Polk County observer. (Monmouth, Polk County, Or.) 1888-1927, 1914-07-21

all Europe except Russia, and lay i
; down once, twice and half time
two and half times-two and hall
times-and still have one-sixth of oul
, territory left to make frame to &C
, around the marvellous picture and
hang it ON the Pole Star for all the
world to view in wonder and amaze
Here are 100000 square miles OF
arabic soil, capable of supporting, not
) our present 100,0O0,000, but capable
of supporting thousand million pop
ulation better than any equal area on
the face of the earth. u
We have a national debt of round
billion'dollars every penny of it war
debt, too. During the past thirty
years our population has increasd
eighty-five per cent, our wealth one
hundred and eighty-fve per cent, and
our expenditures four hundred per
cent. For the ten years before the
Spanish war We appropriated yearly
$24, 100000 for our4army and 1927, ,0O0,-
600 for our navy Since the Spanish
war each year $83,0O0,OOO at least
has gone to the War Department, an
average Of $108,00D,000 to the navy.
In the ten years we have spent ST.
$4,000, 900, enough to have paid the
entire national debt and have built
three Panama Canals.
During 1912 our entire income was
$702, 900. Of this we expended
1864, 100000, and of that expenditure
$444 100000 went to the War, Navy,
and Pension departments. Seventy
two per cent, that is, of the entire
income--for war, past, present, and
to come, and twenty-eight per cent,
or what was left, for all that a great
nation should do-deserts to be irri-
gated, swamps to be drained, rivers to
be deepened, harbors to be dredged,
forests to be guarded, roads to be
built, tuberculosis to be fought, can
Ger to be investigated, ten million ne
groes to be cared for-all, all the
mighty problems of free Republic
to be met, and we kept twenty-eight
per cent of our income and gave the
rest to a cheap imitation of European
insanity.
The whole public school system of
America cost in 1912 the sum of 1926,
250, 0,434, and we lavished $444, 1000
on our pet delusion. A single bat
tleship costs at least $15,00O,OOO; its
upkeep at least $750,000 per year. We
have grown, alasl so accustomed to
battleships and their cost that the
enormous magnitude fails to impress
us as it should.
The cost of one battleship would fur
nish faculty of twenty-five profess
sors to fifty colleges for five years. 1t
would furnish the entire public-school
system to ten cities of $4,000 inhabi-
tants for ten years. 1t would give
complete college or technical educa-
tion to 10000 young men. 1t would
build modern sanitary tenements,
whose small rental would keep them
in lasting repair and condition, cap
able of housing 100000 souls in com
fort and safety. 1t would build and
endow fifteen manual training schools
and enable them to send out each year
ten thousand boys and young men fit
to earn not a mere competence, but
an adequate living. Instead of cost
ing quarters of a million dollars
to keep it in repair, and in ten years
at most going to the scrap-heap Of
uselessness, that one battleship would
eliminate ignorance and crime and
pave the way to usefulness and sue
cess for thousands Of men for gener-
ations to come. And we are urged to
perpetuate,, this monumental extrav-
agance yearly-not by building one
ship alone, but two or three, and even
four-so. wild has become the mania
of the extreme advocates of militar-
We have fifty two fourteen-inch
guns in our navy, each throwing a
l 1,40O-pound shell, firing three shells
minute. There monsters of destruc-
ton can reach a target fourteen miles
away. We have thirty-six thirteen
inch cannon all but as powerful.
These guns cost $4,000 apiece. Ev-
cry time a gun is fred it burns 81 900 |
to ashes, and all this while people
starve in our slums, children die like
flies for lack Of pure milk, and half
famished girls sell their virtue for
the price of life. And we pay $751;
900 for one gum Why, my God! a
nation that will do a thing like that
deserves the doom that fell on Babylon
and that swept Rome from the hills
she thought were eternal.
And all this without an enemy in
the world-without single power to
US to combat.
Let America stop. We have moth
ing to. lose. We have an imperishable
immortality. to gain. More, we can
teach our own people higher, loftier
purpose of life than the sordid greed
for territory and power that dominates
the poIiey of the world. We can
pour out our millions for the people IS
good We can fight poverty and
want. We can campaign against vice
and unrighteousness. We can make
our armies conquering battalions who
.hall bear the triumphant banners of
accomplishment. We can bridge our
d.