Hindenburg's Whistle

The two little girls in starched white frocks were grave and puzzled.

It was not their idea of a Birthday Party.

Grandpapa just sat and sat in the sunshine, or strolled down by the lake talking with Papa. Mother said that there wouldn't be any special sweet cakes or songs or funny games, as at most Birthday Parties. There wasn't even room to celebrate, here at Shorfheide, the tiny hunting lodge where they were staying.

Of course everybody had to do what Grandpapa liked on his 81st birthday, because he was something called "President."

Therefore last week Helga and Gertrud, the two little granddaughters of Old Paul von Hindenburg, dutifully kept their starched dresses clean of grass stains and their opinions to themselves. They were not the only ones balked of celebrating the 81st Birthday of the President of the German Republic. Scores, nay, hundreds of civic organizations had applied for permits to parade and joyfully demonstrate, in Berlin, before the Presidential Mansion.

All such applications were courteously refused--for Old Paul von Hindenburg had said: "May there be no public observance of the day. I shall be away from Berlin, somewhere in the quiet of the country."

Of course, "somewhere" meant the Presidential Hunting Lodge, on secluded, wimpling Lake Werbellin, a scant 40 miles from Berlin, yet remote as a hut in the Black Forest.

The little girls' papa, Major von Hindenburg, only son of the President, was the only male, except a trusted body servant, who was privileged to travel to Schorfheide with Der Alte Feldmarschall and there to celebrate by sitting in the sun.

German newsgatherers, totally excluded from the "celebration," had to be content with interviewing at Berlin the President's nephew, Herbert von Hindenburg, who told them his favorite Hindenburg anecdote.

It seems that when Feldmarschall von Hindenburg was chosen President, an old friend of army days said to him: "What will you do when you get nervous, as you must often be, among all those politicians and with all your new responsibilities?"

"When I am nervous," replied President-elect von Hindenburg, "I whistle."

"But I never .heard you whistle during the whole War!" cried the friend.

"Precisely!" said Old Paul, with his dryest, most contented rumbling chuckle.

Tale-Teller Herbert von Hindenburg, added: "My uncle was not boasting. I think it is true that no one has seen him nervous or heard him whistle, either as Feldmarschall or Reichspraesident."

A less pleasant echo of Wartime days came bellowing last week, from that brilliant yet brittle strategist General Erich von Ludendorff, once famed as the "Brains of Hindenburg." Today Ludendorff appears to be the victim of delusions of persecution and a strange religious mania. The too-brilliant, too-brittle brain has seemingly snapped at last.

On the President's birthday General von Ludendorff sent him a telegram as follows, also releasing it to the press:

"Three weeks ago I received a handwritten death sentence by mail. I learned just today that this death sentence bears the secret sign of the Freemasons' Lodge of the Rising Sun. This is an answer to my exposure of the Masons' criminal acts in my book on the instigation of war and the murder of people.

"Millions of Germans await from you, Herr Reichspraesident, immediate intervention to rid the nation of these low criminal pests. Seizure of the criminals can be accomplished by speedy action for there ought to be enough German-blooded Germans in the Department of Justice to make that possible.

"Please acknowledge receipt of this telegram personally."

Recent utterances of General von Ludendorff indicate that he classes as "pests" not only Freemasons but Jews, Catholics, Protestants and "all enemies of the German people and their religion."

The "German people" seem to include only those who are ready to enter with von Ludendorff into the "German religion" which he described as one founded upon the worship of Wotan and other ancient "strong" Teuton gods.

Though General von Ludendorff may be merely passing through a phase of mental aberration, he has been at least temporarily cold-shouldered by all of the political associates who, less than a year ago, acknowledged his leadership as head of an extreme Monarchist faction in the Reichstag.

The General has consistently criticized Feldmarschall von Hindenburg for that "disloyalty to our Kaiser" which he showed by allowing himself to be elected President. For at least three years the two old warriors have not met or spoken. Therefore it was all the more remarkable that Erich von Ludendorff appealed to Paul von Hindenburg to save him from the "pests."

Signor Benito Mussolini became much perturbed lest Freemasons assassinate him, some years ago, and accordingly proceeded almost to stamp out the cult of Freemasonry in Italy.