862.00/2532
The Chargé in Germany (Gordon) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 4.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to my telegram No. 107 of September 223 summarizing the political situation as it had developed during the previous week, as well as to the concluding sentences of my despatch No. 486 of September 17, 1930.
The development which is now disturbing me the most, and which has become accentuated even in the few days which have elapsed since my telegram under reference, is the accumulation of evidence that the parliamentary parties lying between the extremists to Right and Left have not yet learned their lesson. These parties, which profess to be most devoted to the maintenance of republican institutions and whose members have the most foreign connections—and consequently cannot be indifferent to foreign political opinion—have, in the shape of the recent elections, received a sharp warning as to the results which follow upon their inability to agree on questions of [Page 86] fundamental importance to the maintenance of a republican and parliamentary form of government. One would think that an experience of so drastic a nature would awaken them to the necessity of amending their ways but, as I said before, there is no evidence to this effect. On the contrary, as far at any rate as all surface indications go, the leaders of these parties are proceeding in the same manner as heretofore, and the jockeying, bickering and bargaining going on between them seems to be as pronounced and obstructive as ever. Only yesterday the People’s Party, apparently learning nothing from its signal losses in the election, declared that any compromise with Socialist doctrines was not to be considered and that the grouping together of all government-supporting bourgeois parties would be maintained as the goal of the policy of its parliamentary fraction. As it is still to be presumed that the party is likewise adverse to a coalition with the National Socialists it is difficult to see what meaning the vague words as to the goal of the party’s policy can have and how the leaders of this party can delude themselves into thinking that they are by their attitude in any way facilitating the cause of good government.
As developments are now shifting so rapidly, I shall not attempt further to expatiate upon this theme at the moment, but I trust that the brevity of this despatch will not detract from the emphasis which I should like to put upon this present phase of the political situation.
Respectfully yours,
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