The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1920-08-12
SHINES BOSS OF
GERMAN INDUSTRY
German Press in Grasp of Die
tator Who Planned the
Belgian outrages.


NEW YORK, Aug 12.--Sinee the war
one man has emerged like a peak above
the German industrial fIood-Herr
Hugo SHINES. whose insolence at the
Spa conference has reawakened the Gu
riosity with which for some months he
has been regarded. Yet it became in
oreasingly clear that, If more had been
known OF him, the world would not
have awaited the afnistice before re-
cognizing the growth Of new and dan
gerous force
In February, 1919, the name OF
SHINES was heard in the reichstag.
when Herr Erzberger told the house
trial leader from the sphere of the ar
mistice commission because SHINES
was mainly responsible for the robbery
Of Belgian workshops, and because his
influence at headquarters had induced
the military authorities to undertake
the deportation OF Belgian workers. In
June of this year Herr Breitscffeiat. ore
of the leaders OF the Independent So
ciallsts, was more Informative still, 1t
was Shines, he said, who advocated
the deportation of Belgian laborers,
carried out by-Von Kissing, then goyr
ernor-general of Belgium; it was
SHINES, the potent voice of the Ger
man captains of industry. who was
responsible for the destruction of the
workshops in Belgium and Northern
France, and the transportatioas of the
stolen machinery into Germany. To-Day
1t is an open secret in that country
that SHINES drew up the plan for the
destruction of the French coal nNhes
Leader of Coal Men.
So much is known of the SHINES
who moved behind the manifestations
of Great General Staff during the war,
The post-armistice SHINES Us the same
ruthless being, working now without
military screen. This Titan among the
German minnows is not yet so. when
he was 20. 1t is related he might have
had a partnership In the family firm,
but his thirst for mastery his un-
breakable belief in his own vision OF
success, pushed him to independence,
Today he is drawing in riches from
a greater variety of enterprises spread
more widely over Germany than any
merchant of them all, and be is ready
for the day when tho weFld beyond
Germany shall be open toFhim again,
He has control of is groups of coal
mines, extending even into France; his
ere and metal interests in Germany
and Luxembourg are colossal; six
wholesale coal distribution enterprises
are his; paper and pulp mills, score
of large shopping concerns, celluloid
mandatory, hotel, textile and mo-
tor-car factories, dockyards, forest
areas-how much more is not known.
As for the German press, it has been
falling into his net since January last,
when he and certain Herr Hugon-
berg founded the Veritas Publishing
many newspapers as possible, to sub
serve other interests. SHINES bought
up the printing firm which owned the
semioffieial German Gazette, which at
the time of the revolution changed its
name from Norddeutsche Allgemeine
Zeitung to- Deutsche Algemeine Zeit-
ung. Then he reached out into South
Germany and took the Munich and
Augsburg Abend zeitung. and one by
one other publications were drawn in,
until today he is believed to own or
control nearly seventy. Ownership is
not always necessary to him, for, he
can dictate through the printing bust
nesses he possesses. When he gave
20,000,000 marks for the great Buxen-
stein printing business he acquired the
right to command the policy of dozen
newspapers. There is no section OF
Germany which today does not contain
publication sedulously propagating
the ideas which Hugo SHINES thinks
well to support.
These ideas are utterly and stub
bornly reactionary. In the vision OF
a new Germany which has come to
SHINES the place of authority is nc
longer held by the landholding mobiles
army and civil service. but by the in
dustrial captains, the controllers of "bi,'
business" men who bring fierce and
unflagging energy to the service of in
ordinate ambition. 1t is still a Ger
many controlled by few that<Stinnes
sees, and chief among the few him
self. The German Peoples party
which is the party of reaction, the par
ty of revenge, knows SHINES as its
most important member TheSjdeas OF
that party which are his ideas, are
echoed and re-echoed by the newspa-
pers he controls. The recovery. by
whatsoever means, of German suprem-
acy in the realm of commerce, as the
certain preliminaryNto supremacy in al
else--this Is the force that moves the
man. In the shameless destruction OF
French and Belgian factories, in the
wanton laying waste Of French Goa
mines he played his part during the
war toward the weakening of competi-
tors-the arrogant insolence of his be-
havor at Spa is the measure of the
rage with which he and others of his
kind would see this damage repaired