Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1933-01-18
THE SENATE AND DEBT CANCELLATION

The question of World war debts to the united States
and their proposed cancellation got a thorough airing IN
the United States senate the other day and if any of the
nations which owe has conceived the idea from the state
ments of our international bankers and internatlonahst
newspapers that Uncle Sam was on the verge of agreeing
to cancellation the report of the senatorial debate must
have come to it as a rude shock. Not a voice was raised
in favor of cancellation. Many arguments were proposed
against it.
One of the favorite arguments of the internationalistsI
who want debt cancellation is that by relieving Europe of
its honest debts we will enable Europeans to buy more
goods from us and thus restore prosperity. But the inter
nationalist fail to tell us that every dollar so added to
the purchasing power of Europe will be a dollar taken
from the purchasing pow er of America for the reason
that American taxpayers will have to pay the war debt
bill if Europe defaults. Senator Reed In the war debate
above mentioned clears up the point with a great deal of
vigor. In part, he said:
cit seems to me that no more trivial and ridiculous arg
ument has been offered than that which has been so often
uttered in recent days, to the effect that to take a burden
off the European taxpayers and put 1t on to the American
taxpayers is going to increase American prosperity.
obviously, by so much as we increase the purchasing
power of the European, by exactly that same amount We
diminish the purchasing power of the American, and it is
only upon the theory that the Europeans, having the pun
chasing power, would buy more American goods than
would an American with the same purchasing power that
we can conceive of any possible advantage to America,
and we all know that no situation exists.
'I have been very impatient with the sort Of propa-
ganda that has been used to induce the American congress
to agree to a further reduction of these debts. 1t has been
wholly unfair
One of the most telling points made in the debate was
made by Senator Johnson of California, who pointed out
that a great deal of encouragement for cancellation which
Europe has received and which has inspired countries like
France to default on the debt has come from the Amerl-
can internationalists whom Senator Johnson APPLY termed
the american Foreign Legion In paying his respects
to these gentlemen Senator johnson said:
''While I deprecate the actions of those countries
abroad, while | regret that they do not honor their obliga-
tions and have not kept their national faith, my feeling is
deeper, it is much more intense, for those who live in this
land, and profit from living here, but who render these
defaulting nations in every contest they have with ours all
the aid and all the comfort they can.
''The people for whom I feel the deepest resentment are
not those across the sea because maintaining our self re-
spect will ultimately make them regain theirs; the people
for whom | have resentment are the men who call them
selves Americans and in their inferiority complex and
their flatulent toadyism are doing constantly what they
think will win them a little flattery abroad. That is the
class of people | cry out against.
''The press that thinks as its masters, the international
bankers and international finance desire, those who re-
spond to the cry Of the dollar and who wish to act for
those across the water, they are the ones that have led us
into this morass =
"Many of them, l have no doubt, hold United States
bonds. Let me tell these great newspapers and these in
ternationalists one way in which it might be possible for
us to remit a part of the foreign debt. Let me suggest to
those who want to remit that debt and who want to re-
duce or cancel it, that they walk up to the treasury coun-
ter with their own Liberty bonds and their Victory bonds
and say, as patriotic Americans they ought to say: I'VE
want Europe released, but under the Providence of God
we ask that America be released too, and here are our
bonds
81 venture to say, sir, that if we were to enter into an
agreement by which there would be some sort of a remis-
sion of the Indebtedness of Europe under such terms, one
could stand on Pennsylvania Avenue until he was petri-
fled into an Egyptian mummy and there would not be an
international banker or a member of the international
press that would walk down there and yield up his bonds
for America and American citizens