The Washington times., 1922-04-23

Europe Feeling Better.
Our Costly Strike.
Free Speech Is New.
S55,OOO for rs Francs.
BY ARTHUR BRIsBAN
Copyright. isas.)

\ w - o /
lEBy ARTHUR BRISBANE
Z Copyright. isas)
Yesterdays news from Europe
was fairly cheerful. The Russo
German treaty made the allies do
useful thinking. That will help.
Lloyd George, perhaps, knew in
advance about the surprise" that
Russia had planned. 1t certainly
will help Lloyd George in his
effort to cure some delusions and
get to business.
The number of miners out on
strike is put at 685,300. 1t is in
such strikes that labor, capital
and the country sustain their
losses. In that one strike the loss
in wealth not produced-it can
never be made up, for the only
real wealth is human labor
amounts to more than six million
dollars a day-or at the rate of
a thousand and eight hundred
million dollars year-alnost
enough to pay for the Govern
ment.
When you have strike, troops
are used when necessary to pro-
tect private property in accord
ance with law.
Some one asks why it is that
the same troops are not used to
protect the workmen's right of
free speech and free assembly,
often interfered with.
The answer is that property
rights are ancient, thoroughly i'm
bedded in the human mind and in
laws. \
The right of free speech is
new, a sort of invented prop
erty." Some of our most distin-
guished judges have shown that
they don't believe in it-no mat
ter what the Constitution says.
To protect property Is duty
almost as old as the duty to pro-
tect itself. Free speech is mod
ern, not considered really i'm
portant. Some day it will seem
more important, for it is more
important, than property. But
that day is distant.
In Paris, peddlers sell for
twenty-five francs bundle Of
genuine European bank notes
formerly worth $55,000.
For So in French money, now
worth less than two dollars and
a half in our money, you can buy
$4,000 worth of German, Polish,
Russian and Austrian money.
Some of that money will soon be
worth less than it is now. Some
will be worth par some day, The
wise man will plod along, earn
ing and saving the real money OF
this fortunate country.
The supreme court OF Ne
braska upholds a law forbidding
the German language in schools
below the eighth grade.
It may be Constitutional, but
why "below the eighth grade ?"
The younger the child, the more
easily a language is learned.
Also, the more wicked the Ger
mans, the greater the import
ance of UNDERSTANDING
what they are saying. If you
can't speak German, you can't
understand.
During the war, the young
daughter of the italian ambassa-
dor, Count de Cellere, at Wash
inRton, was studying German
earnestly. At that time, the
Austrian armies were in North
ern Italy and menacing Venice.
The ambassador was no fool.
Only through German could
Goethe. Schiller and others Of
the worlds greatest writer's be
known. It takes a peculiar
brand of intelligence to say
that children shall be deprived
of such knowledge"to spite the
Kaiser. If we had war with
Greece, would those wise ones
forbid reading Homer?
More than three miles a
minute is the speed of motor
planes now. Ten miles a
minute will be the speed little
later. Soon human beings will
live on hills and mountain tops,
<u,,.,,O. IN the uallevS tn clIltiyate