Polk County news. [volume] (Benton, Tenn.) 191?-1983, 1920-02-05
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 ~.
BY FRANK coMERFoRD.

Inc most obvious thing in Europe /
the changed attitude of the people
e and yet there are many, particularly
\ in the conservative, employing class
who refuse to see. There are none Sc
blind as these. While they close theiI
: 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 l 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
Balkans that had heard in France
and England. l did not meet any one
! who was able to give me a clear, com
| piete meaning of the phrase, but it is
on the lips of everyone. 1t has
meaning, and time Will produce a 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
pensatiOn must and will come out of |
the siege of suffering through which
they have passed. If they were not
SO eG:nest. so sane, so determined
n oh hax int t616
helrsenthusiasm rs fantasy.
A meaningless mfherfty OF reaction Il
aries ScOrn and Scoff at all talk of n I
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 bolSheyiSm.
Fortunately the real leaders of busi
ness are breaking away from this
point of view. Progressive, human and
open minded. they see and know that
unrest is 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
Instead of arguing cOer- t
ZION. they are talking concession. They =
know change has come, they want /
% meet 1t.
New Order Must Come.
A new Order will come. The one h
question that is holherlng the minds t
If men who are aWa..r to the change Il
s. will 1t come through revolution or e
through evolution. The greatest friend d
# revolution is the stubborn employ 5
+ who refuses to see the change, ac- h
epts things as they are, and insists Il
pon the use OF force as the only cure
or unrest. II
Money is gross thing when com is
ared with human life. To mention II
.urOpe's financial losses in the same d
reath with her dead and wounded, K
GEMS sordld, but 1t is an everyday it
orld and In it money has its logical
lace. Since the war some people are X,
linking that money has had too inn h
Drtant a place I'm the world. 1t has Is
cen charged with pushing man out of to
IS place, but bills must be paid and h,
urope needs money. The war cost til
lions and billions of dollars. Mil th
Dns Of men had to be clad and shod, m
lions and billions of cartridges and IT,
ells, rifles, cannons airplancs, ships tn
ere made. Europe owes the money. ha
ow will she pay 1t; where will she Sh
t It? II Is u question that even the qu
sest and most optimistic of men in co
irope hesitate to answer. Some Is
pnder is there an answer? tic
Europe has borrowed until her in pc
rest charge today Is almost as large tel
her whole cost of governmental ad. ten
nlstratiOn was few years ago | the
ard Lloyd George say that England de-
red yearly interest charge of three
ndred million pounds. Another off hel
i told me that this interest charge 'Co
1t England must pay each year is
nrly one hundred million pounds
ar larger than the cost of admins.
tion was at the time of the Boer
r. Only the other day her interest
$ due on some loans from the United all,
ties and she was forced to default hel
] our government charged th VIII
ant