Evening journal., 1914-09-12

is the reason that the best brains
in Congress and officers OF the Army
and Navy favor the idea of continu-
ing the Government mills in a small
way and perhaps increasing their ca
pacity, but the bulk OF explosives
used by the Government should be
made by a concern that has every
facility which ample capital. expert
ence and science can supply and eX-
pends hundreds OF thousands of dol
lars every year in endeavors to bet
ter the product.
France has learned a bitter lesson
in the line Of manufacturing powder
for itself To date it has lost three
battleships.
The Leberta was sent to the bot
tom with every man on board. This
gave such scare to the parlez-vous
iackies that on many a French bat
tleship II the cook dropped a plate
in the galley the jackies jumped
overheard as one man. calculating,
Mon Dieul w are up against i'll"
And so we have the peculiar spec
tacle of a French battleship going
out for target practice. toting behind
II a barge on which its powder was
stored. this because the sailors would
not take any chances. The powder
was then carried on board in small
quantities and fired without delay.
And what was left after the target
practice was carefully carried back
and deposited on the barge, which
vas pulled by a hawser Of a gener-
GUS length.
Imagine a battleship going into ae-
tion with a powder barge in tow.
The French navy today is in vastly
more danger from its own explosives
than from those OF the enemy.
Also, il is in evidence that its powder
is costing about twenty per cent. more
pound than the powder that Is sup
piled to the United States government
today by the DUPONT Powder Company.
Congress is made up of men who for
the most part have no technical knowi-
edge of the matter of explosives. Con-
gress has a vast number of things 90
interest it and TO pass judgment on, and
moreover let " be stated that congress.
men are liable 10 the mistakes. the
preiudices and the errors 20 which we
are all more OF less heir.
So We find Jealous congressman
/ caught by the bait of Colonel Hapqood
I and reading into the Congressional Rec.
ord the Harper's Weekly libelsl
Even so strong and able a man as
Senator MARITIME was swept OF his feet
/ by these accusations, until he came Ia
dissect them and analyze them by sec.
tions. when their fallacies became ap.
parent.
If Congress would take time to study
the record of hearings of its own com
mittees and know what the DUPONT
Powder Company has done for the ma
tion, and what It is now doing and will
ing 20 do, and able to do, il would pasl
out a few medals Of award TO the du
Pont people, instead Of allowing then
to be punctured by political pea shoot
ers and literary freeb, lers in the nam,
Of reform.
This country can not afford to ru
the risk of repeating the Leberta per
formance with American ships.
Let Steffens defend the bomb throw
ing anarchists, and Hapgood defen,
Steffens, but when Harper's Week.,
concocts hydrochloric asafetida. AM
heaves the wordy stinkpot, il should b
placed by readers and advertisers in
cosmic San Quentin, in a cell next doc
TO the McNamaras.
Nothing is truer in the wide worl
, than that government Of negatioi
hysteria and experiment shall peris
e from the earth.
What we want is to respect thi