Montana labor news., 1933-11-02
THE WASHINGTON
|SCENE : By Laurence Todd

WASHINGTON-(FP)- Unrepent-
ant at the misery their greed and
laundering have brought upon the
country, the chief finahciers of Wall
Street continue to parade across the
witness stand before the Senate Bank
ing and Currency Committee, while
their lawyers and lobbyists and press
agents spread predictions that the
voters will "come back to banking
leadership" in the congressional cleo
ton of next year. Wall Street is
afraid of Roosevelt the politician, but
it is recovering its nerve by watch
ing the steady infiltration of its own
picked lieutenants into the staffs of
the NRA, the Agra, the Public Works
| Administration and a score of other
agencies of the government. Con-
fident of the loyalty Of these hundreds
of men whom it has trained, the bank
ing oligarehy has sent them into gov
eminent service in preparation for the
overthrow of the present Roosevelt
policies and a headlong plunge of
the country back into normal UNI
regulated stock-promotion and wage
cutting.
A typical scene: Before the SEN
ate committee, Oct. "a, comes Lawyer
Nudge, hair-splitting adviser to
Chase National Bank, to argue for
half an hour with Special Counsel Pc
cora that the $40, OO0. 900 loan made
ton for the exchange of the "My Dear
President" letters.
For my own part, strongly as l
have been in favor of the recognition
of Russia since the Bolshies got on
the job, I'm glad it hasn't come any
sooner. | shudder at what might
have happened if recognition had been
granted in the days of Harry Daugh-
erty, Albert Fall, Jerry Smith and
the rest of the Ohio gang. You see
countries, like individuals, are often
judged by the kind of friends they
make.
Worse still, if Russia had been rec
ognized then, the American capital
that flowed to Germany and South
America would have gone to Russia,
and with capital always goes its sup
porting institutions such as graft, de-
hatchery and corruption. With oodles
of American money to handle, some
of the new commissars might easily
have succumbed to the lure of the
filthy lucre. Instead of pay as you
90, Russia would have borrowed the
money as it went. By now it would
be ten or twenty billion dollars in
debt to American investors. 1t
couldn't pay in gold, because there
isn't that much gold. And if it tried
to pay in goods, our infant indus
tries would yell dumping" and Con-
gress would raise the tariff to pre-
vent Russia from paying us, as it GER
tainly did in the case of Germany and
our Allies. Then being unable to dis
charge its obligations lit hired the
money!, the Russian bonds would be
defaulted. Thereupon, all the best
people would boiler reputation anC
we might not have spoken to Russia
for the next few centuries.
As it is, all the Russians borrowed
from us were our engineers, who
didn't mind getting borrowed, having
nothing to do at home no how. L
sweated the capital for the building
up of its Industrial life out of its owl
flesh and bone. Moreover, with al
1.-THE bourgeois countries solidly arrayet
against it, it was compelled to go its
own way, developing the social insti
buttons most suitable to its racial char
acteristics. Thus new forms of hu.
man industrial and property relation
ships evolved that perhaps will serve
as guides for others to follow. Any
how, it looks as if the ways pursued
by this so-called western civilization
is leading straight to hell.
#@&
Another reason why | welcome this
tardy recognition Of Russia is that i
it had come ten or twelve years ago
it would have been the kind Of recog
milton a well-fed bourgeois extends t,
a poor relative, whereas now it's 4;
case of meeting a prospective Uncl'
BIN. For. there is no blinking tn,
fact that, no unforeseen event inter
] vening, Russia will soon be the rich
est, most powerful, and what's NOR,
! important, perhaps the highest civil
lied country Of the old world. Rus
STA is up and coming. All the other
are down and going. So as my oil,
friend, Bill Shakespeare, aptly re
marked some time ago, "All's wei