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fl H I GOODWIN'S WEEKLY 3 g at a cost basis, added reasonable profits and announced a resulting B price as a '.foundation for buying. B The director general immediately interposed his veto. The re- B suit was a continuation of high prices. His mere assertion that the fl , board's prices were too high did not produce low prices ; on the con- I trary it prevented low prices. And the Industrial Board quit in a I body ' ! I .' HB B It is one of the administration's most ignominous fiascos. " BERGER'S DISGRACE. NOT since Aaron Burr has the country been afflicted with such a sinister statesman as Victor Berger. Not that the Wisconsin politician ever will figure in history as prodigiously as the slayer of Alexander Hamilton. Nothing romantic attaches to his treasonable adventures. He is as colorless as the socialistic theories he made use i of to promote the cause of kaiserism in the United States. It was to be expected that Berger would appear in the lower house of congress and demand his seat as a duly elected representa tive from Wisconsin. Convicted of sedition, he would have admitted his guilt and acquiesced in the full measure of odium heaped upon him, had he not appeared in the house to ask vindication. His con stant pose has been that of a martyr. He has tried to wear the air of "s one suffering for his opinions, a victim of free speech. A 'But whether he regarded himself as a traitor or merely as a rebel J against the established order he had no right to expect congress to I admit him to membership following his conviction. To found his claim' upon the votes of pro-Germans in a district reeking with dis loyalty and with servile veneration for the kaiser, was simply to deepen his disgrace. te Rising to a question of privilege on the first day of the Sixty-sixth 1 congress, he demanded to be heard, but was promptly suppressed. I The house did only what self-respect required when it silenced him. ' Had it ordered the sergeant-at-arms to throw him out it would have Jf done itself greater honor, for in this way it would have administered a m fitting rebuke not only to him but to those who voted for him. M Berger will not be admitted to the house again until he is able to 'M show that he is not guilty as decreed by the federal court of con J5 spiracy to violate the espionage laws of the United States. It goes without saying, almost, that he has had his last glimpse of congress tk from his chair in the house. The plunge from congressman to convict was his own fault. It matters not whether he was blinded by theories, by egotism or by 4k - devotion to kaiserism and the kaiser's friends in the United States. . " He sided with the eneniy when his country was at war and did it 1 brazenly, blatantly and defiantly. His downfall and punishment should I remain as a lesson to Americans and especially to those who, coming 2 from alien shores, have foresworn allegiance to foreign rulers and taken an oath to uphold th constitution and laws of their adopted ' country. i ' MEXICAN PROBLEM LOOMS AGAIN. Mf T T AV1NG denied Europe the right to interfere with our Monroe "kf ' doctrine and Europe, as represented by our allies, having agreed '& " not to insist on the abrogation of "regional understandings," what are f we to do about Mexico. ,w Mexico has repudiated the Monroe doctrine and is not amenable jfc; to the League of Nations, which she has not been invited to join. m True, the revised version of the league covenant gives the league the II last word on the Monroe doctrine and it may be that Europe will yet m step into regulate anarchic Mexico if we do not. . Europe was none too well satisfied with Wilson's policy of "watch- ful waiting" in the days before the European war. Germany, it will be remembered, tried to arra lge a European combine which should undertake to restore law and order in Mexico in defiance of the Mon roe doctrine. Conditions have continued to grow worse' under Carranza's rule an' the qhance.s are that an acute crisis will be reached as soon as peace has bVpn formally proclaimed imEurop'e Mexico; ow.es'millions jMggy """ ' ' ' '"" """TIT w to our friends and allies in Europe and they- have numerous claims for 1 damages to property and for subjects slain. As a matter of course . B these claims will be pressed sooner or later and the United States, be- I fl cause of its adherence to the Monroe doctrine, will be involved. Hi fl The Mexican government is less able to meet its obligations than B fl it was when the President adopted a policy of "watchful wait- II ing." Villa or his alter ego recently seized Parral, mUrdering the "I mayor and his two sons. A Red Cross report at Washington tells of jl 200,000 bandits and thieves let loose "rotten with disease and divorced I from all ideas of ever working again. The streets in Mexico City are declared by competent observers to be unsafe for pedestrians after 8 H o'clock in the evening. A conservative estimate has it that 10,000 Ifl have starved in Mexico in the last four years. The total equals the !H number of death in the French revolution from the fall of the Bastilc ; H to the beheading of Robespierre. H Mexico is a queer combination of militarism and Bolshevism SH Before Russia fell into the clutch of Lenine and Trotzky the Mexican ( people were suffering from a regime as red as any which has cursed fl Russia in the last two years. The disorganization and disintegration jM has followed much the same course. In both countries the destruction of industries has prevented hundreds of thousands from earning a living. In Russia the poor have joined Lenine's guards and have i preyed upon the rest of the people. In Mexico the poor, unable to ; work for wages because no work was to be had, joined the Villistas or i'l other bodies of bandits. j M In both countries cunning leaders live by plunder and graft. The f fl militarists who keep Carranz? in power vie with one another to make fl Mexico City howl with their orgies. M Mexico's credit is destroyed ; not a cent can be borrowed in for- lI eign lands to pave the way for reconstruction ; Carranza has not kept jH his pledges to protect lives and property ; aliens are being robbed and H slain as in the worst days of anarchy before the European conflict. iH The American government must be prepared once again to face fH the Mexican problem.. The American people must once again inform H themselves as to conditions beyond the Rio Grande, must be ready to H face a crisis as acute as any that has yet arisen and must reach a H decision which shall be final. H p r P l H THE SKULL AND THE BOOK. H IN perhaps the most epochal and far-reaching peace pact of all his- H tory have been inserted provisions which apparently are trivial and H almost frivolous, yet rightly understood they take on a significance H as weighty as that which attaches to the provisions redistributing H European territory. H When the painstaking reader who fought down a tendency to H sleep while he was scanning the official summary of the peace treaty H came to the following clause he smiled : H "Germany is to restore within six months the Koran of the Caliph H Othman, formerly at Medina, to the King of the Hejaz, and the skull H of the Sultan Okwawa, formerly in German East Africa, to his JM Britannic Majesty's government." H To imagine the Koran of the Caliph Othman as simply a M priceless relic, is to miss the real point. To the true believer H among the Moslems the Koran of the Caliph Othman has a higher H vai dity than any of the historic bibles has to the Christian. It is H "the one and only" authority worth considering when a dispute arises H regarding the teachings of the Prophet. Caliph Othman was both kinsman and son-in-law of Mahomet. H Following the death of the prophet controversies naturally arose H over the conflicting versions which had resulted from carelessly H copying or from transmitting the Koran texts orally. Therefore it H behooved the Caliph to straighten out the tangle and to bring harmony H among the jarring sects. To the holy city of Medina he summoned H Zaid Abu Thabit, who had been ammanuensis to Mahomet, and or- H dered an authentic text prepared. Mahomet's secretary, aided by H three learned scholars, produced a text of which three copies were H made. The original was kept at Medina and tlie copies were sent to H Damascus, Kufa and Basra. Thus in the year 664 the words of the M prophet were established with certainty and all earlier copies of the jH