Undoubtedly many of our readers noticed the Chicago Tribune's editorial in which the materialistic tendencies of Europeans are discussed. This editorial was evidently inspired by the cablegram from Budapest which announced the mass murders committed by the midwives of Szolnok County, Hungary.

This piece of information as related by Laszlo Toth, rector of Tiszakurt, offers proof that religious feeling has been lost in the hearts of the population. The desire for money forces women to commit horrible crimes, such as the murder of their husbands in order to collect the inheritance and then remarry.

The Chicago Sunday Tribune states that although Europeans accuse Americans of 2being mercenary dollar chasers, the opposite is true as evidenced by the fact that Europeans are so avaricious that they resort to the murder of husbands to obtain wealth.

Further on in the editorial, the writer dissects European social life and concludes that Europeans, the uncultured primitive class as well as the idle upper class, are purely materialistic, always struggling for wealth. The writer goes on to say that accusing the American people of greediness is childish, because the Americans are merely keeping step with the progress of the twentieth century.

The editorial, in our estimation, is in itself apologetic.....

We who have lived in America for a long time note with pleasure the commendable change that has taken place in American life in the past fifteen or twenty years. The interest and good will shown toward art and science and the effort to solve social problems force us to admit that the branding of Americans as purely 3materialistic and greedy is wrong.

In a country with a population of one hundred and twenty million, comprised of so many different kinds of people, it is difficult to find the typical American. Therefore, the exceptions are often branded as typical.

On the other hand, it is just as ridiculous to condemn all Europeans because of the Szolnok County mass murders.....

We who have divided our life into two parts and know European and American people equally well, realize that this question cannot he discussed superficially and that generalities are deceptive. It should be analyzed in order to get a clear picture and reach a true verdict.

Let us take the case of the Szolnok County mass murders. Let us admit that the rector stated the truth when he said that avarice was the cause of the mass murders. We must add that such crime can occur only among the lowest 4class of agricultural workers where extreme poverty drives them to crime.

And, although we decidedly condemn the crimes committed by these poverty-stricken people, still we can understand this better than the crimes committed by wealthy and cultured men of America.

The poor people of Hungary are literally in a state of hopelessness. If they earn a little above their everyday needs, the government taxes eat up the surplus. In this desperate situation, the primitive uncultured soul heeds the voice of instinct and steals, embezzles, and murders. Terrible, but comprehensible.

However, what do we see here? The Sinclairs, the Days, the Capones, and the other millionaire oil and bootlegger barons who are in jail or against whom suits are pending--aren't they the prototypes of American greed, avarice, and materialism?

What could be the cause of gangster warfare that has been going on in Chicago 5for years? These American criminals are enjoying all the advantages of the twentieth century. They travel in the fastest automobiles, conduct their business by wireless and telephone; and still they are the world's worst materialists, because they have never experienced the pangs of hunger, the cold of unheated homes. They were not clothed in rags like the Hungarian sinners; they lived in palaces and enjoyed all the luxuries offered by the twentieth century--steam heat, air conditioning, bathrooms, theaters, concerts, schools, lectures--and still they committed horrible crimes. This, too, is terrible, but incomprehensible. This is purely pathological criminality.

This is the materialism that Europe abhors and for which it ridicules America!

In Europe or in Hungary, poverty, the struggle for bare necessities, which is the most primitive instinct, drives some people to crime. In America, the desire for luxury, the satanic greed for wealth breeds criminals.....

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Between the two abhorrent kinds of crime, which is the more human, the desperate or the materialistic?

We believe that the crimes committed by Americans are more deplorable, because here we have democracy; we have the highest degree of prosperity among workers; and general culture is at a higher level, so that crime should be at a minimum......

Avarice has been a trait of mankind since the world began and has been the curse of every age.....

There is a great difference when one considers money in itself as the ultimate goal, or when money is used only as a means. The overestimation of the power of money has caused most human ills, and, for centuries, has provoked social and class wars.

Thousands of years ago Horatius wrote the following:

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"Money was not made to command our will,

But all lawful pleasures to fulfill,

Shame and woe to us, if our wealth obey,

The horse doth with the horseman run away."

....The Chicago Sunday Tribune's editor is afraid that America is materialistic, and to forestall an accusation to that effect, he tries to pin the charge on Europe, on poor downtrodden Hungary.

Degradation will be the lot of America and Europe, too, if materialism is allowed to take complete possession. Mutilated Hungary is already the victim of the materialistic ruling class.