The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1920-04-01
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.

in the conservative, employing class,
who refuse 10 see. There are none so
blind as these. While they close their
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 I found people talking
about 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
Ralkans that l had heard in France
and England. I did not meet any one
who was able 10 give me clear, COM
plete meaning of the phrase. but ii Is
on the lips of everyone. 1t has a
meaning. and time will produce a plan.
The people are forward loolling-they
are thinking, waiting for something TO
happen. They have faith that ii will
happen ard thar II will bring great
good to the human race. Every one
seems confident that some great COM
pensation 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 ii should have interpreted
their enthusiasm as fantasy.
A meaningless minority of reaction
aries scorn and scOff 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 il 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 IL.
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 it come through revolution or
through evolution. The greatest friend
of revolution is the stubborn employ
err who refuses to see the change, ac-
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 life. To mention
Europcs financial losses in the same
breath with her dead and wounded,
seems sordid, but II is an everyday
world and in IL money has It's logical
place. Since the war some people are
thinking that money has had too im-
portant a place Ia the world. II has
beeD charged with pushing man out Vt
his place, hut 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, lannon's. oirplanes, ships.
were made Europe owes the money.
How will she nay il; where will she
get ~ II is n question that even the
wisest and most optimistic OF men I'm
Europe hesitate TO answer. Some
wonder. is there an answer
Europe has borrowed until her in
ierest charge today is almost as large
as her whole cost of governmental adj
ministration was few years ago.
heard Lloyd George say that England
faced yearly interest charge of three
hundred milton pounds Another Off
rial told me thai this interest charge
that England must pay zach year is
uenrly one hundred million pounds
year larger Than the cost of admins
ration was ~ the time Of The BUar
war Only the other day her interest
was due on some loans from The United
States aud she was forced 10 default,
and our government charged the in-
terest Ia The principal and passed the
day Of payment on. w the meantime
the pound Is going down IN value.
when | was ON the Continent II had
renched S414. Today " is under S3.S7,
and steadily going down.
France Us IN even worse plight.
The banks are lcade,. With government
paper She has made no provision
by taxation to pay her debt I was
told on every hand thar any effort 10
impose q tax would hiring on revolu-
ton. II is said thar her debt has
reached the startling figure of $640
Cor every man. woman and child In
the country. When ! left Cherbourg
70 sail for America regulation had
heen put into effect prohibiting any
me leaving France from taking money