The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1909-10-21

tcIy W Iuc ClGy I1al. Lucy VIII oil
be crumbled into ruins. A few
moments will accomplish it, with
we'll aimed torpedoes. There may
be some uncertainty IN directing tor
pedoes under water against battle
ship, but there will be none In firing
them through tubes at skycrapers
from aerial war ships. What a
splendid target: the tower of the
Metropolitan Life Building will
make.
Bombs filled with combustibles
will be dropped to start lines of fire
across the city from east to west at
intervals from Harlem to the Battery.
These walls of fame will hem the
people in on the north and south.
and the Hudson River on one side of
the Island and the East River on the
other will prevent their escape from
the burning city.
A few torpedose will disjoin the
water system as effectually as the
earthquake did it in San Francisco,
leaving the city at the mercy OF the
flames.
Now the street lights are no longer
needed to guide the Destroy ers and
in turn the Electric Light plants are
destroyed The city is in dark ess
except for the raging furnace of fire
that is sweeping over it. The City
and pcpulace are doomed. There is
no escape for them. To be burned
by fire or drowned in the River is The
certain fate of two or three million
people. They cannot get off the
Island. The East River bridges are
at the bottom of the river. The
Terminals of the tunnels are DESTROY
ed. A few, very few, of the panic
stricken mobs may be saved by boats.
The rest will be consumed IN the
most horrible holocaust the world has
ever seen, for New York is the only
city from which the people cannot
escape IN time of great fire.
The value of taxable property of
New York u yea ago was SIS, 7O4, 0O9,
652 and that huge sum has been de-
stroy ed with less than hours work by
a well equipped Aerial Fleet such as
Germany is now building.
Can New York be fortified against
such an attack?
1t cannot.
Forts, Navies and Armies are i'm
potent against it.
The suddenness with which the
attack can be made and the rapidlty
with which destruction can be
wrought make defense by protect
ing aerial fleet impraclicable.
When then must the nation do in
the face of this menace?
There is only one thing TO be done,
and that is:
Stop building cities any bigger.
AS they now exist they are a
national menace and weakness to be
minlnized as much as possible.
The industries, homes and property
of the people must be widely distr-
buted in small industrial centers.
In that alone lines their safety.
Aerial warfare will enforce new
conceptions of national defense.
Our great cities must be disintegrat-
ed. Their place must be taken by
tens of thousands of small cities and
towns SO widely scattered and such a
multitude of them that therein will
lie thei. safety. IF the five thousand
million dollars worth of property
that is concentrated in New York
were scattered among five thousand
towns, giving a million to each, it
would be comparatively safe from
aerial attack.
Aerial warfare makes every great
city menace to the nation that built
it, and likewise has made of the
country towns and the small cities a
bulwark of safety for the industries
located there. 1t must become part
of our policy for national defense to
stop building big cities and TO multi.
ply and upbuild the country towns.
Nothing should be done that will
take anything from the town and
give it to The big city.
GEORGE Fl. MAXWELL.