The Glasgow courier., 1922-03-24
FOUND IN OUR
EXCHANGES
Destroying America to Reconstruct
Europe


Professor Irving Fisher of Yale
University, is a fair sample of the
pro-European propagandist in the
United States. He has just returned
from Germany, where he went to look
into the claim of a chemist that he
had been able to produce synthetic
gold, which is a good deal like saying
that he has been in Pittsburgh exam
ing a new perpetual motion machine.
The Newspaper Enterprise Association
by Professor Fisher on the world eco
is putting into circulation some articles
nonic situation,-the following ex-
tracts give an idea of their drift:
"Sound economics demand that
America should make further loans
to Europe instead of haggling over the
war debts"
IF we nurse Europe along perhaps
twenty years from now there will be
a prosperous Europe paying hand
some dividends"
"War debts are practically hopeless
anyway. No reasonable man in Eu-
rope expects any of the international
war debts to be paid, excepting per-
haps Great Britain's debt to America
and part Of the German reparations.
They laugh in their sleeves at the
idea. They think we abandoned them,
and they are willing to let us whis-
tie for our money"
"A great deal Of these (Europe's)
dangers and their reaction on America
and the depression of our trade are
due to the refusal of America to join
the League of Nations. Without us
it has only feeble power"
In short, because we went to the
rescue of the allies and saved them
from defeat, territorial loss and the
imposition of huge indemnities, or at
the best an indecisive conclusion of
the World war, we have thereby in
CURED, justly, as Professor Fisher and
others of his ilk allege, not the gra-
titude, but the ill will of the allies,
because, having done this service, we
refuse to use our capital to reconstruct
Europe's economic system rather than
to restore our own, and, having asked
nothing by way of territory or indem-
nifty while millions of square miles of
land and millions of dollars in money,
materials and Shipping were divided up
by our associates in the World war,
we now hesitate about paying the
German indemnity ourselves.
Our associates in the World war
Laugh in their sleeves" at the thought
of paying back the eleven billion dol
lars they borrowed from the United
States, although that money is what
saved them from the loss Of manv
times that amount as the result of
defeat in the World war. Neverthe-
less it would be unreasonable for us
TO refuse to lend few billions more
to nations which are already to re-
pudiate loans made to them in an hour
of dire necessity.
1t is cur duty, in other words, to
improverish America in order that the
financial and industrial fabric of Eu-
rope may be restored, and to join the
League of Nations, confessedly feeble
without US, by pledging the wealth
and man-power Of the United States
to the support of nations we have only
made angry and ungrateful by the
hundred billion dollar expenditure we
have already made in their behalf.
That there are Americans who have
this conception of Americas respon-
sibility and duty, seems astounding;
yet there are many of them, especially
in seats of higher learning. They
are just now busying themselves with
a movement to rehabilitate the Will
son brand of internationalsm through
the Wilson Foundation campaign and
by other means known to those who
at one time had this country pretty
well bamboozled while under the spell