The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-07-30
BUSINESS Is JSiNESS-AND
 NEVER WEIRD"

It has been popularly assumed that Germans, more than other peo- pie put patriotism if their qual- ities can he described by that sac red Word-aboye business, and. per haps. they do, but there are many exceptions. The Tribune enumer- ates three German insurance com pauiea in this city that are engaged in the apparently strange business for German patriots-of insuring ships against the attacks of Ger man U-boats. The Tribune charac- teries ii as perhaps the woirdest business in all the history of under writing" But, after all, it's strange ness is a mere illusion; it is simply buisness-aud perfectly legitimate, also. Business is husiness-not patriotism. necessarily, except, when the two things happen to go together. When they don't patriot ism takes a back seat. In this case the German business men claim and rightly, too-that they are do ing business by direct permission of President Wilson,
 As good German patriots, when they are called upon to pay the in surance of a ship sunk by U-boat, they can rejoice at the financial loss to the enemy while mourning over the financial loss to themselves. And when the ship they have insured gets by safely they can console themselves with the insurance money. and sincerely regret that they had to take it. The ideal com bination would be getting money on both eventualities; ships that are sunk and ships that escape. That would be good business; but, un- fortunately. business cannot be done that way-and so we have the para dox that it isn't business at all.
 And. instead of it being the
 
 weirdest business in all the history of underwriting" the cold fact is that this sort of thing is common place of all underwriting, which after all, is nothing more than gambling-we do not use the term in any opprCbrious moral sence- laying odds that certain things will or will not happen.
 Any man can go to tA" British Lloyds today and gamble on the life of the kaiser Things like that al ways were done and are now being done. Von Tirpitz, the ruthless sea wolf" of Germany, is under the weather now with diabetes and has retired for the time being to some health resort. Lloyds will lay you {, little bet either way-that he gets well or passes in his checks; 1t makes not the slightest difference 10 them It's business. The same issue that tells us about these Ger man insurance men tells us, also, c! Norwegian captains who are getting money from the Germans for in formation about the sailing and To- cation of Norwegian ships that the Teutons desire to sink; and of Span ish sailors who are doing the same thing, both with Spanish and other neutral as well as allied ships. It's all of a piece. It's business, that s all. Buying and selling information, and taking chances. It is business and if patriotism interferes with it We'll then, so much the worse for patriotism.
 And there is nothing whatever weird" about it. It may be dis xusting and abominable. but it is indisputably commonplace. The statement that it is 'weird" IS simply specimen of pretentious moral can, the unconscious hypo- crosy that prevents people from seeing straight, and enables them to assert that the thing that exists has no existence, and vice versa. The insurance of allied ships against German U-boats by Germans is not the disgusting thing. What is dis gusting is the pretence that things of that kind are so unusual as to be weird, and the denial that they real ly are the commonplaces of capital jst business. New York Call.