Ill

GERMANY

According to Captain Humann, confidential representative of Herr Hugo Stinnes, that great swarthy, inscrutable industrial giant was ill in bed with inflammation of the bladder.

Hugo Stinnes is undoubtedly the most powerful man in Germany, if not in the continent of Europe. His wealth is said to be far greater than that of Henry Ford. He is the greatest coke-king in Europe, he is one of the chief oil magnates of that continent, he is a steel tsar, a hotel emperor, a shipping lord, a publisher, and a hundred other things.

All these interests combined to make Herr Hugo, ordinary member of the Reichstag, a most extraordinary and sinister figure in politics. It has been sad that German Governments heed his command or fail; that, when angry, the thunder of his voice and the lightning of his eyes spread terror into the European industrial world.

Certainly he is one of the world's foremost international figures, but his power is problematical; it is too great to compute.

An opposite view of Stinnes was recently taken by the ultra-reactionary organ, the Deutsche Tageblatt. It cynically refers to him as a "cringing subordinate to international Judaism" and, in biblical style, refers to how he, "breaking into a cold sweat, with the world dancing around him," saw an apparition which commanded him to stop advertising Henry Ford's book, The International Jew, in his paper (Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung).

Referring to International Judaism as "higher than Stinnes" the paper continued: "When his name was mentioned, thousands went over to him and bowed their heads to the almighty. All was his if he beckoned.

"Others cursed him, gnashing their teeth and clenching their fists, because he was living on their blood and the lamentations of their need.

"Yet he also serves some one more powerful than he and is obedient to his bidding who remains in the background. He, the omnipotent one, shrinks when the more powerful one meets him."