Evening Star Newspaper, August 17, 1924, Page 15

What Europe Is Saying About America FRANCE.—II. BY FREDERIC WILLIAM WILE France has a new national motto. It is not emblazoned upon the walls of her ancient buildings, but it is en- graved upon the hearts of all her people. It runs: “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, Securite.” Americane who know Paris and are familiar with its architecture will recognize at once that the new motto is the old one with the addition of the word “securite.” Security is the Alpha and Omega of French policy today. It is the program of statesmen and the determination of the plain people Every act of France since the arm tice has had security against her tra- ditional foe. Germany, as its motive. France takes no step—diplomatic, military, commercial, financial, eco- nomic or social—that is not inspired, directly or indirectly, by her flerce resolve to make herself secure against 2 new German aggression. She fights the Germans could take the fleld to- day. or tomorrow, or next week, with an army of revanche, counting any- where from 6,000,000 to 7,000,000 men, officered by skillful, experienced leaders. It has been said hereinbefore that France does nothing anywhere or at any time that has not the eventuality of war with Germany conspicuolsup in mind. We Americans always speak of the French as a logical and particularly clear-thinking people. They insist their anxieties with regard to Germany are entirely logical and the fruit of clear and long-range thought on the subject. One of the many prominent Frenchmen to whom the present writer has spoken in Paris puts it this way: “There are only two parties in Germany. One that wants war with France at once; an- other that wants var _with France as soon as possibl The same au- thority reminded his American inter- for reparations, inch by inch, as she fought before Verdun, because repa- vations were designed to weaken Germany and keep her weak. She oc- cupled the Ruhr because, Germany having defaultcd on reparations, some new stranglehold became necessary. The Ruhr, Frenchmen frankly admit, has not been a successful enterprise measured in terms of coal and timber deliveries and other reparations in kind. But they look upon it as a col- lossal moral triumph because the oc- cupation has enabled them to clutch Germany firmly by the throat and to hold her industrial provinces as a Bastage Ir good behavior. Wants Guarantecs. France could probably exist and prosper indefinitely without a single gold mark of German reparations—Iis doing so, in fact, today. But she is not willing to forego both reparztions and the guarantee of security against an- other German war. That guarantee will have to be furnished to France in some form before she finally and com- pletely removes the tri-color from Ger- =ean soil. There can be London and Spa and Genoa and Cannes conferences by e score, dragging their futile courses rough the years. There can be Dawes plans by the dozen. But until there emerges from conferences and plans and reparations commissions, or what not, some cast-iron, copper-riveted. ab- solutely airtight and enduring scheme of security for France against a fresh German assault, the French soul will not be at peace, or French national aspirations satisfied. France will fight it out on that line if it takes all of this century. Statesmen, American and Kuropean, must model their relations and negotiations with France accord- ngly. To the average American who comes to Paris it is utterly disconcerting to find France thinking seriously and con- stantly in terms of war with Germany. The conception we in the United States huve had of the Germans is that they are on their knees, in a military sense, and hardly any more capable of fight- ing Fra than Haiti is of fighting ourselves. We know, of course, that the Ludendorffs and the Hindenburgs and the other militarist and monarchist die-hards long for and dream of re- venge, but it has appeared fantastical (o us that Germany, during the present generation at least, could contemplate making war on France except in & state of complete mental aberration. What the French say is that Ameri- cans who imagine that Germany is down and out, from a war standpoint, are grotesquely mistaken. France keeps 700,000 or $00000 men under arms, and a great air flect in training, and a mobilization plan ready for instant ex- ecution, and willingly bears the im- mense financial burden that such a state of preparedness calls for, because to her marrow France is convinced war with Germany might come at any moment! Fear Attacks by Alr. American asks for a bill of p:{'.imm. when this startling ex- Planation is offered, and the French- man supplies it eagerly and persua- sively. He points out, first of all, that “the next German attack” will not be by land, as the onslaught of 1914 was launched, but mainly by air and probably delivered without a formal declaration of war. You cannot build a navy in stealth, or even train an army under cover, but it is easy, the French assert, to construct a gigantic air fleet and the bombs and gases with which it will attack, without anybody being the wiser. That is exactly what the French are certain the Germans are doins. There has been during the past year or two no very thoroughgoing “control” of German military prepara- tions. Gen. Nollet, now minister of war in the Herriot cabinet, who was the head of the interallied commis- sion charged with the duty of dis-| arming Germany, is persuaded that while the allies were looking the other way and quarreling among them- selves over reparations, the Germans speeded up their military machine in every direction. Factories have been reorganized and expanded, the French declare, with one eye to business and one eye to their immediate conver- sion into munition works when the day of revenge dawns. The writer has heard the statement made in Paris that not a single lathe now working anywhere in Germany that cannct be instantly turned into a machine for making ammunition. The chemical industry, according to the same allegations, is now on a basis that will make the unlimited produc- tian of war gases for Germany the simplest thing imaginable. Big Potential Arm: Germany quit the war with 3,000,000 or 1,000,000 veteran soldiers and 6,000 or 7.000 war-trained non-commission- ed officers. _The French calculate that! rogator that through all the vicissitudes and changing fortunes of German “lib- eral” politics during the past three or four years, one figure has remained at the head of the department of war— Gen. Gessler. The Frenchman in ques- tion says this denotes that, though Germany may change her tune in many other directions, there is continuity of policy and personnel in at least one direction, viz., the branch of the gov- ernment that is making the country ready for war. In this chronicler's days in Berlin, be- fore the war, Admiral von Tirpitz used to be called “Tirpitz the Eternal.” He remained at the Roichsmarineamt, pre- paring Germany for ‘“‘the day” at sea, year in and year out, no matter who happened to be reichskanzl So it is with ssler the Kternal” at Berlin nowadays, the French say. He is there and kept there for a purpose, and that purpose, France is morally certain, is to maintain preparedness for a new attack upon France. A Frenchman laughs in your face if you argue that Germany is liberal, democratic, incor- rigibly pacifist, and militarily impotent, besides. Milttarism Not Weaned. In the United States an impression took root in the Spring, when M. Toincare’s government fell and M. Herriot was placed in power, that France was tired of “militarism” and the “imperialism” that the Poincare program denoted. especially its Ger- man policy. There seems little foun- dation in fact for placing any such construction upon Herriot's victory. Poincare was ousted from the pre- miership on a domestic tax issue. He was anxious to refute the foreign contention, hurled at France mainly from Great Britaln, that the French were unwilling to tax themselves for budget purposes and reconstruc- tion necessities. The Frenchman has an inherited hostility to direct tax- ation. It is practically unknown in this country. It is as alien to the French nature as protection is to the British nature. Poincare, In conse- quence, tumbled for almost precisely the same reason that Baldwin fell i Great Britain. Like Baldwin Poincare was advocating a revolu- tionary fiscal change. France would have none of it. But the Poincare arttftude toward Germany, though its chief exponent and permeate France from end end. It dominates M. Herriot. He would cease to be premier of France 5 minutes after abandoning the Ruhr, for example, or after relinquishing by g0 much as a hair's breadth the stranglehold of Germany which France exerts in the Rhineland and in the Reparations Commission. Americans are speedily enlightened in France when they seek the cause of this nation-wide determination to keep the ancient enemy shackled. Tens of thousands of living French- $20,000 Worth of land impressed. is out of office, continues to dominate | to| SALVAGE SALE FIRE-DAMAGED Building Materials Damaged by Fire to Be Sold - at a Sacrifice New Wall Board 1c Per Foot | Complete Toilet Outfit of Vitreous China, Including Bowl, Tank and Seat Some as low as $12.00, or your choice for $15.00. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, men and Frenchwomen have seen the country invaded and ished by Ger- many on two successive occasions: 1870 and 1914. As they vowed at Verdun, “They shall not pass” the French have sworn as eternal a vow in 1924: “They shall not come again.” At any cost, they have committed themseives to postponing and prevent- ing another German invasion. The memories of the last one are burned too indelibly into French national life to make them shrink any sacrifice, however expensive, to make it impossible. In the World War France mobilized 7,935,000 men of French blood, in addition to 475,000 African natives from her colonies. More than a milllon Frenchmen— 1,038,300—were killed: 249,000 were never seen alive again and figure in the casualty roll as “missing.” Count- ing dead and missing natives, France's roll of losses reached the staggering total of 1,355,000, or 16% per cent of the men she mobilized. French losses aggregated 3.29 per cent of France's population in Eu- rope. It was nearly twice as heavy a percentage as any of the European allies suffered and, of course, Te- duced America’s percentage to re tive insignificance, ours being onl 0.10. In addition to her loss in killed, France is caring for nearly 750,000 maimed and incapacitated men Causes of Attitude. These are the facts and the figures that Frenchmen proffer in justifica- tion of their determination to hold Germany down and keep her down. These are the conditions. and not the theories, advanced in extenuation of that flaming resolve. These are the reasons, the French say, why they pursue poli Europe that out- siders_assail c and im- perialistic. These are the mainsprings of her diplomatic and military alli- ances with Poland today, with the states of the little entente tomor- with Italy and with Japan and th Belgium, eand with whomever he can usefully associate herself. They have, all of them. security against Germany perpetually and al- most exclusively in mind. France claims she would have pre- ferred some other kind of security than a stranglehold on Germany, or great army, or a great air fleet, or a chain of minor alliances all over the world. She would have preferred, above all else, the tripartite treaty of defense, which Amer: Britain pledged her at Versaille: did not grant, when she renounced the security a natural frontier on the Rhine would have given her against the eastern foe. But these things were denfed France. e has had to find substitutes. She is doing so. She will continue to do so, whether the outside world likes it or not. The world may call it militar- ism, or imperlalism, or what it pleases. France calls it security. One devoutly wishes that the hosts of Americans who throng France this summer could see into the heart and soul of France instead of merely into its pleasure resorts in Paris and at the seaside. One wishes, too, that advertising men and lawvers and other opinion-moulding Americans who have descended upon France in mass formation had been given op- portunity to hear something else than professional Franco-American amity | talk across the banquet table. It is | a vital story that France has to tell the world on this all-embracing sub- ject of security against an impenitent Germany. No open-minded American can listen to it without being moved (Copyright, 1924.) W.C.T.U. POLICY STATED. CHAUTAUQUA, N. Y., August 16.— | The Women's Christtan Temperance | Union will support only bone-dry candidates for Congress in Novem- ber, Mrs. Anna A. Gordon, national president, declared in 2n address at the fiftieth anniversary of the or- ganization observed here today. Representatives of 17 States at- tended the exercises, and three of the original members of the organi- zation formed 30 years ago were present Brand-New Stock China Bowl China $3.50 Up | $7.50 Up Tak | | Toilet Seat { { $1.00 Up Bath Tubs As Low as $10.00 An Immense Stock routine. workin any, A Pick-up at These Prices and Kitchen Sinks Your choice at about 7; of our marked price. Those more badly damaged at U4, marked price. New Flooring, damaged by fire, 1¥c foot. Certain-teed Four-in-One Shingies at $1.00 per squ: New Stock Sized Doors 2.6x6.6 and 2.8x68 at $2.5 d $2.75 Cheaper than you can the glass. An immense stock of WIndn:‘%uh at 25c each. This is an honest effort on our part to make the prices so low on this salvage sale at our Sixth & C streets southwest yard that although this firc-damaged stock is an immense one, we will soon complete its salvage and get back to our usual business At the present time our Wrecking Organization is very busy under contract with The Hecht D he Willard Hotel Company, U. S. roject, and our yards are being speedily restocked. We are now in a position to sell you our regular line of Srae . bt cut-rate building material at ecither of our yards— i Southwest Yard, Sixth and C Streets Northeast Yard, Fifth and Florida Avenue FIRE SALE AT SIXTH AND C STS. Southwest ONLY Sidney L. Hechinger Company New Pipe At Used Pipe Prices of New Lavatories tment Store Com- vernment Parkway Thirteen years saving you money on building material and cheerfully refunding money on merchandise returned have estab- lished the good will of this company. SPAIN’S ARMY NEAR DEFEAT BY RIFFIANS Spanish Troops Face Another Dis- aster at Hands of Moor Tribesmen. By Cable to The Star and New York World. Copyright, 1924. PARIS, August 16.—Menaced by the Riff tribes along the whole line in Morocco, the Spanish army is in a critical post according to reports 1924—PART 1. troops which had been surriedly sent there are barely able to keep the Riff tribes in check. The tribes are reported to be as- sembling as if for a big offensive, and the fate of the Spanish directorati is believed to hang on whether it can avoid another Melilla disaster. s 700,000 Germans Jobless. HAMBURG, Germany, August 16.— More than 700,000 jobless men and women are now drawing unemploy- ment doles in unoccupied Germay. Figures from the Ruhr and other oc- cupied sectors are not avallable, but it is believed they will contribute matreialyl to the total number of unemployed in the country. D. C, AUGUST 17, reaching Paris, which add that King Alfonso has sent Echevarietta to buy peace. Echevarietta, a milljonaire ship owner, alone has been able to negotiate with Abdel Krim, having brought about an exchange of prisoners two years ago. Although the Spanish have six times as many soldlers as the Riffians, they have been unable to stay the Riff attacks; and although the Spanish casualtics are reported to have been fewer than a score, the Spanish army is said to have littie stomach for con- tinuing the fight. It is feared that the Spanish general Alzpuru faces the same fate as that of Berenguer. The Spanish outpost, Hartan, on the right bank of the river Lau, is sur- rounded. Tagueist, on the left bank, now is menac At - Tetouan the Eighteen casualties were caused whi a group of Kabyle tribesmen f from ambush on Spanish forces. attack was repulsed. Nine Spanish soldiers and seve native soldiers were killed when the tribesmen opened an intensive firi columu sert to reinforce men h positions. s at Loma Verde, M: and Tazza continue in a most dificult ition, with the Moors throwing more and more fresh forces into the fighting. Spanish convoys are bema(- attacked more frequently. ' FIGHTING IN MOROCCO GROWS MORE INTENSE Moors Launching Attacks on Span- ish Troops and Staging Ambushes. By the Associated Press. TETUAN, Morocco, August 16.—The fighting in Morocco between the Spanish troops and the rebellious tribesmen is described in reports reaching here as takins on greater proportions. The Moors are said to have begun a new attack near Tabor, while Spanish regulars have started an action on the road to — . In Spain the organization and | Browth of trade unions is handicap- | ped by the strict regulations laid idown by the governmen R A A A A A A A A O AR A A A A A A R AR A A A A A A A A RN AR AR P A 2 A LANSBURGH & BRO. 418430 Tth Street " Famous for Quality Since 1860, " Phone Franklin 7400 NEW Ve Each day see they are, women. and all smart crusher crown cffects. or Selling of Lyon’s beauty, fairly brimming with charm as it leaves its tissue wrap- pings. And as soon as you see them you will agree with us that without doubt. the finest products of the designers’ art shown at any time at a price bordering on this low one of $7.50. Choice is practically unlimited— hundreds of hats, styles for every need and every type—colors that bid fair to be the prevailing vogue for fashioned straight TODELS Arrive to Augment the lvet Hats at $7.50 scores of hats arriving, and each is a vision of Trimmed with peacock, hand- embroidery, wooden beads, ribbons and flowers, there are adequate models for sport, street and semi- dress. Tiny, medium and capeline shapes for the small or extra large head. SECOND FLOOR, LANSBURGH & BRO. in the high- ‘é“ S == \\ An Extraordinary Value in the Advance Sale of Furs Luxurious Fur Coats A specialized group of unusually smart fur coats is featured at the 98.50 Winter, and all of soft, full-furred skins, carcfully selected and matched. uniform- price of $98.50—a price in keepin, of fine, soft fur. Sealine (dyed coney) Marmot Muskrat From such dependable furs are these coats made—in the correct styles as depicted for wear this with any need for economy or thrift that enables the average woman to purchase a luxuriant coat The Sealine (dyed coney) Coats are shown with reversed skin bor- ders, collars of natural squirrel or skunk, or severely simple with huge crusher collar. The marmot, in rich brown, and the muskrat, beautifully marked, are fashioned on straight lines and are equally smart for sport or daytime wear. All are 48 inches long. ! A Deposit Is Enough SECOND FLOOR, LANSBURGH & BRO. Satin CantonCrepe and Crepe de Chine Formerly $2.98 Quality Priced to Sell Briskly $2.25 Again, tomorrow, and as long as the quantity lasts, hundreds of value-informed women will turn L. & B.-ward to share in the savings they know this selling means. i They'll choose from the season’s choicest color- ings. fabrics that will fashion ultra-smart frocks and lingerie, for now and later. _ One of those irequent offerings that have estab- lished the L. & B. reputation for silk leadership. Feature! 10,000 Yards 40-in. Crepe de Chine and Radium Taffeta Formerly $1.95 quality Sale priced down to yd. $1.65 The vardage involved and the solidness of the values bring this out as one of the silk buying oppor- tunities of a season that has been of wonderful ad- vantage to the home sewer. Handsome, all-silk qualities in 50 of the best col- orings for frocks, slips and lingerie Be sure to avail yourself of this thrifty special selling. ) 40-in. Brocade Crepes, in rich self-colored designs on grounds of navy blue. <eal and black. 32 98 Do Former $4.00 quality 40-in. Black Satin Crepe, one of the coming sea- son’s desirable fabrics, in a deep, rich black. Former $3.50 quality. special. $2-69 40-in. Printed Crepe de Chine, in attractive de- and colorings. with plenty of tan, . black and white. Formerly 3225 $1.95 THIRD FLOOR. LANSBURGH & BRO. An All-Metal Toy AFEROPLANE That Really Flies sigr navy Special Display and Instructions LANSBURGH & BROTHER, STREET FLOOR | Aug. 18 to 22 | Eagl;a Aluminum Aeroplane special demonstration frice 39¢ . —That will fly, loop the loop, 6r do any stunt the big planes will do.. Goes by propeller.: A scientific, educational toy of great value in teaching the fundamentals of aviation. Bring the children to see the demonstration.