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Show THE CITIZEN established a blacklist' and apparently adopted every available method of persecuting those who professed a patriotic wish to prevent graft and to help save the peoples money. A veteran riveter made himself obnoxious by protesting against faulty riveting. He was discharged, restored on an appeal to the White House, discharged again and blacklisted when he appealed to Mr. Hurley of the shipping board. Of course, the motives of the veteran riveter were not even suspected by the grafters. Asked by the investigating committee why he had objected so strenuously he said that he did not want to be responsible for the loss of life that must follow faulty riveting. The grafters were themselves callous to any such motive. They did not look beyond the graft. They could not or would not vision a great ship sinking in the sea as a result of their dishonesty and carrying to death perhaps hundreds of men, women and children. Not for them such childish scruples. And when a veteran riveter with an conscience could not maintain silence in the face of such criminality he was kicked out of the service. Nor was he able to hold his position, after he had been restored. To the astonishment of the grafters he again protested when he saw defective methods of riveting resumed. Out he went again, this time to stay. The service had no use for conscience or common honesty. It made way for the profiteers and grafters while soldiers died for a dollar a day in , old-fashion- ed cold-blood- ed France. 5 The testimony has revealed some curious forms of graft and profiteering. A common practice was for a favored shipyard to obtain a contract, sublet it for twenty-fiv- e per cent and thus rake in riches for doing nothing. In Savannah the shipping board paid from 90 cents to $1.20 an hour for white labor. The contractor employed negro labor at an average cost of 25 to 40 cents an hour and pocketed the difference. An auditor of the board refused to approve the charge, but itie contractor went to the boards district offices at Norfolk and had the bill audited there. Everywhere, except on the Pacific coast, a' custom existed under which all marine repair firms charged twenty-fiv- e per cent of the total for exigencies of God and unforseen circumstances. When a contractor was placed on trial a few weeks ago in Cleveland the testimony showed that he had a simple trick for meet--in- g hole five a required test. This test consisted of drilling a half-inc- h hole six inches deep in forgings. The contractor drilled a two-inc- h inches deep in defective forgings and inserted a steel plug. The plug was then treated so as to hide trace of it and the test hole was' drilled with results that pleased everybody. The forging would be passed as good and put into a shipping board vessel. The obvious charge against the firm was fraud, but the charge brought by the government prosecutor was the absurd one of. sabotage, and the contractor was set free. SWEEPING CHANGES IN EUROPE SERVE AS WARNING s. x of or t t Once more the scene in Europe shifts gigantically. The Bolshe-cviki have obtained mastery in almost all the empire formerly ruled by the czar. In Greece a statesman fit to rank with Pericles has been overthrown, and. the monarchists have won an election which y I at he :e. ce oi )rs bring back to the throne the exiled Constantine, who the kaiser in thought if not in deed. There are lessons for Europe in these surprising shifts; there is one overmastering lesson for Americans. We dispute among ourselves as to the meaning of the last election in our own country. Some say that it was a decisive j verdict against any League of Nations ; others say it was simply a But whether it was one j repudiation of Wilson and his covenant. or the other most Americans, who give thought to the subject, will feel that we must be vigilantly cautious in every move leading up to an association with nations that are constantly changing their may out-kaiser- ed ; j characters. It was the thought of the framers of the covenant, or at any rate their pretense, that the league was to be an association of free But some of those who were to be associated with us ;nations. lin the Wilson league were not free and some nations which professed to be free and republican in sentiment, had leanings toward military Greece especially has been imperialistic and now we j absolutism. see that she has been monarchists in her sympathies. The nations of Europe are more widely divergent in their forms of government than ever before. When the world war broke out there were monarchies and republics. Now there are monarchies, j j to his the )eal 1 hat the ewl ved riedl foil the bvH linstj usedl ha-- i and various shades of socialistic commonwealths from white to red. Whether for good or ill Bolshevik Russia is a menace to the institutions of other European powers. The politics of every nation is influenced by the dominance of Lcnine and Trotzky. The English government was afraid to interfere in behalf of Poland because Bolshevism had saturated the whole fabric of labor. Indeed, the British high commissioner at Danzig closed the port against French troops and supplies going to the aid of Poland and thereby lent all the power he could wield to give the Bolshevik government the republics victory. iate? In spite of British hostility Poland, with the aid of French officers, won and the British felt' that they had been dealt a stunning blow. For a time the French were triumphant. Defying British' official sentiment, the French government recognized the government of General Wrangel and sent ships and officers to help him. Now his government has been annihilated and France finds herself in a position as humiliating and discredited as the position the British occupied a few months ago. All England is secretly laughing' at France. The wheel of fortune is turning rapidly in Europe. And yet there are those who wrould have us associate ourselves with the European nations in a league before we know what is to eventuate ' from the turmoil. A few years hence Europe probably will be more settled than at present, but who knows just what durable form the readjustment will take? Europe may be all Cossack or all Bolshevist, or it may be something in between. Greece has seemed to align herself on the side of kaiserism. When the war was in progress there were many evidences that a majority of the Greek people were They did not declare for Germany, because the entire coast line of Greece was at the mercy of the allies. The time came when the allies found it necessary to occupy Greece to prevent the Germans from joining their forces with those of King Constantine. The allies always declared that they had gone into the country with the consent of the Greeks themselves, but there was much doubt on this score. True, they had the consent of Venizelos and his faction and they chose to consider it the majority faction. They probably were mistaken. At all events, they found themselves, on more than one occasion, threatened from the rear and no one will have forgotten that thousands of Greek soldiers, led by their officers, seized the first opportunity to go over to the Germans, surrendering important fortifications in Macedonia to the Teutons and Bulgarians. The significance of the Hellenic election is still in doubt. Perhaps the verdict is not as unfavorable to the allies as they arc inclined to think, but certainly it does not show any sense of obligation to the allies or to their League of Nations. pro-Germa- n. |