New-York tribune., 1920-03-15
Wnre Of Crime Heralded
Monarchist Coup in Berlin
Moral Collapse of People Is Described by the
Tribune Correspondent, Who Foresaw Dire
consequences i'm Utter Disregard of All Law

smelling bombs, with the legs Of chairs
hurled upon the stage and with blows
of the fist"
Lawlessness Rampant
All this is but a mlder manifesto
tion of lawlessness that breaks ont
elsewhere in unrestrained criminality.
The wave of crime seems to mount
higher and higher from day to day. 1t
assumes bolder and bolder, more and
more shocking forms. Riots break out
ana degenerate into promiscuous pill
laying. Mail coaches are held up on
the streets of Berlin and robbed.
Ihefts and burglaries abound to an
unbellevable extent. The ornaments on
public monuments are stolen, sections
OF wire out away from the trolley lines,
the poor in country graveyards in lieu
ct gravestones disappear in the night.
Even the vault of the former royal
family has been robbed of funereal
ornaments. Many churches have been
broken into and robbed Murder has
become as common as in any period of
border ruffianism in new countries.
Political murder and attempts at
murder have been numerous since the
revolution. Seldom do the courts pro-
nounce extreme sentences against the
criminals, and there is marked ten
dency to make heroes of hot -blooded
youngsters who shoot down political
opponents. The young nobleman who
shot Eisner was lionized until the death
sentence upon him was committed.
tThat other young nobl9man who at
tempted to kill Minister Erzberger, fir
ing two pistol shots at him at few
feet distance. got off with eighteen
months imprisonment. The lawyer
defending him glorified the act and
said that university professors mad
such men we should not have so much
graft or SO many criminals, but ma
tlOnal reconstruction.
Crimes Permeate Society
Crimes against property. crimes
against the tax laws permeate all
classes of society The absence Of
any fixed standard Of value, the con-
stand depreciation of the mark, have
made all business kind of gambling
and business contracts are broken with
reckless disregard of moral obliga-
tions
The security market has lost any,
thing like a fixed basis Of values.
Prices fuctuate often more than 100
points in single day, in a few cases
several thousand points. And specula-
tion is feverish and wildly excited
Fortunes are made and lost in day
The limited number of persons who
have money spend it with a reckless
disregard Of consequences. The lust
for pleasure runs high and knows little
of moral scruples.
1t is society i'll at ease, possessed
with extravagant fears and forebod-
ings. Rumors of impending outbreaks
of violence, of new revolutions, of pill
lagings and massacres find easy ere
dence. About the end of January, few
days before the birthday of the former
Kaiser, certain secret marks were OBJ
caused anxious and excited discussions
in political circles and editorial rooms;
the German monarchists, it was
bruited, were preparing new st. Bar
tholomew's Eve and were marking their
victims in advance
The moral breakdown of the German
people. only family outlined in this
article, is a fact fully and frankly ac-
cepted by. the Germans themselves.
Nobody gives it stronger expression
than they themselves "There are not
10000 honest men in all Germany" my
financial friend assured me in all seri-
BUSINESS; there is not a man who has
not his price"
German honesty and German
fidelity" writes DR.. Georg Solmssen,
a director of one of the leading banks,
"have become mere phrases. The en-
tire country has succumbed to a cor
ruption such as had existed for us
hitherto only as a fabulous concep-
tion. With feeling of despair
we must record the fact that in Ger
n, Il ~ hn nod
money; and that corruptng i'm
publicly vaunts itself upon
its successes. We have lost our sense
of shame"
Many Explanations
Many explanations of this remark
able phenomenon have been put for
ward in the various discussions of it
by the Germans. Some think it suf-
ficient to attribute it to years of
hunger, to the overgovernment Of the
people with a multiplicity of food
regulations, to the sudden removal Of
political restraints through the revo-
luton. Some allege the drop of the
mark from day to dav as the chief
cause. All these explanations contain
elements of truth. but they do not 20
to the heart of the matter.
DR.. Solmssen has an original view
Of the matter. He attributes the
chief blame to the Kaiser and
his peculiar methods of govern
ment. From his recently published
spondence with "Nicky' this
writer shows that there prevailed at
the Kaiser's court "a servile, fackey
spirit, minds that functioned like a
subaltern officer standing at rigid at
tention. and the worst kind of bank
ruptcy in intellectual character"
1t was case of moral corruption
infused into his marionettes by the
m monarch-men who 'completely SUBJ
ordinated their thought in exchange
for position, titles, dignties and
orders, and timidly renounced sound
common sense as we'll as manly
courage"
This corruption of his immediate
encourage extended outward into ~e-
moter circles; the sycophants around
the throne had in turn their own
circles of sycophants of the second
rank.
SO the corruption of German man
hood spread downward and outward
from the one sorry brain at the top
the Kaiser, who "broke the character