News Meshes

This malted irony suddenly appeared in Der Tag, potent Berlin newspaper owned by Herr Alfred Hugenberg, the late Hugo Stinnes' publicist: "The envious glance of the Yankee turns to rich and flourishing Germany. . . . These [German] barbarians do not even chew gum, but smoke tobacco prodigally and vulgarly. They drink real beer, eat mountains of cake with whipped cream instead of American ice cream and they consume butter, milk, eggs, poultry, and even fruit. Finally, they still drink coffee."

The Berlin Lokal-Anzeiger, another Hugenberg journal, took up the cry; and 1,600 provincial papers imitated. His Telegraphic Union serves them with distorted (Nationalist Party and People's Party) news and features. Smart Germans felt that Herr Hugenberg was laying some strategic news mesh.

Then came tirades against U. S. cinema productions. Charlie Chaplin's Shoulder Arms was propaganda, his papers snarled. U. S. investors in Famous Players-Lasky and in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer did not like this. Their companies had joined a year ago to lend Ufa, Germany's largest cinema producer and controller of 130 theatres in the Reich, $4,000,000. The money was safe, being protected by a mortgage on the great Ufa theatre in Potsdamer Platz, Berlin. But such articles were not polite; they were invidious.

Last week Herr Hugenberg bought control of Ufa (producer of Metropolis now showing in the U. S.) from the Deutsche Bank. Germans who consider themselves subtle saw the deal as the final purpose of his news stories.

Smarter Germans realized that Ufa is practically bankrupt and may possibly go into receivership unless subvened by the Reich Government. Herr Hugenberg is very close to the men back of the present Government--the industrialists. Where the Deutsche Bank can not blatantly demand a subsidy, he can slyly suggest one. And he can repay Reichstag favors by his control of news channels--through his own newspapers, his news agency and, now, his films.