We expect them to escape pltfalE Rampant error passion and prej- udlce are all about them. Freemen everywhere how ever, may reasonably entertain the hope that they Will work out the mighty problem successfully The welfare not Of Germany alone but of the world de- bends upon it.