The Washington times., 1921-01-19
Today
The Wife's Part?
Capital, labor-0efined
The "Toddle" Banished.
Johnson investigates.
By ARTHUR BRISBANE
Copyright. 1917

Every issue Of Liberty bonds
Uent TO a neto high record for fhe
year yesterday. The "neto high
record" Is disgracefully loo rec
ord, considering tho promises made
to the little people that put their
money IN Liberty bonds and such
affairs.
A rich young man, recently dead,
left his wife one hundred dollars
only. What should be the law in
such matters?
Would II not be fair, as one wise
man suggests. to give at least one
third of a mans possessions, at
death, to his wife, one-third to his
children, and let him do as he
pleases with one-third?
IL is all very we'll to say "A
man may do as he will with his
own" But who knows how much
OF his fortune is his own, how
much due to his wife's patience
and help?
And what about the rights OF
the wife? When she marries she
invests her entire capital" her
hope of marrying a decent, CRATE
ful man. Her husband takes this
hope definitely, and he should
incur definite obligations.
One-third, irrevocably, for the
wife, would be not too much.
The learned DR.. Crane quotes
with earnest approval these lines
from the Montreal Star:
Capital is the labor of the
past"
Labor is the capital of the fu-
ture."
Capital and labor, pulling to-
gether, create the prosperity Of
the present"
The statement is interesting, but
not complete. Capital is what
somebody has been able to extract
from the labor of others aided by
his own intelligence and self-de-
NAL, or sometimes by his own
dishonesty.
Labor is the capital Of the fu-
ture, but it is good deal more
than that.
Labor is the life of human be-
ings in the present. Labor is THE
PEOPLE, and labor creates the
next generation. The treatment
that labor receives now-its food,
its education, its housing-de-
cides what human beings Of the
next generation will be.
Therefore labor, besides being
the capital of the future, is the
the human race of the future
ought to be considered more i'm
portant than the capital OF the
future. Ut isn't
Capital and labor pulling to-
gether, II they DID pull together.
would create the prosperity of
the present, and drown the
hatreds OF the past.
The difficulty is that capital
pulls for capital, and labor,
through compulsion, pulls for
labor.
Just now, capital is rejoicing to
hear that labor is largely idle, and
therefore will lower its demands.
A little while ago. labor was re-
joicing because the country lacked
labor; labor could charge what it
pleased, and incidentally could de-
cline to work in return for good
pay.
Capital is frozen labor. Labor
is HUMANITY, which is the only
important thing. Anybody who
thinks that capital is equal OF
labor, would pull a pocketbook out
of the water first and let a child
drown in the meanwhile.
Chicago school authorities have
denounced the "sbimmy' and the
'toddle" as dances not proper for
school entertainment. The judg-
ment is right az regards the
"shimmy," for it represents terp-
sichorean delirium tremens, and
moral breakdown.
But the "toddle," which is an
imitation OF an infants walk, the
sort OF dancing that a baby does
when its father whistles, is alto
gether harmless. The "toddle,"
outlawed with the "shimmy," can
sympathize with light beer, which
was banished with whiskey-and
the whiskey came back wickeder
than ever, but the beer didn't.
Hiram Johnson demands an in
vestigation of the Omitted States
military expedition to Siberia
What Senator Johnson demands
he is likely to get. His investiga-
ton would be interesting. How
much of a MILITARY expedition
and how much of a BOND coll
LECTING expedition was it?
What became of the money, sew
eral hundred millions, taken from
the pockets of taxpayers, Ito help
Russia establish democratic gov
ernment?" Who got those mil
lions? How much of II went to
Russia? How much of it got be-
yond Wall Street? How much. If
any, is being spent now in viola
ton OF law and decency to main
tain in Washington an embassy"
representing Carbon dead and
- n-rtaInl