Evening Star Newspaper, March 3, 1935, Page 31

Editorial Page Civic Activities P, 'art 2—8 Pages . ITALY SEEN ON IMPERIALIST POLICY Program Can Only Able to Crush Ethiopian Resist- ance and In BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. OR an American audience, still despite obvious doubts and unre- solved prejudices frankly eager to know the facts about the League of Nations, there could not possibly be any episode more re- vealing than the Italian adventure in Ethiopia. For many weeks now we have been reading in the press re- ports of the mobilizing and passing of armed forces from Italy to Africa. And these forces are patently to be employed to destroy the independence of a state which continues to be a member of the League of Nations and | has formally scught League protection from impending aggression. Here is disclosed not merely the danger of war, but the prospect of a new conquest identical with those other adventures in imperialism which were so familiar in the years which preceded the World War. Nneverthe- less the League has been quiescent— the war drums have sounded Africa, but beside the waters of the Lake of Geneva there has been a si- lence as profound as puzzling. How 1s that silence to be explained? First of all Geneva is sadly aware of the fact of failure in the Manchu- rian affair. After nearly four years not only has its intervention come to nothing. but Japan is still advancing. ‘Today no new resource is resident in League hands to clothe its action with new authority or fresh power. To act again must therefore be to fail again. Beyond that. moreover, lies the not Jess disturbing truth that to inter- | vene means to insure that with ut- most promptitude Italy will join Japan and Germany in quitting Geneva. And since the United States is absent, four of the seven great powers will thus be missing. Problem More Complex. The present problem is far more complex than the Manchurian, when Géneva risked all and lost all because none of the great powers represented in the League felt called upon openly and frankly to prevent League action. For the moment, at least, Japan was isolated. If, as Mr. Stimson soon discovered, no Euro power was ready to contribute force to insure the enforcement of the law, none was prepared to prevent moral condemna- tion of Japanese action such as eventually found expression in the Lytton report. But in the case of Italy, France has just made an entente with her | southeastern neighbor, dictated by a common fear of the rising threat of German policy in Central Europe. And one of the tacit if not formal details of that Rome agreement of recent date was French recognition of Italy's right to deal as she chose with Ethiopia. Thirty years ago when France and Great Britain made & similar agreement, also dictated by common fear of Germany, one of the considerations for France was a free hand in Morocco and for Britain a similarly free hand in Egypt. Consequent upon that Anglo- French bargain was another by which France and Britain recognized the Italian right to wrest Tripoli from ‘Turkey and make it her own, a step | which led in no long time to the ‘Turko-Italian War of 1912. And while the British relation to the new | Ethiopian hunting license of Italy is | obscure, it is clear that at a moment | when the English are trying to get Germany back into the League for | purposes connected with their own | interests and security, they have an obvious reason for not supporting any action which might lead to Italian | withdrawal. | | Imperialist Program Begun. ‘There is the situation, then. Italy is embarking upon a new program of | imperialism which, like the Japanese | adventure in Manchuria, can only be successful as Italian force succeeds in crushing Ethiopian resistance and ex- tinguishing Ethiopian independence, ‘The operation may take years, it may be pursued as France pursued her so-called “pacification” of Morocco by eating up outlying provinces one by one, as an artichoke is eaten. But what we are seeing is a fresh dis- closure of a familiar phenomenon, a | mew example of old-fashioned im- | perialism. Now it is essential to examine this Italian performance at close range | for a moment because otherwise its | significance will be mistaken. Italy is going to Ethiopia as Japan went to | Manchuria—to seek some solution for | its double problem of overpopulation and insufficient material resources. Like Japan, Italy is a country which finds its present diffcult and its fu- | ture imperiled because it lacks the | Mmeans to insure a decent standard of living for its great population. Mussolini’s phrase was “Italy must expand or explode” and it applies to Japan as well. ‘The attempt of the League to arrest Japanese aggression failed because the Japanese saw their Manchurian ex- pansion as a matter of life and death and were prepared to fight rather than abandon it. Any attempt to halt Italian aggression would precipi- tate a similar crisis. Since, however, no country thought Manchuria worth the price of armed intervention as no hation now regards the fate of Ethiopla as worth the bones of a single national soldier, nothing was and nothing will be done in either case. Italy will, in her own time and in her own way, “get away with it” as Japan did. But it is essential to recognize that there is a third great power whose physical circumstances and political purposes parallel those of Japan and Italy. Germany, in her turn, finds herself unable to provide employment and prosperity for her workers or her industries. She, too, lacks those re- sources in raw materials and reserves in minerals essential to carry on her material existerice. And she also lacks the means to acquire these abroad because she cannot sell her own goods. The National Socialist dictatorship which now dominates the Reich has, therefore, undertaken to organize the nation for future war to insure an extension of national frontiers and the acquisition of the means and markets essential to na- tional existence. Youth Training to War. Actually today three of the seven great powers are training their youth to war and two out of the three have already resorted to force because their rulers ¢ in | | inequalities between countries which EMBARKED Succeed as Force Is dependence. satisfied that conquest constitutes the only means of escape from national suffocation. What can the League of Nations do about this? What the Japa.iese have done, what the Italians are doing and the Germans are preparing to do in- volves the mutilation of frontiers and even the extinction of the independ- erce of various states in Asia, Africa and Europe. Has the League any power to protect these states? Patently not. Has it any means, moral or material, to persuade the nations | contemplating aggression to renounce | these programs? Evidently not. as the Manchurian affair established. The Manchurian affair was war, the Ethiopin conquest will mean war, the | realization of German purposes in | Middle Europe can only be attained by successful conflict. The League | was established to prevent war and [to promote peace, but it is equally impotent to do either, since to fulfill its mission it would have to be able to coerce an aggressor or convince an intending aggressor to renounce his purpose. And means of coercion and capacity for persuasion are both alike absent. Performances Identical. In addition, while it is customary to denounce Japanese and Italian action and German purpose, it is plain that what these nations are now planning to do in Asia, Africa and Europe are performances indistinguishable from those of peoples who are now critical. France conquered Morocco, Great Britain crushed the South African | 1epublics, even the United States | | ‘took” Panama within the memory of living man. Now these countries are | striving to set up a reign of law in | place of a reign of force, but none is EDITORTAL SECTION he Sunday Star WASHINGTON, D. C, SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 3, 1935. Why Paroles Are Necessary Release Under Supervision Seen Only Safe Method of Feeding Prisoners Back Into Social Stratas. proposing to surrender what it took by force. Laying aside the Soviet Union and | considering only the six Western | powers, Great Britain, France and | the United States have created vast empires, each of them controls huge |areas and utterly disproportionate | fractions of the territorial and ma- | terial resources of the planet. These | | possessions were acquired by conquest in wars against civilized states or na- tive tribes. We—the British, French and Americans—have acquired all | | that at the moment we think we need. Our concern is, therefore, to prevent | | future wars in which we may lose our | | possessions in the same way we ac- | | quired them, But consider once more the relative | | share of the resources of the earth | | belonging to 200,000,000 of Germans, | Japanese and Italians, on the one | | hand, and a similar number of British. | Americans and French, on the other | Note, also, that under the present | | practices of economic nationalism both | | Germany and Italy not merely are |faced by the future prospect of a | declining standard of living, but are experiencing the first phases of such a decline. There is no apparent way out for them save the way Japan has taken, Italy is just entering upon and Germany is preparing for. If peoples are ready to fight rather than endure conditions which to them seem not only intolerable but in- equitable, there is no way to prevent war save as more fortunate peoples are ready to make concessions. And what country is? Certainly not Britain, France or the United States; none of these countries is ready to open its markets to foreign goods or its flelds and factories to foreign laborers. On the contrary, what the world is witnessing today is the enormous expansion in armaments of all six powers, half preparing to de- stroy and half to defend the existing division of lands and resources. ' Peace Requires Sacrifice. ! If the six powers held peace to be the supreme end of policy and war the crowning evil of mankind, the League could function. It could persuade the powers pursuing dynamic and destruc- tive policies to abandon these. It could prevail upon the powers follow- ing static and restrictive policies to modify these. For only by such mu- tual sacrifice could peace be assured. But along these lines nothing can be done, and all that has been done so far has been to exert an effort to prevent war without touching the are daily rendering war more in- evitable. Ethiopa should be a lesson to Amer- ican pacificts and Leaguers quite as valuable as Manchuria, for it discloses another great power breaking outright with all the post-war ideas of peace and embarking upon a war of aggres- sion which in its own -eyes has also the appearance of a war of self- preservation. To stop that war it would be necessary, as in the case of Manchuria, to mobilize greater forces, for while Italy may not now press forward rapidly as Japan did, she is opening' the first stages in a long operation. American friends of the League continue to insist that if America were at Geneva all would be different. But we were at Geneva when the Man- churian affair developed and we did co-operate with the League as closely as if we had been a member. But Europe was even less ready than America to fight for Chinese unity. And if we were at Geneva now, we should hardly be prepared to offer battalions or battleships, to defend Abyssinian liberty or to interfere with Italian lines of communication. Could Not Prevent War. Finally, if we should be members of the League when Germany eventually follows the example of Japan and Italy and undertakes to carve out for herself a place in the Central Eu- ropean sun commensurate with her own conception of her necessities, we should be able to participate in the ensuing war but not to prevent it. ‘We could not prevent it because no people prefers peace with inequality to war in which at least the promise of escape exists. But American pacifists and Leaguers will not believe that Japanese and Italian actions and German preparations and policies mean what they say. They will not face the fact that these three peoples | mean business, have rejected all the programs of peace during the post- war period and have set themselves {o organize for wars they plan to wage. The reason, moreover, that the American pacifists and Leaguers will not face these facts, despite all the evidence of recent months and indeed ’ BY SANFORD BATES, Director. Federal Bureau of Prisons. UNDREDS of thousands of de- fendants are annually charged with crime in this country. Let us step into a court room in any American city and look at one of them as he is brought to the bar of justice. His trial, which may have been long, or short, or no trial at all if he has pleaded guilty, is concluded. If he is found guilty, he stands to receive his sentence. If he is an accidental offender, he may be put on probation, possibly he may get off with a fine and an admonition. But last year over 8,000 such hapless individuals were committed to Federal peniten- tiaries and 52,000 more were com- mitted to penitentiaries of the sev- eral States. . ‘Who is this prisoner? One out of 100 is a gangster: one out of 1,000 is | the much-publicized public enemy No. 1, 2 or 3. These desperadoes re- ceive a long sentence in some peni- tentiary and the community breathes a sigh of relief. Other Group Most Important. What happens to the other 99 per cent? They are first offenders, va- grants, chronic thieves, dope fiends, bank embezzlers, wife deserters, etc. Some commit crime from economic pressure. Some are sorely tempted. Some are feeble-minded or neurotic. Some have lived in the squalid areas of our large cities, in which, in very truth, no other course but crime was open to them. Many of these varying types of indi- viduals likewise receive a sentence, long or short, and again the district attorney and the law-abiding element of our society sit back with the reali- zation that a job has been finished and that they have assisted in the maintenance of law and order and the protection of our communities. But this, unfortunately, is not the end of the story. It is not the end of the story for the man led away to prison, be he penitent or defiant; it is not the end of the story for the unfortunate and suffering family which, in a goodly proportion of such cases, is left behind. It is but the beginning of the modern attempt to protect society through the reforma- tion of the offender. Many Finish Sentence. During the same period that these | 60,000 persons are safely housed in our penal institutions another 60,000 will emerge, having finished their sen- tences, an experience which, at its best, has been a bitter and deteriorat- ing one. A young prisoner in a Fed- eral penitentiary is approaching the end of his sentence. Through all his term he has maintained an air of | truculence and unwillingness to abide by the rules. Considerable of his time he has had to spend in segrega- tion. He was asked the other day by an official of the prison: “What do you propose to do when you have served up until the last day that the Government can hold you on this séntence?” His answer was this: “I propose to go out and kill every officer of the law that I meet.” Bravado, no doubt. When he breathes the free air of the outside once again he may change his tune. The fear of prompt retribution may deter his hand. The officer of the law may get him first. But just sup- pose that 60,000 men emerged from prison each year for the next 10 years with this attitude of mind. Assimilation Big Task. ‘The problem of the discharged pris- oner has been a baffling one for so- clety to solve for generations past. In the early days society was afraid to make the attempt to assimilate such hardened individuals. They were deported. They were branded. They were set apart frcm their fellows. The ticket-of-leave man and the ex-con- vict have always been thorns in the flesh of the body politic. How can would have to abandon all their pacts, covenants and disarmament con- ferences #nd recognize that the only thing that counts in the contempor- ary world is force, the force of dy- namic states seeking to expand their boundaries and of static countries striving to defend their frontiers. They would have to see that the pro- posals for perpetual peace come only from the materially satisfled and that they, and their publics are 'of the past four years, is that they) » this small army of unfortunate, underprivileged or vicious individuals | be made less harmful? How can we| | carry out the first requisite of a8 wise | penal system—namely, the protection |of our communities? | The system of discharge which we call parole provides the answer. The transition from the abnormal re- | | stricted life in a prison to self-sup- | Governor, on- the one hand, which is not parole at all, and the release of prisoners after careful examina- tion into their individual cases by an intelligent, fearless, honest, full- time Parole Board, such as functions in the Department of Justice of the Federal Government. As Clair Wilcox has said: “Parole must be distinguished from or the protection of society from contagion. With many of our prison inmates this analogy holds true. Those poten- tially dangerous individuals who can- not be cured should be kept in prison indefinitely. But because occasionally an anti-social convalescent uses his crutch as a club, must we ever after deny all other convalescent individuals this assistance. Psychiatry and the social sciences may help us to diagnose the permanently dangerous individual. Politics will not. American Terms Long. No fear need be had that adequate sentences will not be served. Foreign observers have repeatedly noted that American sentences are the longest in the world. While still falling far short of serving the maximum time. those prisoners who are released from prison on parole have on the average served a longer time in be institutions than those on a definte sentence where the court decided the length thereof. It is quite simple for the courts to .ndjust their sentences to prescribe the | proper amount of service in the prison | porting existence in a free community | pardon. Pardon involves forgiveness. | to be followed by a parole supervision is an extraordinarily difficult one even | In normal times. The purpose of pa- | role is to bridge over this difficult gap, | Pardon is' a re- Parole is an Pardoned Parole does not. mission of punishment. extension of punishment. term. A sentence of eight years, knowing in advance that perhaps only |about four years will be spent in |to adjust the prisoner in the com- |prisoners are free. Parolees may be |prison and the last four years under munity, to time his release so that he | may go out at a favorable oppor- | tunity with some kind of work to do, | with a home to go to and a feeling | that, after all, he still retats some | obligation to society, that he has not | yet paid his debt in full. { In these times of unemployment | | this problem becomes increasingly | acute. Consider the millions of law- | abiding men unable to get perma- nent positions and then visualize, if you can, the almost unsurmountable | handicaps that face the dischaged prisoner. It is out of no sentiment | | for the prisoner, but with an eye | single to the welfare of society, that | we have in the last few decades | ilmlsted that all of our prisoners go | out by the method known as parol@ | Sad to say, this system has been | subjected to grave abuses in some of | our States. Stqries are current that gangsters and desperadoes, who per- haps never should be released from prison, have been prematurely or im- properly turned loose and this is called parole. We must be careful to distinguish between the exercise of clemency | through the pardoning power of a! trial. grace; expedient.” Annals, Vol. p. 103.) Many & sick man leaves the hos- pital in such physical condition that he needs a crutch or a cane or a bandage, or perhaps he would be better off in a special climate, or needs a restricted diet or environ- ment. It is common sense, as well as simple humanity, and it is good prevention likewise to insist upon a gradual transition. Pardon is an executive act of parole is an administrative (“The Open Door,” the 157, September, 1931, So it is with persons discharged | from prison. As .well say that every man should stay in the hospital until he can run a mile, or eat a hearty meal of corn beef and cabbage, as | to say that a prisoner should be plunged without preparation from the closest kind of confinement in a prison to complete lberty in the | community. When the hospital has done all it can to cure a disease no good can be accomplished by further detention unless the inmate is to be perma- nently segregated for his own good Encouragement of BY NEIL CAROTHERS, s Professor of Economics, Lehigh University. SN'T there a popular song with the refrain: “We don't know where we're going, but we're on our way?” That song ought to have been adopted as the national an- them by Russia in 1917, Italy in 1922, Germany in 1932 and these United States in 1933. In those years, re- spectively, those four countries em- barked upon strange courses without any clear ideas as to their destina- tions. Of the four, Russia is least subject to the charge that it did not know where it was going, the United States the most. The Russian revolution- arles had the most definite aim, the most intelligent program and the greatest excuse. This country had the vaguest objective, the most mud- dled program and the least excuse. The Russians, it is true, began with &1 orgy of blood and have ended with what is probably a worse government than the one they uprooted. That is not the issue. They did not know where they were going, but they did know what they intended to do. That was to eliminate profits from their whole economic system and abolish private ownership of land and cap- ital. And these things they have pretty well accomplished. Their fail- ure to create a Utopia is also beside the mark. They knew what they wanted to try out and they tried it. Not s0 in the United States. After nearly four years of grievous distress and tragic hurt there developed in this country a vast surge of popular resentment against an economic sys- tem that permits such miseries, & 2 “LITTLE MAN” SEEN KEY IN FIGHT ON SOCIALISM Business Competi- | tion Seen Most Effective Way to Combat Government Operation. mass demand for economic change. This demand was blind, aimless, plan- less, without logic or understanding. It had no philosophy, no program, no platform, no leadership. It has none now. And the consequences have been unhappy. Shibboleths Abound. The country rescunds with mean- ingless catch-words and slogans and shibboleths that express nothing but the vague spirt of economic unrest. The Nation has talked for two years about “economic planning.” If among our more than 130 million citizens there is one who knows what on earth “economic planning” is, he has not made himself heard. There is the “forgotten man” Who is he? There has been endless talk about the evils of the “profit-motive,” and one of the first measures of Congress in 1933 was to pass a law revoking the anti- trust laws, the chief restraint on the profit-motive in our country. A “ghare-the-wealth” slogan retains in political power men whose income taxes are being investigated by the Government. Irf one State a mil- lionaire is elected to high office on a platform of “soak the rich.” “The more abundant life” has been a re- sounding slogan over the land, while the policies of the Government have been consistently to reduce abundance in every concrete form. It is time for this Nation to take stock of its conditior and determine what it wants to do. ‘That fear is the fear that our civi- | arrested and reimprisoned without a |supervision, is safer than a sentence | of four years every day of which must be served. | The Census Bureau figures show | that during 1931 some 86.559 persons | were admitted to prison. During 1932 a total of 82699 were admitted to | prison and 78,011 were so committed |in 1933. In spite of these substantial reductions in admissions the total prison population at the end of 1933 | was 136,947, as against 137,846 at the |end of 1931. This does not give much support to any current claim that parole and pardon are emptying out our prisons. Reasons for Crime. | ‘There are many reasons for the | prevalence of crime in this country to- | day—the law’s delay. the bail bond jevil, the shyster lawyer, politically | minded police forces and, back of that, the faulty environment which we per- mit to exist in many of our communi- ties. The occasional mistake or venality of parole or pardoning &u- thorities, oftentimes publicized far in excess of what they deserve, has cast a shadow upon the whole system of parole. When it is considered that out of 343,592 arrests reported to the De- | partment of Justice during 1934, only 2,597 of those arrested were on parole, | it certainly does not seem justifiable to charge the parole system with any considerabler proportion of responsi- bility for present-day crime. Some of these cases were so notorious as to cause indignation against the whole system. There were other men in large numbers who had had experi- ence in prison and who were even on bail or suspended sentence at the time of their arrests. But I am de- fending here the theory of parole, which means the release of a man to society under supervision. A shining example of what parole can mean in the defense of the public welfare is given by our Federal Parole Board. Over 93 per cent of all the men re- leased by this courageous and intelli- gent board completed their full period of time without fault or breach of the rules. Abuses Admitted. 1t is necessary that the public should be aroused to the flagrant abuse of the parole system in some of our States (as well as all other abuses which hinder our efforts at crime reduction), but it is equally impor- tant that the significant progrese made toward a safer method of re- lease from prison should be retained. Granted that care should be taken in the administration of parole, that it should be granted only after the defendant has served a sufficient time in the institution, that its adminis- tration should be absolutely divorced flues that its award should be based orf'a full possession of the facts of the crime, the character of the inmate and the environment to which he must return; granted that parole boards are human and have not the miraculous power to foresee future violations of some of the men in whom they have confidence; granted | all these things, nevertheless it can be maintained that whenever the logical time arrives for the release of the prisoner It is infinitely better and more consistent with the proper | protection of our comrhunities that they be released under parole super- vision rather than turned loose, as lization will be destroyed by radical | myst be the case when they have reorganization or revolutionary recon- struction of our economic system under (Continued on Seventh Page.) A completely served out the whole of their allotted sentence. When we come to this conclusion, < Special Articles D. C. Organizations Rush to Seize BY ALBIN E. JOHNSON. AARBRUCKEN.—With the offi- cial handing over of the Saar government to the Nazis, by the departing League Commission, the curtain has been rung down on the “Saar problem” so far as its European aspects are concerned. After 15 years the territory no longer occu- pies the international spotlight. It no longer can be regarded as a “sore- Hitler's word can be accepted, there is no longer any territorial question which might lead to war, between France and Germany. But while the Saar has disappeared from the international political scene, the tribulations of the Saarlanders have not ended. In fact, they have just started. The veil of secrecy has been drawn by the Hitlerites while an intensive campaign of “Nazification™” of more than 800,000 heretofore “free” Germans has begun. When the Saarland voted, by an overwhelming majority of 90 per cent | for reaffiliation with the fatherland, it did not approve National Socialism. The voters had no acceptable altern: | tive. They believed they were declar- was, and still is, that the vast majority of the residents of the Saar are fun- damentally opposed to Nazi doctrines— religiously, politically and economi- cally. Their patriotism, however, was stronger than their political convic- tions. Hitlerism, they felt, would pass. | while Germany would live forever. The | Germany they voted to rejoin was the Germany before the war. Many Promises Given. Before the Saar was evacuated Ber- {lin made many “official” promises to | the League and France. There would be no reprisals against Saarlanders who had campaigned for the status | quo; there would be no anti-Semitic- ism; the population would be given three months in which to remove themselves and their possesions, un- molested, to France or other countries. Minority rights were to be respected and an international tribunal would function for a year to hear complaints against over-zealous Nazis. But, from indications, Berlin's guar- | antees are worth absolutely nothing. | Even before the international troops were withdrawn the Deutschefont took things in their own hands. In reality | the camouflaged Nazi storm troopers | managed the plebiscite, which per- haps accounts for the fact that the Deutschefont polled 15 per cent more | votes than their most optimistic leaders had predicted. The emotionalism and | nationalistic hysteria of the popula- tion was accentuated by a subtle ter- |rorism. Since the plebiscite, the | Nazis have openly conducted the | municipal and territorial administra- | tions. The League’s Commission has been mere window-dressing. Already enough has happened to in- Saarlander who cannot accommodate himself to the new regime. The erst- sheved into the background and “out- siders” are teaching the people just Jakob Pirro, well-meaning but mod- erate Saarbrucken leader of the Deutschefont, first replaced Herr Spaniol, Hitler's flery mouthpiece: | then Herr Nietmann, tried and trusted | subordinate of S. A. Fuhrer Hess, was | put in command. Joseph Burckel, Nazi chieftain in the Palatinate, re- placed Vice Chancellor Fritz von | Papen as Nazi Saar commissioner, |and now has become ‘“governor.” | Superindustrialist Hermann Rochling, | who financed the Deutschfont cam- paign through the latter years of the League's occupation, is still on good | terms with Berlin and may become Nazi representative in the rump Reichstag for a time. Many More to Leave. To date, around 6,000 “refugees” have left the territory. Most of these are Jews, Socialists and Communists, who, during the past 18 months, have fled from Germany. Before the three- month period of grace expires, how- ever, it is estimated that perhaps twice that number of Saarlanders will have emigrated into Alsace and Lor- raine. The Nazis promised that any | inhabitant of the Saar who wished to do so would be permitted to remove all his personal property from the terri- | tory and would be allowed to dispose | of his real estate. Some have tried to | do so, but they have invariably | found their possessions “attached” | and trumped-up charges brought | against them. The reprisals which were to have been forbidden have been frequent. Many “common front” leaders have barely escaped with their lives. A few have been shot dead while al- legedly resisting arrest. Despite the demands of the Governing Board and Special League Tribunal there have been no arrests of trigger-fingered policemen or Nazi gangsters who have beaten up Communists and known anti-Nazi leaders. Anyway, the court has no way of enforcing its penalties or sentences. ‘The “panicky” feeling which began immediately after the plebiscite has | not passed, in fact it has grown worse. | One way in which it has been mani- fested is through hoarding. Fats, canned foodstuffs, textiles, soaps, etc., are at a premium. Prices, which be- fore January 13 were from 10 to 100 per cent lower in the Saar than in Ludwigshafen, a few miles across the Pfals frontier, are . An official comparison made before the plebiscite showed everyday necessities priced as follows: Saar- Ludwig- Dif- brucken shafen ference (n pfennigs.) Black bread. 2 Ibs. 2! Rice. 2 Ibs. 3 ice. 2 from political and other ulterior in- | geer 5" b: Eggs. each Butter. 2 Ibs.. .. 2l The closing of the Saar-French border. which has now become the we shall recognize parole, as well protection and prison discipline, as an integral and necessary part of any penal system. We shall discontinue our criticism of it as a method, and concentrate upon the improvement of its administration. ‘The problem of the discharged pris- oner has always been a serious menace to our communities. It is still serious, but it will be less so in the long run with the development of this new expedient in public protection. 1 - spot” or “trading point,” and if Adolf | ing for or against Germany. The fact | dicate what is in store for the hapless | while Nazi local leaders have been | what National Socialism is all about. | NAZI GRIND SAARLANDERS INTO NEW POLITICAL MOLD Guarantees of Plebiscite Forgotten in Resources and Force Allegiance. Franco-German frontier, also is work- |ing a hardship. During the past decade the Saar has obtained more than 90 per cent of its foodstuffs from Alsace and Lorraine. Prices have been falling rapidly in France while | they have been mounting in Germany. As a “free zone” there has been prac- tically no duty on foreign commodities in the Saargebiet. Popular brands of American cigarettes sold for 3 francs in the Saar, 6.60 francs in France and the equivalent of 30 framcs in Germany. Unemployment Big Threat. ‘The specter of unemployment also looms large on the horizon. Before the depression unemployment was practically unknown, there being but 3,000 to 4,000 out of work on & monthly {average (in 1928 the number was 3,871). In 1933, the high peak of the depression, the average unemployed monthly was 38,749. At the time of the plebiscite this figure had fallen to 33,594. Today it is increasing by leaps and bounds. Labor leaders say it will reach 60,000 within the year. The Saar's coal market in France is partially guaranteed for a period of five years. The mines repurchase agreement with Germany specifies that the French will receive 2,200.000 tons of Saar coal annually for that space of time. Last year, however, | France took twice that tonnage. Forty | per cent of the output of the Saar | mines has gone into France, 40 per cent has been consumed in the Saar | itself and 20 per cent has gone to | other countries, including Germany, Iwmch takes 8 per cent. | In competition with a higher grade of Ruhr and Rhineland coal for the German domestic market the Saar coal will have little chance of ex- panding its sales. The French are determined to exploit the coal mines | of Northern France rather than con- | tinue using the Saar product, even | though it is more accessible. The situation of the Saar foundries also is embarrassing. Heretofore they have obtained 63 per cent of their iron ore from Lorraine. The French, embarking upon a policy of conserva- tion of natural resources (there is a 73-year supply left in the Lorraine | lelds) are not anxious to continue supplying the Saar blast furnaces, especially since they have fallen under | German domination. There are 58,000 men employed in the iron and steel industry in the Saar Basin. As a pre- plebiscite “sop,” German cities prom= |ised orders for cast-iron pipes to- taling several million marks as “com- pensation” for sales lost in France. The orders are a mere drop in the bucket. In the past 34.4 per cent of the Saar’s iron and steel products have gone to France, as compared with 4.4 per cent in pre-war days. Other goods — ceramics, chemicals, pottery, glassware, etc., also will lose a valuable market. French Trade Hope. The one hope of the Saar lies in a “regional” trade agreement with France for the transitional period. The Saar needs French foodstuffs, particu- larly now with the shortage in Ger- many. It also needs Lorraine fron ore. To & certain extent the French need Saar soal, but what they need still more is the general market, which last year took about 2,000,000,000 francs worth of French foodstuffs and commodities. The Saar has been France's fifth largest customer. The gold old days of persongl lib- erty, freedom of the press, conscience and assemblage and association in the Saar have definitely gone. The Saar press has been Nazi-ized. The opposi- tion newspapers, the Socialist Freie heit, the Communist Arbeiterzeitung, the Catholic Neue Saarpost and the Workers’ Volkstimme are no more. The ban against German-language newspapers published in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Czechoslovakia and Aus- | tria applies in the Saar the same as | in Germany. Political parties have been outlawed and Catholic Youth ‘nssocmtlons. workers’ athletic clubs, etc., have been dissolved. Their mem- | bers have been “invited” to join the | Hitler Jugend, the S. A, the Nazi Workers’ Front and similar National- Socialist organizations. A generation | of Saar youths, who never knew the goose step or compulsory military training, now are manouvering in squad formation all over the region, under the eyes of hard-boiled S. A. “fuhrers ™ That the Saar will become the “bridge of friendship,” which its in- habitants and so many others hoped, between France and Germany, is now doubtful. Berlin started out well— dealing moderately with the Saare landers. But with the arrival of sev- | eral thousands of young Saar youths, fresh from 12 to 18 months’ “training” in the German Workers’ camps and |the Nazi S. S. and S. A. formations, bent upon “educating” their compa- triots, it appears #hat a rough time is ahead for the territory. France Skeptical. The Nazi declarations, constantly reiterated, that all Germany wants is peace with France—peace at Ger- many's price—are becoming a bit | threadbare. The French smile quiz- |zically every time Goebbels, Goering, | Hesse or Hitler repeat the refrain. Then they look beyond at Germany’s | constantly increasing armaments es- | tablishment—and shrug a national | shoulder. | For more than a year now the forts at Metz, Strassbeurg, Nancy—and the concrete and steel defense line which stretches from Switzerland to Luxem- bourg—have been fully manned. French poilus along the eastern front are usually in service uniforms and on the alert. Not that France expects war, but the general staff believes in being prepared. While the Saar is “out of the pic- ture” foreign correspondents are not overlooking it completely. Naz in- tolerance is still a good story and there is no reason to believe that Nazi principles have changed. If the cur- tain of secrecy is tightly drawn over developments in the Saar it will be because Berlin does not want to invite |a hostile foreign press. The church struggle. soft-pedaled during the pleb- iscite campaign and the Christmas season in Germany, has broken out afresh. The Saar, with its 73 per cent |of Catholics, is dangerous grou |More than 100,000 Communists | subdued and sullen. heel begins to grind a reaction start—and if it does the repercussions unnenflnly will echo in newspaper heads es. '