Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1932-03-24
TELEPHONE NUMBER NINE
AMERICAN ECONOMIC IGNORANCE

ldihcNA DllGon hNh1OCl VI l. &" ndllCn
chairman of the Engineering Employers Association, in
a recent speech at Birmingham favoring reimbursement or
reputation of the American debt, or consent by the Unit
ed States to taking pay for the cash our government loan
ed the Allies, in their cheap labor products to the dis
placement of our own employment, said:
American politicians dare not challenge the ignorance
of their people on questions of international economics. y
Americans are indeed a simple minded folk. They
have some old fashioned ideas not modified by the intri-
cacies of international economics. y
They believe, for instance, that having entered a war
they had nothing to do with starting, and from which they
did MOI expect to and did not profit, but heavily lost, that
the nations they saved from defeat, loss of territory and
payment of indemnities, ought to be grateful rather than
r%esentful for the aid they gave.
They have the simple minded idea that when an indi-
vldual, or a nation, in deep distress and need, borrows
money to ward off disaster, those who loaned the money
IN the emergency are entitled to have some of it back.
They are innocent enough to think that having built
up a standard of wages and living twice as high as that
prevailing in the European nation of highest standards,
England, and five times as high as those of the European
nation OF lowest standards, Soviet Russia, there is no JUS
LITIGATION for refusing to protect their own standards of
wages and living against these lower standards. They
are ignorant enough to believe that the European system
OF increasing production by machine and mass methods,
while permitting wages and consuming power to sink,
rather than rise, is self-destructive in Europe and would
be in the United States if accepted here.
They are gulleless enough to think that if European
nations have money enough to spend more money on arm
les than they spent before the World war, they have mon
ey enough to pay part of their honest debts.
When it comes to the plea of Mr.. Ramsey that by going
off the gold standard England has increased her debt to
this country in pounds, that this debasing of tie currency,
intended to reduce wages and production costs and thus
forge a more deadly weapon of cheapness in foreign CON-
petition, is one which j~ustifies payment of the British
debt to America in this debased currency, the American
people are childish enough to believe that this is a policy
for which Britons, and not Americans, are responsible,
and affords no good reason for asking us to accept the re-
turn OF our money in marbles or chalk.
1t is not surprising that foreign industrialists and pol
ltlclans think the American people ignorant on foreign
affairs. That ignorance they have freely played upon in
Inc past. They have played upon it, for instance, when
they invited America into a war for high ideals without
telling them that they had made a treaty in advance d.
vldIng up the territory of which the Central Powers were
to be %despolled. They played upon that ignorance, or
rather misplaced confidence, when they took the spoils
OF war and tried to hand the United States the League of
Natlons as It's reward for having entered the struggle: al
league that clearly has been employed as an instrument.
ior natlonal advantage, rather than for world peace and
justice.
The American people may be ignorant and inexperienc-
ed In the Held OF international economies. This NAV ac-
count for the fact that between the Civil War and tbe
World War the United States became the richest nation
In the world, and what is better the nation in which there
was the widest diffusion of wealth accumulated AMONG
millions OF people. At the same time England. with her
program OF international economics, was losino her no.
sltlon OF commercial and financial dominance Inst ba-
lore the World War our rate Of growth in national wealth
was rapidly increasing. Between 1904 and 1912-eiobt
years-we increased our national wealth seventv-two nor
cent, or at the rate of nine per cent a year. Then we be-
gan to substitute international for national economies,