The Washington times., 1921-11-26

w SO1ohs In OWhSAos oA~ ~
secure 1t every belligerent government
had to incur debts. Lives cost little.
but material much. The European
combatants are overwhelmed with
debts; every European worker and
toiler, every European business man
Is debtor; every European enter
prise goes on under a crushing burden
OF taxation because Of these debts. An
attempt has been made to shift this
uncomfortable burden from the victors
to the vanquished. but the vanquished
already had as much as they could
carry.
Now. when first mankind began to
experiment with money and credit.
the lot OF the debtor was an intolera-
BILE one. He might become the slave
OF his creditor. he might be subjected
to imprisonment and frightful pun
ishment. But IL was early discovered
that 1t was not to the general advan-
tage, 1t was not even to the advantage
OF the creditor to drive the debtor to
despair. Processes Of bankruptcy
were devised to clear him up. get
what was possible from him and then
release him to fresh start and hope.
But we have not yet extended the
same leniency to natnional bankrupt
cy because national insolvencies have
been rare. And SO We have whole
nations In Europe 30 loaded with
debts and punitive charges that every
worker, every business man, will be
under his share In this burden from
the cradle to the grave. He will be
debt serf to the domestic or foreign
creditor and all his enterprises will be
weighted and discouraged by this
obligation. Debt is one immense
and universal encouragement now
throughout all Europe.
Money Lost It's Value.
But even that might not prevent
the recovery of Europe. There is yet
another and profounder evil in op-
Grafton to prevent people getting
to work to reconstruct their shat
tered economic life. That is the in.
creased failure Of money to do its
work. Europe cannot get to work,
cannot get things going again. be-
cause over large part of the world
the medium Of exchange has become
untrustworthy and unusable. That
is the immediate thing that Is de-
stroying civilization in the Old World.
We have to remember that our
whole economic order IL based on
money. We do not know any way of
working q big business. a manufac-
tory. a large farm, a mine, except
by money payments. Payment In
kind, barter and the like are ancient
and clumsy expedients: you cannot
getting along with its industrial and
business life on any such clumsy
basis. Every modern city-London,
Paris. Berlin-is built on q money
basis, and will collapse into utter
ruin, as Petersburg already has col
lapsed. X money fails. But over
large and increasing areas Of Eu-
rope money il now of such fluctuat-
ing value. it's purchasing power is
80 uncertain. that men will neither
work for 1t. nor attempt to save 1t.
nor make any monetary bargains
ahead.
Such q thing has never occurred to
anything like the same extent before
in all history, and 1t is killing business
enterprise altogether and throwing
whole masses Of working people out
Of employment. Europe, without
trustworthy money, is as paralyzed as
a brain without wholesome blood. She
cannot act, she cannot move. EN-
ployment becomes impossible and pro-
duction dies away. The towns move
steadily toward the starvation that
has overtaken Petersburg, and the
peasants and cultivators cease to grow
anything except to satisfy their own
needs. To go to market with produce
except to barter. In q mockery. The
schools are not working, the hospitals
the public services: teachers and doc
tors and officials cannot live upon
their pay. they starve or 60 away.
Due to Reckless Initiation.
This state of affairs has been
brought about by the reckless manu-.
facture Of paper money by nearly
every European government: we can
measure their recklessness roughly by
comparing their pre-war and postwar
exchanges. 1t IL only now. that we
are beginning to realize the enormity
of the disaster which this demoraliza-
ton Of money Is bringing upon the
world. We have weakened the link
Of cash payments. which has hitherto
held civilization together to the break
ing point. As the link breaks, the
machine stops. The modern city will
become a formless mob OF unemployed
men and the countryside will become
a wilderness Of food-hoarding peasants
and since the urban masses will
have no food and no means OF COM
handing 1t. we may expect the most
violent perturbations before they are
persuaded to accept their fate In
philosophical spirit.
Revolutionary social outbreaks
are not the result Of plots; they are
symptoms Of social disease. They
are not causes but effects. This Is
what I mean when l write OF
breakdown in civilization. mean
the death of town life, which can
not 20 on without money and the
cessation Of organized communica-
ton. I mean a breakdown OF the
organizations for keeping the peace.
I mean an end to organized educa'
ton. / mean the smashing OF this
social order in which we live,
through the smashing OF money,
which has already occurred to
large extent in Russia, which Is
going on in many parts OF eastern
Europe, which seems likely to occur
within a few months in Germany,
which may spread into Italy and
France, and so to Britain, and even
to the American continent, and
which can only be arrested by the
most vigorous collective action to