Evening star., 1923-05-01
BY HIRAM KELLY MODERWELL.

. Following is the first of series OF ar
ticIes by, Mr.. Moderwell on financial; indus,
Germany. These articles the product of
Mr.. ModerweIl's second extensive tour OF In
vestgation of that distracted countrF.l
Special Correspondence Of The Star and
Chicago Daily News.
BERLIN. Germany. April ia
dozen men in Germany control 90 per
cent Of the country's coal and heavy
iron production. With this virtual
monopoly over the bread of industry
they have the power to dictate the
economic life of the nation. and no
one can say that in the future they
may not he able to make and rule
the government.
Now that the middle class is ruin
ed, the working class divided and
underpaid and the junkers exiled
from the most important functions
of government, the industrialists
alone have wealth and power. In a
time of almost universal perpleXity
they alone know exactly what they
want.
Germany today is like prison
camp. In an area no larger than that
of New York and New England there
are crowded more than half as many
peoplo dS i've III COnllnenldh OHlleu
States They cannot emigrate. Sur
rounding nations. with q host of un-
employed, will not have them. Not
one German in 10000 could raise the
price of steamship ticket to Amer
1Ca-a whole years wages.
In this prison camp food produc-
tton has sunk to 60 to 20 per cent of
normal. The peasants refuse to buy
the necessary fertilizers and cultivate
their land intensively unless they can
obtain high prices for their produce.
The city population. weakened and
depressed by the war and deprived
of all tangible wealth, cannot pay
high prices.
People cannot go outside the prison
camp to get their food. So they snatch
what they can from the other prison.
ers. The city population has snatched
from the householders by obtaining a
teth of the normal rate. The ruined
householders cannot buy The shop
keepers cannot sell TO them.
The improvised government cannot
get taxes from the impoverished
householders and shopkeepers. So it.
100. has found way Of living at the
expense Of others BY issuing tril
lions Of promissorv notes called
marks. 1t gets its supplies for moth
ing. snatching bread out of peoples
mouths with It's invisible hands
When the people discovered that
the government was keeping alive by
FeTpeIratlnS tn1S lPdntlc fraud. tneN
felt that they had a right to do the
same thing on smaller scale. From
coal baron to chamhermaid. every one
has turned speculator. first at the
expense of foreign buyers of the
mark. and latterly at the expense OF
one another. Business has become a
matte~ Of guessing how the mark will
20. 1t has become impossible in Ger
many TO make decent living de-
Gently.
Every one is convinced that his
neighbor is cheating him. that to
work hard is only to make oneself
somebody else's mule, that nothing
pays but dishonesty. Such is the
morale of the prison camp.
But the dozen big industrialists
and their satellites have been in
strategic position. Every calamity
has turned to gold in their hands. II
food prices We're high. they could sell
their agricultural machines. If rents
were cheap, they could get cheap
labor. If money was depreciating
they could turn it into foreign money
of real value at the most favorable
time. If speculation was the rule of
life. they, with their resources and
Information. could speculate better
than any one else. If they were
obliged to surrender their mines and
ships to the allies. they were indem
nified at the expense of the German
people, thus obtaining vast sums of
ready capital at a time when every
one else was poor. If business was
good, they could sell at high prices
If business was tottering, they could
buy mines and factories cheaply. If
the mark rose. they could purchase
If the mark fell they could produce
at low cost. If the government was
hated and weak, they could bully the
government and evade its laws. pay