Newspaper Page Text
Vol. 37
s :
EDITORIALS AND SHORT COMMENTS ON THINGS IN GENERAL
THOS. E. WATSON.
WHY THE DELAY OF PEACE?
King Canute, President Wilson—House,
Bernard Baruch, and the Mutual
Insurance League of Despoilers.
Of course you remember what was done by
King Canute: he took a seat on his royal chair, on
the ocean-beach, and he ordered the Atlantic Ocean
to halt its in-coming tide. ,
With brutal disregard of His Majesty’s com¬
mand, the Atlantic waves came pouring in upon
the beach, higher and higher, until Canute had to
get up and scoot.
President Wilson-House rose in his Mighty
Power, and crossed the Mighty Deep, telling the
9 United States to stop moving until he got hack.
Then, having gallivfhted and junketed all over
Europe, and talked himself into a state of tem¬
porary exhaustion, he left the Old World, to cross
back to this Land of the Brave, telling Europe to
stop moving until his return.
Well, the world did not stGp moving on either
iide of the Pond. •
On the contrary, the tide kept on rising so fast,
both here and in Europe, that our Presidential
hvphen finds himself doing what Canute did—
making tracks to the rear.
In this somewhat hurried and disorderly retreat
from his position on the. League —which admitted of
no amendments —he is secretly assisted by that
worthy brother, Bernard Baruch; and he is open¬
ly, uproariously aided by that other worthy patriot,
William Howard Taft.
Oh yes, the League which Wilson said should
not be amended, is being amended by Taft, at the
earnest request of Wilson.
How fine it is to see a Republican, of the Gug¬
genheim -Bal li nge r-Wicker si i a m-,T ohn Hayes Ham¬
mond stripe vociferously helping a Democrat, of the
Morgan - House-Burleson - Hoover - Creel - Baruch
stripe! Thus mutualities of noble aspirations festoon
do
with vines and blossoms the dividing wall of party
politics.
But what delays the Peace?
Why is it that month after month rolls by,
without bringing tne worici nearer ro a real armis¬
tice? A
While President Wilson-House-Baruch has
been reeling off rhetorical rhapsodies about the
English League of Nations, peace has had to wait.
England enjoys a monoply of our cotton-buy
ing, while the embargo stays on: and England en
courages the delay, in order that her factories shall
malrt! the most of the monopoly. *
The High Contracting Powers are allowing
American foodstuffs to go to Germany, but no
cotton, ,
Give the hungry Huns all the bread and meat
they Avant, but don’t let them start to Avork in the
cotton mills!
Why not ? -Because England, France and the
American Cotton-mill Trust are afraid the Germans
will jump into the world-markets and yet ahead of
them.
Monopoly prices exist in those world-markets,
and the Big Business which coined so many billions
of profit out of the blood of soldiers, does not want
German goods to invade (.hose monopolized mar¬
kets. An influx of German products would mean a
drop in .-monopoly prices.
Hence, keep the embargo and let peace wait.
That’s all there is to it: the greed of cotton
manufacturers of America, England and France
inspires Wilson to consume time on his League,
procrastinate on the Treaty of Peace, and thus
prolong the embargo which is paralyzing the
Southern States.
Who can explain the mystery of “Colonel”
House ?
Who and what is he?
When did these United States make him Am
bassador-in-Chief?
Who pays hipi, and how much?
Nobody can answer.
What is the explanation of the predominant in¬
fluence of Bernard Baruch—the gentleman from
Jerusalem who made so many millions on that
famous “peace leak,” which whispered its way
from the White House in the winter of 1915?
Why are the Morgan banking interests repre¬
sented at .the Peace Conference, by Lamont, a mem¬
ber of the firm?
There is a Morgan bank in Paris, one in Lon¬
don, one in New York: like the Rothschilds, the
Steel Trust, the Oil Tyust, and the Munitions
Trust, this Morgan financial interest is inter¬
national.
To what extent are these representatives of
Big Business promoting the League and delaying
the Peace?
In the meantime, the tides of racial feeling con
tinue to advance: the organization of the producing
( CONTINUED ON PAGE TWO.)
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LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING ABOUT EGYPT.
It is a land of one river, created by the river,
kept alive by the river, never out of sight of the
river, enriched by the river—such is Egypt,
Far away in darkest Africa, the Nile comes
down from mountain and lake, to find its way
through* marsh and over cataract toward the
Mediterranean Sea.
On the East, a vast desert of Arabian sands;
upon the West, a vast desert of Lybian sands; be¬
tween, is Egypt, the narrow strip of valley which
the swift river won from the deserts, at the be¬
ginning of Time, and holds, by reason of the year¬
ly floods that deluge the mountains of Negroland,
overflow the Albert and Nyanza Lakes, and come
pouring down the Nile to overflow and enrich the
Valley of Osiris.
The rains fall in far off Africa, not in Egypt;
and the yearly deposit of fresh mud is Dome
thousands of miles by the river, before it is spread
abroad over the Egyptian fields.
For many reasons, Egypt is a land of en¬
chantment to those who travel and to those who
read books: its appeal to the imagination is con
stant and irresistible.
x You cannot think of sacred history, without
thinking of Egypt.
You cannot move a step in profane history,
without finding yourself in Egypt—where Herodo¬
tus travelled, where Moses studied, where Cambyses
conquered, where Ethiopians ruled, where As¬
syrians where Alexander triumphed, where Pharaohs’temples stood;
the Great lay dead in his coffin of
gold; where Caesar was almost defeated, where
Pompey was slain, where Cleopatra made love t'o
Marc Antony, and Antony threw a world away for
a woman; where fanatical Christian monks mur
dered Hypatia, and burnt the collected literature
of the Ancient world.
After it'was the Grecian conquest. came too Rowwn >
and upon the wheat, grown in this Valley of
the Nile, that the Roman populace depended for its
daily dole of bread.
After the Roman, came the Mohammedan;
and the Egyptian wheat, for ages, fed Constantino¬
ple, as it had formerly fed imperial Rome.. (A. D.
640 et seq.)
And now, at last,, the English have ousted the
Sultans of Turkey, and it i§ the devoutly Chris¬
tian British who will, henceforth and forever,
“spoil the Egyptians.”
How did this change take place? How did
Egypt happen to fall into the mercilessly rapacious
clutch of England?
It is a story of modem High Finance; a story
of the reckless debtor and the usurious creditor; a
story of unscrupulous European Shylocks dealing
with helplessly weak Oriental borrowers; a story
of the unwary signers of bonds, remorselessly op¬
pressed by the bondholders; a story of European
soldiers, ruthlessly used by European governments,
to accomplish the purposes of the ravenous bank¬
ers of Paris and London.
The story is so recent,, so tragic, so illustrative
of the methods by which Money uses Governments
that the facts ,
are worthy of your attention.
After the Mohammedans conquered Egypt, it.
remained under the rule of the Caliphs, or Sul¬
tans, until Napoleon Bonaparte invaded the cou li¬
try and temporarily set up the French government
there. (1798). Later—Napoleon having returned to
France—the English landed an army in Egypt,
for the purpose of expelling the French. This,
they could not quite do; but finally the French
agreed to leave, if the English would carry them
home.
The English agreed; and so the French troops
made their return trip, just in the nick of time, to
save Napoleon, in Italy, at the battle of Marengo.
Having rid Egypt of the French, the English
felt unable to hold it against the Turks: conse
quently, the rule of the Sultan was re-established
along the Nile.
The Khedive—Viceroy—paid annual tribute to
the Turkish government at Constantinople, and
furnished Egyptian troops to the Sultan’s army,
whenever occasion required.
The greatest of the Viceroys, was Mohammed
A7 Avho governed Egypt from 1806 to his death in
1849. He introduced European discipline into the
army, and he made life and property safe from
marauders. He also gave the utmost, encourage
ment to agriculture and commerce, promoting edu
cation, and establishing law, order, and tranquility
throughout the "Wiley. "
Ambitious to found an independent empire, he
defied the Sultan of Turev, defeated his army, con
quered Syria, and seemed certain of taking'Con¬
stantinople fareat itself, when the Quadruple Alliance,
led by Britain, stepped in and saved the Turk.
Mohammed Ali was succeeded by his grand-
Harlem, Ga., Friday, April 4, 1919.
son, Abbas; and, after Abbas, came Said Pasha, in
1854—who in turn was succeeded by his nephew,
Ismail. (1863)
It was Ismail who built the huge irrigation
dam, at C airo; built railroads, built extensive sys¬
tems of irrigation, built palaces, built mosques,
built telegraph lines, built bridges of iron, built or
bought steamboats—and built up debts that were
the ruin of himself and Ms country.
It came about quite natuarlly; at least, it ap¬
pears natural to those of us who are familiar with
the methods of European finance.
Said Pasha had granted to Ferdinand de
Lesseps—the plausible, polished, unscrupulous
French scoundrel—a franchise to cut a canal be¬
tween the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
This franchise Avas expressly subject to the
approval of the Sultan, and Avas, in any event, not
to cost Egypt anything.
De Lesseps immediately went to selling Canal
stock in Paris. London, and wherever else he could
find purchasers. He also commenced work on the
canal, without waiting for the Sultan’s approval.
But De Lesseps could not dispose of all the
stock: he had sold 222,358 shares: there was no
market for the remaining 177,642 shares: England
had no desire for them, then.
In this emergency, De Lesseps persuaded the
Khedive to buy the unsold stock for the Egyptian
government, at very noarlv it face value, or $17,
“64,000.
Thus was Egypt harpooned.
Along with the concession to build the Suez
Canal, between the salt-water seas, the Khedive had
granted to Do Lesseps the right to open a fresh¬
water canal, tapping the Nile at Cairo and convey¬
ing a portion of it to the Suez Canal, for drinking
^fposon, ol wntso.' .^M^f*** yy .
But it came to pass that De Lesseps stfw too
many difficulties that might arise in connection
with his fresh-water ditch; therefore, he voluntar¬
ily surrendered to the Egyptian government that
port of its concession.
In this surrendered concession, there had been
clauses Avhich bound the Khedive to furnish forced
labor , at a nominal price; to donate to De Lesseps’
company the desert land along the canal; and to
enjoy the privilege of selling water to the natives
for irrigation purposes.
Having securely hooked his big fish by the
sale of the minority stock in the* salt-water,I com
mercial Suez Canal, De Lesseps norv proceeded to
put forward enormous claims for damages inflicted
upno his Company, by his own failurt to ad upo i
the concession to dig the fresh-water ditch.
It is an amazing chapter in High Finance and
Lofty Rascality.
De Lesseps -proposed that his preposterous
claims for damages be referred to the pinchbeck
French Emperor, Napoleon III., as sole arbitrator.
The helpless Khedive, not knowing what else
to do, submitted.
Napoleon III. promptly signed the award
Avhich bad been prepared by the lawyer of the Suez
•Canal Company!
This award gave the Company 84,000,000
francs—about $16,800,000—damages for the cheap
labor, the sand desert, and the Avater-sale priviliges,
for a canal which De Lesseps had had a concession
to dig, hut which he did not dig, and which he, on
the contrary, ased the. Khedive to dig.
Refreshed and encouraged by this Napoleonic
award, De Lesseps rose and came again: he demand¬
ed a large sum for the mud-huts he had built, in
anticipation of his digging the fresh-water ditch;
and he also demanded pay for the fish that might
have come into the fresh-water canal —had he
digged it—and Avhich his Company might have
caught and sold—had the fish arrived in the ex¬
pected jibnndance.
The Khedive Avas so frightened at the idea of
having Napoleon HI. pass upon these additional
claims, that he hastily compromised with De Les¬
seps, agreeing to pay 30,000,000 francs—about $6,
000,000 —for the unused huts and the uncaught fish.
By such base impositions as this, Egypt, came
to be put under the yoke of an unpayable debt,
of seventy-five dollars upon every cultivated acre
of land!
| ’ s on lY country on earth, so far as I
cnow - where every fruit-tree (the date-palm) pays
k-poll-taai.
j Thus the French Empire of Napoleon III.
<ts P°i'cd the Egyptians;" “watchful but the English Avere on
the alert,.with waiting:” Egypt, was too
*1 tiling f°r England not to be jealous and
covetous,
So it came to pass, (1875) that Disraeli, the
British Premier, objected to France’s proposed pur¬
chase of Egypt’s shares in the Suez Canal; but the
(continued on page two.)
Issued Weekly
J
What’s Become of Those (14
Points ?
At the beginning of last year—or to be exact,
on Jan. 8, 1918—President Wilson-House made his
glorious declaration of the terms upon which he
consent to stop the Great War and recreate the
modern world.
Those 14 Points were as follows:
!•—End of secret diplomacy.
2. —Freedom of the seas.
3. —Removal of trade barriers,
4. —Reduction of armaments.
A—Settlement of colonial claims in accordance
with the interests of the population.
9- Evacuation of and freedom of Russia.
7.—Restoration of Belgium.
Evacuation of France and return of Alsace
and Lorraine.
9.—Return of Italia Irredenta.
10. —Self-rule for nations held subject by Aus¬
tria-Hungary. (This has been followed by
the American recognition of Czecho-Slova
kia as an independent state.)
11. —Restoration of the Balkan states.
12. —Self-rule for subject states of Turkey.
13. —Polish independence.
iE—h- league of nations to prevent future ag¬
gression.
A year and three months have passed since
these Fourteen meteoric splendors 'flamed in the
heavens, while sapient mankind fell down, in rap¬
turous adoration.
England rejoiced to hear the Fourteen oracles;
so did France: so did Italy; so did Germany.
In fact, Germany wa -• even mpve enthusiastic
than England: the Old Crowd, controlling things at
Berlin, swallowed all fourteen of the Points with¬
out the bat of an eye.
mmm Now let us consider these 14 Rev jpuns—m-'
spired^ glorified, .
ty “morel:" transcendental, iPvr.hhtpHJEjitfajfVu Altruistic, and
su
, if not intensely moral.) 1
“1-—The end of secret diplomacy.”
Has it ended? Not yet. Secret diplomacy, of
the d—dest, secretest sort, has been juggling bphi
locked doors for the last free months, and it is just
beginning to get its hand in.
Secret diplomacy will doubtless end whea
Gabriel blows his what-you-call-it, but not, before.
Consequently, Point 1. goes to the scrap bean.
“2.—Freedom of the seas.”
I seem to remember the* we Avont into the War
upon this question.
England blockaded Germany, and Germany
blockaded England; but wo particularly abhorred
the German blockade, and so we. went into the War,
to vindicate the neutrals' rights to free sdas.
Is it not so? The record shows that it is. so.'
But what has become of this Cause of War—
this casus belli?
It has gone to the ‘scrap pile.
The League of Nations contains no such pro¬
vision. Queer, isn’t it?
“3.—Removal of trade barriers.”
Protective tariffs are the most viciously ef¬
fective trade barriers that human greed for
monopoly ever devised: does the League of Nations
abolish prohibitive tariff's?
Not at all—so here goes another Point to the
Avasto heap.
“4.—Reduction d¥ armaments.”
Almost before this Point had ceased to excite
the admiration of approving humanity, President
Wilson-House cabled, from Paris to Washington,
demanding an increase of $700,000,000, for en¬
larged naval armament, and the Prussian General
Staff, at Washington, were clamoring for a standing
nr my of a million men.
Knglaml followed suit, increased her navy, and
forcibly held 900,000 of her conscripts for further
military service.
France is moving along the same lines, and so
aro Japan and Italy.
Armaments have not been reduced, and are not
going to bp. Nobody but the visionaries noAV ex
pect it. x
-‘Settlement of colonial claims in nceor-'
dance'with the interests of the population.”
I Ins Point was deceptive on the face of it: the
word -interests deprived the “population” of its
nghts, while ostensibly safe-guarding them.
Colonial claims are not being settled according
to the wishes and the rights of the colonial popula
tmn else Egypt would escape the awful yoke of
- they
were. as once
G^ Good 7 ? Lord Vfl 7 ! ! at Right, i 0 \ and now, freedom an American of k™.”
occupying Russia and slaughtering army J is
Right now, French troops Russians.
wage war Russia. occupy J ‘ R, lgsia s a> an $
Enslwh upon
forces ( ] oinB tlle „ . V'to
(Continued to evaroate R nda Jf ^
on Page —■—
/Vo. 28.