Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-01-11

it is an old game. IF you have cents
put aside:' Now, II each inhabitant
one gold dollar per year another $780,
O0O. 600 of gold would disappear annually.
1t is most striking story.
Put aside all the old ideas Of flush
gold production which stick in your head
from ten years ago.
This is a new story. Eminent financial
publications of France, read only by
specialists, have been featuring 1t for
months, increasingly. l have the figures
and main facts from Edmond Thery, one
of the worlds foremost authorities, and
the United States Treasury is quite alive
to the situation.
There is not enough gold.
And the queerest result is that one
little land has acquired a new balance of
power from it,
Evidently, if gold is scarce compared
with needs and every one is hoard g,
the country that has the most disposable
gold will have such a balance of power.
But that it should become political Is. in
deed, a phenomenon.
1t is France. There is no getting away
from it, little France, running down as a
military nation, has acquired this new
preponderance, the power of gold. Only
yesterday her ally, Russia, asked her
to put financial pressure on Turkey"
and France is doing it. A bourse decree
of President Poincare is equivalent to
the action of a fleet.
1t is the same policy that President
Wilson is pursuing with Mexico. All
through the Balkan wars Poincare
unanswered an invisible army, which in
visibly cut off supplies or brought them
in the nick of time. 1t helped Russia
vastly, and UNNECESSARILY helped peace.
When, oashing 80 che at my Parl
bank l received one bank note, one
miserable little gold piece and eight
clumsy silver dollars, l was told: Its
for the peace of Europe And the
cashier added: We have to get through
the day on 500 worth of gold.'' OF
course, the Bank of England helped, but
the Bank of France, on the presidents
order, actually absorbed and kept lockeu
up the current, public circulation gold
itself Poincare gave arbitrary orders
TO the bourse, and sent circulars to
private banks which We're obeyed.
How aid France get tbs power?
BY one thing taught every French
child, and one thing concerning women.
f.s-- en> II si.t T., - IA II Ie IN
to talk, has dinned into its ears contn-
ually: IF / have four cents L must not
spend but two
L do not exaggerate. An English stats
tican has calculated and pu oIshed Il N
a noteworthy brochure that if the mass
of the French people continue to live up
to tbs principle. they will finally absorb
all the gold in the world.
AS motive to it, the old folks round
every child say to 1t always: Always put
aside-not to want in your old age" And
again: If you have cents, put aside o.
The horror of an old age without money
is a handspring of French life.
They teach it to French women.
J:
Yes, instead of telling the sweet, little
peaclet, You will have those pretty
things when you get married" they
teach girls the same as boys, "A savings
bank book equals a golden sirdle."
1t is the intelligent interest that French
women are forced to take in money mat
tiers that permits this saving. The wom-
an has always sat at the cashiers desk
to keep the books; and when women set
their minds to money they go into details
of which men might be ashamed.
Even modern and "Americanized"
spoiled darlings, who do not go near their
husbands business offices, keep the de-
tails of their deals clear in their heads.
In general they act as brake, to slow
down blind enthusiasm Of the male. The
foremost secondhand automobile specu-
lator Of the Porte Maillot has q "frivo-
lous'' young wife, yet she knows every
machine he buys price, when sold and
for how much. They tax it all over when
he returns in the evening. He carries a
bank account of 10000 francs, yet not
a dollar of it does he draw without con-
sulting her. for house or personal eX-
penses, but he has two twenty-dollar
bills to carry" They take supper after