Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1914-09-17

contests. But that is Of small conse-
quence. We agree with the president
that he Is needed now as president.
Cedar Rapids Republican: That one
term plank in the Baltimore platform
may turn out to be simply another
scrap of paper. Mr.. Bryan wrote on
that piece of paper when he imagined
he might have a chance in 1916, but
he now has been compelled to give up
all such hopes. He is now, probably
sorry that he ever put that in his plat
form.
Burlington Gazette: Telling your
troubles to policeman was once a
favorite method. All this has chang
ed. Take 'em to the president of the
United States.
Pittsburgh Press: Much is being
said about markets abroad. And prop
erly. because we have got a rare
chance to capture lot of them, thus
driving more pegs to keep our big
tent up. But let us not meanwhile
forget what whale of home market
we have. Adding all we bought from
abroad to all we sold abroad last year,
the total is not hundredth part Of
which we bought and sold among our
selves. 1t would not amount to a
penny on the dollar.
Clinton Herald: When strong
political leader insists that all minor
political offices Che of course having
annexed the leading oflce) shall be
divided among men who can be de-
pended on to hold up his train, he Is
due for a period Of spectacular leader
ship, and then a somewhate less spec
tacular fall. So with Bob LaFollette,
whose organization has just received
skinning in Wisconsin. And he
won't be the last.
Springfield News: Superintendent
H. S. Magill of the Springfield high
school, is strongly in favor of extend
ing the practice of placing election
polls in the Easements of school
houses. Such practice not only saves
the expense of erecting expensive
booths, but being in close proximity
to the school children, the latter learn
much by observation, of the operation
of the election machinery. Moreover,
with the election polls placed In the
school houses, there Is much less like
lihood of chicanery in the conduct OF
an election.
In the primary election last Wednes-
day, the polls of number of precincts
were placed in school houses, and the
result was such as to bring forth
warm commentator from those who
were in position to pass Judgment on
the practicability Of the plan.
Waterloo Courier: The strangest
thing in the world is reported in a dis
patch which says that eight thousand
growers in the northwest have banded
together to lower the price of apples
this fall! And there seems to be q
chance that 1t is neither lie nor 9
miracle. The fruit growers OF, Oregon,
Washington, Idaho and Montana have
formerly sold most of their crop
abroad. With the suspension of for
gein commerce they find 1t quite nee
essary to build up a market at home
and so they have conspired to sit down
all together on flighty prices.
It is a bully idea, this building up
of home market. Why don't the
butcher, the baker, the candlestick
maker and all the rest of them try It?
New York World: DR.. Emil Led.
erer's statement that the war has al
ready smashed to atoms" German
industry appears along with British
board of trade report showing a de.
cline during August for that country's
exterior commerce of only about 81
per cent.
Germany's economic handicap in a
long war as compared with Great
Britain or Russia must be regarded as
overwhelming. Russia is practically
Germany Is second
only to England among the great ma
lions in dependence on foreign trade
But at the first call to arms the
great German mercantile marine dis
appeared from the seas, and German
foreign trade of i$5,00O,000,00O year
virtually disappeared with that disap-
pearance. If Germany could have
kept the seas it would have been OF
little use when practically all OF It's
efficient male Industrial population IN
der fifty years had been called out to
war. Home production is as much .
necessity in foreign trade as a carry
ing service, and Great Britain with
her colonies can hardly be subjected
to such a drain upon it's industrial
as Germany has already
no matter how far the war
is prolonged.
Long since the kaiser was told by
his nations fnanciers that war under
these modern conditions of industrial
would mean an in
dustrial paralysis or destruction tor
Germany from which it would be years
in recovering. 1t is coming. It has
come. Smashed to atoms" Is
the German admission.
No nation can endure long war
under such conditions without risk
ing its commercial extinction. The
great efficiency of modern industry
has overpopulated it for the more
primitive situation which war brings,
and an appalling destruction Of life
as well as property beyond the battle
field must follow.
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