Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1919-12-26
BY FRANK H, SINONDS.


In all the situation at the National
Capital today. two circumstances
stand out clearly: the first is the
total lack of interest or concern with
. European affairs. disclosed by the
vast majority of men in and out OF
national political affairs. and the
second is the not less manifest APP
prehension and anxiety of the few
actually in touch with European
affairs over the situations abroad
which have grave menace for Amer
lea
To put the thing simply: Washing
ton has dismissed Europe. gone back
to domestic concerns. to domestic
problems and troubles, but while IT
is now absorbed in these domestic
concerns, in the first operations OF
a new national campaign, the condi-
tionS in Europe are going from bad 10
worse and may lead at any moment
to financial crash, which cannot
but involve this country.
Washington has been informed that
Italy is on the verge of revolution. 1t
knows officially that Austria-the
impossible fragment carved out at
Paris-S actually starving 1t knows
that actual restitution and genuine
surplus, so far as foodstuffs are con-
cerned, exist on either side of from
tiers traced at Paris with regard
for racial considerations but without
concern for economic circumstances
Hoover Really stopped Boishevism.
Every one who was in Europe last
winter knows that the real defeat of
bolshevism was achieved by American
food Hoover was the man who stopped
the Lenin drive in the middle of Eu-
rope in 1919. just as surely as Foch
stopped it in 1918. But with conditions
little, If any, better in the same regions.
there is no longer a Hoover and there
3 no American food supply. Moreover.
the overwhelming opinion in Congress is
against any further European charities.
and even a well-defined demand for
prompt payment of interest on the loans
of the last three years.
The dispute over the treaty Of Paris
in the Senate, has served to obscure all
other European questions. The country
ing through a reaction from it's Euro
pean adventures which makes the
strongest possible contrast with the
mood of 1917 and 1918. The exalted
mood of the war time has not only
disappeared, but has given place to an
equally strong mood of materialism
People who made all sacrifices gladly
to win the war are now demanding all
possible concentration of American eff
fort and energy to spare them from
further hardshipS or even sacrifice of
tolerable sort. ..
OF exchange, the stream of veracious re-
ports coming from Europe, reveal the
fact that the situation abroad, so far
from improving, save in certain wholly
restricted areas, is steadily growing
worse One can read in the London
financial cables, and in the French
financial and political dispatches the
unmistakable assertion that Europe sees
no other hope for salvation. for the es-
cape from a crash, than can be found
in the prompt and far-rea ching Ameri-
can participation in the. world situation.
The conference between the British.
French and Italian statesmen in Paris
is recognized as an almost deSpairing
attempt to find within the countries
represented a solution for the perils
of the hour But again and again
such European conferences end with
the disclosure that action of a de-
cisive sort is still postponed against
the hope that the American mood
will change and America. return, to
her temper of one and two years ago.
Discusses Senator Lodges stand.
But this is exactly what America
SO far as Washington is an accurate
barometer-is not doing. The war,
its issues, it's circumstances. are be-
ers like Senator Lodge, who in the
past have most accurately known
and most closely followed European
events. have most intelligently cham
pioned American association in world
affairs within restricted limits have
by the circumstances of the recent
struggle in the Senate, been led to
position which contrasts strangely
with their past.