The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1934-02-22
True TO
Type
Dea Of Albert
Recalls 1918
Good Times
By GILBERT SELDES


of sorrow at the passing OF
King Albert seemed to me a
little more genuine than most
such things, and editorials and
private regret had something
which is rarely heard, a tone
Of complete honesty.
I think I know the reason:
Albert was the only leader dur
ing the war who was untouched
by the miseries of after-war;
he took no dominant part in
the Peace; so around his fig
ure we can crystalline all the
hopes and excitements and
ideals of the wartime.
His sudden death spins US
quickly back to the great good
times of 1918; and we regret
what we have lost, which is
nearly everything - and for
many people, that includes
honor as well.
It was Albert's good fortune
that he was not too important.
The living and the dead leaders
Of the time-Clemenceau, Lloyd
George, Orlando, Wilson-all
shared responsibility for Hitler
and Lenin and Dollfuss; for the
depression for the ervous
breakdown of Europe. They
were more powerful men and
they pay the penalty of power.
Albert was lucky.
In only one thing I suspect
commentators of doing the
grand official thing without con-
sidering the facts Of history.
They all praise Albert for re,
fusing to allow Germany to
march through Belgium; and
they do not say that if he had
allowed Germany to march
through, he would have been at
tackled by France and Great
Britain. He and his ministers
were choosing between two sys-
TENS of alliances and chose
- what seems to us the better one.
Carolina in the Morning
In a private letter, a gentle
man just returned from the
mid-South writes me that "the
plantation owners who have
been accustomed to paying their
Negroes IS cents a day, are
finding it impossible to get
them or anyone to work, so long
as this beneficient government
of ours is paying them $2.40
day for working on magnificent
roads, traversing the wilder
nesses, all of which roads, plan
tations, wildernesses, ETC., are
deserted awaiting the official
ukase that prosperity mas re-
turned"
The story has been told sew
eral times: A Chicago financler
announced that school teachers
ought to be satisfied with a
wage of 500 a month. When
a deputation asked him whether
his daughter could live on a
hundred a month, he replied
mo, but her maid can"
So the gentleman who saw
the South groaning under So. 40
day would hardly suggest
that he could live on IS cents.
But what is more important
than the comforts of the people
whose wage has been tripled,
is a whole series of facts, be-
ginning with the regrettable
one that many Of them no
longer were receiving IS cents
or 10 cents a day-they were
out of work
And ending with the more re
grettable fact that so long as
anyone got IS cents a day, the
business of this country was
diminished, because there
wasn't enough money in the
hands of people to buy what
the big factories manufactured.
In short, it may be a bad
thing to give little children an
allowance of $40 a week, or
grown up children a wage OF
$18 a week, but if you have
built up railroads and motor
car factories and a hundred
thousand other industries to
the point where they have to
turn out goods by the million,
YOU cannot consider the matter
personally. You have to give
high wages so that you can
sell your goods. 1t may be
immoral, but it remains good
business,