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known soldier because they thought, 'Perhaps he's ours.'

This combined Memorial Day and Victory Celebration was imposing, and from the artistic standpoint worthy of the incomparable setting which Paris gave it. But the patriotic enthusiasm I anticipated was absent. The French people, like all other people, are satiated with military sensations. They seek only to labor, to earn money, to live at peace. The four hundred generals loitering around Paris will have to find new occupations.

However, it would be a folly and a crime for the Germans who make windy harangues at Schützenfests, and who enthused in the old days over Wilhelm's histrionic capers, to imagine that this celebration of France's victory is an insult or a threat to us. Naturally the French are right in honoring a man whose patriotic fervor and passionate resolve inspired the nation with undying hope in its darkest days. Quite naturally France does right to celebrate a victory, which we would have celebrated fully as enthusiastically and noisily had we won the war.

One thing more. We Germans, too, have reason to lay a wreath on Gambetta's tomb-not a wreath of gratitude, but a wreath of self-consecration. Gambetta's admonition: 'Keep thinking, but don't talk,' is one we, too, should take to heart. We, too, must bend all our efforts to our national salvation. I do not mean a war of revenge. Only blinded fools contemplate that. Let it be repeated a thousand times, our salvation lies in work, and in work alone. Labor, not protests and reproaches, will save us. Let us waste no paper on useless scheming. Let us not imitate street-corner beggars, who advertise their misery to get charity. Let us labor and wait. Our time will come the sooner, the more honorable we are to others and ourselves.

That is the lesson of Gambetta's heart. As I stood at the Pantheon and saw the great men of the Republic doing homage to the dead Republican, I thought of another heart in the Pantheon, which also has a lesson for us.

More than ten years ago Emile Zola was interred in the Pantheon. But at that time there was no solemn procession, no national festivity. Late at night, with sparse attendance, the coffin was taken from its grave in Montmartre Cemetery, placed in a closed hearse, and secretly conveyed to the Pantheon. For the streets of Montmartre and the square before the Pantheon were in possession of a shrieking, raging mob, shouting Conspuez Zola and A bas Clemenceau. All the chauvinist shouters of Paris were in the streets, intent on assaulting his 'Resurrectionists' and throwing the great author's remains into the Seine, and preventing an honor to the defender of Dreyfus.

Now Zola's heart rests beside that of Gambetta, and the man who ponders on the noble eloquence of the latter should not forget the words with which Zola concluded his story of defeated France: 'et Jean, le plus humble et le plus douloureux, s'en alla marchant à l'avenir, à la grande et rude besogne de toute une France à refaire.'

Like poor Jean, let us take up our march to the future, solely intent upon the hard and great labor of building up again a united Germany, an intact Germany, and a new Germany.

[Le Populaire (Paris Moderate Socialist Daily), November 26] THE VANDERLIP CONTRACT

BY JEAN LONGUET

It is unnecessary to emphasize the importance of the statement which the Prime Minister made yesterday to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

regarding the resumption of trade with Russia. It amounts to an official admission of the failure of the stupid blockade policy, which has caused untold suffering in Russia, which is directly responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of old men, women, and children from cold and hunger; which has deprived the sick of medicines and the hospitals of anæsthetics and disinfectants; which has paralyzed transportation, and ruined industry.

Let us not imagine, however, that tardy remorse has produced this change of front. Our rulers are incapable of that sentiment. The first reason is the fact that Wrangel has been crushed and the Red army everywhere victorious. The second reason, and a still more urgent one, is economic the crisis which exists in the European and American business. world as a result of stopping trade with Russia. Last of all, our Cabinet is moved by apprehension lest others more alert, enterprising, and intelligent than we are, get the start of us in Russian trade.

Recently, the press announced briefly the arrival in London of Mr. Washington B. Vanderlip, an American capitalist and mining engineer, who had just concluded with the Soviet Republic what he calls 'the biggest deal in the history of the world.'

In an interview with a representative of the Daily Herald, this enterprising and hard-headed Yankee gives a remarkable sketch of the immense transaction he has just successfully brought to a head with the rulers of revolutionary Russia. It embraces two groups of operations. First, Mr. Vanderlip has obtained from Moscow gigantic concessions in Eastern Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula, a country rich in fish, coal, and above

all in petroleum. The Vanderlip syndicate is to develop these resources subject to conditions agreed upon with the Bolshevist rulers. On the other side, the latter have agreed to buy from this syndicate goods to the value of $3,000,000,000, to be delivered in the course of the next three years.

In order to appreciate what these figures represent, we should bear in mind that the exports from the United States to the Allied countries during the war amounted to only about $1,000,000,000 a year. In other words, Russia has contracted for goods equivalent to all the purchases contracted for by the Allied governments during 1921, 1922, and 1923.

Our British interviewer quite naturally inquired of Mr. Vanderlip if he had left any business for Great Britain. The American capitalist reassured him saying that no arrangement had been made for textiles, observing: 'During my stay in Russia, I did not see a single man who did not need new clothes. Furthermore, Russia ought to have immediately 17,000 additional locomotives. We propose to deliver only 5000.'

Mr. Vanderlip spoke in a very complimentary way of the Russian officials with whom he dealt, testifying to their fairness and integrity in connection with the great contracts they signed. He describes conditions in Moscow as somewhat different from those of which we have been told by some travelers. He resided there two months and thinks it 'one of the liveliest towns in the world.' Although everything is strictly rationed, the people are not, according to his account, starving and they seem in good health. He testifies that drunkenness, vice, and disorder are practically unknown, although there are very few police. In walking more than

a mile, Mr. Vanderlip met but one policeman.

It is very obvious that business transactions on the scale here proposed cannot be be undertaken and carried out without the consent of the American government. It follows then, that capitalist America, which more than any other country except reactionary France, hates Socialism in general and Russian Bolshevism in particular, has made up its mind to trade with Red Russia. No one will infer from this that a great liking for the Soviet Republic has been suddenly conceived by the United States. That country is moved by very practical considerations of an exclusively material character.

Our esteemed comrade, Paul Hanna, Washington correspondent of the New York Call and other American Socialist newspapers, reports in an issue of the Call which has just reached Paris, an interview which he recently had with one of the Republican leaders at the capital. This public man said, quite as a matter of course, that trade would be resumed promptly between the United States and Russia.

"This country must resume trade with Russia or practically cease exporting. Trade with foreign countries is, and always will be, essentially a barter of commodities. Recently, Western Europe has been taking most of our exports, sending us manufactured goods in exchange, and making up the deficit in gold. Now, two years after the armistice, Western Europe has no manufactures and no raw materials to ship us. America is in the position of a merchant whose patrons have become bankrupt. Our exports are ceasing and our shops and factories are shutting down.

'Even if the value of French,

Italian, German, and British money. had not declined, it would be difficult for Europe to buy in our markets, inasmuch as a country cannot really buy abroad with money alone. It always purchases by an exchange of goods, money merely serving to equalize the balances. But with Europe. void of merchandise, with a franc worth only seven cents, with a mark worth less than two cents, trade is utterly impossible. So the United States must find new customers or cease to export. Russia is the only field left open.'

This gentleman added that a big manufacturer in New York State, whose warehouses were packed with goods which Europe could not buy, had made up his mind to seek an outlet in Russia, which can pay partly in gold and partly in raw materials in what this man called 'key products' for manufacturing, which cannot be obtained elsewhere. This prominent Republican added, in conclusion:

'Now that hard times are upon us, and unemployment and failures are multiplying, and winter is coming on, we are going to end this absurd policy of Wilson's with regard to Russia, a policy that does nothing but injure ourselves.'

Here in France, where the business crisis is far more serious than it is across the Atlantic, where unemployment is reaching enormous proportions, where business and manufacturing circles are already in acute distress, we need the Russian market even more than do the Americans. The gentlemen in power are beginning to see the truth. But as invariably happens, we are getting into the field behind the Americans and behind the English, and as always is the case also we get only the leavings.

regarding the resumption of trade with Russia. It amounts to an official admission of the failure of the stupid blockade policy, which has caused untold suffering in Russia, which is directly responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of old men, women, and children from cold and hunger; which has deprived the sick of medicines and the hospitals of anæsthetics and disinfectants; which has paralyzed transportation, and ruined industry.

Let us not imagine, however, that tardy remorse has produced this change of front. Our rulers are incapable of that sentiment. The first reason is the fact that Wrangel has been crushed and the Red army everywhere victorious. The second reason, and a still more urgent one, is economic the crisis which exists in the European and American business world as a result of stopping trade with Russia. Last of all, our Cabinet is moved by apprehension lest others more alert, enterprising, and intelligent than we are, get the start of us in Russian trade.

Recently, the press announced briefly the arrival in London of Mr. Washington B. Vanderlip, an American capitalist and mining engineer, who had just concluded with the Soviet Republic what he calls 'the biggest deal in the history of the world.'

In an interview with a representative of the Daily Herald, this enterprising and hard-headed Yankee gives a remarkable sketch of the immense transaction he has just successfully brought to a head with the rulers of revolutionary Russia. It embraces two groups of operations. First, Mr. Vanderlip has obtained from Moscow gigantic concessions in Eastern Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula, a country rich in fish, coal, and above

all in petroleum. The Vanderlip syndicate is to develop these resources subject to conditions agreed upon with the Bolshevist rulers. On the other side, the latter have agreed to buy from this syndicate goods to the value of $3,000,000,000, to be delivered in the course of the next three years.

In order to appreciate what these figures represent, we should bear in mind that the exports from the United States to the Allied countries during the war amounted to only about $1,000,000,000 a year. In other words, Russia has contracted for goods. equivalent to all the purchases contracted for by the Allied governments during 1921, 1922, and 1923.

Our British interviewer quite naturally inquired of Mr. Vanderlip if he had left any business for Great Britain. The American capitalist reassured him saying that no arrangement had been made for textiles, observing: 'During my stay in Russia, I did not see a single man who did not need new clothes. Furthermore, Russia ought to have immediately 17,000 additional locomotives. We propose to deliver only 5000.'

Mr. Vanderlip spoke in a very complimentary way of the Russian officials with whom he dealt, testifying to their fairness and integrity in connection with the great contracts they signed. He describes conditions in Moscow as somewhat different from those of which we have been told by some travelers. He resided there two months and thinks it ‘one of the liveliest towns in the world.' Although everything is strictly rationed, the people are not, according to his account, starving and they seem in good health. He testifies that drunkenness, vice, and disorder are practically unknown, although there are very few police. In walking more than

a mile, Mr. Vanderlip met but one policeman.

It is very obvious that business transactions on the scale here proposed cannot be undertaken and carried out without the consent of the American government. It follows then, that capitalist America, which more than any other country except reactionary France, hates Socialism in general and Russian Bolshevism in particular, has made up its mind to trade with Red Russia. No one will infer from this that a great liking for the Soviet Republic has been suddenly conceived by the United States. That country is moved by very practical considerations of an exclusively material character.

Our esteemed comrade, Paul Hanna, Washington correspondent of the New York Call and other American Socialist newspapers, reports in an issue of the Call which has just reached Paris, an interview which he recently had with one of the Republican leaders at the capital. This public man said, quite as a matter of course, that trade would be resumed promptly between the United States and Russia.

"This country must resume trade with Russia or practically cease exporting. Trade with foreign countries is, and always will be, essentially a barter of commodities. Recently, Western Europe has been taking most of our exports, sending us manufactured goods in exchange, and making up the deficit in gold. Now, two years after the armistice, Western Europe has no manufactures and no raw materials to ship us. America is in the position of a merchant whose patrons have become bankrupt. Our exports are ceasing and our shops and factories are shutting down.

Italian, German, and British money had not declined, it would be difficult for Europe to buy in our markets, inasmuch as a country cannot really buy abroad with money alone. It always purchases by an exchange of goods, money merely serving to equalize the balances. But with Europe void of merchandise, with a franc worth only seven cents, with a mark worth less than two cents, trade is utterly impossible. So the United States must find new customers or cease to export. Russia is the only field left open.'

This gentleman added that a big manufacturer in New York State, whose warehouses were packed with goods which Europe could not buy, had made up his mind to seek an outlet in Russia, which can pay partly in gold and partly in raw materials in what this man called 'key products' for manufacturing, which cannot be obtained elsewhere. This prominent Republican added, in conclusion:

Now that hard times are upon us, and unemployment and failures are multiplying, and winter is coming on, we are going to end this absurd policy of Wilson's with regard to Russia, a policy that does nothing but injure ourselves.'

Here in France, where the business crisis is far more serious than it is across the Atlantic, where unemployment is reaching enormous proportions, where business and manufacturing circles are already in acute distress, we need the Russian market even more than do the Americans. The gentlemen in power are beginning to see the truth. But as invariably happens, we are getting into the field behind the Americans and behind the English, and as always is the case 'Even if the value of French, also we get only the leavings.

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