Kicked While Down

Adolf Hitler, judging accurately that the League of Nations would go down before Benito Mussolini last week, administered with Nazi shrewdness a swift kick of his own to the prostrate Geneva body.

The square-toed German boot drew back for the kick fortnight ago when Dictator Hitler sent his light cruiser Leipzig steaming into the harbor of the Free City of Danzig. Going ashore, the Leipzig's captain committed a flagrant diplomatic breach by paying courtesy calls upon all Danzig officials except the highest, His Excellency Sean Lester, League of Nations High Commissioner for Danzig. To point up this insult young Albert Forster, supple-muscled leader of the Danzig Nazi Party, declared next day in his Nazi news-organ that the adjective which best describes both the League of Nations and its High Commissioner is "superfluous!"

Boiling mad but keeping his feelings strictly to himself. High Commissioner Sean Lester, a British subject from Dublin, sped directly to Geneva last week. Also to Geneva went the young President of the Senate of Danzig, a heel-clicking Nazi, Arthur Karl Greiser. He stopped at Berlin, as usual, for instructions. Last January his orders were to go to Geneva and behave as 'umbly as Uriah Heep. Last week they were to lie low in Geneva until he was sure the League of Nations was down, then kick with all his might "in the name of all the German people."

Exactly one hour after the League Assembly had voted to lift Sanctions from Italy and refuse succor to Ethiopia, Herr Greiser marched into a session of the League Council and with calculated insolence of manner addressed in German the luckless Council President, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden whose handsome young face was soon beet-red. In unprintably coarse language Herr Greiser attacked Mr. Lester to his face on personal grounds and demanded a free hand in Danzig for Nazis to administer their brand of "law and order."

When the Council reacted with rare League courage, upheld Mr. Lester and rebuffed Herr Greiser, he beetled his brows, thrust out his Nazi chin and roared: "Not only in the name of the people of Danzig, but in the name of all the German people I formulate this proposal: The German people expect from the League of Nations in coming months actions that will permit me, as President of the Senate of the Free City of Danzig, to appear no more at Geneva!"

Next Herr Greiser, with the jerky motions of a Prussian drill sergeant, advanced upon "Tony" Eden, seized his hand, shook it vigorously, gave the Nazi salute with upraised arm individually to "Tony" and two other members of the Council, whirled on his heel and began to stalk out. Hearing snickers from the 80 journalists present, Nazi Greiser thumbed his nose at the press box. This evoked a mighty uproar which puzzled the Council because its members could not see the German's gesture but only his broad back. Up jumped the Manchester Guardian's Robert Dell, President of the International Association of Journalists Accredited to the League of Nations to answer puzzled Mr. Eden's unspoken query thus:

"That gentleman, in going out, made this insulting gesture to the Press and public." To illustrate Mr. Dell thumbed his own nose necessarily at Mr. Eden. The aplomb "Tony" Eden learned at Eton stood the British Foreign Secretary in good stead. "I did not see what the gentleman did," he said, "but whatever he may have done it is better for our own dignity to ignore it and resume our seats." Feelingly, High Commissioner Sean Lester then told the Council they had just seen for themselves what he is up against every day in Danzig. Wires were already buzzing with rumors from Danzig that troops of Adolf Hitler were mobilizing to seize the Free City. When these rumors were not confirmed, the League Council gloomily adjourned, ready to reconvene at once should German troops actually enter Danzig.

If they should it would probably be too late for the League to stop Hitler from winning his first victory outside Germany. Meanwhile burly Herr Greiser, after doing his best to provoke a fist fight in the League lobbies and finding no one to oblige him, stormed off ominously declaring that "Danzig is dynamite!" Next morning Berlin newsorgans stormed that Nazi Greiser had been "insulted at Geneva" and threatened with bodily assault .because "Jews were conspicuous" in the press box at which he thumbed his nose. Because of this, the prospects of Germany returning to the League were viewed as "not very attractive.''

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