Polk County observer. (Monmouth, Polk County, Or.) 1888-1927, 1914-07-17

/
and your flag is as safe as if it were
surrounded by glittering bayonets o.
For the simplest reason in the world
guarded by great batteries of EN-
brasured guns. No nation will evel
attack, or allow to be attacked anoth
er nation upon which she depends fol
the food that keeps her people alive
In Copenhagen | sat at lunch witt
brilliant newspaper man, talking
with him of such things as these.
said to him, "Don't you feel a bit
nervous sometimes, perched here or
your little promontory, with Germany
on one side and England on the 9th
er? Aren't you afraid that some day
the big millstones may begin to &C
around, and that Denmark may be
the grist for some ones grinding?'
He laughed as he answered, "Have
you forgotten that Denmark has the
strongest navy in the world?"
wanted to tell him that | was from
Missouri" but l didn't know how to
put it in French so he would under
stand the subtle significance of Amer
lean slang. Denmark is one of those
happy nations so nearly neutralized
as to need very little army or navy.
She has few regiments and squad
rons for guard duty and ceremonies.
She has a few gunboats, useful for
harbor patrol and to fire salutes for
visiting sovereigns. But Denmark is
practically, and yet safely, unarmed.
/ asked my friend to explain, and
in perfect seriousness he repeated ::
Denmark has the strongest navy in
the world. Every day, practically
from January to December, one, and
often two, ships sail from Copenhagen
for London loaded with butter and
cheese and cream! That is the
strongest navy in the world" And
he was right. Nor was it pun on
Gouda cheese. Every gun of England
would roar. every soldier of England
would march to the defense of little
Denmark did any one dare to lay a
finger on her, for Denmark has become
the creamery of England's breakfast
table. Nor is there a nation in the
world today but needs for its COM
fort, if not for its necessity, what we
only can supply.
Ours, too, is the only nation around
whose border you might build wall
so high and so strong that none from
without might enter, that none from
within might withdraw. Within it
you may enclose this United States,
with its hundred million people, and
leave us to our fate-ten, twenty,
thirty years-and at the end of three
decades a visitor from Mars might
drop down here, there, yonder-any-
where-and he would merely find the
American people as much stronger,
richer, happier, and contented as the
years had been few or many in their
fight.
1t is time, then, high time, for the
people of the United States
to take stock of the great world prob
lens as they exist today, and to de-
termine whether we are to be mere
tagging at the heels Of the
suicidal policies of the ma
lions of Europe, entangled already in
a hopeless muddle, whose only solu-
ton is havoc, or whether we are to
be brave enough to rise to our oppor-
tunity and at least point the way to
the threshold of a new era, whose
marks of attainment are to be an i'm
mediate end to this ruinous expendi-
.ure for military armament, the alb
,olute elimination of war between civ
lized nations, and the establishment
IF courts of arbitration for the set
lement of all international disputes.
Aside from the humanitarian argu-
nents everywhere admitted, even if
everywhere violated, there stands the
tremendous logic of facts. Militar-
SIN is the burden of the nations. 1t
S exhausting their substance, impov-
their people, retarding their
progress as no war ever did or ever
ould do. 1t is crushing the poorer of
he nations; it is crippling the rich
st of them all.
In order that you may understand
xactly what l mean when l say that
nilitarism is the "Burden of the Ma
ions," it is necessary that you go
With me on such journey around the
7orld in fancy as l recently completed |
n fact-a magic carpet journey, shall
'e say7-with eyes and ears open to
acts as we shall find them. Indeed,
want you to listen with particular
are as pass to you the following
notwithstanding facts-facts which
on do not possess now-which you
annot obtain unless you do go with
le and gather them as l have done.
'ou may not agree with me in the
Oncluslons to which they lead me,
ut | shall be satisfied if 1 can sue
eed in making you merely stop and
linkl
We start with England-the mother
1untry across the sea-England for
lort-though of course we mean the
nited Kingdom-Great Britain-the
,urce and inspiration of our art and
of our literature and our
very cradle of Occidental
vilization.