New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-05-18

is by exchange OF commodities. III
these peoples tried to buy materials
and supplies in America at the present
market value of their currencies, Aus
tria would have to pay forty times the
original cost. Germany thirteen times.
Greece just double Czecho- Slovakia
fourteen times and Poland fifty times.
These figures are official and are true
index of tho economic plight of these
countries.
at is clear, therefore, that they can
not give us gold for the things they
must have, nor have they either prod
ucts or securities to offer in return for
credit II only they could obtain raw
material which these idle millions Of
theirs could convert into manufactured
products they would have something to
tender the world in return for its raw
material, food and medicine. But if
how arc they to take this first great
step towards redemption?
Relief Must Be Given to Stricken
Eyes, admit that those people
speak truth who will say in answer to
all this: I'VE arc sorry, but we did
not cause 1t. 1t is not our affair and
Europe. Has not our Red Cross Cross al ~
ready had four hundred millions Of
our money? 1t is about time we at
tended to our own troubles
but assert in reply to all such:
You can no more renounce the tribula-
tons of these stricken people than you
could escape the consequences OF the
war. Onc-half the world may not eat
while the other half stnrves How
long do you believe the plague Of
f6Df tod I'll
toll IN Esthonia and Poland and the
Ukraine and eating along the frjnges
OF Germany and Czecho- Slovakia will
confne itself to these remote lands i?
II rs parasitic disease and if not
throttled may spill into the western
countries OF Europe and creep to our
own shores.
"Only last Saturday our Health
Commlssioner of New York, DR.. Cope
land, sailed for the other side Just to
measure the danger and take precau-
ton against such an invasion.
Inns is one menace at our threshold
The other, more threatening, more ter
rible, is the menace of the worlds i'll
VIII. We can afford to die, but to be
despised forever as a greedy and
phansalcal nation is fate that we
must not incur.
"Fhere are those to-day in the
United States who deplore our verv en-.
trance into the war and now pray
Vehemently to be rid of its encum
DrahceS. these argue that our obliga-
tlohs nave been met and that our
sacrifices were vain. But the Deople
Of Europe do not FORGET that we de-
clared we fought this war to make the
world safe for democracy and, further
more that our Pres ident by his part in
the peace conference and by the reiter-
alton of the principles that he pre-
sented as Americas, encouraged them
to believe that as America had turned
the tide OF war, so would America helm
with their resources the rec0nstruction
of the world.
Europe Grateful to U. S.
"The people of Europe are and will
always be grateful to us for what we
did, and they accepted as full face
val lie our declarations of what we were
gong to do. Now they think we have
turned our backs on them. AS | have
heard it expressed, you came over
here and wrote down the rules of the
game and then chucked u.s."
Mr.. Wilson was not the only Amer
lcan whose voice carried to Europe
On the 18th day of July, 1913, the
day when the boys of the 1st and I'd
i'i'totoHS were turning the tlQe OF war
at Soissons.. Theodore Roosevelt spoke
as follows to IA convention of the po-
litical party of which he was the recog-
nized leader:
eve must establish the great free
commonwealth of the Poles, the
Czecho-Slovaks and the Jugo -Slavs, and
save the other submerged peoples who
are their neighbors. Unless we do all
this, unless we stand by all our allies
who have stood by us, we shall have
failed in making the liberty of we'll
behaved, civilized peoples secure, and
we shall have shown that our an
nouncement about making the world
safe for democracy was an empty
boast"
Big Mission Confronts Nation
"Whatever the Developments were
later, and whatever the merits of the
reasons, do not forget that to Europe
we we're all important and gave them
every reason to believe that we were
there and there to stick, and that now
we seem to have turned our backs.
$50 far | have spoken chiefly of the
countries of Central and Eastern Eu-
rope. 1t is important to distinguish
between these countries and our prin-
cipal allies in Western Europe, who
whatever their distress, are doing their