Judge — October 27, 1923 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Douglas H. Cooke Eliot Keen JA. Waldron Willian Morris Honghton Willian Edgar Fish Need anything more be said about conditions in Germany? Grover Cleveland Bergdoll wants to return. Hors-d’oeuvre NE GATHERS that Representative Britten, of Illinois, found food for thought on the menus of the Leviathan. In the Ritz-Carlton dining-room of this, our pride and glory of the seas, the menus are printed in French, although, on Mr. Britten’s estimate, not two per cent. of the pz who eat in this dining-room can decipher this language. In the steerage (pardon us, third-class) dining-room, on the other hand, patronized by sengers immigrants, the menus are printed in English, although, again on Mr. Britten's estimate, not two per cent. of these passengers can decipher English. siders illogical. But Mr. Britten evidently fails to understand the national psychology behind arrangement. English is good enough for prospective Americans, in fact for them it should be made compulsory. But for hundred per cent. Americans? Really, now, Mr. Britten, you can’t expect them to dull their appetites with the common tongue. Be reasonable. This he con- such an What’s in a Name? s Russta the overlords of the people go under the name of I communists; in Germany they are called “industrials,” or And _ be » two names are derived from the two extremes of social and economic policy we assume that what is happening to property in the one country is the exact opposite of what is happening to it in the other. But don’t forget that “assume” begins with a- In Russi capi sts. 1a little group of communists by political means ated the wealth-producing resources of the country and by means of the Red Army and the Cheka have intrenched themselves in control. In Germany a little group of “indus- trials” have done the same thing, largely by fiscal means. As Georg Bernhard declares so bitterly in his paper, the Vossiche Zeitung, Stinnes and his pals have used bank credits to buy everything. st it was millions of credits and then billions of credits. What he bought iner lue and the marks he had to repay were worth nothing. . . . When the banks were forced to cease credits, he bought the banks (which opened the door to Reichsbank credits).”” And now we learn that of Germany’s reserve of 900,000,000 gold marks at the end of last March, only half, or 450,000,000 gold marks, remains. The other half has been lost by the nominal government in a vain attempt to stab mark, and is now in the hands of the ‘industria’ nnes scems now to be as ed inv ze the paper uming openly the political, as he has the economic control of his country, thus merely revers- ing the process adopted by Lenin. men resemble each other. It is strange how the two Each (if we can speak of Lenin in the present tense) possesses the aura of a Mephistopheles; each dresses shabbily, lives simply, labors unsparingly. Unless at the last minute the gods kick over the apple cart, everybody in Germany will soon be working for Stinnes, Krupp & Co., as in Russia everybody works for Lenin, Trotzky & Co. Communism? Capitalism? Eeny, meeny, miney, mo. . . It’s a Bird! PEAKING of names, there’s the Republic of Turkey. Historically, the word, republi connote a democracy use to-d does not necessarily but this meaning is implicit in its ~ Can anyone imagine a Turk a democrat, unless possibly with a capital D? The Choice once heard Hillaire Belloc characterize socialism as the gift of a people’s property to the politicians. If this is an accurate characterization— and we think it is—then the most convincing argument against socialism we have ever read is contained in some remarks attributed to E. W. Sells, of the New York accounting firm of Haskins & Sells. In my experience as a public accountant, I have had to do with the financial affairs not only of practically all kinds of corporations, but with those of the government, states and municips come in more or less intimate contact with many of the and managers of all of them. It is based upon this experience I have formed my judgment that the managements of corpe are generally honest, and, as compared with those of public more econom ficient. There is far more dishonesty among The choice lies, roughly, between private ownership and profits and public ownership and graft. Which you prefer to pile up for the boss, oh fellow shrimp? Calculatin’ Cal HE ANTHRACITE operators have advanced the price of nthracite at the mines to cover the recent wages to the miners, and the anthra added to this increase a doubt to simplify their arithmetic. All of which reminds us that the boom of Governor Pinchot for President is growing ever fainter to the ear. would boost in e dealers have w odd cents on their own hook, no When President Coolidge in his frank and impulsive w: originally turned to the governor of Pennsylvani. “You're just. the man to settle the coal str ke.” th those among Cal's friends who feared he might be a dangerous rival. But, as they The public welfare first. saying. were ising up explained, Cal was like that Better peace at the mines and coal in the bins than a clear road to the nomination. And when ford had performed his miracle of healing and King Coal was made whole, the President refused to lend himself to the quarrel over the credit due. that the governor should have it all. Now this may be wholly unworthy of us, but we can’t resist the hint of a suspicion that Cal could foresee from the beginning not only the unpopularity of a prolonged strike but the unpopu- larity of a settlement as well, since the latter must inevitably entail a rise in the price of coal. And he may have foresc too, that he himself would have to bear the odium attached to a prolonged strike, while that which went with a settlement might, conceivably, be handed with a gesture of largess to some one else, preferably to one of the heirs of the Roosevelt tradition who had lately stirred the popular imagination with an echo of the old magic and might prove troublesome. As we said before, all this is the merest hint of a suspicion. It may be, of course, that polities is not the utterly fascinating game we think it is, or that Cal does not deserve his nickname. He seemed content comicbooks.com