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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 12, 1922)
6 THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN, PORTLAND, NOVE3IBER 12, 1922 STOCK REDUCED S BY RUSH TO BUY Purchasing Power Increase Is Enormous. WILSON CRITICISED FOR REJECTING RESERVATION Stubbornness Declared Shown Against America in Peace-Making When Compromise Was Necessary. SALES SHOW BIG JUMP $30 a Day Paid Some Skilled ."jaborers in New York ; Building Trades. " BY HARDEN COLFAX. (Copyright, by The Orecionian.) WASHINGTON, X. C. Nov. 11. The buyers' strike of recent un pleasant memory has been succeeded by a general rush to spend, accord ing to a survey completed this week by the department of commerce, which announces that the most im portant development of recent weeks is the marked increase in the demand for goods. Current whole sale distribution, the announcement continues, is far in excess of last year's level and the low stocks of retailers, maintained at the mini mum in anticipation of another buyers strike, have been depleted. As an instance of the increase in the public's buying power during the past few months, the depart ment of labor cites its unemploy ment record. Ten months ago the 1428 concerns canvassed regularly av the department had on their pay rolls 1.493,000 workers. Since that time the number has Increased by 636.350. or about 23 per cent. This is interpreted as meaning that the employes of those 1428 concerns. after making due allowance for wage cuts, have approximately 20 per cent more to spend for necessi ties and luxuries than they naa on January 1. Buying Power Increased. If this proportion holds true for . all industry, the department figures, the buying public has a spending power of at least 15,000,000,000 a year more than it had 10 months aeo. The concerns canvassed are erouped under 14 major heads, which include workers in iron and steel, lumber, tobacco, paper and printing, textiles, chemicals, food and the automotive industries. It is believed that the canvass is thor oughly representative of industrial activity throughout the nation. , The automobile manufacturers re port the busiest October ever expe rienced, with output for the month reaching a new high record of 244 000 cars. So far in this month there has been little let-up, if any. . Another- development of the past few days has been a slash in the wholesale price of cigarettes in the face of the brggest business ever recorded. Manufacturers reduced prices 40 to 50 cents a thousand, not because of competition, but because of lower operatign expenses. Greater Activity Indicated. !rThe railroads registered the sec ond largest number of car loadings ver recorded within a week, sur passing the one-million car figure of a few weeks back. The new 1922 traffic record, as announced by the American railway associations, stands at 1,014,480 cars for a single week, or only 4000 cars less than the highest number ever recorded, in October, 1920. National bank figures point ,the w.ay to a period of increasing in dustrial activity, according to the federal reserve board's statement for the week, which shows that loans outstanding at this time in the chief cities are $1,000,000,000 greater than they were a year ago. Wages appear to be upward bound. The .National Lumber Man ufacturers' association states that because of the great demand for labor in the building trades, $15 a day has become quite customary in Washington for masons, bricklayers and plasterers and in New York city as high as $30 a day has been paid to skilled labor on some build ing contracts. The farmers' crops are in, and they appear to be somewhat better off than it was thought at first they would be. , ' I- Farmers to Get Profit. ! "The large crops produced " at comparatively low costs," says- the department of commerce, "will fclve the farmers a margin of profit which ultimately will be reflected in merchandising lines." lail order sales for October show a, big gain, the two chief mail-order houses in Chicago reporting that they did about $5,200,000 more busi ness during the month than in Octo ber, 1921. - t Money rates continued steady dur ing the week, with an uncertain situation in the stock market. Brokers' loans in Wall street were Reported to' be above the peak of 1919 and were totalled at approxi mately $1,800,000,000. - WALNUT CROP LUCRATIVE BY MARK SULLIVAN. I (Copyright. 1922, by New York Evening Post, Inc. Published by Arrangement.) WASHINGTON, D. C, Nov. 11. This day, November 11, marks the ending of four years since the day of the armistice. Everybody knows that as we come to this anniversary we find the world stifl, so to speak, in the "re verse gear" into which it was thrown by the sudden backward lunge which the German govern ment gave to civilization in 1914. No one can yet Bay, to use a fam iliar figure from the automobile, that the gear has again been shifted forward. At the present time the best that can be said, even by the most hopeful, is that the world is like an automobile which is stuck in the mud, or at the bottom of a high hill, with the engine whirling furiously but without any actual forward progress beinj made, while at the same' time the power is be ing exhausted and the machine be ing worn down. Acceptin. this picture a- accurate, the writer Is moved to take the oc casion of this fourth anniversary of the armistice to consider just what the trouble is, why the high hopes of Armistice day have not been fulfilled; to try to find pass ing from the metaphor of automo biles to that of railroads just where and why the world got off the track, and to consider what might be done to get civilization back on the rails again. Many Have Answers. For the answering of these ques tions we now have i. good deal -of data. They are to be found scat tered through a considerable num ber- of documents that have come to light during the past four years. The most recent are letters . of a member of Mr. Wilson's cabinet, Franklin K. Lane, the letters of Mr. Wilson's ambassador to Great Brit ain, Walter H. Page, and the three volumes of "Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement," written by the man who served as one of Mr. Wil son's intimates at the Paris peace conference, and who has had access to his files Ray Stannard Baker. To these three recent publications as sources for data to show just where the world got off the track can be added a considerable num ber of others, including Secretary Lansing's book, M. Tardieu's book. Premier Nitti's "The Wreck of Europe," the familiar book of J. M. Keynes, D. M. Rauch's story of the peace conference, the volumes of Mr. Tumulty and of George Creel and various other publications and official documents. In the course of time a consider able mass of material will be added to these. Very soon we may expect a book from Lloyd George. Of this forthcoming book, it may be said that while it will add some thing to the body of facts, the pri mary purpose of Lloyd George will probably be to defend and justify h'mself. In fact, a judgment would not go far amiss which would sur mise the reason for Lloyd GeorKe taking time from these busy days to write a book is to get on record in answer to the one Mr, Baker is just publishing from Mr. Wilson's point of view and also, perhaps, to the addresses which M. Clemenceau is about to deliver In the United States. Still another, important contribution .will come in course of time doubtless from Colonel House, who is another of that small num ber of men who were close to the heart of those events in the course 9f which destiny took the unhappy could not be a conqueror, each glad has registered both the exaltation of the vision, and the despair of the vision frustrated. In it all there was the settled note of tragedy, and when you speculate on what Mr. Wilson must think about during these long days of retirement in his house on S street, - you feel sure that the thing about which his mind goes round and round, from post to pillar, is .the series of events of which he was a part, and the unhappy outcome which he did not foresee. It must be especially on this last point that his mind dwells and no one need envy him the weary round of recalling act after act, and word after word, wondering always whether, if he had done 4jfferently at this point or at that, the outcome might have been less tragic. Wilson Seen as MartyT. No one can guess the extent to which Mr. Wilson may blame him self probably very little. There is no convincing reason why he should. Half a world of admirers not only frees him wholly from blame, but sees him as the martyr, partly of forces he could control, and partly of malevolent enemies. And not merely among the admirers in gen eral, but among thoughtful histor ians, there is a considerable school who on the data now in hand, come to the conclusion that the larger burden of the fault and of the blame lies on other . shoulders than Mr. Wilson's. In fact, it is useless and inap propriate to speak of the thing in terms of "blame." In the details of what happened there are spe cific mistakes upon which you can put your finger, and for which you can attach one degree of blame or another. But the chief burden of the tragedy lies in something which was done, not by any one man, but by immense groups of peoples. by whole . nations and groups of nations. To state it very compactly, as It seems to the present writer, what happened was this: Before America entered the war. President Wilson had a certain temperamental and intellectual point of view to ward it. Out of this point of view he evolved a policy and gave that policy to the world. If there was "blame" to be at tached to him for this policy, this was the time to give expression of it. But as a matter of fact, a ma jority of the people of the United States certainly indorsed this policy, and the allies assented to it gladly. Allies Repudiate Promises. After we entered the war, this point of view, this former psy chology of neutrality, continued to abide with Mr. Wilson; and, based on it, he made certain statements and promises to the world, which statements and promises the allies indorsed and the Germans accepted. Thereafter, when the armistice came, the allies repudiated the promises and laid out a wholly dif ferent course. And out ef that fact arises the' present tragedy of bad faith in the moral world, and impossible conditions in the eco nomic world. The fatal beginning of the trag edy lies in the attitude of mind that Mr. Wilson had before we en tered the war. In those days of our neutrality Wilson looked for and hoped for, not a decisive end of the war with one antagonist conquering the other, but a deadfall. He ex pected the war would end as a dead lock between two equally exhausted combatants. He visualized the end oi the war as two panting victims, each with its strength gone, each knowing it could do no further harm to the other, each realizing it us into the war, and I dene to say that at the time when compelled to become Wilson realized what was happen ing, he took several days off to de cide whether he should go on. The reasoning by which he convinced himself that he should go on was to the effect that the theory under lying his entire conception of a new world order was co-operation, and that it would be inconsistent for him, having this vision, to be the first to refuse to co-operate. It was a fatal bit of self-justification; many forced Wilson was compelled one of the combatants. But, al though Wilson became a combatant, and although he fought as force fully as he krfew how, the old psychology of the peacemaker, of the neutral, stayed with him. After we entered the war, and throughout our participation in it, Wilson clung to his vision. He still believed this kind, of a peace, a peace by deadlock between combatants equally exhausted and i and Wilson, when he was at the Cottage Grove Orchardist Gets T $6 00 From Product. COTTA3E GROVE, Or., Nov. 11. Spcial.) A 17-year-old walnut or chard which two years ago brought but $60 for the year's crop this year has netted for the owner, George Layng, $600, this price being based 6n a valuation of 20 cents a pound, which is the price for the lowest grade of the nuts. The orchard had been given little care in late years until last spring, when Mr. Layng pruned the trees but did not get time to cultivate the land, i The orchard was planted 17 years ago by Felix Currin on his share of he old John Currin donation land claim in the face of much opposition trom neighbors, who considered the project a foolish one. Next year the - present owner is planning extensive care of the land, hoping to more than double the production of his five acres of nut's. UNIFORM RATES ORDERED Clianges Made in Grain Charges by AV'ashington Department. - OLYMPIA, Wash., Nov. 11. (Spe cial.) Ordering uniformity in grain waiehouse rales in territory south of the Snake river, in two steps, one applying on the 1922 crop and the second for J923 and thereafter, the department of public works today grave its finding resulting from the thorough investigation of warehouse conditions, in which two hearings have been held. i The department found three rates dn general use. The highest of these it wiped out entirely. This was a handling charge of $1 per ton with a storage charge of 10 cents per ton per month. i One rate to be -applied to the 1922 crop is a handling charge of $1 per ton, and the other is a handling charge p ,75 cents. turn that torments us all today, Wilson. Central Figure. The limitations of the present ar ticle obviously forbid as abundant a citation of documents as would be appropriate for showing and proving just where it was, and what it was, that went wrong. But I am satisfied that the data are now available and that with the leisure for close investigation of this data and for careful collation of it, a brief book could now be written which would trace a thread through the past five or six years and would tell the world convincingly just what our present trouble is and where it began. ' The purpose of the present article, however, goes no further than to make a confident surmise, based on a certain amoiint of contact with the events as they went by, on some familiarity with all the books al ready mentioned, together with some other documentary sources; and fin ally, on many,' many somber con versations with persons who par ticipated in the unhappy drama and on equally many and equally som ber hours of reflection. The central figure of the drama, of course, is Woodrow Wilson.' It begins with him and ends with him. The other day, walking along a street in the higher edge of Wash ington, the writer had one of those glimpses of Wilson 'which resi dents of Washington occasionally have. He and Mrs. Wilson were in one of those electric cars which Washington women frequent ly drive. As your eyes passed from the woman driver to the figure on the seat beside her, you recognized readily that the man had a slight physical disability. But on that fact your mind did not remain more than one flashing second. Countenance Is Penetrating. What struck you, and penetrated to your heart, and gave you an in staat sense of being for a fugitive moment in contact with something tragically dramatic, was Mr. Wil sons countenance. It was some thing quite beyond merely recog- nizing an ex-president of the United States. If you had never seen the man, if you had had no means of knowing who he was, nevertheless, you would have been aware that here was one of those big figures which cross the earth only once in so often; that here was a man whose countenance, had been given its lines by great extraordinary ex periences experiences sometimes exalting and sometimes correspond ingly devastating a man who, as to his mind, had dug deeper'and harder into facts, and as to his imagination, had sent bis spirit into more distant adventures than is the case with ordinary men. It was the face of a man who has both mounted higher into ex- altation and descended farther into the depths a countenance which to welcome a peacemaker from out- side. Wilson expected the war to end this way and believed it was best it should end this way. His own phrase, used at this time, was "Peace without victory." Into this kind of a peace Mr. Wil son expected to come with all the power of the United States. He ex pected to enter the situation from the outside and from above. In that exalted and beneficent role he ex pected to make a peace which should express the will, not of either antagonist, and not of any con queror, but rather the will of the neutrals, of all the peaceful neoDles of the world. He expected to press down his peace upon both combat ants alike. It was to be a peace, not of anger, not of revenge, not of any conquering spirit, but rather a peace which should look to healine all the world and creventine- anv future recurrence of such a war. The price of this peace, the price of a continuously peaceful world, he would exact from both sides im partially. He would make Germany give self-determination to the Poles, ana Austria sen-determination to me uonemians. But at the same time, and as a part of the same re arrangement of the world on a new basis, he would make Great Britain give self-determination to the Irish and to the Egyptians. He would make Germany disarm, but so would he make France. Wilson Clings to Peace Vision. This was the vision Wilson had. and this was the picture of the role he thought that he personally, as the president of the United States. would have. But Germany did not allow the United States and Wilson to pre serve this role of outsider. Ger- with equal distaste for war, to be eventually the best kind of peace to achieve. His critics sometimes say that his state of mind about the peace was such that he could not fight as vigorously as if he had 1 been a more primitive man with mind intent on the primitive peace of unconditional surrender. There is nothing in this. Wilson put all the force we had into the war and fought to end it as promptly as possible. But always he kept it in mind to end it in the way described. The proof of what is said so far is abundant. Franklin K, Lane, writing to his brother about a cabi net meeting that occurred less than three months before we entered the war, says: "In answer to a question as to which side he wished to see win, the president said that he did not wish to see either side win, for both had been equally indifferent to the rights of neutrals." And among Laife-s letters there are many passages to show that Wilson re tained throughout -all our participa tion in the war this wish for an in conclusive peace as providing the best opportunity for a new world order. 14 Points Pressed. The rest of the story must be compressed. To tell it adequately would take a book. Wiieon gave his fourteen points and the accom- I panying speech to the world. These were the details of th9 peace he had in mind, the charter of. a new order in the world, which would make war impossible. He pressed his fourteen points upon all the world, including Ger many. Through George Creel and other channels, millions after mil lions of Wilson's speeches were spread throughout the world. Elab orate steps were taken to get them before the German people and the German soldiers. Germany took Wilson at his word. On this point there is ., significant sentence in George Creel's book: "What hap pened to the German people and the German army was an utter spiritual collapse, a disintegration of morale both on the firing line and among the civilian population, and history will say that this was due to the words of Wilson in even larger degree than to the hammer blows of Foeh.v No one Is better qualified than Creel to say this, for Creel was the channel through which Wilson sen? his words to thu world, including Germany. Creel was Wilson's verbal Foch, the gen eralissimo of the Wilson writings. Now comes the mcst somber part of the tragedy. The German sol diers and the German people took Wilson at his word. They showed that they believed Wilson when he had said, "We have no quarrel with the German people." They threw the kaiser out and set up a gov ernment representing the people, in the confident expectation that Wil son and America and the allies would live up to the word and the lnmplication of Wilson's frequent assurances. ' In this spirit Germany asked for an armistice, and in all the letters that passed between the German people and Wilson, the letters which constitute the contract of the armis tice, there was repeated emphasis upon the fourteen points as th basis of the peace. Allies' Psychology Changes. But once the armistice was in ef fect, the psychology of the allies changed. They took on instantly the state of mind of a conqueror and proceeded to impose upon Ger many a peace in which the fourteen points were violated or ignored point by point. It was Great Britain that threw overboard the first of the fourteen points, the one that looked to "freedom of the seas." It was Lloyd George also who, in en deavoring to persuade the British people to keep iim in office as premier, promised them that he would make Germany pay the pen sions of British soldiers, a promise subsequent to and inconsistent with his previous promise implied in his assent to the fourteen points, that he would make peace with Ger- many based on those fourteen points. Thereafter, at the peace confer ence, with two of Wilson's points already gone, the .others crumbled down one by one. At this 'point arises the question, why did not Wilson stand firm? Why did he not put his foot down the first mo ment that any one of the allies proposed or took a step inconsis tent with the letter of the contract between the allies and Germany as implied in Wilson's fourteen points and his other speeches? Firm Policy Given Vp. And right here is the point upon which Wilsop's weary mind today must dwell. So far as one can guess from the outside, there were at least two reasons for Wilson's failure to be firm at this point his lapse from a constitutional firmness on moral points, at pre cisely the point where firmness was called for and would have been jus tified. One of the reasons, one may guess, was his health. He had come to the end of the enormous burden of carrying on the war. and in the physical and spiritual let-down of that moment he allowed a thing to happen that at a time of better health he would never have per mitted to get by him. There is evi- height of his intellectual vigor. would never have fallen into it. He assented to the violation, of point after point of the fourteen, and became hopelessly entangled in what one of the British officials at the peace conference called "the bamboozling of the old Presbyterian." Another way in which Wilson managed to justify himself was in thinking that if he could get the league of nations and once bring it to the point of a functioning insti tution, ho couli through this mechanism, undo all the errors and j iiieu-a an me ureacnes oi gooa laun involved in the Versailres treaty. Toward the latter part of the peace conference he must have reached a point where he plunged on through one compromise after another, each of them odious to his sense of good faith, consoling himself all the time with the feeling that anyhow he was getting the league of nations, and that a little later on, through the league, he would cure all the mistakes that were being made. The rest of it, of course, Includ- ing j-iuierica, s retusai to ratuy me promises Wilson made a.11 that is a familiar story. And in the failure of America to ratify, Wilson cer tainly had some share of responsi bility. At the time when it was possible to get the league through the senate, with reservations, Wil son refused to accept the reserva tions. That was the final step of the tragedy. If any one thing can be said in' indisputable criticism of Wilson; if a just person were ad mitting Wilson's mistakes for a final summing up of history, he might readily put it in these words: At Pans, he compromised with Europe when he ought to have stood firm; at Washington, he was stubborn against American when he ought to have compromised." STUDENTS' PHY REDUCED STRIKERS TO BE DROPPED FROM TRAINING STATUS. Men at United States Vocational School Ordered to Pay Fuel Costs of Quarters. CHILLICOTHE, O., Nov. 11. Act ing on orders received Friday from Colonel C. R. Forbes, Washington, director of the veterans' bureau, E. D. Dexter, president o the United States vocational school No. 1 here, notified students who went on 'strike" several days ago that un less they resumed training at once their names would be removed from the training payroll. Colonel Forbes also ordered that the strikers be dropped from train ing to compensation status as long as they are absent. This means a reduction in pay of from $100 to $175 a month to from $7 to $50. Figures compiled Friday show that 237 of the 472 students are on 3trike." The men left their train ing when rent on their quarters was raised $10 to $22 a month. The increase was for fuel during the Winter months, some of the stu dents having voted to accept the offer. Friday s ruling is that stu dents must pay tl.e fuel costs of the quarters. COLLEGE CLUBS POPULAR Oregon Youths Win Many Prizes in Various State Fairs. OREGON AGRICULTURAL COL LEGE, Corvallis, Nov. 11. (Special.) Oregon youths enrolled in the club work of the Oregon Agricultural college this year number 9298. This number were organized into 961 clubs with as many leaders. Ex hibits of these clubs were shown at 220 community fairs, 27 county fairs, at the Oregon state fair and at two interstate fairs. The championship prizes, 17 firsfs, 18 seconds and 19 other places were awarded the youngsters in open competition. Two girls made perfect scores in their, projects. Helen Heisey of Gresham, who took home-making, and Marjorie Stark.of Portland, who took canning, tied for the cup of fered to the high point girl bV the Oregon Farmer. Lester Barrows of Shaw, Marion Mathis for Quality s ELECTING a Suit or Overcoat is easy in that big daylight depart ment of ours. Fine Quality yet real moderate prices $25 to $65 Two-Pant Suit's 35 to '45 r 'jHf m I ti & $ ,..Sa. K If ! . rJl I tp nfev X 3r V, ,! ? ffjfcW'vM' tfv. ".:. ';-''- v;i- Shirts Made to Measure Wool Taffeta English Flannel Anderson Scotch Madras English Madras Empire Silk Broadcloth $5 to $15 MENS WEAR Fifth and Morrison (Corbett Bldg.) Dobbs Hats $7 to $10 county, was awarded the Oregon ' Farmer cup for the high point boy. He won in open competition in the state a championship prize, seven firsts and two seconds. Club workers are active at the I Pacific International Livestock ex- : position in Portland and those who I prove successful there will carry I their work still further. Japanese Budget Approved. TOKIO, Nov. 11. (By the Associ ated Press.) The cabinet has ap proved a total expenditure of 1,350, 000,000 yen for next year.' The army will receive 205.000,000 and the navy 276.000,000 yen. Public Recital Christmas Jewels of Every Variety, But Diamonds . Are the, Fayorites Their intrinsic value is high, and we are able to increase this attractiveness with mountings of un usual originality. No matter how small or large the diamond you wish, come to this store and you'll know you are get ting the genuine value your money commands.' x My guarantee, your money back if the equal of any diamond bought here can be duplicated elsewhere for less. t Convenient Terms , without extra charge I Diamond Specialist 348 Washington St. Morgan Bldg. 1 . Harvey Hindermyer and the Dann Trio Appearance Extraordinary This concert by these eminent artists, is an event of unusual interest They will, give more than their regular con cert numbers. In a few selections, they will compare their art with its RE-CREATION by Mr. Edison'iiew phonograph. Free Tickets of Admission May Be Had at Our Store Reed French Piano Co. 12th and JVashington NO STOMACH! No Stomach No Brain! No Brain-No Man! Have you any excuse to offer for dental neglect, when I promise to fix up your whole mouth for very little money and in sure the work for 15 years? Go back a few years and compare the prices paid for dental work with the prices I charge for the same or better work. Recall the pain and tor ture of the dental chair of former days, and then think of the painless den tistry of today, made pos sible by my system. The people are interested in the fact that I have prac tically eliminated pain in dental work ; that I have made possible better dentistry at half the former prices ; that I have set the example of antiseptic dentistry ; and have given my personal guarantee of satisfaction on every piece of work done in this office a guarantee that means the workmanship and material are CERTIFIED CORRECT. SUPERIOR DENTISTRY AT MODEST FEES DR. E. G. Al'SPll'SD, MGR. My Practice Is Limited to Hlgh Clasa Dentistry Only. , ' Flesh-Colored Plates Warranted to fit so you can chew corn off ihe cob $10 and up 22-k. Gold Crowns $5 and up 22-k. Gold Bridge $5 and up OPEN NIGHTS 15-Year Guarantee r 1 l Electro Painless Dentists IN THE TWO-STORY BUILDING Corner Sixth, and Washington Sts., Portland, Oregon