Einstein Demands

Up the tall hill on which perches the citadel of Prague sped the sleek limousine of Lewis Einstein. When Commoner William Jennings Bryan was U.S. Secretary of State, he once called Mr. Einstein an "invaluable adjunct" to that Department. Lion Hunter Theodore Roosevelt declared in 1918, "Mr. Lewis Einstein . . . foresaw the War. He foresaw our entry into the War."

Last week the sleek limousine of Lewis Einstein, rich and smart "career diplomat," and U.S. Minister to Czechoslovakia, was accorded every mark of respect as it wheeled into the courtyard of the Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry. Alighting briskly suave Mr. Einstein stepped within and soon deposited a formal demand from the U.S. State Department that the annual quota set upon U. S. motor cars imported into Czechoslovakia shall be raised this year by a cool 1,000.

Naturally U.S. motor men are vexed by the motor quota system, just as are Czechoslovaks by the U.S. immigration quota. But the need of developing a Czechoslovak motor industry is considered vital, and therefore a protective quota operates against even the Allied countries which secured independence for Czechoslovakia after the War. However, the "demand" presented by Minister Einstein, last week, was courteous and purely formal. Negotiations have long been smoothly under way to raise the U.S. motor quota to an annual total of 30% of present Czechoslovak production.

As the Einstein limousine purred down Prague's hill, many a non-Semite looked with envious eye. Well known is the fact that the U.S. Minister's rich father (wool) cut him off with $125,000 when he married his present spouse, because she had been twice before a wife. But later a rich sister placed at Son Einstein's disposal for life an income of $20,000 per year. In the opinion of William Jennings Bryan the present Mrs. Einstein became a distinct adornment to the diplomatic personnel, and deserved all praise for remaining in Constantinople with her husband through the entire Turkish Revolution of 1908, at which time he was successively Second Secretary, First Secretary and Charge d'Affairs.