FRIEDRICH STATES VIEWS ON GERMANY

"There is no probability at all of the establishment of a dictatorship in Germany." Carl Joachim Friedrich, assistant professor of Government stated yesterday in discussing with a CRIMSON reporter the present political disturbances at Berlin.

"Article 48 of the constitution," Professor Friedrich explained, "gives the power 'to take the necessary measures to restore public safety' not to the president alone, but provides a check on his action by the cabinet and the Reichstag. And since the cabinet is made up of representatives of various parties, and only those extraordinary measures can be taken which have a direct bearing on the specific emergency, there is no fear of Germany's ever being dominated by a Mussolini. Article 48 is a wise provision which enables the government to take immediate action such as Bruening is attempting with his drastic tax reforms in a crisis while postponing the final decision of the people. It has been invoked before, as in 1924: Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War is a similar case.

"But Germany faces several extraordinary problems. Her resources are low, and her unemployed number 3,000,000. In this country the wages of one worker may support two people; in Germany the wage scale has been depressed to the lowest point. Russian dealings in wheat might conceivably boost German industry; but it is useless to make any predictions as to when she will emerge from the present worldwide economic depression. Secretary Lamont stated that reparations have been removed from politics, which is inherently nonsense; all five German parties suggested a change in the Young Plan at the last election.

"German statesmen are constantly forced to make sacrifices--to sign their names to settlements which they feel they may not be able to meet. They are eager to raise the voting age to 25, to remove from the political situation radical young people who have not yet come to understand the situation. Newspapers should be tolerant in their treatment of the whole scrambled situation. They should realize that Germany is in an impasse."