Life — August 8, 1918 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

down into their true proportions, em- phasizing grounds of agreement and minimizing causes of separation. CONGRATULATIONS to fellow- citizen George Sylvester Viereck for having made such a good thing out of the Kaiser. The papers report that George took in and salted safely down upwards of a hundred thousand dollars of the K.’s American slush fund. Splendid, George! Splendid! When Viereck used to say that American indignation over one occur- rence or another “makes me ashamed of my country,” and you realized that he meant the United States, of which he had hastened to become a natural- ized citizen, of course it was apt to make you mad, but this news that all the time George was absorbing the good German money makes quite a bit for mitigation of his offenses. All the same, it puzzles the mind to think where George Viereck and Wil- 197 liam Bayard Hale are going to live after the war. Will William Hearst still be in a position then to provide them with situations? D Doctor Hindenburg has come alive again in the papers, and is ably good the credited once more with p health. Interest increases about workings of his mind, and it is to be hoped that he is writing his confessions. If enough Germans write their con- fessions may not be necessary to have any revolution in that countr: because the more detrimental people will beat it informally. The Lichnow- sky revelations were very unsettling If an epidemic of confessions ever sets in, in the present under-nourished con- dition of the people it may have won- derful consequences. And of course the rman Junkers have that peculi- arity of mind that they might not know they were confessing at all, but might suppose they were merely writ- ing history. The suggestion of Captain Von Beer- felde, made in a petition to the Reichs- tag, that the German leaders of 1914 must be “ ruthlessly prosecuted,” makes very interesting reading, The Captain, who got into trouble by circulating the Lichnowsky memoirs, declares that the leaders who got Germany into the war were “guilty of the most criminal forgery and the most abominable swindle.” He says they are traitors and swindlers, and demands the arrest of von Bethmann-Hollweg. When talk of that sort can get a public hearing in Germany things must be moving along, though it is not by talk but by indubitable works that the potency and sincerity of any new Ger- man emotion must be judged. The rumor that Turkey has severed relations with Germany is interesting if true, though it may well be doubted whether Turkey has the power to quit her over-lord. And even if she can, she still has a horrible bill to settle with humanity. It is getting hard to wait for things to happen; they promise to be so in- teresting. comichooks.c