Life — December 21, 1916 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

help the stricken nations toward re- covery.” These are good words and interest- ing figures, but Mr. Williams did not offer.any plan of disgorgement. How are we to get a reasonable pro- portion of our war gains back to Eu- rope? The nine billions we have taken in were by no means all profits—one or two billions profits, possibly, be- sides what money was distributed in increased wages. Whatever we cleared in our transactions, there is no reliable list of the people who have got it, and no practicable way at pres- ent to get any more of it out of them than they choose to give. To get any considerable proportion of these bil- lions back to Europe by private giving is impossible. There was a complaint by Mrs. Atherton in the Times of December 11th, that in answer to an appeal for money for wounded sol- diers that was published throughout the country, she got generous returns from the East, but from the West al- most no response. She suggests that the western folk don’t know about the war; she even suggests that they are “ pikers.’ Lire has had better luck, and the lists of givers to its French Baby Fund include many west- ern contributions. But it is true that the East thinks far more about Eu- rope, and gives more to it, than the West does, and that what they give between them is, all things considered, an insignificant total. And that the Reserve Board checked the buying of the Allies’ se- curities here makes the matter worse; so that it is a comfort to know that a financier like Mr. Williams, who has the confidence of the administration, sees the country’s fiscal duty so straight, and appreciates that it is not doing it. Maybe Mr. Williams can think of some lawful means of turning a lot more of those war-won millions into war relief. has S to defense, Lirr is disposed to let the administration walk the floor with that baby, at least until the end Big Business: 1 Fee. netTER of the present Congress. There has been a lot of time and money spent and pains taken to re-elect Mr. Wilson and replenish Congress with up-to-the- date members. And lots more time and money and pains have gone to try out the Hay-bill army on the Mexican frontier, and statistics are abundantly available as to the sufficiency of the Hay-bill provision. The government knows the facts, and is as good a judge of prospects as anyone, and the papers say the President is thinking what to do. It seems a pity to interrupt him with suggestions when his mind is al- ready working and can command abun- dant information and expert advice. But as to the South and West, if they are callous about military prepara- tion it is no harm to tell them that when the Germans or other invaders land in New York they will find miles and miles of railroad trains standing on the tracks with steam up, ready victualed, and heading for Richmond, Adanta, New Orleans, St. Louis, Kan- sas City, Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, with full information about the salubrity of the South, the superiority of the beer in St. Louis and Milwau- kee, and the admirable efficiency of the stock-yards in Kansas City and Chi- cago. The plan is for the inhabitants of New York to retire to the subways and close the door, while the happy invaders proceed to the more influen- I NEVER COULD DIGEST HER tial and important sections of the country. HE Germans are sinking ships about as usual, and our govern- ment is complaining about as usual about the too great miscellaneousness of their methods. The Marina and Arabia seem to have been sunk with- out the formalities agreed upon by the German government, which hates to restrain its hoys from having a good time when occasion offers. Whether anything will come of Washington's remonstrances is a question for seventh sons, as also it is whether our govern- ment’s remonstrances against Belgian deportations will h any effect. It is possibly true, as the Germans say, that the Belgians are getting de- moralized with idleness and are better off in Germany, working for the Kaiser. It is almost certainly true that they would now be better off materially if they had let the Germans through politely in the first place. But civiliza- tion neither approved the Germans when they hacked their way through Belgium, nor approves n@w the meas- ures of relief by deportation which their ferocious benevolence employs. comicbooks.com