Evening star., 1923-12-16
BY FRANCIS j. WAHLEN.
Former London Editor Of De Mas
bOde, of Rotterdam, an ImpOr-
tant Daily Of the Neither
lands.

l
| N N ANY people. even otherwise
| N well informed, look with no
| ; little skepticism upon the
| conclusions of personal OBJ
servers and students of the present
day social and economic disorders
| in Germany, when these conclusions
all tend to point out the imminent
| climax of a situation unbearable for
| the German people.
1.-THE Germans are a rather mentally
docile people," said II. G. Wells. And
| Marcel Ray, well known French
publicist, reiterates this, only this
October, in a Paris monthly. Many
observers, endeavoring to be Impair
| tial in their summing-up Of the Ger
man facts, whatever the causes or
| motives may be, distinguish between
| the German people as whole, and
/ the Berlin Government, the group OF
German industrialists, the SHINES
| krupp- -Thyssen group, and other de
! facto powers" in the German lands.
| The Berlin government, resting upon
such a precarious parliamentary COM
bination, almost a deadlock, that ef-
| fective governing seems fairly i'm
possible, is bent upon preserving the
unity of the reich at all costs. The
great industrial group, which quite
lrecently made its own agreement with
Gen. Degoutte, commander in chief of
! the French Belgian troops of occupa-
tion, faced as they were by indus
trial ruin and the fear Of having the
properties confiscated, constitutes Gin
facD another power, the economic
ruling force. And then there are
the various separatist and monar-
chist groups, with their aggregate
! millions of open, or secret adopts.
Honeycombed with Secret Societies.
The whole Of the German-s speaking
lands are now simply honeycombed
with secret societies. There are the
national-socialist organizations, di-
vided in their "Hundertschaften" Cor
groups of hundred, with their trac-
tor-colonnes and automobile sections
There are the active and numerous
students-groups, mostly monarchis-
tic. And the Swastika society, the
Orgesh. the Young Eagles. the Young
Deutchland, the German Legion, the
Old Soldiers. the Friends of Bis
marck; not 70 speak of the numerous
regional organizations in Bavaria,
Saxony. for the defense of Rhine
land" and such like.
Americans viii remember the his
tortc lesson of the secret American
societies just before the war of in
dependence.
No government could possibly
stamp out such a nationwide move
ment of intense nationalism, even
should there exist anywhere a gov
ernment willing to undertake such a
job.
General Prostrntion of People.
The French observer. Marcel Ray.
makes pertinent conclusions. "The
city people, who are hungry, have a
mind which is the product of hunger,
mute rage and of fear. The citizens,
who have eaten today, but who will
not eat perhaps tomorrow, have only
fear in their mind. Those who have
too much to eat are also full of fear,
which occasionally becomes panic
Then they begin hurriedly to load
thelr llmouSines with packages, bun
dies of shares and stocks, as well as
! with Jewei-boxes. And they dart to-
! ward the Polish or the Danish from
tier. Or perhaps, because the from
tiers are guarded, they take refuge
! in some hotel palace, where their
limousines stand ready TO fee at the
first alarm. Fear. hunger and ran
cour, without any precise object TO
combine to form the soul of the great
cities. Far away, in the placid
stretch Of pine forests and potato
fields, are the villages, in which the
hostile, well fed faces of the peas
ants look forth from behind their
| machine-guns. They do not mix in
politics, but are resolved to protect
their possessions"
The French writer OF the above
cited discounts. however. the pow
erful nationalism, the patriotism
which is an integral part of the we'll
know romanticism of the German.
Increasing Tcutonfc NntionaIism.
He admits of the bitter hatred for
France. even as it flares up in So
cialist and communist circles, as well
| as in the organs of the center-part
and the groups of the right. Ger
, man socialists and communists may
use IN the Norwaerts or in the ma
| tional-socialist Volkische Boebachter
or Munich the bitterest invectives
against the induStrialists finan-
cferS, profiteers Of all sorts. these
drainerS of German wealth toward
foreign banks, those saboteurs Of the
money and the tax systems" as they
nave 1t; the economic readustment
| OF the German social order remains
for them, nevertheless, domestic
affair. The protection of a common
country, their nationality and civilfza-
tion would, at the psychological mo-
ment Teunite Germans, at least for the
common defense, against an attempt by
foreign influences to divide the reich