his
biography, and legends are already thickly clustering about his name. He
laid the Russian bugaboo before it had a chance to make its debut; there
is not today the slightest nervousness about the possible coming of the
Cossacks, and there will not be, so long as the Commander in Chief of
all the armies in the east continues to find time to give sittings to
portrait painters, pose for the moving-picture artists, autograph
photographs, appear on balconies while school children sing patriotic
airs, answer the Kaiser's telegrams of congratulation, acknowledge
decorations, receive interminable delegations, personages, and
journalists, and perform all the other time-consuming duties incident to
having greatness thrust upon you; for things obviously cannot be in a
very bad way when the master strategist can thus take "time out" from
strategizing. But the influence of "our Hindenburg," as he is often
affectionately called, is wider than the east; the magic of his name
stiffens the deadline in the west, and the man in the street, whose
faith is great, feels sure that when he has fought his last great battle
in the east the turn of the French and English will come.

While the German in the street, thanks largely to Hindenburg, regards
the military situation with optimism, he sees no grounds for pessimism
in the present political situation. Italy and Bulgaria are regarded as
"safe."

How the Germans regard the economic, industrial, and financial situation
is rather hard to estimate, because their practical patriotism keeps
them from making any public parade of their business troubles and
worries, if they have any. The oft-repeated platitude that you would
never suspect here that a war was going on if you didn't read the papers
is quite just. Conditions--on the surface--are so normal that there is
even a lively operatic fight on in Munich, where the personal friction
between Musical Director Walters and the star conductor, Otto Hess, has
caused a crisis in the affairs of the Royal Munich Opera, rivaling in
interest the fighting at the front.

There are certainly fewer "calamity howlers" here than on Broadway
during boom times, and you see no outward evidence of hard times, no
acute poverty, no misery, no derelicts, for the war-time social
organization seems as perfect as the military. In the last three months
only one beggar has stopped me on the streets and tried to touch my
heart and pocketbook--a record that seems remarkab