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What Monsignor Seipel said at the Ball-hausplatz was summarized in a Foreign Office tip-off to the press. He first explained that "verbal derailments from one side or another must not be taken too seriously," assured the diplomats that "the elections will be carried out peacefully and subsequent developments will follow the strictest constitutional course."
Through the coffee houses of gossiping Vienna spread a rumor that handsome Prince von Starhemberg, fired by the triumphs of his friend, "Handsome Adolf" Hitler, in Germany, has a Heimwehr plot up his sleeve to doublecross the Seipel group which has given him the Ministry of Interior, hopes to manage the election of so many Heimwehr men that he himself will become No. 1 Austrian.
*When a small shipment (16,000 rounds) of Mauser cartridges consigned to him as "Glassware" was seized by the police of Linz last year, Prince von Starhemberg blustered: "I am only sorry that I did not personally fetch this shipment of ammunition as I am accustomed to do."