Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1898-09-08
LARGE STANDING ARMIES
NOT NEEDED.

Richard II. Edmonds, editor of
Baltimore Manufacturers Record,
which is well known for its bold
stand for Southern development,
in a recent interview in the New
York Commercial Advertiser, let
fall many truths in regard to the
future OF the South and its CONS
parotive precedence over European
competition. We clip a paragraph
or two to show to what lines the
interview was carried. Tn the last
paragraph will be noticed cons
parison between a great and free
country and a score of nations in
continual conflict with one another
all burdened with standing armies.
These are tine paragraphs in
question:;
Edmonds, OF course, that fact that our
country as a nation will more and more
attract attention, greatly strengthens
the South's position. 1t has boon well
said that no other country, no other age
in the worlds history, can show such
progress in the creation of wealth and
such widespread prosperity among the
people as the United States. Our nat
70 hot nj al
Europe combined, have only been
touched on tho edge. the outcrops so to
speak; while in England and some
countries OF continental Europe, the
cost of production in nearly all indus
tries is increasing because OF docrras-
! ing supplies OF N ttprial and their con-
sequently increasing cost, With US
the cost of production is docreas ing day
by day, and we open up our richer re-
gions TO capital and labor. We have
more than half the railway mileage of
the world and water transportation by
sea, by rivers, and by lakes, and have
only to adjust our varied productions of
the farm the factory and the mine, to
right proportions, in order to permit
unlimited increase in wealth and pros
perity. We have the material, with
every natural condition for making it
useful in the highest degree; we have
over seventy millions people to work it
up; we have tho skill, intelligence, in
dustry, thrift and enterprise to carry on
work on scale never dreamed OF in an
country or age. The ability Of the
American people to adapt themselves
to tho work in hand, to ''catch on" has
long been proven superior to that OF an
other people. Tho results they have
attained in the creation of wealth, COM
| fort and progress are entirely without
parallel in the history of the world.
What they have done and are doing is
the best guarantee Of what they can do.
with an area equal to that OF all
| Europe and natural resources far great
or, with homogeneous population work.
| ing under common laws, we must in
| time exceed not what combined Europe
| has, but what she might have had II
she had been from the start q single
country working in harmony instead Of
divided into a score of nations, with ar
| tihcial and unnatural boundaries and
still worse, divided by language, laws,
preiudices and old grudges, and wasting
their energies and resources in wars
and in standing armies"
We believe that a large standing
army is an unnecessary expense.
The money wasted in thus keep
ing up a large body of men to fight
imaginary battles and give others
! jobs to look after them, can be bet>
ter spent in the cause of education
The school is the natural oppOn~
emit of barbarism. BarbariC ma
tons fight on everv provocation;
civilized nations should not, 800