The Washington herald., 1913-12-22
The World and the Closing Year
BY GRlDLEY BEDE.

ness. Her very greatness In bulk and her
momentum have kept her going; but no
nation in the final analysis looms big
unless the heart of her people is big. This
great heart is lacking. no matter how
ponderous her "dreadnoughts." In the
race OF the nations for naval pre-emi-
nence. the stronger she makes her de-
Tense the more quickly does she exhaust
her reserves She cannot keep up the
naval enlargements and live financially.
She cannot stop and live nationally. She
Is in a bad way.
The Two Americas.
Our neIghbor southwark is in bloody
state. A struggle to exhaustion is all that
can be seen ahead, for our country will
not step In to stop the inter-racine strife
and no other country will dare TO.
All OF Brazil is under business depres-
sion. With a wonderful area and wonder
full possibilities she has neither the in
telligent common people nor the diver
sity of agriculture to save her from the
evil results of depending on two main
products aIone-coffee and rubber.
Peru. Uruguay, Salvador, Chiie-these
four are suffering from commercial stag
nation. Argentine has had crop short
age.
Some Good Prospects.
Looking the world over, We see business
conditions to be either good or fair IN
Australia, in the Dutch and British set
Elements, and in Burma, in Asia; in AZ
rica, as a whole, apart from the racial
labor struggles in British South Africa.
The smaller countries OF Europe, like
Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway,
Sweden, and Spain. are all in fair or good
conditions OF prosperity. Bolivia, Colom-
bia, Venezuela, Ecuador are all in fair
condition. Business is good in Cuba, but
political unrest is bad. Newfoundland Is
doing well. Canada is in fair condition
in its older sections, but suffering some
what from the fictitious raising of land
values in the northwestern provinces.
As for Ourselves.
quality Is in acting first and thinking aft
erward. The actual truth Is that bust
ness and every one affected by business
that is the whole population-is appre-
hensive. The political leaders have gone
beyond what the people can really un-
derstand. They cannot yet see see how
THE New Freedom" comes from a change
In tariff rates; they cannot quite under
stand the moral connection between free
corn and the present importation OF Ar
gentine corn into the greatest corn land
on earth. II Is there, however, because
the emergence OF a man from shelter
into the heat of a new battle will make
him stand up and fight back.
They cannot yet catch the meaning
of all the learned terms banded back
and forth in the House and Senate on
the money question. So while. they are
apprehensive, il is rather because Of
what they do not know than because OF
what they do.
So will It be in the next step in the
new year, a step that is fraught with
danger.
Yet looking at all our own dangers and
anxieties We see them to be trities COM
pared with the problems OF other nations.
We are not really divided in heart. We
are not moribund. We are alive, eager,
pressing to run a greater race than our
Such are our hopeful elements,
and in the strength OF them we can ap-
proach with assurance the threshold of
the best year in history for all optimists-
the year yet to come.