The weekly examiner., 1901-05-04
THE BETTER WAY.
AN ARMY OF WEALTH CREATORS YER. a SUS AN ARMY OF DESTRUCTION.

/ the Unemployed.
 1 .. B. O. Flower, editor of The Arena,
 sent q letter presenting the question. "An Army of Wealth Creators Versus an Army of Destruction" to half 8 dozen well known reformers and so- licited replies from them on the sub 1 ject. In the May Arena the responses are published, preceded by MT. Flow 1 CTS communication. Aside from the ethical phases of the war of conquest 1 in the Philippines MT. Flower asked his correspondents to look at the prob l lem from the viewpoint of business l success and political security. Are there not ways open at our door by which for an incomparably less outlay than the cost of prosecuting this war 1 of conquest the government might in-
 crease her wealth products and vastly enrich her people without the destruc- tion of life or the surrender of the fundamental principles enunciated by our Declaration of Independence, which for more than 8 century made the United States the great leader of free governments and the chief source of inspiration to struggling manhood throughout civilization? Furthermore, if 1t can be shown to be clearly prac tical to establish an army of wealth
 creators, which, while virtually banish- ing uninvited poverty from our land, shall promote self respecting manhood and enable tens of thousands of our citizens to secure homes and inde
 pendence, will it not be the imperative duty of every patriotic citizen to agi-
 tate and in every way possible further a movement looking toward changing our army of destruction into wealth creating army of constructive useful ness?
 ''Within the borders of our own do- main there are virgin fields of vast extent, only awaiting the aid of gov ernment directed industry in order to yield riches far exceeding any possible return that we can reasonably hope for from commerce that may come as result of our war of conquest in the
 east, and the calling into the market of this wealth will result in giving work to the unemployed, thus maintaining self respecting manhood, one of the supreme essentials of free government, fostering love for the nation and bring
 ing content and happiness into the
 hearts of hundreds of thousands of our
 people. And while this is being ac-
 complished manhood will be elevated and the nobler side of life developed
 instead of the savage or brutal in- stincts being fostered, as is inevitably
 the case in q war for conquest. Fur thermore, the immense benefit to gen.
 eral business, which always accompa- nies the extensive circulation of money among laRgea numbers of the people and which has been so real a factor in stimulating business during and im-
 mediately after periods of war, will
 be accomplished without the sacrifice
 of thousands of ablebodied wealth
 creators. In a word, the prosperity
 that will ensue from the increased
 activity will not be accompanied by the
 shadow of death resting over the
 homes of the land or by the spoliation
 of the nation through the destruction
 of thousands of it's bravest citizens.
 ''In the great arid plains east of the
 Rocky mountains and in many of the
 western mountain states there are mill
 lions upon millions of acres of im-
 mensely rich land which under irriga- tion would almost instantly blossom
 into gardens, orchards and fields of
 wheat and grain, but which today are
 dry, parched desert expanses. Take,
 for example, the state of Nevada. Here
 we have 6,OOO,O0O acres of arid land
 that by proper irrigation can be made
 as fruitful as the productive regions of
 California, Colorado and Utah.
 in Fol %1n of
 manent levee for the Mississippi river.
 There are,' says ex-Governor Lionel
 Sheldon, over 23,OOO,OOO acres exposed
 to overflow from the mouth of the
 Ohio to the gulf of Mexico. The pro
 ductive power of these lands is not ex-
 celled in any part of the world, and
 by proper cultivation they would an- nually add many hundreds of millions of dollars to the national wealth and
 afford profitable employment for sev-
 eral hundreds of thousands of people,
 Eminent engineers who have ex-
 amined the levees under the auspices
 of the Mississippi river commission
 agree that the problem can be success
 fully solved if a sufficient amount is
 appropriated for so gigantic an under
 taking, which would require substan-
 tial uniformity in the width of the
 channel of the river by building spurs
 and dikes at points where the Missis-
 sippi is too wide, the proper rlveting of
 the banks wherever caving is likely to
 occur, together with the building of
 permanent levees of a height and
 strength sufficient to confine the wa
 ters of the channel. It is stated that
 since 1865 the cost of repairs has amounted to considerably over $4O,- COG, 1000; yet, owing to the fact that this
 work is of a temporary character, the
 benefits that would be derived from 8 permanent levee are lost, and every
 few years the floods necessitate fresh expenditures of vast sums of money"
 Professor Frank Parsons of Boston