"Now Wait a Minute!"

Since he became U.S. High Commissioner for Germany on July 1, 1949, John J. McCloy has heard a lot of griping and self-commiseration from the mouths of West Germans. By last week, he seemed to have had enough.

At a meeting in Duesseldorf of the French-German Friendship Society attended by more than 100 powerful Ruhr industrialists, McCloy predicted a bright future for the Ruhr and all Western Germany as part of a united Western Europe. But he added that the free world was watching to see whether Germany would continue on the right path. It was during the question period, following his calm, factual address, that trouble started. Led by Theodor Goldschmidt, president of Essen's Chamber of Commerce, a group of Germans began firing complaints about high occupation costs, high taxes, the costly burden of refugees from the East, U.S. interference with German trade.

"Now wait a minute!" cried Jack McCloy. "Things can't be as bad as you say when you consider the progress Germany has made . . . Count your blessings from your former enemies . . . U.S. taxes are higher than yours."

From the businessmen came shouts of "nein, nein." Replied McCloy sharply: "Well, anyway, U.S. taxes are much higher than before because of German aggression."

To a complaint that reorganization of the West German coal and steel industries was going too slowly, McCloy answered: "Look, I know something about reorganization. I worked on reorganization of U.S. railroads. Your problems are no worse than those were." On the refugee problem, he observed: "You ought to see the good side of it"--meaning the West Germans ought to be grateful for the skills and energy that refugees have added to the West German economy.

"Don't forget who started this war," concluded McCloy sternly. "Whether or not you gentlemen here are responsible personally for it, remember the war and all the misery that followed it--including your own--was born and bred in German soil and you must accept the responsibility."

When he had done, his audience applauded him loudly and with apparent sincerity. Said an admiring McCloy aide: "The old man really let 'em have it."

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