Evening star., 1946-10-08

I am so, so, so very sorry for HAL
mar Schacht. The firm he worked
for is out of business. The head of
the firm, Adolf Hitler, is dead.
The first vice president, Hermann
Goering, soon is to be the guest of
honor at a necktie party.
Mr.. Schacht is all alone. The man
who financed Hitler-which means
he organized the money which made
Poland a playground, Czechoslo-
.vakia summer retreat, France a
winter resort, and whose dollars
paid for the blitz which killed un-
told numbers of men, has no job.
want to be the first to offer Mr..
Schacht a job. I do not want him
to wander the face Of this earth
with nothing to do but associate
with fellow bankers.
Wins His Bet.
From here on out I get indignant.
From here on out I quit trying to
turn phrase. Mr.. Schacht is the
first man they should have hanged.
Before Goering, Mr.. Schacht should
have taken a short walk to the
gallows and had his filthy neck
broken.
There. are two reasons why he
should have suffered death on the
gallows. The first is this: He took
magnificent financial mind and
juggled and cheated and framed to
the point where he could finance
the worlds most diabolical bunch of
crooks.
The second reason: 1t was bad for
the morale of all decent people for
Mr.. Schacht to be acquitted. Three
months ago I bet $25 that Mr..
Schacht would be acquitted. Why
did I make this bet? Don't you
know? For the same reason that
most Americans would make the
bet. Mr.. Schacht is a banker. Mr..
Schacht knows Wall Street. He
knows the City in London and the
Bourse in Paris. There probably
isn't banking house in the world
into which Mr.. Schacht- couldnt t
walk and be served tea or coffee.
With the acquittal of schacht--
and I love that Russian Judge who,
in so many words said, String him
up, boys"-all of us who contributed
toward the finish of
World War II are branded as worth
less people. Schacht financed Hit
Ter, and it didn't count. What he
did with money. according to the
judges, meant nothing.
Those of us who bought Defense
Bonds, then War Bonds, then Saw
ings Bonds, can only draw one con-
cIusion from this: Our money meant
1t furthered nothing. Why
should you, having bought $500
worth of bonds, think that you were
serving your country when a man
who put billions to the use of Hitler
for war, Is given a clean bill Of
health, and turned loose on the
world.
Big, Fat Boy.
AS far as I'm concerned I would
have preferred that the judges hang
Schacht and turn Goering loose
I'll say one thing for Goering-you
could always find him out in the
open, medal-equipped
But want to give Mr. Schacht a
job. I am big enough to overlook
the fact that he was tried as a
criminal. I would like him to come
to New York and become runner
in Wall Street. I don't think he
would run more than one trip before
he would see half hundred men
who, in their Wall Street way, were
for his being set free.
Every defendant at Nuremberg
should have been hanged. Any man
who answered push button when
Hitler pushed 1t either didn't have
enough CUTS to quit, or enough CUTS
to tell the trial judges he was ready
to pay the price. Let me say once
again that the worst man with Hit
Ter was Schacht. He should have
been the first to go, with loose
moose, that wouldn't break his neck.
but would choke him.
In conclusion, money saved
Schacht. Laugh at all the gags
you want to, but the banker still lives
in the big house on the hill, has the
shortest hours, and in all the coun-
tries of the world, is still the big,
fat boy.