The Washington herald., 1922-09-13

7 NANNAA-N' SSfN- We OA lhc
German Republic stand at the death
bed OF our ropes. Germany is head
ing under full sail on the way OF
Austria. What comes next is not
politics: IL is social revolution"
In the marble-pillared hall of a
palace on Wilhelmstrasse. where
Prince Bismarck once ruled the en-
pire's destiny with blood and iron.
Chancellor Joseph Wirth. man Of
the common people and leader of
the new German Republic. was tell
ling of his country's plight. Half
bitter. half pleading he spoke OF
the collapse of industry. the disin-
Itegration OF affairs. the hopeless
/ futile struggle in the vortex of
welt-politik that Is today hurtling
nation of 60,0oo.000 people to de-
| struction.
Outside the plush curtained win
dows newsboys screamed the black
headlines of the evening extras:
Die dollar list 1860. Die dollar ist
! 1860"
leaders of Germany talk of collapse
and chaos. of dry rot eating the
heart of their "ountry. of possible
famine and resolution in the spring,
what is the background against
which the fantastic, insane picture
of a Bolshevik Germany is painted
Industrial Fabric Crashes.
| Imagine a huge colossal ma
chine. more intricate in its inter-
meshed steel gears than a nam.
moth printing press. more inter-
woven in its swift flying parts than
- rl,f .
loom, more subtle in its imbedded
intricacies than the multiple tangle
of wires behind a great telephone
switchboard.
/ This machine is the industria,
fabric of the German nation. Its
! foundations go down into the soil
to the wheat fields of Bradenburg,
the forests of Turingen. the iron
mines of Westphalia. the pitheads
of the Ruhr. Its smooth running
parts are the teeming factory towns
of the Rhineland, SaXony and Prus-
sian plain. 1t draws its energy and
life from the complex interdepend
Iencies of international trade. eX-
port and import. trade balances, the
exchange, the cabled flash of the
morning openings on Wall Street
the bulletin of Chicago's wheat
quotation.
Ry the vast. hidden ramifications
of this machine lives Hans Schmidt,
trud ying homeward with his dinner
pail along the drab, twilight streets
of Dortmund or Essen, knowing
nothing of weltpolitik, knowing
only that so marks does not buy a
pound of butter any more.
! Why II Dropped.
! Tho machine Is intact. The land
! does not change; the factory walls
! still stand. Sixty million pairs of
( hands still work. But the electri-
/ fying force, the mark exchange
valuation that was both the index
and the life spark of the nation's S
/ industrial machine. has lost its
I power. With the mark. normally
| four to the dollar. now worth 1860
! to the dollar. this electric force
which drives the wheels of world
| trade is. for Germany. 262 times
! less potent than the German ma
| chine demands.
There is no mystery about why
! the mark has dropped. Defeat first
| weakened Germany's financial posi-
! tion. With the knowledge that all
German n huBe M -
mortgage of reparations for the
next forty-two years. Germany at
| once became an unsound invest
ment. Germany's necessity of regu-
larly buying large quantities of
| foreign money to meet the repara-
| tions payments further cheapened
the mark German business men,
fearful of their own currency. sold
| marks at a discount to get foreign
currency, banking it abroad. AS
the mark slumped printing presses
were worked overtime, issuing
paper currency with slight backing,
OF none whatever.
The Process of Decay.
Now that Germany declares she is
unable to pay further reparations,
and with the possibility imminent
that France may claim vital parts
of the German industrial machine
in sanctions, Germany has become a
bad account in the eyes of world
business. No one wants the mark,
and Germany Is therefore forced to
give larger and larger bundles of
her currency in exchange for the
dollars, pounds and Swiss francs she
must buy to carry on essential
trade, to meet reparations. to get
imports of such necessities as
wheat. and copper which she can