Long Live the Republic

On the first day of September, in the year 1715, a high court official appeared on a balcony of the Palace of Versailles, holding his staff of office. In a loud voice he cried to ) the people: "The King is dead." Then he broke his staff, threw the pieces away, took another from a waiting attendant, cried: "Long Live the King!" In this way was the death of Louis XIV and the succession of Louis XV made known.

Since the celebrated phrase was born, it has been used to illustrate the truth that, though men may come and men may go, the State goes on forever. Last week, in the German Republic was uttered the cry: "The President is dead. Long live the Republic!"

As it must to all men, Death came to Friedrich Ebert, first President of the German Republic. He was in the 55th year of his life. His malady was peritonitis (acute inflammation of the membraneous lining of the abdomen), caused by appendicitis. Death came unexpectedly in a sanitarium after a few days of illness (TIME, Mar. 2).

In the dead of night, just as his living body had been carried from the Presidential Palace on the Wilhelmstrasse to the sanitarium, his dead body was carried from the sanitarium to the Presidential Palace between two long lines of smoking, flaming torches, held by members of the Reichsbanner, republican organization. Flags slipped down half the length of the masts on which they were hoisted. There was a clattering of a police escort, a deep silence from a sorrowing country to mark the day upon which Fritz Ebert passed away.

It was at Heidelberg, famed University town, in the year 1871--the year that saw the end of the Franco-Prussian War--that a baby was born to the wife of Tailor Ebert. That baby was christened Friedrich and was known as "Fritz."

At an early age, Fritz went to a public school in Heidelberg and received there a modest education which he supplemented by voluntary attendance in some of the University's lecture rooms that were open to the general public. At the age of 15, he was apprenticed to a saddlemaker and, while thus employed in learning a trade, joined an organization of youths known as the Young Socialists. This was perhaps the first step of any importance in his life.

Having learned to wield the saddle-maker's awl and, in his spare time, the pen, he forsook his trade, went to Bremen and became a journeyman. In Bremen, as is most of Germany's seaports, Socialism was finding hospitable entertainment in the hearts and minds of the common people. Young Ebert soon became identified with the Socialists and was to be seen most Sundays haranguing crowds on the merits of Marxian philosophy* but for all his energy he passed for a man of mediocre ability.

Years passed without significant event, although it is true that he had won a modest recognition from his party (Social Democratic) and had several times taken part in the international councils of the world's Socialists. On his foreign comrades, Ebert seemed to have made no impression. In 1912, he was elected a member of the Reichstag. There, also, Ebert was undistinguished. He, like all his brethren, was bitterly opposed to militarism and, like them, he supported the Kaiser in what many Germans believed--and many still believe-- to be a war of self-defense. Even in 1917, when he first began to agitate for peace, he was little more than a political nonentity and yet, within 18 months, this "square-shouldered chunky man" was to become the first Chief Executive of a Republican Germany.

The War had brought Fritz Ebert to the front of his party. His voice was more than once heard in the support of militarism. If Germany won the War, the workers would share in the foreseen prosperity; if Germany lost, the workers would be rid of the Kaiser. Several times he sat in council with the All Highest; and when the War ended and the Kaiser fled, Ebert succeeded Prince Max von Baden as Chancellor. In such a position, he became the logical choice as President of the Republic.

As first President of Germany, Herr Ebert had to steer a difficult course. In the first place, there were no precedents upon which to fall back; he had to create them; and, in a country which for centuries had reveled in kingly glory, the lack was unusually difficult. It was said that he ate peas with his knife, that he was illiterate, that he dressed like a navvy, that his wife was "an old frump." A thousand jokes at his expense were born. Some said that Frau Ebert would sweep the Presidential Palace herself and that he would polish his own doorknobs. All these jokes he and his wife wisely ignored and soon they ceased.

His conduct as President was firm, tactful, moderate. Even his political enemies realized that, if they had not a great man as head of the State, at least they had an able one. In 1918, when a surging multitude vociferously acclaimed him President of the Republic (he had then just succeeded Prince Max von Baden as Chancellor after the Imperial regime had fallen), he neither refused nor accepted, but passed the incident off with a statement that he must first consult the other leaders of the Social Democratic Party. It was a characteristic attitude and an attitude that he unswervingly followed throughout his tenure of the Presidency. At that time and since, he might have made himself a dictator; and there were (and are) not a few who asserted that the republican regime might now be stronger if a dictator had arisen. But Herr Ebert, Social Democrat that he was, was more of a Democrat than a Socialist; and he waited the voice of the 11,000,000 people who elected him President through the Constituent National Assembly at Weimar.

The next four years were fraught with grave dangers, and supreme difficulties. Quick to realize that the Communist activities constituted the greatest menace to the turbulent Republic, Herr Ebert enlisted the ready support of the Monarchists to crush the revolt incepted by the famed Reds, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. It was in this uprising that General Noske, Minister of Defense, brutally put down the Spartacists and gained the odious epithet of "the butcher." The popularity of Ebert waned; and, in the next year (1920) Monarchist Wolfgang von Kapp sprang his short-lived coup d'etat and Ebert and the Government fled Berlin. This time, Ebert enlisted the support of the Republicans against the Monarchists and, by declaring a general strike, soon brought the Kapp Government crumbling in ruins. Ebert's popularity advanced several points. His generalship was such that many a miliatry tactician might well have been proud of his talent. He dealt no less effectively with the Bavarian dictatorship (TIME, Nov. 19, 1923, et seq.) and the Saxon Communists (TIME, Nov. 5, 1923, et seq.). The former he tactfully allowed to wear itself out; the latter he forced to capitulate.

Of late, with Republicanism distinctly on the wane, his position has become more and more difficult and has not stopped at accusations of the gravest tenor. In a court of law (TIME, Jan. 5, et seq.) he was forced to defend himself with ill success against a charge that he had sought to end the War by encouraging a munitions strike early in 1918. Most courts of law would have found him innocent; but this one, presided over by a Monarchist judge, condemned him as a traitor. What fodder for the Monarchists ! But Ebert never permitted such incidents to interfere with his Presidential functions. At all times, he remained above party and above self-interest--an attitude of scrupulous patriotism and devotion in a country whose governmental machinery was in large part controlled by Monarchists.

Herr Friedrich Ebert was not a great man and, if he had not been President of Germany, he would have been neither eminent nor distinguished. But he had the greatest attribute of a great man: he was an excellent judge of human nature; he knew whom to gather about him, whom to entrust with power and responsibility and whom to avoid. The Presidency brought out other qualities that might well have remained latent. He was unselfish to a remarkable degree and, it is said, favored no member of his family when he was invested with the considerable powers and the greater prestige of his high position. He was a tactician par excellence, but of strategy he knew little, or, if he did, he left it to his political generals. He was in all generous, simple, tactful, wise, firm, moderate -- a sum of qualities that greater men have too often lacked Small wonder that, while his friends extolled his achievements and mourned the loss of a great leader, even his bitterest enemies could say, "Too bad; Ebert was a good man."

The death of President Ebert has advanced the question of the presidential election. Herr Ebert was to have finished his term of office on June 30 in any case and an election was to have been held in May. Most political observers were of the opinion that the election would actually be held in March or early in April; for Germany, unlike other Republics, has no Vice President. Whenever a President is incapacitated, even for a brief period, somebody has to be appointed, or, in a more serious case, elected President. At present Chancellor Hans Luther is President ad interim.

Talk about President Ebert's death marking the beginning of the end of the Republican regime is, for the most part, insincere; it may be that the regime is crumbling, but it has long been crumbling, Ebert or no Ebert. The fact remains that a new President will soon be chosen. Two likely men are in the running; but such is the state of politics in Germany that there is many a dark horse that may run and canter home. And of the dark horses nothing can be prophesied, for even the ex-Imperial Princes may stand for election according to the Constitution.

The two men who will undoubtedly run are Chancellor Hans Luther, who, when hairs are not split, is a Monarchist, and ex-Chancellor Wilhelm Marx, leader of the Catholics. Chancellor Luther can depend upon the Monarchist vote and the votes of the big interests. Chancellor Marx can depend on the Catholic vote alone. There remain the large Socialist and the smaller Democratic votes. For whom will these people vote? Possibly for a Socialist candidate, say ex-Chancellor Philipp Scheidemann; but, if the issue is to be between Herrn Luther and Marx, it would seem that a majority of the Socialists and Democrats, who are largely Protestants, will vote for Protestant Luther rather than for Catholic Marx. But it is extremely unlikely that this will be the issue.

According to the rules for presidential elections, a candidate in the first ballot must receive an absolute majority of the votes (i. e., more than 50%). If, however, none of the candidates receives the required majority, a second ballot is taken and the candidate having the largest number of votes is elected. It seems almost certain that the forthcoming election will run to a second ballot. The issue will then be not which candidate receives an absolute majority of the votes, but which receives the largest number of votes. As between Herrn Luther and Marx, the former will be most likely to win for stated reasons, especially as he will promise to uphold the Republican Constitution.

*President Ebert believed in the "evolutionary" interpretation of the Marxian doctrine as opposed to the "revolutionary" principles practised by the Bolsheviki.