Outstanding International Press Reporting. Volume 1 1928–1945: From the consequences of World War I to the end of World War II [Reprint 2019 ed.] 9783110857979, 9783110089189

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Outstanding International Press Reporting Volume 1:1928-1945

Outstanding International Press Reporting Pulitzer Prize Winning Articles in Foreign Correspondence Editor: Heinz-Dietrich Fischer

Volume 1:1928-1945 From the Consequences of World War I to the End ofWorldWarll

w DE

Walter de Gruyter • Berlin • New York 1984

Dr. Heinz-Dietrich

Fischer

Professor of International Journalism and Communication at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, FRG

CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme

der Deutschen

Bibliothek

Outstanding international press reporting Pulitzer prize winning articles in foreign correspondence / ed. by Heinz-Dietrich Fischer. - Berlin; New York: de Gruyter NE: Fischer, Heinz-Dietrich [Hrsg.] Vol. 1.1928-1945: from the consequences of World War I to the end of World War II. - 1984. ISBN 3-11-008918-1

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication

Data

Outstanding international press reporting. Bibliography: v. 1, p. Includes index. Contents: v. 1.1928-1945, from the consequences of World War I to the end of World War II. 1. World politics • 20th century • Adresses, essays, lectures. 2. Pulitzer prizes • Adresses, essays, lectures. 3. Journalists-United States • Adresses, essays, lectures. 4. Foreign news • United States • Adresses, essays, lectures. I. Fischer, Heinz-Dietrich, 1937D 445.088 1983 909.82 83-18962 ISBN 3-11-008918-1 (v. 1)

Copyright © 1984 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin 30. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part this book may reproduced in any form - by photoprint, microfilm or any other means nor transmitted nor translated into a machine language without written permission from the publisher. - Typesetting: Kingsport Press, Kingsport, Tenn., USA. - Printing: Druckerei Gerike G m b H , Berlin. - Binding: Dieter Mikolai, Berlin. - Cover design: Lothar Hildebrand, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

PREFACE The importance of those works awarded the Pulitzer prize cannot be overemphasized. The individual reporting is representative of brilliant stylistic proficiency, while the subject matter and the interpretation of these outstanding historical world occurrences are of timeless interest. Historians, journalists, politicians, sociologists, linguists, and writers will be able to appreciate the value of this constantly stimulating and informative reading matter. Even today the strength of its impact is great. The texts have been collected and are attended by the Pulitzer Archives at Columbia University, who provided access of these documents to the researcher. For the benefit of the general public the objective was to publish a selection of at least those most important parts which contain specific subject matter. The statement "a project like this one will not be easy to handle" was made by the late Professor Richard T. Baker, then administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes— a comment made almost a half decade ago when I submitted my preliminary thoughts on a comprehensive documentation of such a piece of work. This was confirmed. It is due to the Advisory Board on the Pulitzer Prizes that the preliminary studies for the edition could be started; they allowed unlimited use of the Pulitzer Prize Collection normally kept under lock and key and generously gave permission for an analysis of the confidential Jury Reports. The editor is particularly grateful for this extraordinary sign of trust. The problems and necessary research which arose during the revision were greater and more time-consuming than was expected. The fact that the first volume has been published is due to, in particular, the understanding support of a number of members of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, New York, as well as the Pulitzer Prize Office located in the same building. Professor W. Phillips Davison and the former associate dean Christopher G. Trump obtained the consent of the faculty members for this research project. Dean Osborn Elliott continuously encouraged the realization of the project. The administrators of the Pulitzer Prizes, the late Professor Richard T. Baker and his successor, Mr. Robert C. Christopher, constantly lent a sympathetic ear to my intentions. Mrs. Rose Valenstein, from the Pulitzer Prize Office, as well as her successor, Mrs. Robin Kuzen, were always exceptionally helpful. Also Mr. Wade A. Doares, Principal of the Library of the Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, and his long-time assistant, Mr. Jonathan Beard, rendered a great deal of assistance in explaining detailed problems. The staff members of the following libraries showed their cooperation in similar manner: Baltimore Public Library; Boston Public Library; Butler Library of Columbia University, New York; Chicago Public Library; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Harvard University Library; Princeton University Library; Library of the Uni-

vi

Preface

versity of Florida, Gainesville; Yale University Library; Miami Public Library; and New York Public Library. In spite of various problems, the right of reproduction of the texts on the part of the copyright holders was, in the end, successfully granted. The editor is grateful to the following people for their help: Mrs. Judy Arndt and Mrs. Virginia Butts {Chicago Sun-Times), Mrs. Susan Miller (New York Post), Mr. David Klein (The American Council on Germany, New York), Mrs. Barbara Langenberger (The New York Times), Mr. John S. Prescott (International Herald-Tribune, New York), Mr. Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), Dr. Carlos P. Romulo (former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Manila, the Philippines), Mrs. Betty Sailer (Washington, D.C.), Mr. Ronald E. Thompson (The Associated Press, New York), and Mr. Robert V. Twilling (Chicago Tribune). In Germany, contributions by Dr. Hans Kölligs (John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Berlin), Mr. Robert H. Lochner (International Institute for Journalism, Berlin), and Mrs. Erika Schwarz (Library of the U.S. Embassy, Bonn) made the procurement of the necessary material and information possible. Many thanks to Dr. Ernst Günter Vetter (FAZIT Stiftung, Frankfurt/Main) for providing a research allowance for the purpose of carrying out library and archives work in the United States and to Werner Schuder of Walter de Gruyter Publishers, BerlinNew York, who was committed at every stage to the production of this book. Last, but not least, thanks go to some close colleagues from the Department of Journalism and Communication, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, for their cooperation in the accomplishment of this task. Above all, I am grateful to Mrs. Ingrid Dickhut who never gave up hope and completed the final manuscript, in spite of the differing versions of text which had to be analyzed and, in some cases, the original articles were difficult to decipher from the Xerox copies of the old newspaper clippings. I would also like to acknowledge the help of Mr. Berthold Klostermann, Mrs. Helen Koriath, and Mr. Benno Wagner for their assistance in reviewing the source material as well as Mr. Peter Berger, Mr. Aichard Hoffmann, Mr. Rainer Schöttle, and Mr. Wolfgang Swoboda who helped in the preparation of the manuscript. My special thanks go to my wife, Erika J. Fischer, who as well as finding the sources which were difficult to come by, also actively supported me throughout the manuscript work and conceptional development of the project. Heinz-Dietrich Fischer Summer, 1983

CONTENTS Preface

v

Contents of Future Volumes

xiii

Introduction: The Pulitzer Prizes for International Reporting in the First Phase of Their Development, 1928-1945 by Heinz-Dietrich Fischer

xix

Editorial Remarks

li

Chapter 0 R E P O R T S A B O U T G E R M A N Y I N 1916 The Situation and Several Upcoming Problems of the Country in the Third Year of the War by Herbert B. Swope (The World, N e w York) Introductory Notes 0.1 Germany Hopes for Peace and Prepares to Battle On 0.2 The Germans' Pride and Its Impact on Foreign Policy 0.3 Fortune of War Turns and Liberalism Is New Hope 0.4 Trade and Unemployment as Central Factors 0.5 Blockade Results and the Fight Against Famine Related Readings

3 4 5 10 15 20 24 29

Chapter 1 R E P O R T S A B O U T S W I T Z E R L A N D I N 1928 Negotiations About a New Peace Concept and the Various Points of Dissent by Paul S. Mowrer (The Chicago Daily News) Introductory Notes 1.1 Two Peace Concepts and Their Differences 1.2 The U.S. Proposal and Its Chances 1.3 The War Outlawry Pact and Its Difficulties 1.4 Briand-Kellogg Pact Effects Hopes and Apprehensions 1.5 The New Pact: A Chance and a Challenge Related Readings

31 32 33 35 37 39 41 45

viii

Contents

Chapter 2 REPORTS ABOUT FRANCE IN 1929 The Reparations Problem and the Struggle for Its Solution by Leland Stowe (New York Herald-Tribune) Introductory Notes 2.1 Plans for a Reparations Organization and Its Task 2.2 The Reparations Situation and the Role of Mr. Young 2.3 Germany's Proposal and the Importance of France 2.4 The New International Bank and Its Future Importance 2.5 Final Agreement on a Contract and Its Consequences Related Readings

47 48 49 52 56 59 63 68

Chapter 3 REPORTS ABOUT THE SOVIET UNION IN 1930 The Russian Economic System and the Situation of the Population by Hubert R. Knickerbocker (New York Evening Post) Introductory Notes 3.1 The First Five-Year Plan and Its Postulates 3.2 Russia's Fear and Her Decision for a Spurt 3.3 The Government's Mistake and an Unexpected Event 3.4 The Russian Inflation and Its Official Definition 3.5 The Five-Year War and Its Victims Related Readings

71 72 73 77 81 84 89 94

Chapter 4 REPORTS ABOUT THE SOVIET UNION IN 1931 The Soviet Policy and the Personal Impact of Stalin by Walter Duranty (The New York Times) Introductory Notes 4.1 The System of Stalinism and Its Philosophy 4.2 Soviet Opinion Monopoly and the Mass Media 4.3 Soviet Censorship and Its Fruits Abroad 4.4 The Red Army, Figures and Functions 4.5 The Russian Empire and Its Ethnic Plurality Related Readings

95 96 97 100 101 104 106 108

Chapter 5 REPORTS ABOUT GERMANY IN 1932 Germany Between Radicalism and the Hope for a Better Future by Edgar A. Mowrer (The Chicago Daily News) Introductory Notes 5.1 Radical Movements and the German Psychosis

109 110 111

Contents

ix

5.2 The Middle Class's Turn to Radicalism and Its Cause 5.3 Reichstag Elections and Hitler's First Halt 5.4 German Hopes and Needs Before Christmas 5.5 The Optimism for the Following Year and Its Reasons Related Readings

113 116 117 118 121

Chapter 6 REPORTS ABOUT GERMANY IN 1933 The Germans Under Fascist Rule and the Heralds of Destruction

by Frederick T. Birchall (The New York Times)

123

Introductory Notes 6.1 Changes in German Policy and the Turn to Fascism 6.2 Hitler's Internal Policy and a Lesson for the Future 6.3 The Organized Anti-Semitism and Rumors Abroad 6.4 A Letter of Dr. Goebbels and the Healthy German Arts 6.5 The First Book Burnings and Their "Victims" Related Readings

124 125 127 130 133 136 139

Chapter 7 REPORTS ABOUT THE UNITED STATES IN 1934 Centers of International Crises and the Ways They Might Develop

by Arthur Krock (The New York Times) Introductory Notes 7.1 The Russo-Japanese Problem and the Attitude to War 7.2 The Conflicts of the East and America's Caution 7.3 France's Tradition and Its Importance for Europe 7.4 The U.S. Image in Latin America and Its Development 7.5 Britain's Difficult Decision and America's Hope Related Readings

141 142 143 144 146 148 151 153

Chapter 8 REPORTS ABOUT ETHIOPIA IN 1935 An Underdeveloped Country as It Faces the Menace of Imperialism

by William C. Barber (Chicago Daily Tribune) Introductory Notes 8.1 A People's National Pride versus Fascist Imperialism 8.2 Africa's Last Free Country and Its Natural Defense 8.3 Ethiopian Culture—Old Aged and Peculiar 8.4 Addis Ababa—Poor and Epidemic 8.5 Slavery in Ethiopia—A Temptation and Its Fruits Related Readings

155 156 157 159 163 165 168 171

Contents

Chapter 9 REPORTS ABOUT ITALY IN 1936 Italy Under the Mussolini Rule and the Reasons for Her Turn to Militarism

by Anne O'Hare McCormick

(The New York Times)

Introductory Notes 9.1 Changes in a Dictator and Their Causes 9.2 Mussolini and Italy's Decision for the Military Way 9.3 Italy's Militarism and the Effects of Sanctions 9.4 The Worth of Pacts and Italy's "Training" War 9.5 The New Italy: Hard, Simple, Militant Related Readings

173 174 175 178 180 182 186 189

Chapter 10 REPORTS ABOUT THE UNITED STATES IN 1937 Problems Facing the President and Discussions About Their Solutions

by Arthur Krock (The New York Times) Introductory Notes 10.1 The President's Philosophy and Its Practical Conditions 10.2 Roosevelt's Main Problems and Their Important Traits 10.3 A Monetary Dilemma and How the President Might Act 10.4 Roosevelt's Dream and Why It Cannot Come True 10.5 The President's Program and How It Might be Paid Related Readings

191 192 193 197 201

203 205 208

Chapter 11 REPORTS ABOUT GERMANY IN 1938 Hitler's Sudetenland Campaign and Europe's Attempts to Avoid War

by Louis P. Lochner (The Associated

Press)

Introductory Notes 11.1 Dictator Shows Strength and Stresses Will to Peace 11.2 The Nazis' New Demands and the Role of Chamberlain 11.3 Hitler's Claims and the Last Chance for Peace 11.4 Hitler's Yield for Sudetenland and His Conditions 11.5 The Negotiations and the Advance of Hitler's Troops Related Readings

211 212

213 215 217 220 223 225

Chapter 12 REPORTS ABOUT GERMANY IN 1939 The German Situation in the First Weeks of World War II and the Nazi's Interior Policy

by Otto D. Tolischus (The New York Times)

227

Introductory Notes 12.1 The First Weeks of War and the Situation in Cologne

228 229

Contents

xi

12.2 Changes in Daily Life and the Importance of Russia 12.3 The Blockade Strangle and Its Various Consequences 12.4 The German Soul and the Nazi's Way of Ruling It 12.5 The Effects of War Strain and Their Official Name Related Readings

231 233 236 239 242

Chapter 13 REPORTS ABOUT FRANCE IN 1940 The Situation of France Under Nazi Occupation and the Mistakes Made by the Vichy Rule by Percy J. Philip (The New York Times) Introductory Notes 13.1 The Nazis in France and Hope for a Victory by Spirit 13.2 The Tactic of Laval and Its Consequences 13.3 The Food Shortage and Its Various Causes 13.4 The Test of the Vichy Rule and the Role of Monsieur Laval 13.5 French Change Their Mind and Hope for Britain Related Readings

243 244 245 250 257 261 266 271

Chapter 14 REPORTS ABOUT CHINA IN 1941 The Political Situation in Far East and the Special Importance of Free China by Carlos P. Romulo (The Philippines Herald) Introductory Notes 14.1 The Situation in Far East and the Hope for America 14.2 Free China's Capital and What It Symbolizes 14.3 China's Will to Fight and the Chance for Appeasement 14.4 China's Leader and His Political Ideas 14.5 The Burma Road and Its Importance for China Related Readings

273 274 275 279 280 283 286 288

Chapter 15 REPORTS ABOUT THE SOLOMONS IN 1942 The Pacific War Theatre and the American Plans and Operations by Hanson W. Baldwin (The New York Times) Introductory Notes 15.1 The Solomon Battle and Its Tactical Necessities 15.2 The Importance of Cooperation and Its Impediments 15.3 Australia's Strategic Role and Its Consequences 15.4 The U.S. Plane Superiority and Its Reasons 15.5 War Technical Experiences and How They Are Used Related Readings

289 290 291 295 300 303 307 310

xii

Contents

Chapter 16 REPORTS ABOUT YUGOSLAVIA IN 1943 The Partisan Organization in Yugoslavia and Its Strikes Against the Germans

by Daniel de Luce (The Associated Press) Introductory Notes 16.1 A Peoples Resistance and How It Works 16.2 The Partisan War and Its Constellation 16.3 Drug Tito and His Qualities 16.4 Report from a Partisan Camp 16.5 Aims and Structure of the Partisan Movement Related Readings

313 314 315 316 319 322 325 327

Chapter 17 REPORTS ABOUT ENGLAND IN 1944 The Allies' Invasion Into France and the Important Contributions of Her Various Formations by Mark S. Watson (The Evening Sun, Baltimore) Introductory Notes 17.1 The Allies' Tactic and Its Main Elements 17.2 Airborne Attacks and Increasing Nazi Opposition 17.3 The Struggle for the Beaches and a Look at Russia 17.4 The Pressure on Cherbourg and the Enemy's Distress 17.5 The Need for La Haye and a Second Surprise Related Readings

329 330 331 334 337 339 340 342

Chapter 18 REPORTS ABOUT JAPAN IN 1945 America's Fight Against Japan and the Consequent Way of Finishing It

by Homer W. Bigart (New York Herald-Tribune) Introductory Notes 18.1 Sugar Loaf—The Battle and the Strategy 18.2 The Bombing of 43,000 Civilians and Its Reasons 18.3 Inspecting the Effects of the Atomic Bomb 18.4 The End of War Theatre and the Actors' Final Scene 18.5 A Study of Destruction After the Japanese Surrender Related Readings

Index

345 346 347 349 353 354 357 362 363

CONTENTS

OF FUTURE

VOLUMES

Volume 2 Covering the Period from 1946-1962 Chapter 19 REPORTS ABOUT THE SOVIET UNION IN 1946 The Post-War Situation and Some Typical Characteristics of the County

by J. Brooks Atkinson (The New York Times) Chapter 20 REPORTS ABOUT THE SOVIET UNION IN 1947 The Cultural Situation and How It Is Formed By the Party

by Paul W. Ward (The Sun, Baltimore) Chapter 21 REPORTS ABOUT INDIA IN 1948 The Country's Way to Sovereignty and the Cultural Impediments

by Price Day (The Sun, Baltimore) Chapter 22 REPORTS ABOUT THE SOVIET UNION IN 1949 The Structure of the Government and The Way It Acts on the People

by Edmund W. Stevens (The Christian Science Monitor, Boston) Chapter 23 REPORTS ABOUT KOREA IN 1950 America's Fight Against Communism and the Conquest of Seoul

by Marguerite Higgins (New York

Herald-Tribune)

Chapter 24 REPORTS ABOUT KOREA IN 1951 The Final Stage of the War and the Conditions for Peace

by John M. Hightower (The Associated Press) Chapter 25 REPORTS ABOUT C A N A D A IN 1952 The Country's Great Fortunes and How They Are Exploited

by Austin C. Wehrwein (The Milwaukee

Journal)

Contents of Future Volumes

Chapter 26 REPORTS ABOUT KOREA IN 1953 The Front and How the Soldiers Face It

by Jim G. Lucas (Scripps-Howard

Newspapers)

Chapter 27 REPORTS ABOUT THE SOVIET UNION IN 1954 The Post-Stalin Era and Important Events Connected With His Death

by Harrison E. Salisbury (The New York Times) Chapter 28 REPORTS ABOUT THE SOVIET UNION IN 1955 Charges in the Junta and Several Important Statements By Its Members

by J. Kingsbury Smith (International

News Service)

Chapter 29 REPORTS ABOUT H U N G A R Y IN 1956 The Civil War and the Exposition of Communism

by Russel Jones ( United Press) Chapter 30 REPORTS ABOUT YUGOSLAVIA IN 1957 Tito's Brand of Communism and Quarrels With Moscow

by Elie Abel (The New York Times) Chapter 31 REPORTS ABOUT CUBA IN 1958 The Batista Rule and Rumors About Revolution

by Joseph G. Martin/Philip

J. Santora (Daily News, New York)

Chapter 32 REPORTS ABOUT POLAND IN 1959 The Gomulka Government and the Structure of the Warsaw Pact

by Abraham M. Rosenthal (The New York Times) Chapter 33 REPORTS ABOUT THE CONGO IN 1960 A Period of Unrest and Lumumba's Struggle for Unity

by Lynn L. Heinzerling (The Associated Press) Chapter 34 REPORTS ABOUT THE SOVIET UNION IN 1961 Some Important Political Questions and How They Are Viewed in Communism

by Walter Lippmann (New York

Herald-Tribune)

Chapter 35 REPORTS ABOUT CUBA IN 1962 The Beginning of a Crisis and How It Was Managed in Washington

by Harold V. Hendrix (The Miami

News)

Contents of Future Volumes

Volume 3 Covering the Period from 1963-1977 Chapter 36 REPORTS ABOUT VIETNAM IN 1963 International Quarrels and Their Impact on the Fratricical War by David Halberstam (The New York Times)

Chapter 37 REPORTS ABOUT EAST EUROPE IN 1964 The Turn Toward the West and Its Economic Reasons by Joseph A. Livingston (Philadelphia Bulletin)

Chapter 38 REPORTS ABOUT VIETNAM IN 1965 The War and Some of Its Typical Stories by Peter G. Arnett (The Associated Press)

Chapter 39 REPORTS ABOUT INDONESIA IN 1966 The Change of Government and How It Was Performed by R. John Hughes (The Christian Science Monitor)

Chapter 40 REPORTS ABOUT THE MIDDLE EAST IN 1967 The Six-Day War and Its World-Political Consequences by Alfred Friendly (The Washington Post)

Chapter 41 REPORTS ABOUT VIETNAM IN 1968 The Fourth Year of the War and a Case of Atrocity by William K. Tuohy (Los Angeles Times)

Chapter 42 REPORTS ABOUT THE UNITED STATES IN 1969 The My Lai Massacre and the Futile Search For Its Reasons by Seymour M. Hersh (Dispatch News Service)

Chapter 43 REPORTS ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA IN 1970 The Apartheid System and the Misery of the Black People by Jimmie L. Hoagland (The Washington Post)

Chapter 44 REPORTS ABOUT PAKISTAN IN 1971 The Fratricical War and the Problems Left After Its Settlement by Peter R. Kann (The Wall Street Journal)

xv

Contents of Future Volumes

XVI

Chapter 45 REPORTS ABOUT RED CHINA IN 1972 The Unexpected Nixon Visit and Its Most Important Stations

by Max Frankel (The New York Times) Chapter 46 REPORTS ABOUT THE SOVIET UNION IN 1973 Some Characteristic Traits of the Country and the Mentality of the People

by Hedrick L. Smith {The New York Times) Chapter 47 REPORTS ABOUT NORTH AFRICA IN 1974 The Famine Areas and Their Technical and Cultural Problems

by Ovie Carter/William

C. Mullen (Chicago

Tribune)

Chapter 48 REPORTS ABOUT CAMBODIA IN 1975 The Communists' Take-Over and Some Accompanying Circumstances

by Sydney H. Schanberg (The New York Times) Chapter 49 REPORTS ABOUT GREAT BRITAIN IN 1976 The Country's Economic Problems and the Struggle of Its National Minorities

by George F. Will {The Washington Post) Chapter 50 REPORTS ABOUT T H A I L A N D IN 1977 The Boat People and the Trouble They Are Causing the Western World

by Henry Kamm (The New York Times)

Volume 4 Covering the Period from 1978 on {Partial Contents) Chapter 51 REPORTS ABOUT THE MIDDLE EAST IN 1978 Some Centers of Crisis and How Life Goes on There

by Richard B. Cramer {The Philadelphia

Inquirer)

Chapter 52 REPORTS ABOUT CAMBODIA IN 1979 The Refugee Problem and Some of Its Most Shocking Aspects

by Joe Brinkley/Jay

Mather {Courier-Journal,

Louisville)

Chapter 53 REPORTS ABOUT EL SALVADOR IN 1980 The Brutal Civil War and Its World Political Background

by Shirley Christian {The Miami

Herald)

Contents of Future Volumes

Chapter 54 REPORTS ABOUT POLAND IN 1981 The Worker Resistance and the Establishment of Martial Law

by John Darnton (The New York Times) Chapter 55 REPORTS ABOUT LEBANON IN 1982 The Massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila Refugee Camps

by Loren Jenkins (The Washington Post)

xvii

INTRODUCTION

THE PULITZER PRIZES FOR INTERNATIONAL REPORTING IN THE FIRST PHASE OF THEIR DEVELOPMENT, 1928-1945

Heinz-Dietrich

Fischer

In the late summer of 1902, Joseph Pulitzer dictated the first rough memorandum covering his plans and intentions for a school of journalism. In his history of this school Richard T. Baker wrote, "included within that outline was a paragraph expressing his interest in endowing a series of awards that might serve to recognize the best American writing year after year. From this small seed of an idea, inserted incidentally into a larger text, came the prizes which today bear the donor's name and stand among the most coveted awards in American literature and journalism." 1 The following year a formal agreement was made between Pulitzer and Columbia University in New York concerning the intent to establish a School of Journalism. A paragraph was added to the text of the agreement outlining the purposes for which the money promised by Pulitzer, a sum of two million dollars, was to be used. The agreement, signed on April 10, 1903, stated that a portion of the monies should "be applied to prizes or scholarships for the encouragement of public service, public morals, American literature, and the advancement of education. . . . " 2 i.e., academic as well as practical promotion of American journalism.3 In addition to the idea of creating a prize for distinguished performances in the journalistic-literary field, Pulitzer pursued the formation of a sehool of journalism as a part of a university. Pulitzer 1 2

3

Richard Terrill Baker: A History of the Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, New York: Columbia University Press, 1954, p. 86. Quoted from Don C(arlos) Seitz: Joseph Pulitzer. His Life and Letters, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1924, p. 446. See some details of this concept in the volume by Heinz-Dietrich Fischer/Christopher G. Trump (Eds.): Education in Journalism. The 75th Anniversary of Joseph Pulitzer's Ideas at Columbia University (1904-1979), Bochum: Studienverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer, 1980, pp. 19 ff.

XX

Introduction

remarked, in an article for an academic journalism education, that "Before the century closes, schools of journalism will be generally accepted as a feature of specialized higher education, like schools of law or medicine." 4 In the text Pulitzer also specified the kinds and categories of the prizes. In addition to various awards and scholarships for outstanding students, among them "five annual traveling scholarships of fifteen hundred dollars each," the following awards for journalists were presented: "(1) For the most desinterested and meritorious public service rendered by any American newspaper during the year, a gold medal costing five hundred dollars; (2) For the best history of the services to the public by the American press during the preceding year, one thousand dollars; (3) For the best editorial article written during the year, the test of excellence being clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in the right direction, five hundred dollars; (4) For the best example of a reporter's work during the year, the test being strict accuracy, terseness, the accomplishment of some public good commanding public attention and respect, one thousand dollars; (5) For the American novel published during the year which shall best present the wholesome atmosphere of the American life and the highest standard of American manners and manhood, one thousand dollars; (6) For the original American play performed in New York which shall best represent the educational value and power of the stage in raising the standard of good morals, good taste, and good manners, one thousand dollars; (7) For the best book of the year upon the history of the United States, two thousand dollars; (8) For the best American biography teaching patriotic and unselfish service to the people, illustrated by an eminent example, excluding as too obvious the names of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, one thousand dollars." 5 Because of numerous administrative difficulties the School of Journalism at Columbia University, sponsored by Joseph Pulitzer, was not started before his death (October 29, 1911); the teaching began, however, with the commencement of the 1912 academic year.6 Since Pulitzer had directed the journalism awards, which were to be named after him, be offered for the first time three years after the successful organization of the School of Journalism,7 the official inauguration of the Pulitzer Prizes was not to be expected before 1915-1916. According to Pulitzer's will, the awards were to be made in two steps. While he granted the University's Trustees the right to bestow the awards, he made the Advisory Board of the School of Journalism the principal authority for recommendations to the Trustees.8 The Board's first duty in 4

Joseph Pulitzer: The College of Journalism, in: The North American Review (New York), Vol. 178/No. 5, May 1904, p. 642. 5 Quoted from De Forest O'Dell: The History of Journalism Education in the United States, New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1935, pp. 108 f. 6 Cf. Richard Terrill Baker: A History of the Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, op. cit., pp. 73 f. 7 John Hohenberg: The Pulitzer Prizes. A History of the Awards in Books, Drama, Music, and Journalism, based on the private files over six decades, New York-London: Columbia University Press, 1974, pp. 11 f. 8 Cf. De Forest O'Dell: The History of Journalism Education in the United States, op. cit., p. 109.

Heinz-Dietrich Fischer

xxi

Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911)—Founder of the Prizes Named After Him (From a painting by John Singer Sargent in 1909.)

1915 was to agree on a Plan of Award; however, no direct information about juries was contained in this plan: "Nothing in this plan relating to the preliminary section or nomination of candidates for the several prizes . . . shall be deemed to limit in any way the authority and control of the Advisory Board who may, at their discretion, modify any of the provisions relating to the preliminary selection or nomination of candidates." Hohenberg interprets this as "the first signal that the Board would insist

xxii

Introduction

on its right to overrule juries and impose its own judgement on the contenders, and that the Board, if necessary, would select its own prize winners." 9 In his description of the starting point for the establishment of the prizes Hohenberg continued that "the Plan of Award contained no surprises. It included all the prizes proposed in the Pulitzer will. . . . When the Board adjourned at 5:40 P.M. on May 24, 1915, the course to be followed by the Pulitzer Prizes in its formative years was set for all practical purposes. Its members did not meet the following year, there being no business to warrant a formal session. . . . In order to keep the Board fully posted [the president of Columbia University] circulated a letter to all members with notification that the first deadline for all nominations and exhibits would be February 1, 1917, and that the first Pulitzer Prizes would be announced at the Columbia Commencement in June, 1917. Thus, Pulitzer's dream materialized six years after his death and thus the Pulitzer Prizes, a frail craft of many masters, was launched directly into the tempest of World War I." 10 Finally, in mid-1917, the first Pulitzer Prizes were presented in the category of journalism. A recurrent interdependency between political events and particular Pulitzer awards,11 especially those which referred primarily to special forms of political journalism, manifested itself. In addition to the award for editorial writing specified in Pulitzer's last will, the Reporting Prize included a strong political component which became apparent before the first presentation of the prize. In his book entitled "The Pulitzer Prizes," Hohenberg describes the situation as follows: "There was a great deal of reluctance on the part of most jurors to submit recommendations to the Board for the first awards in 1917. Those who did, with few exceptions, proposed prizes that amply reflected the patriotic tenor of the times. . . . Like their colleagues in book and drama, the journalists were heavily influenced by the martial spirit and their Eastern backgrounds. It is not surprising, therefore, that their first reports to the Board nominated a New York newspaper, the Tribune, for a spirited anti-German editorial on the anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania, and a New York reporter . . . of the World, for his series of dispatches, 'Inside the German Empire.' These were the only prizes in journalism proposed for work done in 1916, since the teaching staff made no suggestions for a public service prize and had no entries for the two other awards." 12 In 1917 awards were granted in the categories "Editorials" and "Reporting", whereas in "Meritorious Public Service" in the field of journalism and in "Novel" and "Drama" among the Pulitzer Prizes in Letters no prizes were awarded.13 9

From John Hohenberg: The Pulitzer Prizes, op. cit., p. 23. Ibid.; see also Robert W. Desmond: Windows on the World. The Information Process in a Changing Society, 1900-1920, Iowa City/Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 1980, pp. 316 ff. 11 Cf. the anthologies by John Hohenberg (Ed.): The Pulitzer Prize Story. News Stories, Editorials, Cartoons, and Pictures from the Pulitzer Prize Collection at Columbia University, New York-London: Columbia University Press, 1959, as well as John Hohenberg (Ed.): The Pulitzer Prize Story II. A ward-winning News Stories, Columns, Editorials, Cartoons, and News Pictures, 1959-1980, New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. 12 John Hohenberg: The Pulitzer Prizes, op. cit., pp. 30 f. 13 See Advisory Board on the Pulitzer Prizes (Ed.): The Pulitzer Prizes, 1917-1977, New York: Columbia University, 1977, pp. 7, 45, 48. 10

Heinz-Dietrich Fischer

xxiii

Thus, the Editorial award for Frank H. Simonds,14 as well as the Reporting award for Herbert Bayard Swope,15 became foundations and models for the Pulitzer Prizes. The jury which had appointed Swope winner of the first Pulitzer Prize for Reporting was composed of the director of the School of Journalism, Columbia University, Dr. Talcott Williams, and the associate directors, Dr. J. W. Cunliffe, Professor R. E. MacAlarney, and Professor Franklin Matthews.16 After the announcement of the prizes on June 7, 1917, in a letter to Swope, Talcott Williams wrote: "You did a great public service, you did it with unassuming loyality, and fidelity to the best standards of journalism, and you labor in a field where recognition, and most of all academic recognition is of the rarest." 17 The secretary of Columbia University, Dr. Fackenthal, also congratulated Swope on the bestowal of this honor and sent him the check for $1,000.18 Two days prior to the official announcement of the prize, Swope had been unofficially informed of the decision of the Advisory Board in a personal letter from the president of Columbia University, Dr. Butler.19 Since the first Pulitzer Prize for Reporting had been awarded to a ranking correspondent of a Pulitzer paper without Ralph Pulitzer having participated in the selection,20 Lincoln, the managing editor of the World, advised Swope in a letter not to believe the rumor about the bestowal of the prize, but to "put that check away, all by itself, in some good institution to the credit of 'Junior'." 21 It is not known if Swope followed this advice, but he accepted the award despite the dubious reputation of the honor. The presentation to Swope was the beginning of an unrivaled journalistic career.22 Since the Reporting category originally embraced all fields—local, national, and international—it was not considered unusual that the Advisory Board had awarded the first Prize for Reporting for contributions with an international emphasis. This was to change dramatically in the following years. In 1918, for instance, the prize was bestowed on Harold A. Littledale of the New York Evening Post for a "series 14

Cf. W. David Sloan (Ed.): Pulitzer Prize Editorials. America's Best Editorial Writing, 19171979, Ames/Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1980, pp. 3 ff. 15 Cf. Herbert Bayard Swope: Inside the German Empire in the third year of the war, New York: The Century Co., 1917. 16 Jury Report from Talcott Williams, director, School of Journalism, to the president of Columbia University (New York, N.Y.) of August (recte: May) 28, 1917, p. 2 (Original in the Pulitzer Prize Office, New York, N.Y., in the following abbreviated as PPO). 17 Letter from Talcott Williams, director, School of Journalism, Columbia University (New York) to Herbert Bayard Swope (New York) of June 8, 1917 (original in the Herbert Bayard Swope Archives, Boston University, in the following abbreviated as HBSA). 18 Letter from Frank D. Fackenthal, secretary, Columbia University (New York) to Herbert Bayard Swope (New York) of June 8, 1917 (HBSA). 19 Letter from Nicholas Murray Butler (New York) to Herbert Bayard Swope (New York) of June 4, 1917 (HBSA). 20 Cf. John Hohenberg: The Pulitzer Prizes, op. cit., p. 30. 21 Letter from C(harles) M. L(incoln) (New York) to Herbert Bayard Swope (New York) of June 4, 1917 (HBSA). 22 Cf. Erika J. Fischer/Heinz-D. Fischer: American Reporter at the International Political Stage. Herbert Bayard Swope and his Pulitzer Prize-winning articles from Germany in 1916, Bochum: Studienverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer, 1982, pp. 52 ff.

(Columbia ülnincrstip tn ihr £iix> of 33 tta Pork S C H O O L OF J O U R N A U S M TALCOTT WILLIAME

June 8 , 1 9 1 7 .

Mr. Herbert Bayard Swops, City E d i t o r , The World, Hew York C i t y . My dear Mr. Swope: Thanis f o r your l a t t e r which •still be f i l e d . I t was a deep personal g r a t i f i c a t i o n t o me t o have any ahara i n giving puhllo acknowledgment of the u n i v e r s a l a p p r e c i a t i o n , i&ich has been f e l t by those of our c a l l i n g . Ton did a g r e a t public s e r v i c e , you did i t with unassuming l o y a l t y , and f i d e l i t y to the hast standards of Journalism, and you labor i n a f i e l d where reoognition, and mosi; of a l l aoademie r e cognition i s o f the r a r e s t . Yours s i n c e r e l y .

Cnlumli;^ ¡¿ImlnTbitP nuliriCurofjlrmPork

June 8 , 1917 i l r . Herbert Bayard Swope The World Hew York City Dear S i r I have the honor t o hand you herewith the

University's

check f o r $1000, r e p r e s e n t i n g the P u l i t z e r P r i z e awarded t o you f o r ycnir a r t i c l e s which appeared in t h e New York Korld under the f o l l o w i n g d a t e s , October 1 0 , October 1 5 , and frcni November 4 d a i l y to ilovsiiber 22 i n c l u s i v e . Very t r u l y yours

Secretary Official Notifications of the Bestowal and Dotation of the Pulitzer Prize to Swope in 1917

Heinz-Dietrich Fischer

xxv

of articles exposing abuses in and leading to reform of the New Jersey State Prison." In 1919, there was no prize awarded in Reporting. The following year John J. Leary, Jr., of the New York World, was bestowed the Pulitzer prize "for the series of articles written during the national coal strike in the winter of 1919." Louis Seibold, also a reporter of Pulitzer's New York World, was awarded the 1920 Pulitzer Prize in the Reporting category "for an interview with President Wilson." The first news agency journalist to be declared laureate was Kirke L. Simpson of the Associated Press, in 1922, "for his articles on the burial of 'The Unknown Soldier'." In 1923, Alva Johnston won the first award for the New York Times "for his reports of the proceedings of the convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in December 1922." 23 Thus, the prize-winning contributions in the early years were heterogeneous, representing work of local, national, and international focus. In the Columbia Library Columns of May, 1957, Herbert Brucker, then the editor of the Hartford Courant, Hartford, Connecticut, remarked about the subjects of the Pulitzer Reporting awards since 1917: "The variety is infinite . . . No wonder. For the raw material of reporting is. . . , as it was in the beginning, that elusive thing, life itself." 24 Hohenberg describes the Pulitzer Prizes presented between 1917 and 1923 as "Prizes for a Brave New World." 25 He continued: "The swift changes in American society immediately after World War I presented the Pulitzer Prize system with its first real test of public acceptance as a national award of consequence. For many ideas and standards that seemed to be immutable to both Butler and Pulitzer, and which were imbedded in the Plan of Award, came under severe attack. With the coming of a shattering national revulsion to the American wartime experience, the public mood of exaltation and adventure was transformed with dramatic suddenness into a dour and suspicious cynicism. Gone was the soaring idealism, the feeling of glory, and the vibrant patriotism that Woodrow Wilson had aroused in those who believed in America's sense of mission in the world." 26 Hohenberg concluded by saying that "During the initial period of the prizes, 1917-1923 wartime and war-related journalism won eight out of seventeen prizes that were bestowed, while six others were passed entirely. All types of newspaper work were recognized, both during and immediately after the end of World War I, with a strong feeling of patriotic sentiment running through everything. . . . Despite the limited number of nominations that came before the journalism school juries and the Advisory Board during the first seven years, there was evidence in abundance to show that newspapers devoted to public service existed in all parts of the land even though their numbers were relatively small." 27 The variety of contributions in the Reporting Category continued for many years. In 1924, Magner White of the 23

Cf. Advisory Board on the Pulitzer Prizes (Ed.): The Pulitzer Prizes, 1917-1977, op. cit., pp. 13 f. 24 Herbert Brucker: The Pulitzer Awards—Reporting Awards, in: Columbia Library Columns (New York, N.Y.), Vol. VI/No. 3, May, 1957, p. 18. 25 John Hohenberg: The Pulitzer Prizes, op. cit., p. 28. 26 Ibid., p. 33. 27 Ibid., pp. 38 ff.

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\»eek FOR WUI'IBER ONE a sumrsry and interpretation of the news. This section has three main functions: to summarize and interpret the news and to give all background information -hich the people of a democracy must have In order to obtain a well-rounded knowledge of present day events. This section is not a re-write of the news; by effective last-minute maps and by special interpretive dispatches from all major theatres of the war, the'editors put together an original section, whose function it is to prove that, despite the confusing nature of world-wide war news, W newspaper ca.A - e r f o r m the function not only of reporting the news but of explaining the news and putting it into « historical perspective. To our knowledge, there is no other news review in the world which is as complete or timely and which performs the newspaper's function of explaining and interpreting the news. 'aithfulljtyoMs, Faithfully. yoi James B. Peston Dean Carl Ackerman Graduate School of Journalism Columbia University New York, N.Y.

Accompanying Letter for two Nominations of the New York Times

Heinz-Dietrich Fischer

xliii

from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some two thousand reporters for American news organizations followed the day-by-day progress of the war by land, sea and air. Viewing these manifold activities with both professional pride and patriotic zeal, the Advisory Board did not wait very long to declare itself. Five months after Pearl Harbor, its membership came down on the side of the war effort. . . . It is no wonder, therefore, that the Board made it a point to honor distinguished war correspondence and other major war-related activities of the American press with no fewer than eighteen prizes in seven different categories plus three special awards." 68 The two international Pulitzer Prizes seemed destined to express these intentions. Thus, it was for his substantial reports "of the trouble centers from Hong Kong to Batavia" that Carlos P. Romulo received the 1942 prize in the traditional Correspondence category, while Hanson W. Baldwin was honored in 1943 "for his report of his wartime tour of the Southwest Pacific." In 1944, the prize winner in this category was, Ernest T. Pyle, "for his distinguished war correspondence." This was repeated in 1945 when Harold V. Boyle was awarded the prize.69 While the term "war" was usually avoided in the reasons given for the presentation of the prize for International Telegraphic Reporting, the prize winners were exclusively war correspondents. Laurence E. Allen (1942) was awarded the prize "for his stories of the activities of the British Mediterranean Fleet;" Ira Wolfert (1943) "for his series of . . . articles of the fifth battle of the Solomons;" Daniel de Luce (1944) "for his distinguished reporting" (from Jugoslavia and Italy, among other things); Mark S. Watson (1945) "for his distinguished reporting . . . from . . . the fronts in Sicily, Italy, and France;" and Homer W. Bigart (1946) "for his distinguished reporting . . . from the Pacific war theatre" in the preceding year.70 Nearly all of the materials submitted in that period consisted of war correspondence. Although the names of outstanding authors differed, the subject matter did not. This restricted the choice for the juries, although they maintained a certain freedom when compiling the list of the respective authors. Despite this, their suggestions were often not accepted by the Advisory Board. Under the given conditions, the individual jurors performed a specific and competent job of evaluating these materials. If the Board repeatedly did not comply with their vote, it was beyond the control of the juries. Often the juries were uncomfortable and somewhat confounded by the decisions of the Board.71 The following survey of the prize winners in the categories "Reporting," "Correspondence," and "Telegraphic Reporting (International)," respectively, until the end of World War II can be seen in detail below. In addition to the respective prize winners, all of the jury members participating in the process of judging in the specific years are given:72 ®8 John Hohenberg: The Pulitzer Prizes, op. cit., pp. 177 f. 69 Advisory Board on the Pulitzer Prizes; The Pulitzer Prizes, 1917—1977, op. cit., p. 22. 70 Ibid., pp. 26 f. 71 Cf. Richard Terrill Baker: A History of the Graduate School of Journalism, op. cit., p. 90. 72 The representation is based on records in the Pulitzer Prize Office and in some points has been completed with the friendly help of Mrs. Robin Kuzen, assistant to the Administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.

xliv For Articles from 1916—Awarded in 1917 Award Winner: Herbert B. Swope, The World, New York Jury Members (April, 1917): John W. Cunliffe, Columbia University, New York Robert E. MacAlarney, Columbia University, New York Franklin Matthews, Columbia University, New York Talcott Williams, Columbia University, New York For Articles from 1928—Awarded in 1929 Award Winner: Paul S. Mowrer, The Chicago Daily News, Chicago, Illinois Jury Members (March, 1929): William P. Beazell, Columbia University, New York Charles P. Cooper, Columbia University, New York Alfred H. Kirchhofer, Buffalo Evening News, Buffalo, New York For Articles from 1929—Awarded in 1930 Award Winner: Leland Stowe, New York Herald-Tribune, New York Jury Members (March, 1930): William P. Beazell, Columbia University, New York Arthur S. Draper, New York Herald-Tribune, New York Ben A. Franklin, Columbia University, New York For Articles from 1930—Awarded in 1931 Award Winner: Hubert R. Knickerbocker, New York Evening Post, New York Jury Members (March, 1931): William P. Beazell, Columbia University, New York Ben A. Franklin, Columbia University, New York George A. Hough, The Standard-Times, New Bedford, Mass. For Articles from 1931—Awarded in 1932 Award Winner: Walter Duranty, The New York Times, New York Jury Members (March, 1932): Carl W. Ackerman, Columbia University, New York George B. Armstead, Hartford Courant, Hartford, Connecticut Allen S. Will, Columbia University, New York For Articles from 1932—Awarded in 1933 Award Winner: Edgar E. Mowrer, The Chicago Daily News, Chicago, Illinois Jury Members (March, 1933): Sevellon Brown, Journal-Bulletin, Providence, Rhode Island Herbert Brucker, Columbia University, New York Carl C. Dickey, Columbia University, New York For Articles from 1933—Awarded in 1934 Award Winner: Frederick T. Birchall, The New York Times, New York Jury Members (March, 1934): Joseph L. Jones, Columbia University, New York Walter B. Pitkin, Columbia University, New York Grafton S. Wilcox, New York Herald Tribune, New York For Articles from 1934—Awarded in 1935 Award Winner: Arthur Krock, The New York Times, New York Jury Members (March, 1935): Carl W. Ackerman, Columbia University, New York Roscoe C. E. Brown, Columbia University, New York Herbert Brucker, Columbia University, New York Charles P. Cooper, Columbia University, New York Oliver J. Keller, Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania For Articles from 1935—Awarded in 1936 Award Winner: Wilfred C. Barber, Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Illinois

Introduction

Heinz-Dietrich Fischer

xlv

Jury Members (April, 1936): Carl W. Ackerman, Columbia University, New York, and members of the Faculty of Journalism For Articles from 1936—Awarded in 1937 Award Winner: Anne O'Hare McCormick, The New York Times, New York Jury Members (April, 1937): Carl W. Ackerman, Columbia University, New York, and members of the Faculty of Journalism For Articles from 1937—Awarded in 1938 Award Winner: Arthur Krock, The New York Times, New York Jury Members (April, 1938): Carl W. Ackerman, Columbia University, New York, and members of the Faculty of Journalism For Articles from 1938—Awarded in 1939 Award Winner: Louis P. Lochner, The Associated Press, New York Jury Members (April, 1939): Carl W. Ackerman, Columbia University, New York, and members of the Faculty of Journalism For Articles from 1939—Awarded in 1940 Award Winner: Otto D. Tolischus, The New York Times, New York Jury Members (April, 1940): Theodore M. Bernstein,73 Columbia University, New York Robert E. Garst, 73 Columbia University, New York For Articles from 1940—Awarded in 1941 Award Winner: Group Award, The New York Times, New York 74 Jury Members (April, 1941): Theodore M. Bernstein, Columbia University, New York Herbert Brucker, Columbia University, New York 75 Robert E. Garst, Columbia University, New York For Articles from 1941—Awarded in 1942 Award Winners: Laurence E. Allen, The Associated Press,76 New York; Carlos P. Romulo, The Philippines Herald,77 Manila Jury Members (April, 1942): Theodore M. Bernstein, Columbia University, New York Robert E. Garst, Columbia University, New York For Articles from 1942—Awarded in 1943 Award Winners: Hanson W. Baldwin, The New York Times,77 New York; Ira Wolfert, North American Newspaper Alliance,76 New York Jury Members (March, 1943): Theodore M. Bernstein, Columbia University, New York Robert E. Garst, Columbia University, New York 73

As part-time lecturers Bernstein same as Garst belonged to the teaching staff of the Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, New York; both had their full-time job at the New York Times. 74 As there was presented only a group award for all American foreign correspondents in this year, the New York Times was honored with a "special citation"; for details see: introductory notes of chapter 13. 75 Brucker was a member of the jury for the Public Service category, which bestowed the "special citation" on the New York Times; he had his full-time job at the New York Times. 76 Prize-winner in the "International Telegraphic Reporting" category. 77 Prize-winner in the "Correspondence" category.

xlvi

Introduction

For Articles from 1943—Awarded in 1944 Award Winners: Daniel de Luce, The Associated Press,76 New York; Ernest T. Pyle, ScrippsHoward Newspaper Alliance, Washington, D.C. Jury Members (March, 1944): Theodore M. Bernstein, Columbia University, New York Eleanor Carroll, Columbia University, New York Robert E. Garst, Columbia University, New York William O. Trapp, Columbia University, New York For Articles from 1944—Awarded in 1945 Award Winners: Harold V. Boyle, The Associated Press,''7 New York; Mark S. Watson, The Sun, Baltimore,76 Maryland Jury Members (March, 1945): Theodore M. Bernstein, Columbia University, New York Robert E. Garst, Columbia University, New York For Articles from 1945—Awarded in 1946 Award Winners: Homer W. Bigart, New York Herald-Tribune,76 New York; Arnaldo Cortesi, The New York Times,77 New York Jury Members (April, 1946): Robert E. Garst, Columbia University, New York Foster Hailey, Columbia University, New York Although the juries evaluated all of the contributions, their role, as a whole, should not be overestimated. In addition to the Advisory Board, there were two other controlling authorities: the dean of the (Graduate) School of Journalism, Carl W. Ackerman, and the president of Columbia University, Nicholas M. Butler.78 Ackerman, by virtue of his role as dean of the School of Journalism and as Prize Administrator, had sole discretion as to the composition of the juries and followed strict guidelines. President Butler appeared no less engaging, trying repeatedly to intervene in prize decisions in his capacity as President of the Advisory Board. In 1933, Ackerman "was elected secretary of the Advisory Board, took control over the journalism awards, and retained it for more than twenty years." 79 In another passage Hohenberg writes that "Under Dean Ackerman's administration of the journalism prizes, the formula of these awards had been redrafted beginning in 1934 to avoid use of the term 'best'. They were given, instead, for 'a distinguished example' of the work of a reporter, . . . for 'distinguished service' as a foreign or Washington correspondent. . . ." 8 0 78

Cf. Richard Terrill Baker: A History of the Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, op. cit., pp. 103 ff. 79 John Hohenberg: The Pulitzer Prizes, op. cit., p. 84. 80 Ibid., p. 138. Members of the Advisory Board in 1941, left to right: (standing) Sevellon W. Brown, The Providence Journal-Bulletin; Frank R. Kent, The Sun, Baltimore; Arthur Krock, The New York Times; Carl W. Ackerman, Dean, School of Journalism, Columbia University; Robert Choate, The Boston Herald; Roy A. Roberts, Kansas City Star; William R. Matthews, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson; (seated) Harold S. Pollard, New York World-Telegram; Arthur M. Howe, Brooklyn Daily Eagle; Joseph Pulitzer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Nicholas M. Butler, President, Columbia University; Stuart H. Perry, The Adrian (Mich.) Telegram; Kent Cooper, The Associated Press

xlviii

Introduction

". . . He was a small, restless, aggressive bundle of energy who made the journalism school his personal province. . . ." 81 If, as Hohenberg 82 implied, Ackerman was an imposing figure this was even more true of the University's president, Nicholas M. Butler, who had been acquainted with Joseph Pulitzer and who had negotiated with him for years the establishment of the journalism school and of the Pulitzer Prizes.83 Butler had been elected president of Columbia University in 1902 and had created an "imperium" since then. "Butler, round and bald and moustached," as Hohenberg characterizes him, "was a bulldog of determination, a scholar of formidable academic proportions, and an administrator who had the ability to take over almost anything and make it work." 84 Butler reigned with a strong hand. He exerted a marked influence on the juries, Dean Ackerman, and the Advisory Board. In 1942, at the age of 82, when Butler looked back on four decades of his presidency, "his closest associates knew regretfully that the time had come for a change. More often than not in the past, his supervision of the Pulitzer Prizes had been carried out to such details as the reading of the annual announcement of the awards to the press. He also had been interested in the annual dinners that Dean Ackerman had arranged for the benefit of the Pulitzer Prize winners. . . . The strong hand, showing the tremors of age, at last was slipping from the controls. The last meeting that President Butler attended was on April 27, 1945, but he appeared to have taken little part in the proceedings. . . ." 8 5 The end of World War II also marked the end of the term of office of the president of Columbia University. In 1946, when Butler formally resigned his office, Frank D. Fackenthal, who had functioned as Acting President, succeeded him.86 The early postwar period influenced the two Pulitzer Prizes for International Correspondence thematically. In the International Telegraphic Reporting category Homer W. Bigart was awarded the prize for his reporting of the final days of the war in Japan. The award in the Correspondence category proved that the influence of the war was waning. Arnaldo Cortesi, the New York Times correspondent, received the prize "for distinguished correspondence during the year 1945, as exemplified by his reports from Buenos Aires, Argentina." 87 The jury report about this decision argues: "Arnaldo Cortesi's dispatches through 1945 from Argentina . . . are but typical of the many he has filed from that country over the last four years, both under his own byline and anonymously under a Montevideo dateline. The material was gathered under difficulties and written often under the threat of personal attack. He overcame the former and defied the latter. Essential truth shines through each one. For clarity, background and interpretation I have not seen them surpassed." 88 81

Ibid., p. 169. Cf. John Hohenberg: The Pulitzer Prizes, op. cit., pp. 172 ff. 83 Cf. Don C(arlos) Seitz: Joseph Pulitzer—His Life and Letters, op. cit. pp. 444 ff. 84 John Hohenberg: The Pulitzer Prizes, op. cit., p. 12. 85 Ibid., pp. 175 f. 86 Cf. John Hohenberg: The Pulitzer Prizes, op. cit., p. 176. 87 Advisory Board on the Pulitzer Prizes (Ed.): The Pulitzer Prizes, 1917-1977, op. cit., p. 23. 88 Foster Hailey: Report of the Journalism Faculty Committee on Correspondence, New York, April 1, 1946, p. 1 (PPO). 82

Heinz-Dietrich Fischer

xlix

THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN T H E CITY OF NEW YORK

TO ALL PERSONS TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS MAY COME GREETING BE IT KNOWN THAT

LOUIS P. LOCHNER HAS BEEN AWARDED

THE PULITZER PRIZE IN JOURNALISM FOR DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AS A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PROVISIONS OF THE STATUTES OF THE UNIVERSITY GOVERNING SUCH AWARD IN WITNESS WHEREOF WE HAVE CAUSED THIS CERTIFICATE TO BE SIGNED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY AND OUR CORPORATE SEAL TO BE HERETO AFFIXED IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK ON THE SIXTH

DAY OF

JUNE

IN THE YEAR OF

OUR LORD ONE THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINE

CUP

Pulitzer Prize Document for Louis P. Lochner

The prize-winning materials of Arnaldo Cortesi in essence were a variation on war correspondence. Thus, the Pulitzer Prizes in the international categories, from its inception in the 1920's, doubtlessly reflected the important events of the day. The prize winning materials covered the international economic situation, then focused on Italian Fascism and German National Socialism, to involve finally in the reporting of the disaster of World War II. These outstanding articles contributed to the growing impact of foreign correspondence on international communication.89 Altogether it was not a question on the whole that in this fast developing area of foreign correspondence, also certain conditions must be granted. In the early 1940's a leading AP official defined the minimum necessities for a world-wide community of interest as follows: (1) a world-wide free press; (2) a world-wide communications system; (3) facilities for newsmen everywhere to do their job without interference.90 89

90

For details see: Heinz-Dietrich Fischer/John C. Merrill (Eds.): International and Intercultural Communication, New York-Toronto: Hastings House, 1976, pp. 7 ff. Cf. Kent Cooper: Barriers Down. The Story of the News Agency Epoch, New York: Farrar and Rinehart 1942, pp. 291 ff.

1

Introduction

In 1946 the publisher of the New York Times pointed out that "on the purity and adequacy" of the journalistic "raw material" "the peace of the world greatly depends. The 'iron curtains' that shut off many of the peoples of the world from this raw material must be raised; for if news and ideas, as well as goods, are free to cross international boundaries, then armed forces will never do so." 91 Robert W. Desmond remarks that up to 1932 "a correspondent was able to work in or visit most countries and obtain information in what might be called a normal fashion. He could sample various points of view, live and move without personal hazard or calculated inconvenience, and write without concern for censorship or serious delays in Transmission of his reports . . . After 1932, however, the correspondent's problems increased throughout much of the world. Problems also increased for the press, the media generally, and the peoples of many lands." 92 It is at least questionable, if and in how far the coverage of the fighting activities in World War II stands in any significant relation with the idea of journalistic work. "The early years of victory," Phillip Knightly has tried to analyze the problem, "were no time to assess the role correspondents had played in the war. But if sufficient correspondents had undertaken a critical look at their performance, some improvement in the whole standard of war reporting might have followed. Thirty years later, Charles Lynch, a Canadian, who had been accredited to the British army for Reuters, grasped the nettle: 'It's humiliating to look back at what we wrote during the war. It was crap . . . We were a propaganda arm of the governments. At the start the censors enforced that, but by the end we were our own censors. We were cheerleaders. I suppose there wasn't an alternative at the time. It was total war. But, for God's sake, let's not glorify our role. It wasn't good journalism. It wasn't journalism at all.' " 93 The next volume of this edition will show in detail the strong restrictions for foreign correspondents' working conditions even in the period after World War II.

91

Arthur Hays Sulzberger: Responsible Journalism—A Cornerstone of Freedom, in: Journalism Quarterly (Emory/Georgia), Vol. 23/No. 4, December 1946, p. 359. 92 Robert W. Desmond: Windows on the World. The Information Process in a Changing Society, 1900-1920, op. cit., pp. 537 f. 93 Phillip Knightly: The First Casualty. From the Crimea to Vietnam: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist, and Myth Maker, London: André Deutsch Ltd. (1979), pp. 332 f.

EDITORIAL

REMARKS

The choice of internationally oriented Pulitzer Prize-winning texts had to be based on a number of compromises. Principally, it must be borne in mind that the prizes represent a continuum; although this is not true of the basic conditions under which the prize winners were determined. Although changing juries posited varying interpretations of the criteria for awarding the prize, compounded by changes in the awarding practices, the Advisory Board ultimately established its own priorities. A volume of Pulitzer Prize-winning international reporting articles must of necessity be diverse despite certain factors imposed by the awarding committees. The talents and abilities of each prize winner are different, and these differences are reflected in the articles. Nevertheless, it is not the task of the editor of this volume to look for differences in the quality of the texts, nor is there any intention of rating the prize winners. Considering the difficulties and controversies connected with the awards, it is no small wonder that in some years the awarding committees of the Pulitzer Prize had difficulty finding an acceptable and publicly justifiable compromise when and if problems arose during the selective procedure. These problems were not, however, relevant with regard to the selection of texts for this volume. Therefore, regardless of how the prize winners were eventually chosen, their inclusion in this volume was based solely on their individual merit. In order to maintain a cohesiveness within this volume, and to provide the reader with a fair representation of the author and his work, it was decided to select and reprint five articles by each prize winner. This was done also for a practical reason: to meet the limitations of size of the individual volumes by the publisher. In many cases this selection process was rather difficult, especially given the varying number of contributions to the collection of each author. In the first years of the presentation of the Pulitzer Prizes, authors could submit as many articles as they wished. Thus, the entries often consisted of an entire year's output of the respective journalist, which in the case of newspaper or agency correspondents often amounted to a large quantity. However, in the last two decades the Advisory Board restricted that number to no more than ten articles per exhibit and author.

lii

Editorial Remarks

From the beginning, entries submitted to the Pulitzer Prize committees were rather diverse. Initially there were only few basic conditions to be fulfilled. Therefore, those nominating an author for one of the prizes (self-nominations were an exception) were not always interested in a complete and detailed representation of a subject area. Different subjects, usually from different regions, were provided the Pulitzer juries in order to make visible the thematical range of the respective journalist. This was particularly true in the entries for agency correspondents. Here an additional problem arose to the editor of this volume. Because the Prizes were rarely awarded for journalistic raw materials, but for articles printed in the press of the year prior to the award presentation, the agency journalists often encountered the problem of not having any proof of their publications except for their teletype manuscripts. Thus, it was quite usual that the entries for agency correspondents contained newsclips from various papers—the published versions of their teletype manuscripts. Different practices were also employed in the copyreading and editing of the materials. Thus, the text was often shortened or rewritten. One cannot assume therefore that in each case the newsclips represented verbatim the correspondent's original text. Nominators also selected reprinted agency bulletins from many different newspapers, employing a technique that might be described as an "appetizer principle." In many cases they submitted to the Pulitzer Prize committees only the opening passages of the published articles, so that many entries primarily consisted of segments from the front pages of American newspapers which were continued on the following pages but were not included in the submitted entry. Some entries thus contained only incomplete articles. It was, therefore, necessary in these cases to contact those newspapers who had originally printed the stories in order to achieve a complete text. To eliminate artifacts of different editing practices, and to achieve a standard text it was important to submit copies of articles of each correspondent that—if anyhow possible—were published in the same newspaper. Again, a problem was encountered when different versions of the same article were published in two different editions of the same newspaper, e.g. in the morning and evening editions of a specific day. Thus, for each selection the original newspaper was requested to provide exact citations of the articles. It was also necessary to determine the volumes, numbers, pages, and columns in order to present an exact reference for each article. This job was particularly taxing since microfilms of many American newspapers were not available in Germany, with the exception of the New York Times, the New York Herald-Tribune, and the Washington Post. Most of the information needed had to be obtained in the United States. In some cases it was necessary to verify the text since many of the passages in the Pulitzer Prize material were unreadable; quite a number of entries were several decades old and had turned yellow or were illegible. Basically each reprinted article is an unabridged version of the original text and each provides the complete source of reference. The newspaper heading of the article is also cited so that the original version is absolutely identical with the reproduction in this volume. However, since most of the headlines, after several decades, do not contain sufficient information for the contemporary reader, all the headlines had to

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be reformulated and a general level of basic information about the content of each article had to be created, so the subject matter could be accessible to the presentday reader of the articles. In the recreation of the original material, it was necessary to make the text readable without manipulating the original text in any way. Subheadings that occasionally appeared in the originals had to be eliminated in many cases; mostly, they provided only minimal information. Beyond this, however, no other adaptations seemed necessary or suitable. For the literal reproduction of the original texts only obvious errors (e.g. misspellings of names) were corrected. Thus, this volume has been compiled both systematically and critically; editorial comments, however, are not included. Introductory notes which provide useful information on the genesis of the texts and short biographical notes about each author precede each chapter. Each chapter also contains a list of supplemental readings which may aid the reader in achieving a more rounded perspective. Only few of the documents in the individual chapters are taken from the newspapers that served as sources for the texts, but they are often part of the secondary literature related to the respective chapter, and are referred to as such. The index at the end of this volume is confined to names appearing in the text. In some cases the names had divergent spellings, and some attempt was made to standardize the usage.

Prizewinners and Their Articles

1916

Herbert B. Swope The World, New York

CHAPTER 0 REPORTS ABOUT GERMANY IN 1916

The Situation and Several Upcoming Problems of the Country in the Third Year of the War Introductory Notes 0.1 Germany Hopes for Peace and Prepares to Battle On 0.2 The Germans' Pride and Its Impact on Foreign Policy 0.3 Fortune of War Turns and Liberalism Is New Hope 0.4 Trade and Unemployment as Central Factors 0.5 Blockade Results and the Fight Against Famine Related Readings

Introductory

Notes

E. J. Kahn, Jr. wrote, that in the summer of 1916, there was "little news coming out of Germany that bore the stamp of credibility." So the New York newspaper The World decided to send one of its outstanding journalists, Herbert Bayard Swope, to Germany to prepare a series of reports. They appeared in The World during October/ November 1916. The series of reports were so successful that they were republished early in 1917 as a book entitled "Inside The German Empire." In June 1917, Swope won the first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded in "Reporting" for this series. It was presented "for the best example of a reporter's work during the year, the test being accuracy, terseness, the accomplishment of some public good commanding public attention and respect." On June 8, 1917, Frank D. Fackenthal, Secretary of Columbia University, sent Swope the Pulitzer Prize check for $1,000. The same day Talcott Williams, Director of Columbia University's School of Journalism, wrote in a letter to him: "You did a great public service, you did it with unassuming loyalty and fidelity to the best standards of journalism, and you labor in a field where recognition, and most of all academic recognition, is of the rarest." Herbert Bayard Swope was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on January 5, 1882, the fourth child of Isaac and Ida Swope. His parents "were a solid middle-class family of German-Jewish ancestry who had prospered in the new world" (Alfred Allan Lewis). Herbert attended a public high school, but his dreams of pursuing a college education were unrealized because of financial problems encountered by his parents as a result of the depression of 1893. At the age of 17, after the death of his father in 1899, Herbert held several jobs before being hired for Pulitzer's St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Swope moved to Chicago about 1900 and was hired as a copy reader for the Chicago Tribune. He then became a reporter for Inter-Ocean, and later for the New York Herald. For a short time in 1903 he worked as a reporter for the Morning Telegraph of New York. He returned to the Herald until 1907. He quit the Herald in the hopes of being hired as a reporter for Pulitzer's New York The World. In 1909, he started with The World and in 1914 became the city editor. The following texts by Herbert Bayard Swope, copyright 1916, The World, New York, N. Y., are reprinted by kind permission of Joseph Pulitzer Jr., Publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis, Missouri.

0.1 Germany Hopes for Peace and Prepares to Battle On [Source: Herbert Bayard Swope: Germany keen for peace, but expects and is ready to battle on for years, in: The World (New York), Vol. LVV/No. 20,164, November 4, 1916, p. 1, cols. 5-8; p. 2, cols. 1-3.]

The desire for peace is strong in Germany, but from top to bottom there is no belief that it is near. German hopes and expectations of the end are indefinite as to time—the most optimistic can see no real prospects within another two years, and from that period the conjectures run up to ten years. And in their economic and military planning the Kaiser's subjects are preparing to enact their motto of "durchhalten" (stick it out) for years to come. As a striking illustration of how far away is the idea of any peace that Germany herself does not make, I can submit this news of secret diplomacy, which may meet denial, but which is unqualifiedly true: Within the last eighteen months no fewer than eleven separate interrogatories have been submitted to the German Government as to Belgium. The question has been asked, by the United States, Spain, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and other neutrals, if Germany will give a formal assurance of the restoration of Belgian entity at the end of the war—and not once has this assurance been given, nor has the Kaiser's Government, in its most affable moments, permitted even inferentially the idea to gain ground that it regarded Belgium's re-establishment, according to the status quo ante as an essential. In some notes I prepared for submission to the Chancellor, regarding the objectives of the war (to which reference is made further on in this article), the suggestion that Belgium would be re-erected within her old lines was carefully blue-pencilled by an official acting for the Chancellor. The explanation was made that Belgium was, as Kaiser Wilhelm I. said in a letter to his Empress, a point of weakness in the empire's rear and flank. Therefore, Germany must be safeguarded against this danger. At the same time—so runs the German reasoning—the securance of German safety means the securance of Belgium's welfare. Obviously, this logic would lead to a conclusion wherein Belgium's greatest security against the world would be found in being a German state—and if she is or is not to take on such a condition is precisely the question that Germany will not answer. It is true that the sentiment against annexation in the empire is deeper than the sentiment favoring such a development, but even the anti-annextionists agree that certain changes in boundaries must be made or certain places taken as hostages before Germany can feel secure. As the neutral opinion is undivided in agreement with the allies' proclamation that Belgium must be restored, and as the restoration is regarded as an absolute essential to peace, it can be seen how far from peace Germany is holding herself. On the other hand, France has stated, through Briand, and England and the other allies have accepted the doctrine, that the irreducible minimum of her peace terms is the acquisition of Alsace-Lorraine.

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Against this Germany to a man—and woman—stands opposed with all her soul. "Never," say the Germans to this proposition, "while we have life left as a nation. If peace can come to us on no other terms, then peace will never come so long as one German is left alive." And the vehemence of their assertion leaves no doubt as to their sincerity. They rage at the idea. "We shall never surrender the Reichsland," the Germans say in substance. "If the allies want the provinces, let them take them— then they can talk of keeping them, but now, with all of Belgium and a large share of France in our hands, it is laughable to talk of such a thing." Thus, at the very outset of my inquiries on peace I met seemingly insurmountable obstacles to its coming. How they were to be removed was a subject I could bring no German, high or low, to talk about; it is one that they do not let themselves think about for fear the outlook may take on an even darker hue than it now wears. For they do not delude themselves in Germany; they do not underestimate the danger of their position; they know how terrific is the battle being waged against them and they know, too, that if it be carried to the end, they must lose. They realize this but they hope that this ultimate may be averted; how this can be they are not sure, for slowly they are realizing that the allies have no thought of quitting. The logicians in Germany who are now for the first time shaking off the influence of their personal interest in the outcome and are able to examine the peace thesis objectively, have reduced the subject to these four propositions: Peace can come: First—Through the complete defeat of the allies by Germany. Second—Through the complete defeat of Germany by the allies. Third—Through a compromise and a return in effect to the status quo ante. Fourth—Through the liberalization of the German Empire. And in that fourth proposition lies the most astounding development of the two years of war and the touchstone that may yet bring order to chaotic Europe. But to take up the hypotheses in turn: First—Germany today nourishes no hope that she can conquer the world—and that is her conception of the task she faces. She might be able to accomplish even this titanic labor, her sons say, if she could only bring the war to England. But the North Sea and the British fleet make that impossible, so she has abandoned calculations on this contingency. Second—Convinced as she is that she cannot conquer, she is doubly certain that she cannot and will not be conquered. To her people defeat means national extermination, and they are fighting magnificently because they are fighting for life. Their reasoners say that if peace cannot be adduced from the first proposition it can never be from the second, short of annihilation. Third—and this is still a favorite topic of discussion, although in the face of Asquith's, Lloyd George's and Briand's solemn statements, it is almost hoping against hope—peace through compromise is still held to be a possibility. Perhaps not a likely one if the alignment of the allies remains undisturbed, for then the Germans fear no consideration would be paid to the suggestion of a throwback to former conditions. But what if the alliance of those against us be broken, the Germans ask. What if Russia should turn from our enemy to be our friend, they add. And I can say of my own knowledge that the statesmen of Germany regard this as a contingency

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graced by hope. Not a word do the censors permit to get out on this subject; not a chance does the Government fail to use to deny the possibility, but in spite of these subterfuges it is an open secret in Germany's official circles that possible Russian defection from the alliance is a grave factor in the life and death struggle Germany is waging. I know personally—and others now in Berlin can corroborate this statement— that within the last four weeks there was a meeting in Stockholm between secret emissaries from Russia and Germany to confer over the prospects and plan further efforts. In fact, matters had progressed to such a degree that one of the best known American correspondents now in Europe held himself in readiness, on secret information he had received, to go to the Swedish capital in the expectation that matters had progressed to such an extent that publicity might follow. The meeting did not reach that point—but the work goes on. There has always been a very strong German influence in Russia, and one that can grow stronger at Germany's will—all that is needed is a reduced insistence upon Austrian hegemony in the Balkans and a lesser friendliness to Turkey and Turkish retention of European soil. And as to Russia, apart from what Germany has to give her, as the Germans see it, she is today in the role of having everything to lose and nothing to gain. Even if the Czar should get Constantinople, what has he then but an empty thing, the Germans ask, and then they add: As long as Britain holds Gibraltar and the Isthmus of Suez, Russia's possession of Constantinople as a real warm-water port would be a nonentity, since all she would have is merely a harbor on a lake (the Mediterranean) to which entrance and exit are held by another who can close them at will. Russia's future lies in near and Central Asia; her dreams of world trade through efficient harborage can be realized only in the Persian Gulf—so runs the German "auswaertige politik" (foreign politics) and it goes on to say that Germany's future in Asia can easily be reconciled to that of Russia through her long-cherished plan of gaining the commercial and political ascendancy in Petrograd, and directing the exploitation and development of the Russian trade that is just throwing off its swaddling clothes. Russia is the German hope; Italy the German disappointment in the war. How far this hope will materialize I cannot say; what I can say is that the hope is vital and one that is being freely mentioned in private official discussions. And if nothing should come of it at this time, it will reappear at the end of the war—if there be a Germany left to call it forth again—when the Germans see themselves allied with Russia against the world. The fourth "way out"—the liberalization of the German Empire—is, in the eyes of the allies and the neutrals, the avenue most likely to be travelled by the peacemakers. It is the one that most deeply impressed itself upon me when, as a trained reporter, I tested its strength and availability among the Teutons. It is a subject that Germans speak of with reluctance—to most of them it is a reform to be avoided at this time, not because it lacks virtue (except for a few, all I spoke with welcomed the thought), but because it would seem to have been forced upon them by the allies and would therefore, if instituted, take on the nature of an allied victory. When they do speak of this phase they always preface their words with a statement

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that it is to come after the war, but from expressions made to me by the biggest men in Germany, supported by indirect statements from the highest in that land (about which I have written in the third of this series), it is safe to say that the element of time is not unchangeable, and that, before long, the agitation for the erection of a responsible popular government will break out and will lead to an end of government by divine right, which now exists, since the Chancellor is responsible, not to the Reichstag but only to the Kaiser—and the Kaiser owes responsibility, he says, only to his God and his conscience.

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This does not mean, in my opinion, a revolution or a dynastic overthrow; from my observations I was led to believe the change would come as a social evolution, with no disorder and with no change in the ruling house. Germany is a sincere believer in the monarchic system, and rightly or wrongly, she prizes the Hohenzollerns' devotion to the Empire too highly to dethrone them. In all my investigations I discovered no evidence of a weakening of the Kaiser's hold upon the people, nor did I find, as certain highly placed officials in England believe, that there is a readiness to remove the imperial crown from the Prussian house and give it to that of Bavaria, Saxony or Wuerttemberg. Germany, as Hindenburg said a few weeks ago, has a brilliant military position, but is without prospects. He might have added that today desperation finds more room in her heart than hope finds lodging there, for bold, courageous, unflinching, determined as the Germans are, there is little hope to feed upon in the face of the attitude of the allies and their plodding insistence in fighting on long after the German military experts have assured their people that strategically and tactically the enemies' plans were futile and unsound. And this lack of a national hope is accentuated when the Germans consider the first two of the four "ways out." Such hopes as still remain of an outcome that shall lie elsewhere than in the conquering of Germany by the allies or the defeat of the allies by Germany are to be found in the third and fourth avenues I have outlined. When the Germans talk of a new alignment of the world powers and speak of Russia as fighting with them, they talk also of Japan as their accessory. For months now the political censors have permitted no unkind word to be said about Japan. On the contrary, such references as have been made have always brought out the fact that Japan is now assuming a negative position in the war. It is an accepted belief in Germany, so I found, that Japan and Russia have reconciled their differences, and that their futures are bound together, and to this future there are many Germans who believe their country will be a contributory factor. Many of the German intellectuals, such as Prof. Delbrück, Alfred Lohmann, Herr Ballin and others, who have always stood for a rapprochement with England, now believe that such a course will be impossible for many years to come, and that therefore Germany will be forced into an alliance, for military and commercial reasons, with two nations with which she has little of common cultural interest. As one leader of German thought phrased it to me, an alliance among Germany, Russia and Japan will be a "Dreibund of discontent." But from such an alliance they see great possibilities in that Germany will contribute leadership and system, Russia resources and power, and Japan adaptability and bold enterprise. In a sly way some of those now advocating the ruthless Lusitania type of submarine warfare, which admittedly is aimed primarily at the United States, believe that their advocacy of this course is a support to the Russian-Japanese coalition, basing their belief on the hostility they fancy exists between America and Japan. Furthermore, they accept the dictum of Tirpits that sooner or later Germany must fight against the "Anglo-American thum," and against such an alliance they believe eventually Russia and Japan must also fight. It is difficult for an observer in Germany to see how any peace can come without

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Reports about Germany in 1916

an overwhelming military victory for the allies. The internal conditions, whatever the indications for the future may be, are today well in the hand of the Government. The Germans accept absolutely the dicta of Clausewitz, Frobenius and Treitschke that the power of the state is to be measured by its military strength, and since today the military power of the central empires is not seriously shaken, whatever the promise of tomorrow may be, the thought of a peace forced upon them from without finds no place in the Teutonic mind. It can be said axiomatically that Germany today does not believe peace so necessary as to cause her to make a cession of any of her territory. She is willing to make peace on the basis of what she has done in the two years of the war. The allies are willing to make peace only on the basis of what they expect to do in the years to come. Germany today would be happy to make a peace that has as its foundation a return to the conditions prevailing before the war, with certain reservations regarding Belgium, Poland and Serbia, and, now, Roumania. The allies demand, on the basis of a victory they have not yet won, the restoration and indemnification of Belgium, the cession of Prussian Poland, the re-erection and indemnification of Serbia, the surrender of Constantinople and of Trieste and the Trentino. The great gulf separating these two sets of demands is even wider than appears upon first glance, for there are on both sides reasons of grim importance why there shall be no bridging in the way of compromises. These reasons are the fears that all of the Governments have of the accounting they must give their peoples if, upon the conclusion of the war, their respective countries are worse off than when the war began. The great question, "Why did you bring us into the war?" is one that those who suffer defeat will find it hard to answer. That is one significant reason why Germany would prefer to go down with all flags flying than to accept a peace that would spell internal dissatisfaction. It is this question that has kept peace from being an actuality by now, each of the nations is seeking to create for itself more favorable conditions for peace before it runs the hazard of the accounting that has to come.

0.2 The Germans' Pride and Its Impact on Foreign Policy [Source: Herbert Bayard Swope: German hatred aims to crush Wilson's policy, in: The World (New York), Vol. LVII/No. 20,166, November 6, 1916, p. 1, cols. 6-7; p. 2, cols. 4-7.]

Throughout Germany today the hatred for America is bitter and deep. It is palpable and weighs you down. All the resentment, all the blind fury Germany once

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reserved for England alone have been expanded to include us, and have been accentuated in the expansion. The Germans have an outlet for their feelings against England— they express themselves on the battlefields and through the Zeppelins and submarines; but against America they lack a method of registering their enmity. And so this bitterness that cannot be poured out has struck in and saturated the whole empire. The chagrin and humiliation of their failure to end the war before now through victory are visited upon America. The failure gave birth to hatred. Throughout the length and breadth of Germany the belief is certain and unqualified that had it not been for American moral and physical help to the allies the war would have been long since over. With magnificent disregard of the checks and reverses, both military and economic, Germany has suffered at the hands of the allies, her sons, from top to bottom, say that only America is to blame for the fact that the war is now well into its third year, and the more pertinent fact that as time goes on the German chances are bound to grow less. It is a common thing to hear in Germany that America has a secret alliance with England, under which she is operating now; it is even more of a commonplace to be told that America is deliberately seeking to prolong the war and circumvent peace for the "blood money" she is making out of the struggle. Germany's fear of defeat and loss of prestige are laid at our door; we are made the sacrificial goat offered on the altar of self-glory. Hate may have no boundaries, but it has beginnings, and it is not hard to classify the grounds from which the German hatred of America springs. There are five, possibly six. They are, as the Germans put them: First—The supply of munitions to the allies. Second—The illegal blockade, for which we are responsible since we have not stopped it. Third—The interference with neutral mails. Fourth—The allies' world-wide commercial blockade. Fifth—The submarine doctrine we have compelled Germany to accept. And the sixth may be one that is not so frequently expressed, but which is nevertheless a considerable factor—that America is out of the war and prospering: for what is more usual than for envy to breed hate? Perhaps this sixth cause of German hatred might with equal truth be applied to the resentment said to exist against us in the other countries at war, for surely Germany is not the only one who resents our peace and prosperity. To the list I have given I might add as one of the contributory causes our interpretation of neutrality, for this is made the object of bitter recrimination in Germany, and it is a subject on which even those placed in the highest positions speak with the utmost candor. Von Jagow, Chief Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and Zimmermann, the Chief Under Secretary, in discussing the American attitude, phrased the sentiments of their country when they said to me: "The American neutrality toward Germany is one of the head; toward the allies it is one of the heart. What America does for the allies she does voluntarily and gladly—what she does for Germany she does because she must." This is a mild view compared to the popular idea. The resentment against America has been cumulative in its growth, while that against England is perhaps less today than it was at the beginning. Because her military activity is against the English, it

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has wrought at least a measure of satisfaction. But the very fact that America has been out of reach of a concrete demonstration of German hatred has made more serious the conditions existing in the empire today with reference to America, which are those of an actual menace. And the form it takes is the widespread and highly popular agitation for the resumption of the rücksichtslose (ruthless) Lusitania type of U boat warfare. Throughout Germany the agitation for this plan grows stronger day by day. The Chancellor is holding out against it, but how long he can restrain it no one can say. I left Germany convinced that only peace could prevent its resumption. And the same opinion is held by every German with whom I spoke, and it is held also by Ambassador Gerard. The possibility was so menacing that it formed the principal cause of the Ambassador's return at this time so that he might report to Washington. The World set this point out in detail in a wireless despatch I sent on Oct. 10 from the Frederik VIII, on which the Ambassador returned. But while the plan of returning to the Lusitania type of submarine warfare is made more popular by the fact that it would be a blow at America, since America struck this weapon from German hands, it must not be thought that the advocates of the resumption view it merely as an offering to hate; they insist that it is an instrument of great military value, and they pretend to believe that its use will tend to shorten the war. However, the most ardent disciples of this plan can give no logical reasons for their belief, while those supporting the Chancellor in his opposition are able to demonstrate the soundness of their attitude. In normal circumstances this alignment of reason against unreason would be a guarantee against the success of the "rücksichtslose" advocates, but when a nation has its back against the wall, fighting for existence, reason gives way to fury, and fury stops at nothing. If it be impossible to indict a nation, it appears to be equally difficult to hate a whole nation without centring the hatred upon some one point or man. In the case of Germany, President Wilson personifies America, and so the German hatred is centred on Wilson. Further, because President Wilson is represented by Ambassador Gerard, that official is loaded down with responsibility for all the shortcomings the Germans are able to perceive in our attitude toward them. It is a difficult thing for a neutral to be neutral in Germany today. The best friends of Germany must admit that her demands on one's sentiments are rather harsh. In Berlin any one who is not outspokenly an advocate of German supremacy is gazed upon with coldness and suspicion. Ambassador Gerard, seeking to interpret the principles of the President of the country he represents, has been neither pro-ally nor pro-German, but merely proAmerican, and for this he has been attacked, although the attacks have been cloaked under various and specious causes. I found that in Berlin the Government thought well of Mr. Gerard, but that the people viewed him solely as the American Ambassador, and the adjective before his title was enough to damn him. To a considerable extent the censors are responsible for feeding this sentiment in the articles that they have permitted to be printed. They even resent the Ambassador's efforts to inform his own country of the depth of the German feeling against it. They say if he were

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"truly friendly" he would say nothing which might increase the tension, even though the Germans themselves, through some of their spokesmen, have deliberately sought to bring about a strained relation. A striking illustration of this was afforded in the Tirpitz manifesto in which the Grand Admiral called upon all his followers to prepare for the certain struggle that was to come between Germany and the "Anglo-Amerikanthum." While this utterance was given circulation in Germany, the censors declined to permit it to be sent out of the country until America learned of it through the embassy, after which it was permitted to be put upon the cables, since a continued suppression would have made the effect even more serious than it was. Not long ago it might well have been doubted if Germany would have been willing to accept intermediation at the hands of the President. Now they would be happy to have it come from him, although they will not admit that either he or his Ambassador has been sincerely working to bring about peace among the belligerents. I can say on highest authority that Germany has been eager to have the President take some steps toward arranging, if nothing else, an armistice. But she has not yet shown a willingness to authorize such a proceeding officially. She wants the peace proposals brought to her; she will not go after them, not even to the extent of requesting the preliminary good offices of America. It is safe to say that no matter what indirect efforts she may employ in this connection, Washington will do nothing until a formal request has been made. The campaign for the rücksichtslose U boat warfare is regarded by one man in this country, who speaks with the highest German authority, as being in the nature of a threat intended to accelerate and force upon us a movement toward peace. The Ambassador himself had his attention drawn to this just before he left Berlin, but he declined to accept the interpretation. America's failure to have effected a peace before now has been more of a crime in German eyes than her own failure to have forced one through military conquests. That is another count in the indictment lodged against Wilson. That is another reason why Wilson's defeat on Election Day would be regarded as a gigantic German triumph. Every one I spoke to in Germany believes this. It would be treated as a victory, not because the Germans feel there is a certainty that Hughes is the man the Germans want, but because there is a certainty that Wilson is the man the Germans don't want. While there may be behind Germany's interest, not to say active interference in our internal politics, a motive and hope of some gain in seeking the election of Hughes, there is an apparent and admitted motive of satisfying the German passion for reprisal—of punishing those standing against her. That is what Germany seeks, and the Germans admit it. On all hands I was told that Wilson must be humbled; that Wilson and his country must be taught a lesson. This was stated to me unequivocally, in so many words, by many Germans—officers, soldiers, Government officials, bankers, merchants; and by none of these classes was it stated more emphatically than by the women with whom I spoke. All believe that the defeat of Wilson will be in the nature of a rebuke and a warning to this country for the attitude it has assumed toward the empire.

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One distinguished member of the Foreign Office in Wilhelmstrasse, who is himself rather favorably disposed toward America and the Administration, interpreted the feeling of his nation in these words: "If Germany was certain Hughes would be her enemy, still would she seek Wilson's destruction. 'Let us smash Wilson now,' the people say, 'and then if Hughes proves another Wilson we will smash him too in another four years.' " But many Germans are by no means certain that Hughes will not prove their friend. When you ask them why they think so, they assume a wise look and finally say that the million and more "true sons and friends of Germany" in America are not entirely devoid of reason—they are supporting Hughes, and they must have substantial reasons for so doing. "Hughes," the explanation runs on, "has not driven these supporters from him, and therefore it is safe to believe that they are to get something in return for their support, and that something will be a greater friendliness to Germany." What specific acts of "friendliness" Germany expects from Hughes in the event of his election they do not make plain except negatively in their declaration about Wilson's striking their "mightiest weapon" (submarines) from their hands. When they are asked how Hughes—even admitting that he wanted to be more friendly than Wilson, which they assume because of his hyphenate support—could set aside the will of the American people and reverse the restrictive submarine policy which they had approved, the answer is made that Hughes would have the people with him in anything he did, since the people had elected him for four years and given him full power to do as he pleased for that length of time. Because our anti-submarine attitude is so big a matter to them, they think it also of primary importance here, and I was told by many that it is an actual factor in our election, and that the choice of Hughes in German eyes would be regarded as an actual repudiation of Wilson's prohibition of the unrestricted use of the U boats. I can say positively that this belief is based upon so-called information that has been received from America, although the information is not credited by the more intelligent. It is fair to add that only a minority of those with whom I spoke in Germany actually has hope of political gain through the election of Hughes, but however he may turn out, all with whom I spoke desire his election in their greater desire to smash Wilson. In my three months abroad, and in all my intercourse with representatives of the various strata that make up life in Germany—soldiers, sailors, laborers, politicians, clergymen, professors, newspaper men, business men, farmers—I did not hear one voice raised for Wilson except that of Maximilian Harden, the famous journalist, whose series on "If I Were Mr. Wilson" touched and pleased the President deeply but met scant favor in Germany. Not even Dr. Helfferich, Secretary of State for the Interior, and a vital factor in keeping the peace between the two countries, can see in the President's utterances any friendliness toward Germany. He, in common with the others, seeks to differentiate between the President and the American public, which it is believed wishes a greater friendliness to Germany and German methods than Wilson has shown.

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There are those in Germany who doubt that this fancied sentiment would actually be reflected by Hughes were he to be elected. One prominent banker with whom I spoke said that it would be too much to expect that the son of a Welsh Baptist minister would be apt to do much for the Germans. But this half-formed fear is nothing to the resentment against Wilson, and so German encouragement to the opposition to his re-election goes on.

0.3 Fortune of War Turns and Liberalism Is New Hope [Source: Herbert Bayard Swope: Germans see hope of future in liberal rule as the dream of world conquest vanishes, in: The World (New York), Vol. LVII/No. 20,169, p. 6, cols. 7-5.]

Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg is said by those closest to him to be heartily in favor of the purposed liberalization of the German Government, though it fell to his lot to enunciate the Zabern doctrine—that is, the responsibility of the Chancellor to the Kaiser alone. He made the pronouncement because it was true, and because under the existing conditions it was necessary, but he is counted as being among those who are anxious to see the basic conditions changed. Dr. HelfFerich, Secretary of State for the Interior, and Dr. Solf, Secretary of State for the Colonies, are two more members of the present Government who are set down as favoring the reform. Von Jagow, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, is not being committed by his friends, but he is generally regarded as being among those who prefer the retention of the present system. Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, the unusually able German Minister to Denmark, who wields considerable power in the politics of his country, though an aristocrat by birth and breeding, is a supporter of the movement, and so is his cousin, Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador in this country. So it will be seen that the supporters and antagonists of the reform are not being divided by class distinctions, for against these aristocrats who favor the change may be seen representatives of the National Liberal Party, such as Bassermann and Stresemann, who are devoted to the present regime. The National Liberal Party, with its high-sounding title, impressed me as being standpat and as reactionary as the Conservatives and Agrarians are. The party is primarily representative of the big industrial elements of Germany's commercial life, and its leaders seem to me to have much in common with the sturdy, stiff-necked, high-protection Republicanism of the "Uncle Joe" Cannon, McKinley, Penrose and Smoot type, to make a comparison near home.

16

Reports about Germany in 1916

Under the present system of governmental operation in Germany, the Reichstag possesses virtually only that elemental right—the primary power the people have under even the most limited form of representative government—of withholding taxes from purposes that are not approved. The exercise of this right has been often threatened, but rarely used. So out of the seething caldron of the war it is almost certain that a new and finer form of government will come to Germany. This is one of the few prospects left to cheer the German mind, which otherwise has rather a black prospect, for in spite of their remarkable military triumphs, the Germans do not delude themselves that they can win a complete victory, and without some hope of internal betterment their future would be dark indeed. The bitterness of the struggle and the desperate conditions they are facing are reflexed in the spirit of the Germans today. There is little or no blitheness in Germany. She takes her pleasures sadly and takes them only because recreation is held to be a duty, so that her sons and daughters may be better fitted for the work that they are doing for the Fatherland. For every individual in the Fatherland today is doing his or her share for the cause. They have settled down to the situation in the belief that they are now undergoing the last phases of the war, for they realize that the lines along which the war, both politically and economically, is now going are the lines along which the end will come. This must not be taken to mean that the Germans believe they are doomed to defeat; if any one believes that, the belief is well hidden. It means simply that the conditions Germany is now facing will be, without material change, those that she will face when peace comes to relieve the fearful strain which she is undergoing and under which, although her military spirit has remained unbroken and continues successful, there are to be seen evidences of the beginning of a political and spiritual disintegration. Such evidences are the inevitable concomitants of the reaction from the certainty of victory to a fear of defeat, but may be the means to bring about even a greater determination not to be beaten rather than an indication that national decomposition is under way. Germany today calls herself a "beleaguered fortress," and that is what she is in actuality when one considers the iron ring about her. Therefore it was fitting that a "Burgfriede" should be decreed at the beginning of the war. "Burgfriede" means, broadly, "civic peace," and it is a principle handed down from olden days when the various separate free cities and states were engaged in war. Such cities or states would by agreement forget all internal dissensions so that they could present unified fronts against common foes. The "Burgfriede" of Germany was agreed to by all the parties at the outbreak of this war, and for a time it was religiously upheld. But now the friends of the Chancellor are accusing those opposing him, most of them members of the Conservative or affiliated parties, of having broken the truce. The Social Democrats, who have been loyal in their support of the Government, say that the Junkerthum have been guilty of an act almost as bad as treachery in their open antagonism to the Governmental policies. The teaching of force as an element of government, as laid down in the precepts of Nietzsche, Treitschke, Clausewitz, Frobenius and Bernhardi, which had permeated

17

Herbert B. Swope

IRON RING THAT ENCIRCLES THE CENTRAL POWERS.

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[Source: The World (New York, N.Y.), Vol. LVII/No. 20,102, September 3, 1916, p. Tl.]

the entire moral, scholastic and political fabric of the German Empire, is beginning to wear off. It is not rare for an observer to hear the question asked if there be no middle course between World-Power and Downfall—if there be not one making, if less for power, then more for happiness. It is readily observable that the war has changed the German idea and national impulse. The fond dream of a great world super-state, which was but another name for a Germanized world, has dissipated, and, with few exceptions, the leaders of thought in Germany are well contented with any plan in which their present is assured and their legitimate future expansion safeguarded. That expansion lies toward the south and east—that is why the Germans

18

Reports about Germany in 1916

feel they have so deep and vital interest in the Balkans, since it is through that section that the lines of their development must go, as long as England holds the seas. There are even those in Germany who are beginning to wonder if the war was not escapable. "No one wanted it, least of all ourselves," they say, "so wasn't there a way by which the war could have been avoided, even without the added power that a victory promised?" This is one of the questions that will be asked when the accounting is made and responsibility for the cataclysm is allocated. These doubters, who do not let their theories interfere with facing the conditions which exist, feel that they have grounds for their doubt, as to the virtue of the war, in the former success of the policy of "pacific penetration," to use a term much favored in America. They point out that under this system Germany had gained great strength, if not dominance commercially, in Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Roumania and even in Serbia, in spite of the waning power of Austria there. And above all they point out that Italy was rapidly becoming an exclusive German field of effort. Now, they ask themselves, what have they left—only Turkey and Bulgaria—while the others of the list are lost to German influence, if not forever at least for years to come. These views are in direct opposition to the old spirit of force, under which Germany was to be the super-nation; the specially chosen of "the good old God"—the spirit that made Force equal Right. It was a creed that formed a political doctrine, a scholastic formula and a religious faith. Those Germans upon whom the hold of this spirit is weakening are weakening only in their belief in this spirit; their changed philosophy of national existence has not weakened their devotion to national existence and their determination to preserve it at any cost. It is a curious fact that the advocates of greater ruthlessness in the war are also those most determined in their opposition to the coming liberalization. They are, as I have said, largely recruited from the Conservatives and the officers of the army and navy. Some observers read into the opposition a decision upon the part of the Junkerthum to preserve the military domination, and with it the class privileges they enjoy; for they fear with reason that one immediate effect of liberalization would be to end the condition in which the nation exists for the support of the army, and substitute the condition of an army existing only for the protection of the nation. In connection with the advocacy of ruthlessness, I heard it said that some of the conservative elements in Germany who are advocating the "wide open" programme of warfare, in the face of its certainty to involve America, would rather see Germany destroyed than see it democratized. Naturally this was a point upon which few were ready to talk with any freedom. It must not be inferred that the Kaiser is deriving his sole support from the ranks of the Conservatives. It was my observation that the country is thoroughly unified in adherence to the Emperor. In this connection the Cologne Gazette, one of the most influential papers of Germany, printed an editorial late in September which was republished throughout the empire and met with great favor. In this the paper said that it was as sensible for Germany to demand the deposition of the English King as for the allies to expect the enforced abdication of the Kaiser, "whose prestige and general veneration have only increased during

Herbert B. Swope

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this period of war, and who is today stronger in the hearts and minds of the Germans than he ever was before . . . Moreover, we Germans are so completely informed from trustworthy sources about all the facts and motives that produced this war that it is utterly impossible that we should reverse our judgment." The spirit of patriotism and nationality seemed to me to be as strong in Germany today as it ever was, in spite of grave errors in policy, none of which seems more serious than the rigid political censorship now enforced in the empire. This censorship is used more often to burk criticism than to keep information from the enemy. This policy is probably the cause of the allies' belief that the German Government is entirely on the defensive against its own people. Such an unqualified statement is far from being true. But the belief in its truth is understandable when the instance of the Berliner Tageblatt is recalled—one of Germany's big papers that was suppressed for seven days a few weeks ago, and no one yet knows the cause. Obviously, the outside assumption is that the step was taken to prevent the spread of rot in public opinion. The newspapers of Germany are bound to play a big part in the soon-to-come liberalization of the German Empire. The governmental attitude is still largely that of Bismarck toward the "reptile press." The German belief in the venality of the press, which is the regular theory of operation, was evidenced only a few days ago when a story emanating from Holland said that something like $50,000,000 had been spent by Germany in two years for the subsidization of public opinion in neutral countries, and it was added that something like $10,000,000 had been spent in this country. If that be true, it would account for the readiness with which the Germans believe that all the newspapers in America not friendly to their cause are bought by "British gold," in which class they place the New York Times and New York Tribune, and also The World, whenever its editorials or news columns say anything unfriendly from the German viewpoint. Two years ago Zimmermann told me that the war, among other things, would settle one interesting point, and that was whether it was better to be a "journalistically ruled nation like America and England, or a non-journalistic nation like Germany." I asked him when I left Berlin a few weeks ago if he had reached a decision on this point. He smiled and said: "Well, perhaps a little more journalistic participation in the affairs of the Government might be a good thing for Germany after all." That the change in the spirit of German politics is expected by the student of affairs in this country is shown by the recent writings of several publicists, among whom may be noted Dr. Thomas Stockham Baker, a well known educator, himself a German university man, who wrote: "The oversupply in Germany of universitytrained men may under certain conditions prove to be a menace. It is highly probable that after the war, when its cost has been counted and scapegoats have been found for the diplomatic failures, there will ensue a period of radicalism. It is hardly conceivable that the course of the military party is going to meet with universal approval. In the past the university men have done a great deal to further the radical doctrine. To be sure, at the present time conditions are changed, and the professors have, in large measure, been taken into partnership with the military men. They have done

20

Reports about Germany in 1916

a great deal to expound and popularize the theories that have dominated Germany's internal and foreign policies, and which have brought about the present war, . . . but there remains a large class of trained men, some of whom are going to be irreconcilable; many of whom may turn out to be radicals, though this does not mean there is going to be a revolution . . . ." When the liberalization comes, the "Jewish question" will reassert itself. At this time it is forgotten in the "Sturm und Drang" of the war. There have been a few modifications of the Jewish disabilities, but nothing of any substantial nature has been done. Another question that will arise will be that of the women. As they win a greater economic independence they will demand greater political recognition, which now is given practically no serious thought in the empire. The spread of autocratic Socialism, to coin a phrase that describes precisely the enforced social co-operation and combinations prevalent in Germany today, is welcomed by the liberal minds as making it easier to democratize the nation when the time shall come, since it is an official recognition of the people's part in the work of the country, instead of regarding the mass of inhabitants as being merely an inferior lot who are accorded the privilege of being ruled. Life in Germany is not pleasant today. There is a hopeless, prison atmosphere about it that causes men to crack under the strain. The effect is peculiarly noticeable upon the neutrals. They grow fretted and nerve-racked. Several of the attaches of the embassy, and of the American correspondents, have suffered nervous prostration. Berlin, more than any other German city, has become a nest of intrigue and gossip. A motive is looked for behind every man's act. This creates an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion. Germany's place in the sun may be remote, and the sun may be growing cloudy, but Germany's spirit does not waver; her courage still answers every test; her soldiers are still untouched in their bravery and skill; and every sacrifice that she asks is being met willingly, almost gladly.

0.4 Trade and Unemployment as Central Factors [Source: Herbert Bayard Swope: Fewer Germans unemployed in the Empire during the war than there were under peace, in: The World (New York), Vol. LVII/No. 20,171, November 11, 1916, p. 3, cols. 1-4.]

Regarding industrial conditions in Germany generally, this official statement was given me by the Interior Department as approved by Dr. Helfferich: The first part of the statement deals with food supplies, which I am considering in a following article. The statement goes on to point out that the present "war of exhaustion" is

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not alone waged on the German food, but through the limitation of food, on the German health, and it is pointed out that the number of sick persons drawing sick benefits from the State "Kranken-Kassen" (health insurance) is much lower than in times of peace, notwithstanding the great number of old persons who are now represented among the workers. The statement continues: "On the list of January, 1916, 100 per cent of the members of the KrankenKassen were employed. (In theory, every worker in Germany is a member of the Kranken-Kassen; if the official statement is to be believed, it shows that there was absolutely no unemployment on Jan. 1.) Since the 1st of January the percentage of employment has been slowly lowered, being 95.7 on July 1. The number of females employed throughout the empire has in the last two years being greatly increased, though in 1916 it has shown a smaller increment of increase than in 1915. The returns from 300 varied industrial undertakings show the number of workers in June, 1915, to have been 328,786, and in June, 1916, 386,565 an increase of 17.6 per cent. The increase is uniform for male and female employees. In the machinery industry the increase in employment is 26 per cent, and in the iron and metal industry almost 23 per cent. There has been a heavy relapse recently in the textile and wood industry, but the last named is scarcely representative, since there are only five firms now in operation, and these firms are employing about 1,000 workmen, so that the instance affords no real proof." It is then stated that the actual number of unemployed in the empire today is 2.5 per cent., which is said to be a very much smaller unemployment figure than was the case in June, 1914. "The produce of raw iron for the first half of the year 1916," the statement continues, "shows an increase of 17.5 per cent., and the cast iron produce an increase of 25 per cent, compared with the same period of 1915. The incomes of the Prussian-Hessian state railways, from freight revenues exclusively, were only 12.7 per cent, smaller than the corresponding months of peace times— the first six months of 1916 compared with the first six months of 1914. Since December, 1915, the freight revenues have beein higher than in peace times. December, 1916, compared with December, 1913, shows an increase of 8 per cent.; January, 1916, compared to January, 1914, an increase of 10 per cent.; March, 1916, compared to March, 1914, 12 per cent.; May, 1916, to May, 1914, 10 per cent.; June, 1916, to June, 1914, 8 per cent. A six months' comparison between war and peace times shows an average increase of about 10 per cent., notwithstanding the fact that the tariff for transportation has been considerably lowered." Regarding the German export of goods, the statement says that in six months from January to June, 1916, it exceeded by more than 25 per cent, the volume of the same period for 1915. About money the statement says: "The low price of Reichsmarks in all neutral countries has been a cheap and common piece of parade for the international Franco-British slander-propaganda, and is still being made so despite its hollowness and lack of truth." It is pointed out that the note issue of the German Reichsbank is covered by more than a one-third reserve in gold, "whereas the gold cover of the Bank of France," the statement continues, "has decreased practically 62 per cent, in ratio to note issue:"

22

Reports about Germany in 1916

In conclusion it is said: "Germany has, in round figures, paid seven-eighths of her war expenses with war loans that were placed within the empire through the broadest participation of the people. The interest on these loans has been covered in part by 'interest debt notes' and in a few months these floating notes will be transformed into regular loans. What other state can show its war expenditures as having been loaned by the home country alone?" America's trade with Germany shows one great feature—that we can more readily do without Germany than she without us. Our table of imports and exports from 1912 on shows: 1912 $186,042,644 (Imports), $330,450,830 (Exports); 1913 $184,211,352 (Imports), $351,930,541 (Exports); 1914 $149,389,366 (Imports), $158,294,986 (Exports); 1915 $44,953,285 (Imports), $11,788,852 (Exports); 1916 (Jan.-April) $3,141,791 (Imports), $58,646 (Exports). [The sharp decrease in trade noted in 1916 is due to the tightening British blockade and the blacklist.] An analysis of our imports showed our biggest bill to have been for laces and embroideries. This ran about $7,000,000 a year, but even this had been decreasing in volume as our domestic manufactures increased. The same is true with most of the leading articles which the United States imported from Germany. The other big items in our bill were coal tar colors and dyes, about $6,000,000 a year; china and earthenware, nearly $4,000,000; raw furs, $5,000,000, and dressed furs $2,500,000; calfskins, $5,000,000; crude india rubber, anywhere from $4,000,000 to $7,000,000; toys, about $7,000,000; wood pulp, about $2,500,000; woollens, $4,000,000; leather gloves, over $3,000,000, and still wines, $1,000,000 a year. Cotton dominated our exports to Germany. In peace times Germany used to buy nearly $170,000,000 worth of cotton from us every year. Next came copper—$40,000,000 to $50,000,000; lard, $15,000,000 to $20,000,000; wheat, from $7,000,000 to $12,000,000, depending on the crops; with kerosene oil, rosin, corn, agricultural implements, lubricating oil, tobacco and upper leather between $3,000,000 and $5,000,000 a year. Of the three and a half million dollar imports from Germany into the port of New York during the first six months of 1916, it is interesting to note that knit underwear was the largest item. The second in value was manufactured products of flax, and the third, miscellaneous chemicals. Other items on the list included sugar beet seed, cotton laces and embroideries, linen embroideries, china and earthenware, hops, textile machinery, leather gloves, lithographic paper, photographic paper, other paper stock, musical instruments and toys. There were no exports from New York to Germany in the first six months of 1916. The only preparation for the future that I saw was the shipping programme being projected, and I have reason to believe that many of the announcements on this point were made largely to cause foreign irritation. I was told authoritatively that almost every shipyard in Germany is working on Government commissions, but it was said—and the statement was credited in England—that the HamburgAmerican Line had laid down a colossal 50,000-ton steamer, the Bismarck; a 30,000tonner to be known as the Tirpitz, and three 22,000-ton ships; that the North German Lloyd had laid down two sister ships of 35,000 tons, two more of 16,000 each, and twelve of 42,000 tons each, and that other German lines were correspondingly active.

Herbert B. Swope

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The reference made in the official statement printed above to the depression of the Reichsmark, touches on a matter over which the Reichsbank is much concerned. Ignoring the rates of exchange quoted on German money in other markets, the Reichsbank each day in Berlin announces the official exchange rate and compels acceptance of this rate by those buying German money. For example, at the end of September I had occasion to cash a check on America in Berlin. I got for each dollar only five marks forty pfennigs, while on the same day in Copenhagen I would have received five marks sixty-five pfennigs for my American dollar. Had I had American gold to have changed into German money, I could have "shopped" for the best rate, which at that time was about five marks and eighty-seven pfennings. In other words, there was a diiference of about 12 per cent, between the gold exchange and the exchange received for the check. Nothing is too big for German organization to attempt and nothing is so small as to be overlooked. The paternalism of the Government is exhibited nowhere so markedly as in the Reichsbank, and this spirit is well illustrated in a little incident, for the accuracy of which I can personally vouch: A wealthy manufacturer of Germany took a brief vacation at Marienbad in Austria. He felt the need of a little stimulation, and dropped into a private club one evening to play baccarat. When he was through his session, he was about 200,000 marks the loser, and he gave a draft on his bank in Berlin to cover that amount. The draft was put through the Marienbad bank, and, as is done with all foreign collections now, was forwarded to the Reichsbank for adjustment. Instead of an acceptance being made, the drawer of the check and the bank through which it had been put received telegrams requesting that immediate explanation be given to the Reichsbank as to how the check happened to be drawn, and to what purposes the funds were to be put. Rather embarrassed, the loser naively explained that he was making a private investment. After further correspondence, the Reichsbank finally approved the draft, and he was permitted to draw his own money. As this was so illustrative of the German efficiency, I made it a point to ask why the draft had been questioned, and was told that the Inspection Department of the Reichsbank wished to be satisfied, first, that the large amount of money was not to be used for espionage purposes, and secondly, that the money thus taken out of Germany, would not be wasted. It may be questioned if the Reichsbank's second purpose was fulfilled, but obviously such a watch over financial matters proves a deterrent to foolish expenditures. Germany is continuing all her social undertakings—her insurance against accident, unemployment and sickness, her medical attention for those insured—26,000,000 of them, her old age pensions and the remarkably developed chain of labor employment bureaus whereby a daily bulletin service brings the man and the job together even when they are at the opposite ends of the empire. The state social funds, based on individual taxation, are bigger than ever. The American firms which do business in Germany, selling shoes, typewriters, cash registers, cameras, oils, machinery, metals, cotton and cotton goods, meat foods, tobacco, furs and other manufactured goods, in spite of the fact that they are getting few shipments from this country, are doing well now. They have adapted themselves to conditions and are meeting the situation

24

Reports about Germany in 1916

sometimes in a way that enables them to show profit even today. But their future prospects—advance orders booked—are strong. So it looks, with the national Government strengthening the hands of our export trade, as if Germany will face dumping from us rather than we from Germany.

0.5 Blockade Results and the Fight Against Famine [Source: Herbert Bayard Swope: Germans, defying starvation, have food for years ahead, despite the British blockade, in: The World (New York), Vol. LVII/No. 20,172, November 12, 1916, p. 3, cols. 1-4.]

Germany is not starving, and she does not intend to starve. She is further away from that danger point today than she has been since the British blockade tightened about her. Her food supplies are not varied and they are not abundant, but she has enough to provide for actual needs and still leave a margin of reserve. Nor is the empire suffering from a serious lack of the necessaries of life apart from food, such as clothing, housing materials, paper, chemicals, coal, wood and the other essentials of everyday existence. Many things that make for comfort are not to be had, but while their presence might tend to make life pleasanter, their absence does not threaten its continuance. Through the marvellous organization that has been perfected in all of Germany, her supplies have been reservoired and regulated in such manner as to insure sufficient, equitable and level-priced distribution, and through the remarkable success of her scientists, substitutes have been found for many of the articles cut off by Britain from her markets. But for man-power, with all her guns and other engines, she has yet to find a substitute. Every one in Germany, from the highest to the lowest, lives by a system instituted by the Government and carried out with a fidelity that is characteristic of the lawabiding inhabitants. Every one lives by cards that regulate the supply of foods and clothing—every one but the soldiers in the fields and the invalids in the hospitals. They are given the best to be had, with no other limitation than that imposed by the supply. The very system that is enabling Germany to live was the cause of the once widely believed report that the empire was starving. It was not because she was starving that the new methods were introduced; it was because she was determined not to be starved that they were inaugurated. Germany's preparation in the way of conserving her supplies is not a preparation for today, tomorrow or next week; it is a successful preparation for conditions that may extend over five, ten or even twenty years; in fact, for an indefinite period. The secret is not hard to find—she has taught

Herbert B. Swope

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herself not only to be self-supporting but to live within the means she produces. She has found that the nation can live on home-produced supplies (plus those she receives from her allies), and so she has gone about seeing that it does so. The rations today allotted in Germany are based upon the crop and produce of 1915—the worst harvest the empire had had in twenty years—and the allotment is based upon a total less than the actual total of that lean year. So it will be seen that even the worst harvest, if repeated, would still leave a small margin for reserve. Germany is re-enacting the story of Joseph and the Pharaoh of Egypt. She is storing up her supplies and doling out enough to allow for reasonable living. The state, in seizing the necessaries, makes certain that the armies will be supplied and that no monopoly will be permitted the wealthy. Rich and poor fare alike. All get the same quantity and get it at the same time and at the same price. This price restriction applies to the bigger staples, such as bread, fish, certain sorts of meat and clothing. With money it is possible to buy the finer grades of flour, poultry, cattle and hog meats and attire, for there are no restraints put about luxuries. The regulations apply only to the necessities. For example, one can buy silk socks in Berlin today in such quantities and prices as one wishes, but one must have a police permit, with a careful inquiry preceding its issuance, to buy woollen socks. The same is true of the cheaper clothing, the prices of which have not been much increased. The head of the Department of War Food Supply, literally translated as "War Nourishment," who is commonly called the Food Dictator, von Batocki, announced, when I was in Berlin a few weeks ago, that the average increase in the cost of living between now and the beginning of the war ranged between 60 and 75 per cent., and from the superficial investigation that I made I believe this estimate to be reasonably accurate. The prices are heavily increased on some things, while on others the increment is slight. From my personal experiences in Germany I discovered that the greatest scarcity existed in the supplies of butter, cheese, sugar, cocoa and chocolate, fats, oils, pork, coffee, tea, fruits such as oranges, lemons, bananas, and eggs. There are others, but these are the things the average German is accustomed to in plenty, and the lack of that plenty has caused him inconvenience, although not to the extent of threatening his health. Vegetables are to be had in plenty, and so are fruits of the sort that Germany raises or that she can draw from her Southern allies, such as apples, melons, pears, grapes, and the like. Every great staple of life is to be obtained only by a card. One must have cards for bread, butter, meat, fruits, potatoes, fats, sugar, and recently the system has been extended to include milk, cream, and eggs. One may have meat only five times a week, butter or fats only twice a week, and as I left Berlin about the beginning of October the empire had gone on a one-egg-a-person-per-week basis. This was for the purpose of building up a reserve stock of eggs, which up to that time had been purchasable without restriction. Bread, vegetables, and fish were to be had every day. There is a difference to be observed in the methods of obtaining food between those living in hotels and those keeping house. In the official report recently issued by the British Government it was said that foreigners in Germany, particularly newspa-

26

Reports about Germany in 1916

per correspondents, were treated exceptionally in that no restrictions were placed upon their food. I can bear personal testimony to the falsity of this information. Upon my arrival at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin I was provided with meat and bread cards. The bread cards had little tabs on them, each calling for 25 grams of "Kriegsbrot" (war bread made of a mixture of wheat flour, corn flour and potato meal, looking and tasting like our ordinary rye bread). Each tab was good for a slice of bread. A roll required two tabs, or 50 grams. The meat cards entitled you to a slice and a half, or 75 grams daily. The meatless days are Tuesdays and Fridays. In compensation the days upon which you obtain butter are also Tuesdays and Fridays. Fats for frying can be had on Mondays and Thursdays. In the hotels and restaurants sugar and cream are not served. In place of sugar, little particles of saccharine are given, and in place of cream a thin skimmed milk. The cream and sugar are kept for hospital use. While it is possible to regulate the service of meats and butters in a restaurant, it is not so easy to do so in households, and so the system for the householders is changed. Each family is given a card calling for the quantity to which its size entitles it, and then these cards are used on stated days at the various markets. Each family has a regular day on which it buys its most supplies for the week. This is to prevent the butcher from being loaded down with an unnecessarily great supply. He stocks just the amounts he knows his various customers will require and for which they present their cards, which he in turn presents to the central governmental supply station on renewing his stock. The bakers, too, sell by weekly arrangements. Each consumer is entitled to 1,900 grams of baked bread or 1,700 grams of bread and 250 grams of meal or flour. At the beginning of the regulations the loaves used to be baked in 2,000-gram loaves (about four pounds), but it was found the wastage in this was heavy, so now they are made in 1,000-gram each. Each consumer is entitled to 60 grams of butter and 30 grams of oleomargarine, or vegetable fat. Each person has the right to draw nine pounds of potatoes a week. There is no restriction as to how these supplies shall be used in private families. If a household wanted to, it could use all its card rations in one day. Then for the rest of the week it would have to live on the things the purchase of which is still unrestricted. Virtually all the food supplies of Germany are commandeered by the Government. Through the "Centralgetreide and Ernaehrungsbueros" the farmers and stock raisers of each district must turn over at a fixed price all their produce. The supplies are stored and reshipped to those points where they are needed. At the outset of von Batocki's regime there were many instances reported of efforts made on the part of food raisers to hold out for higher prices by concealing their stocks, but heavy fines and imprisonment soon broke up this plan and now the system works smoothly. Among the offenders were many of the members of the rich agrarian classes, who were not above turning a penny at the expense of the needs of their fellow countrymen. Not only do these central bureaus take all the farmers raise beyond what is actually needed for immediate home consumption, but they take it at a price that is fixed by the Government, which allows a fair margin of profit, and they insist that the farmers' output shall be never less than a

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fixed minimum. In fact, all sorts of newly developed methods are applied to agriculture so that the output may be increased. The question of farm labor has been partially solved by the employment of women and of a million and a half war prisoners, but at the same time these prisoners are a liability as well as an asset, since their presence increases heavily the number of mouths to feed. Eventually, after peace has been concluded, the cost of the maintenance of the prisoners of war, less a certain amount allowed for the work they do, will be paid by the native Governments of the prisoners. The restriction of meats has brought the supply of live cattle in Germany today back almost to the figure that existed in January, 1914. It is considerably larger than it was a year ago. The supply of hogs is today almost 30 per cent, greater than it was six months ago, but it is still 20 per cent, less than it was this time of 1915, and that in turn was almost 20 per cent, smaller than at the beginning of the war. The diminution of about 40 per cent, in the supply of swine was due to the enormous quantities slaughtered in the first year for the maintenance of the army, which has always had a great liking for sausage. At the beginning of the war Germany claimed one-third more cattle than France possessed and twice as many as England possessed, and four times as many hogs as France and eight times as many as England. In discussing the prices of food supplies in Germany the economists point out that all that is paid goes into the pockets of home raisers whereas, they say, England and France must spend their money with outsiders. In addition to fixing the price at which the Government commandeers the food supplies, the Food Dictatorship also fixes the price at which it shall be sold. These prices are subject to fluctuations within a narrow range, according to the effect of temporary supplies and demands. How the plans work out can be best illustrated by taking the case of the Adlon. The regular "luncheon breakfast" there now costs 5V£ marks. It used to cost 3 XA marks, and was then more plentiful in its dishes than it is now. For 5'A marks today one is given, on the meat day, a vegetable soup, a fish, one sort of meat, two sorts of vegetables and a salad. Sweets that used to be included are now charged for, and, as was always the case in Europe, coffee is an extra charge. The dinner that formerly cost 5 marks now costs 7 marks. On a meat day it consists of a soup, a fish, one sort of meat, two vegetables and a sweet. On a meatless day eggs or an extra service of fish are given. In all the restaurants the old á la carte menus have disappeared. One lives on the table d'hóte plan entirely. It is a case of getting what they have to give you, not what you want to get. In the popular-price restaurants the tariffs are less than one would expect. At the same time the portions are smaller. At the famous Café Bauer you pay 40 cents for pot roasts, or for "Wiener Schnitzel." For a thin "steak minute" you pay 75 cents. The various sandwiches run about 15 cents apiece. The official statement of existing conditions made for me by the food bureau reads: "It can be demonstrated that there has been a complete failure of the starvation and exhaustion war waged against us. The crop of 1915 was unfavorable beyond record. A smaller yield of the German fields than that of last year is not to be expected even under the most unfavorable conditions.

o a o

•a n o J

< — i O e ta o •n V ) Moscow(pmtraL). (c ) Ukr a i m (Doueti, tic) (d) Urals.

Ballimi

[Source: W. P. Coates/Zelda K. Coates: The Second FiveYear Plan of Development of the U.S.S.R., London 1934, p. XXVII.]

tions will be scored in one camp or another as mistaken or mendacious. This is one of the risks one must take on the exploration of Russia under the Five-Year Plan. My entry into Soviet Russia was hardly typical of a country where food or the lack of it is the chief topic of conversation. I was just congratulating myself on having got through the customs a sack containing 100 pounds of German canned goods when there came an invitation to dinner. My first meal on Russian soil was something to be approached with trepidation. On the menu were caviar of the highest quality, big gray malasol, several sorts of smoked river fish of a kind that used to

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attract international gourmets to Moscow in the old days, an extremely palatable cream soup with pirozhki, light pastry filled with chopped meat, three kinds of roast poultry and game, young pullets, pheasants, a rare bird called tsesarka resembling a pigeon, watermelon, pears, stuffed raspberries, baked wine sauce, cheese and a huge stand of luxurious fruit. The cook was the former chef of the Grand Duke Nikolaj Nikolaivitich, one time commander-in-chief of the Imperial Russian Army. The meal was in a special car. The hosts were Colonel and Mrs. Hugh Cooper of New York. As chief consulting engineer for the Soviet Government's $100,000,000 hydro-electric project below the Dnieper River rapids and as one of the very few foreigners whom Joseph Stalin really likes, Colonel Cooper enjoys certain privileges. That was an interlude of diversion from Russia's reality. That reality could be anticipated in the dining car at breakfast. Two eggs, a tiny pat of butter, zwieback and tea, luxuries all too little appreciated by one unaware that the rations to come were to cost three roubles, about $1.50. The waiter had no change. He passed around paper slips in place of kopecks. Four more hoarders of silver coin had just been shot in Moscow, but the sturdy Russian kopecks had refused to be scared out of hiding. They still reposed by millions in countless peasant socks. Green apples, small and gnarled, were the sole offering of peasant women in the wayside stations. Gone were the roast chickens, sandwiches of great amber-grained caviar, pickled cucumbers, butter, milk, eggs, all these not of olden times but of just three years ago. The stations were as bare as a picked bone. An hour and fifteen minutes late, we arrived at Moscow to jolt over its cobblestones down to the hotel. But no, cobblestones have disappeared. Moscow has presented a new contradiction and none could be more typical of the era of the Plan. The streets are paved, miles of them, and in the best asphalt. On the ride to the hotel alone there are more paved streets than were in all Moscow in 1927. But to ride over them costs just five times as much. Droshky fares have quintupled in price. Along the streets are scores of new buildings, flat-facaded, glass-fronted office buildings, great complex workers' flats and the horizon that once was dominated by the blue and golden and starry domes and lacy crosses of Moscow's countless churches is punctured now by smokestacks. The picture is disfigured; the charm has begun to fade and the beauty of old Moscow to recede. On the paved streets by the new buildings goes afoot a population that has given up a good deal more than the romance of Muscovy. They swarm along the sidewalks and overflow and scatter along the thoroughfares. Their monotone of gray, the uniformity of their unsmiling haste is the same as ever. They move, perhaps, a trifle faster. There seems to be a trace more of nervousness in them. "Permit me, citizen," is chopped a shade shorter than before. And there are tens of thousands more of them. The five-day week has done that. Freeing one-fifth of the population every day, it has made every day a holiday for nearly a half million in Moscow. They are forever on the go. "We work harder on our day off," said one man, "than we do on our jobs. On our days off we have to look for something to buy. And it wears out our shoes." Shoes! Euphemistic expression. Not since the days of famine, civil war and intervention

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have there been such fantastic substitutes for footwear as are now common in this city. Here a man, his wife and their two children go by, all four shod with frayed canvas sneakers, the soles long ago worn out and stuffed for the day with thick cardboard. There go two youths each wearing on their feet chopped off ancient rubber boots. An ill-clad, bearded man has wrapped his feet in rags. A peasant is barefooted. Cast your eyes on the sidewalk and wait for a good pair of boots to go by. Lift your eyes. Nine cases out of ten it will be a Red army soldier or one of the uniformed troops of the G. P. U. state political police. Of all the women passing one-third are wearing tattered but recognizable women's shoes and the other two-thirds some sort of makeshift. The most popular are house slippers. The cobblers do a frantic trade and accept no repair work for delivery under three months. For a moment the footgear looks worse than the clothing. But the frost has come and overcoats are slow to appear. The cold nips, men shiver. But war is war. They say every man is a soldier and troops must do their duty. Promised from the cooperatives is one coat apiece for the workers, or cloth for a coat this winter some time. Mistrustful, some Muscovites, who have lost their old coats or worn them until they have fallen apart, are planning to cut up carpet. Some have no carpet. Down the street comes the sound of music. A parade is in progress. The head of the column swings around the corner. Two companies of G. P. U. officers, fresh from military academy graduation. Their uniforms, immaculate, are made from the best cloth. Their overcoats fall to their ankles in warm, thick folds. In this war there are troops and troops.

3.2 Russia's Fear and Her Decision for a Spurt [Source: Hubert R. Knickerbocker: Russia speeds output to surprise the world, in: New York Evening Post, Vol. 130/No. 18, December 8, 1930, p. 2, cols. 2-6.]

The decline in the standard of living in Russia since 1927 is unevenly distributed throughout the country but nevertheless very great everywhere. It would not have been so striking to one who had not returned since the famine years of 1920-21. Conditions now are not as bad as in those fatal years, but they more nearly resemble '20-'21 than they do the flourishing years of the New Economic Policy (NEP) from 1925 on to the beginning of the Five-Year Plan in 1928. One of the first questions that strikes an observer of the privations now being suffered by the people, a question that becomes the more insistent the longer one stays and the further one travels in the country is: "Why was the pace of industrialization put up so high that the population has to suffer so much?" Without an answer to this question the situation in Russia today appears senseless, the Plan a mockery

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and its authors malevolent men deserving the execration of their fellows. An analysis of the causes, however, reveals that the privations were planned, but only to a certain degree, to a degree nothing like the actual state of affairs. It reveals that the major part of the privations now being endured were due to the intervention of factors beyond the control of the planners, and to at least one great mistake in the administration of the Plan. It does not make out a very good case for the cause of Socialist-planned economics versus capitalist free market economics, but it at any rate relieves the planners of the reproach that they deliberately set out to achieve industrialization by stripping the population to the bone. Oddly enough, the Communist sponsors of the Plan prefer to accept this reproach rather than admit they have made mistakes, or have failed to forecast accurately the course of events. This course of events was planned to include a high tempo of industrialization, involving certain hardships for the people. It was put at this level for three principal reasons: economic, military, and internal political. Most important was the economic reason. To understand it one must keep in mind the fact that industrialization was the necessary keystone for the stabilization of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The heads of that dictatorship, the leaders of the Communist Party, realized that until Russia was transformed from an agricultural state to an industrial one their tenure of power could at best be maintained only by the repressive forces represented in the police and military arms. To reverse the ratio between the 83 per cent of agriculturally employed and the 17 per cent of industrially employed, to shift a large part of the 125,000,000 peasants into the ranks of the proletarians now numbering about 25,000,000, was the primary task of selfpreservation for a proletarian government. By the end of 1927 the industrial plants that had been built before the revolution by capitalist owners had largely been restored and industrial production had surpassed pre-war figures by 19 per cent. There could be no further progress toward industrialization without the erection of new plants. Machinery and equipment for such new plants could only be procured abroad, could only be bought with foreign currency, which in turn could only be obtained by the sale of exports. Exports, however, were the most backward element in Soviet economy. In 1913 exports were 1,520,000,000 roubles; 1924-25, 559,100,000; 1925-26, 676,600,000; 1926-27, 780,200,000; 192728, 777,800,000. At this irregular rate of progress it would take a decade or more to reach pre-war level of exports. This was due more than anything else to the fact that no grain or almost no grain was being exported. Grain constituted some 40 per cent of the export of pre-war Russia, but only a fraction of a per cent of the total post-revolutionary exports. It had become apparent by the end of 1927 that under the postrevolutionary system of individual farming Russia was either going to have no more grain exports, or was to net them almost exclusively from the class of well-to-do farmers who had replaced the former landowners at the top of the rural social scale. The old landed estates had been split up into millions of tiny individual holdings. More than 90 per cent of the peasants now lived on farms whereon they produced

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little more than they could consume, partly from necessity, partly from resentment against the Government that provided them with next to no manufactured articles, confiscated their grain, and campaigned against their church. Only the so-called wellto-do peasants, a term extremely relative since most of them would be considered poor wretches in Western Europe or America, produced anything for the market. Soviet authorities declare that the Kulaks, numbering 6 per cent, produced 20 per cent of all grain harvested, and 40 per cent of all grain marketed. The growth and prosperity of this comparatively well-to-do class of peasants clearly meant the rise of a new class of landlords, a new "capitalist" class. Even so, however, the Kulaks were not yet able to supply grain enough for any considerable export. They were just about able to supply the cities, but in doing so they were becoming prosperous, becoming a "menace" to the Communist state. Hence the Government was faced with the alternative, either to do without grain exports for many years longer, meanwhile waiting for them to be supplied by a growing class of the Government's enemies, or else to intervene energetically and socialize agriculture. The decision was made to collectivize the farms. Collectivization would mean little without mechanization. Mechanization of agriculture meant, first, tractors and farm implements. Tractors and farm implements meant factories to make them in. Factories meant steel to supply them. Steel meant coal, oil and electricity, and so on down the line. The whole thing spelled industrialization. The Soviet planners were happy. Their reckoning all fitted in perfectly. They would collectivize the farms to get more grain to export in order to buy machines abroad to collectivize the farms, and in the whole process the land would be industrialized. There had to be, however, a starting point for this beneficent circle. It was necessary therefore to tighten up the belt a bit at the beginning and to export some of the things that otherwise would have been consumed by the population, food, textiles, and so on. At the same time imports of these consumption goods would be stopped. With the money gained by both processes machines and raw materials would be bought abroad. This was the first, the most important reasons for the Plan, its economic foundation. It entailed some, but no abnormal amount of privations. Only slightly less important were the military considerations. Lenin taught, and every Bolshevik believes, that a Communist state will never be allowed by the capitalist countries of the world to attain stable prosperity. At some point in the upward climb of the Soviet Union its leaders felt positive there would come another "bourgeois intervention," military perhaps, economic certainly. Now if the upward curve were steady, but slow, the bourgeois countries would have plenty of time to convince themselves of the reality, would have comfortable opportunity to organize public opinion in their countries for the attack that Soviet leaders regarded as inevitable as the coming of the seasons. A sudden upward spurt, however, catching the bourgeois world by surprise, and leaving the Soviet Union at the end of a few years master of an industrial system capable of supplying all its military as well as economic needs, would be the surest way of meeting the threat, and then, with all this power, what might not be done for the cause of world revolution? They chose the spurt. It was decided not merely immediately to build tractor

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factories, farm implement factories and the other plants necessary for collectivization of the land, but to build at once, within five years, an entire complex of all the primary industries, so that the Soviet Union should be utterly independent and have every process of manufacture in its power from the iron ore in the ground to the completed machine. This goal had been set anyway for a decade or so hence. The whole five-year plan, however, was speeded up and these primary plants projected on greatly enlarged lines, largely due to the war scare of 1929, when conflict with China over the Chinese Eastern Railway seemed unavoidable. Then appeared for the first time the slogan, "Five-Year Plan in Four," and the population took up its belt another notch. So obsessed are the Soviet leaders with the idea that the country is going to be attacked, that there is a disposition among some of them to see at least one benefit from the wretched appearance of the population. Masking the fundamental industrial progress of the nation, it lulls the bourgeois countries into a sense of security and before the hostile world has awakened to the fact of Soviet strength the nation will stand impregnable. This at any rate is their chief consolation for the fact that this same deplorable aspect of the people, leading to the assumption that the country is hastening toward bankruptcy, has checked the inclination toward advancing the Soviets credits. To these two reasons for the pace of the Plan must be added a third, less important, but nevertheless a factor. It may be remembered that the Plan was born and put into effect not long after the expulsion of Leon Trotzky from the party and the country that had witnessed his spectacular rise from emigré chess player to organizer and commander in chief of the Red army. Trotzky's differences with Joseph Stalin were largely of a personal nature. The brilliant Jewish military man lost because the shrewd Georgian party man was a better manipulator of the political machine. But Trotzky had many friends; his expulsion and exile came nearer to inflaming a violent revolt within the party, came nearer to starting the Russian revolution on the way of the French, than anything that had ever happened. Trotzky was the proponent of the radical course. So long as Trotzky was on the stage, Stalin represented the moderate course. With Trotzky gone, it was not only possible, but politically advisable for Stalin to strike out a new line, even more radical than that proposed by Trotzky who had proposed to leave the peasants on their individual farms but to requisition their grain and dragoon the last penny of taxes out of them. Stalin's proposal forcibly to collectivize the farms was not Trotzky's course, but it was extreme enough to satisfy all but the most irreconcilable Trotzkyists. What a soothing effect it had on the party turmoil may be judged by the fact that of 5,000 Trotzkyists sent into exile in 1928 there remain now but 300 unrepentant. Christian Rakovsky, former Ambassador to France, is still holding out, but the majority have come back and been readmitted to the party. These, the three motives of the Plan and its pace, were to tighten Russia's belt by two notches. This much was planned. There were to enter, however, several unplanned factors, one great mistake, and one unforeseen event, that were destined to

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lower still further the standard of living, incite a world-wide protest against Soviet dumping, delay important features of the Plan, and face the Soviet Union with the threat of an economic boycott on the part of the capitalistic world.

3.3 The Government's Mistake and an Unexpected Event [Source: Hubert R. Knickerbocker: Russian exports soar as world prices fall, in: New York Evening Post, Vol. 130/No. 19, December 9, 1930, p. 2, cols. 2-5.]

Socialist-planned economy is superior to capitalist-planned economy, say Soviet political scientists, because crises such as those that periodically visit the capitalist world are excluded from the Socialist system. The history of the first two years of the Five-Year Plan, the most ambitious attempt ever conceived to regulate the affairs of mankind, shows that events unforseen by the Five-Year Planners have caused the Soviet Union to suffer far more severely than any capitalist country has suffered in modern times from merely economic causes. Two principal factors, not reckoned upon, have so far appeared to render more difficult the execution of the Plan, and each has set up a vicious circle of effects and causes from which the Soviet Union is now carrying on a struggle to escape, a struggle so desperate and so resolute that eventual success seems probable. The first of these factors was the excessive speed of collectivization of the farms; the second was the decline in world commodity prices. The first, resulting in the destruction of 25 per cent of the country's live-stock, disorganization of agriculture and an uproar of ill-feeling among the peasantry, aggravated the already severe food shortage, guaranteed that the standard of living set for 1933 could not be attained, discouraged thereby the whole population, put a brake on industrial production, and cost the Government hundreds of millions of roubles. Russia had to pull in its belt a third notch. The second factor, the world decline in commodity prices, proved ironically that the Socialist state, whose Communist International agitators cheered so loudly at the bourgeoise economic crisis, suffered more from it than any capitalist country. By reason of the fact that prices shot downward on all the things Russia had to sell, while prices on the things she had to buy remained about stable or sank but slowly, the Soviet Foreign Trade Monopoly, forced for the sake of the Plan to keep its imports of machines and industrial equipment up to the Plan level, was compelled to increase its exports enormously in volume. This was the immediate occasion for the world-wide protest against Soviet dumping. The violent increase of exports, taken in considerable part out of the consumption goods needed by the people, further

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depressed the standard of living. These two causes together, resentment at Soviet competition and scepticism over Soviet solvency in view of the miserable condition of the population, inclined the bourgeois world to restrict credits. This in turn made it necessary to export more, and so the vicious circle was completed. Once more Russia had to take up a notch, and the net result of these four tugs at the belt, two planned and two unplanned, was the present living standard. Serious as were the results from the second factor, the first, the mistake in the speed and the manner of collectivization, was most immediately disastrous. Alexis Rykoff, the so called "Premier" of the Soviet Union, chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars, now "interned" in the Politburo as the last member of the Right Opposition to be tolerated in Stalin's councils, was in favor of slowing up the Plan to a more comfortable speed. To that end he made a speech at the Sixteenth Party Congress, a speech that was properly howled down by the majority group, and never published. All Moscow has heard, however, that among his biting remarks was: "The forcible collectivization of the land has cost the country as much as the Civil War and Intervention." This was certainly an overstatement, but near enough to the truth to be extremely unpleasant. What happened is easy to illustrate. It is not mere history, for its consequences are being keenly felt in every home in Russia today. There were in 1928 about 25,000,000 peasant households in the Soviet Union, and of these about 500,000 had been collectivized. According to the Plan, collectivization was to go forward slowly, and for the first year this was done, so that by the summer of 1929 the number of collectivized households had risen to about 1,000,000. The Plan foresaw that by the summer of 1930 there should be collectivized about 2,500,000 households, or ten per cent of the total. For the collectives to be formed out of these 2,500,000 households the Plan had provided sufficient machinery. Force, applied at first cautiously, but then with increasing severity, was a principal instrument in the process of collectivization. As it met with little resistance at first, the Soviet authorities were encouraged to proceed not only faster but more radically, in that the collectives were patterned, not after a loose cooperative, but after a rigid commune, in which every member was forced to give up for the common household not only his horse, but his cow, his pig, his sheep, his chickens and even his dog. Spreading like prairie fire, the process of collectivization reached gigantic dimensions. Almost at one stroke Kulaks, numbering at least 3,000,000 were "dekulakized," that is, deprived of their entire property, ousted from their land and many sent to Siberia, the Urals, or elsewhere far away. By March, 1930, instead of 2,500,000 individual farms in collectives there had been forcibly thrown together a total of 11,000,000 farms, or nearly 50 per cent of all the peasant households in the Soviet Union. There were no machines for these so called collectives; there were no agricultural experts for them; not enough seed for them, in short they were for the most part abortive. Stalin called a halt, in his famous speech "Dizziness from Success," in which he put all responsibility for the excess of collectivization upon "over-zealous underofficials." It was too late, however, to remedy the very great damage already done. Millions of peasants, rather than give up their livestock to the collectives without compensation, preferred to kill and eat their cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and many

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even slaughtered their horses out of sheer indignation. In many parts of the country 50 per cent of all the bulls were killed, one-third of horned cattle, of sheep and goats, nearly one-half of all swine, two-thirds to three-fourths of all poultry, and 15 to 18 per cent of horses, at least 25 per cent of all livestock throughout the country. For a brief period Russia ate more meat than it had eaten in decades; then it went on a vegetarian diet. As a result of Stalin directive one-half of all the new collectives were immediately dissolved. In March there had been 11,000,000 farms collectivized, in May there were 5,000,000. Today there are probably 6,000,000 to 7,000,000 individual households in collectives, for the process has begun again, this time much more slowly. According to official Soviet estimates, it will take at least three years and probably more, to make up the losses of livestock suffered. Meanwhile as a result of the first great mistake in the execution of the Plan, the population was compelled to endure a degree more privation than the two degrees the planners had reckoned upon. For the second unplanned difficulty in the fulfillment of the Plan, an examination of the Soviet foreign trade returns together with a chart of world commodity prices from the beginning of the Plan, to date, is extremely fruitful. It shows that during this period the Soviet Union took a loss of probably fifteen per cent on its entire foreign trade. That is to say, the prices the Soviet Union received during this period for its exports, nearly all raw materials, fell off approximately thirty per cent, while the prices it had to pay for its imports, about 65 per cent machines and equipment and 35 per cent raw materials, fell off approximately only fifteen per cent. Of all the commodities the Soviet Union has to sell, only petroleum kept anything like its 1928 level of prices. Lumber, now the leading Soviet export declined 30 per cent, grain 50 per cent, furs 40 per cent, and so on. The Soviet Union gained on the likewise lower prices for its imports of cotton, wool, rubber and metals, but the mass of its imports, consisting of machines and equipment, remained almost as expensive as ever. All countries having a predominant export of raw materials suffered under the same decline in prices. But the great difference between these countries and the Soviet Union was that all the others reduced their exports during this unprofitable period; the Soviet Union alone increased hers. She alone had a Five-Year Plan that forced her to keep her imports to the planned level, regardless of the fact that in order to do so she was compelled to export at a loss. For the Soviet Union is also unique in having a balance of payments almost identical with its foreign trade balance. Small amounts of gold and platinum, irregularly shipped abroad, an infinitesimal tourist trade, balance the expenses abroad of Soviet diplomats and trade representatives plus the expenditures for the salaries of American and other engineers at work in the country. It is however, almost literally true that every dollar of imports has to be paid with a dollar of exports. It was not the desire of the Soviet Union to keep up its imports to the Plan schedules merely for the sake of fulfilling the import plan, but because the whole system of industrial construction within the country depends upon strict adherence to the import plan. Every factory in the Soviet Union, without exception, is counting upon this or that machine, shipment of steel, or cargo of raw material to arrive

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punctually at the appointed time from abroad. A reduction of a few per cent in imports means disturbing to an incalculable degree the execution of the Plan. Hence the necessity of straining every effort to fulfill the import plan, and hence the consequences, when an unforeseen factor such as the decline of commodity prices intervenes. Soviet publications proudly announced that while in the nine months period, October 1, 1929, to July 1, 1930, all the capitalist countries showed a decline in foreign trade, the Soviet Union's rose 25.2 per cent. It was a Pyrrhic boast. The process is best illustrated with the period just cited. During that period, in the effort to keep its imports up to Plan, the Soviet Union increased its exports in value seventeen per cent, and to do so it had to increase them in volume 57 per cent. This loss was only partially compensated by the much smaller decline in the prices of its imports, and even with this effort, plus the fact that the trade balance was 76,400,000 rubles passive, only enabled an increase of 35 per cent in the value of imports whereas the Plan had called for a 40 per cent increase. From these operations there were six principal consequences. First, the government could pay for its purchases abroad; second, there was a net loss per ton on exports as compared with exports last year; third, there was still less for the population to eat, wear and use in Russia; fourth, many factories in the Soviet Union and many construction sites failed to receive important orders because the imports had lacked coming up to Plan by 5 per cent; fifth, the fact of a passive balance made it necessary to screw still higher the export plans for the coming months; sixth, there arose all over the world the protest against Soviet dumping. In view of the obvious compulsion under which the Soviet Union acted in the forcing of its exports, and in view of the many subsidiary unfavorable results of it, there appears little room for the theory that Soviet dumping was motivated politically. To the outside world, however, the argument did appear cogent that under the prices prevailing today either the Soviet Union with its greatly increased exports was suffering a loss, or that the improbable assumption would have to be accepted that the Soviet Union previously, when prices were higher, had been taking an enormous profit. In other words the assumption seemed in favor of the dumping charge. An examination of Soviet production costs for certain commodities, wheat, rye, oil, anthracite coal, and manganese, as compared with world market prices, should give some assistance in the choice of assumptions.

3.4 The Russian Inflation and Its Official Definition [Source: Hubert R. Knickerbocker: Paper rouble billions spur Soviet's exports, in: New York Evening Post, Vol. 130/No. 23, December 13, 1930, p. 2, cols. 2-6.]

Short of everything except money, the Russian people have one humorous reflection to make on the Five-Year Plan. If it has treated them badly it has treated the

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rouble much worse. But the prospects for the eventual improvement of the condition of the people are hopeful—for that of the rouble dubious. Since the first stabilization of the Soviet currency in 1923, the State Bank has issued every month a statement, containing a table entitled, "Foreign Exchange." Here could be read twelve times a year for the last seven years that par value of $ 1 was 1.9434 roubles, that the highest rate during the month was 1.9434, the lowest rate 1.9434, and the average rate 1.9434. The rouble was apparently the most stable currency in the world. This endless reiteration of a fictitious fact used to be neither frivolous nor meaningless. It was fictitious because the rouble is not sold in New York and if it were, would presumably be sold today at something like the rate prevailing on the bootleg exchanges of Russia's neighbors, where, in Riga smuggled roubles are sold at ten to the dollar, in Warsaw at eleven, in Persia at twenty, in Mongolia at thirty. But the State Bank quotation was also a fact, for the rouble in Moscow, ever since 1923, has been sold by the State Bank at 1.9434 to the dollar, and only at the State Bank could one buy roubles without risking severe punishment for trading illegally in foreign exchange. The quotation used to have another meaning, an earnest one. It meant that one day the Soviet Union hoped that the chervonetz, the 10rouble note that was made the standard unit of Soviet currency, would be traded in on foreign exchanges, that the Soviet note would take its place among solid "bourgeois" currencies, beside the dollar, the pound, and the mark, as a valuable, even though politically unreliable, member of the family of international money. What a help that would have been to Soviet foreign trade needs no emphasis. Instead of paying for every ton of imports with a ton of exports, as the Soviet Government is forced to do today, it could pay with its own currency, and have a margin, as every bourgeois country has, in which to manoeuver when its foreign trade fell a bit out of balance. There was a time, in 1926, when it was rumored that the chervonetz was going to be quoted on the Berlin Bourse. In those days chervonetz could be taken out of and into Russia with no restrictions. The rumor proved false; Berlin chose to wait and watch. All that belongs to the past, the good old days of the New Economy Policy, the pre-Plan days, of two long years ago when the Soviet Union was making evolutionary, not revolutionary, progress towards Socialism, when there was plenty to eat, and industrialization was an ideal, not an obsession. Today the rouble, apparently, has ceased to aspire to bourgeois company. And the men who fostered those aspirations, have retired from the forefront of the scene. Two of them, N. P. Brjukhanoff, People's Commissar of Finances since 1926, and J. PyatikofF, president of the State Bank, have just been dismissed from their posts. Moscow believes it was because they refused to sponsor a deliberate inflation. Inflation is a hateful word in Moscow. The people know they have it; the government swears it is not so. "A rouble!" shouts the droshky driver who has just demanded ten roubles for a one-mile drive. "A rouble! Why a rouble's not worth ten kopecks." Porters carry one's bag from the room to the hotel door, and when they receive a rouble tip, look pained and say it is very little. For a silver rouble one could receive as much of goods or services as could be had for five to ten paper roubles. But silver roubles have completely disap-

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Reports about the Soviet Union in 1930

peared. Bank officials occasionally give a foreigner a silver coin as a curiosity, much as gold $2.50 pieces are treated in America. Only the aluminum, copper and bronze kopeck pieces are still in circulation, and they to a limited extent. Even they command a premium. If a droshky driver asks for five roubles, and one offers him two roubles and a half, the half to be in kopecks, the temptation of getting the kopecks will usually secure the ride. No amount of severity has been able to check the hoarding of coins, and hoarding has been unofficially but practically defined as the possession of more than five roubles in coins. A barber and his wife saved twenty-one roubles in coin for a holiday in the country where they could buy nothing with paper roubles. They were denounced by an envious neighbor, arrested and shot. More than twenty death penalties for this offense have been published in the Soviet press. Despite these popular evidences of inflation, the Government insists the currency is stable as a rock. Its own official statements through the State Bank show the following facts: On October 1, 1928, the total circulation of chervonetz and treasury notes was 1,773,000,000 roubles; on October 1, 1929, it was 2,411,000,000 roubles; on September 1, 1930, it was 4,173,000,000 roubles. In the first year of the FiveYear Plan the currency had increased by one-third with a new emission of 638,000,000 roubles. In the first eleven months of the second year of the Plan, the currency had further increased by eighty per cent over the previous year, with a new emission of 1,762,000,000 roubles. In the twenty-three months from October, 1928, to September, 1930, the currency had been multiplied by two and one-half, with a total new emission of 2,400,000,000 roubles. All this was done quite legally, on the basis of decrees, and according to a rapidly dwindling class of Soviet financial experts, the currency is still adequately covered with a gold and foreign currency reserve. The law on this point states that the chervonetz must have a "firm cover" of gold and foreign currency of at least 25 per cent. The State Bank statement as of September 1 asserts an actual coverage of 25.6 per cent. The crux of the matter, however, is the issuance of treasury notes, bills in denominations of one, three and five roubles. According to the original stabilization law, treasury notes could be issued against chervonetz in a ratio of 50 per cent. The treasury notes had no other backing than the chervonetz, which in turn were covered by a 25 per cent reserve. But in July, 1929, this ratio was changed by decree, and it was permitted to issue treasury notes up to 75 per cent of the chervonetz issue. Then, in September, 1930, a new decree permitted the issuance of treasury notes up to 100 per cent of the chervonetz issue. On September 1 there were actually in circulation 2,161,800,000 chervonetz, and treasury notes to 81.8 per cent of that amount. By the end of November the treasury notes will probably have equalled 100 per cent of the chervonetz, and the coverage for all notes in circulation will have amounted to 12.5 per cent. This enormous issue has been accompanied during the last few months by a phenomenon never before observed in the currency system of a country, not even in Germany during her astronomical inflation. There are being issued whole series of notes, all with the same series number. As many as 1,000 one, three, or five-rouble notes are issued, each bearing the identical number.

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What will happen when each chervonetz has ten roubles of treasury notes out against it, is a question that has been puzzling foreign observers in Moscow. It is generally supposed to have been one of the questions that led to the resignation of the Finance Commissar and State Bank president. The State Bank declares in its statement as of October 1, 1930, that it has a total firm cover of about 550,000,000 roubles, consisting of 483,888,000 roubles worth of gold; 23,689,000 roubles worth of platinum and silver; 47,252,000 roubles worth of foreign bank notes. To cover the more than 1,000,000,000 roubles of new chervonetz issued in the last two years the increase in the reserve had to be 250,000,000 roubles. All this new gold and platinum was supposed to come from internal Russian mines. This would mean an approximate production of $50,000,000 worth a year, while the total production of the United States, including Alaska, was $48,000,000 in 1928. But the question as to whether the State Bank has or has not an adequate reserve is, as any Soviet official will frankly state, nobody's business but their own. As long as the Soviet currency is not traded in on any official bourse, the existence or nonexistence of a gold reserve they say is of no consequence to the outside world. It may be observed, however, that there is good ground for crediting the Government with a reserve of something like the amount indicated on its State Bank balances, for $250,000,000 would be about the minimum for a military reserve fund, for use if that threat of foreign intervention that constantly tortures Soviet dreams should ever be executed. It is apparent that the Plan is being financed in part by the issuance of paper money, despite the fact that no other government on earth has such unlimited means of obtaining from the population new sums for capital investment. With all industry in its hands, a complete monopoly, the Government obtains money first by a 4 per cent turnover tax on all enterprises; second by enormous internal revenue taxes on all important consumption goods, 85 per cent of the sales price of vodka, 75 per cent on tobacco, 35 per cent on sugar, 20 per cent on woolen goods, 10 per cent on cotton goods. Third, come the agricultural taxes on the peasants; fourth, the income tax on everybody. These involuntary contributions are further increased by savings bank deposits, amounting to more than 600,000,000 roubles, of which onethird is immediately invested in State loans. These loans, finally, have yielded the Government around 1,500,000,000 roubles, and the business of obtaining subscriptions for each new loan as it is issued is made easier as the population's supply of money increases and supply of goods decreases. With nothing else to buy, it is comparatively easy to persuade the Soviet citizen to buy bonds. Even with all these resources, however, the government budget has not been able to pay its share of the Plan, due largely to the fact that costs of production have failed to come down according to plan. The Plan called for a reduction in the cost of production for all industry this year of 11 per cent; costs were actually reduced 7.1 per cent. With a total industrial production valued at about 20,000,000,000 roubles, this failure by 3.9 per cent to reduce costs meant unforeseen expenses of 780,000,000 roubles that had to be covered. They were covered with new emission. These are the statistical facts on the currency. The official explanation of why

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there is no inflation is about as follows: The currency is backed, not merely by "firm cover" but by the basic capital of the country, and volume of currency must be determined by the business needs of the country. Both basic capital and needs have more than doubled during the Five-Year Plan. Therefore, although the currency has more than doubled also, it is still in a sound ratio to the resources of the country and therefore there is no inflation. This, they declare, is true also of bourgoise countries, where the use of checks more than doubles the actual amount of currency in circulation. Checks are little used in Russia. Therefore the Soviet Union needs more banknotes than a bourgeois country. It is true, they declare that consumption goods have decreased in quantity and therefore prices are high, and there is an apparent inflation. The actual amount of goods in the country, however, they say, has kept full pace with the currency issue; it is only true for the moment that most of these goods are tied up in instruments of production. Many of these instruments of production in turn are producing further instruments of production. It will take another two years before this chain of productive processes results in a flow of consumption goods. And only then will the population awake to find itself supplied with all it wants, the rouble once more at par, the "illusion" of inflation dissipated. All this might be granted, but the fact remains that the Plan itself only called for a total increase in basic capital from 70,000,000 roubles in 1928 to 127,000,000,000 roubles in 1933, an increase of 182 per cent, while the currency in circulation has already been increased 250 per cent. Finally, politely, the conclusion is reiterated, "The value of the rouble is nobody's business but our own." In one important respect, however, the value of the rouble does concern the outside world. Any calculations of Soviet costs of production, calculations upon which many countries are basing their protests against Soviet dumping, must be based upon some calculations of the value of the rouble. For a specific inquiry, such as that carried out in these articles, that value can be taken as nothing else than par. But observation of these facts about the currency indicates how very far from par the Soviet rouble is. Its buying power has sunk, according to the very optimistic statistics of the state economic organs, 9 per cent since 1928. But if one reckons conservatively that the average individual must cover 25 per cent of his needs on the free market, where prices have tripled, the buying power of the rouble must be estimated as having sunk no less than 50 per cent since 1928. This does not conflict with the estimate that the standard of living has decreased at least 60 per cent since 1928, since even with the expenditure of twice as much money there still remain many needs that cannot be satisfied at all. It would seem to be fair enough to take the official statement that the purchasing power of the rouble had declined but 9 per cent since 1928, reckon it at par and so be able to calculate, as has been done, that the Soviet Union is selling abroad below the cost of production. It must nevertheless be admitted that the value of the rouble is so nebulous, is so far below its par value that there can be no precision about estimates of any kind concerning their real costs. The example of Germany may recall the fact that as the mark fell to cosmic depths, the price of German exports bought in foreign currency fell also and the world resounded with protests against

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German dumping. The conclusion appears irresistible that with a currency that has become virtually flat money, standing now at certainly not more than one-half its par value, the Soviet Union is actually able to produce more cheaply than any country having a stable currency. With the rouble at par the Soviet Union is exporting, in many cases, below the cost of production. With the rouble at its actual value, the Soviet Union is exporting, in all cases, at a large profit.

3.5 The Five-Year War and Its Victims [Source: Hubert R. Knickerbocker: Five-Year Plan forging ahead in reign of terror, in: New York Evening Post, Vol. 130/No. 24, December 15, 1930, p. 2, cols. 2-6.]

As nearly as it can be expressed in figures, the Soviet Union hopes to be twice as powerful a state industrially, economically, militarily at the end of the Five-Year Plan as it was in 1928. As nearly as it can be estimated today, this end may be achieved, barring foreign war or disastrous crop failure or an international boycott that would choke off her access to the foreign machine equipment and raw materials essential to the Plan. It is important to note that it is the state that is to become at once more powerful, not the population that is to become better fed, clothed, more comfortable and happy. That will follow eventually, but the state comes first. Power for the state has become an end in itself under the Five-Year Plan. Under it the Soviet Union has become the national incorporation of Nietzsche's "Will to Power." Ill fed, ill clothed, ill housed and partly terrorized, the population is wretched, but not yet desperate. The Government has three advantages: First, that the desperation point in Russia is lower than in any country of the western world; second, that the Government has incomparable means for determining how close to desperation the population is, and third, that it has the ability at the approach of the desperation point to slow down the Plan a trifle and throw a bone to the people. Active human assets of the Government are: The Communist Party, with its 1,000,000 members, the youth of the country, the Red Army, the G. P. U. and the working class. Membership in these classes and organizations overlaps, but the total probably would amount to 30,000,000. Enemies within the country may number a few or many million, but they are too effectively terrorized to be estimated satisfactorily. The vast majority of the population is passively acquiescent. Zeal and terror are the two psychological instruments for accomplishment of the Plan. Zeal on the part of the "believers," terror on the part of the "unbelievers." The terror has become a permanent institution. There appears not the slightest intention to abandon or abate it. It is much more active today than three years ago. In Moscow one of the most imposing of the new

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129

Internally, the widely predicted massacre or even extreme persecution of Nazi opponents is most unlikely, for the simple reason that there would be no advantage to the government in so unsettling the social structure. No "heads will roll" except in the figurative sense where these are attached to lucrative governmental posts. The prevailing tendency is wholly toward the recently manifested conservatism of Chancellor Hitler rather than the aggressiveness of some of his chief lieutenants. "Hitler," says the Voelkische Beobachter, the Chancellor's particular newspaper, today, "does not mean to establish tyranny in Germany, as is still believed by many who have been led astray. "He will not permit himself to get out of touch with the people. He hopes that the people will come to understand the necessity for his actions, that they will spontaneously and with inward conviction go along with us and with iron resolution do their own fighting for their own freedom, casting off all illusions." As to the Socialists, the National Socialist organ says that as soon as "the mildewed upper crust of socialism has been wiped away it will be possible to reach out for the honest workers in the party and convert them." There is one cryptic sentence in the editorial, however, which has already aroused some speculation without eliciting a satisfactory explanation. After recommending the old maxim, "After victory tie the helmet more closely," as applicable now, the usually inspired Voelkische Beobachter goes on to say: "The tenacity of the last thirteen years will not slacken; it will be enforced until the second stage of the way from the Brandenburg Gate to the Schloss [the former imperial palace] has been covered." Concerning the speculation on this point it need only be said that virtually none here sees any probability under this régime of any former monarch or any descendant of one leading the Nazi procession on that "second stage of the way" from the Brandenburg Gate to the Schloss. In any such progress, should it take place, the central figure is far more likely to be a newer and at present more idolized personality. Revised figures today leave the election results substantially where last night's count placed them. The Nationalists show one seat fewer—fifty-two instead of fiftythree—but the National Socialist total of 288 seats is unchanged, giving the coalition 340 seats in the Reichstag of 647. The coalition has 52.5 per cent of the total. The National Socialist percentage is 43.7. The Nazi vote was 17,265,800, that of the Nationalists, 3,115,700; of the Socialists, 7,103,500, and of the Communists, 4,748,500 in a total vote of 39,192,200, which was 5,000,000 larger than that of last November. The government accepts the outcome as a sign of "national revolution" and is happy because it represents "a successful incursion into the front of the South German States and the Marxist line-up." Chancellor Hitler reported to President von Hindenburg today on his victory. Tomorrow the Cabinet will fix a date for convocation of the new Reichstag and also decide the procedure to be taken in Prussia where the National Socialist-Nationalist bloc also has a comfortable Diet majority. This means the probable liquidation of Reich control in Prussia as no longer necessary and it is probable Colonel von Papen will become Premier as well as the Reich's Vice Chancellor, thus continuing the policy of "closer personal union," which has been the aim of recent Cabinets.

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Reports about Germany in 1933

All pending litigation by the former Republican majority is killed by the election result and increased jurisdiction of the Right in the South German Governments of Bavaria and Wiirtemburg is assured. The Reich Constitution cannot be changed except by a two-thirds vote of the Reichstag, so some Centrist votes probably will be needed for such a proceeding as, for instance, changing the national flag, unless it is decided to do that by obtaining a blanket empowering act which might permit doing this by Presidential decree. Nobody is likely to object. "There is no sense," sadly remarks the Berliner Tageblatt, the only newspaper left that could insert a fly in the ointment of the Nazi triumph, "in playing statistical tricks with this election result. It is a political fact that will, probably for some time to come, determine the politics in the Reich and the federated States. The onesidedness of the campaign no doubt heavily contributed toward turning the election in favor of the governing régime. However, the manner in which this régime employed the governmental machinery for itself was an object lesson which will be remembered at some future time."

6.3 The Organized Anti-Semitism and Rumors Abroad [Source: Frederick T. Birchall: Boycott spreads in reich but Hitler bans violent acts, in: The New York Times, Vol. LXXXII/No. 27,459, March 30, 1933, p. 1, col. 4; p. 12, cols. 2-4.]

The boycott against Jewish stores that the National Socialist party set for Saturday morning is already on. Telegrams from innumerable towns and cities throughout Germany tonight tell the same story. The mere publication of the boycott program has been sufficient. The party organization has seized upon it avidly and is not waiting. In American circles, in which a new optimism regarding the future of GermanAmerican relations was arising last week in the belief that sporadic cases of persecution were being brought under control and the worst was over, there has been a distinct change in sentiment. Pessimism is deep today, and the feeling is growing that even should the impossible be achieved and the United States and Great Britain unite in censoring their news of Germany and repressing the free expression of public opinion it would not avail the unreasoning prejudice here. Violence will be avoided and restrained wherever possible—and the qualification is important. But the national revolution has now passed from its first to its second stage, from physical to legalized repression. Its aims have not changed, merely its methods. Ostensibly, however, this is still a fight against "atrocity propaganda abroad."

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In this connection it was learned that in today's Cabinet session Chancellor Hitler, who had returned from Munich, declared that it was necessary to make this an organized action, because if it had originated spontaneously among the people themselves it might have assumed undesirable forms. By organizing the protest, he said, it could be kept in hand. The Chancellor was reported to have informed the Cabinet that personal molestations and acts of violence would be prevented, but that the Jews must be made to realize that those in Germany would feel the full effects of the Jewish campaign against Germany. Herr Hitler was then said to have told of telegrams arriving from London reporting automobiles running through the streets bearing posters urging a boycott of German goods, which gave him the impression that this action was well organized. There were also said to be reports from New York that agitation against Germany was being continued in mass meetings and over the radio. If that is the case, it must be despite the frantic protestations from Germans of the Jewish faith here. The grim warning conveyed by the Nazi boycott instructions and the work of Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels's unsurpassed propaganda machine are producing such protestations in everincreasing volume. A leading section of the press calls on its readers to counter the "atrocity propaganda abroad" through the medium of personal correspondence enlightening friends in foreign countries. The Tageblatt announces that it has instructed its forces to employ their connections to the utmost in the interest of clarification of foreign opinion. In this connection the Hamburg American Line has cabled Herman A. Metz as president of the Board of Trade for German-American Commerce to protest against untrue atrocity reports, and declares itself willing to invite a number of prominent Americans to take a free round trip on its ships to see for themselves that everything is quiet in Germany. From numberless commercial organizations, Jewish and Gentile, protestations that nobody is being hurt and pleas not to talk about the Jews any more are pouring out. Today a representative board of German Jewry and the stewards of the Berlin Jewish Congregations united in addressing to President von Hindenburg a moving appeal against the imposition of the boycott. The appeal says: "German Jewry is deeply convulsed by the boycott proclamation of the National Socialist party. Because of the misdeeds of a few, for which we are not responsible, it is now proposed to expose to economic ruin those German Jews who with all their hearts feel themselves bound up with the Fatherland. The reproach that we have injured the interests of the German people deeply wounds our honor. We solemnly enter a protest against this charge and trust that the President and the government of the Reich will take such steps as will further insure to us our right to a livelihood in our German Fatherland." There is no indication anywhere in all officialdom of a desire to avert such a calamity as the boycott would entail, or even to curb the premature application of measures that would bring it about. Yet it would bring economic distress not only to thousands of Jews but to hundreds of thousands of Germans, whose means of earning a livelihood are inextricably intertwined with theirs. Nobody who could make

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Reports about Germany in 1933

his voice heard has pointed out the inconsistency of raging against accusations of inflicting physical suffering while continuing methodically to prepare economic suffering that would affect thousands instead of scores. From innumerable German centres of population news is coming tonight that these measures are already in progress in advance of official orders, and the apparent conclusion is that the Nazi cohorts are not under such control as their leaders boasted they were and are taking their own way. In Muenster, Westphalia, storm troop pickets stood in front of forty-eight stores either owned or financed by Jews. Most of the stores closed immediately. The Woolworth store pasted a poster on its window stating that it was not a Jewish enterprise and was not operated with Jewish capital. As a result the store remained open. Jewish professors were prevented from entering the building of the University of Muenster, and a storm troop detachment occupied the court house there and forced three Jewish attorneys to leave it. Advertisements of Jewish concerns are no longer accepted by Westphalian newspapers. In Goerlitz, Silesia, a crowd assembled in front of the court house and demanded the withdrawal of Jewish judges and lawyers. Nazi storm troopers then moved in, occupied the building "to prevent excesses" and took several Jewish judges and lawyers into custody for their protection. The police did not interfere except to keep traffic moving. The city of Frankfort-on-the-Main served notice of dismissal on its Jewish employees. Intendants of the opera house and the municipal theatre were ousted, as were several of the directors and leading officials of the municipal museums. The city of Berlin announced that it would buy goods only from concerns that adhered politically to the National Socialist platform. The city will publish a list of concerns that will not be dealt with. Other cities made similar announcements. A number of Jewish shops and department stores in Breslau were picketed by storm troops, who blocked entrance but did not resort to force. Twenty-eight Jewish physicians on the staffs of the Breslau municipal hospitals received notice of dismissal. They included four eminent doctors, Professors Goerke, Frank, Hannes and Melchior. In Liegnitz thirty functionaries of the Socialist and Communist parties and the Reichsbanner were put under protective arrest. Among them were two labor union secretaries and the editor of the town's Socialist newspaper. Jewish shops in the Upper Silesian industrial cities of Gleiwitz, Beuthen and Hindenburg which closed yesterday were reopened. When department store and theatre windows in Eberswalde were smashed Nazi leaders expressed disapproval and ordered an investigation. Sixteen Jewish stores in this town were closed. Foreigners here frequently comment that the German mentality has really changed little since the World War. At a luncheon today a popular Berlin lawyer who recently returned from the United States recounted his experiences there, dwelling at length on the financial and economic misfortunes he had heard about. He closed by asserting that many Americans had said to him, "Oh, if we only had a Hitler!" and the luncheon party warmly cheered. Tonight the Nazi boycott proclamation was read over the government radio and thus carried the length and breadth of Germany. This privilege was refused to

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Dr. von Bismarck, Under-Secretary of State, recently when he pleaded for the restoration of the Hohenzollerns, the reason advanced being that his speech was not in accord with the government's present policy.

6.4 A Letter of Dr. Goebbels and the Healthy German Arts [Source: Frederick T. Birchall: 'Alien Experimental Mania\ In Art Attacked by Nazis, in: The New York Times, Vol. LXXXII/No. 27,476, April 16, 1933, p. 1, cols. 4-5; p. 2, cols. 6-7.]

The exchange of letters between Wilhelm Furtwangler, German conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, Nazi director of the government department of popular enlightenment and propaganda, briefly noted in Monday's dispatches to The New York Times, seems deserving of more extended treatment than was possible at the late hour at which the correspondence became available, because it epitomizes the whole difference in viewpoints regarding art and artists of the Nazi politician and the real artist. Herr Furtwangler, stirred by the discrimination between Jewish and non-Jewish musicians, wrote Herr Goebbels a courteous but earnest protest. Herr Goebbels, in an equally courteous reply, bared the National Socialist viewpoint in its more favorable aspect, and the sincerity and worth of that viewpoint is now at the bar of public judgment. Beside it, such minor points as questioning what "real German artists" have been "condemned to complete silence" under recent German governments, as charged by Herr Goebbels, are comparatively insignificant. This was Herr Furtwangler's protest to Herr Goebbels: In view of my long public activity and my intimate association with musical life in Germany, I take the liberty of directing your attention to events which do not appear to me to stand in any necessary connection with that restoration of our national dignity which we all welcome gratefully and joyously. My feeling here is entirely that of the artist. The function of art and artists is to unite, not to sever. I recognize only one ultimate line of demarcation: that between good art and bad art. Now, while the dividing line between Jew and non-Jew, even when the political attitude of the persons affected gave no ground for complaint, has been drawn with unrelenting theoretical severity, that other dividing line, so important, nay, decisive, for our music—the dividing line between good and bad— is being all too much disregarded. The contemporary world of music, already weakened by the world depression, the radio, etc., can stand no more experiments. One cannot ordain quotas for music

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as for other necessaries such as bread or potatoes. If concerts have nothing to offer, people will simply not go to them. Therefore, consideration of quality is for music not only an ideal but an essential question. If the fight against Judaism is in the main directed against those artists who—themselves destructive—try for effect by means of spurious and lifeless virtuosity, it is legitimate. The fight against them and the spirit embodied in them—which, however, also has Germanic representatives— cannot be waged emphatically enough. When, however, this fight is directed also against the real artist it is against the interests of culture. One argument alone would be conclusive: Artists are much too rare to have any country forego their work without suffering cultural loss. It must therefore be said quite plainly that men like Walter, Klemperer, Reinhardt, etc., must be enabled to have their say in Germany also in time to come. Once more: Let our fight be against the rootless, disintegrating, shallow, destructive spirit, but not against the real artist, who in his own way and however his art may be appraised, is always creative, and thus constructive. In this spirit I appeal to you in the name of German art lest there happen things that can never be righted. This was Herr Goebbels's letter in reply: "I appreciatively welcome the opportunity given me by your letter of elucidating the attitude of the nationally conditioned vital forces of Germany toward art in general and music in particular. In connection with this I record with exceeding pleasure that you, in the name of the German art world, hail the restoration of our national dignity thankfully and joyously at the very beginning of your letter. I had not supposed it could be otherwise, for I believe our right for the reconstruction of Germany concerns German artists not only passively but actively. Let me recall the words of the Chancellor, spoken in public three years before we assumed power: 'If only German artists realized what we are going to do for them in the future, they would not fight against us, but with us.' You have the right to feel yourself an artist and to judge things essentially from the artistic viewpoint. That does not imply, however, that you must view the whole of the development that has taken place in Germany unpolitically. Politics, too, is an art—perhaps the highest and most comprehensive there is—and we who shape the contemporary German politics do so in the feeling of being artistic ourselves, men entrusted with the responsible task of forming out of the raw material of the masses the solid, articulate structure of a nation. The task of art and artists is not only to unite. Far beyond that, their task is to give shape to things, to eliminate the morbid and to clear the road for what is healthy. Thus, as a German politician, I cannot acknowledge your dividing line—between good and bad art—as the only one. Art must not only be good but it must be also popularly grounded. It can be expressed even better: Only that art which draws its inspiration from the body of the people can be good art in the last analysis and mean something to the people for whom it has been created. There must be no art in the absolute sense, such as a liberal democracy acknowledges. An attempt to serve such art would end in the people's losing all internal contact therewith and the artist becoming isolated in a vacuum of art for art's sake. Art must be good, but, beyond that, conscious of its responsibility, close to the people and militant.

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That art will no longer bear experimentation I freely admit. It would have been more appropriate, however, if the protests against artistic experiments had been raised at a time when the German art world was almost exclusively dominated by the experimental mania of elements alien to our people and race, who gravely compromised the reputation of German art in the eyes of the world. You are surely right when you assert that quality should be not only the ideal but the essential question. You are right even more when you fight with us against the rootless, the destructive art attempts that are corrupted by banality and friedout virtuosity. I admit willingly that Germanic representatives have also taken part in those evil doings; but that only proves how deeply the roots of these perils had already penetrated the German soil and how necessary it was to take a stand against them. True artists are rare. They must, therefore, be fostered and supported. Such artists will always get a hearing in Germany. But to complain of the circumstances that here and there men like Walter, Klemperer, Reinhardt, etc. have canceled their concerts appears to me the less appropriate at this time when it is considered that during the last fourteen years really German artists have often been condemned to complete silence and that events of recent weeks—which we also do not approve— represent a natural reaction to that state of affairs. I am of the opinion that among us every genuine artist should have a free field for unhampered activity. But, as you say yourself, he must then be a constructive, creative person—he must not belong to those whom you justly castigate, those who are rootless, disintegrating, shallowing and destructive and mostly have only technical capacity. Be assured, if you please, that any appeal in the name of German art will ever find an echo in our hearts. Artists of real ability whose activities outside their art do not conflict with the elementary principles of the State, of policy and of society will continue to receive from us the warmest furtherance and support. May I, on this occasion, express to you, highly esteemed conductor, my gratitude for many hours of truly edifying, great and sometimes deeply moving art which you have given to me, to many of my political friends and to hundreds of thousands of good Germans. I should be glad to find in you an open mind and a broader understanding for my standpoint." Commenting on this correspondence, Der Deutsche, a. Centrist paper representing Catholic labor interests, writes: "We see no occasion for stopping really eminent orchestra conductors from conducting. But that is not the problem. What is in issue is a state of affairs that for a long time has given unbrage to wide circles of the population. There is no denying that under the past regime many important positions in the public art world have been occupied by Jews. Now the people are sensitive about this, for representative institutions supported by public funds ought to be expressions of native culture. We can see no objection to having Leo Blech direct some German masterpiece at the State opera, because no one gets the feeling of any violence done to the national spirit. But it is not necessary that the majority of opera conductors should be Jews. Such a policy naturally inspires reaction. Those of Jewish blood who have real ability should be free to exercise their art, but they must not rule."

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6.5 The First Book Burnings and Their "Victims" [Source: Frederick T. Birchall: Nazi book-burning fails to stir Berlin, in: The New York Times, Vol. LXXXII/No. 27,501, May 11, 1933, p. 1, col. 2; p. 12, cols. 3-5.]

In most of the German university towns tonight the enthusiastic studenthoods are ceremoniously burning "the un-German spirit" as exemplified in literature, pamphlet, correspondence and record. It is all being done to the accompaniment of torchlight parades, martial music and much patriotic speechifying—the British Guy Fawkes Day intensified a thousandfold. There are some thirty universities in Germany, at least one to each State. Each was to have had its bonfire, but the celebrations in Cologne, Heidelberg and other places were postponed until next week. The celebrations held varied somewhat, but more in degree than in kind. Berlin naturally had the largest and what happened here was more or less typical of the celebrations elsewhere. Probably 40,000 persons assembled in the great square between the opera house and the university and stood in a drizzle to watch the show. Perhaps as many more gathered along the five miles of streets through which the torchbearing parade of students escorted the borrowed trucks and private cars containing the books and pamphlets to be burned. But to the uninspired observer it savored strongly of the childish. Five thousand students, young men and young women together, marched in the parade. All the student corps were represented—red caps and green caps, purple and blue, with a chosen band of officers of the dueling corps in plush tam o' shanters, white breeches, blue tunics and high boots—with spurs. Bearing banners and singing Nazi songs and college melodies, they arrived. It was toward midnight when they reached the great square. There, on a granite block of pavement protected by a thick covering of sand, had been built up a funeral pyre of crossed logs some twelve feet square and five feet high. Until the parade appeared a Nazi band had striven to keep up enthusiasm. Finally the head of the procession arrived. It passed the piled logs and formed within the great space reserved for it. As they passed, the paraders tossed upon the logs the stumps of lighted torches that they had carried, until from end to end the mass was aflame. Then came the books and pamphlets. The cars carrying them stopped at a distance and each group of students brought an armful and tossed it into the fire. A draft caught up the embers bearing them far and wide. First the crowds cheered each new contribution but they soon tired. Then the students' president, Gutjahr, in a Nazi uniform, made a speech. He and his fellows had gathered, he said, to consign to the flames "unGerman" books and documents that threatened to disintegrate the national movement. They took joy in it. Henceforth there must be purity in German literature. It was a boy's speech and it was received with boyish enthusiasm—by the students. The crowd seemed disappointed. To work up enthusiasm when fresh consignments reached the fire a student barker began to name the authors: "Sigmund Freud—for falsifying our history and degrading its great figures." The crowd cheered. "Emil

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Ludwig—burned for literary rascality and high treason against Germany!" Loud cheers! Then Erich Maria Remarque—"for degrading the German language and the highest patriotic ideal"; Alfred Kerr, late dramatic critic of the Tageblatt, denounced as "a dishonest literary adventurer"; Theodor Wolff, former editor of the Tageblatt, pilloried as "anti-German"; and Georg Bernhard, former editor of the Vossische Zeitung. For these last there were available for burning only a few copies of their respective newspapers and a few magazine articles. So it went until there appeared, amid Nazi salutes and protected by uniformed satellites, the attraction of the evening, Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, himself. Mounted on a tiny swastika-draped rostrum, he spoke. "Jewish intellectualism is dead," he declared. "National socialism has hewn the way. The German folk soul can again express itself. These flames do not only illuminate the final end of the old era, they also light up the new. Never before have the young men had so good a right to clean up the débris of the past. If the old men do not understand what is going on, let them grasp that we young (Dr. Goebbels is under 40) men have gone and done it. The old goes up in flames, the new shall be fashioned from the flame in our hearts." Much more, but all like that. Then the song "The Nation to Arms" and the Horst Wessel Song. More literature on the fire. And more student singing. But the crowd disintegrating until it became a dreary duty to burn what literature was left. It was not so large in quantity, because today a paper mill offered a small price for all it could get and the offer was accepted on condition that the student representatives should supervise the actual destruction. The proceeds will pay for the torches and the bands. As to what went into the ceremonial bonfires tonight and will be included in the reconversion into raw material by the paper mills at the rate of one mark for 100 kilograms [currently about 27.5 cents for 220 pounds], the destruction is not quite so all-embracing as was at first threatened. There is good reason to believe that the ripples of arousement that went through the outside world over the first rush of student enthusiasm had some effect on the older and wiser university heads. German propaganda authorities themselves, who recently had seen the effect of making Germany ridiculous as well as censurable, may even have been heard from. At any rate, not everything under attack went into the discard. For several days whole truckloads of books, both seized and voluntarily offered for immolation, have been arriving at the students' house in the Oranienburgerstrasse, but these have undergone a weedingout-process. Students have been busy night and day going through the piles to insure that especially valuable books or others not on the German index expurgatorius should escape. Such of these as were found are to be returned to the libraries. Nevertheless, plenty has been left that elsewhere in the world would be deemed innocuous if not positively beneficial, or at worst capable of carrying its own condemnation. In the pink-faced, healthy student-hood between the ages of 18 and 22 is found boundless enthusiasm, but not overmuch discretion. In this instance the enthusiasm had virtually free rein.

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About such pictures and pamphlets as were gathered in from Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld's so-called Institute of Sexual Science the other day—which, with all the correspondence from outsiders who had taken the place seriously, went into the flames tonight— there could be little question. But there was so much more. Take this formula, laid down in one of the students' appeals for sacrificial material and note its comprehensiveness: "Anything that works subversively on family life, married life or love or the ethics of our youth or our future or strikes at the roots of German thought, the German home and the driving forces in our people; any works of those who would subordinate the soul to the material, anything that serves the purpose of lies." Almost anything could be understood by this student enthusiast to be covered by that. And so with "the seeping poison that hides under the mask of pacifism," to say nothing of the ban on all literature emanating from Jewish thinkers, all of which—although the works of Heine are strangely enough not among the sacrificed— are included in this comprehensive student anathema. "The Jew, who is powerful in intellect, but weak in blood and without home and fireside, remains without understanding in the presence of German thought, fails to dignify it and, therefore, is bound to injure the German spirit." Inevitably the bonfire piles became large. World distinction and world praise had not counted in assembling them. Nobel Prize winners and all went into the auto da fe. There was, for example, one of the first pacifist novels ever written. Bertha von Suttner got the Nobel Prize for "Lay Down Your Arms" in 1905, but it has now become "un-German" and was burned. The works of Thomas Mann, a later Nobel Prize winner, went into the flames en bloc. What saved Sinclair Lewis may never be revealed, but many other 3,000,000-volume sellers became sacrifices, beginning with Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front." The victims even included Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, the Japanese-Viennese author, who dreams of Pan-Europa. He falls under the ban because it is not a Prussian PanEuropa and, moreover, might be suspected of having a Socialist tint. For Berlin the first list alone—supplemented later—comprised four long typewritten pages containing the names of 160 authors, many of them almost unheard of before. It almost seemed as if any German student browsing in a second-hand bookstore, encountering a volume that he privately regarded as spicy, had been privileged to name a candidate. Among the Americans, Helen Keller's "How I Became a Socialist" got into the fire. She had for company Upton Sinclair, Judge Ben Lindsey, Jack London and Morris Hillquit, among others. Judge Lindsey got there because he is regarded as assailing the marriage system. Robert Carr was burned in the shape of his "Wild-Blooming Youth," which might have been expected to be unknown to fame in Berlin but evidently isn't. Socialist and Communist authors naturally figured largely. Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Lassalle, Bebel, Liebknecht, Kautsky, Bernstein and Hilferding among the Germans and Austrians, Lenin, Stalin, Zinovieff, Lunacharsky and Bukharin among the Russians, and Henry Lichtenberger, French philosopher who wrote on FrancoGerman relations, all went up in smoke as "un-German." In the domain of belles lettres Heinrich Mann is included with Thomas Mann and then comes a long list

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including Emil Ludwig, who writes about Germany for The New York Times; Lion Feuchtwanger, Arthur Schnitzler, Jakob Wassermann, Arnold and Stephan Zweig, Walther Rathenau, the German Foreign Minister who was assassinated by Nationalist gangsters; Hugo Preuss, who wrote the Weimar Constitution for the republic and spent the rest of his time expounding it, and countless others. The bonfires are still burning as this is being written and there is going up in their smoke more than college boy prejudice and enthusiasm. A lot of the old German liberalism—if any was left—was burned tonight.

Related

Readings

Bracher, Karl Dietrich et al.: Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung. Studien zur Errichtung des totalitären Herrschaftssystems in Deutschland 1933/34, 2nd ed., Köln—Opladen 1962. Buchheim, Hans: Das Dritte Reich. Grundlagen und politische Entwicklung, 3rd ed., München 1958. Dietrich, Otto: Mit Hitler an die Macht. Persönliche Erlebnisse mit meinem Führer, 18th ed., München 1934. Goebbels, Joseph: Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei. Eine historische Darstellung in Tagebuchblättern, München 1934. Grebing, Helga: Der Nationalsozialismus. Ursprung und Wesen, 16th ed., München-Wien, 1965. Grosser, Alfred: Hitler, la presse et la naissance d'une dictature, Paris 1959. Hallgarten, George Wolfgang Felix: Hitler, Reichswehr und Industrie. Zur Geschichte der Jahre 1918-1933, Frankfurt a.M. 1955. Heiden, Konrad: Geburt des Dritten Reiches. Die Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus bis Herbst 1933, 2nd ed., Zürich 1934. Heuss, Theodor: Die Machtergreifung und das Ermächtigungsgesetz. Zwei nachgelassene Kapitel der Erinnerungen 1905-1933, ed. by Eberhard Pickart, Tübingen 1967. Hoover, Calvin Boyce: Germany enters the third reich, New York 1933. Jarman, Thomas Leckie: The Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany, London 1955. Marx, Fritz Morstein: Government in the Third Reich, 2nd ed., New York—London 1937. Matthias, Erich/Morsey, Rudolf (Eds.): Das Ende der Parteien 1933, Düsseldorf 1960. Meissner, Hans-Otto/Wilde, Harry: Die Machtergreifung. Ein Bericht über die Technik des nationalsozialistischen Staatsstreiches, Stuttgart 1958. Pelloux, Robert: Le parti national-socialiste et ses rapports avec l'Etat, Paris 1937. Shirer, William Lawrence: The rise and fall of the Third Reich. A history of Nazi Germany, New York 1960.

Arthur Krock The New York Times

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CHAPTER 7 REPOR TS ABO UT THE UNITED ST A TES IN 1934

Centers of International Crises and the Ways They Might Develop

7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4

Introductory Notes The Russo-Japanese Problem and the Attitude to War The Conflicts of the East and America's Caution France's Tradition and Its Importance for Europe The U.S. Image in Latin America and Its Development

7.5 Britain's Difficult Decision and America's Hope Related Readings

Introductory

Notes

The Pulitzer Prize jury considered as worthy of awards in the category Correspondence material from both abroad and from Washington, D.C. in 1935. The Advisory Board finally chose as the prize winner a Washington reporter Arthur Krock of the New York Times. The jury was given a comprehensive collection of Krock's 1934 publications, which had appeared in his newspaper several times a week. "Nearly all of Krock's clippings of the year were submitted," noted the jury report of March 30, 1935. This report also contained a list of the other candidates for the award, namely, Lawrence David, another Washington correspondent, and Gunther John, a correspondent from Vienna. The honor, nevertheless, was unequivocally bestowed upon Arthur Krock ' for his Washington dispatches." Arthur Krock was born on November 16, 1886, in Glasgow, Kentucky. He attended public schools in Glasgow and Illinois. Although he passed the entrance examinations for Princeton University, family affairs forced him to alter his plans. He attended the Lewis Institute in Chicago where he received a degree of Associate in Arts in 1906. Immediately following his graduation, Krock started his newspaper career as a reporter for the Louisville Herald. He then became night editor for the Associated Press at Louisville and, at the age of 24, became Washington correspondent for the Louisville Times. The following year he was hired as Washington correspondent for the Louisville Courier-Journal. In 1915 he returned to Louisville as managing editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal and later held the same position for the Louisville Times. After the Armistice, Krock traveled to Paris to report on the Peace Conference in a series of syndicated articles. When he returned to the United States in 1919 he became editorin-chief for the Louisville Times. In 1923, he headed a public relations firm for the motion pictures industry, but after 6 months was to return to newspaper work. In October of that year he became assistant to Ralph Pulitzer, president of the New York daily newspaper The World. In 1927, Krock joined the New York Times and by 1932 was promoted to chief Washington correspondent, a position which he held since then. The following texts by Arthur Krock, copyright 1934, are reprinted by kind permission of The New York Times Company, New York, N. Y.

7.1 The Russo-Japanese Problem and the Attitude to War [Source: Arthur Krock: Possibility of Russo-Japanese war is seen by experts, in: The New York Times, Vol. LXXXIII/No. 27.765, January 30, 1934, p. 18, col. 5.]

In the War and Navy Departments here there is a division of opinion among our high command as to the imminence of a military crisis between Japan and Soviet Russia. But it may be of interest to report that their disagreement is only as to time; most of them expect a war. They of course do not accept Stalin's conception of war as the device of capitalism to retain its hold upon nations. It is not to them a matter of "swinish snouts" being stuck into delicate international affairs. Their studies, and their observations in Asia, convince them that unless some unexpected solution of Japan's aims in the mainland can be reached peaceably the Soviet Union and Japan must resort to the frightful arbitrament of arms. War is hell, and the memories of the last one linger hatefully in the minds of those who are old enough to remember it. At the same time, most people find expert discussion of future wars fascinating—more thrilling, even if more terrifying, than almost any other subject. When it is dealt with as a series of military and naval problems as I heard experts dealing with it the other night, its gruesomeness vanishes for the time being. War is the trade of the service, and it is not reasonable to expect high officers to discuss their trade in other than a coldly factual manner. Perhaps it is also true of the high strategists of other countries, but apparently American officers have a habit in mentioning nations and armies that was new to this listener. Japan was "the Jap" and "he." Russia was "the Soviet" and "he." Each army was "she." The military situation in the Far East, as viewed by some of the best minds in our service departments, is about like this: General Araki, who recently retired as War Minister in Japan, feels that war between the Japanese and the Russians is inevitable. The general feels also that every day it is deferred weakens Japan. His successor belongs to the group that believes delay is best, because it is mandatory. That is because of the existence of the Soviet air force at Vladivostok, 650 miles from Japan. The Russian can fly. In the air he is skillful and fearless. He is not good at ground-work; consequently his planes are not kept up to proper efficiency. But any time soon he could take the air in force and, by rising high enough, conceal himself from the planes of the Japanese. Thirteen hundred miles is a feasible flight for the Russian. At the end of that he can drop down over the closely joined area in which are Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka. That is the industrial nerve-centre of Japan. Hightension power wires link the cities. A shower of bombs, and industrial Japan is crippled. Owing to the flimsy construction of the cities, they would be visited with widespread destruction and loss of life. The Russian would not get away—not all of him, nor

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any important section of him, perhaps. But he would be able to do the job he was sent to do. And he is brave enough to be content with that. It would be impossible for the Japanese to move sufficient of his mainland army, or to dispatch a fleet, to Vladivostok in time to prevent the flight of the Russians toward the triangle. Tokyo knows this, or at the least that belief is now in the ascendant. Probably General Araki feels that the menace of the planes could be circumvented— by sabotage or by the supposed inefficient mechanistic performance of the Russian. But majority Japanese opinion is that it is too great a chance to take. On the other hand, here is the argument for taking the chance: The parts of China, and the Chinese factions, have been shrewdly divided by Japanese arms and diplomacy. If a swift Japanese move should be made against Russia, it has a chance—barring the destruction that might be wrought by the planes at Vladivostok—of being successfully concluded before the Chinese factions could be welded sufficiently to represent a danger in the rear. Communism in China is now all Chinese, not Soviet, and there is no communication or allegiance between Moscow and Shansi or Fukien. Also the double-tracking of the Trans-Siberian Railway by Russia has reached the point where Moscow can deliver only 300 men a day to the Far Eastern front. This would "hardly account for the daily casualties of a campaign." It would mean "no reinforcements at all." If the Japanese wait for a year or more, the railway reconstruction will have proceeded to a point where the Soviet can feed men and supplies in large numbers into the Far East. Such is Japan's problem as certain American military men see it in theory, and on such material evidences as they discovered by observations on the ground. Perhaps a majority of them think that Japan, its navy and its armies—dropping the "he" and "she" phraseology—will not wait very long. But the smaller group point not only to the menace at Vladivostok but to Manchukuo troubles—even difficulties with Henry Pu Yi—that are being reported in Washington. And they point finally to the matter of money, insisting that Japan is financially unable to enter upon a war with the Soviet at this time. Both groups agree that Japan will not move until necessary alliances have been concluded in Europe. But, sad to record, you can get a bet from any of them that a warlike move between the two nations will come in the fullness of time.

7.2 The Conflicts of the East and America's Caution [Source: Arthur Krock: State Department is alive to portents in Europe, in: The New York Times, Vol. LXXXIII/No. 27,773, February 7, 1934, p. 18, col. 5.]

Probably the 125,000,000 of the American population, including the 25,000 or more who are administering the New Deal for them, have not been thinking much

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lately about the dangerous and disordered state of the Eastern Hemisphere. They have been so intent on the domestic recovery program that perhaps it has required the alarming news from Paris, and the impending bad news from Austria and Geneva, to make them realize the portents abroad. But for many weeks now the affairs of the Eastern Hemisphere have been much on the minds of the State Department officials, and naturally they have never been out of the thoughts of the diplomatic corps. Today's crop of unpleasant inferences from France and Austria was not in the least unexpected by the State Department. However nationalistic the rest of the government has grown, that branch has stayed on its watch-tower and refused to concede that isolation without penalty was again possible for the United States. It has maintained its conviction that the advance of civilization has made the world permanently interdependent, and that bad news from Europe or the Far East was just a step less immediate in its consequences than bad news from Illinois or New England. None has held this attitude more unflinchingly than the Secretary of State, despite the fact that he is the Premier of a Cabinet utterly absorbed in internal adjustments. In the days before the "first World War" it used to be charged that our State Department either got little or faulty satisfaction from its agents in the field or that it was too dumb to understand what it received. Whatever the merit of that accusation may have been in the past, it does not apply to the State Department now. Officials have seen the clouds gathering, recognizing them from the moment they appeared as tiny, unconnected wisps of trouble. Probably because of knowledge and experience, as much as because it is the nature of State Department people to believe in international accords, officials have appreciated the firm faith of Secretary Hull in such agreements. Many of them believe with him that conflicts among nations are more likely to be averted just now by joint economic measures for the relief of their peoples than by Genevan diplomacy. This is not to imply that American diplomats have lost faith in their own calling. They have not. But the apparent inability of Great Britain, France and Italy, which dominate the League, to get together on any plan to prevent the absorption of Austria by the Nazis, or to avoid trade wars with one another in a time when public sentiment in Europe is feverish, has made them pessimistic about such diplomacy as can be practiced on the shores of Lake Leman. Also the state of mind in the Eastern Hemisphere has spread gloom among the officials of a nation which, in event of widespread war, faces the alternative of trying to make peace by prestige or, as in 1917-18, making it by the force of arms. A rule stronger than anything in writing precludes State Departments and Foreign Offices from informal comment on the affairs of other nations. When diplomats have anything to say for the public they put it carefully on paper and most often leave the substance between the lines. But they are human beings, and therefore opinions rise to the surfaces of their minds as they do in ours. Sometimes, assured of anonymity, they are willing to think aloud for the benefit of the public that reads the press. One who is in close touch with all the private reports from abroad that come to our government gave the following sample of this audible thinking today:

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"The world seems to want to fight again," he said sadly. "Regardless of what is said for the record in Tokyo and Moscow, there is tinder in the Far East. What is happening in Paris at this moment may not grow into a revolution, but many informed observers on the ground fear that it will, and God knows what effect that will have on the entire European situation. The expert estimate is that within a month, unless Great Britain finds some way to avert it, and France becomes quiet enough to be a partner, the Nazis will have Austria. Nobody save the forces represented by Chancellor Dollfuss is doing anything to avert it, and reports come that money and other aid are pouring unchecked over the Austrian border from Germany. If Austria is swallowed, the stream of Nazi influence will flow over the borders into Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Balkan States below. Italy and France will have to do something about that. It is a matter of no indifference to Great Britain either. The riots in Paris today may be confined to internal disturbances, and normal conditions may be soon restored. But if they grow into a revolution— well, Europe has found the spark of a Continental war in lesser events." What happens between now and Spring in Europe, in Manchuria and economically in the United States may lift the gloom of today and dissipate the official anxieties outlined in this article. After all, the bulletins coming in from Paris would tax the cheerfulness of Mark Tapley himself, were he on a diplomatic watch-tower. Only as the record of a present state of mind—but one that has been forming for months— is this impression set down.

7.3 France's Tradition and Its Importance for Europe [Source: Arthur Krock: France's adherence to democracy wins favor, in: The New York Times, Vol LXXXIII/No. 27,782, February 16, 1934, p. 18, col. 5.]

Absorbed as this community is in the outcome of the administration's economic and social experiments to effect recovery, there is an influential capital group which each day attempts to relate events abroad with these experiments. In time, whether the national program fails or succeeds, this group will be at the forefront of the planners. Therefore its reaction to recent happenings in France is both interesting and important. Until the administration plunged deeply into its purely domestic preoccupations, talk about France was frequent and severe. A rich nation, largely spared the effects of the world depression, France was held up as a willful defaulter on the war debt. Her shifting, unstable politics were condemned. Her attitude toward Germany and her own security was set down as the insincere gesture of a militaristic nation. By Dec. 15, 1933, however, the villain of the international piece was being forgotten, and, by comparison with past instalment dates, attacks upon that day's default were

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few, and were uttered with an air of abstraction. It was and is still possible for Senator Johnson or another to get a hearty vote on some punitive measure against France, relating to the wine quota or the flotation of French securities. But this is falling into the political gesture category. That is not because France has grown any more popular in Congress. It is because the interest of the members has turned to other things. But in the administration outside Congress, interest in France has been and remains acute. The group which has followed events most closely is not political, or especially partisan, where other nations are concerned. Its chief concern has been whether France, as a result of serious internal troubles and the arrived visitations of the depression, would desert democracy, as some of her neighbors have done in time of stress. What has happened since the riots began in the Place de la Concorde, climaxed by the overwhelming vote which Premier Doumergue received in the Chamber of Deputies today, has convinced them that France's democracy is sound and safe. They feel that is a great credit to the French people. Italy went Fascist years ago and resorted to a dictator. Germany went Nazi and is under a dictator, too. Austria is trembling between one or another form of the same thing. The Fascists and radicals are showing unrest once more in Spain. But, despite all the incitements of Royalists and Communists, in the face of disappointments with the workings of the republican system, France has once more entrusted its government to a democratic process. And that has made a favorable impression in Washington in quarters where it counts. The vote in the Deputies today is not taken as the end of M. Doumergue's troubles. Nor is it accepted as putting an end to all the dangers that beset democracy in France at the present time. But it is regarded as a sign of great hope and importance in a nation where there has been much provocation to resort to "emergency" forms of government. Some who criticize many of the instruments, and the entire principle, of the American recovery plan feel that France is proceeding along more democratic lines than we are, although the incentive to do otherwise was far greater. These critics of administration policy say that France's great anxiety—that of security— has not been dissipated either by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles or by what has happened in Europe since the war. They regard our own war experience as negligible in the lives of most Americans, and point to the millions of French dead and maimed and the devastation of provinces. Their argument seems to be that if, merely because of three years of economic mishaps, the United States moves toward "State socialism" and resorts to purely executive government, the fact that the French are still sticking to their republican method shows fortitude and other excellent traits of national character. One does not have to accept this viewpoint to concede the point made by the general group of observers that France, a democratic island in a sea of absolutism, is standing by her régime. And it is a fact that this has made an excellent impression in Washington. The effects should be more valuable in the future and essential intercourse between two great nations than the hostile feeling against France that pervaded the administration of President Hoover.

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In an attempt to explain the loyalty of the French people to republicanism, a member of the interested group said today that two symbols have always been certain of their support. One is the symbol of glory—Napoleon and Louis XIV. The other is the symbol of democracy—liberty, equality, fraternity. He said he had once heard a Frenchman bet that he could arouse an audience to tumultuous applause if, every now and then, at the end of incoherent or inaudible passages, he would cry out: "La gloire," "La patrie," or "Liberté, égalité, fraternité." The wager was accepted. The bet was won. But that isn't so remarkable. Go to the newsreels in the United States and listen to the applause whenever the President is shown with the flag waving behind him. Which is almost always.

7.4 The U.S. Image in Latin America and Its Development [Source: Arthur Krock: Capital hails Cuban treaty move as aid to good-will, in: The New York Times, Vol. LXXXIII/No. 27,885, May 30, 1934, p. 16, col. J.]

If Congress shall subscribe to the abolition of those parts of the Piatt amendment which have been abandoned in the government's proposed new treaty with Cuba, the longest step thus far to establish good-will on this hemisphere will have been taken. Efforts to create a feeling of real neighborliness and common economic and political interest between the United States and its Latin-American neighbors have marked the foreign policy of the last three administrations. President Coolidge sent an eminent mission to Havana. President Hoover, before taking office, made a good-will tour of South America. Most recently, at Montevideo, President Roosevelt's Cabinet Premier, Secretary of State Hull, forged important links of interested friendship. Despite the steady progress of attempts to make Latin America as friendly a neighbor to us as Canada has been for many decades, the Piatt amendment stuck in the craw of those nations on the hemisphere whose descent is traced from the Iberian Peninsula. The pride of the Spanish—and the Portuguese—is a legend. Though the South American nations have mixed their basic blood and have made war among themselves, a strong racial feeling animates them. They at times have feared the growing power of what Mexicans in the movies always refer to as "the gringoes." Instinctively they have found us alien and our manners not to their liking. For these reasons the Spanish-Portuguese nations in the hemisphere have objected to American military adventures in Nicaragua, Mexico and elsewhere among peoples with blood

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Roosevelt to the Congress, J a n u a r y 4, 1935 [Excerpt] T o the Congress of the U n i t e d States: . . . I c a n n o t with cand o r tell you t h a t general i n t e r n a t i o n a l relationships outside t h e borders of the U n i t e d States are i m p r o v e d . O n t h e surface of things m a n y old jealousies are resurrected, old passions a r o u s e d ; new strivings for a r m a m e n t a n d p o w e r , in m o r e t h a n o n e l a n d , rear t h e i r ugly heads. I h o p e that c a l m counsel a n d constructive l e a d e r s h i p will provide the steadying influence a n d t h e t i m e necessary for t h e c o m i n g of new a n d more practical forms of representative g o v e r n m e n t t h r o u g h o u t t h e world wherein privilege a n d p o w e r will o c c u p y a lesser place a n d world welfare a greater. I believe, however, t h a t o u r own p e a c e f u l a n d neighborly a t t i t u d e t o w a r d s o t h e r n a t i o n s is c o m i n g to b e u n d e r s t o o d a n d a p p r e c i a t e d . T h e m a i n t e n a n c e of i n t e r n a t i o n a l peace is a m a t t e r in which we are deeply a n d unselfishly c o n c e r n e d . E v i d e n c e of o u r persistent a n d u n d e n i a b l e desire to prevent a r m e d conflict has recently b e e n more t h a n once afforded. T h e r e is n o g r o u n d for a p p r e h e n s i o n t h a t o u r relations with a n y nation will b e otherwise t h a n p e a c e f u l . N o r is t h e r e g r o u n d for d o u b t t h a t the p e o p l e of most n a t i o n s seek relief f r o m t h e t h r e a t a n d b u r d e n a t t a c h i n g to t h e false theory t h a t e x t r a v a g a n t a r m a m e n t c a n n o t be r e d u c e d a n d limited by international accord.1 [Speech File:T] ' F o r t h e e n t i r e t e x t of t h e 1935 a n n u a l m e s s a g e , sec Public Papers, I V . 1 5 - 2 5 . T h e R o o s e v e l t L i b r a r y h a s a d r a f t of t h e m e s s a g e , e x t e n s i v e l y e d i t e d b y t h e P r e s i d e n t , t h e copyh e r e a d t o t h e C o n g r e s s , a n d a c a r b o n c o p y of t h e r e a d i n g c o p y w i t h s h o r t h a n d n o t e s of t h e c h a n g e s m a d e d u r i n g d e l i v e r y . T h e s e c h a n g e s a r e n u m e r o u s b u t n o t s i g n i f i c a n t . Foll o w i n g d e l i v e r y of t h e m e s s a g e , R o o s e v e l t w e n t o v e r h i s r e a d i n g c o p y a n d i n c o r p o r a t e d in it a f e w of t h e c h a n g e s h e h a d m a d e o r a l l y at t h e t i m e of r e a d i n g . A c o p y of t h i s revised text w a s s i g n e d b y h i m a n d s e n t t o t h e C o n g r e s s a s t h e official m e s s a g e ( E a r l y t o L e H a n d a n d T u l l y , J a n . 4, 1935, S p e e c h F i l e ) . In t h e e x c e r p t h e r e p r i n t e d , t h e f i n a l r e v i s i o n s o c c u r in t h e first p a r a g r a p h : " o u t s i d e t h e b o r d e r s of t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s " o r i g i n a l l y r e a d " o u r b o r d e r s " ; " p r i v i l e g e a n d p o w e r " o r i g i n a l l y r e a d " p r i v i l e g e " ; a n d " w o r l d w e l f a r e " origi n a l l y r e a d " w e l f a r e . " T h i s e x c e r p t a n d t h e t e x t as p u b l i s h e d in t h e Public Papers f o l l o w t h e official t e x t .

[Source: Edgar B. Nixon: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs, Vol. II, March 1934-August 1935, Cambridge, Mass., 1969, p. 334.]

kindred to their own. They have hailed the gradual decisions to remove marines from Nicaragua and Haiti. They rejoiced over the President's firm refusal to land forces in Cuba when conditions were worst—last Winter. To the Latin Americans it seemed that these positions reflected a change in the American attitude toward

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his dark-skinned neighbors as "spigs," "greasers," "banana-growers," and "niggers." All of these careless descriptives have fallen from American tongues in Latin America enough times to have inflicted a deep wound to pride. But though American political moves were all forward, the maintenance of the Piatt amendment robbed them of their deserved effect south of the Rio Grande. Latin-American diplomats here, discussing the new Cuban treaty today, said that reasonable opinion in their countries does not deny the necessity for our naval base at Guantanamo, or for our control of the Panama Canal. The Piatt amendment went beyond the certification of the Guantanamo base, however. Affixed on our demand in 1901 as a part of the Cuban Constitution, it bound Cuba not to incur debts her current revenue will not bear; to continue the sanitary administration established during the intervention of that time; virtually to make no treaties without the approval of the United States, and permanently to affirm our right to intervene "to preserve Cuban independence" whenever we so elected. These last two details were the important parts of the convention, and their enforced presence in the Cuban Constitution is what has irritated Latin America ever since. Realizing that this feeling would flow from the text, Secretary Root opposed their inclusion in the American-Cuban "agreement." His forebodings have proved increasingly true through the years. Those who sided with Mr. Root in that time pointed out—what is still true, and Latin-American diplomats in Washington today reiterated it—that this country can intervene in Cuba without the Piatt amendment. In protecting American citizens and property this government can land forces from warships ordered to Cuban ports without that being an act of war. It can keep its forces in the island until conditions have improved to its satisfaction, and it has done this in Nicaragua, Santo Domingo and Haiti. On at least two recent occasions the United States had troops on the soil of Mexico without the existence of a state of war. And there was no Piatt amendment needed to give these acts the color of international legality. All this is conceded by those who, out of a sense of racial pride, object to the compulsory writing in the Cuban Constitution. To them it has, since 1901, officially made Cuba a suzerain of the United States. Admitting our inescapable interest in order, sanitary conditions, foreign compacts and clean government in Cuba, her kindred nations—as reflected by their representatives in Washington—feel that the Piatt amendment was a tactless, brutal and unnecessary way to assert these interests. They point to similar disregard of national feelings by Spain itself, and Germany later on, and trace many of the disasters of those former empires to iron-handed diplomacy of this type. How Congress will respond to the President's proposal for a new treaty was, of course, a leading topic of discussion here today. It contains a few jingoes who might base their opposition on grounds familiar to their type. But there is a strong impression that Congress will welcome any diplomatic move that softens causes of irritation against us on the part of other nations and at the same time does not surrender an ounce of protection for this country. That is the claim for the new treaty made by its framers. And they also promise

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richer rewards of trade, which is an added Congressional lure. They add the argument that when we move for peace on the hemisphere—as in the matter of munitions for the Chaco—the influence of the United States in the New World will be paramount if the relics of shirt-sleeve diplomacy with Latin Americans are swept away.

7.5 Britain's Difficult Decision and America's Hope [Source: Arthur Krock: Patience wanes as British dicker with Japan, in: The New York Times, Vol. LXXXIII/No. 28,060, November 21, 1934, p. 18, col. 5.]

Diplomacy being in part the art of patience, and the President having nobly proved his possession of this quality, it is too much to say that the Roosevelt administration is irritated over the failure of Great Britain thus far to range herself on the naval armament question decisively with us against Japan. But it is a fact that the highest American officials are privately revealing impatience with the British, and particularly with Sir John Simon, His Majesty's Minister for Foreign Affairs. As gathered from conversations in the administration's inner councils, the attitude of the American Government toward the naval dispute is this: 1. We are not bluffing, and we do not believe that the Japanese are bluffing either. We fully expect denunciation of the Washington treaty by Japan some time in December, so that it will be on notice of expiration at the end of 1936. 2. We will not consent to parity with Japan by treaty, whether on a 5-5-5, a 4-4-4 or a 5-4-4 basis, Great Britain in the latter equation representing the 5. 3. American officials are now fully convinced that Japan intends completely to assume and militantly to maintain the overlordship of Asia, not only in Manchuria and in parts of China. They feel that Great Britain's plain course, therefore, is to emerge from the present naval conversations, and any conference that may follow, as closely allied to the United States' position as anything short of an offensive and defensive alliance can achieve. The difficulties in the path of this solution are apparent in Washington, and the career men in diplomacy are inclined to give more sympathetic weight to them than their non-diplomatic chiefs and, of course, the admirals. Some of these obstacles to Anglo-American unity, as seen in this capital, are: Japan can make a treaty with Great Britain on a joint-security basis. Our policy forbids the United States from such bilateral action. The British are concerned over the situation in Europe and would like to feel free to assemble great naval strength in the Mediterranean and the North Sea in certain eventualities. Since the United States is proceeding to evacuate the Philippines, and only the base at Singapore guards the Indian Empire from Asiatic conquerors

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by sea, the British have powerful need for good, even allied, relations with the great Asiatic power. Japan of late has been reaching out vigorously for British trade in the Orient, and statesmen at London have received intimations that this situation, too, could be accommodated in some degree if Japan's naval plans are sympathetically met by Great Britain. It is true that the Soviet Union might be diplomatically played by Great Britain against Japan as a guard for India and other British interests in the Far East. But Russian naval strength is not adequate, and the rivalry of Great Britain and Russia in Asia was so long a fact that it persists as a legend, and the Soviet has not moderated the Czarist aims in the Orient. These are some of the considerations which, the career diplomats in Washington concede, are justly complicating Great Britain's final solution of the problem presented by Japan's naval demands. Their superiors are disposed to eliminate most of them in this way: "Suppose Great Britain makes an agreement with Japan, renewing in some form the Anglo-Japanese alliance and leaving the United States to go it alone in the Pacific: can she depend on Japan to keep the agreement? How about Manchuria? The Earl of Lytton is an Englishman. "Suppose, under the protection of that agreement, Great Britain concentrates her naval strength within European waters: can she feel secure about Singapore and India, and about Far Eastern trade, particularly when we have withdrawn from the Philippines?" This attitude, typical of the view in the highest American official circles, has been recently transmitted for guidance, not as instructions, to Norman H. Davis, Ambassador at Large. It does not seem probable that, in the transmission, the existing feeling of impatience with Sir John Simon's policy has been omitted. If one can judge by chance remarks, by tones of voice and facial expressions, Washington would prefer another statesman at the helm of British affairs with respect to the naval conversations. Sir John appears to be, in certain quarters, the target for the administration's growing impatience and increasing fear that the United States and Great Britain may not maintain a firm and united front against the Japanese claims. But students of politics are fully aware that a whole section of the British Cabinet has what seems to its members sufficient reason to despair of effective understandings with the United States. Stanley Baldwin is believed to be still resentful of the war debt settlement and to feel that American policy drove his country into the distasteful condition of technical default. Ramsay MacDonald lost face at the World Economic and Monetary Conference, over which he presided, after his sumptuous errand to Washington was made fruitless by the Presidential dispatch from the cruiser Indianapolis. As for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it is a saying that "No Chamberlain ever had any real use for the United States." The Washington Government has not abandoned hope of an Anglo-American front and it is fully aware that much can happen in the two years the naval treaty

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has to run after denunciation. The government is uneasy, but it is fail to note that Washington's views could not have been more than by the Marquess of Lothian last week. Washington feels that Britain's wise and proper course is strongly supported in London, future moves will make that clearer to British statesmen.

Related

firm and did not accurately stated its view of Great and that Japan's

Readings

Adler, Selig: The uncertain giant: 1921-1941. American foreign policy between the wars, New York 1966. Beard, Charles Austin: American foreign policy in the making, 1932-1940. A study in responsibilities, New Haven, Conn., 1946. Challener, Richard Delo: From isolation to containment, 1921-1952. Three decades of American foreign policy from Harding to Truman, London 1970. Ferrell, Robert H.: American Diplomacy in the Great Depression. Hoover-Stimson foreign policy, 1929-1933, New Haven, Conn., 1957. Frisch, Morton Jerome/Diamond, Martin (Eds.): The thirties. A reconsideration in the light of American political tradition, De Kalb, 111., 1968. Link, Arthur S.: American epoch. A history of the United States since 1900, 3 vols., 4th ed., New York 1973-74. Martin, James Joseph: American liberalism and world politics, 1931-1941. Liberalism's press and spokesmen on the road back to war between Mukden and Pearl Harbour, 2 vols., New York 1965. McFarland, Charles K.: Roosevelt, Lewis, and the New Deal, 1933-1940, Fort Worth, Tex. 1970. Nevins, Allan: The New Deal and world affairs: A chronicle of international affairs, 19331945, New Haven, Conn., 1950. Nixon, Edgar Burkhard (Ed.): Franklin Delano Roosevelt and foreign affairs, 3 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1961. Offner, Arnold A.: American appeasement. United States foreign policy and Germany, 19331938, Cambridge, Mass., 1969. Roseman, Samuel I. (Ed.): The public papers and addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 13 vols., New York 1938-1950. Seligman, Lester G./Cornwell, Elmar E. Jr. (Eds.): New Deal mosaic. Roosevelt confers with his National Emergency Council, 1933-1936, Eugene, Ore., 1965. Shannon, David A.: 20th century America, 3 vols., 3rd ed. Chicago 1974. Wann, A. J.: The President as chief administrator. A study of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Washington, D.C., 1968. Wiltz, John E.: From isolation to war, 1931-1941, New York 1968.

1935

Wilfred C. Barber Chicago Daily Tribune

CHAPTER 8 REPORTS ABOUT ETHIOPIA IN 1935

An Underdeveloped Country as It Faces the Menace of Imperialism Introductory Notes 8.1 A People's National Pride versus Fascist Imperialism 8.2 Africa's Last Free Country and Its Natural Defense 8.3 Ethiopian Culture—Old Aged and Peculiar 8.4 Addis Ababa—Poor and Epidemic 8.5 Slavery in Ethiopia—A Temptation and Its Fruits Related Readings

Introductory

Notes

In 1936 the Pulitzer Prize jurors were presented with fifteen nominations in the Correspondence category, ten in "Foreign Reporting" and five in "Washington Correspondence. " Leland Stowe, who had been awarded the prize for "Correspondence" in 1930, submitted to the jury the reports of a deceased foreign correspondent, with the hope that they would bestow this honor posthumously. These contributions were the journalistic products of Wilfred C. Barber, "who died of Malaria while reporting the war in Ethiopia," as explained in the jury report of 1936. John Hohenberg wrote, "In one of the most celebrated cases the posthumous selection of Will Barber of the Chicago Tribune for the Correspondence Prize in 1936, a Journalism Faculty jury without comment had listed Barber third and Webb Miller of United Press first in its reports . . . When the decision for Barber became known, the United Press initiated a boycott against the Pulitzer Prizes that lasted eighteen years." Wilfred Courtenay Barber was born on September 15, 1903, in New York into a long line of journalists. Barber was educated at Mount Vernon High School, Storm King School at Cornwall-on-Hudson, and Columbia University. Although he worked for a while as a junior partner in his father's business, he found his attraction to newspaper work so strong that he became an associate editor for the Citizen-Bulletin of Tuckahoe, New York. After recovering from a grave illness, Barber set out on a world tour in 1927. While in Paris, he contacted the Paris bureau of the New York Herald Tribune. He joined the staff of this paper for 3 years, before changing to the Paris staff of the Chicago Tribune. As a reporter and editor, he was soon transferred to the London office of the same paper. In a short time the editorial staff in Chicago asked him to travel to Addis Ababa to cover the Ethiopian crisis. After his arrival in Ethiopia at the end of June 1935, he sent his newspaper several reports which he dictated from his sick bed. On October 6, 1935, Wilfred Courtenay Barber died of malaria. The following texts by Wilfred Courtenay Barber, copyright 1935, are reprinted by kind permission of The Chicago Tribune Company, Chicago, III.

8.1 A People's National Pride versus Fascist Imperialism [Source: Will Barber: Fight Italy to death! Plea of Ethiopian King, in: Chicago Daily Tribune, Vol. XCIV/No. 172, July 19, 1935, p. 1, col. 3; p. 14, cols. 6-7.]

Emperor Haile Selassie today called upon all his people to get ready for war, to stand shoulder to shoulder to repel the Italian invader, and to die rather than surrender their ancient freedom. His speech was a call to arms. It was made before parliament and thousands of tribal leaders and notables, who stood so tightly packed that when one swayed all swayed. Speaking without bombast, Ethiopia's "king of kings" prefaced his appeal for a fight to the death against Italy by giving his version of events since last summer which led to the border clash at Ualual on Dec. 5. "For forty years," he said, "Italy has cherished a desire to conquer Ethiopia, and since last August her preparations have been intensified. We refused to comply with humiliating demands, but announced our willingness to arbitrate and bow to the decision of any impartial tribunal. "Italy, on the contrary, continued warlike preparations. Premier Mussolini encouraged his soldiers to believe they were about to write a glorious page in the annals of history. Italy is provided with all the modern methods of warfare. Ethiopia is a poor country, but we shall show the world how a united people can fight to preserve its independence. "Should a peaceful solution not be found, Ethiopia, stretching her hands to God, will struggle to the last man, but—right up to the last minute—we shall persist in our efforts for peace." The emperor spoke with such effect that many of his audience wept. At the same time they acclaimed their leader and shouted their determination to respond to his plea to unite to fight off their tormentor. Politically the curly bearded emperor's speech was regarded as of great importance, for he clearly and firmly declared: "Never will we accept any foreign protectorate whatever. We will die rather than yield an inch of our territory." Those words were not in the prepared discourse. In another extemporaneous moment he commanded his people to treat all foreigners in time of war with more respect than ever, for "those who remain will be our friends." Haile Selassie implored his Ethiopian countrymen to be ready to defend their homes against the Italian invaders. It is better to die free than live without liberty, he said. "Your sovereign, now speaking, will be among you unhesitatingly to spill all his blood for independence," the "conquering lion of Judah" assured his enthusiastic audience. "Our ancestors preserved their independence by sacrificing their lives. Follow their example!

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"Soldiers, when on the battlefield you learn of the death of your beloved and respected chief who has fallen in the defense of liberty, do not weep and do not despair, but think of those who died for the fatherland as happy mortals. Soldiers, traders, peasants, young and old, men and women, unite and cooperate for the defense of your country! As in the past, women will heroically participate in the defense of the country, encouraging the soldiers and treating the wounded. Regardless of faith, all will face the invader in common unity, thwarting the efforts of Italy to create discord between Christians and Mohammedans." Of significance was the firm oath of fidelity given by four Moslem leaders at the conclusion of the emperor's address. The oath came as a surprise and its effect was electric. The words of the four Moslem leaders—Somalis from Harrar and Ogaden, part of which the Italians now hold—seemed striking proof that Italy's long efforts to stir up Moslems against Christian Ethiopians have failed. Despite the difference in religion, despite the fact that Somalis and other Moslems are often treated as stepchildren of Ethiopia, they are all determined to fight for freedom. "We Moslems will be the first to die for the freedom of Ethiopia," declared a scarlet robed Somali leader. The emperor's determination to resist any encroachment by Italy upon the country is calculated to force European politicians to take a definite stand either for Ethiopia or for Italy. It was a direct challenge to the league of nations to fulfill its vaunted pledge to see justice done. There is still a chance for Mussolini to withdraw, though not with honor, and there is still a chance for the league to take action, for the emperor rigorously disclaimed any warlike intent to do anything except seek peace through the league and the Kellogg anti-war pact, but to every one it seems certain that in view of Mussolini's attitude, the dispute must end in war. It rained, of course, today, as it does every day in the summer in the Ethiopian mountains, but even the heavy rain failed to diminish the enthusiasm of the scene in parliament where all the great of the land gathered to listen to the emperor's thrice deferred and today unexpected speech. An enormous crowd stood ankle deep in mud to await the emperor's arrival at the parliament house, a severely plain building. Inside, the emperor took his place in a crimson draped box in the balcony facing the president's rostrum and the crimson curtains were drawn back to reveal him in military dress. He began to read his speech almost at once. He made no gestures, never raised his voice, hardly raised his eyes, and he used almost sermonlike tones. But this afternoon and evening everywhere in Ethiopia little crowds gathered so that men able to read could read the emperor's speech to their fellows. Little booklets handed out at parliament house took the place of the almost nonexistent newspapers. There also was a big meeting of young men in St. George's place this afternoon, where the youth of Addis Ababa were urged to do their full duty to their country. There seems no doubt but what they will, but there was not a flag in sight, nor a band, and the only soldiers were poorly dressed conscripts.

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8.2 Africa's Last Free Country and Its Natural Defense [Source: Will Barber: Tribune writer tells story of the Ethiopians, in: Chicago Daily Tribune, Vol. XCIV/No. 184, August 2, 1935, p. 4, cols. 1-3.]

Contrast Ethiopia with our own country or Europe, and you won't find much to praise. Instead you will be tempted to use Europe's favorite term for Ethiopia— a "tin pot kingdom"—and from there it will be easy to go on to think, as a lot of people do, that it is "really rather decent" of the Italians to take it over and civilize it at so much expense to themselves. All you will need to do is to forget conveniently our American notion that all peoples have a right to rule themselves, however badly, however backwardly. The league of nations seems to have done it with great consistency as regards both the Chinese and the Ethiopians; in fact, that seems to be the only consistent policy of the league. Of course, if you like a good scrap, you can stand by, for Emperor Haile Selassie's warriors, though they are poorly equipped, have their own pride and courage and geography on their side. This article may give you a sketch of what Mussolini's boys are up against. Ethiopia isn't much of a show. The country is poor, because it is undeveloped; but with a little development it might be rich. You can discount about 75 per cent of the stories of its enormous mineral wealth—only $200,000 of platinum was mined last year, for example—but agriculturally Ethiopia should be wealthy. The emperor is trying to make it so, and by all accounts he is doing a good though slow job. The capital, Addis Ababa, without electric light except in a few houses, without drainage, with scarcely a good house, or a good store, or a good street as we Americans know them, would be outclassed by almost any American hick town. Then, Ethiopia's ancient customs—slavery, despotism, feudalism, and unthinking cruelty to man and animal—alternately rouse the anger and excite the scorn of more civilized nations. But Ethiopia is the last country in Africa where the natives rule. It is the last spot on earth where black man or brown man—Ethiopians are brown and black and even yellowish olive—can look at the white man as an equal and feel and be independent. It is the only country in Africa that has been able to resist invasion and to remain free, so these people must have something to them. Even today, when the soldiery of Italy, who are imbued with the pride, if perhaps not with the valor, of imperial Rome, menace the northern, southern, and eastern frontiers Ethiopia merits the title given it by the ancient Greeks—"land of the independents." Independence is chiefly a warrior race that has inhabited of the fifth grade in grammar scorching sun of the Red Sea, train creeps across the Somali

matter of geography—wholly so, if you except the the country for upward of 2,500 years. Just geography school, but you don't appreciate it till you feel the till you are baked, fried, roasted, and boiled as your desert outside Djibouti, till you shiver and cringe in

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the torrential downpour of the summer rains at Addis Ababa, and till your lowland heart and sea level lungs beg for a lower altitude. When all that has happened to you—but Chicago's such a fine place winter or summer—you can understand geography and the four natural factors in Ethiopia's independence. They are sun, mountains, wind, and rain, as Mussolini's black shirted, cocky young men are finding out this summer. Thousands, perhaps millions, of centuries of merciless sun have taken the lowlands that surround Ethiopia on all except the southwestern and northeastern frontiers and made them into scorched and parched deserts, where only goats and Somali or Danakil nomad tribesmen can live. Those deserts today, as in the past, form Ethiopia's best natural barrier against invasion. Then there are the mountains, into which the Ethiopian has retired on the rare occasions when invaders have succeeded in crossing the deserts. In the north, in the part of the country inhabited by the old stock of Amhara, grandsons of Ham, the mountains rise thousands of feet, with several peaks thrusting up to almost 14,000 feet. Snow covered Dajan reaches 15,160 feet, and Mount Kollo 14,100 feet. The mountains fall away, west and east, into rolling uplands, where millions of cattle could graze and only a slight elfort of man is needed to bring three crops a year out of rich soil. The sun and the mountains enter into combination with the wind and the rain to complete the natural defenses. They also form the wealth of Ethiopia. The wind is the monsoon. It blows out of the Indian ocean, sweeps in hot, dry gusts across the coastline deserts of northeastern Africa, rushes over the uplands and breaks against the high and sun-baked mountains of northwestern Ethiopia. It brings the rains that water the high plateaus and turn dry riverbeds into roaring torrents. A few minutes before the rain the rivers could be crossed dry-shod—your boots would even be covered with dust—but when the rain comes the rivers become impassable. In the rainy season, which starts in June and ends in mid-September, except that this year it started two months earlier, all roads [or such tracks as exist] become impassable mud and the streams in the deep gorges rise many feet. The Takkaze, or Terrible, which runs irregularly northward to the Nile and skirts the Italian possession of Eritrea, rises eighteen feet as it rushes down from the tableland 7,000 feet up. It makes an impassable barrier between the central and northern provinces in the rainy season. To every one who knows Ethiopia and guesses at what Mussolini may do next, the rains, far more than the League of Nations or the efforts of Great Britain or an appeal to the Kellogg anti-war pact, explain why war has not begun yet. Throughout history lowland peoples have looked toward the mountains and fertile plateaus and dreamed of conquest, but geography and their own natural fierce courage have kept the Ethiopians free. Can geography still do it? This is a question that can be answered only by the ultimate test in war of the value of the Italian troops. Ethiopia, without her allies of sun, mountains, wind, and rain, would be just another bit of desert like the Sudan or the Sahara, and Mussolini would never bother to trouble himself or the world about the matter.

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The rain, while it blesses Ethiopia, is the greatest of all natural dangers to this country. For besides bringing wealth to the uplands the rain means the Nile, and, in the classic phrase, "the Nile is Egypt and Egypt is the Nile." To continue, "And Great Britain has Egypt and the Nile." She means to keep them and a 30-year-old treaty with Ethiopia, signed by the Emperor Menelik, forbids Ethiopia to construct any dam that might obstruct the course of the Blue Nile, which rises in northwestern Ethiopia, runs twenty miles through Lake Tsana, and tumbles hundreds of miles down the mountains to join the White Nile near Khartum, bearing the silt that makes the Nile basin fertile. The Nile is not concerned directly in Ethiopia's present struggle with Italy for independence, but possession of the Nile obliges Great Britain to favor the aspirations of Italy as a means of keeping a good ally in Africa in case the Ethiopians should ever try to abrogate the treaty. However great the British efforts at present to prevent war between Italy and Ethiopia, the Nile is and "must be British," and its best defense will be the ultimate consideration when Great Britain takes sides. Farmers in the American cotton states already have reason to curse the act of nature that threw up Ethiopia's mountains and made the Nile, for Britain has constructed dams across the Nile and is developing a vast triangle enclosed by the Blue and White Niles for growing cotton. In a few years, if all goes well, Great Britain will have her own cotton. Then American cotton growers, just as the Egyptians do today, will regret the day Britain got astride the Nile and Menelik made his treaty. To complete a geographical sketch of this country of 350,000 square miles— roughly the area of Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, and Mississippi lumped together—the White Nile also draws a great and important flood of water from western Ethiopia, while to the east and northeast and southeast the land is almost waterless. The big Hawash rises in the central highlands, rushes bravely in the rainy season through deep gorges and floods lowlands, but, just as many an Italian soldier will want to do, gives up in the Somali desert and sinks deep into the sands not many miles from French Somaliland. The other big river that runs eastward, the Webi Shebeli, is braver, but about twenty miles from the Indian Ocean in Italian Somaliland it turns abruptly to follow the coastline 200 miles and then also disappears into the sands, leaving only marshes to mark its destination. Not much for the Italians. Then besides Tsana there are lakes in the south, but they contribute little to the defense or the wealth of Ethiopia. That is one worry off Mussolini's teeming mind, but, unless modern weapons such as airplanes, gas, tanks and machine guns, plus heavy artillery, overwhelm the Ethiopians in a few short battles, the Italians will have much to do before they can conquer this country. You only have to see the independent bearing of these people— "they act as if they owned the place," and to Italy's regret they still do "to realize that even if the last battle is won by the Italians it will take them years to settle the country, reorganize it along Italian lines and make a profit. By that time Mussolini stands an excellent chance of being only an exciting memory.

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8.3 Ethiopian Culture—Old Aged and Peculiar [Source: Will Barber: The Ethiopian—proud, bearded and barefooted, in: Chicago Daily Tribune, Vol. XCIV/No. 185, August 3, 1935, p. 6, cols. 1-2.]

If you ask the Ethiopian people who they are and whence they came, they are quite ready to trace their origin back to Adam and Eve and to Noah's ark. They will not fail, of course, to tell you about the queen of Sheba, who with Solomon founded the imperial line of Ethiopia, a line so ancient that it makes European kings look like upstarts. Their Bible is the same as ours, just as their 1,500 year old Christianity differs but slightly from the Greek orthodox faith. Their written history is sketchy, so their account of their origin for all practical purposes is about as good as you can get. They claim to be the grandsons of Ham. European historians, who have studied their characteristics, customs, and languages, confirm the Hamitic origin through the Cushite strain, as well as through the Semitic language they speak. The race has been corrupted by intermarriage and concubinage with the Negroes from the Sudan and from the countries lying south of Ethiopia. The Amharic tongue is the ancient geez [now spoken only by priests, most of whom don't understand a word of it] corrupted with many words from the Egyptian Coptic. Your correspondent is still on the lookout for the pink faced men and women who are said to live in the northern mountains as the last survivors of the original Amhara race. He hasn't had any luck so far. Nevertheless, it is no uncommon sight to see women with complexions ranging from the olive of the Mediterranean races to the yellow of the Chinese. It is rarer to see complexions so light in men, but Emperor Haile Selassie, who is a good representative of the original strain, has a distinctly olive complexion. It is thrown into relief in daylight by his dark eyes and black beard. The "black empire" is a title often given to Ethiopia, but all Ethiopians feel insulted if you call them black. It is true, at least in Addis Ababa, where peoples from all parts of the empire mingle, that brown is the prevailing color. It ranges from the light brown of the Hindu to the deep brown of the mulatto. In many faces is a reddish flush that gives almost a pinkish tinge to the cheekbones. Noses and lips are thin and the form of the eyes is much like our own. Black, though oddly it is the color of rank and honor, is a name they reserve for the Sudanese and the southern peoples, whom they call by the general name for slave—shankalla. The Galla people, who inhabit the plateaux against Italian Somaliland, are black. In them is a distinct strain of the Bantu, from the south, not yet removed by intermarriage with the brown and olive mountaineers. The Somalis also are black, but their features are thin like those of the Arab, and their eyes, like those of the mountaineers, are entirely different from the bulging eyes of the west African black men. Some of the people in the streets of Addis Ababa have distinctly Jewish features except for the brown of their faces—sharp noses, thick eyelids and oval faces. There are 50,000

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people in the north who still practice the ancient Jewish faith. They keep to themselves and are not of the Semitic type seen in Addis Ababa. Beards are all the rage and most men sport one as soon as they can. They are not the luxurious beards made famous by the French, for instance. Indeed they are scraggly affairs with more desire than hair. Styles and cuts range from goatees to the Van Dyke, such as the emperor's. Hair is worn pompadour and occasionally is smeared with butter that has seen better days, not to say rancid. The women have a way of dressing their hair with a sharp line across the forehead that makes them look as if they were wearing wigs. Small boys, especially of the lower classes, have their heads shaved with a two inch wide swath of hair running from the forehead to the nape of the neck, such as worn by American Indians as scalp locks. Barbers, by the way, have a very easy time in this country; all they have to do is to buy a bottle, drink its contents, break it and use the jagged bits for razors. They do a good job if you like Ethiopian haircuts. Tailors, too, don't have much to do, for the dress of the Ethiopians is very simple, with the exception of the funny trousers, which have seats big enough for a man and a boy, and legs that fit almost skin tight. Otherwise a shirt as long as a nightshirt, worn outside the trousers a la Chinese; a rectangular piece of cotton— most of it cheap Japanese stuff, but some of it fluffy Ethiopian cotton—to be worn draped from the shoulders like a Roman toga, and a surcoat of white cotton drill, falling to the knees, compose the business suit of the Ethiopian man in the street. Shoes he has none, for everyone goes barefoot. The toga—chamma they call it—is rather a ceremonial bit of wearing apparel, and requires no little dexterity to handle. Ordinarily it is wrapped around the body and over the shoulders. The outer edges are then folded back over the shoulders so one's arms are free, but on a ceremonial occasion Ethiopians wrap it around the body, under the armpits and over the right shoulder, so that the left arm alone is free. That is a mark of respect for a superior. Another trick they have with the chamma is to wear one end of it wrapped across the mouth and nose. Visitors at first think it is to protect the wearer from the chilly wind and dank air of Addis Ababa, but they are informed that it is simply a bit of swank. When a man so dressed greets a superior he removes the chamma from his face with his left hand and sweeps off his hat with the right. It is a custom not much different from a medieval knight's lifting of his vizor to salute a woman or a superior. A chamma starts life pure white—nobles of high rank may wear black—but it isn't long before the chamma becomes a greasy khaki, for the poorer people work, sleep, and eat in it for many months. The very poor go in rags. No one seems to mind if half the seat of a man's trousers is lacking or his toga is in shreds. Small boys and girls wear nothing but khaki shirts. Very small children don't mind a bit if they have nothing on at all or their shirts fail to button. The women of the poorer classes are dressed in one piece dresses gathered in at the waist and falling in many folds over the legs. It makes them look like a couple of full bags tied together. But women of the wealthy and noble classes disport themselves well when they ride forth on mules followed by armed servants as body-

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guards. They wear dresses of fine cloth and soft chammas, veils over their mouths and noses, almost in the old Turkish custom, with gray sombreros on their heads. Rain or shine they carry little parasols of woven straw, whose manufacture constitutes one of the few crafts of this primitive land. Wealthy or well to do men also do themselves proud, and some of them even wear sandals or western shoes. These days, for summer is chilly in Addis Ababa, the men wear poncho-like cloaks with monkish hoods to keep off the heavy, dull, and almost unceasing rain. Their mules too—horses are at bargain rates, because one needs a mule to struggle through the mud of the roads in the rainy season and to negotiate bad paths when it is dry—are gaily decked and the more silver thalers, or dollars dating from 1780 and bearing the effigy of Maria Theresia of Austria, a man has jingling from his mule, the bigger he is. Parasols! They sound funny and look funnier in a land where everyone is sunburned from birth, but the sun at noon is almost directly over head in these latitudes and its rays are deceptively powerful. Hence all sorts of precautions to protect oneself from the sun. You might say, for instance, that the proper wear for summer in Addis Ababa is a good, stout overcoat and a sun helmet. People wear both. The policemen—they carry rawhide whips instead of clubs, because mules, donkeys, horses, and sheep form the chief impediment to traffic—wear blue military mackinaws and once white sun helmets. Their feet are of course bare. Your correspondent thought such dress rather outlandish, but last evening he saw something better— a small chieftain, a two gun man at best, wearing a poncho of blanket thickness, a balaclava woolen cap that left only his eyes, mouth, and nose free, and over that warm cap a sun helmet. Bare feet, with his big and second toes forked over the mule's stirrup, completed the picture, plus a breechless small boy trotting behind with a gun.

8.4 Addis Ababa—Poor and Epidemic [Source: Will Barber: Here is a picture of a squalid city built Jor a king, in: Chicago Daily Tribune, Vol. XCIV/Sunday ed. No. 31, August 4, 1935, p. 8, cols, i-5.]

Typewriters are clicking tonight in the rooms next door and beyond in the darkness hyenas are howling. There is the answering bark of a dog—a friendly, homely bark— and the screech of a house cat. It is an unearthly screech—the sort of screech that used to send shivers down your back when you were a boy hunting wild cats and you raised one. Some one whistles softly. It is the corporal of the night watch of the Hotel Imperial. From a cabin down the hill within the big compound comes a voice. A late comer is returning home. To his greeting the bearded, brown skinned

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guard, huddled in a blanketlike poncho and carrying an old Russo-Japanese war rifle that couldn't shoot on a bet, replies in Ethiopian: "Thank you—may God give you as much." The gasoline engine that supplies electricity for this hotel—it is one of the half dozen houses having electricity—has stopped puttering. Another hyena howls. More hyenas take up the wail, and soon, if old residents can be believed, the animals will sneak into the streets of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa—the new flower—to make their nightly pickings of refuse. The typewriters are only accidental—there is a mail tomorrow and stories must be sent out "on the situation," for down here in Africa, half way round the world from Chicago, people are waiting for war with Italy—but the hyenas are there every night. They are out there in the pitch darkness, where there is no light. Darkness! As you walk abroad with the hope of getting some news or after a visit to a movie, your flashlight bores a forlorn little hole in the darkness and up behind you comes, suddenly, eerily, a pair of bare feet and a flash of a white cloak as an Ethiopian scuds for home. "Good evening" to you—"May God give you as much!" A mule patters by on unshod feet. A horse trots into the small circle of your flashlight and out again. Darkness from 7 P.M. till 6 A.M. Almost no one is out, for Ethiopians go to bed early and most of them need special permission to be out at all after nightfall. All servants, for instance, must have both day and night permits and at night must carry lanterns. It is not that crime is feared, though anything may happen here, but simply a means of raising city taxes. Then, toward morning, comes the rain, for it is summer in Addis Ababa. You draw your blankets a little closer, shiver and wish the hyenas would get on with their meal and sneak off home. Addis Ababa at night. In the morning the city wakes early and poorly dressed men and women, who, despite the cold, wear only cotton, begin their day's toil. Slave women sling huge crockery jugs for water on their backs, the bottom resting on their bulging hips and the neck passing their stooped shoulders. Gerawkis—general name for all porters but the real name of men from a certain district—begin their long round of carrying anything that their fellowmen can think of. Beds, three or four weighty saplings for housing timbers, huge sacks of coffee each weighing 188 pounds, crates, boxes—all carried on their heads. Here comes one with a live ram slung round his shoulders; he's carrying it easily as you would wear a jacket or a feather boa. It is no unusual sight. Donkeys, mangy mules and nondescript pack horses fill the streets all day long. They dodge in and out of the foot traffic, scrambling everywhere. Cows, sheep, goats, horses, donkeys, mules, men, women, and children walk wherever they can get a footing. Down the road, if you can call a rock strewn trail a road, comes a roaring, rushing Dodge, Chevrolet, or Ford, driven breakneck and to "hell with the others." A klaxon shrieks—it is less offensive than the hyena—only because you know what it is and you know that, if the driver doesn't blow it, somebody of the vast throng of men, women, and children who fill the roadway will be killed. The morning is old now and down the main street, threading his way through humans and animals, comes a tribal chief astride a mule, ambling proudly in the

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single footed fashion so much valued here. In front and behind the chieftain's mule marches or trots a crowd of retainers, half of them carrying ancient rifles, with the chiefs favorite gun carried in a leather case. Only a six gun fellow! Here now comes someone with style—a big chief, a twenty gun man. He is bound for the palace to ask a favor. Behind him comes, like the same sort of men used to follow patricians in the days of Rome's greatness, a crowd of clients. Each hope the chief will be able to intercede in his behalf against some offense or win him audience with his imperial majesty, Haile Selassie, "king of kings of Ethiopia, conquering lion of the tribe of Judah," undisputed ruler of 12,000,000 people, whom he is trying to bring into modern ways without exasperating them by sudden western innovations. A slave boy, happily bearing a rifle slung haphazardly over his shoulder, hangs onto the tail leather of the chieftain's mule. He is smiling and proud. Slave women, forever toting their heavy jugs of water, look up from their tasks. Khaki clad but barefooted soldiers salute. The traffic officer cracks his whip at a flock of sheep obstructing the road or whacks a beggar over the rump, Europeans stare, the proud chieftain raises his hat and bows deeply to an equal, nods politely to an inferior, and passes. Over there, midway on the great, paved road [O marvels!] that leads from the old to the new palace, a crowd of shabby persons are washing their feet and ankles in a stream of brown muddy water. Opposite them is a row of butcher shops, where cattle are sold with no more dressing than having the hides ripped off—hides are more precious than animals and in the old days perhaps you wore shoes made of a hide from Ethiopia. Flies and fleas and mosquitos—even at more than 8,000 feet up in the mountains—swarm; one little black boy has two on his right eyelid and three at the corner of his mouth, but flies don't bother him. It isn't much of a town. All the stores, except perhaps half a dozen, are one story shacks, consisting of a few boards crowned with the eternal corrugated iron roof. The houses are no better. Most of them are tokols—round, mud and lath houses with conical thatched roofs, windowless. In the daytime you get a glimpse of a family at work, and at night there is a sputtering little flame from a fire that serves as "central heating plant" as well. Over the dark valley, where a murky, muddy stream rushes after rain, stands the old palace, looking rather eastern, a bit like the Arabian Nights. You get a fine view of it, something like the view of Chicago from the lake, or Avignon from the hills across the Rhone. You wish you were in either place as soon as you see the palace. Bare boards creak as you enter the ministry of finance next to the emperor's old home, and bare walls stare at you. It is dark inside, but the clink of big cartwheel Maria Theresia dollars is amusing. The new palace is ever so much better; simple, spotless, and well kept—about as big as a suburban mansion in the United States. The rest of the ministries and the schools stand criticism no better; their walls and floors are bare—the floors downstairs are unusable because of the damp. The schools stand in gardens—or fields. The flowers are there, but they are poorly kept; in Ethiopia nature should do most of the work and does. The markets? One is a great muddy plain enclosed by a picket fence beyond

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which is a vast collection of shanties. Another covers several streets on the side of a hill of red-brown mud, down which the rain rushes. Here the stores are tiny, dirty booths crowned with thatch or corrugated iron. Inside each is a little platform on which goods are displayed. The vender squats, cross-legged, flicking away flies with a horsehair whip. You can buy anything there, but mostly Japanese stuff— "best Nippon cotton sheeting" is the word. It is cheaper than Manchester's sheets, and so the Japanese have acquired, so it is said, 90 per cent of the trade. Your horizon is limited by a ring of mountains on which clouds damply squat. Flies and fleas and lice. You are bitten. Typhoid and typhus are endemic, doctors say, and right now they are both epidemic. No one knows how many cases there are in Addis Ababa, for vital statistics are never kept. It's a wise Ethiopian who knows his own age. Addis Ababa is a mistake, of course, from the point of view of climate. It is too high in the mountains and it rains three months a year. The high altitude is difficult for the lowland Ethiopians, but old Emperor Menelik, who brought his empire back toward its old boundaries and whipped the Italians at Adowa, knew his highland soldiers couldn't stand the heat of the lowlands. They didn't know how to protect themselves against fever and that is why, it is said, he turned back into his mountains after beating the Italians. The whole town is on a hill and everywhere eucalyptus grows. The trees smell good, but their thick foliage prevents the sun from reaching the houses clustered under them and so all is damp. Not much of a town! Here come a couple of Gerawki, carrying a piano on their heads. Marvelously strong fellows, though thin as bean poles. A cow town if there ever was one. It is easy to laugh—to laugh at the town, the thinly and shabbily dressed people, the chieftains with their armed bands, the women with covered faces, the traffic cops and that other touch of modernity, the American taxis. It is easy to laugh, but what is wrong is simply that these are not a city people. They are a farming and pastoral people, used to open spaces and clearer skies. If you saw them in the country—here a sturdy farmer and there a shepherd boy, standing naked with his cloak thrown over his arm as he indolently leans on his staff, as shepherd boys do on old Greek vases—you would find them a proud, industrious, self-respecting, and independent people, anxious to keep what they have and let the world go on without them.

8.5 Slavery in Ethiopia—A Temptation and Its Fruits [Source: Will Barber: Ethiopia admits slavery exists; fights to end it, in: Chicago Daily Tribune, Vol. XCIV/No. 209, August 31, 1935, p. 2, cols. 2-4.]

Slavery is the shame and curse of Ethiopia, but a foreigner could live here a long time without knowing it exists. It does not intrude or force itself to one's attention,

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and it is impossible openly to purchase a slave. In many parts of the country slaves are bought and sold in secret, but Emperor Haile Selassie's government is trying to prevent such violations of the law by rigorous punishment of offenders. Offenders include not only the purchaser and the seller, but also the local chieftain and the district governor. The first fines are heavy—much more than the average Ethiopian's yearly income—and they are double for a second violation, while a third offense can bring a punishment of life imprisonment. Slave running is still carried on in the back country, where occasionally local chiefs and even perhaps some governors (according to hearsay only) may be bribed, but the traffic is punishable by the death penalty, and is greatly diminished from the open and legitimate commerce it was fifty years ago. Such slaves as can be sneaked across the country are sold in Arabia, where slavery flourishes, though with much less noise being made about it than about slavery in Ethiopia. The Italians have been making a great deal of excellent propaganda against slave running from Ethiopia to Arabia, but it is legitimate to wonder whether they are doing as much as they might do to stop the traffic. To get to the Red Sea slave runners must pass through British, French, or Italian Somaliland or through the Italian colony of Eritrea. Only the British maintain a sea patrol to run down the Arab dhows in which slaves are carried hidden under bales of cloth or among piles of hides. Neither the French nor Italians maintain such a patrol in the Red Sea, and the proximity of the northern portion of French Somaliland and of a long strip of Italy's Eritrea to the coast of Arabia makes those places the easiest ones for sneaking slaves into a dhow and across the Red Sea. It might be remarked that the Italians have two chances to detect slave running. They could maintain a tight watch along their Eritrean frontier with Ethiopia and another watch along the seacoast. Ethiopians, by the way, say that a certain amount of slavery still exists in Eritrea, but, since your correspondent because of Mussolini's censorship, cannot go there, he cannot say whether such a charge is true. Slavery has existed in Ethiopia for many hundreds of years. Ethiopians explain it by saying that labor was needed to work their farms when the only wealth of the country came from the land and the number of men available was small. "What was more natural than to make slaves of the prisoners we took, as every one used to do?" they ask. Other Ethiopians say the Egyptians were to blame because they first gave the Ethiopians the notion that manual labor was vile. In the old days war after war used to be waged against the Negro tribes of the Sudan and lands to the south. The Ethiopian mountaineers, civilized people, were better fighters and were able to bring in many captives as slaves. Today even the Sudan region supplies those slaves who are captured in the illegal slave traffic. It was a bad day for Ethiopia when the first slaves were set to work. For two reasons. First, the Ethiopians themselves lost the habit of working and soon they began to scorn not only labor but the arts as unfit for a warrior race such as theirs. In this they were helped by similar notions held by the Egyptians, with whom they used to be in close contact. Second, the Amhara race descended from Ham was bastardized by concubinage or intermarriage with slaves. An Ethiopian on going to war would leave his wife at

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home and take along a few women slaves as mistresses. In a short time the Amharas lost their racial purity and became corrupted. The presence of Negro slaves or of Negroid offspring even had an influence on the church, and its Christianity picked up strange mannerisms from voodooism, manners that still exist, such as weird dances by priests. Leaving the work to slaves or to halfbreeds had the effect it always had in every country where slavery flourished. Greece would have been better off without its helots, Rome helped to pull itself down in similar fashion. The result in Ethiopia has been that today there exist only two crafts—the working of silver into crude crosses and ear-picks and the weaving of baskets. Not much for a country more than 2,500 years old and whose jewels and golden ornaments pleased King Solomon. Enlightened Ethiopians, especially those who realize the harmful effect the toleration of slavery has on Europeans and Americans, are the first to admit the evil of slavery. But they wish to go slowly in freeing the slaves. "Since the evil is recognized and the government opposes it, why aren't all the slaves set free?" That is a question foreigners frequently ask. I have put it to leading Ethiopians, to foreigners working for the Ethiopian government and with a say in Ethiopia's affairs, and, more important, to both American and British missionaries. The answer always has been the same—the liberation of the slaves must be done slowly to avoid internal trouble with backward rases [or dukes] to prevent the slaves from starving to death, and to prevent them from becoming bandits once they have been deprived of easy livings. Two British missionaries cited the instance of the thousands of slaves owned by Ras Hailu, who is now a life prisoner because of an attempted revolt in 1930. He had been to Europe—where, incidentally, he left a reputation as being a fellow with quaint notions—and one day he decided to free his slaves. He did. Many of them, according to these missionaries, turned bandits because they had not been accustomed to working farms for their livelihoods. Others became beggars, and others became public charges. Many tried to return to slavery. The present is a bad time for wholesale liberation of slaves. Ethiopia, like every other country in the world, has been hard hit by the depression. Almost the only wealth of the country lies in the land, and most slaves, having been brought up to do picayune jobs as attendants, have small knowledge of farming. The country's finances would not permit great numbers of slaves to be carried as public charges. The emperor himself might like to get rid of many of the freed men who infest his palaces; they do little work but draw his money, constituting an appreciable burden year by year. Being freed men, they are at liberty to quit his service whenever they want, but they don't want to. About the best hope for ending slavery in Ethiopia, according to foreigners who live here, is continuation of the present policy of freeing slaves on the death of their master. It is now the practice of rich men on dying to free their slaves and to give them a parcel of land on which they can live as farmers. If all slave owners did that it would take only another generation to end slavery. No one knows the number of slaves at present held in Ethiopia. It may run into hundreds of thousands in a

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population of 12,000,000. The number of slaves freed through the bureaus for suppression of slavery since the first one was opened in 1926 is very small—only 14,000. Better progress has been made in recent years and the figures supplied to the league of nations for the year ending August, 1934 (latest figures available) show that 3,647 slaves were freed in that period and 293 men were condemned to fine or imprisonment for selling or buying slaves or for making slaves of the children of slaves. Slaves are dressed just the same as paid servants and appreciably better than the free Ethiopians who do the heavy work in Addis Ababa. There are no instances of brutality in public. Indeed people who know the country say that the slaves are very well treated and Harriet Beecher Stowe would have a hard job writing an Ethiopian edition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." All Ethiopians and many Europeans insist the slaves are chiefly domestic servants and are treated just as well as members of the family. As for working long hours in harsh labor and with poor food, that doesn't seem to exist. One doesn't see slaves, for instance, carrying the heavy burdens borne by the Gerawgi porters.

Related

Readings

Badoglio, Pietro: The War in Abyssinia, London 1937. Baer, George W.: The coining of the Italian-Ethiopian War, Cambridge, Mass., 1967. Barker, A. J.: The civilizing mission. A history of the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935-1936, New York 1968. Bastin, Jean: L'affaire d'Ethiopie et les diplomates, 1934—1937, Paris 1938. Boca, Angelo del: The Ethiopian War, 1935-1941, Chicago—London 1969. Chaplin, William Watts: Blood and ink. An Italo-Ethiopian war diary, New York—Harrisburg 1936. Chiavarelli, Emilia: L'opera della Marina italiana nella guerra italo-etiopica, Milano 1969. Currey, Muriel Innes: A Woman at the Abyssinian War, London 1936. Funke, Manfred: Sanktionen und Kanonen. Hitler, Mussolini und der internationale Abessinienkonflikt, 1934-36, Düsseldorf 1971. Hamilton, Edward: The War in Abyssinia. A brief military history, London 1936. Hardie, Frank Martin: The Abyssinian Crisis, London 1974. Harris, Brice Jr.: The United States and the Italo-Ethiopian crisis, Stanford, Calif., 1964. La Pradelle, Albert Geouffre de: Le conflit italo-ethiopien, Paris 1936. Laurens, Franklin D.: France and the Italo-Ethiopian crisis, 1935-1936, The Hague—Paris 1967. Legionarius: The grounds for the serious charges brought by Italy against Abyssinia, Rome 1935. Macartney. Maxwell Henry Hayes/Cremona, Paul: Italy's foreign and colonial policy, 1914— 1937, London—New York 1938. Newman, Edward William Poison: Italy's Conquest of Abyssinia, London 1937. Rochat, Giorgio: Militari e politici nella preparazione della Campagna d'Ethiopia. Studio e documenti, 1932-1936, Milano 1971. Villari, Luigi: Storia diplomatica del conflitto italo-ethiopico, Bologna 1943. Waley, Daniel Philip: British public opinion and the Abyssinian War, 1935-1936, London 1975.

Anne O'Hare McCormick The New York Times

CHAPTER 9 REPORTS ABOUT ITALY IN 1936

Italy Under the Mussolini Rule and the Reasons for Her Turn to Militarism

9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5

Introductory Notes Changes in a Dictator and Their Causes Mussolini and Italy's Decision for the Military Way Italy's Militarism and the Effects of Sanctions The Worth of Pacts and Italy's "Training" War The New Italy: Hard, Simple, Militant Related Readings

Introductory

Notes

In 1937, when the jurors of the "Correspondence" category attempted to restore the prestige of the prize, that was marred by the controversy surrounding the award the previous year, for the first time in the history of the award the honor was bestowed on a women. It can be seen from the minutes of the proceedings of April 29, 1937, "Members of the Board agreed to recommend that the Prize for foreign correspondence be awarded to Anne O'Hare McCormick of the New York Times for her dispatches and feature articles from Europe and Washington." In the public announcement of the prize it was her "articles from Europe in 1936" that were quoted as the basis of their decision. John Hohenberg stated, "Mrs. McCormick was considerably more than a reporter although she had established her reputation in a difficult and highly competitive field primarily through her reportorial ability." Anne O'Hare McCormick was born in 1882 in Yorkshire, England. She received a B.A. degree from St. Mary's College, Columbus, Ohio. Hohenberg remarked that she "was the foremost woman journalist of her day." Her reporting from Europe immediately after World War I sounded a warning for America of the rise of Fascism. She predicted the emergence of Mussolini, traced Hitler's rise to power, and bitterly expressed the conviction that war would follow. From 1921 she worked for the New York Times as a free-lance and special correspondent. A few months before receiving the Pulitzer Prize, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of the Times, placed her on the editorial board. As the first woman to ever receive this honor, she was assigned to write an editorial column on foreign affairs, called "Abroad." In 1928, she published a book entitled "The Hammer and Scythe," and in 1934, was awarded the coveted "New York Evening Post Medal." She then concentrated her efforts on the Pulitzer Prize winning reports from Europe, which consisted of background reporting and features. Her outstanding journalistic accomplishments were also honored by the receipt of several honorary doctorates from a number of American colleges and universities. Publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger once told her, "Your field will be the freedoms. "John Hohenberg said, "her area of operations was the world." The following texts by Anne O'Hare McCormick, copyright 1936, are reprinted by kind permission of The New York Times Company, New York, N. Y.

9.1 Changes in a Dictator and Their Causes [Source: Anne O'Hare McCormick: A soberer Mussolini faces the world, in: The New York Times, Vol. LXXXV/No. 28,477, January 12, 1936, Section 7, p. 3, cols. 1-4; p. 22, cols. 2-3.]

The night that Congress opened, four Americans sat up in Rome until 3 o'clock in the morning listening to the President's address over the short-wave radio. The inimitable Roosevelt voice, charged with unusual feeling, rang clearly through the dark silence of the Roman night. By sound alone—a dozen familiar sounds—we were transported from the atmosphere of Rome to the atmosphere of Washington. We heard the shuffle of Senators and Cabinet members moving in and out of the Chamber, the cheers of the gallery, the rap of the Speaker's gavel, the asides in well-known voices inaudible to the immediate audience. We heard affirmation of the untested neutrality policy aimed at keeping the United States out of war and at clearing the dangerous quicksands by means of boycott and embargo. We heard Europe rebuked. The startled air of Mussolini's capital echoed with democracy's challenge to autocracy as an agent of aggression. We felt the authentic vibration; America was as near as the air we breathed, yet as remote as Mars from the realities crowding the ether of this older and more uncertain Continent. Rome slept under the bombardment. Was Mussolini awake? This was the first question Americans asked themselves. Was the autocrat of Italy listening in as the President lambasted autocrats? We decided he was, for II Duce is known to turn on the radio on an anxious night, and on this night none in the world was more anxious than he to hear a definition of American neutrality. Only last Summer he boasted to the writer that he never lost sleep. Now in the shadows circling his hypnotic eyes, in the signs of strain on his mobile face when the mask is down you can see he has since known many restless nights. In six months the invulnerable leader of a people on the march, supremely confident of the success of his plans, has become the captain of a beleaguered nation, grimly facing a hostile world where nothing is sure except the loyalty of his own proletarian masses. Those six months have told on Mussolini. The crisis deepens around him as this crucial year opens. The fiasco of the peace plan which he was plainly disposed to accept has depressed the country, opening the prospect of a long, grueling war. The hardships and blunders on a truly infernal front have taught the Italians why Ethiopia alone remains unconquered while the rest of Africa has been carved up. The siege at home, while pressing hard only in spots and valiantly resisted, gives an edge to the national temper and reveals how like an Italian terraced mountainside is Italian economy—painfully close to bedrock. This is a low moment in a drama now enlarged to include situations far more complex than dreamed of in the American black-and-white philosophy—to include, indeed, the great insolubles of a universal tragedy. In public the chief actor never

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lets down or lets his audience down, but in private it is evident that the role of the man against the world is a heavy, wearing part to play. Wherever he appears before a crowd, astride his high-strung sorrel horse at reviews, swinging up the marble steps of the Altar of Country, surrounded by students in the angular portico of the new University City, among the transplanted peasants of Pontinia—he always looks more vigorously alive than any one else. "A locomotive that thinks," some one here describes him, and year after strenuous year he has managed to keep the engine at full steam, a dynamo that never stops. Yet, even on public occasions, Mussolini, cheered on his balcony, is not quite the same as he was. It would be difficult for any man not to feel imperial as he steps out on the balcony overlooking the scene in the square, facing that crowd, summoned and hailed by that rhythmic, almost hypnotic, chant: "Du-ce! Du-ce!" It is a scene on the stage; as often as you see it you never lose the sense of being in the theatre. Even in this theatre, the chief actor, bowing to the applause of his public, has a different manner. His part is different; the response of the audience is different; the drama is painfully real. In happier days the Duce's mien was stern, his salute brusque and swaggering. Now he always smiles; he stands for a moment, hand on the balustrade, searching the uplifted faces as if he were drawing force from the people instead of inflating them with his force, as in former days. They feel it; there is a new and palpable movement of the crowd toward their leader; an electric current of sympathy flows between them. In a sense the Dictator has become the Father of his country. Sometimes he speaks; oftener he says nothing. During these months of high tension Mussolini's public addresses have been fewer than usual. Except at the opening of Parliament, all his utterances have been brief; most have been marked by an emotional quality absent from the fighting broadsides of the past. That he is afraid in this crisis of being carried away by his own feeling or the feeling of the crowd is proved by the fact that on at least one occasion recently he wrote out the few sentences he meant to deliver from the balcony and had his secretary read them behind him as he spoke, lest he should say one word more than he intended. Seen at closer range, Mussolini shows the wear and tear of the struggle of recent months. When I saw him last on a recent Saturday evening, it happened that no one else was waiting in the rich anterooms of the Palazzo Venezia. The great palace, always silent, was strangely deserted. The light shone dimly on the lustrous floors of old tile. There was no time to study the sixteenth-century paintings on the walls or the Etruscan bowls in the glass case that many waits had made familiar. Without delay, ten minutes early, I was hustled through the council chamber with its long table, the old doorkeeper saluted, and immediately I was in the marble hall that has become the general headquarters of a historic siege. Perhaps because the city outside was so quiet, with its diminished motor traffic, or because all the rooms were empty and there was no sound in that room but the tap of my heels on the mosaic floor, the figure at the far end looked smaller and more solitary than usual, looked, as he rose, as if fighting the world were rather too much for one man. Not only did he appear tired and preoccupied; some spring

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and starch seemed to have gone out of him. That day the news was gloomy from the European front, which Italy watches much more anxiously than the African front; but the change one sensed in Mussolini was not an access of nervousness or any weakening of purpose or of will. On the contrary, he was uncommonly calm, and the lack of emphasis in the quiet voice and rather weary manner made more convincing the casual, beyondargument determination he expressed. For nearly an hour he talked, prodded by few questions, on the state of Italy, on the Ethiopian expedition, which he refuses to call a war, on the policy of the United States, on the terms and possibilities of peace, but mostly, with an odd, half-melancholy detachment, on the condition of Europe. "Are Americans really interested in the troubles of Europe?" he asked. "At the moment they are intensely interested to keep out!" was the answer. "How right you are! What is the matter with Europe that every nation should hate and fear and suspect every other? You are a continent, able to follow your own line, securely independent. Poor Europe is in a state of neurasthenia. It was not Germany which lost the last war; it was Europe. The United States gained, Japan gained, Russia gained, but Europe lost its recuperative power, the vital force of cohesion, of synthesis. Another war would destroy us. If I were an American"— What Mussolini would do if he were an American may be left to the imagination. What he would not do in a crisis in which America, somewhat to the dismay of Europe, holds the key, is not difficult to guess. As he went on he grew more animated; flashes of sarcasm and gleams of humor lightened the gravity of his talk. He smiled in describing the effect on the Ethiopians of the first motion picture they had ever seen when the Italians put up a screen at Adowa. "I'm not sure that was a work of civilization," he added. "The natives fled to the hills as if from the devil; perhaps they were right." He laughed when I remarked, in answer to a fire of questions about public sentiment in England, that a good many English peace-lovers would like to get rid of him. "Perhaps they won't find that so easy," he said. "J'y suis. J'y reste. Forty-four million times one." On the whole, however, this was Mussolini in the minor key, pensive and relaxed— perhaps the real Mussolini. He is a man of many faces, many moods, a great actor in the Latin manner. In these hard times he turns upon his public the smile he used to reserve for private audiences; "a million-dollar smile," an American movie magnate described it after a recent interview. In private there is no pose left. Without uniform, in an old gray suit and a brown sweater (for the unheated air was chill in the headquarters of the Italian Front), stripped of the trimmings and trumpeting and cinematic effects which misled London, Washington and other remote observation posts, certainly there was no bluff left. The misleading thing about Mussolini is that there never was much bluff. He is the worst and crudest of diplomats, because he means what he says. Even enemies admit that the Duce has been strengthened at home by outside opposition. What dictatorial methods and police power failed to do, British policy plus sanctions have accomplished in uniting and regimenting the nation. It is impossible that any people could be as unanimous as Italians appear today. It is discouraging

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that a war which the whole world condemns should bring out the best qualities of the outlaw State. Yet Mussolini has both grown and diminished in this hour of test, just because for the first time he is overshadowed—"humbled," he says—by the spirit of his country. "I have lived in Italy thirty-five years," an old English resident told me. "I have seen the country worked up for the Libyan war, the World War and the Fascist revolution; but never have I seen this uprising of the whole population. Never have I admired Italy so much as when I can't approve of her at all." Whether he is a Moses breaking a way for his people out of the house of bondage, as he has persuaded Italians to believe; a trouble-maker at large in the Mediterranean, as the British insist; a political adventurer with a Caesar complex, a dictator at the end of his rope, one of those bellwethers of the herd that every so often strike the hour of historic change—the leader of this uprising has the mass of his people behind him. He has no reason to worry about popular support. Yet that must be one of his chief worries.

9.2 Mussolini and Italy's Decision for the Military Way [Source: Anne O'Hare McCormick: A soberer Duce faces the world, in: The New York Times, Vol. LXXXV/No. 28,477, January 12, 1936, section 7, p. 22, cols. 25.]

To a dictator who boasts that if he assumes full power he also assumes full responsibility this national solidarity in standing up to the consequences of decisions he took alone is a profoundly sobering fact. Mussolini is sobered by it. He keeps referring to the "magnificence" of the Italian spirit not simply in the tone of the architect who sees his plan taking shape and substance but as one moved and troubled. The locomotive not only thinks; now it feels. Does he feel loss of prestige abroad? A member of the French Government has declared that the moment Mussolini started to send troops to Africa he ceased to exert his full weight in the councils of Europe. That expresses the interest of France, which would like to see the whole Italian Army camped permanently on the Brenner, but it is true that the British lead in uniting the member States of the League to block Italy's move in Ethiopia has diminished the international influence of Italy almost as much as it has increased the prestige of England. The paradox of Mussolini's present position is that for years he has aspired to be the peacemaker of Europe. How he reconciles a desire for collective security on the mother Continent with aggressive action in Africa in defiance of League pledges

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he does not explain. The "Latin logic" fails here as it fails France in the terrible dilemma in which she is placed by her divided loyalties and divided mind. Nevertheless, he did argue in vain to make the League a revisionist body; he was ready for disarmament; he claims that his four-power pact, before it was emasculated, would have steadied Europe and that it is pure farce to talk of political internationalism while every act of every League government stifles any economic internationalism. Despite the failure of these plans he had gradually increased his international authority. This was partly because he carried on while other governments changed, partly because he has developed a sense of Europe and a strength in his own country others had to recognize. He reached the peak of his prestige only last year at Stresa, where he was easily the dominant figure. Now the conference called to cement a common front against Germany for violating the Versailles Treaty is remembered for only two things. It was immediately followed by the signing of the Anglo-German naval agreement and, though thousands of Italian troops were even then in Africa, no one so much as mentioned Ethiopia. Now Mussolini is as isolated, if by no means as negligible, as when he started. Ostracism irks him. The dictator operates in a vacuum; he is at a disadvantage outside his own domain because he is unaccustomed to dealing with opposition; political suppleness like Laval's is the product of democracy. But the ruler who speaks for his country without fear of contradiction has an advantage, too. To watch Italy organized to resist sanctions is to recognize how a one-man system simplifies the task. If Mussolini himself had schemed for an excuse to have all national interests delivered into his hands, he could not have done so well as Geneva has done for him. And if the League searched for an argument to justify the Duce in the eyes of his own people, it could not do better than decree an oil embargo. For Italy's war is a desperate fight for all those prime materials symbolized by oil. When the oil-producing countries combine to stop her by cutting off oil, then the war-maker becomes the deliverer of an embittered nation. In a few years, in Mussolini's view, the Italians will be 50,000,000 people, numerically the strongest Continental power except Germany. The population of the peninsula has doubled since 1870, when Italy was united, and has exported in the same period more than 10,000,000 people. Apart from the fact that this dammed-in human lake must burst out somewhere, even if the population remains stationary; apart from the swiftly rising strength of Germany; apart from the certainty that if war breaks out in Europe the League and the nations that depend on it, Czechoslovakia, for instance, will be blown into bits—why does England want to make an enemy of a friendly power planted, whatever happens and forever, on "the lifeline of the empire"? This is what puzzles Italy. It understands English psychology as little as England understands Italy. "Frankly, I do not understand British policy," repeats Mussolini. And again, returning always to the same question: "Do you understand it?" Useless to talk to an Italian about devotion to the League as the only bulwark against the catastrophe the Duce has been predicting for years or about the sanctity of treaties. Useless to explain American policy as motivated solely by indignation against the peace breaker and determination to avoid entanglement at any cost.

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Mussolini himself understands that. He was very careful—this was before the suggestion of an American embargo—to refrain from a word of complaint or criticism of the attitude of the United States. Italians in general look upon all the capitalist powers as selfish monopolists combining together to keep the "proletarian" nations poor. It is significant how the word proletarian crops up in every argument. Pride and fatalism mix in Mussolini; he would choose a great defeat rather than an insignificant victory. Italians are like that—they must cut a "bella figura" or none. The English author of a recent brilliant study of Fascist Italy, who seems to admire the Duce as much as he detests the system he has created, makes the point that Mussolini is unlike all other Italians. There he is wrong. Mussolini is the attar of the Italian spirit; he is the exaggeration and inflation of all Italians. Such vitality and versatility are seldom manifested in politics; you have to go back to the Renaissance to see how they flourish in this soil. The observer of the nation in crisis can't help seeing the singular identification of leader and people. The gestures that leave all outsiders cold—or hot!—thrill the Italian; they echo something deep in his own being. More, Mussolini is not only a symbol but a symptom. Dictators are not the cause of wars; they are signs on the surface of the underlying conditions that cause wars. The only certain fact in today's flux is that these conditions will be righted by war or otherwise. Until the collective intelligence invents the other way, still undreamed of in Geneva or elsewhere, and consents to the sacrifices it imposes, any child can tell you that there will be no peace.

9.3 Italy's Militarism and the Effects of Sanctions [Source: Anne O'Hare McCormick: Mussolini declares events favor Italy, in: The New York Times, Vol. LXXXV/No. 28,512, February 16, 1936, p. E 4, cols. 1-2.]

As Premier Mussolini sees it, time and events work for Italy by pushing the Ethiopian conflict into the background and reducing it to its true proportions. Recent high-power conferences in London and Paris indicate that attention, too long concentrated on the Ethiopian problem, has shifted to the problem of Austria, always a crucial point in Europe. Here, this is regarded as a new line of attack, a manoeuvre to defeat Italy on a nearer and more important front. The author of the original plan for Danubian organization must have had some bad half-hours sitting out in the cold while the captains and kings discussed his pet project. Now that the move to detach Vienna from Rome has failed for a moment, Mussolini is satisfied the only thing proved by the post-mortem consultations is that any scheme to stabilize relations among Danubian States without Italian collaboration is as "impossible as it is to keep a table upright with one leg missing."

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If II Duce's mood is an index, the Italian outlook must be a shade brighter. The writer has just been received in the Palazzo Venezia for the third time since the African enterprise developed into a major crisis. Each time the atmosphere has been different. Last summer Mussolini's confidence was hardly scratched by anxiety. Two months ago all opposition had closed in, and he looked grimly tired and worried. Now, although in the past year he has lived five years and seen most of his calculations go wrong, he appears recharged with energy. This visitor found him surprisingly well and cheerful, spruced up in morning coat, which he hates to wear, tearing through piles of newspapers, and galley proofs were scattered behind a desk as crowded as a city editor's. He was hunting for a particular report from the front, which he then read aloud. Reports from the front have been vitally important since the Italians decided the only solution of the Ethiopian dispute was a victory in the field. At present there is not the slightest prospect of a negotiated peace, although it is hinted that "a change in the circumstances" might induce Italy to advance her own proposals, but even this change implies decisive gains in Africa. Mussolini has not forgotten that the clinching argument of League supporters against the Hoare-Laval plan was that it gave Italy more territory than she had conquered. Or, a sudden development in Europe might alter the whole picture. Even in Rome the African front has become secondary as larger dangers loom and as a state of international panic is worked up by the furious race of rearmament. The paradox of the move to draw a "cordon sanitaire" around Germany in Central Europe and Italy in the Mediterranean and to make sure that Austria is a wedge between them, instead of a possible link, is that it forces together two powers strongly desirous to part. Germany does not wish to go with Italy. Her inclination toward Great Britain is as obvious as French and Russian repugnance to an AngloGerman combination. Italy desires even less to be bracketed with Germany, Mussolini objected to a tendency to create a line-up as between "two systems." The last thing Italy wants is Germany at Trieste, or any other form of disturbance in the Mediterranean. To avoid it she once offered to sign a long-term naval and air agreement with Britain to guarantee British interests and the route to India. Nevertheless, as the tension grows in Europe it seems to ease a little here. For one reason, there is immense relief at the postponement of the proposed American neutrality legislation. The Italian Government keeps on insisting it is fully prepared for an oil embargo. Mussolini claims he controls stores, supply lines and tankers sufficient for all military needs. Notwithstanding these assurances, the threat of an oil sanction caused extreme nervousness. Now it is clear that Europe is sick of all sanctions. Governments are tired to death of the Ethiopian question. Even the Soviet Government let it be known privately that Russia desires to see the dispute liquidated as soon as possible. On the domestic front time increases the strain on the national economy. Recent military successes encourage patriots, but they also bring home to the furthest village that the costly campaign has only begun. Rumor credits Mussolini with having forestalled all arguments and objections at last week's meeting of the Fascist Grand Council by announcing bluntly at the outset that only one course was open and

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they had no alternative but to follow it. True or not, the country accepts this view. Even grumblers, particularly in the upper income brackets, grumble that there is nothing to do but go on. The arrival in Asmara, Eritrea, of three members of the Grand Council, making four in Africa, is variously interpreted, but the departure of Achille Starace, Secretary General of the Fascist party, is taken to signify that the home situation is safe. Mr. Starace's request that he be permitted to join the fighting forces was not granted until he had made an inspection tour of the country and satisfied himself that the party's fences were in order. No visible fissures appear in the Fascist party as among the German National Socialists, although all the members would not agree with the leader that it does not contain two currents. A significant development of the movement is a tightening of the Fascist party grip on all economic interests. Mussolini presides every day at meetings of the councils of the various corporations. He declares with satisfaction that sanctions have transformed the corporative State from a paper organization into a working reality. Undoubtedly war and the siege help him to mold a State nearer to his heart's desire than was possible in ordinary times. After three months of sanctions Italy has gone far on the road toward some form of State socialism. The conversation with Mussolini leaves the impression that he sees his strategic position improving. War seems to him "possible but not inevitable." If his attitude seems too stoical in the face of that hideous possibility "it is because, in this at least, my conscience is clear," he declares. "Italy never willed war," he said. "But who started it?" it was objected. "You speak of Europe as a gigantic war factory, but hasn't the whole emphasis of Italian education for a decade been placed on military training, fitness for war? In the United States, at least, the opposition to Italy is only an intense feeling against war and those who make it. Do you think it necessary to arm children from the time they leave the cradle?" "If they live in Europe, yes," was Mussolini's prompt reply. "In America, no. Where nothing wins respect but power—look at Germany and Russia—you must develop power or perish."

9.4 The Worth of Pacts and Italy's "Training" War [Source: Anne O'Hare McCormick: The new Italy—fact or phrase?, in: The New York Times, Vol. LXXXV/No. 28,603, May 17, 1936, Section 7, p. 3, cols. 1-4; p. 24, cols. 2-5.]

Viewed from any angle, the Ethiopian affair is far from ended. No amount of wishful thinking can expunge from the record one of the ugliest episodes in recent history or minimize its far-reaching consequences.

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In Africa the march of the Black Shirts into Addis Ababa, where in their most pervasive days the old Roman legions never penetrated, must have repercussions on a colonial system perpetuated within the arc of the Covenant itself, which has sanctified annexations by calling them mandates. In Europe it shifts the weights in a trembling balance, for there is no use blinking the brutal fact that a nation able to out-bluff Great Britain, override the opposition of fifty States and confound military experts rises not only in its own estimation but in the esteem of its neighbors. In Geneva it chalks up another setback for an institution which fails because it is not international enough, which has been persistently used by the great powers as an instrument of national policy and in the present test lost authority because so obviously torn between the conflicting interests of England and France. All of us it arouses out of an uneasy twilight sleep induced by such anesthetic phrases as collective security and reveals the world we live in as it is—a place where prestige is more than ever proportioned to power and the powerful still yield only to force. A nervous broadcaster who referred the other night to "the present phrase of the situation" described more accurately than he intended the mumbling mind that clings to formulas as if they expressed realities. If today's awakening shatters the dangerous illusions of those who go about believing what they hope and observing what they wish to see, we may learn at last that compromises and sacrifices beyond any yet conceived are required of every nation on earth, including our own, before we can approximate a status quo worth safeguarding and evolve a peace machinery— how it will pinch the fat!—which will profit the Haves and Havenots alike to respect. For Italy victory will exact penalties more oppressive and long drawn out than the most zealous sanctionist can devise. The real endurance test now begins. From now on there is warfare without glory, heroics without the spotlight, tremendous national effort without the soldering heat of universal opposition. A country taking to aggression under an aggressive leader because it is poor and deprived of outlets for labor and goods has still to prove that it is not too poor for the costly and endless business of subjugating and developing the one segment of Darkest Africa the richest and most unscrupulous buccaneers have passed by. No European power up to now has chosen to be chained to Ethiopia and its unconquered tribes. No credible survey has discovered its legendary wealth. All the Italian invaders have found thus far is a country of fantastic obstacles, rockier than their own peninsula, and a people infinitely poorer than themselves. Mussolini has yet to prove that Ethiopia has a value equal to the exorbitant price he has paid and must pay to exploit it. To date he has staked everything on two large postulates. The first was the state of Europe; he banked on the unlikelihood of concerted action by England and France while one country was militarily weak, the other politically weak, and both were frightened by the growing might of Germany. When the Hoare-Laval peace plan broke down before a storm of popular indignation in England, what struck him most was the unanimous objection, expressed in The Times of London and repeated all down the line, that these proposals of the British Government, now known to have been formulated in London and sent to Paris, rewarded the aggressor by giving him "more than he had conquered." To Mussolini the inference was clear: he would get only what he could take. From

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that time on there was no further talk of the distinction between "Abyssinia proper" and the outlying conquered provinces that formed the Ethiopian Empire. "The further we penetrate into this chaos the more we wonder whether there is an Abyssinia proper," he remarked to an interviewer after the troops had reached Amba Alagi. The grand-scale military drive did not begin until the Hoare-Laval effort failed. Then, and not till then, there is reason to believe, was the decision taken to push on to Addis Ababa with the aim of conquering the whole country. Then, too, the Duce began to lean more heavily on his second postulate. His great gamble was on Italy itself. How far could he count on the discipline, the endurance, the spirit of sacrifice, the hardihood and morale of the Italian soldier and the Italian people? How much propaganda would the country swallow now that propaganda was translated into meatless days, unheated homes and schools, multiplied taxes, loss of export markets, loss of tourists and shipping, loss above all of the most precious thing in the poorest Italian family—sons? Was the new Italy he had invoked and paraded before the jeering world a figure of speech, a projection of his own ambition, or a real nation in real movement? An American military observer, in Rome when the campaign started, interpreted the African enterprise as Mussolini's test of the military machine he had created, a kind of dress rehearsal to prove the caliber of the new and untried forces before they had to perform in Europe. "How does he know whether the Fascist army is an army of wind or iron?" asked the American. This question, applied to the Fascist State as a whole, is still to be fully answered. The Ethiopian campaign has raised the status of Italy as a military power, but whether Marshal Badoglio's exploit in mopping up Ethiopia in one swift, well-organized dash is a Pyrrhic victory depends on how far Mussolini can follow up. To what extent can he mobilize a civil population already strained to the utmost to accept more hardship, greater levies, further immolation on the altar of the country? Last November he confided to a friend that he hoped sanctions would last six months—and no longer. None knew better that the economic siege, while stiffening the resistance of the people as nothing else could do, spurring to fresh efforts the technical genius of the country and delivering into his hands a long-coveted control of the national economic interests, would, if suffered too long, cease to be a stimulant and become a poison of incalculable effects. Today, more than ever, Mussolini has to gamble on Italy. The more difficult and more important phase of the war he willed has to be fought in the domestic field. For the world outside, also, Italy represents a question mark, this strange Italy that stands up to England, defies the Mediterranean fleet, sets Europe in turmoil, goes ahead despite universal execration and is in all respects unidentifiable with the easy-going, operatic, picture-gallery land that most tourists know. Where is this Italy going, down to bankruptcy and defeat or up among the first-class powers? Has it really changed under the Fascist régime, and if so, how, why, and how deeply? Is New Italy a fact or a phrase? Reviewing the observations of a crucial year, beginning with the May day when the jaunty Anthony Eden strode into Rome, swinging his malacca stick, and ending with the May day when the weather-beaten Badoglio saluted the harassed guard of

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the British Legation as he rode into Addis Ababa on a white horse, it seems to me that I have watched a nation hardening into a new mold. It would be rash to report that the process goes far below the surface or that it will last when the patternmaker relaxes from his labors. Such as it is, however, it is a transformation which nobody in the modern world can afford to ignore. For fourteen years, at fairly frequent intervals, the writer has observed the evolution of the Fascist régime and its effects on a people fundamentally skeptical, individualistic and blasé on the subject of government. The last attitude, which may be said to describe the attitude toward life in general of the average Italian of the older generation, explains his easy acquiescence in the loss of a self-government which had never crystallized either into a habit or an efficient method in the brief decades between 1870 and the World War. Such passion for liberty as flamed in the separate kingdoms of the peninsula during the now-derided nineteenth century burned against foreign rule—in the north against Austria, in the Romagna against the Papacy, in the south against the Bourbon oppression. It was a passion for national liberty and

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Reports about Italy in 1936

union, for an all-Italian Government rather than for any particular form of government. Essentially, the United Italy movement was a nationalist movement, just as Italy's participation in the war was a step toward national aggrandizement, just as the halfhearted acceptance of a dictatorial régime in the mood of disillusionment following Versailles expressed a surge of resentful nationalism. More by instinct than design— because the new self-consciousness flowered gradually from its ancient root—this cohering force called Italy uses Mussolini for its purposes in much the same way as Germany uses Hitler. The retrospect is important because in Italy you feel the pulsation of a historical development, pushed to an abnormal and reckless speed by Mussolini, but bound to occur in any case. Fundamentally the modern dictator represents less his own individual will-to-power than a national will-to-power. To understand what is happening in the world, it is necessary to realize that dissatisfied peoples are willing to give up political liberty and freedom of opinion if thereby they can attain what they value more—they call it "national liberty" or "national independence." From this it is a short step to accepting war as an instrument to the same end. For really free and independent peoples like ourselves it is difficult to comprehend this point of view; it exists nevertheless. I have been surprised in recent months to find how many of my old anti-Fascist friends, nourished in the school of Mazzini and Cavour and hating the régime, have come to concede that Mussolini (provided he is a strictly personal and temporary phenomenon) may be the spark Italy needed to complete her fusion. This will prove to the outsider that the hardening process mentioned above implies a callousness to moral values, and it is true that you will travel far in Italy to find echoes of the moral indignation roused in other countries by the rape of Ethiopia. On the contrary, though you meet a few who are ashamed and many who express sympathy for the "poor Ethiopians," the general mood is quite as self-righteous as that of England. This is mostly, not wholly, the effect of propaganda. More foreign criticism than you would suppose is allowed to dilute the self-adulation that characterizes the press— particularly when the flame of national resentment needs to be rekindled.

9.5 The New Italy: Hard, Simple, Militant [,Source: Anne O'Hare McCormick: The new Italy—fact or phrase?, in: The New York Times, Vol. LXXXV/No. 28,603, May 17, 1936, p. 24, col. 5; p. 25, cols. 13.]

Two points cannot be overemphasized. The first is that leaders like Mussolini care very little for outside opinion. Their power depends on how they appear at

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home. In a sense, since they personify the wounded amour-propre of nations, it depends on how far they can defy outside opinion and achieve results. The "moral judgment of mankind" does not thunder so loud in Italy as the thunderers might expect, and would not even were it heard more clearly. The eyes and ears of the populace are turned inward rather than outward. They know the world is against them, but they are taught to believe that if they succeed against the world they will in the end be justified. The Italian reasons in the same fashion if you ask him how a war-impoverished country will ever be able to develop Ethiopia. "Once we acquire an empire," he shrugs, "it will be easy enough to borrow money on it. The second point is more suggestive. What most impresses the impassioned democrat, who becomes more impassioned as he surveys alternative systems, is that the new dictatorships, moving in the same direction, whether it is called Right or Left, evoke something in their subjects which democracy seems to have lost the power to inspire. In the United States the citizens demand what the government is going to do for them; in Italy the government makes demands on the people and the people seem to want to serve and give to the country. The first gift of the wedding rings came spontaneously from the women of a country village. The local Fascists took up the idea, and it spread, but rather to the annoyance of Mussolini, who thought it would look to the sanctionists as if Italy were in the last extremity. War intensifies this patriotic exaltation anywhere, but in Italy worship of the country is the product of education, of daily mass suggestion; undoubtedly it gains fervor because in a one-man government the national idea is incarnated for the simple as it cannot be in a Congress. Moreover, in the party-State, Communist or Fascist, more people participate in government than in a democracy; actually more are interested in keeping it going. It is police government, of course, but it would be a great mistake to underestimate the force of other coercions. Sometimes one feels that democracy cannot compete with these new systems unless it summons the young to pay an equal price for freedom. One sees here how irresistible to youth is the appeal for sacrifice; good soldiers are easier to produce en masse than good citizens. This brings us back to the main question. There are two Italies, as distinct as the swarming alleys of Naples from the wide-spaced blue farmhouses, all alike, set on right-angled roads on the reclaimed land of the Pontine marshes. The one here described parades in the streets, drills in the squares, fills mountain camps and seaside colonies, poses in the newsreels. It ranges from the 4-year-old "Sons of the Wolf" with their toy guns up to the Fascist militia and the army. It is in uniform all the way, in training all the way; at this moment it is probably the best-drilled youth in the world, all the more remarkable because it is a youth that naturally dislikes drilling. Once I asked Mussolini why he considered it necessary to give guns to children. We were discussing the differences between fascism and National Socialism, which the founder of fascism considers profound. "Our whole conception of life is different," he insisted. "The German philosophy has two basic ideas: One is race, which to the Latin mind is childish. The other is war." "War?" I murmured, glancing at the communiqués from the front spread on the desk between us. "War for war's sake," snapped the Duce. Then he grinned. "You know us well enough to know that much

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as we try—much as we try," he repeated, a gleam of mischief in his eye, "we are not a warlike people." He added, that in the world as he sees it, it would be criminal not to train the rising generation for war. He has deliberately militarized a peace-loving, happy-golucky nation on the assumption that war is inevitable, that you can delay conflicts, deal with some of their causes, but never insure perpetual peace. "If I missed the opportunity to find breathing space for this nation," he said, "future generations would have the right to curse me as we curse the governments of the past who condemned us to poverty by missing chance after chance to claim our share of the earth's undeveloped areas." Mussolini's Italy is the generation brought up under fascism. For this generation the country is transformed as far as one man could transform it in fourteen years. By and for this generation, as a crowning "public work" in a make-work program too extravagant for an opulent government, Ethiopia was invaded and is now annexed. This young Italy is very different from the old, physically, mentally, in habit and in feeling. It is harder, simpler, more unquestioning, more brigaded. It belongs to the State. "Duce, we are yours!" it shouts with frightening unanimity. The elders all speak of the "mentality" of the young. "Our children live in one time and we in another," they tell you, half sadly, half proudly, and it is true. Italy is one vast, full-time school in which every boy and girl, from infancy to maturity, is taught one lesson: "To believe, to obey, to fight." They are prepared for hardship. Few Italians have to be introduced to the Spartan way of life, and now they are caught young and disciplined in the Spartan spirit. In his public speeches, remember, Mussolini always addresses this audience, this adolescent Italy—and let the old world go hang! From this school will come the empire builders. Only the young, and preferably the troops on the ground, it is said, will be enlisted for the campaign against nature, climate, disease and discouragement now opening in Ethiopia. Will they be equal to the task? Will the rewards be proportionate to the struggle? No white nation has colonized in equatorial Africa; all the experts say it can't be done. "That is because the settlers weren't Italians," I was told by the head of a big canning plant in Naples. "Go into the congested country around here, observe with what back-breaking labor peasant families wrest an existence from a ledge of rock, and you will understand why hundreds in every village beg to go to Africa. For five acres of level ground they would settle in hell. What's true of French, British, Belgians, even Germans, isn't true of us. No other colonists will work like the Italians, will work with natives, will be content with so little." One suspects that Africa has been oversold to the would-be emigrants, but since they are shut out of the abandoned farms of New England, the truck gardens of France, the plantations of Brazil, the sheep ranges of Australia, they have nowhere else to go. Italy's assets are man-power, the will and capacity to work, engineering skill; the road-builders are the real heroes of the African campaign. Where the money will be found to finance this staggering adventure is a mystery. And only the oracles can tell whether the "Roman valor" the régime has built up with every resource at

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its command is good for a spectacular spurt or for the long heartbreak of pioneering in an inhuman environment, "created as a place of punishment for devils," says a repatriated officer on sick leave. Or is colonizing the true object of the conquest? This observer is convinced that the Italians will come nearer doing the impossible with their fantastic empire than any other European power. They are driven by necessity, and even more by an overmastering pride to show the world. Mussolini's demonstrated genius is as a civil administrator and an inspiring and audacious leader of his own people; his diplomatic victory is mostly due to the confusion and weakness of his adversaries. He will stage an exhibit in Africa as he does in Rome, but his real aim has been to challenge Britain in the Mediterranean and win for Italy a greater place in Europe. Obviously, he is now ready to return to Europe. Italy ranges herself with the satisfied powers, he says, implying that he is willing to throw his weight with the "collective security" crowd who want to hang on to what they have by maintaining the status quo. Last September he told Sir Eric Drummond, British Ambassador in Rome, that their two countries were in for a period of strain and bitterness, but that it would pass, and at the end they would return to a policy of cooperation "on a new basis." The new basis means a plane of equality for Italy. Whether that claim will also be allowed remains to be proved. Italy has burgled her way into the upper story occupied by reformed burglars. Will she also reform? On two continents the young Italy inflated by Mussolini faces its first large-scale tests. From this point the questions the leader has raised must be answered by the will, the endurance and the genius of the Italian people, once more on the ascendant curve of the human oscillogram called history.

Related

Readings

Bernstein, Serge/Milza, Pierre: L'Italie fasciste, Paris 1970. Borgese, Giuseppe Antonio: Der Marsch des Fascismus, Amsterdam 1938. Carocci, Giampiero: Storia del fascismo, 2nd ed., Milano 1961. Chabod, Federico: A History of Italian Fascism, London 1963. Christopoulos, Geôrgios: La politique extérieure de l'Italie fasciste, Paris 1936. De Felice, Renzo: Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il Fascismo, 2nd éd., Torino 1962. Gallo, Max: Mussolini's Italy. Twenty Years of the Fascist Era, London 1974. Garratt, Geoffrey Theodore: Mussolini's Roman Empire, 3rd ed. Harmondsworth 1938. Germino, Dante Lee: The Italian Fascist Party in Power. A Study in Totalitarian Rule, Minneapolis, Minn., 1959. Halperin, Samuel William: Mussolini and Italian Fascism, Princeton, N.J., 1964. Mack Smith, Denis: Mussolini's Roman empire, New York 1976. Nolte, Ernst: Die faschistischen Bewegungen. Die Krise des liberalen Systems und die Entwicklung der Faschismen, Miinchen 1966. Panunzio, Sergio: Teoria generale dello stato fascista, Padova 1937. Paris, Robert: Histoire du fascisme en Italie, 2 vols., Paris 1962.

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Reports about Italy in 1936

Priester, Karin: Der italienische Faschismus. Ökonomische und ideologische Grundlagen, Köln 1972. Tannenbaum, Edward R.: The Fascist Experience. Italian Society and Culture, 1922-1945, New York 1972. Villari, Luigi: Italian foreign policy under Mussolini, New York 1956. Volpe, Gioacchino: Storia del movimento fascista, Milano 1939.

Arthur Krock

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CHAPTER 10 REPOR TS ABOUT THE UNITED ST A TES IN 1937 Problems Facing the President and Discussions About Their Solutions

Introductory Notes 10.1 The President's Philosophy and Its Practical Conditions 10.2 Roosevelt's Main Problems and Their Important Traits 10.3 A Monetary Dilemma and How the President Might Act 10.4 Roosevelt's Dream and Why It Cannot Come True 10.5 The President's Program and How It Might Be Paid Related Readings

Introductory

Notes

In 1938 the jurors of the "Correspondence" category examined the materials, and deliberated at length as to whom the prize should be awarded. It is noted in the jury report of April 14, 1938, that there were five journalists on the short list, among them three foreign correspondents; the representatives of the New York Times in Madrid and Berlin, and the UPI correspondent for Europe. Two Washington correspondents, representing the "Scripps Howard Newspaper" and the "International News Service" were also included. None of these five journalists won the prize, but rather a man who's name had not even appeared on the jury's list of recommendations—Arthur Krock. Krock was the Washington correspondent for the New York Times, who was awarded this prize once before in 1934. This time Krock received the honor "for his exclusive authorized interview with the President of the United States on February 27, 1937." Since the 1930's Arthur Krock had distinguished himself as one of the leading American correspondents from the U.S. capital. (The reader is referred to Chapter 7 for a short biography of Arthur Krock up to the 1930's.) Although personal problems had prevented him from attending Princeton University at the beginning of the century, he received a Master of Arts Honoris Causa from Princeton in 1937. In conferring the degree, the University's president referred to him as "at last a graduate of Princeton." Krock's interview with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1937 was the only one the president had granted since entering the White House. This exclusive interview with F.D.R., made Krock famous both in the United States and abroad. According to John Hohenberg, "Arthur Krock established himself as the most formidable and influential reporter in the land." The following texts by Arthur Krock, copyright 1937, are reprinted by kind permission of The New York Times Company, New York, N. Y.

10.1 The President's Philosophy and Its Practical Conditions [Source: Arthur Krock: The President discusses his political philosophy, in: The New York Times, Vol. LXXXVI/No. 28,890, February 28, 1937, p. 1, cols. 2-3; p. 33, cols. 2-5.]

"When I retire to private life on Jan. 20, 1941," the President this week has been saying to his friends, "I do not want to leave the country in the condition Buchanan left it to Lincoln. If I cannot, in the brief time given me to attack its deep and disturbing problems, solve those problems, I hope at least to have moved them well on the way to solution by my successor. It is absolutely essential that the solving process begin at once." This is his answer to those who have contended that the President has a third term in mind, and would remake the Supreme Court majority for a period of submissive cooperation with the other Federal divisions that will exceed the precedental time for chief executives. And it is his answer also to those who insist that nothing in the present condition of the country calls for new haste in an attack on problems, and that nothing will be lost by awaiting the long process of a constitutional amendment. Doubtless he will make these responses in detail for himself before the argument about the Supreme Court is ended by triumph, defeat or compromise. Responses from him are expected, for, though it is only a few weeks since the Presidential election of 1936, the cry of "dictator" once more is heard. The provocation is Mr. Roosevelt's recommendation to Congress of a statute whereby all Federal judges—including those of the Supreme Court—must retire at the age of 70 or have a judge of equal powers appointed to supplement them. Since the effect of the President's proposal would be to supervene the present Supreme Court majority with his own appointees if judges eligible to retire refused to do so, or to nominate a new majority if they did, he has been widely accused of intending to supplant the Federal system of checks and balances with one-man government, assure decisions upholding any legislation he might propose and offer to some future dictator a precedent with which, with the approval of Congress, he could, by changing the agelimit, wholly remake the Supreme Court when he took office or increase it to the size—and reduce it to the futility—of a mass meeting. In discussing with the President these charges and the proposals which produced them, the writer became conscious of Mr. Roosevelt's complete certainty that the accusations are all founded in a misconception of his aims and their consequences, in a total lack of understanding of the crisis which confronts the country and calls for drastic remedies, and in a failure to appreciate how sincere and sure is his labor to maintain democracy rather than to suspend it or undermine its future foundations. In the President's view—and discussion with him makes it clearer—the Supreme Court issue is but part of a larger problem: how to make democracy work in a

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world where democracy has in many lands, been subvented. He believes that within the American democratic machine are all the essential devices. He feels they must be boldly grasped and employed to save democracy itself. Far from agreeing that recourse to statutes, within the plain permissions of the Constitution, to sweep away barriers to orderly progress and modern needs is an encouragement to future dictatorships, he is firm in the faith that this method stamps out the dictatorial seed. His belief is that legalistic or other obstructions to "action by our form of government on behalf of those who need help" are the real incentives to revolutions from which demagogues and dictators emerge. What he has done and is doing are to him the definite solvents of democracy. The President believes it is necessary not only for the Federal Government to be able to regulate against overproduction and underproduction, to regulate against unsocial types of employment and against the making of prices by speculation, but that it is also necessary for the Federal Government to have some authority to compel collective bargaining and to enforce the maintenance of contracts both by employers and employes. He feels that, today, there is real danger to the nation because any law passed by the Congress to provide national remedies is open to constitutional doubts if the language of the present Supreme Court majority is literally followed. In this connection, the President compares present conditions to a dead-end street. He takes the position that we have come to a dead-end street where three things are possible—stop the car and stay there; turn around and go back, or turn off into a side street, right or left, and proceed to an unknown destination. The President, by reading and observation, and by tried and unusual familiarity with the attitude of Americans toward their public men, sees a future far more dangerous if he is balked of his solutions than if they are adopted. He sees a growing belief among the underprivileged that judicial supremacy is certain to cancel the progressive and humanitarian efforts of Congress and the Executive. He sees this belief easily firing into a desperate conviction, and he does not doubt that, should this happen, a leader will arise to tread down democracy in the name of reform. The President has not forgotten Huey P. Long. While he does not say so in precise words, he entertains the opinion that one important reason why the Louisiana dictator was not able to extend his dominion further during his lifetime was because he was fortunately coexistent with wiser and more sincere remedies for the conditions which produced Long. In other words, had public opinion against the Hoover administration not been sufficiently formed by the elections of 1932, and had Mr. Hoover therefore been re-elected, the President believes that Huey Long would immediately have become a great menace to the democratic process. Now, finding—from his viewpoint—essential, legal and democratic Federal action obstructed by the Supreme Court majority, or held in long uncertainty that has the effect of balking both preventive and remedial measures for what Mr. Roosevelt thinks ails the country, he sees the possibility at least that a new, more appealing and even more ruthless demagogue may arise to abolish American democracy for years. Whether a listener agrees with the President in his course and in his estimate of future menace, that listener notes in his words and tone no other primary objective than, as Mr. Roosevelt sees it, the preservation and the restoration of democracy.

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Although there are many manifests of recovery, the number of the unemployed and the national relief bill impress the President with the certainty that much remains to be done if social dangers shall be averted and economic stability be attained. In averting social dangers and attaining economic stability, the President sees the assurance of continued democracy. That is what he is determined to assure, and he finds as natural attendant circumstances a better spread of income, steady work for the employable, a good standard of living, protection for the aged, opportunity for the young, and national action. The program to effect these benefits, which the President never thinks of save as human rights, is, to his mind, the program to keep American democracy working. At times the President is faced with this sort of problem in moving his program: For one reason or another, a measure of national action which to him is essential to safeguard democracy comes newly into council and therefore has not been included in any specific mandate. Do the people expect him, and does fair dealing require, that he seek a popular referendum before proceeding? If the President is convinced that the measure is effective, and that time is of its essence, he goes ahead. Since all such enterprises—this being a democracy—must first pass the Congressional test, the President sees in Congress itself a sufficient referendum in vital instances. It is true that Congress is made up of politicians, and, since 1932, that it has been dominated by members of the political group of which the President is party leader. But in conversation Mr. Roosevelt points out also that, being largely politicians, with district or State responsibility, members of Congress, if only for political self-preservation, submit his proposals to the test of public opinion, and to the further test of the democratic process. These tests, in conjunction with the full and free debate which is the privilege of the Senate, seem to the President to answer the charge that in any legislative request he ever tries "to put anything over" on the people. He points out, for example, that many of his proposals to the Congress during the past four years have been either rejected by the Congress or have been so amended as to change them greatly, i.e., social security, bonus, $4,800,000,000 Relief bill, &c. He has been moving, through the medium of civil service reform, to withdraw political patronage from the Federal equation, and this will be well out of the sphere of Presidential influence over Congress if and when the government reorganization plan is adopted. Therefore, in the view of Mr. Roosevelt, the response of Congress to his recommendations is more and more a clear reflection of its free opinion as to the degree to which he represents wide and accredited popular leadership. The President comes to the issue of the mandate with which he has been entrusted by the people with recent experience strongly in mind. He-found it necessary, after taking office in 1933, to divert the course plotted by the party platform on which he was elected because of a change in conditions between June, 1932, and March, 1933—a change which all economic research and statistics reflect. In the Congressional campaign of 1934 this diversion was made an issue by the Republicans, and in return Democratic candidates for Congress offered the President himself as the only issue. "Shall Franklin D. Roosevelt's course thus far be approved and he be given a Congressional majority to proceed with the New Deal?" was the question as the people went to the polls in 1934. Overwhelming documentation of this is available in the

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political writings and oratory in that campaign. The answer was overwhelmingly in the affirmative. In 1936 the President's diversion of course was again made an issue by the Republicans, who also pointed out that, if re-elected, he would probably have several new appointments to the Supreme Court. The age of many justices, if nothing else, was used to illustrate the certainty that, if re-elected, the opportunity to change the court majority would come to Mr. Roosevelt. Whether or not the voters troubled themselves much on that point the President does not know. But he does know that once again his course was given high majority approval, and 27,000,000 voters decided to put the country's fate in his hands for four more years. The Philadelphia convention had promised "a clarifying amendment" to the Constitution if problems arising in the Supreme Court could be disposed of in no other way. The President, in December, 1936, decided that the amendment process requires too much time for the country's needs and security. He feels that, by the general permissions of 1934 and 1936, he was given ample mandate to attempt what upon mature consideration, and even altered method, he thinks is best. Therefore, he does not for a moment believe that the majority which has supported him in full measure in three national elections shares the feeling that he has exceeded his permission. Nor does he consider that the American majority expected him to have been able, in what he views as a shifting and perilous time, to chart in detail and in advance the measures he might finally employ to achieve the end stated and, as he is certain, desired by the people. Furthermore, the President by no means discards into finality "a clarifying amendment" as mentioned in the Democratic platform. Such an amendment, he argues, would be necessary if the problems cannot be disposed of otherwise. He takes the view that the great majority of both houses of the Congress, including many Republican members, believed in passing the New Deal bills of the past four years and that these bills were constitutional. He holds, as he stated in this year's annual message to the Congress, that the Constitution definitely permits the Congress to legislate in regard to the production of crops and the production of manufactured articles which enter generically as products into commerce between the States. It is his contention that the Constitution does not forbid regulation of railroads or communications or trade practices and that, if the same rules were applied in the case of commodities of all sorts, unwieldy crop surpluses, starvation wages and unfair trade practices could be eliminated with the objective not only of improving social conditions but also of averting future panics. If newer and younger blood in the Federal courts does not result in decisions which accord with the views of the majority of the members of the legislative branch and the views of the President, he is then wholly willing to admit that a clarifying amendment to the Constitution will be necessary. In a time of public controversy, "so much," the President has said, "depends on what newspaper you read." Which is another way of saying that one's mental approach to an argument often forecloses the effect of that argument on one's conclusion—an indisputable fact. The President takes as an example of mental approach and inflection the wide use made on Feb.

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22 of extracts from Washington's Farewell Address against his Supreme Court program. Suppose, he says, the reader begins his perusal with remembrance that Washington wrote the words in 1796 before the Supreme Court had attempted to override an act of Congress without the specific warrant of the Constitution. It is, then, in his opinion, wholly logical to read the warning words of the Father of His Country against usurpation as a criticism of the course the Supreme Court has followed in many decisions since it assumed the power of invalidating. Why, he asks, does not this passage more forcibly apply to the majority reasoning in the AAA or Guffey Act cases (denounced by minority members of the court itself) than to any act of the Executive since 1796: "It is important, likewise, that the habit of thinking in a free country should inspire caution, in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another," etc. From the time he entered public life, the President has maintained as his goal the preservation of the American form of democracy. He thinks it still needs preserving, not from his forms or persuasions, but from those who have prospered most under it and returned least. He believes that his program stopped the descent of the capitalist system, threatened by enemies within and without. He wants to raise and firmly buttress it against the attacks of these enemies by the time he leaves office "on Jan. 20, 1941." The President's highest hope, according to his open meditations, is to leave democracy stronger than he found it and set an insurmountable barrier against the encroachments of other systems. In the long view of history he wants this to be his political epitaph. Mr. Roosevelt is sterile of self-pity, and therefore he never muses over assaults made on his predecessors which turned to praise when the record was engraved. He has noted them, as he notes contemporary attacks. But firm in his faith that democrats must often forge new tools to shore up democracy, he believes that judgment should be based, not on the tools, but on the solidity of the edifice when the work is done.

10.2 Roosevelt's Main Problems and Their Important Traits [Source: Arthur Krock: President must decide on six vital matters, in: The New York Times, Vol. LXXXVI/No. 28,918, March 28, 1937, section 4, p. E 3, cols. 1-2.]

Of six great national problems, and one international perplexity, which faced the President when he returned this week from his holiday at Warm Springs, none

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Reports about the United States in 1937

was any more acute than when he departed, and one or two had eased off in temperature. But in the sense that he is necessarily two weeks nearer to the inevitable decisions he must make on all the domestic problems, the President found burdens as great as he or any other government chief has ever faced in time of peace. The movement toward inflation—troubles between industry and labor—the legislative struggle over his Supreme Court plan—the budget and relief—the social and economic crisis approaching in agriculture—the "must" agenda for this session of Congress—the armament race: these tremendous questions lay on his desk for immediate attention. The problems at the moment wear these faces: INFLATION. In finance and in industry, despite the checks that have come from labor troubles, the trend is swift toward the high points of 1929; and the same precipice over which 1929 plunged into the chasm of 1930-33 has been marked out with danger signals by some of the soundest forecasters in the country. Prices are rising beyond increased wages and the Federal Government lacks that control over either which the President has said it requires. The language of various Supreme Court opinions strongly indicates that even modified wages and hours controls will not be wanted by the present court person and legislatively the President seems many weeks from obtaining authority to change the majority. So far as interstate price controls are concerned, many lawyers believe the court will validate the formula in the new Guffey bill, opening the way to extensions. But the government is far from assured that inflation will be checked before it reaches the danger point. The suggestion of chairman Eccles of the Federal Reserve Board that the budget be balanced by increased taxes has proved unacceptable both to Congress and the Executive. And thus far there has been no indication that another suggestion which has met with favor at the Federal Reserve Board will be adopted: a White House conference among governmental, business labor and public representatives to chart voluntary and compulsory measures to avert a repetition of 1929. THE BUDGET A N D RELIEF. If there are to be no new taxes, then to increase yields the present ones must be revised—as in the instance of the corporate surplus tax, which has proved a disappointment. This is particularly necessary, since March collections at the Treasury have revealed that income tax returns were overestimated in the budget and may fall 200 millions below the official guesses for the year. To balance the budget it will also be imperative to hold down, and even cut down, the cost of relief. But every move to do this meets with instant opposition both within and without the government. The decision on all these points rest with the President. INDUSTRY A N D LABOR. These troubles, while centered in Michigan's mass industries, show signs of being epidemic in character. The immediate form they have taken is the sit-down strike. Governor Murphy of Michigan has succeeded in getting tentative agreements for negotiation which have brought orders from labor leaders for the evacuation of automobile plants held in defiance of the law and the mandates of courts. But the situation is in flux, and the President's leaders in Congress have begun to reveal deep concern over the consequences of unpunished seizure of property to be held as a club over negotiation. Pressure has been increasing that the President give some public notice of disap-

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