"THE INFLATION"

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 145, 16 December 1933, Page 9

"THE INFLATION"

A GERMAN MEMORY

WHEN CURRENCY WENT MAD

THE VICTIMS TODAY

•Through, the street-car window I read a sign~-."Zu den drei Konigeu"— painted with the Three Kings mounted on age-stained camels. It swung over the door o£ a bulging, squatty brick housa in a little town of Southern Germany (-writes Alicia Overbeck in the "New York Times"). ""What is that housei" I asked my German friend. "That," he told me, "is the Hostel of the Three Kings, where peoplo who were ruined by the inflation may eat for a few pfennigs—better-class peoplo who wouldn't want to accept absolute charity." "Are there many of them?" "Many of them? Mem Gott! Hava you never talked to anyone for the many months you have lived here 9 Now that your own, country, America, is considering inflation, it might be. well for you to look about, my friend." "Oh, but we're different from you Europeans. Any inflation our Government might consider "would be thoroughly controlled." "Ja, you're different —but inflation. is never different. Was it different in France, was it different in Austria? Why do you suppose Europeans would rather be bled white by taxation than ace inflation again? Inflation is—well look about this little town and see what it did." I looked, and here is what I learned, I advertised in the, daily newspaper for a "charlady" "and a woman answered'—a small, brittle old woman in an outmoded basque, a long black skirt that flapped around her ankles, and a rusty bonnet trimmed with fadod cotton violets." "I'm afraid you won't do," I told her. "I need someone to wash down the steps"—l pointed to a long flight of stone stairs -that led to the street — "and to carry coals up from the cellar, and to take care of the fires." "I can do all these things—do them. Tvery well," she answered, valiantly. MUST WOKK. "You're not strong enough," I objected. "You're too old." "I shall be less strong if I don't eat, and I shanM; eat if I can't get work. Try me, Gnadige Frau," she begged, laying a thick-veined hand on my arm. Next day my neighbour, the retired Oberst, called to me over the hedge that separated our gardens. "I see," he remarked, doffing his green hat with the feather at the back, "that Frau Schola is working for you." "Frau Seholz? You mean the little old woman who has just finished washing down the steps? I don't think I can keep her. I want to cry every time I see her bending her creaky old ,back." "But she must work, the poor soul, or how shall she live? You know her story?" The Obersfc lowered his voice to a whisper and clicked his tongue rapidly. "It was the inflation. The family Scholz were very substantial people in the neighbourhood. They owned the big grocery store at the corner, and although they lived very comfortably, they always saved. The two sons were killed in the war. One was in my own regiment~ho died at the Marne; the other went to Austria and "was finished in the Big Drive. Then the father died, leaving his wife all alone but with 100,000 marks on which, to live—loo,ooo marks, every mark earned by hard work. Frau Bcholz put the money in the bank and had an income of 4000 marks a year. Then the inflation. In 1923 1000 marks wouldn't buy a button, ,and 100,000 marks wouldn't buy a loaf of bread. So Frau Scholz, like thousands of other unprotected women all over the country, must scrub steps and carry coals." At a dinner paity I talked to a middle-aged man. "Have you ever been in California1?" he asked. "I was born in California," I told him. . ■ "Tell me about it," he begged. "It must be beautiful. I've always wanted to see California more than any other place in the world. It'has been the dream of my life." "Why don't you go? It's a pity to lose out on dreams if you can help it." ALL GONE. "I should have gone a couple of. years ago if it hadn't been for the inflation. When I was quite young I planned that at 50 I'd leave work and travel, so I took out an insurance policy that would pay me 50,000 marka when I was 50 and 75,000 more when I was 55. Well, I'll get 1250 marks out of my precious insurance when. I am 84 if nothing more happens, and I'll work until I drop. All the other insurance policies that I had taken out for the protection of my family wont the aame way, so I must keep on working. Perhaps our unemployment problem wouldn't be go overwhelming if wo older people who had been ruined by the inflation weren't blocking the way for the young." The president of 'the artificial silk mills in our valley took me through one of his factories. In the inner office reserved for high officials sat a, rawboned Scot who greeted me in the rough, burred voice of Aberdeen. In the accounting room I noticed a number of unmistakably British clerks. "Things are dull now," said my guide. "You should have seen us during the early days of the inflation, though. We were busy then, if you like. Things were humming night and day, and there wasn't an unemployed man in all Breisgau." "You're the first German I ever met ■who would acknowledge that' inflation had some virtue/ I told him. "Virtue in inflation! Our Scottish friends in there"—he nodded back at the offices —"they're the lasting measure of the virtue of inflation." We crossed the courtyard and sat down on the stone wall that ran beside a noisy stream. "SKINNED "US ALIVE." "See that tablet over the door?" He pointed to a medallion above the door of the main building. It read, "Heinrieh Hem, 1697." "That's when my family started these mills. They bought raw silk from India then, and later my great-grandfatltrr grew his own silk on plantations in Asia Minor. The mills were part of us, just like our bones and flesh. Well, the inflation boned and skinned us alive. Perhaps as long as your own country is talking inflation, you'd like to know what I think of it. •• . "Inflation is a drug—an insidious drug. It's what you Americans call a shot in the arm—3 shot that makes you feel as strong as a lion while it lasts. But it doesn't last long, and then you have to have another and another and another until finally you're knocked out. Here in Germany the first shot of-inflation sent us wild. We hadn't had enough money for years; the gear of the country, from shoes to locomotives, was worn out and needed replacing; the whole nation burst into a blaze of activity. "We went on a regular buying jag, and to supply the demand factories that had been shut down for years Btarted up and men who hadn't had jobs in ages went back to work. If a little inflation was such a very good thing, why wouldn't more inflation be even, better? Bo we had another shot, and once the

thing got ahead it was carried on by . its own momentum and nothing could stop it. THEIR OWN MONEY. At firat the OReichsbank issued all money and we paid our men twice a week. Then we couldn't wait for money from Berlin, so tho town issued scrip and we paid off every other day. "Soon tho mark slipped too fast for that, so wo bought presses, put up our stock as collateral security, made our own money and paid off every night. Even so, if the men didn't get out in time to spend their wages the same day, there was a chance of a dead loss. The drug was beginning to wear off, we were beginning to see that all our wonderful new activity was empty motion and its rewards meaningless. What was the use of a million marks if it would only buy a loaf of bread, or if we had to-spend it whether we wanted to or not? By the end of 1923, when we fully awoke from our dream and needed real money—money that meant something-—the foreigners pounced down on us like the wolf on the fold. That's when the Scottish thread firm took from my family what has belonged to us for more than 200 yeara.