Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1921-06-08
BY MILTON BRONNER

Will lOls DRUMMER
BERLIN, June 8.-The Germany
of today is bankrupt nation.
1t is bankrupt in more ways than
the mere matter of an inability to
make its income match its expenses
Other European nations are bank
rupt IN that particular way-Francc
and Italy, for instance
But Germany is bankrupt in hope
and endcavor. 1t is bankrupt in vim
and zest Of living. 1t is bankrupt of
faith in the future
The average Germany Of today
the fellow like you and me and
Neighbor Smith-can hardly see a
CLEAN Of hope ahead He is rid of
his expensive kaiser and the other
minor kings and grand dukes and
princes. He is rid of a great ex-
pensive army and navy. He is rid
of conscriptiOn. He has a republic
instead of monarchy. But nowhere
does he see unity or peace or salts
faction.
Politically Germany is house not
only divided against itself, but many
times sub-divided.
There are politicians who dream
of the restoration of the monarchy
There are political parties which
dream Of boIshevism. Even the So
cialists are subdivided into various
parties with their various represent,
atives in the Reichstag.
Glass consciousness has not been
abolished, 1t has been intensified.
1t is not now the Proletariat against
the aristocrat, but the worker against
the war profteer and, in another
sense, the town dweller against the
farmer.
Every body Hit
If the German is fairly well off.
the state takes much of his estate and
of his income in taxes. If he is a
worker, it grabs 10 per cent of his
wage. If he succeeds in getting his
earnings increased. he finds that the
cost of food, clothes and housing has
more than kept pace with the extra
money he has earned.
He pays six times as much for his
daily paper as before the war. It
costs him eight times as much to
ride in the street car His food, coal,
gas and rent have gone up from five
to eight times.
He earns, perhaps, 300 to 500
marks per week, and the cheapest
suit of clothes is 1900 marks. Shoes
cost from 90 marks up; shirts G5
marks, socks II marks.
His glass of beer which tastes to
him like near, beer, costs mark.
Everything he smokes costs much
more. His wife complains that she
can't run the household and clothe
the children ON what he allows her,
If he seeks consolation in his news
paper the chances are that he reads
of the fresh taxation the government
will have to assess in order to meet
the Allied demands for reparation
payments.
| have heard many people in Wash
ington, London Paris and Brussels
bewail the fact that Foch agreed to
an armistice before the Allied armies
marched into Berlin. They argued
that only in this way could the Ger
mans have been thoroughly convinced
that they were beaten in the war But
after a month in Germany I think
every German knows he was licked,
Evidence Everywhere
Everything the German reads,
hears and sees reminds him of it:
Bremen a dead seaport.
Allied troops on the Rhine.
Saxon textile factories on part
time.
Ruhr steel mills closing.
Munich's famous gaiety all gone.
German money low-rated.
German army a mere police force.
German navy at the bottom of the
sea.
German merchant marine in pos
session of the Allies.
Allied commissions all over the
country.
Germany's future moltgaged to
the Allies.
Men like Walter Rathenau, head
of the great electrical trust, or Hugo
SHINES, with his finger in a hundred
industrial pies, or Arthur Won Gwin-
ner, the great banker and shipping
magnate, have their own thoughts
and theories, but the future is so
uncertain that they prefer not to
discuss things.
Big business does not know what
may happen in Germany itself. II
faces not only huge taxes and great
increases in its payroll, hut an in
creasing difficulty in getting raw ma
terials. not to speak Of the difficulty
of finding markets which will accept
German goods.
The result of all this ressimism and
depression and even hopelessness is