The Washington herald., 1919-04-13

heavy mourning. grieved so sincerely
over such desperate losses. cruel and
wicked and beautiful as those losses
were. and during II no other capital
ever kept its hand so fervently upon
its pocketbook as Paris. The French
hate three things, tyranny, hypocrisy
and taxes, and the greatest Of these
Is taxes. So. during the war, France
raised her war costs largely by bor-
rowing none. England raised 90 per
cent OF her war costs by direct taxa
ton Everywhere in the allied wodld
war profits were taxed; incomes as
sessed, inheritances clipped, and
wealth cut down to pay for the war
everywhere except in France. France
borrowed in the hope that Germany
would pay-a hope which is rapidly
vanishing. So France is borrowing
money to meet the interest on her
war loans, and the great hotels and
restaurants are filled with liberal
spenders, the boulevard shops show
gorgeous things at fabulous prices,
and prices rise and rise and rise, and
France is gay. Perhaps 1t Is not gay
ETY. that makes France seem so lively.
There are serious Frenchmen VINO
think II shell shock-national war
nerves. You will hear it said that
France is dazed; that she cannot real
ize the truth, that she cannot act
because her will Is paralyzed by the
sorrow through which she has come.
This probably Is true. But her allies
are impatient with her. One hears an
apocryphal story floating about town
that during the first week OF Lloyd
Georges March visit to England he
denounced NJ. Klotz, the French min
lister of finance most yiciously, and
that the English prime minister
called short ugly names to the man
who had allowed France to go on
piling up a great debt with. her In
comes and inheritances and war profits
untaxed, and the story says that M
Clemenceau sat by and heard this de-
nunciation cs his own minister OF
finance without protesting. And still
NJ Klotz did not resign. Nothing or
this appeared in the Paris papers
Indeed, the French press has not
warned the people of the chasm OF
bankruptcy toward which they are
drifting; for the French press is sub
sidized by the government, just as
painting and music and the other arts
are subsidized. And it is no business
of a subsidized press to speak when
the government desires silence.
Tribute to Press.
One hears also that the French
financial interests, the bankers and
capitalists of one sort and another,
pay regularly some sort Of tribute
to the press in France, a sort OF
robber tariff, and in return for the
tribute the French financial interests
control the fin>Scial pages of the
French newspapers absolutely. This,
of course, would account for a certain
degree Of silence In the French
press about the danger that lies
ahead for France. But, perhaps
there is more safety in silence than
in red headlines, after all. Imag-
inc the Hearst press playing with
the French dynamite. There are
two sides to the question. An Amer
lean seeing the French press prac-
ticaIly without advertising, and
subsidized by the government, is
inclined to pat himself on the back
self-righteously. But results after
all are more important than meth
ods. And so far as the French press
produces results. so far as it inhu-
ences life in France, its influence is
rather more wholesome than is the
influence Of the American press.
public service corporations and gov
ernment subsidy and capitalistic
blackmail-it's a debate between
the pot and the kettle. But here's
a story that will illustrate some
thing of the kind Of difference there
is between the French and Ameri-
can press. The French press has
had a number of entertainments for
the foreign press. These entertain
ments have been concerts, concerts
wherein classical music, and in one
case, folk dacing, prevailed. The
other night a group of the Ameri-
can correspondents were entertain
ed at the Circle Volney, a club much
like the Century Club in New York.
except that several of its members
had not reached the century mark.
At the entertainment the Americans
had a simple dinner OF three or four
plafn courses. They listened for an
hour to some splendid chamber mu-
sic-a piano, a cello and a clario-
net, playing a Beethoven trio,
Chopin nocturne, something from
Mozart and a modern French musi-
clan. In New York If we had the
French press to entertain, We would
set them down to long dinner of
mushy, unintelligible food, with
much white gravy on if. We would
have many kinds of wine. And aft
erward we would have a keg of
beer. souse of punch, and a bar
rel of champagne on tap, along
with the monologue artist. from the
"Follies," the high kicker from the
Winter Garden and a shady lady
with shady stories, showing too
much backbone and too little brains.
And yet we have some sort of a
foolish notion that the French are
a devilish people whose life is just
one risque episode after another.
The truth about the French is
that in many ways they are more
prudish than the Puritans. The "vie
de Parisian"will not circulate in the
Americans mails But no French
newspapers devote anything like the
space to crime that we devote to
crime in America. and the Petit
Parisisn." which circulates in mil
lions of French homes. once refused
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