DRESDEN TO VIENNA

...Baths must be specially prepared by the maid—a rite which takes time and costs extra, and the bather comes armed with his own soap...

...Certainly there are rich Germans...

...With no deeper insight into the complexities of the problem than can be gained from a more or less superficial examination, one cannot but be impressed with what the community has done to provide reasonably-priced living quarters for its working population...

...Thousands, somehow existing month after month on the ten marks a week granted to the workless by the State...

...IN THE beautiful park in Dresden called the Big Garden, we made our first real attempt to get acquainted with foreign birds...

...If Austria is to have a great future, it is her educational leaders who are laying the foundations for it...

...We have learned, for instance, that it is not a simple matter in Europe to be next to godliness...

...Or, sitting in some quiet retreat, admiring the great spot-ted arms of the sycamores, the strong frame of the oaks, and the aspiring height of the poplars we could hear the hum of the city's life and meditate on the ways of nature and of men...

...There were total strangers, also, like the Ringeltaube, a dove much larger than ours which, as it grows old, develops a white ring about its neck...

...And though there may be something austere, almost forbidding, about the Capital of Austria, one i» sure that the city within whose walls many, centuries ago the disillusioned Emperor, Marcos AureHos, bequeathed His great spirit to the atmosphere, in which Mozart, Hayden, -. and Beethoven wrought so magnificently, where Goethe wag not a stranger, and the philosopher Mach was at home—to say nothing of the tide of commerce and the ebb and flow of political machinations, which have centered here—one knows that such a city will sooner or later have its effect...

...Repeated trials to modify this arrangement in any respect uniformly failed...

...Some grew rich during the war, while others offered up themselves or all they had...

...The rental for these is from 11/2 to 41/2 cents per cubic foot per month...

...Rafts of logs floated down, hailing from Czecho-Slovnkia, a tiny flicker of fire and a trail of blue smoke fore and aft...

...Whatever possible we tooK to rubbing our own...

...Here, too, as hardly anywhere else in, Germany, a superficial inspection will leave the impression that the Germans are enjoying immense prosperity...

...Some, taking advantage of the period of inflation, acquired the property which made them independently rich...

...A strapping fellow in knee breeches and tight fitting coat flew a kite, which seemed to touch the clouds...

...And as these new opportunities have been opened up, the children of the common people, to whom they were formerly closed, have shown themselves strangely gifted...

...It is difficult to believe true what one finds actually occurring before one's eyes and ears...

...A soft rose and gold light suffused the west, with bands of copper-colored clouds hung across it, through which the sun looked out on the shim« mering river...

...But the story is endless, and endlessly inspiring...

...He would think himself translated to heaven...

...These Germans you meet with easily, for money quickly got runs to display...

...What these people nave accomplished during the last seven years, handicapped as they have been by poverty and political upheaval, is astonishing...

...And the apartment buildings are not only well built but consideration has been gives to beauty...

...We kept thinking of Professor Meiklejohn, wishing that he might visit the schools of Vienna...

...AUSTRIA has had a past...

...she is not leaving the question of housing to real estate agents or chambers of commerce...

...In very many, even inexpensive hotels, guests are now supplied with running hot and cold water and there are even rooms with baths...

...And in all schools the atmosphere was one of master and servant...

...The general collapse following the war created the opportunity for the reconstruction of the whole educational arrangment...

...Fishermen, in long punts, poled their way to the middle of the Elbe, lowered their nets, and drifted with the tide...

...No one is more conscious of this social phenomenon than the better class Germans themselves, high and low, and no one sees in it more clearly than they the sinister threat against Germany's spiritual greatness Even a few weeks can teach the traveller something...

...To this must be added a small sum to cover repairs, etc...

...There are signs that ways are being found to circumvent this law, in which case a new chapter will be opened...

...Thin streamers of delicate green were hanging from the weeping willows, the witch hazels wore bouquets of pale yellow, and crocu<ses dotted the wide stretches of new grass with purple and white...

...And as far as one could see the Christian-Socialists were as apt at "mud slinging" as their enemies...

...Im^ting paths,lead in all directions (delightfully different from our automobile infested United States) and on commanding lookouts one may sit down where the great and the unknown have come to sit for generations, to drink in the view—and a glass of wine...

...Even where there is some work, the hopelessness of making headway toward better circumstances is conspicuous...

...Crowded concerts and op-«ras, busy cafes, endless varieties of cheeses, sausages, wine, and cakes, gorgeous displays of flowers—what else can this mean ? But if the traveller is able to free himself from the tourist orbit, he will soon find himself in the presence of need and poverty...

...Yes, there are taxes, forty-two different kinds of them for some people, at least a dozen kinds for the average man, but people who knew how to get rich when their brothers were in a struggle of life and death, know how to escape their just share of the tax burden...

...Perhaps this only seeme so because we aro more familiar with the field...

...Few things can be more disgusting than a group of these newly-rich Germans, their heavy vulgarity slumped in high-powered automobiles, racing through the city streets...

...Our guide, who had an apartment composed of two rooms (one a kitchen-dining-living-room, the other a bedroom) paid $1.68 per month...

...You learn of people who got a few dollars from America when the mark was worth nothing and who with these dollars bought houses, which now provide their income...

...C. L.] E WERE speaking of Germany and from the viewpoint of Berlin, were we not?, Soon after that we found ourselves in Dresden...

...You can sec them asleep in concerts, striding about arrogantly in hotels, or strutting in bored ignorance' through art galleries...

...In the election of April 24, these apartment groups seemed to furnish the chief point of attack to the opponents of the Social-Democrats...

...We have learned, too...

...It was pleasant to walk in this garden just after the crowds going to work had passed through and left it almost deserted...

...The eeason was favorable, moat of the trees being still leafless and the great tide of migration not having set in to confuse us...

...it is evidently intended that the bather shall roll himself up in them...

...Even more impressive than the housing plans mi a variety ct other projects introduced by the socialists are the educational reforms...

...You can call on people, if yen like, who knew how to acquire apart-ment houses at a price which is now equalled by what they receive in a month's rent...

...Our last day threatended rain, but the sun set was the more beautiful for the clouds...

...There are larger and grander cities, quainter cities, too, but as a pleasant, friendly place in which to live, where one's physical mental, aesthetic, religious needs are amply provided for, all saturated with that untranslatable thing "Gemuethi-chkeit," Dresden is not easy to equal...

...Just at present, the outcome is problematic, but quite obviously daring social experiments are in progress...

...We learned to t*t-ogniiK the SmgdreMei as our Woodtbrartk, with a somewhat different song, and the Green-specht, clearly the European representative of our Flicker, did not deceive us...

...In a school we visited, where only gifted boys are admitted, whatever their social status, over 80 per cent were from families which formerly would have been ruled out...

...It was no trick to get acquainted with that bold little chap, the Chaffinch, nor to make sure of the AJns«l, our Robin's coosin...

...Very soon the morning arrived which compelled u» to turn our faces toward the Semmering pass in the Alps, in the hope" of rocking that night in a gondola on the Grand Canal in Venice...

...Before the war, the children of the masses had little opportunity to get more than a grammar school education...

...It must be said that in the matter of sanitary plumbing and toilet facilities, conditions have greatly improved in recent years, both in convenience and cleanliness, though the Germans have long been advance heralds of cleanliness...

...TO SPEND the morning traveling up the Elbe through "Saxon Switzerland," each bend in the river unfolding its panorama of village, rolling uplands, pine-clad hills, and enveloped crags, to sec the evening sun over the famous • Czecho-Slovakian city Prag, ami at night to stand in the presence of the Rathaoe in Vienna, may be called a day...

...Laundry costs more in Germany than in Madison...

...that the bath tub must be full, so that it just misses running over when you get into it, and it must be hot, hot with an adjective before it...

...But the maid being, by this time, locked out, one can be independent as to that—though not of the towel, which has a way of tripping one up...

...Obviously this has meant a burden on the owners of real estate, since rents are limited by law, making it impossible to pass the burden on to the "consumer...

...They are centrally heated, well lighted, with common laundry rooms and baths, and with play rooms for the smaller children...

...But it would be a tragic mistake to think of this as Germany...

...On the banks, children played oblivious of all but their games...

...Those who saw him had a queer, far-away look in their eyes...

...The results achieved by the children are extraordinary...

...about what it does in New York City...

...But the procession of men and women of all ages and classes, relieved from work, hurried aerose the bridge...

...In Vienna large apartment houses have been and are being erected by the community...

...We visited schools in and about Vienna and found there not only the most perfect form of democracy in education it has been our good fortune to witness, but an intensity of interest and an exuberant will to participate, unique in our experience...

...Fortunately leaders were at hand...

...The towcis are enormous...

...Some day," you are told again and again, "Germany will once more be great and her people happy—but not in our day...

...We were told that upwards of 6,000 families live in such arpartrnent groups, and we saw others in the process of construction, some for people who could pay more for larger and better quarters...

...Advanced schools, ostensibly provided for the more gifted children, turned out to be restricted to the children of the well-to-do...

...We adults are so seriously bent on what we call our work that there is something wistful about a grown man who has refused to be completely Ewal-lowed up by the world into which he moved from childhood...

...Since the houses are built out of moneys derived from house-owners' taxes, the argument was made that the whole idea is economically unsound and socially unjust...

...The part of Vienna in which the nobility moved has beauty, and then there is the Danube, not blue, but green, yet endlessly fascinating, being a river and navigable...

...How expert he was...

...she may be destined to have a future...

...Everywhere lack of work...

...Even in Dresden, of the smiling countenance, one need not go far, if one knows the Way, to bring home a heavy heart...

...And within easy reach of the city is the Wiener Wald, a forest of beech, birch, and fir, running up the hillsides to the top extending in one height after another to the snow-capped Semmering...

...And four Americans stood enchanted by the drama...

...But whatever objections may fairly be urged against the plan, Vienna is at any rate making a community need...

...What all this will lead to, who can tell ? Certainly we cannot who had only two weeks to touch the surface of it, dividing the time even then with art galleries, the concerts, operas and masses connected with the commemoration of Beethoven's death, and walks along the Danube and over the hills...

...Here one sits in silence before the Sis-tine Madonna, experiences again the color-wizardry of Boecklin, is transported by glorious music, stares in wonder at shop windows, is fascinated by the movement of life along the Elbe...

...RICH GERMANS...

...Such wealth of creative energy is shown, such resources of reason and of art, that one comes away feeling that mature life represents the atrophy rather than the fruition of psychic powers...