Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 131, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1918 — HAMBURG, A FREE CITY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HAMBURG, A FREE CITY

WHILE it has been suspected that of “German kultur” exaggerated to undue gravity the “peace •trikes” that apparently spread like a great conflagration over Germany and Austria, to exercise a deterrent effect upon entente war operations, it is a general conviction that the half has not been told In the meager reports that have sifted to us through Switzerland and Holland. One of these was that the most serious of the protesting strikes against continuation of the war was that of Hamburg, one of the three “free cities” of Germany, the greatest port in Europe and one of the very few great ports of the world. It would be natural for Hamburg to assume prominence and in a way In leadership of a movement which really has been imbued with a deal of the bolshevik! spirit of Russia for cessation of the war and the conclusion of a peace on a somewhat radical democratic basis, writes E. W. Lightner in the Pittsburgh Dispatch. It has been mbre than half a century a leader of advanced thought and action in Germany, insistently democratic in its inspiration, opposed to junkerism though, as a matter of course, submitting to the militarism of the empire. With the economic furor aroused by the great argument of Karl Marx in Das Kapital, and the political organization.effected by Ferninand Lassalle, no people in Prussia or the German states were so profoundly moved as those of Hamburg. One result was election to the reichstag of its three socialist members, this being followed by the election of four from Berlin under the very nose of King William I and of Bismarck, who attempted to crush so-

clalism by law and actually pave the way to the world war. Called "Venice of the North.” He who has not seen Hamburg has not seen Germany or Europe. With its great canals and basins and rivers and harbor it long ago well earned the soubriquet of “The Venice of the North.” It not only has canals "rivaling those of Venice in number, but also much of the, medieval aspect of Venice with much that is splendidly modern, great old structures as striking in architecture as any in Venice, church towers exceeded in height only by those of the cathedral at Cologne and, business and private houses as quaint and fascinating as can be found in Europe. The history of this great port city and city state is as rich in tragedy and romance as Greece and Rome, though for obvious reasons less celebrated in literature. Its themes were prosaic, Its rhythms were those of mighty commerce far beyond compare with that of Venice and Genoa In the days of their merchant princes. Assaulted and looted by Danes, Norse. Slays, Romans and various’ others of the brigands throughout a period embracing hundreds of years, it ever rose from its imperial waters by which nature seemed to have destined it to become an Imperial port. For protection of commerce it united with Bremen and Lubeck In the formation of a “hause,” or league, and soon, with the Incorporation of other cities arose the "Hanseatic league.” which for long years actually dominated the commerce of Eu-

rope, establishing branches and headquarters in other commercial cities and even almost playing a game of fiftyfifty in London itself, having for a long period an establishment at the Steelyard ih that city. It secured special privileges in several of the chief cities in northern Europe and held undisputed sway of the Baltic sea and Ger- * man ocean. It supressed land robbers and sea pirates, but exacted undue toll from other countries and with their progress within themselves began its decline. Nearly Ruined by Davout. It was Maximilian I, who in 1510 declared Hamburg an imperial city, and it was under the sway of Napoleon I that it met with ruin, beginning with its corporation into the French empire in 1810, just 300 years after the historic decree of Maximilian. For more than a year, beginning with 1813, the city was under the control of the French General Davout, who gave free reign to pillage, and the population rapidly dwindled from 100,000 to nearly 50,000. After NapoleOn it entered the German federation as a free city of the empire. From this it developed as a commercial and maritime , city with amazing rapidity, suffering only one check, the disastrous fire in 1842. The old Hanseatic league had been long a matter of history, but there remained of it the original three free cities, Hamburg, Bremen, with its splendid port of Bremerhafen, and Lubeck. The three gained in population wonderfully, but Hamburg far outstripped the others, and is, next to Berlin, the most populous city in Germany. Within 30 years preceding 1900 it has increased in population more than 300,000, and before the war the population

was estimated at more than 1,000.000, while the city-state, 159 square miles In area, and one of the German states, has tens of thousands more. Hamburg is essentially a “free city.” It has absolutely home government Since-the beginning of its days of peace and prosperity It has spent hundreds of millions in public works, owns or rigidly controls all public utilities, some of which have been leased to private operators; has coristructed the finest harber’appointments of any city of the world. It has unexcelled schools, libraries containing hundreds of thousands of volumes, beautiful parks and gardens, palatial residences, one of the most Interesting of zoos and a rival of Coney Island at the rollicking suburb of St. Paulus; and for long years the spectacle of the shipping has been unrivaled In any other port nt the world. It would be .an Ideal place for a “peace strike” this “Venice of the North,” this home of radical democracy which rejoices In a home government that reaches kaiserdom only through its representatation In the ,Natlonal Parliament, a representation not usually to the liking of "the divinely anointed.”

View of Harbor of Hamburg.

Scene In Hamburg.