"Too Rich To Be Loved"

The Young Plan passed the French Chamber of Deputies last week. It had previously passed the Reichstag, after which political forces were loosed which caused the German cabinet to fall. And in San Francisco last week Mr. Owen D. Young made the speech of his life, ostensibly to celebrants of the University of California's 62nd birthday, actually to the people he represented at Paris when the Young Plan was made, the people of the U. S.

Mr. Young told his fellow citizens that Politics is like a temperamental prima donna, rattle-brained and greedy, who dazzles and hoodwinks whole nations until the show is nearly bankrupt, then with tears and tantrums calls on humble Economics to save it, and when the show is saved begins to squander and to dazzle once more.

Politics dazzled the Allies at Versailles, said Mr. Young, by telling them they could collect 33 billion dollars from Germany. Inflation, followed by hard times, brought Economics to Europe's rescue, and the Allies finally agreed with Germany under Mr. Young's chairmanship that the practical amount to be paid is nine billions.

But no sooner did Economics put the show on this practical, going basis than Politics (i. e. Mr. Snowden) tried to dazzle Englishmen at The Hague Conference with the hope that they could get more out of Germany than Economics had said was possible. Of the subsequent resignation of Dr. Schacht as director of the Reichsbank in protest against what was done at the second Hague Conference, Mr. Young warmly said:

"Dr. Schacht has been accused in taking this action of having domestic political ambitions [to be elected President of Germany]. It is fair to him to say that his protest arose, not because there was Politics in Dr. Schacht, but because Politics had again 'crept into the [Young] Plan."

However, Mr. Young does not share Dr. Schacht's pessimism. Said he: "I have no fear of the slight political tinge which the Plan took on at The Hague." (Dr. Schacht holds that The Hague signatures hung an Allied sword over Germany's head; but Mr. Young cheerfully claimed that the ''military sanctions" provided in case of German refusals to pay have "a most attenuated form," can be ignored as a mere "tinge.")

Abrupt and certainly not over optimistic was Mr. Young's conclusion as to whether Germany can pay the nine billions she has now agreed to pay. About six of these billions will eventually go to the U. S. in liquidation of the Allied War debts, the Allies keeping the balance for themselves.

"Each of those countries [Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, etc.], you will remember," continued Mr. Young, "had protested against the burden of their indebtedness to the U. S. . . Yet they have paid the compliment of assuming that she can bear the burden of them all, together with a substantial premium."

Mr. Young suggested that German "capacity for scientific research and . . . ability to apply it," would alone enable the Fatherland, perhaps, to pay. Finally, suddenly, he uttered two warnings and a prayer.

First warning: "If Germany does make the payments . . . the rest of the world must be careful to avoid the enervating effects resulting from the effects of receiving such payments."

Second warning: "America is too rich to be loved."

The prayer: "I pray for sober and sensible responsibility, a spirit of gratitude for the things we have . . . and most of all, restraint in speech."

Parenthetically Democrat Young laid down the economic dogma that "tariffs and other petty political barriers" are definitely pernicious. "Let no man think," cried Economist Young, "that the living standards of America can be permanently maintained at a measurably higher level than those of other civilized countries. Either we shall lift theirs to ours or they will drag ours down to theirs."

The most scornful words which Economics spoke to Politics through the larynx of Mr. Young were: "Washington . . . makes our political contacts abroad but they are relatively superficial and inconsequential."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.