Morgan Accepts

The most august place in the U. S. is probably the J. P. Morgan library, No. 29 E. 36th St., Manhattan.

The white stone library is not part of Mr. Morgan's residence. It is a Grecian marble treasure house, enclosing two lofty rooms of sombre Renaissance magnificence. One contains the great financier's desk, with a paper weight impossible for a child to lift because it is of pure massy gold. The other room is the library proper, with a huge hearth, on either side of which stand ancient columns of lapis lazuli. Around the library runs an overhanging gallery; and the walls are tiered with volumes more precious than gold itself. The effect is solemn and unostentatious, since where all is priceless nothing can obtrude in garish splendor. Here, last week, John Pierpont Morgan took three minutes to receive and accept the invitation of the Great Powers to sit on the Second Dawes Plan Committee (TIME, Jan. 14).

The bearer of the invitation was Sir Esme Howard, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps at Washington, Ambassador of His Britannic Majesty. Present and also invited by the Powers was Owen D. Young, chairman of the General Electric Co., chairman of the Radio Corp. of America, chief collaborator with General Dawes on the original Plan. Officially Mr. Young and Mr. Morgan will rank as equals on the new Committee; but Mr. Young is expected to sit as chairman.

Present was Thomas W. Lament, partner of Mr. Morgan, and designated as his alternate. Absent was Thomas Nelson Perkins, designated by Mr. Young as his alternate. In significance and setting, the scene may be likened to an audience with Cesare Borgia or Lorenzo the Magnificent. Unfortunately for the dramatic effect no one was poisoned.

An hour later Mr. Young was back at 120 Broadway, behind his business-like desk, facing reporters. For a whole month he has refused to talk; but now he put words like pistol shots, with candor and precision. More was learned in five minutes about the new Committee and what it purposes to accomplish than correspondents have been able to guess in the last six months.

After a preliminary, characteristic sweep of the left hand over his thin black hair, Tycoon Young hitched his chair a trifle and said:

Character of U. S. Representation. "Mr. Morgan and I go as private citizens. While the Dawes Plan was being formulated five years ago the American government expressed no wishes to the American experts, and I do not believe it will do so now. When it was proposed to invite the present American experts our government declared it had no objection to such a course and no objections to the persons invited."

President Calvin Coolidge of course "advised" the Great Powers "unofficially" to invite Messrs. Morgan and Young.

Purpose of Committee. Mr. Young continued: "The first Dawes committee was not authorized to fix the total amount which Germany was under obligation to pay. It fixed only a standard annuity, which was to continue until some other arrangement was made.

"It would be unfortunate to give the impression that we are merely going to state a number of years for the present annuity. What we are really going to do is to determine the amount of an annuity and the number of years it is to continue, so as to fix a total for Germany's obligations.

"The present experts committee is not so much to revise the Dawes Plan as to complete it. The full amount to be paid was the only missing factor in the Dawes Plan."

"Commercialization" is a mysterious word which correspondents have been bandying for years. It is used as a convenient abbreviation for the prolix idea that Germany's state debt to the Allies might be transformed into a private debt, by selling German bonds in the world market and using the cash realized to pay off the state debt at once, leaving the new private debt to be paid off in the course of years. Thus a lofty obligation would be "commercialized" into a vulgar loan. The advantage to the Governments concerned would be that, if Germany should default, mere private citizens would be left holding the bag.

When Mr. Young was asked if the Committee would wrestle with the problem of "Commercialization," he replied with dignity:

"All we have to do with commercialization is to determine how the total obligation, after we determine it, might be set up in a form which could be commercialized later, if possible."

Apparently this meant: "Yes."

Name of Committee. Since European papers are already talking about the "Young Committee" and the "Young Plan," reporters asked Mr. Young why he insisted on referring to the new aggregation as the "Second Dawes Committee." The issue seemed one of cloying modesty, but Mr. Young shot back an answer clean as a pistol bullet:

"The new committee is to complete the Dawes Plan. I think it would be most unfortunate and create a good deal of misunderstanding if the impression were given that we are building up a new plan.

"If you call it the Second Dawes Committee, gentlemen, that will ensure the continuity of your files, and of the entire bibliography of the subject."

Vice President Charles Gates Dawes has recently said, in words equally clean cut, that the original "Dawes Plan" ought not to be so called, because it was drafted chiefly by Owen D. Young. Thus do great men honor truth and logic; but sentimental parents will continue to draw the sticky moral:

"Now you see, Tommy, all great men are modest. Tell papa that Ethel really did most of your arithmetic. There's the good modest boy!"

Parker Gilbert. The hymn of Fascist Italy, often bellowed by Benito Mussolini, exalts "Youth! Youth!"

Of all "youths" the most exalted is now perhaps Seymour Parker Gilbert, 36, Agent General of Reparations, sometimes called the "new Kaiser of Germany," and a graduate of Rutgers.

Last week Mr. Young identified himself with the "Youth! Youth!" ideal and reminisced with blazing frankness anent "Young Gilbert."

"The Allied and German representatives looked askance at me," said Mr. Young, "when I said I was going to suggest a boy 32 years old to handle that great piece of machinery, and it is certainly a great satisfaction that he has given such a striking demonstration of what an American youth can do. We don't have to wait until he is 50 or 60 to give him a place of power.

"I think that the administration of the Dawes Plan by Mr. Gilbert and his associates is one of the outstanding things in the post-War activities. I can not speak too highly in praise of it.

"The world is full of people who say 'It can't be done.' It was said that Germany could not pay, but money has come out of Germany during the last four years in punctual settlement of the annuities which were fixed in the Dawes Plan, and that's all there is to it."

Owen D. Young himself is 54, became Chairman of General Electric at 47, was merely counsel for General Electric at 39, probably chafes at the knowledge he was as good a "Young Man" as Parker Gilbert at 32, but held down by old fogies. John Pierpont Morgan is 61, never had to climb, like onetime plowboy Young.