Evening star., 1932-07-15
No Coercion of America.

President Hoover has poured a blast
of invigorating and clarifying fresh air
into the miasma of assertion and
counter assertion enveloping current
discussion of the reparations and war
debt controversy. "Gentlemen's agree
ments," new ententes cordiale, accords
and pacts, secret or open, to the con-
trary notwithstanding, the President, in
an informal note to Senator Borah, sets
forth the position CT the United States
tersely and unequivocally.
In a communication intended no less
for Europe because addressed to the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
chairman, Mr.. Hoover voices American
qualification over the reparations settle
ment. But in the same breath the
President brands reparations strictly
European problem and likens it to
"any of the other political or economic
questions that have impeded European
recovery"
Having thus deftly labeled reparations
as an exclusively European issue. Mr..
Hoover makes it absolutely clear that
the United States has had no part or
parcel in any of the stealthy, devious
or mysterious agreements recently con-
cluded at Lausanne. The President
adds, that "of course" our Government
Is in no respect committed to these
deals or the arrangements by which
they are docun1elted
The kernel OF Mr.. Hoover's brass
tacks contribution to the transatlantic
orgy of rumor. recrimination and re-
morse is the concluding passage Of his
message to Senator Borah. While
do not assume it to be the purpose of
any of these agreements" the P~esi-
dent says in language that will not fail
to soak in at Paris, London, Rome,
Brussels and Berlin, Ito effect COM
bined action of our debtors, If it shall
be so interpreted, then DO not propose
that the American people shall be
pressed into any line of action or that
our policies shall be in any way influ
enced by such a combination. either
open or implied"
In the American vernacular, 'that'S S
telling them" Indubitably there is need
of the telling, now that the world has
before its astonished gaze the precise
language of the gentlemen's agree
ment" The French government yes
terday unabashedly made its text public.
British Chancellor of the EXchequer
Chamberlain hastened to explain it.
The explanation" does not, because it
cannot, explain away the opening para
graph, wherein is set forth that "ratifi-
cation of the Lausanne agreement will
not be effected before satisfactory set
many's reparations creditors) and their
own creditors"
Here is at least one instance where
statesmen have not invoked the Talley-
rand theory Of using language to con-
ceal thought. They make it plain as a
pikestaff that Germany is not to be
let eff on reparations until the United
States lets Europe off on the American
war deptS. FTencn senator berenSeI
co-author of the Mellon -Berenger set
tlement, which funded the French debt
writes in the Revue de Paris with dis
arming frankness that "the gentlemen's
agreement constitutes for the first time
a European financial front against the
American creditor"
Well, all concerned know that the
European financial frcnt" is now faced
by the Hoover front. Behind that front
stand the American people. United
Europe will tilt against it in vain.
Nothing could conceivably have made
1t so impregnab.e front as the blum
dering tactics of the bunglers of Lau-