Evening Star Newspaper, September 27, 1931, Page 23

. Part 2—8 Pages EDITORIAL SECTION he Sunday Star, WASHINGTON, NDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBE R 2 BRITISH GOLD SUSPENSION LEAVES EUROPE IN DAZE Dominant Question Collapse of Poun Finance Into Chaos. BY PAUL SCOTT MOWRER. ARIS.—It is impossible to over- estimate, or even to estimate at all, the shock felt through- out Europe at Great Britain's going off the gold standard. Beveral days now have elapsed since this momentous event and people everywhere, even the best informed people, even leaders, are dazed. It is as if, while the citizens were quietly ing about their business, the skies to rock and the earth tremble. “I feel,” said one European to me, *like & man sitting comfortably in a leather chair, eating a good meal on & ship adrift, going none knows how or where.” The question every one is asking is lhett,wo short, significant words, “What next?” For more than a century Great Britain has been the dominant power of , the world's greatest empire, the f political stabilizer. Many perspicacious Continentals have fore- seen in the-last 10 years Great Brit- ain’s slow, sad and gradual decline; many economists, French economists in particular, sounded a warning against stabilization of the pound at par after the war, but the suddenness of the ac- complished fact of British inflation nevertheless left every one stunned. Collapse of Myth. “The collapse of the pound sterling,” says an editorial in La Stampa, Milan “Is the collapse of a great myth—the myth of an incalculably rich, infinitely powerful Great Britain, mistress of an immense empire on which the sun really never set.” It would be a mistake, however, to assume that Continental powers view Great Britaln's plight with anxious pleasure. The contrary is rather the case. Italy and Germany see s weakening of a power which they had come to | British banks. in its foreign trade, and consequently the execution | of the five-year plan will be compli-| cated. France Had Faith. As for Prance, it never viewed its -war _difficulties with as more than tem] 3 It has always believed that in a cri Great Britain and France, as the world's greatest empires, with a com- tation in saying how the British crisis happened. Ever since the World War crisis. e normal remedy for this situation, say Continental economists, would have been drastic deflation by cutting wages and expenses of all kinds, with the view of d imports and increasing Is “What Next?” as d Plunges World exports. ‘The political situation, to- gether with the attitude of the trade unions on collective contracts and the dole, made this virtually impossible. ‘Mutiny in the fleet when the sailors’ pay was cut was & sufficient lesson in this respect. 'Nothing, therefore, re- mained save to arrive at the same ends—namely, reduction of the wages S ome o Torelgn trade—by the dan: of home and fore n- rous method of inflation. “What will the results? Results Predicted. Some already are visible, others cer- tainly are not yet even imaginable. Nobody as yet seems to have found time even to try to analyze them, but among | them now it seems certain will be fount these: 1. A terrible blow has been struck at the gold standard. Nearly all ‘lrogln countries had heavy investments, direct or indirect, in don. All now hit. Several be forced to inflate l)k; ;}rnt, Britain before the crisis is ended. 2. British prestige has received s bad blow. ‘The consequences both within lm} without the empire are incalcu- lable. France and U. 8. Welded. 3. The international line-up of powers seems to be affected. France and the United States are thrown forcibly to- gether as the sole strong defenders of the gold standard. The foreign trade of France and the United States is threatened equally. Both have an urgent interest to help Great Britain stabilize as high as possible at the earliest moment. 4. TheBritish out the world, which joyed. monopoly on the trade Dbills, nic of current business discoun unable immediately to take the place of Foreign trade everywhere, seemingly, | will correspondingly slow up because of a lack of banking facilities. Inciden- tally, Great Britain stands to lose some £60,000,000 ($225,000,000 at the latest exchange) a year in bank profits. Investors to Lose. 5. Foreigners will suffer a heavy loss on their pound investments, while lme ices delay. Foreign national and private, will be increased. 7. There will be a flight from the pound. Every one, foreign and British alike, will try to get capital out, espe- | cially to Paris and New York, which | temporarily may be stimulated by t! afflux of new money. | British Credit Hurt. Great Britain’s credit will be hurt. Nobody will want to lend Great Britain any money and eventually there may be an acute shortage of capital for current business and for all other purposes. 8- Under these cir ) optimistic statements now issuing inter- mittently from London are completely | discounted on the continent, where most countries have already gone through more or less inflation and realize bit- terly what it really means. The general experience has been that it is easy to fi:n w:n the downward path, but hard | F ! Four More Schubert Written for Friend About to Wed VIBNNA.—Four little Itallan songs, dedicated to a young Vienna girl, have Just been added to the permanent Schu- bertiana collection in Austria. The songs have been in the girl's family archives for more than 100 years and are now for the first time released to the public. | This “discovery,” made by the Schu- bertbund of Vienna, a men’s singing so- clety, is one of the many of the last! few years in its attempt to collect in | one place all of the Schubert relics as a memorial to Franz Schubert, who died in Vienna November 19, 1828, in hig thirty-first year, after one of the short- est but most productive lives in the his- tory of musical composition. Schubert, the “beloved schoolmaster” —for in his le against poverty in Vienna he taught for a time in a sub- urban school—is today the hero of any uantity of light dramatic productions, or his compositions, of almost pure lyricism, lend themselves to “theme| songs” very well, and at ths moment | there Js now running in Vienna one of | ;};E latest talkies bated on phases of his ife. Film Fails to Satisfy. ‘The Viennese view the film with superiority and no little contempt, for, | while the castumes are correct and some | parts of his “romantic” life are pre- sented, the Viennese fail to detect in the spoken words that soft, broad Wiener Songs Are Found; accent which is so characteristic and induplicadble. From the characters, as they sit about in their Vienna kaffee- hmuses, emanates not the south drawl which is almost tropical in its letdownness, but the curt brisk North Sea staccato explosives of the Prussians of | Berlin. Schubert Schillir7s. Schubert was born in Vienna in 1797, six years after the death of Mozart, the | 175th year of whose birth Vienna is| celebrating this year. | ‘Two years ago Vienna celebrated the centenary of Schubert’s death, with the 1ssuing of Schubert schillings, which are still in circulation, and this year some time Mozart schillings are to be coined, mmu Haydn schillings will be to celebrate Haydn's anniversary K‘!l‘r in 1932, the 200th anniversary of birth. The birth of Schubert is still preserved in Vienna, a charming little two-story house in the Nussdorfer- strasse. The four Italian songs just brought to light and purchased from the owner by the Schubertbund were composed for one of Schubert's schoolday friends, a Prunz[ von, Spaun, when von Spaun was about | to marry. Von Spaun and Schubert | had been co-singers in the Court Choir when boys, and it was when Schubert's high lyric voice changed with adoles- cence that he was forced to leave the choir and fend for himself, which for many years he found extremely difficult. Columbus a Genoese Spanish Group Studies Explorer’s Letters GENOA, Italy.—In view of the many attempts’ made in the last few decades to rob Genoa of the glory of having| riven_ birth to Christopher Columbus, | the Podesta of Genoa, Senator Broc-| cardi, appointed an official commission | three years ago to visit all the places | in Spain where documents relating to Columbus were preserved and to photo- graph them and establish definitely wit t & possibility of further doubt that he was a Genoese. The commission was headed by Prof. Giavanni Monleone, and it visited not the libraries and museums of Academy in Madrid and in the archives | of the Indies at Seville. | In an official statement the members report that all the loading historical | authorities in the pleces they visited | had no doubt whateve: of the fact that | Columbus was a native of Genoa ai that they regarded all the publitations trying to prove the contrary merely as time wasted. The director of the Na- d . de la Ronclere, slso concurred in this view. :/0ld Roman Well Found | 3 Commission Finds; the one written to his son, Diego, and, besides, some of the phrascs contained in both letters are exactly alike. The material collected by the com- mission will be officially published, with reproductions of all the photographs, in a Columbus codex and be accompanied | with an explanatory text in four lan- es. But, it seems, the exact place the Republic of Genoa where Columbus was born is still to be decided. gxfolew. a fishermen’s village some 20 miles from Genoa, still claims that he was born there and a document found in the Vatican a year 8go tended to confirm it. (Copyright. 1931.) his British U. S. Labor and the Dole American Workers Declared to Have Abhorrence for Principle Underlying Government Gratuities. fag it @& ol ot BY MATTHEW WOLL, Vice President American Federation of Labor. OR 20 years American organized workers have been advised by labor spokesmen that un- til American labor organized a Jabor political party it could not Vi . We have been labor is where British labor was 20 years ago.” We have been constantly derided as reac- tionary and ignorant. "Ho esman for American labor with BY ARTHUR CAPPER, United Btates Senator from Kansas. ITHIN the last few’months the most disastrous wave of infantile paralysisin 15 years has swept over the country. ‘Today thousands of moth- ers and fathers throughout the Nation are confronted with a new and heart- rending problem—what to do with a “%ed child? world has traveled a long way toward real civilization since the days of anclent Sparta, when the deformed child was put to death by decree of the state. And medical science has pro- gressed so much during the last 15 or 20 years that much more than sympa- thy can be extended to the mother and father of a cflYpled boy or girl. From my own knowledge of what scientific care and skill can do for the deformed youngsters, I say to them and to their anxious parents: “The crippled child ?u a better chance now than ever be- ore.” In Africa the weak, sickly and de- formed once were used to bait lion traps. Today in America there are Lions Clubs, as well as Elks, Shriners, Rotarian and Kiwanis organizatieas— the oft-derided, so-called “Main street” socleties—that are giving thousands of led children a helping hand by fur- the means to straighten crooked spines and limbs and twisted feet. ‘There never has been a better day for the crippled. But there can be— and should be and will be—days of even fairer prospect and hope for the de- formed child. Business Men Helping. There are thousands of ordinary American business men, united in “serv- ice” organizations primarily for business advantage, who unostentatiously but ef- fectively are doing what seems almost like God's own work in giving what amounts to new bodies to pitifully de- formed children. But there are and perhaps more thousands of busi- Dess men who have no wnup%"’fl'g: e problem and the anguish and girl. Pphysically hnndm‘md An instance of attd came to my attention a year or 5o 8g0. A man whom I had known for many years as an industrious, uj ht citizen came to T In Tunisia Gives Water ALGIERS.—Archeologists here are d | Duzzled by the discovery, in South Tu- | nisia, of a Roman well in quite a good | state of preservation. It is in an al- | most deserted region known as Ham- it cf see me and pi , with tears in his eyes, for aid in finding employment for his 20-year-old son. ‘The boy was badly crippled as the result of an attack of infantile paralysis during the 1916 epi- demie (when the knowledge of the im- portance of the after care was limited) at be hed practically no use of his legs. Yet he had devised a special mechanism which enabled him to op- erate an automobile, and with the ald of crutches he could g foot” as rej B ora of Golumbus known to| mamet, and was brought o light by | graduated “mwm:fnmomm' o ae his as not_only phed but examined, and letter to the Genoese Ambassador, Nicolo Oderigo, written in 1504 by Columbus, preserved in b was proved to be on the same paper as | pure water for the inhabitants. This | well was in such condition that as mn! as it had been thoroughly cleaned out water in began to spring. u as it m‘rx,eoo or 2,000 years BIO‘D e i in some of which he | workmen while digging in search of | honor roll for the .lurhi.nhuel-u. He was s capable stenographer and thoroughly oy ;‘t’l find & M’l:: for na: mwo years he had to draw conclusions for British | workers. However, we can say today 'operation in England, either under the | 3 full assurance that the policy of | direction of, or with the support of, | and it is much more to the point Help the Cripple_d Child Mundreds of Thousands Have No Money to Help Save Them From Lives of Hopelessnesd “ "~ Drawn for The Bunday Star by Robert Lawson. WORK, NOT THE DOLE, IS THE AIM OF AMERICAN LABOR. | American labor in refraining from | partisan political action has been vin- | dicated by the British object lesson. ‘When centering its attention on po- litical action through the Labor party, British labor has been compelled to ac- cept reduced wages, the membership of its unions has fallen materially—nearly 50 per cent—and, finally, the govern- ment which is set up as the crown- ing achievement of & half century of effort proved unable to extricate itself from a crisis that to a large extent was the fruit of Labor party policies. Since 1912 the dole has been in | sought work in vain. did everything in his power to obtain | employment for the boy. He asked the | president of the bank with which he did business to give the son a chance, but was told ly, but none the less firmly, “Sorry, but it's against our pol- icy; our people have to do a good deal of running between various de- partments.” Often the father and son were told that there was no vacancy, ;:l;:ntheyweukmflmmm. Persisted in Efforts. ‘The boy persisted in his effort to find a'job until a day when, in answer to a want ad for a young man with knowl- | | edge of stencgraphy cnd bookkeeping, | he was the very first in line at an office | door when the manzger arrived to open the day's business. He merely glanced |at the crippled boy anxiously waiting at the door on his crutches, then waved his hand toward the elevator and said, “No use your coming in; can't use any- body like you.” .And that was the end of the boy’s own effort. His spirit was broken; all hope had fled. His mental attitude be- came such that the father feared he might end his life, the father came to me for help. I was able to secure employment for the crip- His father also | It was then_that | p) | the Labor party. Two and & half mil- | lions of British workmen have been on | the pay roll of the state, receiving the dole. It was in a forced retreat from this political involvement that the Labor party ernment came to grief. The great of the Labor party did not desert Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden because of their for higher taxes. leaders were deserted because declared that the dole be reduced. ‘To cry, as some do, that this | reduction’ is s capitulation to interna- | dle. tional bankers is wholly beside the point. England was headed for ha From Painting by Stockton Mulford. | pled son in the municipal accounting | department, although it was very evi- dent that the official in charge was There my effort averse to hiring him, 3 1t But six in the boy's behal months later, and a year, the boy's fs and with Time and time again T have noticed that the crippled boy or girl who is given even half a fair chance in any kind of employment will excel others who are not handicapped physically. I do not | cscribe this to any mental superiority | (though there may be one), but simply | to a determination to succeed, no mat- | ter what the effort involved—an effort | to justify their existence, As Frederick | Watson has sald: ““The personal . factor er they | purposes. blame the policies that led to the crisis than it is to blame the bankers who in- sisted upon seeing to it that they were to get their money back. bu{n grluu:‘ ::.wofld, on & - 3 of unemployed, while 8 poor that ean devise no plan than state' feeding for & continuous army of "THe fall of the second Labor govern- ment In Great Britain, as a result of (Continued on Fourth Page.) ualize what that means—the great army of deformed boys and girls, reachin from horizon to horizon and far Beyon: some crawling, some upright on crutches, some unable to lift themselves in any posture above the ground; little boys, 5 or 6 years old, who cannot stand, niuch mlfi walk; :mm clllc’gfid close ¢ Arms of mothers who love their cnumx;‘ nnfintlt: have visualized thousands more whose fathers or mothers have written me for the help that can be given only a com- paratively few, I here set down another mark of credit for President Hoover. No matter how he may be assayed by history ds a statesman or politician, the world in years to come will pay tribute to him as a humanitarian of supreme quality. And the plaudits of the future be those of men and women made useful to themselves and the world by virtue of the great work for child wel- fare which he inspired. For one of the aims to which President Hoover's White House Conference on Child Health and “For every child who is blind, desf, crippled or otherwise physically handi- caped, and for the child who is men- tally handicaped, such measures as will carly discover and diagnose his handi- cap, provide care and treatment and to train him that he may become an asset to society rather than a liability. Ex- | penses of these services should be borne vuel;lll:ly where they cannot be privately met.” Throughout America the faré work for children has what States or critics are doing. In many communities at this time plans are being laid to raise funds for unemployment relief and _charitable In nearly every one of those communities there is some agency or organization interested in the crippled boys and girls—the unemployed of the future, even if periodical depressions are ended, unless deformed bodies are (Continued on Fourth Page.) g RUMORS OF LEGAL BEER PERSIST AGAINST DENIALS Act of Congress Neeessary to Permit 3 Per Cent Beverage—Wet Legis- lators in BY MARK SULLIVAN. HE beer story was out again last ‘That made twice within The number of times the story has flown through the land during the past few months must be upw::% of 50. The rumor al- ways hits Washington with a manner of excited imminence. A member of Congress or a Government official the ks somewhere, or a private citi- zen urgency. The call turns out to be from a friend or acquaintance in New York, | usually one in a bank or a brokerqei house. The New York voice, in an ex- | “Stocks went up | cited tempo, says: this afterncon on & rumor that the Government is about to beer; can you tell us about it?” Oor a correspondent of a Wi per in St. Louis, or New York, or Milwaukee mysteries of our day. war-time stories about 3 the continuance in life, of Gen. Lor Kitchener, or about the trainloads of Russian troops coming through England ‘estern t—stories whose i i ; i i i we 2385 1% e g Congress, what constitutes an “intoxicating bev- erage,” said “one-half of 1 per cent” alcohol. There: it has remained ever since. Congress can at any time change “one-half of 1 cent” to, let us say, blic wel- g‘olenv:lfl mit heer. of elghteen in the past, in cases arising in States that local ago, have that 2.75 per cent WBS 2 reasonable standard. p to say their dis- cretion as to what is a - nition of “intoxicating ‘They might go as high as 4 per cent or even 5. Beyond 5 they would hardly go. But quite certainly they would go as far as 3 per cent, and enough. to bring Brewers Set Present Limit. wm—-m-:i some others besides—de- W, wit ears his telephone ring with a tone | that somehow implies extraordinary | (especially from his 3 cent would be in Mineority. But if one-half of 1 per cent s & legislative falsehood, it was the brewers who told it first. Years ,. before national prohibition, when the brewers had as much power in politics as the Anti-Saloon League has now, the brew- ers were jealous of soft drinks, such as as possible pay the same tax. invented the theory containi So tht that any soft | ing more than one-half of 1 | theory, with the political power they had, got Con- gress to adopt it. There it stood, embed- ded in the statutes. When national pro- hibition came and the tables were turned. with the Anti-Saloon League su t-oh the th‘;ot';r; the :’rewenmhld had— when ppened, on the adoption of the prohibition amendment Congress simply kept the old standard of what constitutes an “inf liquor,” v 21 Possible desertion from dry to wet...12 Total possible maximum of wet votes.33 Votes necessary to bring back beer...49 But is there any opinion about beer, of £ § 1% 1 : R, ] g ; ] i égé%?fifi i five to six million. of grain consumed was about thirty- seven million net, not much in a total aggregate grain crop of five and a half of bushels. have mobilized the mberg istry against this healthy institution, |and one can only hope that the minis- ters will not yield to the demands of the “trash industries.” ‘The museum has an educational pur- the ugliness of cent. They | of " Many dis- with them. It must be a hardy mt ene-hlrlt of 1 nrm& alcohol is 1imit o s prot S0 s per cent would ‘who would claim | fs