The evening leader. (Tarpon Springs, Fla.) 191?-19??, 1919-05-20
old REGIME RULES
GERMAN ASSEMBLY
Many Old Faces Remain and
Many New Ones Are Not
Unlike Old.
REICHSTAG SPIRIT prevails
Only One Member Has Admitted Ger
many Had Part In Starting the
War-Hun Doesn't Understand
Why He Should Suffer.

The German national assembly has
demonstrated two things clearly. 1t
is unable to do business much more
speedily than the old reichstag, chief
ly because there is little unity and
much dissension between the parties,
and the old order of things has
changed very little despite the new
faces.
The latter is perhaps the most i'm
portant point, because the assembly
was hailed by German papers-and
particularly by the agencies that sup
ply the outside world with news-as
the birth of the new republic, the be-
ginning of new regime, the living en-
blem of the passing of the old.
1t Is new in a sense, and the old
regime has passed, perhaps, but there
are enough of the old people left, and
so many of the new people are not
much unlike the old that the effect in
the Weimar theater is not much diff
ferent from the reichstag. One hears
precisely the same arguments from the
floor, watches precious time fly by over
the same and similar arguments as
used to make one despair of construc-
tive legislation.
One Admits Germany's Guilt.
Perhaps the most striking thing is
the tone of the great majority of the
party speeches. Just one delegate has
had the courage to attack the con-
servatives and the moral strength to
go on record as admitting that Ger
many had something to do with start
ing the war. Man after man, regard
less Of party, has, in speeches proved
to his own and the houses satisfaction
that Russia, France or England, not
Germany, started the war.
One lone man has had the courage
. to tell the house that the German
treatment of Belgium forever forbids
German complaints from being eff
fective. The great bulk at least of
northern Germany, seems to have
adopted the attitude:
"Well, it's all over now. We, the
people, didn't start the thing at any
rate, so let's start out even and square,
with no hard feelings on any side"
The assembly is the principal out
let for every known kind of propa.
ganda, INDUCED in nearly as vehement
! ly and eXcitedly by the social demo-
Gratis as by the conservatives. First
fc hn Len
It comes up three, four, dozen times
session, and always r0uses the same
enthusiasm. Every old and shopworn
argument is trotted out and cheered.
1t has never occurred to the Germans
that on the other side of the fence
there are fairly good arguments to sup
port Frances retention Of these prov
inces.
The junction with Austria provokes
an almost equal enthusiasm, and it
would seem as if half the speakers in
sert it in their speeches for that pur-
pose alone. The SchIeswig- HOlstein
question has come to the front lately
and Germany is filled with propaganda
to show that SchIeswig should and
must remain German. No speech is
complete without at least a reference
to Poland and CZechO-SlOvakia. and yet
not one of the speakers but knows that
these questions will be settled, for good
! or i'll, by the peace conference.
Is Same Old Hun.
The failure of the German to change
materially is in no way better to be
observed than in his attitude to the
question of the conduct of the war. It
is only rarely that a criticism of 1t is
heard in the house, and the general
feeling seems to be that if anything is
wrong with it, that is all In the past
and should be forgotten or overlooked
by Germany's enemies.
The prisoner of war question is as
puzzling to the student of German psy-
chology just now as anything else.
Virtually every speaker touches upon
the prisoner question before he leaves
the tribune. Tell a German first that
the armistice made no provision for
the return of German prisoners, and,
second, that, while Germany begs daily
for food, she attempts at the same
time to saddle herself with 100000
more mouths to feed, and it has no eff
feet on him. 1t cannot be sheer pity
for the welfare of the prisoners, be-
cause plenty of Germans know only too
we'll how slim food is.
Listening to delegates to the assem-
bly,, and talking to Germans outside of
it, the correspondent finds that the old
/ German viewpoint he learned to know
so well during the war until the breach
with America is still abroad in the
land, though in less truculent form.
The German does not understand why
he now should suffer; why everything
cannot be placed on a basis of status
quo ante; why anyone should hold
against him the conduct of the war
with which, he claims, he had moth
ing to do.