Evening Star Newspaper, June 26, 1932, Page 23

Editorial Page e a5 EDITORIAL SECTION he Sundwy S Special Articles Part 2--8 Pages WASHINGTON, D. ( JUNE 26, 1932. ., SUNDAY MORNING, TARIFF IS EMBARRASSING QUESTION FOR DEMOCRATS Party Has Excellent Chance of Making Major Mistake of Dissimulation on Issue at Convention. | before, and a tariff on coal, upon which ' there was none before. These tariffs, especially the one on ofl, were of Democratic origin, a political re- sponse to an industrial demand that came mainly from Oklahoma and Texas. Then in the Senate Democratic Sen- ators initiated a tariff on copper, upon which there had been none before. And | Democratic Senators, in order to get the tariffs wanted on oil and greed to support, and a tariff on lumber, de- y Republicans from main!; the States of Oregon and Washington The Democratic Senator, Barkley of Kentucky, who had been chosen to| make the keynote speech next weex, was one of those who participated in adding these new tariffs to the Smoot- Hawley bill. Under these circumstances it will be | interesting to see what the Democrats do about the tariff next week. In the| country’s present mood of disillusion- | ment about many institutions and | many symbols of accepted ways of | thinking, it is dangerous to any party, | and a cruelty to the country, to make | promises without keeping them. A siderable portion of the voters beli the tariff to be an unjustifiable spe- cial privilege. Many leaders of thought believe reduction of tariff walls by our own country and others is an im- perative prerequisite for world recovery from a world disease. In fairness, it should be said that BY MARK SULLIVAN. O far the approach to the Demo- cratic convention next week is like the atmosphere of the Re- publican one; it goes on the assumption that only one topic is important, that prohibition alone is controversial and worth watching. But how about the tariff? In the Republican convention Sena- tor Hiram Bingham of Connecticut, demanding that his party be decisive on prohibition, used effectively and to the pleasure of the galleries, repetition of a phrase, “come clean.” Is there among the Democrats any one, such as Senator Cordell Hull of ‘Tennessee, who will demand that the Democrats “come clean” on the tariff? Senator Hull really believes what the Democratic party pretends to belleve about the tariff. He believes, that is, in a low tariff; he believes in applying the same broad policy of low tariff to all industries and sections; he does not believe in asking for any exception for his own State, and he does not prac- tice the making of deals or other log- rolling for the purpose of furtively get- ting & high tariff on a Tennessee com- modity while making believe that he supports the party policy of low tariff. ‘Will Senator Hull or any other Dem- ocratic leader insist on getting this view of the tariff irto the platform as originally written by the Resolutions Committee? And if he fails in the | Resolutions Committee, will he bring | in a minority report as Senator Bing- |from the point of view of the United ham did about prohibition? And will | States, changes in world conditions he, again as Senator Bingham did, | since the Democrats won control of the stand up In front of the convention | House, have justified & new view about and before the country and demand |the tariff. Changes in the values of that the Democrats “come clean” on | foreign currencies have in effect re- the tariff? | duced tariffs, which in 1930 seemed The Democrats have an excellent op- | high. But if the Democrats stand on portunity to make a major mistake this view they should be frenk encugh sbout the tariff—a mistake of dissimu- to say so. The country, for the sike lation. With everybody watching the | of recovery from spiritual disillusion- political pea that is labeled prohibi- ment, for the sake of recovery of faith tion, the Democrats have a chance to|in parties, leaders 2nd institutions, | juggle the pea named tariff. They needs candor even ‘more than it needs might get by with it for a little while, | tariffs or any other economic device. but within the four months that this ‘The writer of t article attended campaign will last, the country will last week the Republican National Con- have & period in which they will think | vention. Tomorr he will begin at- sbout other issues, and will find out | tendance at the Democratic National what the Democrats have done about | Convention. The total number of these the tanfr. quadrennial sessions of politicians he | v cl t score. G. 0. P. form Forthright. has attended is now close to a I suspect few men, perhaps none, have The harshest critic of the Republic- | attended more. A Democrat I know has ens must admit that on the economic | attended 10 conventions of his own party issues the Republicans were forthright. |and, I think, without verifying the As 1o what the Republicans did about | point, that Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, prohibition there is still too much pas- president of Columbia University, hes sion, too much hangover of prejudice | attended 14 Republican conventions—I irom the period preceding the conven- | ihink he attended the Republican con- to enable people to have clear vention of 1880 (which nominated Car- t feld) es a youthful spectator not vet old enough fo vote. Hi the Republican conveniion of t every 1904 t aside the cont'nued wran- bcout the Republiczns’ prohibi- k, the rest cf the Republican vhole, the most en by any pa s, “You may not like the ion the forihrightness takes, but the forthrightness is there. The truth is the Republicans looked upon the prohibition part of their plat- | form-making as a disagreeable job, tions, if it is co equal ameng Re Politicians and Inventions. But Republicans and Democrats at- tend. as a rule, only the conventions of their respective parties. The writer likely to bring them bricks from both |of this article belongs by his calling sides. Being in that mood about pro-to that small number of men. almost hibition, they wrote the rest of their | exclusively newspaper writers, who have - platform in a spirit of hoping that its | preferred seats, and also the run of the directness of treatment of economig|back scene stage, at conventions of issues would attract public attention |both parties—as well as, in my own away from the prohibition plank. Thai | case, the two quite important conven has not happened, yet, but the quality | tions of the Progressive party in 19 which the Republicans put into the |and 1916, and two or three of the con- economic parts of their platform re- | ventions of minor third parties mains there for all to see. It is ex- the extent and the miscellane- tremely direct and extremely conserva- erjence and from a tive. mental point of vic ct The Republican declaration support- ing the gold standard of currency is the \most unequivocal, the most free from any squint of sympathy for fiat money advocates that was ever put into the platform of any political party at | any time when there was occasion to say anything whatever about currency. | The plank asserting belief in party re- sponsibility and, therefore, party regu- | larity, is tainted by no concession to| the Progressive irregulars—it ouilaws them. The plank about veterans’ com- pensation says—less directly than some | of the other planks, but nevertheless plainly enough—that the Republicans believe in giving compensation only to veterans who actually incurred disabil- ity while in the service—and not, as th> law now permits, to a veteran who, for example, to suggest an extreme case,| incurred his disability in a s brawl 13 years after the war e In short, the Republican plank: economic issues are direct and forth- right; they run in a consistent direction and they make the Republicans the party of conservatism. And the ques- tion is, will the Democrats be equally direct in their economic planks? Tariff Embarrassing. To the Democrats the tariff is as em- barrassing as prohibition was to either Republicans or Democrats. The Dem- ocratic record on the tariff in the s sion of Congress just closing puts them, as respects this issue, on the defensive The Republican revision of the ta called the Smoot-Hawley tariff w-s completed two years ago, in Junz, 1930. that moment the election of a new the whole of the House and d of the Senate—was just getting under way. The Democrats made their campaign chiefly upon denunciation of the Smoot-Hawley tariff. In every congressional contest the Democrats de- nounced the Republican tariff and for themselves promised better things. The publicity organization of the Democratic National Committee was then at high tide of efficiency and output; reams of denunciation of the protective tariff flowed o m_ it f American voters believed lecting a Democratic House would get a lowereq tarifl. Alii- voted the Democrafic ticket for the electon of No- Domocrats won the ity o iLvo, increased bsequent elections to nouncement of the he reader has ight, to expect that I should be able till some small essence of worth- while wisdom. | I extract it from the air in the audi- | torium. Not, mark you, the wind. The | air in that immense room was at all| times comfortably cool. It had an even tegperature of, I should say, 70 de-| gregs, regardless of the heat outside. | As 3 mere contrast between present and | pasy that is a striking change, to one who can recall the swelter of conven- tions on hot June and July days in St Louis and Kansas City, when the sun heat of 100 degrees was increased by | the man of 10,000 sweltering, | sweating delegates and spectators—and the sum of that was still further in- creased by oratorical calorifics of such a speaker as Willlam Jennings Bryvan But if there is to be value in this observation, it must go further than merely to record the contrast between the now and the then; it should find some generalization, some deduction of wisdom. Well, here it is: This_addition to man's comfort, the air-cooling device that makes this room .comfortable and healthful, was rot brought about by politicians. It never would have been brought about by politicians. The extension of that comfort to any home, which is just ahead of us, will not come about through politicians. Within a very few vears ever: me, office and fac- tory 1 s will be turned on in S and paturally as artifi n in Win- ter. The no time be brought z y helped v P So far as politicians get their hand: the effect of their fingering and rfering will be to delay and impede it | Among other impediments the poli- ticlans will tax it. To the politician, any is a new thing to tax. Gasoline came into the world in an important way, but little more than a quarter cen- tury ago. It was not long allowed to escape the tax-layers a tax-eaters. Today, in some States, gasoline is taxed as high as 7 cents a gallon. Congress has just put 8 ditional tax of another cent to pu politicians In office House tax paid on a gallon of g the e ublicans out ar P ne Democrats in meaat Jow- ering of the tariff The Democratic House that was| elected at that time came into being on the Tth of December last. It is just now adjourning. During the near- | iy seven months of its life not onc| schedule of the tariff has been reduced. | No attempt has been made to reduce any schedule For this part of the record there is excuse and explanation. Those voters Who bring this diffusion about. who thought the Democr Hou would undertake to reduce the tar s o v o right away hopsd for too much. T At the conventons which composed Democrats could and can make a valiz | the beginnings of my ce, tWo excuse to the effect that there is of the, leading fizures were William use attempting a downward revision of | Jennings in the Democratic the tariff at & time when they con- Party, and Robert M. La Follette in trel oniy the House, and that they will | the Republican. Their political philos- fulfill their promise so soon as they |OPhY. speaking broadly, looked to put-| control both Congress and the presi- dency. duced it; it is & 100 per cent That is what politic new inventions. That is what 'y will do to air-cooling. They will ta: it, and many of them will follow poli cies in Congress and elsewhere which will have the effect of deliberately hin- dering it. Politicians _distrust the processes by which new inventions are diffused among the people: and they are jealous of the rewards of the men New Tariffs Enacted. But the Democratic record on the the average. tariff is/not that simple—and not that | blameless the House wrote and enacted a tarff | one horse (excepting fnrmew- ca ofl, upon which there was no tarifl ' exception, certainly well-to- and al NE night last month a closed O car dashed through the quiet Danzig. young man and & woman. She was Majewska, a dancer, known and cheered in all the night clubs of Warsaw. to a little bag, nervously, worriedly, frequently looking behind. Danzig—3 miles away—and freedom there from the Polish police. The frontier light showed ahead and the and Majewska and her friends had taken their last ride but one. last ride came three days later—to & stone wall and a firing squad. For several months the Pollsh secret | service n receiving ourag- el % Dok 5 fne news from Boviet Russia. One b | sohes aqmided. L ° o0 s une Pogsh lgexfiu t&e“' mc’g who had | “worked” in Russla for long years, than y th efore | the most active centers of all. webe Deing. discovered.—and: XDk ZTha | B e e A O T e Soviet counter espionage system seemed | of yncertainty, of chronically inflamed | alike. Embassies are seldom the work-| to have developed second sight—or had | national ambitions, plans and hopes,| ing centers of the system. they been furnished with & list of the | jnformation services are kept busier Polish spies in Poland? IRISH ROW MAY OTTAWA TRADE GATHERING TTAWA ens that President Eamon De Valera’s uncompromising at- titude on abolition of the oath alienate ada and the other Dominions who are| disposed to regard the dispute between London and Dublin as an affair to be dealt with by the Dominlons of Can- | ada, Australia, New Zealand and South | Africa. Australia and South Africa have urged the head of the Irish Free State to act with moderation. prime minister of Canada is correct in this—that the invitatlo Free State for the Oti was precisely the sam= as to the British and Dominion governments. . that there is a dispute betwesn Lon and Dublin, tion removes any doubt as to the in- tention of the De Valera government. But if there should be a reference of the matter to the several governments, either by the British gov- | ernment, as is usual in imperial and oreign_matters, or by the government | new form of human enrichment| = most in the class of the rich. The man (other than a farmer) horses or more, was certainly in the class of the rich. cited the man who had suspicion against the man who had two. To some degrce they preached a phi- v Henry Ford and other pioneers and leaders of the automobil bringing it about that both the man | who had no horse, and the man who had one or two or more, should be able to have the power of 20 horses, or 40, or 60 or more. ther pioneers in the electric industry were bringing it about that in most of the homes of the country a man or &|that the abolition bill expresses seces-| woman or a child can by no more ex- ertion than turning a switch have com- mand of practically unlimited horse- | of Canada take a stand on the question power. | has come about during 20 to 40 years | view set forth by P. G. Mignault, former may be less convincing at & time When | justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the diffusion of these enrichments has | in an address to law st temporarily slowed down. Nevertheless | University, declares that secession is & those enrichments constitute the most | necessary legal consequence of abolition important aspect of life in America |of the oath. during the time of living men. pared to these, all that the politicians | the keystone of the British Common- and the political | ting limitation upon large units of in- | done, has been nothing. | dustry. Their political appeal consisted | politician, but to men of the Ford type mainly of ineiting the average man|in industry, to suspicion of men who were above |type in science, that the average man must look for his good. And the great At the time Bryan and La Follette | need of America at this moment is to ‘The Democrats controliing | were in their prime, a man who had | resume the free movement of the forces was an | through which new enrichments just - | ahead of us can be diffused to all of us. ies Fill Europe’s Capitals More of Them Working Than at Any Time Before or Since the World War. ATIONAL POLICIES DELAY Bear Constant Rel and Political De BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. HE prospect that the Conference of Lausanne will be followed at no distant date by still another international meeting serves to attention to what may historian the most call prove for the futus illuminating _single porary history. Recent years have seen an ever-increasing number of these in- ternational gatherings, and between this number and the rate of nomic, financial and political decline in | Europe the relation has been constant Why, then, coes the statesmanship «| of the world insist upon applying to A SPY CAN SETTLE QUIETLY AMONG THEM. Yet the embassies in any capital must be on their guard against espionage agents of other countries which would | like to pry out or, more likely, buy out, |a few secrets. Carelessness sometimes |leads to amazing stories. The disap- | pearance of the Italian code book from rise and fall, but the work of espionage, with its bribery, corruption and, some times, murder, goes on uninterrupted by the ebb and flow of politics. A false glamour has been thrown about the whole business of espionage. Some has come from tales of real people, of Mata Hari, of Col. Lawrence, but most of it comes from the activities of beautiful ladies and handsome offi- cers who live, spy and die for the dear | old fatherland in the pages of fiction. Instead of a glamorous occupation, it is, for most of those engaged in it, hard and dirty work. For most there is not even the satisfaction of serving one's country; the great mass of espionage g re little pecple who have been persuaded or blackmailed into selling out their own country’s secrets. Money is the lure and the reward, but mosi of them are miserably paid. ‘me week end. iy ive. Bl | Oy o Then she had a bright idea. Each country has its system, and|slavia, a poor country, was paying her every European capital is a center for| & large sum of money for the code: 15 to 30 different systems. Berlin, | Wy Wouldn't a French agent pay a still | higher price? So she got in touch with Undoubtedly there are more sples in| Warsaw, Paris and Rome are probably | secrefary in the French embassy snd | he was delighted. On & convenient Saturday she took the code book from the embassy and the Frenchman photographed it. She then went to the Jugoslavs and they, | (Continued on Third Page.) investigation showed that four Polish officers, together with Majewska, were selling to the Russians information that led to the death of Polish agents. | The little black bag which Majewska was_trying to get into Danzig offered final proof. Another Firing Squad. Thus another set of spies trapped, another revelation of treachery where loyalty was taken for grantgd —and another firing squad on a chilly dawn. Discreet newspaper headlines told a | bit of the story. Once again Europe knew that although the “secret diplo- macy” of treaties, agreeme d alli- ances has been more or less abolished by the treaty of Versailles, the busi- ness of buying, selling and stealing the secrets of diplomacy and of other state activities still continues, with every country, bar none, engaged in it. More Teports appear in the European | ress about Soviet spies than about BY WILLIAM C. WHITE. | streets of the Polish town of Tschey. The driver swung into the road that leads to| Beside him were unother] is the most remarkable. A number of countries, particularly | Jugoslavia, France and Russia, were keen to this code book. attache named Garbeccio had charge of the book and kept it under lock and key. Garbeccio had a secretary, a mid- dle-aged Italian woman—{aithful, hardworking, but weary of having to work so hard. She was approached by two Jugoslavian agents and after sev- eral weeks sgreed to produce the code. She waited for a Saturday, since the code probably would not be needed over Now, on this ride, she clung car slowed down. Instead of epy guards, a group of army offi- prang from the frontier station— ‘That And in these days| Systems are organized more or less For one| thing, they are too easy to watch. Like- wise, their use might lead to embar- | than _ever. Governments change, na- ° rassing diplomatic situations., The latter seemed more likely, and'tional cabinet succeeds labor, premiers CONFRONT “MAIL LOBBYISTS” FLOOD CAPITOL WITH LETTERS Dominions Would Be Required to Act if More Than Million Signatures, on Papers From Every State, Back Pleas on All Possible Issues. FFICIAL files at the United States Capitol today contain more than a million newly in- scribed signatures, carried to ‘Washington during recent weeks by the highest tide of pleas and | protests in tne history of Congress. Representing every State and virtually every county, according to a survey made as the legislative session was closing, this masfigof citizens’ names is | beer tax made anti-prohibitionists of evidence of the scope of “the great mail | the expressive variety out of many Tobby." @ new development in national | folks Who have affiictions of the money | affairs. | nerve. One look at the stacks of com- The volume of mail received at the | munications deposited by the immediate Senate post office is estimated as 25 |Past upon the House Ways and Means times greater than the amount which |arrived in the days before prohibition, taxes, economy and the soldiers’ bonus began to turn handsprings in the pub- lic mind with a strange zeal. And ell- night laborings have been the regular order of affairs in the House post office since the beginning of the year. Tele- graph wires leading to the Capitol also rave been burdened with a record- breaking traffic in messages In form, the communications range from postal cards to the contents of | packing boxes. In subject matter no | words: “Mothers Can Help to Fight bounds appear. Kidnapers.” Beside it, at the'top of the There is, for example, the document | heap, is a 15-pound petition for modi- sent by an Ohlo man in which is set | fication, with the fact that it holds forth the writer's claim that he should | names of owners of 1.416,228 acres of be and by all rights is the Chief Jus- tice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He not only asks Congress to lace him in that position, but also re- | quests “back pay” as a member of the land’s highest tribunal. From another disccmfited quarter comes the plea that “an investigation be instituted to determine some relief for the hay fever sufferers” A farmer whose cow was turned into the wrong pasture by raflway trainmen after it wandered through a broken fence sol- emnly makes demand for some radical changes in the judicial system under which his suit for damages was dis- missed. Protection of the rights of Eskimos to own reindeer also presents itself as a topic, rising rather unex- pectedly from a little town in New York. An element of profundity is found in another !'r:sséve, the author of whlch‘ proposes ongress “a new for the world and o suggestion of a | (1€ House during the st six months. remedy for world-wide depression.” Tax Bill Causes Influx. ‘The miscellany of letters such as| When the session first thece, however, is merely a faint ob- |last December, a_large n‘\;’:tnb“:-a;rr “the biigato to the massive chorus of ex- pression which centers in major issues that promise to play a great part in the casting of ballots next November. Bulging file cases and stacks of pack- ages behind doors and under tables in committee rooms and offices of Senators and Representatives reveal the extent of the eighteenth amendment's ability to provoke expressions of opinion. As far back as 50 years ago people were writing letters about “the liquor trade,” on one side and on the other, to_mem- bers of Congress. But earlier years have only showers of opinion to show in comparison with the cloudbursts of Question Involving Oath of Allegiance Is Referred to Conference. | protests and threats which have fallen upon Capito! Hill since the beginning of legislative procecdings last December. “Hard times,” basic factor in this year's production of petitions in mass quantity, have churned up a good measure of expressions on prohibition recently received at the Capitol, an | analysis reveals. First of all, the pra- posal to raise money by means of a | of the Irish Free State. vance of the O conference during the session: be cumbent on these governments to taks up the issue. Dispute Seen as Test. During the last dred years Can- ada and the other dominions have been moving into a relative position that amounts to a personal union under the King and Emperor, in which there is no one sovereign Parliament with a di- | vision of the former diplomatic unity as of the imperial sovereignty. Yet it is important to observe that while this | personal union is not an international person it is a situation which lays greater emphasis on the King as head of the state and the crown as the ac- tual and theoretic unity of the empire, as also the head the several nations of the British commonwealth A significant ut the Irish Free State dispute y Canadians is that it repres t of the real- ity of the act by the British in which removed t mitations on the legislative competence of the dominion Parliaments. Dublin and Ottawa are now free to remove the legal right of | appeal to the throne, expressed in the imperial prival council. No one gues- tions the legislative competence of the | Irish Free State Legislature to abolish the oath, but there is difference of opinion &s to the consequences. Canada Holds Two Views. When Bonar 1 uced his bill to validate tt tate consti- tution i forta that if any prov ution were to be repugnant to the tre respect to tha operative. The within the r to negotiate terms under BY J. ALEX. AIKIN., either in ad- ~The conviction deep- of allegiance to the King willi some of his friends in Can- Already the governments of The attitude of the bk | ondary, the depression period has found e in which to think and to express their opinions; the inclination to “write to Congress” thrives in that situation. Remain in Office. In a corner of the spacious quarters occcupled by the House Judiclary Com- mittee, a pile of chunky packages in- vite the petition-curious eye. One It is not officially known to Ottawa Acceptance of the invita- Dominion G sands of names under these printed who had two forth. Only a small minority of the petition: which form “the great mail lobby | have been formally filed with the Sen- | ate and the House in such manner as to dictate their submittal to committees. That course usually is followed only when specific request is contained in the petitions or when a member of Con- gress, the Secretary cf the Serate, or the Clerk of the House, deems the ma- terfal distinctive or important enough to deserve the special treatment. Other- wise, the communications do not go be- yond the offices in which they are re- ceived. For this reason the exact vol- ume of letters received at the Capitol during the Nation-wide effort to in- fluence legislation can never be known. It is significant, however, that more than 10,000 petitions have been entered Bryan, La Follette and their kind in- no horse to of taking one phy of aividing u e man with two. way from tr as politics During the same period, in a world distant from politics, such men a5 v null and ises: 1s it not of the Irish Free State r revision of the treaty limited legislative De Valera's inti- mation to the Senate that “we are not in | this bill asking the Scnate to agree to & | policy of severance; that is not in- | volved here” invalidates the argument | industry were Thomas Edison and | sfon. | Until the government and Parliament there can be no claim of a Canadian This emphasis on the enrichment that | attitude on the issue. The obvious legal udents of McGill |form and content of thoss which had | There were the standard petitions re- lating to national defense, anti-trust laws, old-age pensions and the develop- ment of rivers and harbors. Sprinkled The learned jurist said: Com- | “This common allegiance to the King is conventions have | wealth of Nations, There is one crown | It is not to the | and seven associated nations, and that | crown is the symbol of their free asso- ciation. The allegiance which each member of this free association owes to the crown is the bond of union be- tween it and the other members of the Bril c,"';‘,mm"“"h of Nations. de" could not away without de- stroying the whole rl:."‘ and men of the Millikan ) Jugo- | | Committee bolsters that statement. Sec- | many persons with time on their hands | neatly bound presentation carries thou- | |land in a Western State boldly set| upon the formal rolls of the Senate and | |to get any more money they will not communicatians . beld quite the same | 05 present evils that remedy which has to work? The answer, of course, is that there is nothing else that the statesmanship of the world can do. Until the various peoples are prepared to permit their governments to modify national policies and co-ordinate na- tional Interests with those of the rest of the world there is nothing that can be done in domestic affairs lo improve conditions. ‘The present crisis in the world is purely international. The causes which have produced it lie outside of the frentiers of any one nation. It has been induced by war and by the at- tending complications of debts, repa- rations, loans and tariffs en the eco- nomic sice, and of territorial, military and naval issues on the political. The reason the statesmen of Europe go trooping from one conference another, commuting between Geneva and their respective capitals, is double. They can do nothing at home and they fear the moral effect of a confes- sion that they are helpless. The journalist who attends the vari- ous conferences discovers promptly that the statesmen he meets there have not the smallest real hope of ac- complishing anything. They are all perfectly well aware that the state of | public opinion back home forbids them | to take any steps abrcad which might lead to co-operation through com- promise. They know that they must continue to repeat in each others’ faces the national theses, which are irrecon- cilable. They are satisfied that as long as France insists upon security by in- | ternational guarantee, Germany upon | equality in armament and territorial re- | vision, Italy upon military and naval | parity with France there can be no Hindrance to Progress, They are equally well aware that so tion cr reduction, France insists upon {keeplng up the fiction of German lia- bility as long as the United States sticks to its debt policy there is not going to be any prcgress in any economie conferenc Successful con- | ferences, whether concerned with dis- | armament or economic and financial | questions, can succeed only when the | representatives of the several nations concerned are in a position and their peoples in a mood to compromise. But today the politicians of the United States are satisfled that their | assent to any modification of the debt | settlements would spell their ruin. | Those of Germany know that to agree | to future payments or consent to a pres- ent abandonment of agitation for terri- torial revision would mean political dis- aster and not impessibly physical death. Those of Prance realize that, with a militarist-junker control in Germany, to consent to reduction of armaments un- accompanied by new guarantees of se- | curity would be suicide. From the European point of view it is just as silly to undertake an eco- gomxc conference with the questions of | debts and tariffs taboo as it is from the American point of view to preface the discussion of world peace by establish- ing an international army to wage war | against a nation guilty of aggression. And it is equally plain that until the American people are willing to talk debts and the French to discuss dis- armament on a practical basis, confer- ences on economic or armament ques- tions can produce only deadlocks. Nevertheless the peoples of the several | countries must not be left with the im- | pression that the politicians are help- less. These politicians can, in fact, do nothing, but they must in appearance | always seem to be going somewhere and | doing something. What is actually happening is that, despite all theif show of industry, the politicians of the various nations are in reality: just waiting until the things which they can’t prevent do happen |and their publics reconcile themselves | to the resuiting situation. Reparations is a good example of this process. All aware Germany will never pay another pfennig. When the Young plan was made they still believed payments of half a billion dollars a year could be exacted for two generations. All the allied publics are now asking of their statesmen is to hang on to the legal claim against Germany until they can get rid of the American mortgage. . §. Cannot Coilect. One day the American public, in its turn, is going to wake up to the fact that it cannot collect the war debts. It is going to become just as satisfied that the allies of the war will not continue | the present arrangement as the allied publics are now convinced Germany is done with reparations. When this mo- ment arrives an international confer- ence can and will assemble and take note of the accomplished fact. flation of reparations and of debts Wfll{ have been completed. The difficulty which confronts the | statesman is that he can't tell the pub- lic what he knows in these matters | until the public is ready to listen to him. The evil of the situation arises | from the fact that the politician feels compelled to tell the public what he be- lieves it desires him to say irrespective of the facts, and thus prolongs the agony. There never was any other es- cape from the reparations mess except the bankruptcy of Germany, because only when they saw with their own eyes that Germany could not pay would | the allied publics accept the fact. | will never be any end to the | debt problem until the European states | quite unequivocally tell the American | people they will not continue. They | may pluck up the courage to do it this | Fall; they may temporize by announcing their momentary inability when the | date for the December installments | comes round. But until the American people perceive that they are not going agree to go to conference and consent the wiping out of the bad debts all v around. come to the Capitol in earlier days.| ™ A¢ present their is an enormous agi- tation go:ng on all over the world for | a speedy elimination of reparations and | debt obligations as the one necessary | antecedent %'Ofld recovery. Un- | questionably would be a vast gain. But the trouble 1s that such a | course is politically impossible. detail of contem- | with such monotonous regularity failed | to | ©|long as Germany refuses all further | | reparations payments, the United States | rejects all proposals of debt cancella- | the allied publics are now perfectly well | The de- | e WORLD PARLEYS’ SUCCESS Ever-Increasing Number of Gatherings ation to Economic cline in Europe. ments. Such a step could never have been agreed upon in any international | conference. The result of this step, however, was to end payment, and that after all, was the important thing. But | because he got ahead of public opin- | fon Mr. Hoover was assailed by the politicians, Post-war history is the record of poli- ticians and peoples catching up with the facts. The pcliticians, despite the legend of leadership, only follow the people. The business of a politician is to live, and the price of living is to sat= isfy his constituents. Trus is why, al- though you have many prominent citi- zens in the various countries urging the scrapping of reparations and the can- celing of debts, you find practically no officeholders, whether presidents or | prime ministers, advocating such poli- cies. | Place for Alibis. | An international conference is today a place where national politicians seek —and frequently obtain—a domestic alibl for their failure to solve their national problems. ‘The German, French, British and American govern- ments represented at these meetings supply eich other with excuses to carry home ard present to their publics. Each fixes the responsibility upon an- other. The German serves as the scapegoat for France, the Prenchman for Germany. The American can blame all Europe and zll Europe can agree in condemning America. | 'The method is excessively danger- | ous when conditions are politically as | explosive and economically and finan- | clally as precarious as they are in Ger- many and, in fact, in all of Central Europe today. But these risks have to be taken because there is nothing else possible. In international con- ferences national delegates and their governments behind them are tied hand and foot by the state of mind prevail- ing in their respective countries at the moment. The best example of all of this is supplied by the reparations history. At Paris in 1919 the liability of Germany was fixed at $33,000,000,000, which would have involved an annual payment for two generations of above $2,000,- 000,000. Any public man who at that date questioned German capacity to pay would have been roughly |out of office. By 1930 at The Hague | the Young plan had reduced the an- | the embassy in Berlin in 1929, perhaps, Progress in a disarmament conference. | nual payments to $500,000,000. At | Lausanne the other day there was com- | mon agreement that for the present, at | least, Germany could pay nothing and tacit recognition she never would pay any more. ., Thus it was only after 13 years that it was possible to deal realistically with reparations. The allied publics had to be “shown.” ~The education had to be accemplished by what is known gen- erally os the process of “trial and error,” but in my New Hampshire vil- lage is mope- picturesquely described as the method of “by gosh and by Ve One of the greatest mistakes of today | is the conviction that the statesmen | and politicians are fixed and immovabie | in their positions, that they are re- | sponsible for the failure of interna- tional conferences to produce results. | On the contrary, the smallest experi- | ence at these gatherings serves to estab- | lish the fact that the larger number | of delegates have no personal convic- | tions. "As & matter of fact they see themselves caught between a state of facts which they recognize and a state of mind which dominates the electorate they represent. When their constitu- ents think internationally they will act internationally, but not before. Pewer of the Facts. But facts are more powerful than national convictions in the end. The late Roland Boyden, who represented the United States in reparations ques- tions, once summed up the whole money problem, debts and reparations alike, in the statement: “You can't get | more than you can get.” Europe has | discovered Germany can’t pay, America | is learning Europe won't pay. Mean- | time, while the process of education continues, there hgve to be confer- ences to give the impression of gov- ernmental activity. Moreover, the con- ferences do serve the useful purpose of demonstrating that nothing can be done. An economic and financial confer- cpce with debts and reparations left out is, of course, a mere nonsense. But | a conference on these questions while public opinion rgnains what it still is | in all countries concerned is a nonsense anyway. The World War disclosed the | fact, not even dimly perceived before, that economically and financially, in- | dustrially and commercially the affairs of the various peoples on this planet had become hopelessly intermingled. But the post-war years have disclosed that in the face of this revelation the various peoples have still continued to think nationally. And since the peoples continue to con- trol their national policies, their states- men and politicians have no choice but to follow the popular lead. Every time an international conference fails, how- ever, and the record is unbroken, fresh evidence is supplied of the impossibility of solving international problems by purely national means. So another generation, looking back upon the con- temporary period, may well conclude that international conferences were a method devised not to promote inter- | national agreement but rather to serve | as a sort of kindergarten school to edu- | cate national publics about world af- (Copyright, 1932 Beauty Doctor Hired By French Government PARIS.—The French Republic needs the care of a beauty doctor and a spe- cial appropriation has been set aside to pay his fees. Every town hall in this country and many other public buildings, such as law courts, are adorned with a plaster bust of Marianne, as the republic is popularly called. Marianne is presented generally as a somewhat buxom beauty wearing the Phrygian cap. Plaster is not eternal and the condition of many of the busts is such that Marianne seems to be afflicted with pimples and eczema. Hence the appropriation. (Copyright, 1932.) Salzburg Tra;:srl—’;geons By Making Them Drunk SALZBURG, Austria.—Salzburg, the city of Mozart, has decided that pig- eons are a nuisance and must be ex- terminated. After examining a number of sugges- tions to that end, the municipality has accepted a “wet” plan. Grain is soaked and thrown that they cannot fly. Whereupon they are picked up and killed, eventually finding way to market, (Copyrizht, 1932.) o