Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-10-27
COPYRIGHT, 1919, By Public Ledger Company.
BY Ii. f. K0SPOTH
Special Correspondent Of the Evening Public
Ledger In Switzerland


Geneva, Oct. A.
tHTNHE international proiteer is the best
l. propagandist of boshevism,' confessed
Lenine at the time of the signing OF the
Versailles treaty, in the course of conversa-
ton with visitor to Moscow, who after
ward repeated it to me here in Switzerland
There is q great deal of truth in these
words of the Bolshevik dictator, who also
foresaw with remarkable prophetic vision
that the zenith of profiteering, with It's re-
sultant ever increasing cost of living, was
vet to come after the conclusion OF peace,
which the suffering peoples of Europe nailed
in the belief that it would soon restore norman
conditions of existence.
The spirit of revolution and anarchy
thrives on proiteering and its daily mani
festations of rapacious speculation IN the
necessities of life and of i'll gotten wealth
Hannted in the faces of the less fortunate.
imperial Germany was, in large measure,
DESTROYED by the cancer of profteering-upon
which even the kaisers ruthless generals did
not dare to operate-by that vast system OF
illegal trading, which finally transformed
half of the German people into gigantic
nrofiteering organization preying brutally
i,non the misery and privations of the
other half and driving it at last in sheer
desperation to revolt. And If the Spartacans
ever succeed in capturing politicai power IN
Germany-today the least Bolshevik by far
of all European countries-they will owe
+be;r triumph not so much to Lenine's propa-
eanda. however subtle and unscrupulous it
nav he. as to some sudden, elementary re-
holiion of the masses against the hydra of
nrofiteeripg that is strangling them with its
pp,orci,ass tentacles For Germany, where the
modern tyne of the criminal speculator in
all branches of trade may be said to have
oripinated during the war, mas since the
conclusion of peace become verltable para
disc of European profteers.
OUNCE the raising of the blockade of Ger
Snorv there has been much healthful
rivalry among allied business men in the
rrsh to capture German trade. This busi-
moss enterprise is, of course. perfectly legiti-
,nate now that "trading with the enemy" is
or;ma of the past, and the resumption of
International commercial relations is un-
doubtedly the best way to hasten and insure
+bo return of Europe to its normal state,
which can impossibly be effected II Germany
10 NOT included in the general reconnaissance
from the fevers of war. But tne lantastlc
money making possibilities when Germany
offers after four years OF the most rigorous
hIockade In history have unfortunately al
,,,uod NOT only the honorable trader. All the
dnb;ons speculators and profteers of Europe
have been irresistibly attracted, like flies to
carrion by the pestilentia atmosphere at nos ne Of
commercial corruption exhaled by the kaiser s
| defunct empire.
AN INEXHAUsTIBLE field of action
| "A lies open to the international profteer
in Germany, where the blockade mas created
an unprecedented economic vacuum in the
very center of Europe, and where the pre-
vaiiing corruption favors the unrestricted de-
velopment of his talents 30 swerms OF
western profiteers descended upon Germany
the instant the blockade was raised, and
were received in the fatherland with joy by
the German members Of the International
brotherhood, who Immediately joined forces
,,ith them Their interruptions activity
which as yet shows no signs Of diminishing,
is source Of great and universal danger
for not only does il prevent tne economic re-
yivai Of the German people, buf it is seriously
aggravating the alarming fooq shortage ,~n'cf
exists today throughout the ept'rs FoF'qs ene