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Show i THE CITIZEN 6 ' of the Strand, Londons popular thoroughfare, under the title Find The Englishman could be seen emerging from the Englishman. the coal cellar, and the thoroughfare itself was crowded with Americans. The migration of American tourists to Europe is significant in two ways. First it shows that the United States is really prosperous. These tourists are not all wealthy by any means. Many of them are teachers and other citizens in the modest walks of life. The fact that they can go and spend their money shows how widely prosperity is diffused in America. This flood of visitors abroad proves another thing. It shows d and isolated. Each year they that Americans are not are travelling more and more at home and abroad. They are learning about their neighbors in other states and about the people in other lands. And this travelling is giving them breadth and additional understanding. It is now the Europeans who, for various reasons are staying at home. Most valuable of all, this traveling gives the average American an understanding of the real worth of America. He is finding after all that his own country is the best in which to live because of the cases greater opportunity for individual development. In ninety-nin- e out of a hundred he comes back home better satisfied with the fact that he is an American. self-centere- transferred from public ownership to private control, and in prac4 ally every instance, have been changed from money losers and liabilities into money makers and tax payers. American railroads, under private management, pay Sl,000,00i ta; a day in taxes in addition to earning reasonable dividends. Thes same railroads, under 20 months of federal control during World War, cost the taxpayers $1,600,000,000 to cover deficits federal operation. The American Telephone & Telegraph Company nows has ovt 350,000 stockholders, 65,000 of whom are employes of the comp or its associated companies. No stockholders own more than ti per cent of all the stock. During 1925, the Bell Telephone Systea paid state, municipal and federal taxes amounting to $58, 000, OH an increase of 120 per cent over 1910. Our public utilities are owned and controlled by over 2,000,00 stockholders, and collectively pay taxes around $150,000,000 year. There is hope for Belgium and France if they will get thei industries out of politics, and, under private enterprise, allow thee to operate on a money making and tax paying basis, rather tk on the present paternalistic tax consuming plan which impoverish the nation. e TRADE ALLIANCE We would like to know what has become of the politician who urged the adoption of the primary system so the poo; candidate would have a chance for an elective office. The presac primary law works about as efficiently as does the prohibition lav if you can rustle the price you can get by. In fact, its two elections and it takes a fortune to put a politic! machine in the field. Under the former system, the people gather t conventions and nominate their candidates and as a rule men veil nominated that did not spend a sou for their nomination. Butu& der the primary system no man can secure a nomination without hiring a lot of workers to get voters to the polls. It is anything but a poor mans game hence the contempt f the primary system by the people. Why then did the people adopt the new system? The peojA had no say in the matter. A few politiicans got together, framec the law, passed it and taxes have been going up ever since. People who spend fortunes to elect a man must get their monej back somewhere, and someone pays the bill. The biggest joke intk system is figuring out the expense account in order that it will pas muster; a little juggling of accounts is not considered a crime. old-fashio- outside of it. The trend of the times is unmistakable in this regard. A rman commercial treaty has just been signed which is held to be of special significance. First came private agreements between French and German iron and steel manufacturers and there have now been supplemented by a commercial accord which covers the entire range of trade between the two nations. Under the agreed nation treatment to France ment Germany grants full and France gives practically the same thing to Germany. International trade has a great deal to do with shaping friendships and creating rivalries between nations. We now know that commercial rivalry had a great deal to do, indirectly at least, with starting the World War. If therefore the German and French business interests find that it will be for the commercial welfare of the two countries to form a sort of trade partnership, it will take more than the combined jingoes of the two countries to keep them apart. And it is becoming more and more evident that the business men of the two countries feel that more can be gained by cooperation than by fighting. This is the best indication of an enduring peace in Europe that the world has yet had. A Franco-Germaeconomic agreement, whether or not it might be followed eventually by a political alliance might well cause some uneasiness among the other nations. It would bode no good for Englands world trade, already in a serious condition arid it would make it all the more necessary that the United States guard its own great market at home. Franco-Ge- most-favore- n m MOSLEM Late last year, as the result of a careful survey carried out t behalf of a church body in South Africa, the statement was mai that there were now six millions of Moslems in South Africa, as the figure may be regarded already as an understatement. There nearly as many Moslems in Russia now as there are in Turkey p per. China has almost six millilons. In the much disputed terriw ies of the Sudan, the Nationalism bom of distant Egyptian centes of political development may be making little progress, but essenjit Mohammedanism is filtering in and will raise crops which in tiflj aN may fully justify to Islam the counsels of constructive pati:nce afi Mohammedanism first. r BUSINESS King Albert, now financial dictator of Belgium, urgently invites holders of six billion francs of national floating debt, in the form of treasury bonds, to exchange them for preferred stock in a corporation formed to take over the state railways. France, in like manner, proposes to transfer the business and assets of the national tobacco monopoly to a private corporation which will issue bonds to pay half the outstanding national defense bonds. In the United States, more than 2,000 public utilities have been ( I 1 1 , i WHERE IS HE? There is now less friction between the two principal powers of continental Europe France and Germany than there has been for many years. They are gradually acquiring closer relations in spite of the nationalistic sentiment at home and without any assistance from the League of Nations. And if they finally settle down to peaceable existence side by side, this will not be due to political accord, reached through the league, but to commercial accord reached , The United States put up more money than any nation earth to win the World War and lost over 75,000 of ur sturdy youth who were shot to pieces, and yet we hae Americans who would want us to forget and turn all earned money to the plunderbunde in Europe. Wc are tired of hearing foreigners calling themsudv s llieI icans. Charity should begin at home. iuos! One of the actors at the Pantagcs theatre this w dc that the biggest mountain is in California Aimees BhilT. |