The Washington herald., 1920-02-15
EUROPE NEARS
DARKEST DAYS
Southeastern Nations Seek
Aid in Vain, Says
Balderson.
PAPER WITHOUT VALUE
People Fail to Realize
Money Lacks Govern
ment Backing.
By JOHN LLOYD BALDERsTON.

Vienna. Jan. 20.-when two hum
dred million people in a continent
are starving and freezing. there Is
plenty of human interest" mate
rial for a reporter who cares to in
wade the plague zone. For three
or four hundred crowns he can get
q very bad lunch that will keep
him alive. and he need suffer no
unusual discomfort-if he pays. He
can pay. for he buys "a hundred
crowns for so cents. The people
in Austria can't pay. A doctor
gets ten crowns for a visit; il he
puts up his prices he can't collect
his bills; a workman rejoices in a
wage of forty crowns a week. four
times what he got before the war.
And with his weekly earnings he
can now buy-one egg.
1t took the American people a
very long time to wake up to
what was going on in Europe in
1914 and 1915 and 1916 They did
wake up-just in time. Another
three months and they would have
been too late.
Culture Threatened.
Again we are Europe's only hope.
Civilization looks to US now not to
preserve certain countries from being
dominated by an autocratc tyranny
directed from Berlin, but to prevent
the destruction of the progress OF
ZOO years and the extinction OF Eu-
ropean culture. America does not re-
alize what is going on now, any more
than she realized in 1914. Will she
wake up in time?
n IL toll hot fs hn
trouble over here. Bolshevism is an
effect. not a cause~Bolshevism is se-
rious enough. it may conceivably
oveTrun all Western Europe. But, If
il does. the soil must be ready to re-
ceIve II. Only starved. bankrupt and
hopeless countries will welcome red
armies; the best defense against Le-
nine is to let Poland. Austria and
the others get back to work.
The industrial population which
makes up in Austria more than half
the total must have work or die. 1t
cannot work unless the factories have
raw materials to work with They
cannot get the raw materials unless
America sends them over on credit.
Look to America.
The peoples of Austria and Hun
gary. of Poland and Czecho- -Slovakia,
Rumania and the Ukraine, Jugo-
Slavia. the Balkans, Soviet Russia,
and the border states of the Baltic,
Finland and far-away Turkey, are
looking across the Atlantic to the
land Of gold and plenty, of SYM
pathetic hearts and honest officials.
TO bring help and set everything
right.
These lands Throughout South
eastern Europe have sunk into an
economic Dark Age.
Peasants and workingmen cannot
rid themselves in a year or two Of
the conception that paper issued by
their government is good. or Will be.
They tend to blame everything on high
prices rather than on worthless paper
money
Some day even the most ignorant
will realize that paper is paper. and
then they will sell goods only for
other goods. recommending the
economy of barter which has been
obsolete for several centuries. Bar
tering between individuals is already
common in all stricken countries. es-
pecially where conditions are worst.
in Austria and Poland.
Commerce Union Needed.
II Is clear 10 the most Superfclal
visitor here that a commercial union
between the old parts of the AustTo-
Hungarian monarchy is necessary if
they are ever to recover. None of the
new states are seh-supportinC, all
need commodities produced by the
others.
GaIicia produces oil and timber
Bohemia and Silesia used to provide
coal. sugar and hops. Hungary and
Jugo-Slavia were once able TO ex-
port foodstuffs. while Austria had a
big paper industry, rich iron ore de-
posits and 4 large iron industry. and
her factories turned out locomotives,
cars. agricultural implements.
Free trade between these now in
dependent units would enable normal
economic life to be resumed.
At Teschen. for instance. the Poles
and Czecho-Slovaks maintain armed
guards across the provisional from
tier line. which runs right through
the famous coal mines. Many of
the miners cottages are in Poland
while the mines where .hey ought
to work are in Bohemia. Each side
is jealous and suspicious. Rifles
often go OF Result. no work and
no coal. And both Poland and Bo-
hemia cry aloud to the world that
they are freezing. and ask coal
from Germany, from England. even
from the United States.