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Show I1 Kjn f Not in a Score of Years Have I Common People Been So Aroused Over Election. NO ONE CAN TELL WHAT THE OUTCOME WILL BE fn Some Rural Villages Socialists Social-ists Have .Been Driven Out With Pitchforks, BERLIN, Jan. 22. It is apparent that political interest is growing deeper deep-er as the campaign for the election of n .new Hoichstag progresses. From almost al-most all parts of the country como reports re-ports indicating that the common peo-plo peo-plo arc politically alert as never bet ore. Dr. Theodore Barth, who has been a candidate in every lieichstag election for twenty-six years, and who is now campaigning among the Pomeranian peasantry, says he remembers no provi-. provi-. cms election where popular interest was expressed by such large attendance at campaign meetings. The peasants this your, he says, trnvel miles nt night in the worse weather to got into tho villages and anend the mass meetings. Whether this popular movement indi- j I of tho government or not is wholly uncertain. The numerous candidates agree that the colonial question is playing only u slight role in the campaign. However, tho government's courageous dissolution dissolu-tion of the Reichstag as a counter stroke against the Clerical party constitutes con-stitutes a strong drawing card with the non-Catholic and even with Catholic voters. This feature is- causing not a few political drones, who up to the present time have not taken the trouble trou-ble to vote, to participate actively in tho present agitation. Fighting the Socialists. Despite tho fact that the Clericals and the Socialists voted together against the government when the Reichstag Reich-stag was dissolved, that accidental fellowship fel-lowship is without influeuco on party relations in the campaign. No alliance exists between them and the managers of tho Clerical party have given out the watchword: "Under no circumstances voto the Socialist ticket." In somn rural Catholic districts, where the Socialists are practically unknown. un-known. Socialist election agents who were distributing literature have been driven off with stones and pitchforks. The declaration made by Chancellor Von Btielow that it was the government's govern-ment's wish to secure a' majority composed com-posed of Conservatives, Liberals and "Radicals has received scant respect at the hands of the more decided Radicals, Radi-cals, who for a long time have opposed the government's policy- of taxing meat and bread in favor of the agrarian interests in-terests and who now assert roundly thnt Prince Von Huelow's plan1 is impracticable imprac-ticable and visionary. As tho campaign ncars its conclusion tho moat striking feature is the complete com-plete uncertainty as to tho result. With the exception of the Socialists nobody ventures to predict that tho position of li is party has improved. |
