Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-22
PREPARATION SNARL
CONFRONTS HOOVER
President-EIect Likely to
Face War Debts as First
International Issue.

With the formal selection of Owen D.
Young and J. Plerpont Morgan as the
American members of the new German
Preparations Commission, Washington is
taking stock of the attitude the Hoover
administration is likely to adopt toward
a revised Dawes plan. Even if the
commission gets down to business in
Europe at once, its deliberations hardly
will have been completed before March
4. That means that American policy,
as it may be affected by the commits
Sion's decisions, will be formulated by
President Hoover and his cabinet,
rather than by the outgoing admins
tration. The reparationS revision is al
together likely to be the first important
foreign affair to engross the attention
OF the incoming regime at Washington.
Unless Mr.. Hoover has radically
altered his viewpoint on the principal
questions at issue, his position toward
separations, war debts and huge Ger
man bond issue can be foreshadowed.
The President-elect, in the first place,
holds reparatlonS to be a purely Eu-
ropean proposition, except as to the ga
per cent of the grand total allocated to
the United States for Rhine army oc-
cupatlon costs and the annuity due
american claimants against Germany.
AS he considers reparations, a matter
to be adjusted exclusively between Ger
many and her allied creditors. the
Hoover view is that this debt owed by
Germany to Great Britain, France.
Italy, Belgium and her other World
war foes has nothing whatever to do
with what European allied governments
owe to the United States Treasury. The
PreSldent-elect is a member of the
World War Debt Funding Commission.
During several of the funding nego-
tlatlons with European countries
especially those with France-the COM
mission was confronted by the theory,
widely held on the other side that
America ought to revise the war debts
downward in accordance with anv re-
auction OF the German reparations
total. Mr.. Hoover consistently and
resolutely opposed that theory. He held
ana holds, that reparations and debts
are unrelated.
Hated by Wall Street.
In the days when the President-elect
was candidate for Republican presi-
genital nomination, it became known
tnat wall Street" and especially the
so-caiied international bankers" did
not IKE him. A young Wall Street
magnate, Lewis L. Straus, of Kuhn.
Time private secretary, testified before
the Senate campaign funds inyestigat-
ing committee last Spring that Hoover
was persona non grata in lower Broad
way and Its famous financial cross
StreeC. The reasons are we'll known to
insiders, both at New YORK and at
washington. The international bank
ers" disapprove of Hoover because of
MS attitude toward foreign loans in the
United States. The President-elect al
ways was regarded as inspirer-in-c chief
OF the Coolidge administrations de-
termlned opposition to loans marketed
IN the United States by overseas gov
ernmentS Tor non-constructive" pur-
poses. Hoover frowned upon the idea
VI american dollars financing naval and
mLltary expansion in Europe and else
Where. The result of the adoption of
a corresponding attitude by the Cooiidoe
administration was that wall Street"
practically found itself compelled to
seek WaShington'S official sanction be-
fore underwriting huge international
Dono issue. Just how many prospective
deals" OF that sort were wrecked. and
now much in fat underwriting profits
was thus lost to New York financiers is
not known. But the net effect was that
Hoover got the lions share of the credit
Ior placing this Federal Semi-embargo
on Wall Streets" customary practice
Of taking up foreign flotations prac-
tlcally without stint.
On another clearly drawn European
American issue, Hoover never has seen
eye to eye with certain European states
men. That issue is based on the theory
that the World War was Uncle Sans
war from the outset, just as much as
it was the war of the powers that bat
tied Germany without our cooperation
from 1914 to 1917. A year or so ago, the
President-elect said: 1.-THE idea that
the war was as much our war as any
ones Is a theory with some logical
consequences, on which its advocates
don't appear to have reckoned. If the
war was ours as much as any ones,
its entire cost from the beginning would
require assessment, including the
capitalized value of human life, and we
should be under the necessity of paying
according to our wealth. In other
words, having paid already total of
about sec, 600, 900 900 on account of this
war in Europe. We should be billed for
another $40,000,000,00, or So"
Believes They Can Pay.
Hoover has no doubt that the allied
governments who borrowed war money
from the United States Treasury-ie.,
from the American people-can pay.