A couple of nights later I went into this same place and took my seat, but it was obvious that my visit was unwelcome. I was looked at suspiciously. I did not think very much of the incident, but ten days later in passing I called again, when a lusty young fellow of eighteen, to whom I had spoken on my first visit, came forward and said to me, almost threateningly, "You are a stranger here. May I ask what you are doing?"
I said: "I am an American newspaper correspondent, and am trying to find out what I can about the ways of German working folk."
He could tell by my accent that I was a foreigner, and said: "We thought that you had told the Government about that little free speaking we had here a few days ago. You know that the little old man who was complaining about the restaurants being turned into hospitals has been arrested?"
This form of arrest, by which hundreds of people are mysteriously disappearing, is one of the burning grievances of Germany to-day. In its application it resembles what we used to read about Russian police. It has created a condition beneath the surface in Germany resembling the terrorism of the French Revolution. In the absence of a Habeas Corpus Act, the victim lies in gaol indefinitely, while the police are, nominally, collecting the evidence against him. One cannot move about very long without coming across instances of this growing form of tyranny, but I will merely give one other.
A German family, resident in Sweden, were in correspondence with a woman resident in Prussia. In one of her letters she incautiously remarked, "What a pity that the two Emperors cannot be taught what war really means to the German peoples." She had lost two sons, and her expression of bitterness was just a feminine outburst, which in any other country, would have been passed by. She was placed under preventive arrest and is still in gaol.
The police are armed with the censorship of the internal postal correspondence, telegrams and telephones. One of the complaints of the Social Democrat members of the Reichstag is that every movement is spied upon, and their communications tampered with by what they call the "Black Chamber."
There is no reason to suppose that the debates in the closing session of the Reichstag in 1916 on police tyranny, the Press censorship, the suppression of public opinion, will lead to any result other than the familiar expressions of mild indignation—such as that which came from the National Liberal and Pan-German leader, Dr. Paasche—and perhaps a little innocent legislation. But the reports of the detailed charges against the Government constitute, even as passed by the German censorship for publication, a remarkable revelation. It should be remembered in reading the following quotations that the whole subject has been discussed in the secrecy of the Reichstag Committee, and that what is now disclosed is in the main only what the Government has been unable to hush up or hide.
In his famous speech on "preventive arrest" the Social Democratic
Deputy, Herr Dittmann said:—
"Last May I remarked that the system of preventive arrest was producing a real reign of terror, and since then things have got steadily worse. The law as it was before 1848 and the Socialist Law, of scandalous memory, are celebrating their resurrection. The system of denunciation and of agents-provocateurs is in full bloom, and it is all being done under the mask of patriotism and the saving of the country. Anybody who for personal or other reasons is regarded by the professional agents-provocateurs as unsatisfactory or inconvenient is put under suspicion of espionage, or treason, or other crime. And such vague denunciations are then sufficient to deprive the victim of his freedom, without any possibility of defence being given him. In many cases such arrest has been maintained by the year without any lawful foundation for it. Treachery and low cunning are now enjoying real orgies. A criminal is duly convicted and knows his fate. The man under preventive arrest is overburdened by the uncertainty of despair, and is simply buried alive. The members of the Government do not seem to have a spark of understanding for this situation, the mental and material effects of which are equally terrible.
"Dr. Helfferich said in the Budget Committee in the case of Dr. Franz Mehring that it is better that he should be under detention than that he should be at large and do something for which he would have to be punished. According to this reasoning the best thing would be to lock up everybody and keep them from breaking the law. The ideal of Dr. Helfferich seems to be the German National Prison of which Heine spoke. The case of Mehring is classical proof of the fact that we are no longer far removed from the Helfferich ideal."