Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-01-25
By FRANK H. SIMONDs.


~ ERLIN.-When is the United
- States going to wake up to the
H. This question, in varying forms
Is one of the most frequent the
American visitor hears in Berlin. Ac-
tually, of course, it is not asked in so
crude q form. Business and finance, for
sample, would ask it quite as much on
The basis of American as German self
interest, pointing out that the present
economic crisis is International AS for
the mass of little people, they would
base their question upon the assump-
ton that peace in the world is as much
an American question as a European.
U. S. Thought Sole Hope.
Yet the fact is there that all classes
Of the German public, in some degree
at least, regard definite action by the
United States in Europe as the sole
nope of restoration of prosperity or
OF progress toward permanent peace.
In the matter of prosperity, business
and finance, while by no means lacking
in confidence, see little hope of swift
recovery and none of final emergence
this side of a cooperative effort on the
part of all governments and peoples, be-
ginning with the American. In the
matter Of peace, conditioned upon dis
armament, recent events in Geneva
have confirmed a pessimiSm which has
endured for some time.
German business and finance say
with equal emphasis that the United
States, having become a great export
nation, cannot at one time seal up its
own markets and maintain its debt pol
icy, and on the other expect to sell
its own goods freely in the world mar
kets. It believes that. on the contrary,
we must first join with the rest Of the
world in sweeping away the war debris
Of reparations and debts, and then as
stst in comprehensive organization OF
world trade.
Today Germany is confronted by two
possibilities. She must have many bill
lions in long-term credits If she is to
restore her working capital and get her
machine to function1ng in a normal
fashion. These credits she can get only
in Paris or New York. But If she is
ordinary terms she must accept new po-
litical conditions. She must, in broad
terms, come into Brands pan-Euro-
pean scheme, which begins with the
agreement that existing treaty condi-
tons must be preserved, territorially and
otherwise. And at the back of this
plan lies the possibility Of eventual or
ganization against the United States
and Soviet Russia, the two dangerous
competitors-one in the present, the
other in the future.
Favor Linking Of Business.
These conditions are unacceptable.
Politically, no German government
can give the guarantees; economically,
Germany does not believe in pan
Europe, with the United States on the
outside. But when Berlin makes sound
tngS In Washington and New York 1t
discovers that whatever the state of
mind Of Wall Street, Pennsylvania ave-
nue. is against German plans for NOR
atortum IN reparationS, since that in
sures the arrival of the debt issue and
Washington Is inclined to make 1t clear
that administration sympathy with Ger
many would be gravely shaken by a
moratorium.
But all the German governments
vast financial program, carrying with
It new and unpopular taxes, was got
through the ReichStag only by a mar
row vote as the preface to a morato-
rum, which all Germans agree must
and win come by Spring, perhaps even
earlier. Not to announce 1t would be
almost as dangerous for the Bruening
government as to give even little at
tention to French terms.
German business and finance would
like to join with the United States in q
general reorganization of the world Sit
uation. fastening general world recov-
cry. Such q reorganization would, Of
course, not be in any sense an exclu-
sion Of either France or Great Britain,
but what the Germans believe is that
make the United States a dominant
factor. Short Of this, there is the pos
siblity Of long continued economic de-
preston. with the eventual menace Of
Bolshevism.
BOlshevist Menace Present.
How seriously Germans Of impor-
lance take the Bolshevist peril I do not
pretend to say, yet they are becoming
increasingly aware that success Of the
present Russian fve-year program
would strike Germany in the first line.
while they have to face the fact that
the gradual lowering Of the German
standard Of living, with all its attend
ant political consequences, can eventu-
ally lead to grave consequences. No
reasonable man believes Germany Is
going red overnight or in the next
years. The Communist scare as q pres
ent factor Is grossly exaggerated where
It Is pictured as an instant menace.
Nevertheless. there Is a Communist
party which polled 4,500 900 votes at
the last election and would pass $780,
900 today. It is active, well organized
and militant, and it is bound to keep
on gaining votes from the more moder-
ate Socialists If depression continues.
And there is Russia always working
with and through the Communists, di-
recting their activities with the single
purpose to bring a German revolution