The Denver Jewish news., 1923-02-07

! the tlt1lAf IOT tilt W 49,
mark. But there it is and this fact
ndds heavily to the American burden.
The unreasoning-nnd reason went out
with the peace of 1914-assume that
America is gobbling up everything thru
the medium of the dollar This adds
of Europe, because it intensifies the
bitterness of European peoples.
| remember to have been in Munich
on ii recent occasion and to have got
ten gGO marks in exchange per dollar
the mark having dropped for II day or
more TO 1/240 of its pre-war value.
little later went to II good-sized shop
and purchased something. While wait
ing for change. l asked the young
woman cashier about salaries and she
answered that her own was $500 marks.
1t seemed TO me II fairly decent wage,
for had been told that one could live
frupully for five hundred marks per
dny. including clothes. etc To be GER
tnin of my facts. inquired. per
Woche?" 'Nein." she swcctly and sadly
answered per Monat,' At that mo-
mcnt 300 marks meant in American
exchange less than four dollars per
month"; or about thirteen cents per day.
Central Europe knows that America
loaned unbelievably large sums of
money to. its Allies. and the thing is
constantly dwelt upon. The very day
that the mark fell to record depths, II
Munich paper published IL statement to
the effect that the loans of the United
Stntes to the Allies aggregated more
than ten billion dollars. of which sum
England owed over four billions. France
more than three and one half billions,
italy about one and four-fifth billions.
And two things give added pain as far
ms the loan is concerned-One that not
one dollar has been paid in interest up
on this vast debt by any one of the
Continental nations. And even this is
not the worst thing in the eyes of Cen
trail Europe, whom Il loan of five per
cent of the war loan to the Allies
might even now, possibly save.
| heard it repeated not less than
score of times that the war loans made
the dcfeut of Germany nnd Austria In
evitable. And there is something still
worse. Germans and Austrians in
prcot numbers still believe TINT we
went into the war In order to save or
lprotect our loans. that. if these loans
had not been we would not have gone
into the war, yea that if they, Germany
lund Austria. had been only shrewd and
fore-h,nded enough to have borrowed
lurye sums of money from us. we would
never! have gone into the far agatnst
them.
This then is their point of view. We
defeated them through the power of
the dollar, with which we reinforced
the Allies. and now. having broken
them and practically remitted the debt
of the Allies. we are buying them up
and out-,ising the German idiom-
with the power of the dollar. So that
the dollar Is become II symbol of their
defeat and II token of their subsequent
financial decentralization and economic
impoverish;nent But all this may he
tlerided ns fIlSe-''theSe are but the
imaginngs OF u;rcason.'' In truth, uil-
reason holds svur throughout Europe
today. The viewpoint we have set
down may he brushed aside as nothing
more than partisan. Life is an adjust
ment of partial and partisan view
points.
am not defender of Germany and
do not pretend to he. And yet l
would free sixty million people from
the crushing responsibility for the acts
of sixty or six persons. who did most
to bring about the war. but only on
condition that the sixty or six as yet
unbroken Ludendorffs were deprived
of the power again to drag sixty million
Germans down with them and six hun
dred million more or twice that num-
ber outside of Germany. But we can
not act as though we We're to 20 about
our business without regard to the well
or ill being of other nations. If the
dollar is become the symbol Of our pow
cr. then must we use that power wise
ly. braycly. healingly. 1t is ut one
and tire same time the measure of our
national strength and of our interna
tional obligation.
1 | go back to where / left off
moment ago. France is in II terrible
position. for Germany's plea of power
ty and economic exhaustion is no proof
of the reality of these things. Ger
many demands an exceptional position
in PEACE as she asserted it in war.
She did not play the game by its rules
in time of war. There is 10 reason
to believe that she is now playing the
game. i. e.. in peace times though quite