Much nonsense has been disseminated on the success of the Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians in inventing substitutes for the things that were hard to get during the war. A goodly share of that nonsense came from the Germans and their allies themselves. But more of it was given to the four winds of heaven by admiring friends, who were as enthusiastic in such matters as they were ignorant of actual achievements.
That much was done in that field is true enough. But a great deal of scientific effort resulted in no more than what, for instance, synthetic rubber has been.
The first thing the German scientists did at the outbreak of the war was to perfect the system of a Norwegian chemist who had succeeded two years before in condensing the nitrogen of the air into the highly tangible form of crystals.
Many are under the impression that the process was something entirely new and distinctly a German invention. I have shown that this is not so. Even the Norwegian cannot claimcredit for the invention as in itself new. His merit is that he made the process commercially possible.
The thing was a huge success. The British blockade had made the importation of niter from overseas impossible. There is no telling what would have happened except for the fact that the practically inexhaustible store of nitrogen in the air could be drawn upon. It kept the Central Powers group of belligerents in powder, so long as there was vegetable fiber and coal-tar enough to be nitrated. Incidentally, some of the by-products of the nitrogen process served in good stead as fertilizer. The quantity won was not great, however.
I am not dealing with war as such, and for that reason I will pass by the many minor inventions of a purely military character that were made, nor would it be possible to do more than a cataloguing job if I were to attempt to refer here to all the innovations and substitutions that were undertaken as time went on.
Science multiplied by three the store of textiles held in the Central states at the outbreak of the war. This was done in many ways and by various means. Take cotton, for instance.
That almost anything could be converted into explosives by nitration has been known ever since Noble made nitroglycerine a commercial product. Any fat or fiber, even sugar, may be nitrated. That generally we use glycerine and cotton for the purpose is due to the fact that these materials are best suited for the process.
Butthe fats that go into glycerine, and the cotton that becomes trinitrocellulose, could be put to better use by the Central states. In a general way coal-tar took the place of the former, and wood pulp that of cotton. That meant a tremendous saving in food and clothing.
I remember well the shiver that went through Germany when Great Britain declared cotton to be contraband. The Entente press was jubilant for weeks. But any chemist familiar with the manufacture of explosives could have told Sir Kendall that he was too optimistic. It was known even then that birch pulp and willow pulp made most excellent substitutes for cotton, if the process, or "operation," as the thing is known technically, is suitably modified. Coal-tar explosives were alreadyun fait accompli.
Having attended to that little affair, the German scientists turned their attention to the winning of new textiles. There was the nettle in the hedges. Anciently, it had been to Europe what cotton was to the Mexico of the Aztecs. Times being hard, the nettle, now looked upon as a noxious weed fit only for goose fodder, was brought into its place. Very soon it was in the market as a textile, which often aspired to as imposing a name as "natural silk," a name the plant and its fiber well deserve.
The chemist had very little to do with that. The process was known and, being in the main similar to the production of flax fiber, presented no difficulties. The plant is cut, packed tightly under water so that the vegetable pulp maydecay, and is then dried in the sun and prepared for spinning.
Though the Central states were now importing annually from Turkey in Asia some eighteen thousand bales of cotton, considerable silk and wool, and were getting wool also in the Balkan countries, there continued to be felt a shortage in textiles and their raw materials. The situation was never serious. The fiber of worn materials was being used again, and so long as enough new material was added the shoddy produced gave ample satisfaction.
The paucity of textiles, however, gave rise to the paper-cloth industry. It was realized that for many purposes for which textiles were being used the paper cloth was well suited. That applied especially to all the uses manila and jute had been given in the past.
Even here it was not a question of inventing something. Paper twine had been in use in Central Europe for many years; it had, in fact, been laid under ban by the Austrian government—I don't know for what reason.
From paper twine to paper cloth was quite a step, however. Anybody can twist a piece of tissue-paper into a rope, but to make a reasonably strong thread or yarn of it is another matter.
The pulp for paper cloth must be tough and not pack too tightly while the stuff is being made. In this first form the product much resembles an unbleached tissue-paper. Since the paper has to be in rolls, its manufacture wasundertaken by the mills which in the past had turned out "news print."
The rolls are then set into a machine, the principal feature of which is an arrangement of sharp rotary blades that will cut the sheet into strips or ribbons a quarter-inch wide—or wider, if that be desired. The ribbons are gathered on spools that revolve not only about their axes, but also about themselves, at a speed that will give the paper ribbon the necessary twist or spinning. Raw paper yarn has now been produced.
For many purposes the yarn can be used in the condition it is now in. For others it must be chemically treated. The process is not dissimilar to "parchmenting" paper. During the treatment the yarn hardens quite a little. When intended to make bagging and other textiles of that sort, this will not matter. The yarn must be softened again if intended for the paper cloth that is to take the place of serge, possibly. This is done mechanically, by means of beating.
The yarn does not have the necessary strength to form a fabric when not reinforced by a tougher fiber. As a rule, it becomes the warp of the cloth, flax, cotton, and even silk being employed as the weft. When intended for military overcoats a wool yarn is used. In this case the cloth is given a water-proofing treatment. A warm garment that is thoroughly water-proof without being airtight results.
Paper cloth does not have the tensile qualities of good shoddy even, and for that reasonit is mostly used for purposes to which severe usage is not incident. For instance, it will make splendid sweater coats for ladies and children. It will also take the place of felt for hats.
The endeavor to find a substitute for sole leather was not so successful, even when finally it was decided that leather soles could be made only of animal tissue. There was leather enough for uppers always, and I am inclined to think that the supply of hides was large enough also to fill all reasonable demands for soles. The trouble lay in the nature of the hides, not in their scarcity. Horned cattle in Central Europe are stabled almost throughout the year and in this manner protected against the inclemency of the weather. A tender hide has been the result of this—a hide so tender that, while it will make the finest uppers, is next to useless as a sole.
A very interesting solution was found in the use of wooden soles. A thousand capable brains had been occupied with the sole-leather substitutes, and finally they ruled that wood in its natural state was the next best thing. So far as the rural population was concerned, that was well enough. But wooden soles and city pavements are irreconcilable. How to make that wooden sole bend a little at the instep was the question.
A sole was tried whose two halves were held together under the instep by a sort of specially designed hinge. That seemed an improvement over the single piece of wood, but soon it was foundthat it had the dangerous tendency to break down arches, which the hinged sole left unsupported at the very point where the support should have been.
The experiments were continued. Inventors and cranks worked at them for nearly two years. The best they ever did was to displace the hinge for a flexible bit of steel plate. Common sense finally came to the rescue. The best shoe with a wooden sole was the one that gave the foot lots of room about the ankle, held the instep snug, and made up for the flexibility of the leather sole by a rounding-off of the wooden sole under the toes. A good and very serviceable wooden-sole shoe with leather uppers had been evolved. The scientists had nothing to do with it.
It was the department of food substitution that was really the most interesting. For decades food in tabloid form has interested the men in the chemical laboratories. Some of them have asserted that man could be fed chemically. Theoretically that may be done; in practice it is impossible. If the intestinal tracts could be lined with platinum men might be able to live on acids of almost any sort. Such is not the case at present, however.
The very wise pure-food laws of the Central states were thrown on the rubbish-heap by the governments when stretching the food-supply became necessary. They were first knocked into the proverbial cocked hat by the food sharks. What these men were doing was known to thegovernments, but these were not times to be particular. If it were possible to adulterate flour with ground clover there was no reason why this should not be done, even if the profit went into the pockets of the shark, so long as the same individual would later subscribe to the war loans. It was merely another way of mobilizing the pennies and their fractions.
But to much of this an end had to be put. Too much exploitation of the populace might cause internal trouble. It might also lead to ruining the health of the entire nation, and that was a dangerous course.
How to substitute flour was indeed a great and urgent problem. There were those enthusiasts who thought that it could be done chemically. Why leave to the slow and uncertain process of plant conversion that which chemistry could do quickly and surely? If certain elements passing through plant life made flour in the end, why not have them do that without the assistance of the crop season?
I read some very learned articles on that subject. But there was always anif. If this and that could be overcome, or if this and that could be done, the thing would be successful.
It never was, of course. Organic life rests on Mother Earth in layers, and the more developed this life is the farther it lies above the mere soil—the inorganic. The baby needing milk is above the cow, the cow needing vegetable food is above the plants, and even the plants do not depend on inorganic elements alone, ascan be learned by any farmer who tries to raise alfalfa on soil that does not contain the cultures the plant must have. These cultures again feed on organic life.
This was the rock on which the efforts of the chemical-food experts were wrecked. Soon they began to see that substitution would have to take the place of invention and innovation.
They used to sell in the cafés of Vienna, and other large cities, a cake made mostly of ground clover meal, to which was added the flour of horse-chestnuts, a little rice, some glucose, a little sugar and honey, and chopped prunes when raisins could not be had. The thing was very palatable, and nutritious, as an analysis would show. There were enough food units in it to make the vehicle, which here was clover meal, really worth while.
I mention this case to show what are the principal requirements of food for human consumption. There must be a vehicle if alimentation is to be normal. This vehicle is generally known as ashes. It is to the human alimentary system what bread is to butter and meat in the sandwich. Through it are distributed the actual food elements, and in their preparation for absorption it occupies the place of the sand and grit we find in the crop of the fowl. In the toothsome cake I have described, these factors had been duly honored, and for that reason the cake was a success even at the price it sold for—an ounce for three cents.
The first war-bread baked was a superior sortof rye bread, containing in proportions 55, 25, 20, rye flour, wheat flour, and potato meal or flakes, sugar, and fat. That was no great trick, of course. Any baker could have thought of that. But rye and wheat flour were not always plentiful, even when government decree insisted that they be milled to 85 per cent. flour, leaving 15 per cent, as bran—the very outer hull. Oats, Indian corn, barley, beans, peas, and buckwheat meal had to be added as time went on.
That was a more difficult undertaking and afforded the scientist the chance to do yeoman service. He was not found wanting.
Imports of coffee had become impossible in 1916. The scant stores on hand had been stretched and extenuated by the use of chicory and similar supplements. I used to wonder how it was possible to make so little go so far, despite the fact that thedemi-tassewas coffee mostly in color by this time.
A period of transition from coffee to coffee substitutes came.
The first substitute was not a bad one. It was made mostly of roasted barley and oats and its flavor had been well touched off by chemicals won from coal-tar. The brew had the advantage of containing a good percentage of nutritive elements. Taken with a little milk and sugar it had all the advantages of coffee, minus the effect of caffeine and plus the value of the food particles. It was palatable even when taken with sugar only. Without this complement it was impossible, however.
Butthe grain so used could be put to better purpose. This led to the introduction of the substitute of a substitute. The next sort of artificial coffee—Kaffee-ersatz—was made of roasted acorns and beechnuts, with just enough roasted barley to build up a coffee flavor. This product, too, was healthful. It may even be said that it was a little better than the first substitute. It certainly was more nourishing, but also more expensive.
There were not acorns and beechnuts enough, however. Much of the store had been fed to the porkers, and before long the excellent acorn-beechnut coffee disappeared.
A third substitute came in the market. Its principal ingredients were carrots and yellow turnips.
To find substitutes for tea was not difficult. The bloom of the linden-tree, mixed with beech buds, makes an excellent beverage, and those who dote on "oolong" can meet their taste somewhat by adding to this a few tips of pine. If too much of the pine bud is used a very efficacious emetic will result, however.
The mysteries of cocoa substitutions are a little above me. I can say, however, that roasted peas and oats have much to do with it. Some of the materials employed were supplied by coal-tar and synthetic chemistry.
It was really remarkable what this coal-tar would do for the Germans and their allies. It provided them with the base for their explosives, made their dyes, and from it were made at oneperiod of the war, by actual enumeration, four hundred and forty-six distinct and separate chemical products used in medicine, sanitation, and food substitution. If there be such a thing as an elixir of life, coal-tar may be expected to furnish it.
But the net gain in this casting about for substitutes was slight indeed. The grains, nuts, and vegetables that were used as substitutes for coffee would have had the same food value if consumed in some other form. The advantage was that their conversion served to placate the old eating habits of the public. To what extent these had to be placated was made plain on every meatless, fatless, or wheatless or some other "less" day or period.
There was the rice "lamb" chop, for instance. The rice was boiled and then formed into lumps resembling a chop. Into the lump a skewer of wood was stuck to serve as a bone, and to make the illusion more complete a little paper rosette was used to top off the "bone." All of it was verycomme il faut. Then the things were fried in real mutton tallow, and when they came on the table its looks and aroma, now reinforced by green peas and a sprig of watercress, would satisfy the most exacting. Nor could fault be found with the taste.
The vegetable beefsteak was another thing that gave great satisfaction, once you had become used to the color of the thing's interior, which was pale green—a signal in a real steak that it should not be eaten. The steak in question was a syntheticaffair, composed of cornmeal, spinach, potatoes, and ground nuts. An egg was used to bind the mass together, and some of the culinary lights of Berlin and Vienna succeeded in making it cohesive enough to require the knife in real earnest.
What I have outlined here so far may be called the private effort at substitution. But substitution also had a governmental application. Its purpose was to break the populace of its habit of eating highly concentrated foods, especially fats.
The slaughter of the porkers in 1914 had accidentally led the way to this policy. The shortage in fats caused by this economic error was soon to illustrate that the masses could get along very well on about a quarter of the fat they had consumed in the past. Soon it was plain, also, that the health of the public could be improved in this manner by the gradual building up of a stronger physique.
It would have been easy to again crowd the pigsties. The animal is very prolific, and a little encouragement of the pig-raisers would have had that result inside of a year had it been desired. But it was not done. It was difficult to get the necessary feed for these animals, and the small quantities that could be imported from Roumania were never a guarantee that the farmers would not feed their pigs with home-raised cereals and other foods that were of greater value to the state in the form of cereal and vegetable food for the population. The prices of fats and meats were well up. A hundred pounds of wheat convertedinto animal products would bring nearly three times what the farmer could get for the grain. Illicit trading in these articles, moreover, was easier carried on than in breadstuffs.
Since no animal fats, be they butter, lard, or suet, could be produced without sacrificing a goodly share of the country's cereal supply, it was necessary to keep the animal-product industry down to its lowest possible level. It was easier to distribute equitably the larger masses of cereals and vegetables than the concentrated foods into which animal industry would convert them. To permit that would also have led to more hardship for the lower classes at a time when money was cheap and prices correspondingly high.
The crux of the situation was to fill the public stomach as well as conditions permitted, and the consumption of fats could have no place in that scheme under the circumstances. It was decided, therefore, to have the human stomach do what heretofore had largely been attended to by the animal industries. An entire series of frictional waste could in that manner be eliminated, as indeed it was.
The same policy led to a reduction in the supply of eggs. To keep the human stomach occupied had become as much a necessity as furnishing nutriment to the body.
I doubt whether without this happy idea the Central states would have been able to carry on the war. The saving due to the policy was immense—so stupendous, in fact, that at the sametime it discounted the impossibility of importing foodstuffs and took ample care of the losses in food production due to the shortage of labor and fertilizers. It was the one and only thing that stood between the Central Powers and swift defeat.
It is needless to say that the effect upon certain classes of population was not so propitious. The lack of sufficient good milk caused an increase in infant mortality. The feeble of all ages were carried off quickly when concentrated foods could no longer be had to keep them alive, and persons of middle age and old age suffered so much that death was in many cases a welcome relief. While the healthy adult men and women did not suffer by this sort of rationing—grew stronger, in fact—those past the prime of life could not readjust themselves to the iron food discipline that was enforced. The alimentary system in that case had entered upon its downward curve of assimilation over elimination, and, constitutionally modified by the ease afforded by concentrated foods, it declined rapidly when these foods were withdrawn. Driven by necessity, the several states practised wholesale manslaughter of the less fit.
I was greatly interested in these "home" casualties, and discussed them with many, among them life-insurance men, educators, and government officials. The first class took a strictly business view of the thing. The life-insurance companies were heavy losers. But there was no way out. Nothing at all could bedone. It was hoped that the better physical trim of the young adults, and the resulting longevity, would reimburse the life-insurers. If the war did not last too long this would indeed happen. Premiums would have to be increased, however, if it became necessary for the government to apply further food restrictions.
Some of the educators took a sentimental view of the thing. Others were cynically rational. It all depended upon their viewpoint and age. Those who believed in the theories of one Osler could see nothing wrong in this method of killing off the unfit aged. Their opposites thought it shameful that better provisions were not made for them.
The attitude of the government was more interesting. It took cognizance of the individual and social aspects involved—of sentiment and reality. That manslaughter of the aged and unfit was the result of the food policy was not denied. But could the state be expected to invite dissolution because of that?
"I understand you perfectly," said a certain food-dictator to me once. "My own parents are in that position, or would be, were it not that they have the means to buy the more expensive foods. That thousands of the poor aged are going to a premature death is only too evident. But what are we to do? We cannot for their sake lay down our arms and permit our enemies to impose upon us whatever conditions they please. Quite apart from the interests of the state as a political unit, there is here to be consideredthe welfare of the fit individuals. Being fit, they have the greatest claim to the benefits that come from the social and economic institutions which political independence alone can give. That the less fit must make sacrifices for that is to be expected, for the very good reason that it is the fit class which is carrying on the war and shedding its blood for the maintenance of the state. By the time we have provided for the infants and babies there is nothing left for the aged over and above what the adult individual gets. Of the babies we must take care because they are the carriers of our future. Of the aged we should take care because they have given us our past. But when it comes to choose which class to preserve, I would say the young every time."
For live-stock-owning governments that is indeed the proper view to take; and since all governments belong to that class, more or less, it seems futile to find fault with this food-dictator. The man forced to decide whether he would give the last morsel to his old father or his young son might select to divide that morsel evenly between them. But if the old man was worth his salt at all he would insist that the boy be given all the food. A social aggregate that cannot act in accordance with this principle is shortening its own day.
October, 1916, marked the high water of the Central European public-subsistence problems. Misery had reached the limits of human endurance. For the next seven months the strain caused by it tore at the vitals of the Central states. The measures then conceived and applied would prove whether or no the collapse of Germany and her allies could be averted. So serious was the situation that the several governments felt compelled to send out peace-feelers, one or two of them being definite propositions of a general nature.
The crumbs and scraps had been saved for a long time even then. As far back as November, 1914, all garbage had been carefully sorted into rubbish and food remnants which might serve as animal feed. But that was no longer necessary now. Food remnants no longer went into the garbage-cans. Nor was it necessary to advise the public not to waste old clothing and other textiles. The ragman was paying too good a price for them. Much of the copper and brass complement of households had been turned overto the government, and most copper roofs were being replaced by tin. The church bells were being smelted. Old iron fetched a fancy price. In the currency iron was taking the place of nickel. Old paper was in keen demand. The sweepings of the street were being used as fertilizer. During the summer and fall the hedges had been searched for berries, and in the woodlands thousands of women and children had been busy gathering mushrooms and nuts. To meet the ever-growing scarcity of fuel the German government permitted the villagers to lop the dead wood in the state forests. To ease the needs of the small live-stock-owner he was allowed to cut grass on the fiscal woodlands and gather the dead leaves for stable bedding.
It was a season of saving scraps. The entire economic machinery seemed ready for the scrap-heap. Much of the saving that was being practised was leading to economic waste.
The city streets were no longer as clean as they used to be. During the summer much light-fuel had been saved by the introduction of "summer time." The clocks were set ahead an hour, so that people rose shortly after dawn, worked their customary ten hours in the shops and factories, and then still had enough daylight to work in their gardens. When dusk came they went to bed. Street traction had been limited also. The early closing of shops, cafés, and restaurants effected further savings in light, and, above all, eatables.
The countryside presented a dreary picture.Nobody had time to whitewash the buildings, and few cared about the appearance of their homes. What is the use? they said. They could wait until better times came. The dilapidated shutter kept fit company with the rain-streaked wall. The untidy yard harmonized with the neglected garden in a veritable diapason of indifference. The implements and tools of the farm were left where they had been used last. The remaining stock had an unkempt look about it.
I remember how during a trip in Steiermark I once compared the commonwealth with a lonely hen I saw scratching for food in a yard. The rusty plumage of the bird showed that nobody had fed it in months. There was no doubt, though, that somebody expected that hen to lay eggs.
It was now a question, however, of saving the scraps of the state—of the socio-economic fabric. The flood of regulation which had spilled over Central Europe had pulled so many threads out of the socio-economic life that, like a thin-worn shawl, it had no longer the qualities of keeping warm those under it. The threads had been used by those in the trenches, and the civilian population had been unable to replace them.
It would be quite impossible to give within the confines of a single volume a list of these regulations, together with a discussion of their many purposes, tendencies, and effects. I would have to start with the economic embryo of all social economy—the exchange of food between thetiller of the soil and the fisherman—to make a good job of that.
A little intensive reasoning will show what the processes applied in Central Europe had been up to the fall of 1916. Regulated was then almost everything man needs in order to live: bread, fats, meat, butter, milk, eggs, peas, beans, potatoes, sugar, beer, fuel, clothing, shoes, and coal-oil. These were the articles directly under control. Under the indirect influence of regulation, however, lay everything, water and air alone excepted.
Now, the purpose of this regulation had been to save and to provide the government with the funds needed for the war. That was well enough so long as there was something to save. But the time was come in which the governmental effort at saving was futile endeavor. There was nothing that could be saved any more. Surpluses had ceased to be. Production no longer equaled consumption, and when that state of things comes crumbs and scraps disappear of themselves.
Once I had to have a pair of heels straightened. I had no trouble finding a cobbler. But the cobbler had no leather.
"Surely," I said, "you can find scraps enough to fix these heels!"
"But, I can't, sir!" replied the man. "I cannot buy scraps, even. There is no more leather. I am allowed a small quantity each month. But what I had has been used up long ago. If you have another old pair of shoes, bring them around. I can use part of the solesof them to repair the heels, and for the remainder I will pay with my labor. I won't charge you anything for mending your shoes."
I accepted the proposal and learned later that the cobbler had not made so bad a bargain, after all.
A similar policy had to be adopted to keep the Central populations in clothes. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey produce considerable quantities of wool, flax, silk, and cotton. But what they produce was not enough to go around, and the men at the front were wearing out their uniforms at an alarming rate. The military authorities felt that nothing would be gained by making the uniforms of poor cloth. The wear and tear on the fabric was severe. Labor in the making and distribution of the uniforms could be saved only by using the best materials available.
For the civilians it became necessary to wear shoddy. And to obtain shoddy every scrap must be saved. The time came when an old all-wool suit brought second-hand as good a price as a new suit fresh from the mill and the tailor shop. With the addition of a little new fiber that old suit might make two new ones. The old material was "combed" into wool again, and to this was added some new wool, cotton, or silk, and "new" goods appeared again on the counter.
The "I-cash" never had done such business before. The attics and cellars were ransacked, and since those who had most old clothing to sell bought hardly any at all now, the pinch ofthe war in clothing was really never felt very much by the poor. To prevent the spread of contagious diseases the several governments saw to it that the shoddy was thoroughly sterilized.
But economies of that sort are more or less automatic and lie within the realm of supply and demand. Unchecked, they may also become the cause of economic waste. The time comes when shoddy is an absolute loss. When fibers are used over and over, together with new elements, the oldest of them finally cease to have value. That means that the fabric does not have the wearing qualities which will give economic compensation for the labor spent on it and the price asked from the consumer. The stuff may be good to look upon, but in times of war that is not essential.
The profiteer found a fine field in the manufacture of shoddy. All first-hand shoddy he would sell as new material, and before he admitted that a certain piece of cloth was "indifferent" in quality, it had to be poor indeed. He would ask a good price for a suit that might fall to pieces in the first rain, and the consumer was left to do the best he could with the thing. When the consumer complained he would be told that the "war" was responsible, and the consumer, knowing in a general and superficial manner that things were indeed scarce, would decide to be reasonable.
But the government could not take that easy view. Labor which might have been put to better use had been expended in the making ofthat shoddy, and now the fabric served no good purpose. That had to be avoided. It was far better to abandon fiber of this sort than to have it become the cause of waste in labor and the reason for further discontent. Labor that results in nothing more than this is non-productive, and the governments of Central Europe knew only too well that they had no hands to spare for that kind of unavailing effort.
I ran into a case of this sort in Bohemia. A large mill had turned out a great deal of very poor shoddy. The cloth looked well, and, since wool fiber newly dyed makes a good appearance even long after its wearing qualities have departed forever, the firm was doing a land-office business. All went well until some of the fine cloth got on the backs of people. Then trouble came. Some of the suits shrank when wet, while others did the very opposite. The matter came to the attention of the authorities.
Experts in textiles examined the cloth. Some of the output was found to contain as much as 60 per cent. old fiber, and there was no telling how many times this old fiber had been made over. It was finally shown that, had the manufacturer been content with a little less profit, he could have converted the new fiber—which, by the way, he had obtained from the government Fiber Central—into some thirty thousand yards of first-class shoddy under a formula that called for 65 per cent. new fiber and 35 per cent. old. As it was, he had turned the good raw material into nearly fifty-two thousand yards of fabricsthat were not worth anything and he had wasted the labor of hundreds of men and women besides.
The man had been trying to make use of crumbs and scraps for his own benefit. Personal interests had led, in this instance, to an attempt to convert an economic negative into a positive. The useless fiber was a minus which no effort in plus could cause to have any other value than that which this profit-hunter saw in it. By the rational economist the shoddy had been abandoned, and all effort to overcome the statics of true economy, as here represented by the unserviceableness of the fiber for the use to which it had been assigned, was bound to be an economic waste.
Cases such as these—and there were thousands of them—showed the authorities that there was danger even in economy. The crumbs and scraps themselves were useless in the end. Beyond a certain point all use of them resulted in losses, and that point was the minimum of utility that could be obtained with a maximum of effort. The economic structure could not stand on so poor a sand foundation.
But the several governments were largely responsible for this. They had regulated so much in behalf of economy that they had virtually given the economic sharkcarte blanche.
There was a season when I attended a good many trials of men who had run afoul of the law in this manner. They all had the same excuse. Nothing had been further from their minds thanto make in times such as these excessive profits. They would not think of such a thing. If they had used poor materials in the things they manufactured, it was due entirely to their desire to stretch the country's resources. In doing that they had hoped to lighten the burden of the government. Conservation had become necessary and everybody would have to help in that. They had been willing to do their bit, and now the authorities were unreasonable enough to find fault with this policy.
At first many a judge had the wool pulled over his eyes in that manner. But in the end the scheme worked no longer. Usually the limit of punishment fell on the offender.
Abuses of this sort had much to do with an improvement in conservation methods. So far as the textile industry was concerned it led to the control by the government Raw-Material Centrals, which were established rather loosely at the beginning of the war, of all fibers. The ragman thereafter turned over his wares to these centrals, and when a spinner wanted material he had to state what he wanted it for and was then given the necessary quantities in proportions. That helped, and when the government took a better interest in the goods manufactured this avenue of economic waste was closed effectively. With these measures came the clothing cards for the public. After that all seemed well. The poorer qualities of cloth disappeared from the market overnight, and a suit of clothing was now sure to give fair value for the price.
Ihave made use of this example to illustrate what the factors in regulation and conservation were at times, and how difficult it was to unscramble the economic omelet which the first conservation policies had dished up.
There were other crumbs and scraps, however. Not the least of them was the socio-economic organism itself. That sensitive thing had been doctored so much that only a major operation could again put it on its feet. Economy faddists and military horse-doctors alike had tried their hands on the patient, and all of them had overlooked that the only thing there was wrong with the case was malnutrition. Everybody was trying to get the usual quantities and qualities of milk from a cow that was starving. Poor Bossy!
Man lives not by food alone; nor does society. It takes a whole lot of things to run a state. While the government had already in its grasp all the distribution and consumption of food, there were many things it did not care to interfere with, even if they were almost as important as food. These things were the products of industry, rather than the fruits of the fields, though usually, as is natural, it was difficult to draw a strong line of demarcation in the division of spheres. In social economy that has always been so. To get the true perspective, take a dozen pebbles, label them food, fuel, clothing, and whatever else occurs to you, and then throw the pebbles in the pond. You will find that the circular wavelets caused by the pebbles will soon run into and across one another, and if by chance youhave followed the waves of food you will notice that while they have been broken by the impact of the others they still remain discernible.
Into the rippling pond the several governments had each thrown the cobblestones of regulation. The food, fuel, and clothing ripples were still there, of course, but they had been so obliterated that it was now difficult to trace them on the regulation waves.
But the waves, too, subsided, and on the backwash of them the authorities read lessons which suggested saner methods—methods whose conception and application were attended by a better regard for the nature of the operation, be this production, distribution, or consumption.
The saving of crumbs and scraps had not been without its value. It tended to make men short-sighted, however. The governments of Central Europe wanted to limit consumption to the absolutely necessary, but overlooked that theirmodus operandigave cause to serious losses. The various authorities did not wish to interfere too much with normal currents of economic life. That was well enough in a way, but had disastrous consequences. A shortage in the necessities of life was the great fact of the day. It could be met only by restricting consumption. But the machinery of this restriction was a haphazard thing. It promoted hoarding.
There have been those who have condemned the hoarder in the roundest of terms. I am not so sure that he deserves all of the anathemas that have been hurled at him. When a governmentshouts day in and day out that the worst will come to pass if everybody does not save the crumbs, the more easily alarmed are bound to think only of themselves and of their own. High prices will cease to be a deterrent, for the reason that war brings only too many examples of the fact that only food and not money will sustain life. To act in accordance with this may be a weakness, but it is also along the lines of a natural condition, if self-preservation be indeed the first law of nature. Soon there are found those who promote and pamper this weakness for a profit. Food is then stored away by the majority. Some will waste much of it in over-consumption, while more will permit the food to spoil by improper storage methods, especially when the food has to be secreted in cellars and attics, wardrobes and drawers, as happens when government by inspection becomes necessary. But of this I have spoken already in its proper place.
Food-regulators will be wroth, I suppose, if I should state that the consumption of life's necessities can be regulated and diminished for its own sake, and that high prices are not necessarily the only way of doing this. At the same time I must admit that prices are bound to rise when demand exceeds supply. In our system of economy that is a natural order of affairs. But this tendency, when not interfered with, would also result in a quick and adequate betterment in wages. In Central Europe, however, the cost of living was always about 50 per cent. ahead of the slow increase in earnings. That 50 per cent. was the increment which the government and its economic minions needed to keep the war going. What regulation of prices there was kept this in mind always. In order that every penny in the realm might be mobilized and then kept producing, no change in these tactics could be permitted.
The food shark and price-boosting middleman were essential in this scheme, and when thesewere dropped by the government, one by one, it was nothing but a case of:
The Moor has done his duty, the Moor can go.
Elimination of the middleman worked upward, much as does a disease that has its bed in the slums. When the consumer had been subjected to the limit of pressure, the retailer felt the heavy hand of the government. It got to be the turn of the wholesaler and commission-man, and in October of 1916, the period of which I speak here, only the industrial and commercial kings and the banking monarchs were still in favor with the government. The speculators then operating were either the agents of these powers or closely affiliated with them.
In the fall of 1916 the war system of national economy had taken the shape it has to-day. Food had become the irreducible minimum. Not alone was the quantity on hand barely sufficient to feed the population, but its price could no longer be increased if the masses were not to starve for lack of money instead of lack of food. The daily bread was now a luxury. Men and women had to rise betimes and work late into the night if they wanted to eat at all.
Let me now speak of the sort of revision of economic regulations that was in vogue before the adoption of the new system.
That revision started with the farmer—the producer of food. Some requisitioning had been done on the farms for strictly military purposes.Horses and meat animals had been taken from the farmer for cash at the minimum prices established by the authorities. Forage and grain for the army had been commandeered in a like manner, and in a few cases wagons, plows, and other implements. Further than that (taking into account the minimum prices, which were in favor of the farmer and intended to stimulate production), the government had not actually interfered with the tiller of the soil. He had gone on as before, so far as a shortage of labor, draft animals, and fertilizers permitted. He had not prospered, of course, but on the whole he was better off than the urbanite and industrial worker, for the reason that he could still consume of his food as much as he liked. The government had, indeed, prescribed what percentage of his produce he was to turn over to the public, but often that interference went no further.
But in the growing and crop season of 1916 the several governments went on a new tack. Trained agriculturists, employees of the Food Commissions and Centrals, looked over the crops and estimated what the yield would be. From the total was then subtracted what the establishment of the farmer would need, and the rest had to be turned over to the Food Centrals at fixed dates.
The farmers did not take kindly to this. But there was no help. Failure to comply with orders meant a heavy fine, and hiding of food brought similar punishment and imprisonment besides.
Withthis done, the food authorities began to clear up a little more in the channels of distribution. The cereals were checked into the mills more carefully, and the smaller water-mills, which had in the past charged for their labor by retaining the bran and a little flour, were put on a cash basis. For every hundred pounds of grain they had to produce so many pounds of flour, together with by-products when these latter were allowed.
The flour was then shipped to a Food Central, and this would later issue it to the bakers, who had to turn out a fixed number of loaves. To each bakery had been assigned so many consumers, and the baker was now responsible that these got the bread which the law prescribed.
Potatoes and other foods were handled in much the same manner. The farmer had to deliver them to the Food Central in given quantities at fixed dates, and the Central turned them over to the retailers for sale to the public in prescribed allotments. Now and then small quantities of "unrestricted" potatoes would get to the consumer through the municipal markets. But people had to rise at three o'clock in the morning to get them. This meant, of course, that only those willing to lose hours of needed sleep for the sake of a little extra food got any of these potatoes.
The ways of the efficient food-regulator are dark and devious but positive in their aim.
The meat-supply was not further modified. The meatless days and exorbitant prices had made further regulation in that department unnecessary.Milk and fat, however, as well as eggs, were made the subject of further attention by the Food Commissions. All three of them were as essential to the masses as was bread, and for that reason they passed within the domain of the food zone—Rayon.
In their case, however, the authorities left the supply uncontrolled. The farmer sold to the Food Central what milk, butter, lard, suet, tallow, vegetable-oil, and eggs he produced, and the Central passed them on to the retailers, who had to distribute them to a given number of consumers. The same was done in the case of sugar.
Such a scheme left many middlemen high and dry. Those who could not be of some service in the new system, or found it not worth while to be connected with it, took to other lines of industry.
The government had left a few such lines open. That, however, was not done in the interest of the middlemen. The better-paid working classes still had pennies that had to be garnered, and these pennies, now that food was surrounded by cast-iron regulations and laws, went into the many other channels of trade.
I made the acquaintance of a man who in the past had bought and sold on commission almost anything under the heading of food. Now it would be a car-load of flour, then several car-loads of potatoes, and when business in these lines was poor he would do a legal or illicit business in butter and eggs. Petroleum was a sideline of his, and once he made a contract with the government for remounts. I don't think there was anything the man had not dealt in. But the same can be said of every one of the thousands that used to do business in the quiet corners of the Berlin and Vienna cafés.
I should mention here that the Central European commission-man does not generally hold forth in an office. The café is his place of business—not a bad idea, since those with whom he trades do the same. There are certain cafés in Vienna, Berlin, and Budapest, and the other cities, that exist almost for that purpose. In any three of them one can buy and sell anything from a paper of pins to a stack of hay.
My acquaintance found that the new order of things in the food department left him nothing but the pleasant memory of the "wad" he had made under the old régime. He took to matches.
Matches were uncontrolled and rather scarce. Soon he had a corner in matches. He made contracts with the factories at a price he could not have paid without a large increase in the selling price of the article. But he knew how to bring that condition about.
Before long the price of matches went up. They had been selling at about one-quarter cent American for a box of two hundred. The fancier article sold for a little more.
When the price was one cent a box, my acquaintance began to unload judiciously. Merchants did not want to be without matches again, and bought with a will. The speculator clearedone hundred and twenty thousand crowns on his first release, I was told. His average monthly profit after that was something like forty thousand crowns.
Somehow he managed to escape prosecution under the anti-high-profit decree then in force. No doubt that was due to his connections with the Vienna Bank Food Ring. At any rate, his name appeared as one of the large subscribers to the fifth Austrian war loan, and, needless to say, he paid his share of the war-profit tax.
In this case fractions of pennies were mobilized. I suppose almost anybody who can afford fuel can afford to light a fire with a match that costs the two-hundredth part of a cent. No doubt the government thought so. Why not relieve the population of that little accumulation of economic "fat"?
Another genius of that sort managed to get a corner in candles. How he managed to get his stock has never been clear to me, since the food authorities had long ago put a ban on the manufacture of candles. I understand that some animal fats, suet and tallow, are needed to make the paraffin "stand" up. Those animal fats were needed by the population in the form of food.
But the corner in candles wasun fait accompli. The man was far-sighted. He held his wares until the government ordered lights out in the houses at eleven o'clock, and these candles were then welcome at any price, especially in such houses where the janitor would at the stroke ofthe hour throw off the trunk switch in the cellar.
Here was another chance to get pennies from the many who could afford to buy a candle once or twice a week. The government had no reason to interfere. Those pennies, left in the pockets of the populace, would have never formed part of a war loan or war-profit taxes.
Sewing-thread was the subject of another corner. In fact, all the little things people must have passed one by one into the control of some speculator.
Gentle criticism of that method of mulcting the public was made in the press that depended more than ever on advertising. But that fell on deaf ears. And usually a man had not to be a deep thinker to realize that the government must permit that sort of thing in order to find money for the prosecution of the war and the administration of the state. To serious complaint, the government would reply that it had done enough by regulating the food, and that further regulation would break down the economic machine. That was true, of course. To take another step was to fall into the arms of the Social Democrats, and that responsibility nobody expected the government to take.
The attitude of the public toward the governmentally decreed system of social economy is not the least interesting feature of it.
The authorities took good care to accompany every new regulation with the explanation that it had to be taken in the interest of the stateand the armies in the field. If too much food was consumed in the interior, the men in the trenches would go hungry. That was a good argument, of course. Almost every family had some member of it in the army; that food was indeed scarce was known, and not to be content with what was issued was folly in the individual—at one time it was treason. As an antidote against resentment at high prices, the government had provided the minimum-maximum price schedules, and occasionally some retailer or wholesaler was promptly dealt with by the court, whose president was then more interested in fining the man than in putting him in jail. The government needed the money and was not anxious to feed prisoners. If some favorite was hit by this, the authorities had the convenient excuse that it was "war."
It is difficult to see how the attitude of the several governments could have been different. The authorities of a state have no other power, strength, and resources than what the community places at their disposal wittingly or unwittingly. The war was here and had to be prosecuted in the best manner possible, and the operations incident to the struggle were so gigantic that every penny and fraction thereof had to be mobilized. There was no way out of this so long as the enemy was to be met and opposed. Even the more conservative faction of the Social Democrats realized that, and for the time being the "internationalist" socialists had no argument they could advance againstthis, since elsewhere the "internationalists" had also taken to cover. The Liberals everywhere could demand fair treatment of the masses, but that they had been given by the government to the fullest extent possible under the circumstances. The exploitation of the public was general and no longer confined to any class, though it did not operate in all cases with the same rigor.
To have the laws hit all alike would have meant embracing the very theories of Karl Marx and his followers. Apart from the fact that the middle and upper classes were violently opposed to this, there was the question whether it would have been possible in that case to continue the war. The German, German-Austrian, and Hungarian public, however, wanted the war continued, even when the belt had been tightened to the last hole. What, under these circumstances, could be done by the several governments but extract from their respective people the very last cent? Discussion of the policy was similar to a cat chasing its tail.
We may say the same of the motive actuating the authorities when in the fall of 1916 they established municipal meat markets where meat could be obtained by the poor at cost price and often below that. Whether that was done to alleviate hunger or keep the producer in good trim is a question which each must answer for himself. It all depends on the attitude one takes. The meat was sold by the municipality or the Food Commission direct, at prices from 15 to25 per cent. below the day's quotation, and was a veritable godsend to the poor. Whether the difference in price represented humaneness on the part of the authorities or design would be hard to prove. Those I questioned invariably claimed that it was a kind interest in the masses which caused the government to help them in that manner. Had I been willing to do so I could have shown, of course, that the money spent in this sort of charity had originally been in the pockets of those who bought the cheaper meat.
But that is a chronic ailment of social economy, and I am not idealist enough to say how this ailment could be cured. In fact, I cannot see how it can be cured if society is not to sink into inertia, seeing that the scramble for a living is to most the only leaven that will count. That does not mean, however, that I believe in the maxim, "The devil take the hindmost"—a maxim which governed the distribution of life's necessities in Central Europe during the first two years of the war.
The zonification of the bread, milk, fats, and sugar supply, and the municipal meat markets began to show that either the government had come to fear the public or was now willing to co-operate with it more closely than it had done in the past. At any rate, this new and better policy had a distinctly humane aspect. Some of the food-lines disappeared, and with them departed much of that brutality which food control by the government had been associated with in the past. The food allowance was scant enough,but a good part of it was now assured. It could be claimed at any time of the day, and that very fact revived in many the self-respect which had suffered greatly by the eternal begging for food in the lines.
Having made a study of the psychology of the food-liner, I can realize what that meant. Of a sudden food riots ceased, and with them passed all danger of a revolution. I am convinced that in the winter of 1915-16 it was easier to start internal trouble in the Central states than it was a year later. A more or less impartial and fairly efficient system of food distribution had induced the majority to look at the shortage in eatables as something for which the government was not to blame. That, after all, was what the government wanted. Whether or no it worked consciously toward that end I am not prepared to say.
By that time, also, the insufferable small official had been curbed to quite an extent. As times grew harder, and the small increases in pay failed more and more to keep pace with the increase in the cost of living, that class became more and more impossible. Toward its superiors it showed more obsequiousness than before, because removal from office meant a stay at the front, and since things in life have the habit of balancing one another, the class became more rude and oppressive toward the public. Finally the government caused the small official to understand that this could not go on. He also learned in a small degree that bureaucratism is not necessarilythe only purpose of the officeholder, though much progress in that direction was yet necessary.
It has often been my impression that government in Central Europe would be good if it were possible to put out of their misery the small officials—the element which snarls at the civilian when there is no occasion for it. It seems to me that the worst which the extremists in the Entente group have planned for the Central Powers is still too good for the martinet who holds forth in the Central EuropeanAmtsstube—i. e., government office. Law and order has no greater admirer than myself, but I resent having some former corporal take it for granted that I had never heard of such things until he happened along. Yet that is precisely what this class does. It has alienated hundreds of thousands of friends of the German people. It has stifled the social enlightenment and political liberty which was so strong in Central Europe in the first four decades of the nineteenth century.
It is not difficult to imagine what that class did to a population which had been reduced to subsisting at the public crib. The bread ticket was handed the applicant with a sort of by-the-grace-of-God mien, when rude words did not accompany it. The slightest contravention brought a flood of verbal abuse. Pilate never was so sure that he alone was right. Between this official insolence, food shortage, and exploitation by the government and its economic minions, the Central European civilian had a merry time of it.
But,after all, no people has a better government than it deserves, just as it has no more food than it produces or is able to secure. The martinets did not mend their ways until women in the food-lines had clawed their faces and an overwhelming avalanche of complaints began to impress the higher officials. Conditions improved rapidly after that and stayed improved so long as the public was heard from. It may not be entirely coincidence that acceptable official manners and better distribution of food came at the same time. In that lies the promise that the days of the autocratic small official in Central Europe are numbered.
It was futile, however, to look for a general or deep-seated resentment against the government itself. Certain officials were hated. Before the war that would have made little difference to the bureaucratic clans, and even now they were often reluctant to sacrifice one of their ilk, but there was no longer any help for it. There was never a time when a change in the principle of government was considered as the means to effect a bettering of conditions. The Central European prefers monarchical to republican government. He is not inclined to do homage to a ruler who is a commoner—a tribute he still pays his government and its head.
In the monarchy the ruler occupies a position which the average republican cannot easily understand. In the constitutional monarchy, having a responsible ministry, the king is generally little better than what is known as afigurehead. He is hardly ever heard from, and when he is the cause of his appearance in the spotlight may be some act that has little or nothing to do with government itself. He may open some hospital or attend a maneuver or review of the fleet, or convene parliament with a speech prepared by the premier, and there his usefulness ends—seemingly. But that is not quite so. In such a realm the monarch stands entirely for that continuation of policy and principle which is necessary for the guidance of the state. He becomes the living embodiment of the constitution, as it were. He is the non-political guardian thereof. Political parties may come and go, but the king stays, seeing to it, theoretically at least, that the parliamentary majority which has put its men into the ministry does not violate the ground laws of the country.
In his capacities of King of Prussia and German Emperor, William II. has been more absolute than any of the other European monarchs, the Czar of Russia alone excepted. The two constitutions under which he rules, the Prussian and the German federative, give him a great deal of room in which to elbow around. When a Reichstag proved intractable he had but to dissolve it, and in the Prussian chambers of Lords and Deputies he was as nearly absolute as any man could be—provided always he did what was agreeable to the Junkers. They are a strong-minded crew in Prussia, and less inclined to be at the beck and call of their king than Germans generally are in the case of theirEmperor. In Prussia the King is far more the servant of the state than the Kaiser is in Germany. But this is one of those little idiosyncrasies in government that can be found anywhere.
Three years of contact with all classes of Germans have yet to show me the single individual, not a most radical socialist, who had anything but kind words for the King-Emperor and his family. What the Kaiser had to say went through the multitude like an electric impulse. No matter how uninteresting I might find a statement, because I could not see it from the angle of the German, the public always received it very much as it might the word of a prophet. It was conceded that the Emperor could make mistakes, that, indeed, he had made not a few of them; but this did not by any means lessen the degree of receptiveness of his subjects. Against the word of Kaiser Wilhelm all argument is futile, and will always remain futile.
It was this sentiment which caused the German people to accept with wonderful patience whatever burden the war brought. Had it ever been necessary to cast into the government's war treasury the last pfennig, the mere word from the Kaiser would have accomplished this. What Napoleon was to his soldiers Emperor William II. is to his people.
And then it must not be overlooked that the Emperor possesses marked ability as a press agent. He was always the first to conform to a regulation in food. Long before the rich classes had so much as a thought of eating war-bread, Emperor William would tolerate nothing else on his table. The Empress, too, adhered to this. All wheat bread was banished from the several palaces of the imperialménage. Every court function was abandoned, save coffee visits in the afternoon for the friends of the Empress.