The Constituent Assembly met at Weimar on 6 Feb. 1919, in the celebrated court theatre altered to serie the occasion. The Spartacides and their sympathizers had demanded that the place be Berlin, bat there was too much radi calism in the air at the capital for the quiet de liberations of the Assembly, and Weimar was , .
chosen. At the first meeting 397 delitgates were present. Dr. Eduard David, a prominent leader in the old Social Democratic party, was selected for president of the body. The chancellor us der the existing government, Herr Ebert, made an address in behalf of time government Ger many, he said, was 'Mane forever with princes and nobles by the grace of God? and the sea timent was cheered by inost of the metnbers. When he referred to domestic problems he was interrupted by the independents, who had come to realize that the trend of sentiraent in the As semhly was to ignore extreme Socialistic ideas. Os matters connected with the foreign situa tion, as the armistice and the terms of the com ing. treaty .of peace, there was not the same di. vision of opinion, and it behooved the speaker to dwell on them. Cheers greeted his demand for the immediate release of the 800,000 Ger mans held prisoners by the Allies and his allu sion to the proposed union of Germany and Austria. oWe turn? he said, 4to the people of the world for justice. We ask that otu eco. nomic life be not destroyed. The German peo ple have fought for inner self-determinatson. It cannot be perfected from the outside? There cah be no doubt that the German people believed sincerely that it was a great wrong to weaken Germany's economic life. If we could barget the sad havoc their governmeat had played with the econoinic life of the rest of the world we might share their ophtion. the hour of subjection they insisted that it was not the Getman people but the militarists who brought ruin oa the world, forgetting that ia the first mootha of the war German professors, German newspapers, German political parties, and evert the Socialist party gaye the world the most solemn assurance that Germany stood as one matt for the war.
On 8 February a provisional comtitution, prepared by the Ebert cabinet, was offered m the Assembly and on 11 February it was passed unanimotnly, to be in force until a per maneat constitution:1 was adopted. It provided for a kgislature of two houses and a chief executive to be known as the 'Provisional State Presidents An attempt to have a re public formally adopted proved a failure, but the form waS nevertheless republican. Next Herr Ebert waa chosen President, and immedi ately the rioging of bells announced to the world that Germany's first ruler elected by her own people had taken the reins of authority.
Of the man himself Theodor Wolff, the journal ist, said: ((Ebert its no shining light, nor has he studied as much as Mae others, but he is the incorporation of good common sense. When 'after a day's work he sits behind a good bottle of wine, his hands fokled aver the table, this natural wisdom shows to the best advantage? It was conunon sense that had brought Fred ericic Ebert, the saddler, from low rank to the leadership of his party in time of crisis. At the end of his first year in office his recovd was clear of notable errors, and he had car tied the Gernman government safely through a period of unusual turbulence.
When the Spartacides realized that the Con stituent Assembly was overwhelmingly op posed to the rule of the proletariat, they tried to overthrow it. The Berlin Cotmcil of Sol diers and Workmen appealed to the state councils of soldiers and worlanen, urging them to dennuld a national soviet on the Russia& model. They threatened to call a national con gress of soviets as a rival to the Constituent Assembly. The most immediate remit of their agitation was the outbreak of workmen's riots in many parts of Germany. In Bremen. Magde burg, Hamburg, Augsburg, Nuremburg, in many places in Saxony and elsewhere out breaks ocaured, beginning as political pro tests but generally' resulting in looting. The most notable disturbance, however, was in Ba varia, where Kurt Eisner, an Independent So cialist, had made himself the chief authority in November, when time king of Bavaria was borced out of his royal °that. He was a fear less man of ability and good sense, probably the most capable of the leaders of the rads in this period of violent opinion and action. He gave mortal offense to the ckfenders of the old regime when in a speech at a Socialist con gress in Berne he charged that the militarists brought on the war, and in another speech ar raigned the °management of the German prison camps as cruel to the inmates. On 21 Feb. 1919 he was easamituited by a yotuag lieutenant of the former privileged class as Eisner walked through the streets. The radicals seized the op portuoity to break into revolt and MC of them shot Auer, Minister of the Interior, as he was about to inform the Diet of the death of Eisner, whom he, as a Majority Socialist, had opposed on various occasions. The disorders continued several days but were suppressed by the authorities, a Socialist government emerg ing from the disorders with Herr Hoffman at its head.