A Letter from Borah

Senator Borah, although he is not a member of the U. S. Debt Funding Commission, has always a respectful hearing with the Commission, for he is Chairman of the

Senate Foreign Relations Committee and his attitude may mean the difference between success and failure to secure Congressional approval for the Commission's recommendations. Moreover, he is credited as being a strong influence on the

Commission against granting easy terms to foreign debtors.

So it was only natural that Charles E. Piez, President of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association, recently selected Mr. Borah as a fitting person to whom a plea might be made for debt-leniency to France. Last week Mr. Borah replied to Mr. Piez, presenting with his usual eloquence, the standpoint of the 100-cents-on-the-dollar debt collectors:

"You state in your letter that you have reason to believe that Secretary Mellon and M. Caillaux could have reached a settlement had it not been that they feared the disapproval of the legislative bodies of their respective countries. It is evident, Mr. Piez, that you do not know Mr. Mellon. I venture to say that Mr. Mellon would never be embarrassed in doing what he thought was the wise thing simply because somebody else might disapprove it. If he thought he was doing the right thing and the wise thing, he would do it and let responsibility for rejecting it be upon those who might see fit to do so. ...

"If your able letter had been sent to the Chairman of either of the political parties during the last election, you would have had in reply a scathing rebuke for thus unfeelingly impugning the loyalty to the taxpayer of the great political organization to which you might have addressed your letter.

"I regard myself in this matter as acting in no other capacity than a trustee to carry out a pledge. . . . "As to the ability of the French to pay, I wholly disagree with you. John D. Rockefeller Jr. could not pay his laundry bill if he spent all his money on yachts and wines and hunting lodges. France has, since the war, maintained an active army of from 700,000 to 1,000,000 men, with a reserve army of 4,500,000 men. France has built more airplanes than Great Britain, the United States and Japan combined. She has now some 200,000 men fighting the Riffs and I see by the press despatches day after day that the Syrians are made to feel, even under the beneficent rule of a mandate, the terrific weight of her military forces. She has loaned large sums of money to other countries for the purpose of maintaining military establishments....

"I do not feel under these circumstances it is any part of my duty to put the load of the present imperialistic wars and France's military establishment upon the taxpayers of the United States. You say we can only get what France is willing to pay; that we are not going to war to collect this debt. No, we are not going to war to collect this debt. If France wishes to repudiate her debt before the peoples of the world, that is her costly course if she chooses to take it. But I do not conceive it to be any part of the duty of an American citizen to encourage her to do so."