The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-09-30

House, he was told, had decided
that the President was lost I'M
less he got on the bsndwagon of
preparedness.
To get preparedness one must
of course build up menace
against which to prepare; the
German menace was developing
rapidly under all this bellicoSe
enthusiasm and it scarcely
Smoothed the way of the Lusi-
tania writing which had
been going on in the meanwhile.
The result was another note on
July 81, sitter than the earlier
ones. The astute Bernstorff saw
that matters were threatening TO
get out of hand.
With skill and subtlety he
worked at his own idea of utiliz-
ing a frank surrender on the $40
marine issue as a means of pur-
chasing drastic action by the
United States against the British
blockade.
THEN, on Aug. 10, there came
Il disaster. The White Star
liner Arabic was torpedoed and
sunk without warning in the Irish
Channel, with the loss of A lives,
two of them American citizens.
MY laboriously constructed dip
lomatic ediflce," as Bernstorff
afterward put it, came tum-
bling about my ears and things
looked blacker than ever"
But the relative inefficacy of the
submarine feet at that time was
a fact too obstinate to be over
come.
On Sept. Count Bernstorff,
stretching his actual instructions
to the limit, gave Mr.. Lansing
his governments formal assur-
ance that passenger liners would
not thereafter be tOrpedOed eX-
cept with due warning and prOvi-
sion for the safety of nOn-cOm-
batantS.
Throughout the summer pros
perity had been rising in an ever
dizzier curve; by October the
railway terminals were beginning
to break down under a greater jam
of traffic than had been witnessed
in the most prosperous years Of
the past. But how were the AL
lies to go on paying for it?
THEY could not buy without
i dollar credits and they we're
reaching the end of their dollars.
1t was a difficulty foreseen by
our own patriotic bankers even
before it was observed by the AL
lies, and as early as June j. P.
Morgan & co, had begun to be
alarmed by a situation so men
acing, as Mr.. Lamont has since
put it, TO the British treasury
and American agricultural and
manufacturing interests
]. P. Morgan g. Co. we're not
firm to forget their responsible
ties to American agriculture and
manufacturing interests, and the
patriotic idea occurred to them
that the fiotation of a war loan
would solve the problem.
In June when they had first
opened the idea to the Allies, the
latter had been uninterested; by
September. however, their crisis
was already acute.
On Sept. 10 an Anglo-F French
Joint High Commission, headed
by Lord Reading. landed in New
York with the purpose of selling
to the American people their first
big Allied war loan.
= Il
THE Morgans signed a contract
l. with the Reading commission
on Sept. 25. The loan was for
s500,O00,00O and it was issued with
a 2 per cent spread" through a
syndicate of 81 New York houses
with 1900 members throughout the
country, and on Oct. IA the books
were closed.
The Anglo-French loan of 1915
was, of course, only the forerun-
ner of later and much larger oper-
ationS. What it meant was that
the last difficult hurdle had been
taken; the device had been pro-
vided which permitted the En-
tente to call without restraint
upon an American market which,