As promised, here is a Mr. Dooley column from Finley Peter Dunn titled An International Police Force.

It's a period commentary on the Venezuela debt crisis being referred to the permanent

court of arbitration in the Hague, as I described in this week's episode. A couple of things I

want to make sure you know before you start. If you've ever read a

Mr. Dooley column, you know that Dunn uses lots of apostrophes and misspells many words in order to

convey that the characters are speaking in a heavy Irish brogue. I can't do a heavy Irish brogue,

unfortunately, so I'm not even going to try. I'm just going to read it straight.

I should have probably recruited Zach Twomley to read this. The permanent court of arbitration in the

Hague came out of a peace conference called by the Russian Emperor. We haven't gotten to that story yet

in the podcast, although we definitely will. But in meantime, when Mr. Dooley talks about the court

as if it's the Tsar's idea, well, that's what he's referring to. The Habsbergs are the dynasty

of the Austrian emperor in an old and distinguished aristocratic house. You probably already knew that.

The Hohensolerns are the German imperial dynasty, so Bill Hohensolern is our old

friend Kaiser Wilhelm II. Edward is the King of Britain, son and successor to Queen Victoria.

You probably recall British colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain, and Emilio Castro is the President of Venezuela.

An International Police Force

I thought, said Mr. Dooley, that when me young friend the Tsar of Russia got up that

their Dutch police court for to settle the backyard quarrels among the nations of the

earth, t'would be the end of war for good and all. It looked all right to me. Why not? If by any chance I

get myself full of misconduct and go around trying to collect me debts with a gun and camp out in somebody's

house and won't leave, the police take me down to Deering Street

Station and throw me in among the little playmates of the criminal. And in the morning, I'm

...