Evening star., 1923-03-18
BY FRANK G. CARPENTER.

German nation are on the
red-hot skillet of money in
f1ation, and the people hop
to the skies as the mark rises
and falls. The issues of the Reichs-
bank are already more than one
thousand billions. and hundreds OF
millions of new paper are pouring
forth as fast as the presses can run.
The people are bankrupt, and their
agonized antics make one think OF that
Italian church play known as the
"Danse Macabre," or Dance of Death,
of which there is a fresco, made
before the days of Columbus, on the
walls of the Campo Santo of Pisa.
Petrarch and Dante wrote of this
dance and Goethe celebrated it in
Der Totentanz" ballad. In the orig
inal play Death led the dance, call
ing all classes from the Pope to
the peasant to follow him, and they
frantically did SO, imploring Gods
mercy.
This is the condition of the Ger
many Of today. Whatever may come
now practically paupers. By the in
fation of the mark, whether inten-
tional or not, both the classes and
masses have been impoverished, and
with the exception of a comparative
" few great capitalists like SHINES
and of other profiteers who have
stored away their wealth in foreign
banks. all are living from hand to
mouth.
Before the war there was no ma
tion which had such large accumula-
tions of invested capital as Ger
many, and in none was the capital so
widely distributed The insurance
funds and savings banks were loaded
with money. Nearly every man,
woman and child had some kind OF a
savings investment. There were tens
OF thousands living on the interest
of bonds and other gilt-edged securi-
ties which they had laid up for their
old age, and thousands had income
bearing real estate in city and coun-
try. Certain kinds of insurance were
compulsory, and the insurance poll
oies ran into the hundreds of mill
lions. They included policies against
sickness, against accident and against
invalidism and old age. Thousands
had pensions and the government
officials and the employees of many
large institutions We're retired on
fixed incomes after they had reached
a dxed age. All of these funds have
T., I~ I,t ION
that has succeeded the war and the
most of them have disappeared as
though they had never been in exist
ence.
DURING the war Germany was bled
- white. She was not able to bor-
row from the outside nations and at
its close she was practically bank
rupt with three million soldiers out
of a job. These men had to be fed
and had to have work. If work could
not be created the danger of bolshev-
ism and the conditions of Russia were
imminent. AT the same time the vast
Industries built up to make muni-
tions of war had to be transformed to
industries of peace or many more
millions would be out Of a job. The
only way in which the government
could get money to loan for these pur-
poses was to make its printing press
their cashier. 1t did this and the
imitation began 1t added large num-
bers to the official pay rolls and their
salaries came from the presses. 1t
did the same, as far as possible. with
public utilities, loading the street car
companies and railways and post off,
ces with extra men, and paid them
by continuing to print.
AS the world began to realize how
the money was made the mark de-
clined. The outside countries lost
faith and still Germany had to buy
food and raw materials and at the
same time pay the reparation de-
mands. All of these were based upon
gold. and the mark as a representative
of gold rapidly shrank. 1t soon
dropped from one-fourth Of dollar
to one-sixteenth of a dollar. That
was in August, 1919. Six months
later one could buy fifty marks for
a dollar and shortly after that seven
ty-five. In January, 1922, the mark
had so fallen that 1t took two hum
dred to equal one dollar in gold.
Nevertheless the Germans still had
faith in their government, and it was
not until almost a year later that
their currency took its seat on the
electric toboggan. It's first jump was
from two hundred to four hundred per
dollar. It soon reached six hundred,
ana at the beginning of last Decem-
Der it was already seven thousand
TO the dollar. It went down about
three thousand during that month,
and it has since been fifty thousand
to the dollar and lower. In this let
ter I shall figure the mark at fifty
thousand to the dollar or at five
hundred marks to one cent, which Is
as high as it is likely to be for long
time 10 come.
Before the war the German mark