The Women of Germany - Page 2

brains into immediate rebellion, but he is the head of those German Radical Democrats which have united in an organization called "Friends of German Democracy."

Their avowed object, through the medium of a bi-weekly journal, Die Freie Zeitung, and other propaganda, is to plant sound democratic ideas and ideals in the minds of German prisoners in the Entente countries, and to recruit the saner exiles everywhere. These publications reach men and women of German blood whose grandfathers fled from military tyranny after their abortive revolution in 1848, and, with their descendants, have enjoyed freedom and independence in the United States ever since. The best of them are expected to exert pressure upon their friends and relatives in Germany. There are already branches of this epochal organization in the larger American cities.

Herr Koettgen (who has written a book called The Hausfrau and Democracy, by the way) walked into the office of the Chronicle some time in November and presented a letter to the editor, Mr. Fletcher. In the course of the heated conversation that ensued, Herr Koettgen exclaimed with bitter scorn: "Oh, so you think yourself as fiercely anti-German as a man may be? Well, let me tell you that you are not capable of one-tenth the passionate hatred I feel for a dynasty and a caste that has made me so ashamed of being a German that I could eat the dust."

In Herr Koettgen's article occur the following paragraphs: "At the first glance German women hardly appear likely material for the coming Revolution which will turn Germany into a modern country. But many incidents point to the fact that German women are growing with their increasing task. They are beginning to replace their men not only economically but politically. Most of the public demonstrations in Germany during this war have been led and arranged by women. The very first demonstration in 1915 consisted of women. As Mr. Gerard tells us in his book, they had no very definite idea of what they wanted; only they wanted their men back. But since that time their political education has made rapid progress.... With their men in the field and their former leaders (Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, Louise Zietz) in prison, German women are learning to act for themselves. Their demonstrations point to it, as do also letters written by German women to their men who are now prisoners of war in France and England. In one of these letters which escaped the watchful eye of the censor, a German hausfrau described how she made the officials of Muenster sit up by her energetic and persistent demands."

A girl upon one occasion said to Herr Koettgen: "Only women and children were employed in our factory. We had more than one strike. Two women would go round to every woman and girl in the shop and tell them: 'We have asked for twenty or thirty pfennings more. To-morrow we are going on strike. She who does not come out will