eople
satisfied. Even then the supply was short; and the quantity to be sold
on potato cards was cut to three pounds a week. Then transportation
difficulties arose, and potatoes spoiled before they reached Berlin,
Munich, Hamburg, Dresden, Leipsic and other large cities.

The same thing happened when the Government confiscated the fruit crop
last year.

One day I was asked on the telephone whether I wanted to buy an
11-pound ham. I asked to have it sent to my office immediately. When
it came the price was $2.50 a pound. I sent the meat back and told the
man I would not pay such a price.

"That's all right," he replied. "Dr. Stein and a dozen other people
will pay me that price. I sent it to you because I wanted to help you
out."

Dr. Ludwig Stein, one of the editors of the _Vossiche Zeitung_, paid
the price and ordered all he could get for the same money.

When I left Berlin the Government had issued an order prohibiting the
sale of all canned vegetables and fruit. It was explained that this
food would be sold when the present supplies of other foods were
exhausted. There were in Berlin many thousand cans, but no one can say
how long such food will last.

When Americans ask, "How long can Germany hold out?" I reply, "As long
as the German Government can satisfy the vanity and stimulate the
nerves of the people, and as long as the people permit the Government
to do the nation's thinking."

How long a time that will be no one can say. It was formerly believed
that whenever a nation reached the limit which Germany has reached it
would crumple up. But Germany fails to crumple. Instead of breaking
up, she fights harder and more desperately. Why can she do this? The
answer is simple: Because the German people believe in their Government
and the Government knows that as long as it can convince the people
that it is winning the war the people will fight.

Germany is to-day in the position of a man on the verge of a nervous
breakdown; in the position of a man who is under-nourished, who is
depressed, who is weighed down by colossal burdens, who is brooding
over the loss of friends and relatives, but of a man who feels that his
future health and happiness depend upon his ability to hold out until
the crisis passes.

If a physician were called in to prescribe for such a patient his first
act would in all probability be to stimulate this man's hope, to make
him believe that if he would only "hold out" he w