Evening Star Newspaper, November 1, 1925, Page 61

EDITORIAL PAGE NATIONAL PROBLEMS SPECIAL FEATUPES Part 2—20 Pages WORLD COURT VICTORY * FORESEEN IN THE SENATE More Than Two-Thirds of Senators Counted as Safely Favoring Protocol of Adherence. ! BY FREDERIC WILLTAM WILE. ! DVOCAT; reason States of now thelr fight 13 won. to believe that Senate in January, They have the United 1926, favor of the U to the international tribunal. Discussion of the subject will be the Senate's special order of business on December 17. Debate will recess will intervene, expected until the new year. the year is very old the aves and noes will be demanded. by Senator Claude A. Swanson, Dem: ocrat, of Virginia, on whose resolu- tion the Senate's forthcoming action will be based, indicates that not more than 16 adverse votes at the outside are in prospect. It would take 33 votes—one more than one-third of the Senate—to defeat the Swanson resolution. President in Earnest. President Coolidege, there is autho ity for stating, is preparing to go the full limit of his power to secur adoption of the World Court pro- posal at the opening of the com- sesson, will reiterate his ap- proval of it In strongest terms he has vet used rezarding it. Some friends of the coart have now and then felt that Mr. Coolidze’s support was lukewarm and perfunctory and ked the zeal of a crusader. Other pro-court authorities have been dis- appointed that the President did not crack the Republican party whip over tant G. O. P. Senators in be- of the co! Men who have had opportunity observe the Cool- idge point of view in recent times, in consequence of personal contact with the Preside and soul for the project. that any doubts about the sincerity of his interest in the World Court or hig desire for American moon be effectually removed. ing as leader of his party will also be manifest. There prospectively will be at | sion bec tho latest, will vote overwhelmingly in |licans on the forelgn relati ited States’ adhesion |mittee—Borah, Johnson, Moses and | tm- |1s up. Some of its shining lights have | has long passed for religious persecu- mediately ensue, but, as the holiday | vote is mot | p Before | A poll made | His third annual message to | now report him heart | They say | entry will | That | the requisite pressure has been exer- clsed by Mr. Coolidge in his capacity | only a handful of Republican Sen- | ators who will vote against the court. Agalnst the Court. This writer has been supplied in an euthoritativ of the 16 Senators who are known to be either openly opposed to American entry or whose attitude is so doubtful that they are cl The list 1s as follows: Republicans—Borah of Tdaho, Pep- her of Pennsylvania, Moses of }Iumpshlm, Wa orth of New York, Ta Follette of Wisconsin, Brookhart of Towa, Johnson of Califorma, Reed of Pennsylvania, Norris of Nebraska, Norbeck of South Dakota and Howell of Nebraska. (Total, 11.) Democrats— Reed of Missouri, Dill of Washington, Blease of South Carolina and Copeland of New York. (Total, 4) Farm-Lal —sShipstead of Minnesota. (Total, 1 TWhile these 16 Senators ure COR ered to be anti-court, d- quarter with the names | ed as opponents. | New | temporarily put in the “doubtful” col- | emn—Reed of Pennsylvania, publicans, ana Blease, among the Democrats. low the lead of Howell, | the court. Norris and Norbeck, among the Re-|proved American co-operation in in-| Teed 1s espected to fol. | their executive councils to give tha Senator Pepper, and | subject continuous study. | Senator Swanson, the ranking ons committee of the Senate, who to lead the fight for the World . is jubilant over the prospect. 15 to the lot of the minority party to take the lead when the court is Le- fore the Senate in open executive ses- use the four ranking Repub. s com lati is Wadsworth—are anti-court. | position, this writer, “The op- said Senator Swanson to is consclous that the jig | De: c member of the foreign re- American entry | Democratic member o 3 | into the World Court—Repub- | licans and Democrats ulke— | (oo claim confidently that | Ty WASHIN Editor’s note.—This is the first of a series of articles by world- famous authors on the general subject of “My Religion.” a pecul- iarly timely topic in view of pres- ent universal interest in religion. The second article will be pub- lished mext Sumday in the Edi- torial Section of The Sunday Star. ELIGION huas become in these post-war days so individual a thing that no one is afrald of speaking of it. The time dmitted a: much to me during the | tion, whether social, moral or political, st few da “They will register their hostill """d L ’“"’p:;s""" you wers to queation | when the time comes, especally, I|Mine out of ten of grown men and suppose, Senator Borah, who only a |Women of today as to their religlous | | Tew ngo. at. Chicago voived | experience they would describe to you arresh ntipathy to any court|an evolution through three states of | not ‘divorced’ from _the | discovery. First, the child's accept- | of Nations. I know of no|anke of the dogmas handed over to it | du Scotenno; forelgn re- v iy elders: second, the adolescent’s latlons that has enligted so wide-| . | ags Spread popular Support. in America | eaction agalnst that acceptance, and, | as the proposal that we should join | third, the evolution of some positive | { the World Court. The churches are | Personal opinion born of personal ex- virtually a unit for it. Our great|perience. woman electorate—roundly, half of | the Nation’s voting population—is | » | practically sold for _it. Current|,, L Tiself passed through exactly events in Europe have immeasurably | {1e¢¢ three stages. 1 was bred up in| strengthened the World Court cause | the very heart of Church of England | in the United States. The people|teaching, I saw it working on every | have not falled to note thut the Lo-|side of me; the only grown-up people | arno peace pacts provide for even-|I ever saw belleved, or appeared to | n{ml‘“;}ilr“l‘flmnt‘ !-{v llm v\}\""r»r!-lon‘l‘roa\'- lt;benew, implicitly in these teachings. | o nces between o ct-| 1, i : ing parties that are not adjudicated | LHtIL T was 18 or 19 I did not direct | by the arbitral bodies provided in the | active thinking about religlon, but| pacts themselves. From my point of | Simply accepted what I was gliven; 1| view, opposition to the whole League | went to church twice every Sunda: of Nations idea is visibly vanishing|and was bored part of the time and | {1n our country. T expect to live U)|sentimentally moved by hymns, emo- see the day when the United States|yong) sermons and lights and colors. will be a member of the League of | - 5 ations, though there is not the (1 mmade the discovery made by all chil iehteat no one was perfect, and ok ok % | | anger that adhesion to the | dren—that World Cou ith the Coolldge- | that to be a clergyman or a church Hughes reservations, which the Sen-|sorker or & choir boy.did not mean ate will presently adopt, will auto-ithat you were removed from the to frighten political children. It ;‘"" ”‘;“d"“‘g ‘;"‘l‘ d.‘:(’:‘?"“",‘sl“‘“";“‘ never had any real foundation and |!N&% I was a choir boy myself. But Tt lasimote bows it never ;ha:zht Juring this ;:er::d 4 % |as to whether the dogmas o e Concede Sufficlent Votes. | Church of England were for me true Well known opponents of the|or false; I accepted them as certain. World Court, like Senator Borah,| I was Intended to be a clergyman, | concede that’ President Coolldge un-|and, to give me experlence, I was doubtedly has the votes to carry the| EDITORIAL SECTION he Suntwy Stad GTON, D. C, SUNDAY MORNING, ARTICLE I BY HUGH WALPOLE Author of “The Cathedral,” “Jeremy,” Ete. HUGH WALPOLE. that was far more generous in what!nnt mean the cessation of spiritual|for a human belng is an absolute; it gave than in what I could give to | it. I imagined easily and complai- 1ife. Spiritual life 1s so vague a phrase OVEMBER 1, adhesion proposal by considerably more than a two-thirds majority. They are certain he will have them if, they put it, he “applies the lash” to hesitant statesmen. Some of the latter, anti-court spokesmen point out, face re-election campaigns in 1926. ' They are not in idge converts it into a major admin- istratlon measure. That he is about to do so there is every indication. Despite the apparently safe mar- gin in favor of the court in the Senate, its opponents contend there is widespread and bitter hostility to it in the country. Influential news- papers, especially fn the West, are bor | named as unalterably opposed. Anti- courters point to the recent faflure of the American Legion and the of them are | American Federation of Labor, at| thelr annual conventions, to indorse | Both organizations ap-| instructed | t) But each ! ternational affairs and Howell and Norris to vote alike. The |of them refrained from Rl\'i{lg Amer- expectation, but not vet the certainty, | ican entry into the World Court spe«t that all 5 of the Senators just named will join the opposition. c approval. (Copsright. 1923.) Renewed Interest Is Shown By Public in World Court BY WILL P. KENNEDY. | | and to the far corners of the world. But the general sentiment in Con-| HE World Court fssue—as 10| reqq g3 reflecting the sentiment of whether the United States | the people of this country, in whose should enter this fnternational | nierests such legislation must be en- tribunal of justice and under|;qted, if enacted at all, has not been | what terms er conditions—| ¢ounded gut and blazoned in the daily principal | pregs. 1 1s known to be the subject coming before the United States Senate when it reconvenes in December, has been given new and point by the ‘“treaty 1o powers in western E t week. urope during momentous pact virtually will| known to be biased or partisan on make future wars in Europe impos- alble, it is belleved by those who have |and from those who would be likely ational | to express any group or variant opin- ntrarela- | jon that might show exactly how the glven intensive study to int politics and policies and as it guarantees In the French, Belgian and srontiers. Linked in with it s between Germar um, Poland and Czechoslov nd between France and her I Polund and Czechoslov elther one of the countries should vio- late the compact it will be the duty to_the aggrieved party. While war is not outlawed by any of these agreements, it is clear that the purpose is to prevent warlike conditions from arising, and, as there must be arbitration of all disputes, it is coneidered logical that if these treatles receive the ratification of the varfous Parllaments concerned, as is|the President on February 24, 1928, any disagree- into confider¢’, sxpected, ments would be thrown ‘World Court for settlement judgment rendered in with fixed principles of int law. Renewed Interest in United States. As this “pact of Locarno” is gen- asally believed to be a promising at- tempt by the nations of Hurope to ational i of Lo-'an honest view of what seems to be initlated by representatives of | the general opinion throughout the l ireat Britain and Italy to lend aid | the | Secretary of State, asking the favor- with the {able advice and consent of the Sen- cordance | ate to the adhesion on the part of i ‘ | pettle thelr quarrels on the basis of | reason, it is Inevitable that renewed and even more earnest interest will e taken In the coming session of the United States Senate to dispose of the question whether, and on what terme, the United States will become & party to the already existing World Court. The sattitude of Congress, both members of the Senate and of the House, who ere really closer to the rentiments of the people, s strongly tn favor of United States participa- n in the World Court, with careful feguards that none of our national rights or principles are surrendered 10 disposal by any forelgn natlons. "This is shown in a canvass of Con- e Heretofore in discussions res sarding the World Court the opinions ve been quoted of such outstand- & leaders as Senators Borah of Jdaho, Johnson of California, and the irreconcilables, Shields of Tennessee, vecently defeated, and Walsh of Mon- tana. Their very pronounced views have become well known throughout the length and breadth of the land | members, respectively, of the council Light Sought on Sentiment. To meet this situation, and to get interviews have been 8o- from those who are country, licited—not this question, but from all sections people feel—what the voters of the United States want done by Congress about this country entering the World Court Tlere are some of them: Senator Frank B. Willis, Repub- lican, of Ohlo, a member of the for- elgn relations committee, says: “The United States should join the World Court with the Harding-Hughes- Coolidge reservations. With great modesty I suggest that the proper reservations are embodled in a reso- lution which I have introduced and for the adoption of which I shall earnestly strive.” The Willis resolution was {ntro- duced in response to a message of { accompanied by a letter from the position | to fight the World Court if Mr. Cool-| sent for a year to work in a mission for seamen {n Liverpool. It was there that everything crumbled; be- fore the realitles of life that I was now facing I was compelled to ask myself questions. I met constantly men much older than I, much wiser than I, and much braver than I, who dld not believe one of the things that I accepted as true. Suddenly, with a precipitancy far too crude, I be- lieved in nothing; I decided that I ‘would not be a clergyman. * * x X From this moment until the out- I think, with discovering how beau- tiful and exciting and amusing this world was, and especlally my place in it. The beauty of nature and the arts and the human lives around me were translated easily by me into what I fancled was religion; that is, I myself was having an exciting time, was in santly a loose and vague condition of | that I am reluctant to use it, but benevolence in which everything was What I mean is that I became grad- | 1925. MY RELIGION: WHAT IT MEANS TO ME | this second life I became increasingly |anxious to avold falsehood with re- | regard to it; T told myselt that it was | there because 1 wished it, or becauss I was sentimental, or because I was of my own individuality fading into nothing in o short a time, or because I cared for certain people very deeply and did not wish that physical death should separate us, or becauss the idea of immortality of one kind or another gave the whole of life a large- ness and beauty that it otherwise did not have. * % K 1 began to read a good deal cn mystical subjects, nelther philosophical and I found that in general I got very little help from books. More- over, T discovered after a while that this second life continued to develop and grow, apart from anything that I did or wished. Its growth did not influence very greatly my actions; I was not on the whole a better man because of it; my good actions sprang in the main from social or personal causes, becauss I did not wish to hurt some one's feelings, because I was afraid of public opinion, or be- cause I was afraid of myself; but I did discover that, as time passed, the horizon widened, my values changed, things became interesting to me that | haa never been interesting before, I wanted more time for silence and qulet, not because I began to think marvelously or experience any kind of remote cestasies, but it was rather las though something was pushing its way, in spite of myself, through the | stuff ot my nature. I began to be- lieve with Keats that the purpose of {life was the education of the soul. | * ¥ %k ¥ I am well aware how desperately | vague this ts. No man of 40 can {claim that his experience of life is Socfety Ne = 3 WS | U. S. FOREIGN egolstic and could not bear to think | but my brain is| nor accurate, | Pointed to as the Taxes in BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. N the weeks that have followed the | initialing of the various pacts of | Locarno there has been in the United “States a fairly complete | apprafsal of the European conse- | quences of the Locarno achievement. ) Broadly speaking, it has been recog- nized that there has been restored an | approximation of the old concert of Europe, a basis for co-operation be. tween the great powers, & removal of those various obstacles, born of war passions and pre-war and post- r fears and hatreds, which made any | really collective European action im- possible. Today not only are all the great powers on a basis of possible business relations, but Russia, which is temporarily only not to be classed | a great power, is giving unmistakable | evidence of a desire to'end her isola tion. But this restoration of European | reaching importance for the United | States. Hitherto, during the war and even more since the war, a hopelessiy divided Europe has, without success to be sure, but with unfailing assidu ity, sought States to take sides. uomically, indeed Financt in all eco- ways, world power, and our support, could it have been enlisted, would have been solidarity has an immediate and far} to persuade the United | we | emerged from the war the supreme | POLICY PUTsS BURDEN ON ALL EUROPE As Universal Creditor, America Must Be Reason for High Europe. more than the basis of discussion. The fact s that but for the American in sistence upon the payment of debts the former enemies of Germany could not only abandon repa and not they get the t e payme: 1 the debt each other. Thus, from the Europear standpoint, the single remaining ob stacle, the combined barriers of debts and reparations, exists solely becausa of American policy. It does not mere 1y exist now, moreover, but on the basis of our settlements with Britain and our other debtors is to continue for 62 years, substantially two genera tions. As between Germany and France for example, the situstion is no longer what it once was when the French ex pected to find In reparations adequate returns to meet the costs of recon tructing the devastated area. 1fG many has to pay $300,000,000 annu in reparations France has no benefit thereby, because all of the Frenci share goes directly and indirectly to the United States. Britain has no benefit, because all she gets directly and indirectly goes to America, while as far as debts owed her are con cerned, they, too, net her nothing, be: cause they will never be sufficlent when combined with reparations meet our claims. But politically what quence? Just this: or two gen: s te | the co: a decisive ald to any one of the vari- ous contending nations. France, Britain, Germany, all have sought our favors and they have sought the: as the way to triumph over a rival or a former enemy. From the armistice to Locarno we have been, in a measure, the arbiter of world destinles, the potentlul ar- Diter; that is to say, we might at any dme by the mere operation of taking sides have decided any issue. Our in- fluence, thrown to France a Britain or to Britain against F {or to Germany against either or both, would have carried with it irresistible weight. Moreover, although we have never used this power, save in tally during the Paris conference, it has always been in existence and it tions the politicians of every {power and of many small states | rope will explain to their | that the reason taxes are | dens intolerable, the st | depressed, is to be found in the cours | of the United States, the ri prosperous nation in the world, | the single country to emerge from the |war at least comparatively in stronger pos on. Must Be Unpopular. we are b ) | de and even ¥ this is a detail, if a vitally | detail. What i { ous fact th; | ness to the U | efther final or definite, but at the pres- | has dictated the attitude of the Euro. | inevitably 1 |ent I think my credo is that I be- | lleve that one of the first necessities of every other human being, that a ompletely materialistic explanation of our life on this planet accounts|iS now established with the consent | pusine: {break of war in 1914 T was occupled, | intended for the best and every one got what he deserved. Then the war came, and, with its coming, a vague ense of fear that had been with me ever since T was a small child at a private school wes translated into very postive experience. k% Like millions of others, I, who had i . |death of a bird, witnessed day after |day every kind of horror; indeed, I belleve that the retreat of the Rus- sian army back to Tarnopol in the | second year of the war offered even more persistent experiences of hor- | ror, distress and wasted life than | many other phases of the war. And yet undoubtedly the main experience that I got from the war was the un- | importance of physical death. Again |and sgain and again it was impressed ually suspicious that something of far greater fmport than the life of the body was involved in the history of each individual. I say “suspicious” because now, at the age of 41, I can, for myself, speak with no positive certainty. I have witnessed that cer- tainty of immortality in many others, and I have also many friends to matertal life seems absurd, but at the last one can learn only through one's own experience. | * k %k % | The tmportant point for me was | that after the second year of the war I was conscious in myself of the existence of some other life | my physical one. T had not wished {nor asked for it, I had done nothing | definite myself toward the creation | of it; it was simply there, as my face good health, was free to move about [on me, whether I wished it or not,|and hands and feet were there. the world, and was pursuing an art that the cessation of bodily life did As I became increasingly .aware of never befors seen more than the | Whom the possibility of anything but | besides | less and less for many of our inner cxperiences, that more and more ! clearly as one grows the teachings of | others have put en them, apply with amazing wisdom and knowledge to modern conditions, and that no amount of feeble living and persistent moral faflure on one’s own part alters the fundamental wisdom of these teachings. It scems to me that in general the people of our time are passing from rather blind obedience to dogmatic teaching to an active demand for wome freer, more individual, spiritual 1 believe that many men today would agree with me in this, that they are experiencing spiritual his- of sclence will in the end bring men more securely into religious belief | rather than away from it. (Copyright. 1925.) {CHINESE PARLEY IS CHALLENGE TO U. S. AS SQUARE DEAL NATION of Arms Conference Promises as the Tradition BY PROF. CHARLES HODGES, New York University. Across the Pacific there is a city called Peking. Old in Marco Polo’s dynasties go llke the desert dust of obi that blows in from over the western hills and loses itself in the Yellow Sea. But where yesterday in Chinese an nals the “Tribute Bearers” of th {“Outer Barbarians” had their em- bassles refused audience, today the jenvoys of 12 natlons are seated across | the table from a Chinese delegation to |negotiate a mnew fiscal future for Cathay's four hundred millons. edict of authority itself is a new man- date for Chinese statesmen--no longer vermillon—penciled from heaven, but now springing from the voice of the people. China’s Awakening. So_the handiwork of the western world comes back upon itself. The oc- casion is the parley on customs to carry out the pledges made China at the Washington conference in 1922 by “the powers.” In this way did the very nations forcing the Chinese into international relations promise to re- vise the out-of-date tariff provisions embodied in the first of the nineteenth century treaties now so overwhelm- the United States to the protocol of | December 16, 1920, of signature of | the statute for the Permanent Court | of International Justice “without ac- cepting or agreeing to the optional clause for compulsory jurisdiction.” Would Provide Reservations. The slgnature of the United States should be affixed. to the proto only under the following reservations and understandings, Senator Willls believes: (1) “That such adhesion shall not be taken to involve any legal rela- tion on the part of the United States to the League of Nations, or the as- sumption of any obligations by the United States under the covenant of the League of Nations constituting part 1 of the treaty of Versallles. (2) “That the United States will participate through representatives designated for the purpose and upon | an equality with the other States, and assembly of the League of Na- tions, in any and all proceedings of | either the councll or the assembly for the election of judges or deputy judges of the Permanent Court of International Justice, or for the fill- ing of vacancies. (3) “That the United States will pay a fair ingly advantageous to the Occldent. China's spokesmen, many of them Western trained, are pleading the case | of revolution—torn_republicanism in the Orient inspired by popular govern- ment in the New World. Behind and overshadowing it all is the strident voice of the new Chinese national itself born of the vast upheaval follow ing the wake of the Great War, when Easterner learned that Westerner was of the same common clay. China’s real awakening to the men- ace of world politics has been the re- sult of 10 years of disillusionment. Her pilgrim’s progress started with the notorious 21 demands made by Japan under the cover of the World War. Following this diplomatic as- sault on & neighbor today far from forgotten, there came China's defeat at the peace conference; the disappoint- ment over the Washington treaties; the delays putting the promises into effect, and the tragic collision between native and forelgn interests over.the Shanghai strike and riots. \Whole Outlook Changed. Tt is this ferment of the Chinese masses which surged up to the very doors of the Peking parley that changes the whole outlook in the Far East. Whipped into a_national con- sclousness, coolle, merchant and gov- ernment official alike share the same bitter resentment over the rough-shod Its.concomitants have.been the. al Friend. |student movement and the ‘new learning’ spread like wildfire from one end of China to the other; Western di- plomacy and its ults on the in- | tegrity of China; Western industriall- cient social order of Cathay; Japanese |INCOME TAX PUBLICITY END ADVOCATED BY SENATOR BRUCE Cause of the Orient Is Test Case for America in LightlDeclares Objective of Move Lost Entirely in Flood of | Pure Curiosity and Scanning of Lists for Business Purposes. BY WILLIAM CABELL BRUCE Senator from Maryland. When the tax publicity provisions of the present income tax law were under discussion in Congress they time, it has seen dynastles come and | zation and its undermining of the an- | SUEET GISTUSEOR 48 SONETERG, (BT | opinion. On the one hand it was imperialism and the countering of : v | contended that they might afford an Bolshevik Russia—all beating in upon | goBtei et M8 DOV RS S0 0 ers the turmoil of the country in the | o E of the general public to give valuable tiioss of pdiiticell growing, pains. fnformation o’ an internal revenue Though the hub of this critical pass | collector with reference to an income gress could do would be to repeal the tax publicity provisions of the present income law, and to rely upon the ex- traordinary faciiities that internal rev- enue agents of the Government have for ferreting out the real means of taxpavers. Shearing a sheep is well enough, even though the shears cut very close to the skin; but why shear = hog, when it is all cry and no wool? (Copyright. 1925.) Christ, stripped of the dogmas that| {In Chinese affairs is the new national- ism pulsing through the people, the spokes running out from it touch upon the whole range of foreign interests. Soviet Is Meddling. On the one hand there is the astute | meddling of Soviet Russia, capitalizing every turn of events to alienate China from the West. The gesture toward Bolshevism—not the likelihood of its | | revolutionary realization in China—is | one of these outstanding factors. Then | over against the Reds we have Japan as the third part of a new Aslatic triangle. The Mikado’s land needs to come to terms with China to protect the none too favorably situated Jap- anese business system from loss of its outstanding market, for it must end the almost constant sabotage of Japan and things Japanese if Nippon is to prosper. In contrast to the juggling of high politics by Japanese and Rus- sian diplomats, Britain, like Japan, has ecanomic stakes of vast dimen- {sions in China; Manchester, like Osaka, Then there inust be fitted into the | picture the colonial stakes of France as a neighbor of China, the political interests of Italy and the diplomatic concern of half a dozen of the smaller European nations whose treaty rela- tions make them pawns in the larger {game of great stakes dominated by the handful of principal powers. U. 8. Friend to China. To Americans, however, the interest of the Unitde States is naither the protection of vested economic privi- leges nor the fortifying of our Aiplo- matic position at the expense of rivals. These events ten thousand miles from Washington are tied up closely with out diplomacy —the traditional The | | the Hughes pronouncements of 1922, { the United States has her own pres- tige at stake as the exponent of the square deal. It has been talked about a lot in discussions over transpacific problems and policies, but it has never had any wide currency in the cold re- alities of the Far East. The cause of China is a test case for the United States; can we meet the Chinese situ- ation squarely in the light of our MA ht, 10383 .- of the expenses of | course of “westernization” in the Ork | nromises? (Continued on Eighteenth Page). went. must sell to China’s millions. | friend of China, from the day of the Burlingame treaties down to the open | door of Secretary of State Hay and | tax return lacking in honesty or can- dor; this contention being predicated | upon the idea that, it for no_other | reason, ne taxpayer would be in- | terested in exposing the delinquency of another because of this desire to see that the latter should not escape his just share of taxation at the ex- pense of his fellow-taxpayer. On behalf of the members of Con- gress, who voted for the tax publicity provisions of the present income tax law, it can be pleaded that publicity —*pitiless” publicity, if you please— is the very breath of good govern- ment; that it {s hard to set any limit to the extent to which it should be pushed in public affairs; that the pay- ment of taxes {s not a private but a public matter; that all individuals dislike to pay taxes and that “malfac- tors of great,” or even little, “wealth” are disposed to resort to subtle or shady devices to evade them; and that in all the States of the Union the estates of decedents are publicly inventoried, and that in most of them, at any rate, ordinary assessments upon real and personal property are unon to the public eye. Such reasoning as this is full of force for the legislator whose business it is to promote the general welfare. It is not in darkness but in the sun- | shine of the press that the germs of | political depravity—obedient to laws | that govern the life of ordinary bac- teria—perish. But the complete answer, however, to this entire train of reasoning would seem to be found in the fact that, acting upon a suggestion from the writer, the Secretary of the Treasury has recently obtained reports from the sixty-odd internal revenue collectors of the country which, although their contents have not been fully divulged, are known to show that the publicity | provisions of the present income tax law have, during the two tax years that they have been in operation, not sensibly swollen the revenues of the Government; but have stimulated into a high degree of morbid activity not only the curlosity of the ordinary gossip or Paul Pry, but also that of all those persons in the business world who are interested for purposes of business solicitation, in one form or another, in making up lists of wealthy mmen. Under these circumstances, it would seem that the wisesi thing that Con- | 1 Constantinople’s Odd Mayor Is Energetic Dr. Ermine Bey, mayor of Constan- tinople, 13 the object of considerable ribald comment in local newspapers. The physician-executive is always “starting something,"” and, unlike most Turkish officials, does not suppress a newspaper and send its editor to the gibbet for falling to praise him. He has accomplished much in the im- provement of the anclent capital. If all his decrees were enforced the city would be even better. Beggars, street- walkers, stray dogs, automobile speed- ing—the legal limit 1s 6 miles an hour, but a chauffeur {s ashamed to drive less than 40—are all under the ban. The police have spurts of vigi- lance, but the mayor is always a stickler for the enforcement of his decrees. Recently while inspecting the new road along the Bosvorus he pass- ed the cemetery of Messar-Bournou. He was not pleased and he spat vig- orously. Expectorating is prohibited by one of his decrees. Too late he remembered {t, so he fined himself $5 on the spot and paid the amount to his secretary. Last year he fined himself $10, holding himsel? respon- sible—because the chimney had not :.oen cleaned—for @ fire in his resi- nce. Brooks’ Comet Is Seen By Chicago Observatory Brooks’ comet, which was discovered on September 24 by Albltzky and Shajn, astronomers at the Simels Ob- servatory, in Russia, has been observ- ed at the Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago. In a state- ) suenc: Service, Prof. Edwin . Frost, director of th Vi el ® observatory, “The comet was photographed b: Prof. George Van Biesbroeck ,:!afly li the morning of September 28. It was not brighter than the thirteenth mag- :]2:::. nndThl‘t.will not become mucl r] er. 'was discovered first b; Brw' k,l‘ L!; tl:”d and it has been tlln{ at eacl e five returns it has made sluce themy . N | pean natlons toward us. Settled Many Disputes. At Locarno, however, Europe settled tolerance of the religious discoveries|its political and military disputes for | parti la long time to com Peace between { France, Britaln, Italy and Germany of all concerned and with the recog- nition by all of the common benefits to be derived from such an adjust- ment. What is of even greater signifi- cance for us, too, the way has been { cleared for those economic agreements which must inevitably follow. !it organized peace, it could not resume {business. This was axiomatic. But, | having organized peace, Lurope not only can but must resume business and it was the dominating necessity | to resume business which in the end {made Locarno possible. | Once Europe turns to the question jof business, however, what does it find? Directly or indirectly every |one of the nations signatory to the | guarantee pacts lives under a tremen- | dous mortgage to the United St {a double mortgage, one half repr |ed by national debts, one halt tory almost against thelr will, and |l0ans made by private bankers, by the | that the marvelous modern progress|10ans floated in the United States. | | Today the sum of what the nations {ho have just made the Locarno agreements owe us can hardly be less than_ $25,000,000,000, something like | halt the wealth of France or of Ger- | many. | 1t one assume that for the long {future the annual payvments by the { Germans under the Dawes plan will |amount to an average of $300,000,000, |and the figure is frankly high, then | not only will all this sum be absorbed !into the payments of the several na- tional debts to the United States Gov- ernment but a sum at least half as &reat will be required, in addition, to meet our official claims, while another half billion & year will just as certain. |1v be required for the present and prospective borrowings from private { sources. ¥rom the debauch which was the World War Eurcpe now at last emerges a Locarno to face the fact that in the long struggle, and almost ex- clusively for destructive purposes, she has borrowed $12,000,000,000 from us necessity of borrowing another $12,- 000,000,000 to resume business life. Universal Creditor. We are no longer the possible ally to be courted on all occasions because over another, since the nations have now abandoned the struggle and agreed to a common basis of settle- ment. We are the universal creditor. Moreover, now that Europe has made its liquidation politically, the single barrier to speedy and profitable re- { sumption of normal life is the obliga- tion to America—and above all the official obligation, the debts. The point is perhaps worthy pass- ing elucidation. If you assume Gei many will pay $300,000,000 annuall under the Dawes plan, France wiil get annually $156,000,000, Britain $66,- 000,000, Italy $30,000,000, Belgium $24,- 000,000. But Britain is'to pay us an average of $181,000,000 for sixty years. Had we accepted the French proposal, we should have collected $92,000,000 from the French, who had also agreed to pay the British $62,000,000. Thus to us and to the Britlsh the French would have transferred all of their receipts from Germany, with practi- cally nothing remaining to cover the reconstruction of their devastated area. The British, on their side, collecting $66,000,000 from Germany and $52,- 000,000 from France, coming of cou indirectly from Germany, would thus get only $128,000,000 ‘against their $181,000,000 due us. They would then have to find $53,000,000 out of their own pocket less whatever they might receive from Belgium and Italy, which would again come from reparations. Belgium s in the easiest situation, for her debts to France and Britain are covered by their acceptance of a per- centage of her share of reparations, and her remaining 5 per cent would cover her indebtedness to us as set- tled recently in Washington. Italy, on the other hand, owes not leses than $6,500,000,000,and her share of reparations would be but $30,000,- 000, less than one-half of 1 per cent on her capitalized debt. It would not amount to more than 1 per cent upon her debt to us, were she to turn it all over to us, which of course is impossible, for Britain and France have equally valid claims upon her. But if Italy were able to liquidate her debts on a 2 per cent basls, such as Churchill and Caillaux agreed upon, she would still have to find $130,000,000 annually, or $100,000,000 more than she can get from German reparations. Now the statistical side of this is Soly of minox Lmportance, It is no Until | and is in the process and under the | our aid might help one nation to win | | Our mortgage is no longer { among discordant naifons separ: by anin pursuing ends and eful of making us 2 n. it runs on a Europe { which has liquidated its political hos- tilitles and lald the for foundation This mortgage which we hold uj Europe, calling for an annual pa ment of upward of half a billion, can be met only by mon v goods and | services. But in th way of pay ment in all of these directions stand our own policies. We have created tariff whi | we have excludes French resour law lim | cludes Ital | sidizing & 4 greatly reduces Eritish abillty to pay | In service. It follows, then, that there are two | quite obvious ways for Europe to act | It must by collective action reduce its | purchases tn the United States while striving, despite our rs, to i1 crease sales. It must also, in co-opera tion, seek to undersell us in the petitive markets of the world, notabl: in South America, the Far East an the overseas dominions of the British Empfre. It must seek to restore Rus sia to production and at one time find a market for its manufactures and ob. tain from Russia cheap grain to elimi nate the necesity for American pur chase. Since the war numerous efforts have been made to join French and Ger. man heavy industries—steel, iron and coal—with Belgium participating. All efforts have failed because the polif fcal obstacles were not eliminated | These obstacles are now removed x co-operation is practically tnevitable. Nor 1s it to be supposed that Britist | heavy industries will fail to foin ir | the combination. A partner in the {pact, Britain becomes inescapably : partner in the co-operation which re | sults from the pact. Political AHiance Remote. T should not want to give the tm pression that I believe there is an present or even remote possibility of a politica] alliance of the European great powers against us. Europe, in my judgment, will not be making of. fensive alllances politically for many {a vear to come, but, on the other {hand, an economic combination against us seems Inevitable, a combination having its basis in common necessities and deriving no little strensth from common resentment. We have chosen to think of our claims upon the na | tions which borrowed from us during | the war as individual—to think of our |debtors as French. British, Italians | and Belgians. But this is our own paro. chial point of view merely. Restors yany sense of solidarity in Europe and from the European point of view, those debts become European. Again, from the European point of view, the American debts represent a limitation upon European independ ence. One meets all the time in the French press and the Italian refer ences to the necessity to recover in- dependence by some settlement, some liquidation of the debt. The fact that our public men feel free to criticize the forelgn and domestic policy of France, for example, because France owgs money she has not yet pald or arfanged to pav, is a perpetual af- front to every Frenchman. Our public men are accustomed to point with pride to the Dawes plan as an American contributior to the readjustment of Europe, re- | garding it as a philanthroplc opera tion, but the French, the Itallans and now the Germans look upon it as merely an effort to promote order in Europe in the hope of protecting and enhancing our investment, as a way of getting our money back. And our refusal to permit the rrench to conditfon their payments to us upon their receipts from Germany under the Dawes plan amounts in French eyes, at once to a proof of this and to a repudiation of our responsibility for the plan. To be sure nothing is less prob- able than that Europe will at once and openly proceed to a combinatior against us, an economic combina tion. Europe must, perforce, avoid such open tactics for a long time, since she has still to make vast nec essary borrowings in our markets Her debt to us must be increased fc some time to come, but the basis o payment is inevitable; it is restric tion of purchases In the United States, both directly and by tariff arrangements between Luropean na- tions and_ intensive competition in the non-European markets. The British, for example, ha shown the way by their handHng of (Continued on Elghtesnth Pagy which are sub- on, i | | | |