"All the News That's Fit to Print."
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MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1925
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UNDERWRITING GERMANY.
Secretary Mellon's scheme for a bond issue to enable the German Government to pay the war claims of American citizens, which have been approved by the Mixed Commission, has not had an enthusiastic reception. Though formally endorsed by the President, many Administration Congressmen are cold toward it. Several Republican newspapers give against it the adverse verdict of silence. The plan is rightly questioned by some as being unsound even from the strictly financial point of view. The bonds are to be issued by Germany, but are to be guaranteed by the United States. This last fact would no doubt facilitate their sale. Five per cent, bonds of our Government ought quickly to go to a premium, although claimants are to take them at par. But how long would it be before the German Government could find some excuse for falling back on its financial guarantor? The Treasury is apparently willing to come forward as an underwriter of this German loan. Are Congress and the American people ready to assume such an obligation? The difficulty has nothing to do with restoring friendship with Germany. It is a case merely of showing a trust in that country which we would not thing of reposing in any other.
The strongest objection is not financial. It has to do with our ultimate connection with the whole question of German reparations. This was tacitly admitted at the White House on Friday. A "spokesman" for the President said that the project was deliberately made easy for Germany, so that no new financial strain should prevent her from making her contractual reparations payments to the Allies. It was innocently added that this money would then by passed on to us in liquidation of Europe's war debts to America. There you have it! The United States is in the way of becoming the chief beneficiary of German reparations. By so much, therefore, this country will figure in a short time as almost the sole creditor of Germany, forced to put the screws on her to make her pay up. If anybody likes that prospect, then he likes a prospect of interminable confusion, misunderstanding, friction, ill-will and the worst kind of foreign entanglements. Yet the Mellon proposals are said to be pro-German! They would prove in execution almost worse for Germany than they would be for the United States.
FAIRNESS TO ALIENS.
Judge Augustus N. Hand of the United States District Court has made some sensible observations concerning our attitude toward aliens and our treatment of those seeking naturalization. Coming as he does of a family that has been for many generations in America and having in his judicial capacity to conduct the court proceedings in the naturalization of aliens, he is especially qualified to speak for the old American stock and to give advice concerning the procedure under which those of foreign birth become citizens of the United States.
He warns us that the prevalence of race prejudice will diminish that marvelous power of assimilation which has in the past welded foreign newcomers into a homogenous citizenship. It will slow down the process fo which the speed and efficacy depend not only upon the spirit and character of those who come but also, and even in higher degree, upon the spirit of those who are already here. If the position taken by Justice Hand were universal, the work would be mightily speeded up. It may be inferred from what Judge Hand says about our own early immigrant ancestors that some of us would have treated them with the same haughtiness and even contempt that have been shown toward the later immigrants. If we read the old church and town records, we shall find these earliest immigrants, he tells us, showing in most cases "little attractiveness of personality and no comfort of surroundings." Yet it was of such material that the institutions of which we are most proud are established.
The specific recommendation which Judge Hand makes as a result of his experience is that naturalization shoudl be attended to by the Bureau of Naturalization with some provision of judicial review. The present court proceeding is characterized as "working hardship and injustice upon both the overworked judiciary and the incoming alien." Here is a description of the present methods of naturalization:
Monday and Thursday we now hear about 300 applications for admission to citizenship. These applicants, each with his or her two witnesses, are utterly unable to get into the court room, which probably does not seat over 150 persons, and the 900-odd persons who come to us in connection with these applications on each court day have to stand in line, filling the corridors, while the cases are slowly progressing. We are thus dealing in this department alone with about 1,800 persons on two days in the week. It is manifest that the cases can have the briefest consideration from the Judges—that the real preparation has to be made in the Naturalization Bureau, where, I am glad to say, the work is being very well done.
The remedy is not to be found in an increase in the number of Judges. Such a policy would sooner or alter "dilute the quality of the Judges." To the Naturalization Bureau the whole process should be entrusted. This bureau, under the conduct of the Commissioner Sturgis, has been doing excellent work under most difficult conditions. There should be a building in New York City set apart for the bureau, which would in its architecture, spaciousness and furnishings yield attractive and adequate quarters and an impressive setting for the progressive steps into citizenship and for the final ceremony of admission. It is a building toward which many an immigrant who has found his opportunity in this country and has come into great wealth should be proud to contribute. Over its portal might be written in a language that all could understand a welcoming legend to the effect that nothing human is alien in our interest.
MARK REPLIES TO POINCARE
The debate on war guilt, opened by Raymond Poincare in the October number of Foreign Affairs, is continued in the current number by ex-Chancellor Marx for Germany. The argument on both sides is now tending to conform to the same type. Against Germany the burden of the case consists in the charge that Berlin, after the murders at Serajevo, entrusted Austria with a blank check, which the latter proceeded to fill in and cash. Herr Marx now develops the thesis that, some time before the outbreak of the war, France had finally consented to entrust Russia with a blank check—with plein pouvoir—and that St. Petersburg hastened to make use of it. In the German briefs on war guilt it is Russia who for some time has been figuring as the prime agent in bringing on the war. Russia's ill intentions are traced far back by Herr Marx, at the very least to the morrow of the Japanese War, when Isvolsky took charge of the foreign policy of Russia and veered it sharp around toward a test of strength with the Central Powers.
In his method of procedure Herr Marx strongly suggests the latest volume of apologia from the former Crown Prince. The ex-Chancellor starts out by protesting against the attribution of exclusive guilt to Germany. He ends by attributing exclusive guilt to Russia and France. The documents and dates are plentiful, but nowhere in the course of the long account of Russian plotting in the Balkans and France's conversion to war aims is there a hint of what was going on in the camp of the Central Powers. One instance will suffice. "Somewhat later," says Herr Marx, speaking of the Spring of 1913, "the act introducing the three years' service system for the French Army was passed." The three years' service bill was passed by the Chamber of Deputies on July 9, 1913. There is no mention in the ex-Chancellor's story of the fact that in March, 1912, the Reichstag took up and speedily enacted a bill increasing the peace strength of the German Army by two army corps, or something like 30,000 men. Neither does he mention the fact that in March, 1913, the Bundesrat approved a bill, adopted in the Reichstag on May 1, raising the peace effectives of the German Army from 544,000 men to somewhere between 835,000 and 875,000 men.
Herr Marx's use of the documents is, therefore, not altogether objective. Occasionally it is worse than that. He writes: "When Vienna, having declared the Serbian reply to the Austrian ultimatum to be unsatisfactory, a view also held by the French savant Renouvin—" But he omits to mention that the Serbian reply was found to be extremely satisfactory by somebody more important than a French savant, and that was William II himself, who declared that Serbia had gone the limit in submission. Herr Marx cites the dispatch of the Russian Military Attaché in Paris at 1 A. M. on Aug. 1: "The French Minister of War informed me, in a tone of exultation and cordiality, that the French Government was firmly resolved upon war." But M. Poincare has cited the dispatch of the German Ambassador at Paris on July 29, stating that, in the view of Premier Viviani, the best expedient would be "prompt and immediate recourse to mediation, no matter in what form... Viviani refuses to give up hope for the maintenance of peace, which is heartily desired here [Paris]."
From the battle of the documents there results for the general reader only confusion. Yet the long debate on war guilt has tended to narrow the issue. It is plain from Herr Marx's account that in France the war spirit began to assert itself as late as 1912. It has been stated by Professor Sidney B. Fay, our leading authority on the question, that up to 1911 or 1912 France was pacific. If a change for the worse took place within the next two years, there is one to look for the ultimate cause—in a nation that was pacific for decades before the war, or across the frontier in a nation that had been rattling the sabre?
IMPOSSIBLE TO REFUSE
The Council of the League of Nations has prepared a program for preparatory discussion of disarmament all round. There is to be a preliminary meeting in Geneva on Feb. 15, which the United States Government is invited to attend. How can we possibly refuse? Congress has repeatedly passed resolutions urging disarmament. President after President has advocated it. Mr. Coolidge has more than once announced his desire to call for an international conference for that purpose. Now the initiative is taken by the League, as it was bound to be taken under one of the articles of the Covenant. Only a modest beginning is proposed. First of all will come merely preparatory studies. In these the United States is asked to share. Could we decline without in the act acknowledging that all our previous professions have been nothing but a hypocritical sham?
It is said that the President has no power to appoint delegates to the Geneva meeting without the consent of Congress. Let him then request that consent promptly and emphatically. This nation cannot go on indefinitely taking fright like a child in the dark at the mere mention of the League of Nations. We have got to get over these artificial and humiliating alarms. A good way to begin would be frankly to admit that the League is functioning along the lines which America has taken the lead of all the world in advocating and from which we cannot now retreat without a tacit confession of insincerity, and without having to go about as a people exposed and ashamed.
TOWNLANDS AND STATE PARKS.
Agreement upon a park commission equally representing the town of Hempstead and the State of New York marks an important step toward the solution of much-vexed problems of recreational development on Long Island. The truth that local and regional interests are at bottom the same is here signally exemplified.
The townships of Hempstead, Oyster Bay and Babylon hold ancient townlands on the south shore, as yet undeveloped, which are similar to the Long Beach region and capable of being converted into a system of bathing beaches, ocean parks and parkways of unexampled usefulness and beauty. At the last election a proposition to turn the Hempstead townlands over to the State Park Commission was defeated. The opposition was led by individual owners of large estates who have long been at loggerheads with the State Commission; but it was justified beyond question in its contention that the problem has a dual aspect, and that local needs should be adequately considered. THe fact remains that the cost of the proposed development is far beyond the means of the town and should be chiefly paid for by the State, citizens from outlying regions being destined to be chief users of parks and parkways. Moreover, the State Commission controls some 3,000 acres on the adjacent mainland, beautifully wooded and watered, the use of which for park purposed has recently been granted to it by the New York City Department of Water Supply. Treated as a whole, these issues can be developed so as fully to meet both local and outside needs, and at a minimum expense to both town and State.
Citizens of Oyster Bay and Babylon may well take notice. Organized owners of large estates have been active and bitter in opposition, but they offer nothing beyond measures of blind obstruction. Their allegations to the contrary notwithstanding, the Long Island State Park Commission has been steadily mindful of the interests of local communities. The tide of excursionists seeking health and recreation cannot be turned back by the most imperious command. It is steadily and rapidly rising. The part of wisdom is to give it a speedy and simple right of way, for which the State is willing to pay. Incidentally, local communities can plan and build their own parks and recreation grounds at an expense which is trivial when compared to what they would cost unaided.
A VISION OF SUPER POWER.
It should be noted that the account given by Dr. Frank Bohn in yesterday's Times of the giant power projects in the Tennessee Valley was not the tale of local enthusiasts or promoters. The figures given and the predictions made are those of Government engineers. For five years and with an outlay of $500,000, the War Department has been making extensive studies and surveys in that region. The great work is now coming to fruition in the form of proposed power dams on the main stream of the Tennessee, which will not only furnish navigation for vessels drawing nine feet from Knoxville to the Ohio River, but will also produce by hydroelectric development no less than 4,000,000 horsepower above Muscle Shoals. Tomorrow will be heard the application of four companies to build the first twenty-four of the hundred dams contemplated. The high annual rainfall in the Southern Appalachians will thus be conserved to furnish light and power over a large area, and to diminish by so much the consumption of coal.
Often in the past the immense almost untouched natural resources of that part of Tennessee have been dwelt upon by skilled investigators. The future will undoubtedly see rapid and fruitful developments there. It is doubtless a little premature to describe the building up of great cities in the Tennessee Valley, and to picture it as a hive of industry rivaling the Ruhr in Germany. But the facts of nature and the conclusions of scientific inquiry unite in pointing to the almost unlimited possibilities in that section, when once "white coal" has come into its own.
OMEN FAUSTUM.
If Senator Borah clad in his trabea was out in the templum last Saturday searching the skies for auguries, he must have been surprised by the flight of birds from the quarter of the horizon where the ivy-mantled towers of Princeton rise. He could have seen, if he had counted, 244 objects of portent moving in the direction of the World Court and only six in the opposite direction. With all his crying of "Omen absit!" this omen will not be averted. It is an "omen faustum" for our entering the World Court, even if we have to wait until those whom these young men and women represented succeed those whose office bears the name of age; for the purpose that is in youth today will soon possess the earth. While the favoring vote of the instructed delegates was not so large actually or relatively as the vote of the individuals, only four votes of delegates was not so large actually or relatively as the vote of the individuals, only four votes of delegates were cast in opposition to entering the World Court under any and all the plans proposed. In any event, the vote in favor of America's joining the World Court was overwhelming.
It is a more significant and hopeful registration of opinion for the reason that is a dynamic presage. It has in it the powerful, ardent agency of its own fulfillment. If it were not already known that "in the course of human events" we must as certainly enter the World Court as it was that the colonies would declare their independence, we should know it now. We shall ultimately join the other civilized nations in the maintenance of this Court of International Justice, and the question may now be more pertinently and pointedly put: "If ultimately, why not now?" The Princeton conference is not only a good omen; it is a positive prophecy.
THE HOUSE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS.
The walls are grimy and discolored. The uneven floors creak and yield under foot. Staircases and landings are rickety and black. The door of every room is open. Walk among these corridors. Walk into this room. Here is a sickly boy of five, deserted by his mother, underfed, solitary in the awful solitude of starved, neglected childhood. "Seldom talks." Strange, isn't it? Some, many children, never "prattle," like your darlings. They are already old. They are full, perhaps, of long, hopeless thoughts. There are plenty of other "kids" in this tenement. Here is one, only three. Never saw his father. His mother spurned and abused him. He is weak and "backward." How wicked of him when he has been so encouraged and coddled! Doesn't know any games. How should he? Do children play? Not his kind. They live to suffer.
In Room 24 is Rose, a housemother of 10. Father is in the hospital. Mother is crippled with rheumatism. Rose does all the work. You would love Rose if she came out of Dickens. Well, there she is, mothering her mother in Room 24. In Room 20 age has been toiling for youth. Grandmother has been taking care of three granddaughters who lost their mother. A brave old woman; but what with rheumatism and heart weakness. Threescore-and-ten can't go out to work any more. What's going to happen to her and her charges? Thinking of that, she is ill on top of her physical illness. A very interesting house, isn't it, Sir? Decidedly "a rum sort of place," Madam? Come into Room 23. Simon, the dollmaker—but hand-made dolls are "out"—lives, if you call it living, here. Eighty years old, his wife of about the same age. Their eyesight is mostly gone. Otherwise they would still be sewing on buttons and earning a scanty livelihood for themselves and two little girls, their grandchildren. The girls object to going to an orphan home. Some children are like that.
You must see those twin sisters of 65 in Room 47. True, they are doing better than usual on account of the coming holidays: making as much as $10 a month, whereas their average is but $6. Still, rents are a bit high, and the twins have been so long together that they would like to stay so. In Room—but you need no guide. Once in The House of a Hundred Sorrows you will visit every sad chamber in it. If your heart be made of penetrable stuff, you will do the most you can to bring hope and comfort to its inmates, to bring them Christmas and the Christ:
"For I was a hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in.
"Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me."
