Evening star., 1938-04-10
4 Coose-Step Election.


Field Marshal Goering, at the closing
Berlin rally for today's Anschuss plebi-
sclte in Germany and Austria, gloated
that 100 per cent ballot would be cast
for Hitler and for the unification plan.
The German people will not vote 80
per cent the ponderous No. Nazi
thundered. They will vote 100 per
cent That almost qualities the gen.
eralisslmo OF the Reich air force for Jim
t'arleys class, as super political
prophet. Der Fuehrers second in COM
mand is likely, indeed, to put the Demo-
cratic national chairmans famous 1886
4o-to-2 electoral college prognosis COM
pletely IN the shade. If Sunny Jim had
had the Nazi getting-and vote
countIng-system at his command, even
Name and Vermont would probably
have turned up in the Roosevelt column,
whether they belonged there or not.
The results of the Anschluss referen-
DUN, OF course, have always been fore
gone conclusion. Whether they are
actually 100 per cent Hitler, as
Goering suspiclously forecasts, or merely
70, 30 or 80 per cent, they will be so
oVerWhelmlnGly "jah' thai the "nein"
vote might as We'll not have been cast
al all. 1t is to one-Way election that
forty or fifty million Germans and ex
Austrlans will goose-step. Under the
stern eyes OF Storm Troopers, Secret
Police and Der Fuehrer's elite Guard De-
tachment, the privileged SchutzstafTel of
picked Hitler henchmen, men of voting
age will be about as free to express their
real will as the serfs who once covered
under the knouts of the Cars Cossacks.
Though it be heralded to a credulous
world as the loyal untrammeled and
enthusiastic expression of a united
Reich of 75,00o,000 Germans
euphony-the Anschluss plebiscite is a
grim and eruesome travesty on the
sacred institution of the ballot-box. It
may be proclaimed from a million Nazi
housetops tonight as a supreme totali-
tartan triumph, but 1t will stand in
history, for all that, as an act of abase-
ment and enslavement of a great people
who ninety years ago, in the Prussian
revolution of 1046, gave indelible proof
that the spirit of liberty once famed
through the valleys Of the Rhine, the
Spree, the Oder and the Elbe.
Concrete International repercussions
from the Austrian referendum are al
ready foreshadowed. France is fully
alive to what may accrue from the sane
tlflcatlon of Anschluss. Incoming Pre-
n1ier Daladier was impelled to hurry the
new Paris cabinet into office on Satur-
day so that France tomorrow can present
to an expanded Reich solid govern
mental front representative of national
union. French ENJOYS to Poland. Ru-
mania, Yugoslavia and Russia we're in
structed to obtain from those respective
governments without delay some indica-
tlons OF their exact intentions" in case
the Germans attempt to repeat their
Austrian coup in Czechoslovakia. Paris
intends to let Berlin know that she and
her four allies are prepared to resist
such an extension of Nazi aggression
The prevalent view in most European
chancelleries is that Hitler will REQUIRE
the better part of year to assimilate
Austria and generally to consolidate
Germany's new position before essaying
fresh adventures in Central Europe. Pro-
longation of French political turmoil
would undoubtedly speed up the Reich's
"drang mach Osten" schedule.