Evening Star Newspaper, February 7, 1932, Page 25

DITORIAL SECTION - h; Sunday Star. Part 2--8 Pages WASHINGTON, D. €, SUNDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 7, 1932 MACDONALD TO DOMINATE LEADERS AT ARMS PARLEY Political Crises to Keep Real European Leaders at Home Except for Brief Period. U. S. Billions in Latin America ‘America Loaned Vast Sums in Boom Times—Will We Get It Back? Situation Is Analyzed. Hitler program for revision of the ; & Polish frontiers, his acceptance of the A significant decline in | oyrejus maneuver for the Austro-Ger- ot rnational con- | may tariff union last Spring, resulted y of do- | in grave German reverses abroad; nor ical crises which 15| has”his recent blunt announcement of 3 tesmen at home, 15 German repudiation of reparations ast revealed between figures | payments increased his diplomatic rep- this year's Geneva gathering | utation he past great meetings. Whereas | Actually, Paiis Clemenceau, Wilson and Lloyd | nor is he a diplomat. In both fields he Greorge were in almost continuous at- | has measurably failed. In the present tendance, and more Tecently (1928) at | conference, the real representative of the London Naval Conference Secretary | Germany against Tardieu will be Bern- Stimson and the late Dwight Morrow | hard Buelow, nephew of the old chan- dally with Premier MacDonald while | cellor, whose memoirs filled Europe with re Tardieu was a frequent conferee, | amusement and dismay last Winter. France among the great ppwers| He has become the real power in Ger- sends a public man of first| man foreign affairs although his posi- “True, | tion is only that of undersecretary of and Chancellor | state. He is responsible for the aband- lening are coming for a brief stay, | onment of the old policy of Stresemann but in their absencs Great Britain and |and the Locarno spirit, and a return rmany are represented by men without | t0 8 new and more independent and international reputation or large | intransigeant tone. Thus when Bruen- tic political influence. Moreover, | I8 speaks, Buelow guides. there are such difficulties and dangers Grandi Under Handicap. i h situa s t = = home situations that both Mac: Forelgn Minister Grandi, who repre- 2 b 1 He is one of the most experi~ are sure to exert great influence at Geneva as did the “big_three” of the Henhby harm, sincerity and adroitness brighter Locarno days—Briand, Strese- |, Yol . brighier Tocamoldara | handicapped, however, because he rep | resents a dictator and not a coun$y. [ His actions will be indicated by tele A 5 - raph. He and Tardieu are old antag- It is impossible not to recognize the | EFARN. He ant Cerdiew oxe od Artee- strategy of France in sending her ablest e Rathiy S ar At M HoLeh heronal most experienced public man to the | fri, o8%CT (AG MUTOUER BEEORS Geneva front at the moment when her | politics) gicagreement = fortunes are visibly at (Briand | “'pacDonald, while here, is destined gone, no Frenchman has Tardieu's| iy be the great figure. It is not im- training abroad, as a journalist, as &| probaple that he will stand with Bruen- diplomat, twice as prime minister and | ing rather than with Tardieu, in the the power behind the Laval cab- | depates over security and armaments. ne among the more consider- | Byt MacDonald is by no means the figures he need have no fear of | European power that he was in the ics. Again, he possesses the | days of the naval conference. His do- advanta of ~speaking mestic position is steadily weakening anguages, German and English, | and his resignation is regarded abroad | 1 as French. The new Tardieu | as only a question of time. He is ut- ans will see at Geneva this | terly distrusted in France and secretly a measure of | hated in Italy. Undoubtedly he will in | resort to his old strategy of eloquence, as at London, he is less |but at Geneva he has never earned nd less cynically arro- | applause equal to Boncour and Briand. ceau's former lieuten- MacD#nald to Meet Foe. ad s share of K D e e o i uck A% One of the odd detalls of the confer- onths, and learned from it A | ence will be the meeting of MacDonald e eneeriomeed detogate, | With his old assoclate and present chief | 2 orator second only to Briand | 0f the Labor party, “Uncle” Arthur| ’ Henderson, whom MacDonald threw | over last Summer. For Henderson, like | all Laborites, regards MacDonald s & traitor, guilty of desertion and treason | to his party. The split between these | two precipitated the most acute political recriminations in recent British politi- | cal history. Now they meet again at Geneva, with Henderson in the chalr, but, by Teason of the MacDcnald coup, | without @ seat in Parliament and with. |out any present political importance. Cne doubts if even the Disarmament Conference will serve to disarm these bitter foes Such, briefly, are the larger figures at Geneva. There also is Venizelos, the great Greek, who at Paris almost re- constituted the Byzantine Empire, and, despite later reverses, is still the archi | tect of the new Hellenic state. Today, | | however, Venizelos has abandoned the | great adventures to steer a safe course between the French and Italian politi- cal reefs, Tardieu, Bruening, MacDon- | ald—these are the big three, but cnly the first is not & part-time performer. | Grandi, Benes, Titulescu and Zaleski | | make tip the second string in this gal- | lery of Europeans setting out on another | political campaign. It is diffcult to find & place for Miss Woolley and her two ~American assoclates, Senators Swanson and Davis, all shepherded by Fugh Gibson, who have crossed the seas to attend a Disarmament Conference which no European expects to contrib- ute to disarmament. (Copyright. 1932 i | BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. Bruening is no politician, y as a permanent delegate. MacDonald Z ; = DAEE - America enced European diplomats. Tardieu Is Strongest Man. yme three allies of long ty. Benes of Czechaslo- oldest foreign minister in author of the once famous beyond debate the great- n of any little country in ulescu of Rumania, like d hand at Geneva and & in international affair: a considerable role. Finally, ki, the foreign minister of Poland, ess considerable figure than the two | hers but representing one of the larg- | ew countries in Europe, is bound ave a conspicuous part in the pro- N E c Allies to Put Up Fight. Benes, Titulescu and Za- onstitute the combination of the Little En- are certain to romising fight against Germany and Italy nited, to disturb the of armed power in will be the “Big Four” the status quo against All are strategically r tion because their opinions support them , this combination, Ger- ith Bruening, if only temp- ing, despite his and constancy. has been dis- politically clumsy at home, t a happy record in for- His indorsement of the “balan They di AMERICAN DOLLARS. of the investment bankers who floated the loans, and these hearings before the Senate subcommittee have been front page news. The Department of State has been brought into the dis- cussion, and its careful scrutiny of Government loans abroad, devised in (Continued on Fourth Page.) POWER PLANTS BUILT BY have sold for a THE SAO0 JOAO RIVER DAM. ONE OF THE HUGE BY WALLACE THOMPSON. WO hundred thousand people in - the United States have invested close to $6,000,000,000 in Latin American bonds, and by the fig- ures of the bear market this in- Karl Marx House in Vienna, World’s = ; = ye | vestment shrunk to a resale value last Largest, Shelters 1,382 Families v of sooux 2000000000 Good oo | Millions Held in Slavery Men, Women and Children Exchanged, Traded and Sold in Half Dozen Countries of World. age sed as #nd his i eign affa have paid promptly fourth of their issuing price. These are government bonds, and yet the stocks of even sound American comp erating in Latin America have drastic drops in market value. Congress has an elaborate investiga- tion under way, studying the activities and defaulted bonds alike have suffered Bolivians, among the first to default fell to 7 per cent of their issuing price, but Argentines, the interest and sinking fund on which have been paid regu- larly, and which promise to continue this ‘record, have sold for 31 per cent of their value. Uruguayans, which also cost of the glittering machinery house- wives pay from 6 to 12 schillings a | month to the laundry—84 cents to $1.68. | Across the street—the Karl Marx house is so huge that new streets inter- | sect in between yawning cream-colored arches—is the kindergarten, where we | passed a happy hour. The delicacy and | precision of the furnishings is inimi- | table. Each group of children has its | own washstand, set low in the wall so | they can comfortably reach it the| miniature towels, tools, etc., are identi- | fied by amusing drawings and symbols; | the equipment for play, including a delightful miniature ~orchestra, rivals that of the most expensive school for children of the very rich in America And it costs the Viennese exactly 4.28 schillings (30 cents) per week—includ- ing the noon meal! That is, it costs them that—if they have the money. The Karl Marx kin- dergarten has room for 150 children (for whom there are seven expertly trained teachers), and the present en- rollment is 107. Twenty of these pay nothing—their parents are out of work. Unemployed men may keep their flats | in the Vienna houses for two years, rent free—until they get a job. The teacher in the kindergarten | showed us the work of the children, amazingly interesting for such little tots, much of it inspired by the great Vienna _children’s artist and teacher, | Prof. Cizek; we inspected their toy | corners and “houses”: they rose as we left, shouting in unison “Auf wieder- shen.” As nice a_bunch of youngsters | as I've ever seen. I shall certainly want to send my small boy there when he grows older. No Interest Charged. The Karl Marx house cost 23,000,000 schillings to build—only a bit over| $3,000,000. The Vienna municipality gets work cheap because of the enor- mous bulk of its operations. Rents are so low because no interest is paid on | VA, Austria—Here it is—the sidential buildjng in the world ve just walked arouhd it and it took 40 minutes, The Karl Marx house, newest and pressive as well as the largest lildings erected by the Vienna icipality for its workmen, is five- ghths of a mile long, 2 quarter of & mile wide. It houses 1382 families— 5.000 people—neatly and comfortably, and is one of the landmarks in social fistory in Europe. Here people live at the rate of 25 groschen (about 317 cents) per square meter, so that their rent is seldom more than $350 to $4.50 per month—and APDY. ist today, so far as slavery is concerned, appear to be Abyssinia and Arabia, al- though certain sections in India, Cen- tral Africa and China encourage slavery in its generally accepted forms. The Abyssinian and Liberian governments have, it Is true, officially abolished slav- ery by royal decree or law. But the Em- peror of Ethiopia, “conquering lion of Judah and direct descendant of King Solomon,” admits that his decrees mean nothing to the rases or chiefs of the interior, who regard slaves as their greatest source of wealth. The high ,priests of the Abyssinian Church, who consider themselves the guardians of Mosaic law, hold that slavery is an institution decreed by Jehovah. Likewise the nomad tribes of Arabia justify slavery by their religion, | and many chiefs have announced that | they will fight to death to keep their slaves. The population of Abyssinia today s anywhere between 8,000,000 and 12,- 000,000. Of these about 4000000 are BY ALBIN E. JOHNSON. ENEVA—There _are more than 5,000,000 slaves in the world today. In at least a half- dozen countrics, thralldom, in the simonpure sense of the word, exists., Men, women and chil- dren’ are owned body and soul, ex- Changed, traded, sold and captured by thousands yearly Four of ‘the countries which coun- tenance slavery are members of the Leegue of Netions; a fith, Irak, will | Soon apply for membership ' The above Statements sound & bit fantastic to the average newspaper reader, yet never- theless they are absolutely true. Fur- the more, several countries officlally recognize slavery through social and religious custom. ; Six years ago the League of Nations undertook to stamp out_slavery, inso- far as it was possible, An international convention, which defined slavery 85 “the’status or condition of a. person V] y the Wers inching o e’ right "t Svrersbip pure Abyssinians and 2,000,00 are slaves | are exercised,” was drawn up in 1926 § of =9 P . 5 I L T X ‘ Laws Mean Nothing. Like Series of Castles. ormous series of buff-col- he Karl Marx house in- Vienna horizon near the structure is an agglom- f a dozen huge blocks tyards and fountains in t of the ground nna municipality apart- 1 unbuilt and opened are in pale buff, over- sienna; arches and aarcate one block from an- warm bluc-gray. The nes and door decorations are the lampposts blue. Every total of 1,382 has access to the building a striated with bal- Like an e ored castles, terrupts t d with terrace: Zarl Marx house is more, of an a house; it is a city. It clinic, a post office, a club, a kindergarten, huge com- baths and laundries, a garbage 11 plant. And the people who nce lived in wretched slums. isited a flat, one of the larger a tiny hallway, a well citchen, a living room and a d room. The porter who was our ived in it, paying 32 schillings r th rent, plus a small| xes, out of which the mu- build similar houses in flat was so clean it vere was no central heat two of the rooms kept Our porter was fairly income, 2 schillings of 60 tenants, being 120 ($17) per month vhen he wanted a bath our porter o the central block of the build- | least on Thursdays, Fridays irday, the three days each week the baths are open. A shower groschen (7 cents); a tub, 1 schilling (14 cents) and has been signed by practically | in the world. [T bl The laws of Addis Ababa, Ras Tafari’ Evil tofBejEroket capital, mean nothing to the paramount s, however, have not n whe! li\'f;“:;;" tf»mtlgmesimc?—mmnal obliga- | § 3 4 { | ish protests against slave raids into the tions, it appears, and the recent dis- i v BE / - Py | Soudan were lodged they met with the closures, in connection with the P Sr 7 3 | answer that the chiefs were merely tak- League's and Washington's inquiry into , 4 | ing reprisals against rebellious subject the investment. The 23,000,000 schil- | conditions in Liberia, once again have " ; ! |or seeking to collect taxes. lings came simply out of the taxes—of | turned the spotlight upon the evil.| I || Describing these raids the Britich the unfortunate rich. | Discovery, a short time ago, of a “slave | § g | Whitebook mentions one conducted by The waiting list to get in numbers | market” on an island in the Red Sea, 5,000, and applicants to have a ghost |where humans captured in Africa and | of a chance of admittance must be|other places were assembled for dis- members of the local Socialist party. | tribution over Arabia and the Middle Much heartburn attends this. It is|East, has again aused civilized na- the familiar charge of the conservatives | tions and an International Slavery and the bourgeoisie that their money | Commission, under the League, is being goes to give these dwellings only for |urged to investigate the evil workmen. In private and public archives of the The Karl Marx house is only one| League and International Labor Office of many similar “Gemeinde Wien” | are to be found official government re- apartment blocks scattered picturesque- | parts, personal accounts and semi- ly through the city. Sixty-four thou- | official communications which reveal sand dwellings are to be completed by | facts that are stranger than fiction. | the end of 1932 Ten years ago the| A !?n?sl;‘ \Kslter:?gg é;“i,;’éei;’%‘;‘; 200,000~ eople living in them were | thenticated slave- o homeulgsodgrpdegaying 5 filthy slums. Am!lm. lAassgifldflnda;%elgegaség];g; ARAB SLAVE TRADERS. ( toral into the Soudan eny. | i Ix}-x:‘lgollyzeesxsz”ge]\::::n}ym::ece;?gd“nta«tm‘g during the past decade. Official Italian | slaves (10,000 appears trustworthy) are ) system of China, where British author- | iP:;l;l ;1:”&{ l;heeslmr:r}i:’d:rr:d” 315;\;11: N S i st- | traffic in humans acr 0 S i - 5 3 A e s arier or | I o a1 e oea | the (Obak \disticts {from Abysstm._cg}merei Slaves can be purchased a¢ any il of “forced labor' In India and {Canes of gives, marching v misery prescer to which each has access onc | tainly Soclalist Vienna's proudest mon- | e, Be S¢%:, LU0, S aies Com. | Reports to the. International Labor bt e: it e %’fi%‘, dmd Third P S (Contirnthed oy Thir age.) day each month; workers in White | yment. PILENEIO S 4 & . 4 §ocks and slippers, To pay off tha| it Mission, says: _“Many thousands of | Office describe chfefly the “Mui Tsai’! The two greatest sore spots which ex 3 i ) a slave hunters in British Soudan. The slavery patrol found that the raiders | had combed 200 square miles of terri- tory. So _effective has the patrol become that it has almost put an end to these incursions, although a recent report tells of 300 slave hunters entering Kenya Celony to a depth of 25 miles in an at- | tack an villages along the Labarin River. They captured many slaves and | killed 25 British subjects. , In his report to the colonial office, which is to be found in the League rec- ords, Maj. Henry Darley says he counted more than 50 dead and dying along one trail, “victims of a merciful e m his each of Housewives Share Laundry. the same block are the laundries zing to see. Shining steel-like (Copyrisht, 193%) chiefs of the interior, and when Brit- | Ras Fitauri Zallaka with 170 armed | |Renomination Certainty, Even BY MARK :ULLIVAN. HE Republican presidentiz tion continues simple, outcome as sure as it has alway been. That Mr. Hoover will by Tenominated has aiways been sure; it was sure even before Mr. Cool- idge firmly declared himself out of the picture—bzcause it was certain that Mr. Coolidge would do just that thing Nor was the certainty of Mr. Hoover's renomination affected by the talk about Dawes, for it was inevitable Dawes | would laugh such talk out of the head- lines. The orly doubt about Mr. Hoo- ver whether he will have all the 1,057 delegales in the convention, or whether a negligible score or two may be for some other candidates. In the Democratic field the outcome uch that no prudent person would trv to predict. Gov. Franklin Roose- velt of New York Is farther in the lead than most of his opponents and eritics realize. He is the or npaign is organi: on-wide A'most it i35 Roose- is the only candidate running in States other then his own Maryland is the only one in whose be- half there is orgunization outside of his ovn State, and Ritchie's organization compared to Roosevelts is so shight as to be negligible. Excepting these all the other avowed candidates, asp ants and vossibilities restrict their ef. forts to their own States. Roosevelt is almost a beneficiary of that sound rule of practical politics which says, “You can't beat somebody with no body.” it is | is c d on k v | | Indorsed by States. | The work of o tion on a Na- | tion-wide basis in half of Roosevelt has been under way for nearly a year, and the fruits of it are now beginning to appear. As the State primaries a proach, the official Democratic orga zation S.ate after Stat indorse: Roosevelt nd once that | opposition to Rooseveit n True, the St Roosevelt has been thus small: the first exampies Jermont and North D: | some 14 other small Democratic organization the same step. Tt in itself and even more significant in { what it symbolizes. It means that Rcosevelt’s friends through something like a vear of work, with no other can- didates active succeeded in_get- ting the support e domi Dem- ocratic leacers and workers in many Stat and a very large number of | counties e aggregate of this is very formidable. 1If it were in the Repub- lican . where a candidate v e | nomination by getting a majority of the delcgates, Roosevelt would alm have the nomination “cinched.” In the Democratic party, however, with its two-thirds rule, it has never happened that eny amount of preliminary or- ganization could quite make the nomi- nation sure, except in the case of Presi- | dent Wilson, when he a candidate | to succeed himself and had no rival to speak of. Under Democratic rule. one-third the delegates can veto n—and Roosevelt's i and critics will more than th third. Whether they w veto. whether they will keep the nomi- | naticn away from Roosevelt, or let him have it, depends on conditions at the time of the convention. It will depend in part on what the issues of the elec- tion, as between the Democratic and Republican candidates, is to be. The “Paramount Issue.” The outcome of this s presiden- tial election and most of the other maj events of this political year will be de eq by— phrase, but potent very politics and business price of copper—everything, | From price level. year's politics starts determine the plat will be a powerfui third party and ‘“hl(’h and who will win the presidency |~ Compared to this one dominating in- fluence, price level, ali the commotion }Abou( candidates—whether Franklin Roosevelt will be the Democratic can- jdldal? what ex-Gov. Smith will do, whether Hiram Johnson will try for the | Republican nomination or lead a third | party, whether Gov. “Alfalfa Bill” Mur- |ray of Oklahoma will get his economic | views into the Democratic platform and | come near the nomination—all that is | the mere village gossip of personalities compared to the fundamental influence ‘uf price level. Price level is the primal cause of the political forces and pas- | sions of this political year. To unde | ficulty indorsed are have been ready ntous is po onpa much one. commed everyth P r there stand price level is the A B C lesson of this year's politics. “To begin—the price level of commod- ities is very low. It has gone, as an average, from an index figure of 12.5 |in 1929 to less than 8 today. One ex- ample, used here because it is concrete, is the price of wheat. Wheat has gone down from $1 in 1929 to 50 cents today. Because the price of wheat is low, 1armers cannot pay their mortgages. A typical farmer in 1929 put a mortgage o $5,000 on his farm—that is, a mort- gage for 5000 bus Is *f wheat at the price wheat then was. Tnday he is called upon to pay back 10.000_ bushels of wheat. He cannot do it. If he is pressed he must lose his farm. If he is not to lose his farm he must have | relief. And the question what form relief is to take. or whether relief comes at |all, is at the bottom of ail the politics of this year. The farmer. of course, is but one example; it is the same with corporations having bond issues, with city home owners having mortgages on their homes, with borrowers owing | notes at the bank. You can't pay dol- lar_debts with 50-cent commodities. Out of this situation must come one | of two courses. The alternatives are: () Either ~widespread inabilit; pay debt. widespread foreclosure, | spread distress, widespread resentment —followed by radical demands in the | coming_presidential campaign (b) Or relief of débtors through ac- tion of Congress. | Debtors and Congress. ‘What has so far occurred in Con- gress about relief of debtors is only & beginning. This problem will within a | week or so become the principai one in Congress. It will continue to be the | princiapl issue till the end of Congress. Depending on what Congress does about |it, it will be the principal influence in the presidential campaign | Rellef of debtors by Congress can take one of two forms Either (A) Extension of debt or par- | tial forgiveness of debt by legal mora- | torium, or (B) Increase in the quan- tity of currency, which will raise the | price level: raise, among other com- modities, 50-cent wheat to $1 wheat. In Congress so far the attempt has | been to enact moratoriums. | bill for increasing the capital of Fed- eral Farm Loan banks and the bill | for the Emergency Reconstruction Cor- | poration were before Congress, some 30 attempts were made to add amend- ‘ments providing for a moratorium on 1 situa- | y candidate whose ; Ritchie of ; When the | of Hoover Declared a Before Coolidge Announcement. | debts. ‘The attempts, the impulse toward relief, came from Senators and Representatives of both parties and from every section and reflecting every business group. An important one, typical of all, was proposed by Senator J. Hamilton Lewis of Illinois. Senator Lewis' amendment would “authorize any court of equity of the United States or of any State * to suspend any action seeking judgment or to en- join_execution of foreclosure.” That was a direct attempt at statu- tory relief of debtors by arrest of fors- closure. In the same spirit were some 30 others. All these attempts failed. They failed, it is true, largely because Con- gress was in a hurry to enact tne prin- cipal measures to which these amend- ments were attached. We may say that for the present Congress has shown a disposition not to relieve debtors in this particular wa But it is abundanily clear that Congress is determined to re- lieve debtors in some way and is under overwhelming pressure to relieve them. The other way to relieve debtors is by raising the price level. The price level can be raised in several ways. The one that Congress is certain to at- tempt is by circulation (and, therefore, | the quantity of credit). Congress and Currency. Debtors be relieved by raising the price level—for example. by raising wheat from 50 cents a bushel to SI a bushel. The price level can be raised by increasing the quantity of currency in circulation among the people. In- creasing_the g ulation is commonly ca In the present situation it t to be flation. Acct is rather 'stopping de! Infla- is a word le it is prop be increase of cu at a time when there mu What we hav treme in the other dir treme contraction, an extrerue 4eflation And the purpose now is to arrest ex- treme deflation by increasing the quan- tity of currency and credit Increase of currency (and credit) can be achieved by Congress in one of two ways A) renc pass paper «B) Coining and in a certai The attempt to through Federal Rese made first. If be face to face wi age of silver. The is now Increasing the qua which Federal Reserve bank out in exc e for comm the pres age of si sue can only be for 1 lation to increase the quantity currency through the Federal Re- serve banl To understand this it is necessary to t v L is cre- ated by Federal Reserve banks Any business man can take certain types of “ccmmercial paper” to h. 2 His k can take nd of commercial paper thig be turned into currencv is severely limited. A mortgage will rot do. Henry Ford might give a mortzage for $1.000, secured by all the real estate but the Federal Reserve under the present law, will not out_currency for it The attempt in Congress will B: to enlarge the kinds of commercial paper which can be exchanged for curiency. which are, in the legal phrase, “eligible for rediscount privilege.” When that attempt is made, it will be resisred b some conservatives (though decided not all-—many conservatives are strong! in favor of increasing currency Iy this means) The probably aive leader of the opposition will be Senator Carter Gl of Virginia. Senator Glass was one of the authors of the Federal Reserve Sys- tem 16 years ago. He regards himself as the defender of his child. Against any attempt to “tamper” with the sy: tem, Senator Glass is “Horatius at the bridge.” or, as one of his irritated op- ponents put it, Johnny at the rat hole Senator Glass is alertly and violently critical of proposals to increase the currency lvy expanding the kind of paper for which Federal Reserve banks can issue currency. His opponents say that the whole method and system of carrying on commercial business has changed since Senator Glass helped write the Federal Reserve act in 1915 and that limitations adopted at that time are now absurd. Fight Will Come. The fight on this point will come. It will be probably the major fight of this Congress. If it is won, if the kind of commercial paper eligible to be turned into currency is enlarged, that will end the matter. Thereaiter, pre- sumably, the quantity of currency in circulation will increase. In conse- quence of that, presumably. the price level will rise. In consequence of rise in price level debtors will find it easier to pay. All that—or. if it does not hap- pen, the lack of that—will have a pro- found effect on the presidential cam- paign. If, however, Senator Glass and the extreme conservatives win; if the quan- tity of commercial paper exchangeable into currency is kept limited, in that event we shall have infallibly a demand for increase of currency in another way, a demend for what is called, roughly, to use Bryan's phrase, “frec coinage of silver.” The silver fight is surely ahead of us unless the Federal Reserve System is modified If the free-silver fight comes, it may have a powerful eflect on the Demo- cratic nomination. The demand for free silver in the Democratic platform will come—indeed, has come—{rom | Western Democratic Senators, such as | Wheeler of Montana. If free silver should be inserted in the Democratic platform, would Franklin Roosevelt then take the nomination? Would it {do him any good to take it? One of the chief reasons for nominating Roose- velt is the presumption that he can | carry New York State. ‘But could he or any one else carry New York on & free-silver platform? Free silver is a Western issue and if 1t should get into the platfori: wokiz seem to call for a Western candidate. Herein lies the long chance which, one suspects, may be inspiring Gov. “Alfalfa | Bill” Murray of Oklahoma in his pres- | ent peregrinations up and down the and. e 3 Must Be Popular. From the Toleco Blade. Mrs. McCormick says Mr. Hoover is | unpopular. But she can't stay that ot Mr. J. Hamilton Lewis. Patience Unrewarded. From the Bakersfleld Californian. ‘The reason people are patient with statesmen 18 because they don't know what 4§ do, either. o