Otto Julius Merkel
Christmas 1920
My dear Miss Addams:
The approaching holidays increasingly urge me to send the greetings I should have liked to send long ago. Please accept also my very best wishes for the coming year. The enclosure, especially the part referring to foreign work may I hope give you the excuse for my delay in writing you as I have practically been charged with the entire responsibility for this work.
For someone in Germany like myself who still attempts to be an observer rather than a participant, except in charitable work, it is possible to speak with considerably more confidence than last year around this time of the chance we have for surviving our trials successfully. The recurring waves of dissatisfaction culminating from time to time in revolutionary attempts of small groups or strikes have steadily become more insignificant. The last great strike attempt though succeeding in darkening Berlin for several days by shutting off its electricity has turned into a complete fizzle as it was met with indifference by the [center] and the right including the majority of the social-democratic party. This happened in spite of the fact that the time of the strike was very carefully chosen by coinciding in the with the interregnum due to the merging of Berlin with its adjacent communities into a greater Berlin, which left Greater Berlin for two or three days without a [well-constituted] authority.
But I should like to mention one other incident of the last few months which has impressed itself upon my mind as very significant [page 2] indeed. The left wing of the independent socialists had succeeded to get into the general meeting of their party at Halle the Russian subject Mr. Sinowjew, supposed to be the best orator of the Bolsheviks. In a remarkable speech lasting more than four hours he deluged the assembly with arguments and sentiments meant to influence them in [favor] of the Third International. Ear witnesses have told me that neither in America nor in England nor in France nor in fact anywhere in the world have they come across an oratory as [skillfully] demagogic as that one of Sinowjew. Had not very clear minds or unshakable [organization] faced this torrent of mingled invectives and fata morgana, the subsequent voting of the wrought up crowd should have led it into the arms of Moscow. In reality not a vote has been gained by the Russian, while on the other hand Sinowjew's opportunity to speak deprived him of the always so welcome argument that parties in opposition had denied their members the chance of hearing him speak for his cause. The sober thoughtfulness shown even by the radical wing of our socialists therefore inspires a good deal of confidence in our strength for an evolutionary rather than revolutionary reconstruction.
We shall need that strength beyond a doubt in many critical moments to come. It is not saying too much that our problem of supplying the bread necessary for the feeding of our population this year is more difficult than it was a year ago. The harvest was 7 million tons instead of 8.3 million tons last year. But while last year over [1,100,000] tons had been delivered by the farmers until December 1st, this year not even [300,000] tons have so far been delivered, leaving us under the necessity of importing about 2.5 million tons during the [page 3] next few months in order to safeguard the [feeding] of our city population. That of course means, like nearly everything else that we have got to do as far as raw materials for living and manufacturing are concerned, a cooperation on the part of our friends in the other countries of the world and above all in the United States which we can reasonably only hope for if we give further proofs of the strengthening and growth of our will to work for our own and the world's welfare. I for one should like to register it as my firm conviction that Germany will justify the confidence its friends [favor] it with. By getting more and more a hold upon our own constructive energies +) and by facing ahead rather than by looking backwards as too many of us have been doing for the last twenty-four months this salvation must and will be accomplished.
With kindest regards, ↑and the best wishes of the season I remain↓
Very sincerely yours
O Julius Merkel [signed]
↑Nearly every day at least once I have to think of the wonderful way in which you have fulfilled your vow to help our children. Your name has become a household word in Germany like that of the Quakers.↓
+) Possibly the most prominent feature [of] our combined social-economic-political life may be found in the further coordination of our production that has taken place thanks to the development of the various forms of chiefly economic councils i.e. those formed by the employees and employers and every type of communal, business or industrial enterprise, those formed between identically interested groups and finally the supreme economic council of the entire country.
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