Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-04-21
GERMAN CABINET CRISIS
SHOWS BLOC WEAKNESS
Need for Unity on Home Front Is Held
Vital-Hope for Fusion Is Pinned
on Stresemann.

Weimar parties and the Peoples Party
or between the Catholics. Democrats,
Peoples. and Nationalists? If the former
happens, then before lone 1t Is smashed
by quarrels over religious or economic
issues. But, on the other hand. II the
economically conservative parties get
together, 1t Is not long before there Is
new row between the Republicans and
Monarchists. And in either case a noisy
If not numerous band of Communists
are always striving to add to the con-
fusion.
Where Real Danger Lies.
If there is any real danger to the re-
public in Germany 1t does not today lie
In the direction of any present or pro-
Spective revival Of monarchistic senti-
ment. Rather 1t Is consequence Of
the apparent inability of the existing
system to function. The causes which
operated to make possible relationships
in Italy, Poland, Spain and Czechoslo-
yakia are unmistakable in Germany.
Enduring paralysis both in domestic and
foreign policy must inevitably produce
WEAKNESS and disgust.
On the other hand, Germany has
neither the taste for dictator nor the
present possession of any eligible Ma
against the Hohenzollern dynasty re-
mains overwhelming, and the immediate
candidate, the former crown prince. is
less possibility than his august father.
Moreover, Bavaria is as opposed to a
Prussian dynasty as the Rhineland to
any monarch. II Rupprecht Of Bavaria
we're the head of the house of Hohen-
zollern. there might be faint hope for q
restoration. but he is not.
Nor is there any soldier. II Hin
6enburg were 40 or so instead Of 80,
and In addition ambitious, he might
rule like Mussolini. But no other
soldier counts seriously, for Germany
remains bitterly disillusioned as to gen.
! erals.
Iudendorff's Failure.
| Ludendorff. alike by his military
failure and by his postwar perform
ances, has just as completely discredited
! the military man as the Kaiser by his
fight dissipated the illusion of the
"All-Highest." AS for political men,
Stresemann is the single great post
war figure, If one dismiss the late
Frederick Ebert first President Of the
republic, who died in Office
But Stresemann is a politician, not
q dictator. His aspiration takes the
form of a desire to bring about the
creation of some great political party,
through the fusion Of those elements in
various groups which are at once con-
sentative in economic matters and re-
publican in the larger political question.
In that direction alone lies any
real prospect of German escape from
the present morass. And, too. such
escape depends almost exclusively upon
the health and skill Of a single man.
Already Stresemann has suffered from
one breakdown which provoked dis
turbing rrlmors of his final retirement
Apparently he Is back at the old stand
with renewed strength. but. as recent
events have shown, all the old incoher-
ence and pickering still confront him.
And he Is further crippled by the pres
ent posture Of German foreign affairs,
by the continued occupation of the
Rhineland and by the huge demands
Of the allies in the matter of repa-
rations.
Germans Don't Want War.
In any event one may safely draw
from the present state of German pol
iticS the reasonably safe conclusion that
for an indefinite time, for two or three
decades at least, domestic affairs, inner
politics as the Germans themselves say,
will absorb the energies and the atten-
ton OF the German people. The i'm
mediate postwar suspicious of q Ger
many rising from the ruins to execute
a new attack upon Western Europe is
patent nonsense. The German expert
ment in democracy whatever its ulti-
mate outcome. is likely to preclude am
bilious foreign ventures, provided only
allied policy does not bring about q
sudden fusion of all'parties in the face
OF what seems to all Germans a deliber-
ate and deadly threat to German exist
ence and unity.
What is most promising in the sit
uation Is the fact that the German
people, like the French after 1871, are
tired Of Emperors who cannot rule and
OF generals who cannot win. Perhaps
In time they will also become tired
! OF republic which cannot function,
but that Is question for the future
and probably for the distant future.
Thus 1t seems today clear that the
real disarmament of Germany by her
conquerors, the actual success In avert
ing new struggle, was not the result
OF taking away her arms or her ships,
but In forcing upon her republic
which in its present state of incoher-
ence would make her armies and fleets
equally useless And that was the
strategy of Woodrow Wilson and not Of
Marshal Foch.
(Copyright 1927