, 1923-02-09

~ SS go hOI IHO pIO-CT SnCu, o DT0-
German, but the pro-American and I believe there
is a distinct pro-American viewpoint and pro-
American policy which should be followed, not
only in the debates here, but in the actions of our
administration.
"There is a tendency these days, among a certain
group of people, to take pains to show pity for the
criminal who has met with justice. We find peo-
pie in America who are inclined to send flowers to
murderers, and to forget the crimes and the vic
tins which brought the murderers to their present
pass. They complain of the rudeness Of the war
den to the imprisoned convict, and they never think
of the victim of that convict's original crime. That
is what we are in danger of doing now in our dis
cussion of this crisis on the Ruhr. We are for
getting what it was that brought Germany to her
present pass. We are forgetting why the French
We are forgetting what those Germans did to
bring themselves into the predicament in which
they find themselves today.
why the sudden outbreak of sympathy for one
of those two nations? Why was it that in 1914
we did not break out with a similar outburst of
sympathy with the Belgians? Heaven knows their
country was invaded with fire and with sword,
and not merely the threat of it. Their country was
invaded in direct violation of a treaty to which
this country was a party, and. yet we did not
raise our voices in this fashion to sympathize with
the Belgians who were invaded.
Northern France was devastated, its churches,
its homes, its fields and its orchards laid waste,
but somehow our sympathy did not break into
voice the way 1t has been doing here in recent days.
"AIl the laws of nations were defied when the
Germans let loose their poison gas at Ypres, and
we sat quiet. We did not break into voice then,
as we III uOnP HOW at an invasion JnaC is not
attended by murder and disregard of international
law. -.-
"The women and children at Lille were deported
by the invader, and sent off in practical slavery
to work in German factories; but somehow the
senate of the United States remembered then that
it was American, and it managed then to control
it's expressions of sympathy.
"When, in the spring of 1915, our German friends
with whom we were at peace-saw fit to torpedo
the Lusitania, and hundreds of Americans had
their shrieks of agony stifled with the gurgle of
death as they sank info the Atlantic nrnnn- soma
how We managed to stay neutral. Then why, in
Gods name, can we not stay neutral today, when
retribution is coming to those murderers of Bel
gians. and French, and Americans?
"What is it that drags us to the front now to
protest because Germany has to pay what she
has promised to pay? Why should we suddenly
grow maudlin in sympathy because the murderer
is having to expatiate his crime? Why should
America throw herself into this present difficulty
in the Ruhr and take steps to show her pity for
these people who are asked to pay only what they
have promised to pay, who have been excused from
the payment of our war costs, who have been ex-
'cused for all the burdens of taxation they have
thrown on the civilized nations of the world.
"There is talk about the unborn children of Ger
many having to pay these reparations. There is
not a man or a woman or n child who hears my
voice at this minute who will not be dead long
before the American people have ceased to pay
excessive taxes as the result of German violation
of international law. We will all be dead before
American taxpayers have ceased to pay tribute to
Germany's desire to control the world. Do not we
forget that when we begin to wallow in sympathy
with German taxpayers?
"What Germany is asked to pay now is the
mere cost of restoration of the damage she did
in Belgium and France and the mere cost of the
police force which has had to stand guard along
the Rhine.
81 am not speaking alone my own sentiments, my
own private views. I think I am speaking as the
Americans who fought in France would speak if
they were here in the chamber; ] think I am
speaking as our men who died in France would
speak if they could utter their thought today. 1
tell you, we are forgetting our own dead when we
begin to waste sympathy because France has levied
execution for this reparatiOns debt.
"There was n default-clearly there was a de-
fault-in the reparations payable by Germany;
clearly there is no inclination on the part of the
staggered in 1914, 1915, 1916, and 1917 now whines
because he is beaten. Every bully whines when
he is beaten. Are We going to allow ourselves to
be deceived by that?
"What talk did we hear of unborn generations of
French when in 1916 and 1917 the Germans thought
they were going to win, and their experts we're
busy calculating what was the utmost franc they
could make France pay, and what was the utmost
pound that they could make Great Britain pay, and
what was the last dollar that they could squeeze
out of this great nation of ours, which they so
nightly envied? Did any of the Germans stop to
think about the unborn generations Of American
children whom they then proposed to tax? If they
did their voices did not reach our ears. There was
no sympathy shown them in what they were doing
and what they proposed to do to us.
"Of all the lost arts of which civilization is
deprived today, including the art of temperfng cop
per and the various arts of glass working that
are dead and that have disappeared from civiliza-
ton, there is no art that is so much missed as the
art of Winding ones own business.
at has fallen into disuse. We have forgotten
how to mind our own business. But in that, if
we can revive that art, lies the true American pol
icy. This affair is not our concern. We said we
did not want reparations; therefore we are not q
creditor. We need not show a pro-French sympathy
if for any reason we prefer not to, but for Gods
sake, let us not sympathize with the murderer. Let