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Show Miscellany Germany's Toilers in Mood for Revolt. "Wage earning Germany's nerves have been worn raw by the increasing weight of suffering that the war has brought It. Til is class of Hermans lias become sullen, sul-len, dissatlr-fied with the government, al-must al-must rebellious. While the middle class remains intensely patriotic, parading' before be-fore the casual observer a unified and determined de-termined Germany, fatigue of war is mnk-inz mnk-inz alarming strides among the working work-ing people. A great many of these humble hum-ble people want peace at any price at the price of their colonies, of Alsace-Lorraine, Alsace-Lorraine, even of their country's prestige pres-tige and position." this, is the opinion of A. Curtis Roth, American vice consul at Plauen in Saxony, Sax-ony, who has lived in close touch with the people since the beginning of the wa r, says the New York Times. Having Hav-ing spent seven yearns in the teeming, industrial in-dustrial Saxon district, intimately ar- I quainter! anion? all classes and accepted everywhere as a friend, Mr. Roth has an unusually strong claim to an accurate knowledge of conditions there. He was. j moreover, a friendly observer, full of ad- miration and sympathy for those among , whom he lived. 'The working people, at least in Saxony, Sax-ony, are becoming restive. They have I hungered and grieved and overworked for j many months, with conditions sreadtly growing worse and with each promise j of peace fading, into an indefinite prospect of endurance. All foods but the very j coarsest are beyond their means. The ration of these coarse foods is insufficient. insuffi-cient. The poor have been subsisting throughout the last year upon bread, potatoes, po-tatoes, turnips and salt. Foresees a Peasants' War. "Pushed much further by the galling stress of starvation, overwork and loss ! of dear ones, a second peasants' war may , well be added to the miseries of central j Europe. "The standard of living among the . working people has been lowered fearfully, j It is now on a par with the coolie standard stan-dard of overcrowded Asia. Their work has increased, their share in clothes and , foods and other creature comforts has , diminished, and their amusements have entirely fallen away. The urban poor ; have become desperately poor, and they are beginning to realize that each added , month of the war means that their t plight must become more and more hope- less. "In the beginning all was wild enthusi- J asm for the war. The people crowded 1 around the railway stations to see the troop trains hurtling past every twenty-five : minutes. Then came the floods of wounded, wound-ed, the difficult readjustments made necessary nec-essary by the absence of the wage-earners, and, then, the numbing pinch of hunger. Worst of all was the atmosphere that settled down upon the land, an at-, at-, mosphere of want, of fear, of suffering, I of black depression, which seemed to seep through one and chill the consciousness. "An eternal New England Sunday gripped the formerly bustling manufacturing manufac-turing towns In my district. The streets were bare of traffic. People passed about their errands silently. There was no laughing, whistling, loud talking, or jovial greeting. The business streets were dotted dot-ted everywhere by stores closed up by war. Grass grew between the cobbles. In the roadway. Now and again oxen dragging drag-ging primitive carts of farm products lumbered lum-bered through the streets. Restaurants and cafes were deserted. It cost money to frequent them, and, moreover, they had nothing to sell. Strangely Seditious Talk. "It is hard to describe life under these conditions. The best I can do is to say that is was suffocating. When not going to and fro about their work, the less well to do bid their unhappiness in their rooms, As it was, one was forever meeting meet-ing on the street hollow-cheeked, emaciated, emaci-ated, dry-eyed sufferers. I felt as though I had escaped from a dank prison when I got back to tliis country and saw happy, well-fed people again. "The strain is beginning to" tell. I have heard the emperor soundly berated by his famished subjects in the shops that the poor frequent. I have often during the last months of my stay listened to strangely seditious talk among the work- lence after the check at Verdun. The working women have threatened a number num-ber of times to get out of hand and rough things. In Saxony, at least, war is successfully throttling, one by one, Sill the people's impulses for living. "The Saxon casualty list has been very heavy. The Plauen regiment has been wiped out six times. All the young, dashing, dash-ing, professional officers, who led the first onslaught, have been wiped out. The troops are now officered by men of all classes, who have made good in the field, and in some cases that I know of the derivation of the officer testifies to the startling demoralizing effects of the war. The call for more men is always insistent. The high school boys go out once a week for drill. Boy scouts drill from twelve to sixteen. The land has been denuded of Its physically fit men. "Saxony has borne an over-large share of the war suffering. It Is primarily a manufacturing country, and, so, lias suffered suf-fered most keenly from the effects of food shortage. At one time last year the Saxons Sax-ons were eating a bread eked out with chopped straw. Then. Saxony did an enormous export business. The war swept this business away and closed hundreds of factories. I knew many men in my district, who, wealthy In 9M, their ail wiped out by war, saw themselves paupers in 1915. I believe that it will take many years of peace to repair the frightful losses ana bring back the old prosperity. "The rich textile industries of Saxony have suffered staggering disaster. The ; woolen and cotton goods mills, once ship-j ship-j pers to every part of the world, are just ' barely employed, going backward in or- ganlzatiou, enterprise, capital, and, hence, in ability for the old stiff competition. War conditions are threatening the destruction de-struction of the great leather glove Industries. In-dustries. The famous machine-made lace and embroidery industry of Plauen, whose products before the war graced the dresses of milady in every land, likewise like-wise is decaying under the war stagnation. stagna-tion. And the highly trained operatives In these and other industries are being killed off as fast as 'cannon, machine gun. rifle, gas and bomb can accomplish their work upon the battle fronts. "A revolution, an economic revolution, has already been worked in Saxony, a revolution of destruction whose effects will outlive this generation. The Saxon poor realize this better than their more fortunate countrymen, and they are bitterly, bit-terly, very bitterly, war-weary." |
