The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1921-07-07
People Have Lost Every Sense Of Dignity and Their Whole CharaC
ter French Journalist Says-Country Has Come to
Look Upon Help From Abroad as Matter
of Course

New York.-An interesting picture
Of conditions In Austria is given in the
following article written for the New
York Herald by w. John Lenglet, a
French journalist attached to the
Japanese military mission in Vienna
After having been year in Austria
| have come to the conclusion that the
country specializes in the art of beg
ging and insulting. These two faults
combined have been brought to such
a height that the people have lost
every sense Of dignity and their whole
character.
This is specially clear to the for
eigner who stays a good deal in Vienna.
The foreigner who merely passes
through brings nothing back but a
remembrance of more or less gay eve
nings and of fantastic figures Of worth
less currency; but he who has to live
there and take part in the everyday
life of Vienna, especially II he take
the tsbuble to look deeply into the
heart of things, is certainly convinced
that side by side with a certain misery
In the lower middle classes and priya-
tions among the upper classes, there
exists among the new rtch-"schieb-
ers'-an Indifference to all the inter-
ests Of Austria which is hardly beIiey-
able.
The "schicber" may be the middle
man of business transactions, or even
the business man quite simply. The
"schieber" is also the bucket shop
keeper" who speculates Illegally in
exchange, who leads the freihandel
Gree commerco), and it is he who
piles up bundles of bank notes, a
single one of which he will not spend
unless it bring him the equivalent in
pleasures or goods. The interest of his
country? He laughs at 1t as at a
splendid ioke-the starving children
can be looked after by foreigners. He
can eat white bread and he does so
without scrupIe. He can drink cham
payne at 5000 crowns d bottle. He
provides his wife with magnificent furs
and precious Jewels. He knows no
duty but that Of spending the money,
which he has gained by exploiting his
countrymcn In pleasures and luXuries.
lie is the immoral being who has
sprung from the Austrian soil since
misery spread over the land.
The Valute All Important.
When the little bourgeois or shop
keeper smells the foreigner, he imme-
dlately sizes mp his "Valute.' You are
treated in accordance with the value
of your national currency and the shop
man tries to convince you that if he
charges you three times as much as
Austrians are charged he is still
rendering you a great service: "Was
macht das dem in hire ValuteY
(What does it matter compared to
the value of your moneyD This be-
comes as familiar as the greeting you
get when you 90 into shop. If you
are good uatured you will simply
accept this as part Of the business.
Worse things exist, for the Austrian
has brought the art of begging to such
q pitch that ne has made the whole
world believe in him, and the whole
world-EngIaud and the United States
at the head allows itself to be fooled !
Committees have been formed-Aus-
tria has been helped on every side
her children have been sent to every
country TO be nourished and cared for;
and when they come back from these
countries, dressed in new clothes and
Improved morally and physically, their
parents say: After all, II Is not much
you see, the clothes are not
cflic; the stuff is not OF the best quality,
and the food well, they do not trouble
i1uch about food over there
However, when one of their chill
dren comes back, they do their best to
send another over to the same condl-
tions that means another
less 10 bother about
The man who lives I'm Vienna ana
reads advertisements IN the English
papers shout starving Vienna cannot