Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1920-03-11
Shall Chaos or Reconstruction
in Europe Follow the Great
World War?
NEW, GREAT FORCES AT WORK
Demand for New Order of Things Is
Universal and Reactionaries Merely
Swell the Rising Tide of
Discomfort.
Article w.
BY FRANK COMERFORD.

The most obvious thing in Europe is
the changed attitude of the people,
and yet there are many, particularly
in the conservative, employing class,
who refuse to see. There are none so
blind as these. While they close their
eyes and minds to the obvious, the
change goes on. 1t is not idle rhetor-
ic to say that new great forces are at
work. Of course you cannot see the
forces any more than you can see the
grass growing, but you can see the
effects. You can measure the charac-
ter of the forces.
Everywhere / found people talking
about a new Order. Men separated
by hundreds of miles are thinking and
talking the same ideas. 1t startled
me to hear the same ideas up in the
Balkans that | had heard in France
and England. ] did not meet any one
who was able to give me a clear, COM
plete meaning Of the phrase, but it is
on the lips of everyone. 1t has
meaning, and time will produce plan.
The people are forward lOOking-they
are thinking, waiting for something to
happen. They have faith that it will
happen and that it will bring great
good to the human race. Every one
seems confident that some great COM
pensati0n must and will come out of
the siege of suffering through which
they have passed. If they were not
so earnest, SO sane, so determined
about it I should have interpreted
their enthusiasm as fantasy.
A meaningless minority of reaction
aries Scorn and scott at all talk OF
new Order. These are the backward
looking men of big business, the stand
patters in politics. They are out of
touch with the times; they think the
real world is the little circle in which
they live. They are the barnacles on
big business. They smugly set down
all talk of change as bolshevism.
Fortunately the real leaders Of bust
ness are breaking away from this
point of view. Progressive, human and
open minded, they see and know that
unrest is a problem and that it must
be solved. They are paying heed to
the complaints of the workers. They
admit that there is justice back of the
complaints. Instead of arguing coer-
cion. they are talking concession. They
know a change has come, they want
to meet it.
New Order Must Come.
A new Order will come. The one
question that is bothering the minds
of men who are awake to the change
is. will 1t come through revolution or
through evolution. The greatest friend
of revolution is the stubborn employ
er who refuses to see the change, &C
cepts things as they are, and insists
upon the use of force as the only cure
for unrest.
Money is a gross thing when COM
pared with human tife. To mention
EurOpes financial losses in the same
breath with her dead and wounded,
world and in it money has its logical
place. Since the war some people are
thinking that money has had too i'm
portant a place in the world. 1t has
been charged with pushing man out of
his place. but bills must be paid and
Europe needs money. The war cost
billions and billions OF dollars. Mil
lions of men had to be clad and Shod,
billions and billions of cartridges and
shells, rifles, cannons airpanes, ships,
How will she pay it; where will she
get it? 1t is a question that even the
wisest and most optimistic of men in
Europe hesitate to answer. Some
wonder, is there an answer?
Europe has borrowed until her in
terest charge today is almost as large
as her whole cost of governmental ad-
miniStratiOn was n few years ago. |
heard Lloyd George say that England
faced a yearly interest charge of three
hundred million pounds. Another Off
cia told me that this interest charge
that England must pay each year is
nearly one hundred million pounds a
year larger than the cost of admins
tration was at the time of the Boer
war. Only the other day her interest
was due on some loans from the United
States and she was forced to default,
and our government charged the in
terest to the principal and passed the
day of payment on. In the meantime
the pound is going down in value.
When | was on the Continent it had
reached $414. Today it is under $3.S7,
and steadily going down.
France is in even a worse plight.
The banks are loaded with government
paper. She has made no provision
by taxation to pay her debt. 1 was
told on every hand that any effort to
impose tax would bring on revolu-
ton. 1t is said that her debt has
reached the startling figure of $640
for every man, woman and child in
the country. When I left Cherbourg
to sail for America q regulation had
been put into effect prohibiting any
one leaving France from taking money