Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-08-30
WORLD CALAMITY AVERTED
BY RAPIDAN INFLUENCE
Conference of Macdonald and Hoover
Seen Preparing Two Great Nations to
Act in Harmony i'm Later Strains.

Appeals for lower tariff walls. II is
suggested, could be addressed with more
reason to Continental Europe than TO
the United States. Moreover, it is
pointed out in responsible circles that
the American tariff is constructed SCI
entiflcally to prevent low-coSt foreign
goods from underSelling high-cost do
nestle goods in the American market,
thus threatening the American living
standard--a threat promising no good
to anybody-whereas no foreign living
standard is threatened by goods which
are product Of a lower standard in
the United States
If you itch to knock of tariff bricks,
knock them of where they are least JUS
titled and highest"
That is probably what President Hoo
Yer himself would say to you if he said
anything.
World solvency through debt remis-
sions scarcely sits smiling to the Wash
ington governmental soul. Banker AL
bert H. Virgins International Finance
Committee has emphasized the burden
Of the worlds debts. Very well.' one
can hear an administration spokesman
saying, lets tackle the problem first by
doing something about Europe's expend-
iture of $4,000. 000, 900 year for hypo-
thetic wars, which were outlawed I'M
equivocally and utterly in 1928. That
colossal cost properly reduced, we can
see, or begin to see, whether this nation
or that Is or Is not able to pay its
debts. Until then the phrase capacity
TO pay must have a hollow suggestion.
War debt cancellations for war financing
can have no place in any policy outside
a lunatic asylum"
Pacts and EntangIementS.
Now We come to pacts. It is rather
hard to find any responsible politician
in Washington who Is crazy about
them. Frances appetite for psctS is
considered gargantuan. She eats them
up, but they do not seem to do her any
good. She ceaselessly cries OUT for
more. Washington Is astonished.
why" it argues, IF the pacts we have
are no good how can any pacts be any
good? Besides, to go on piling up pacts
is extensively implicative with reference
to the spirit and the purpose behind the
pacts already made"
II you have a new international
peace pact to sell, hardly should ad-
wise you to bring it to this market.
MY concluding word shall be relative
to the question of Americas status
among the political sovereignties of the
earth. Are we still free, or are We
Vulgarly. President Hoover has been &C
cused Of splitting. or tending to get in
the way Of splitting. the traditional
beans. ] guess he has not done it. We
are still free. We have postponed the
collection OF some war debts. That is
all.
Not that we have escaped foreign at
tention, foreign hattery, looking to our
being taken for a diplomatic ride.
Nearly all our overseas friends have
been after us. Germany has desired
us TO sit IN on her claims against
France. and France against Germany.
Foreign counselors, official and nom
ofdcial--quite within their expositcry
and arguEnentative rights, 10 be sure
have jostled one another in the press
TO foreclose our action with regard to
an aggressor.
But We rigidly have preserved our
right to choose our course In any emer-
gency.
And We shall continue to preserve
that right.