The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-10-12
FROM OTHER PENS
NO CONSUMPTION.


Lieutenant General AAdna r. Chaffee,
of the United States army, retired,
startled the military authorities Of the
country by speech he made before the
national guard convention at Los An
Seles last week. He was quoted as adj
vocating consumption for army train
ing, SO that a force of SOC, 900 drilled
men would be available for military
service in an emergency. When these
remarks were brought to the attention
of Secretary Dickinson that official
automatically said that he did not
think he ought to be called on to ex-
press an opinion every time anyone
made a speech. That might be taken
as an indication that the head of the
war department does not think 1t worth
While to consider General Chaffee's
proposition very seriously
It is certain that the country at large
VIII not so consider it. And if it die
think it worth while to think very
much about 1t, the country undoubted-
ly would not express itself with any
particular amount of favor. Taken as
whole. the nation is rather proud of
the fact that we do not maintain A.
large standing army; it is also rather
proud of the fact that it has a. pretty
well drilled body of reservists in the
national guard.-Buffalo Express.
A MODEST SCIENTIST.
Thomas A. Edison is one of those
rare exceptions in this or any other
day-a really modest scientist. Few If
any men have done more to develop in
the dlrectlon OF applied electricity the
possibilities of the marvellous force
which is so familiar and yet so mys-
ferrous, of which so little and so much
is known. But after long and highly
successful career of achievement Mr.
Edison declares that he knows nothing
in comparison with the illimitabIe total
OF what remains to be learned. 1t is
only natural that man. looking at the
M a q = hi
press the wish that those who are liv-
ing today might be spared to witness
the triumphs of the next century, or any
period corresponding to that which has
wrought such tremendous revolutions
in the worlds affairs
In declaring that the world is just
emerging from what he calls the dog"
age, Mr.. Edison does himself and his
fellow-workers in the great laboratory
of nature an injustice. They have
blazed the way and are the real dis
coverers by right of perfection and de-
In some fields of work they
were the real inventors and those who
come. after them will have only a beaten
path to tread, and the world will ap-
praise their labors at their proper value
accordingly.-Kansas City Journal.
WORKING CAPITAL NEEDED.
Reclamation and irrigation, for
which President Taft in his Spokane
speech urged an issue of $10,000,000 of
bonds, has reached the point where it
has exhausted all its working capital. |
When the Hansbroug1 irrigation act
was passed, in 1902, after President |
Roosevelts message of the December |
before, it provided that the receipts |
from public lands in a group of arid |
states should be used for irrigation in |
those states This was expected to |
give $2,50O.O0O a year, or 5000. 900 |
in ten years. The money spent On ir- |
rigation was to be repaid by the sale |
of the irrigated lands, and the sums
thus paid were to be credited to the !
reclamation fund for irrigation.
In six years $42,000,000 has been /
available, and this has been absorbed |
in irrigation projects still under way. |
What has taken place is what is con-
stantly occurring in business. when
working capital is locked up because |
the business grows faster than the |
capital. OF the success of the original
plan in gaining new capital for recla-
nation yearly by the sale of lands,
there is no question whatever. What
is needed now is more capital.-Phila-l