The Twin Falls times. [volume] (Twin Falls, Idaho) 1905-1916, 1915-06-29

many spent her money, we would have
an all powerful navy and a strong
army.
There has been too much pork barrel
work at Washington-too much graft
that was looked upon as only part Of
the game.
ST we go down to defeat in our next
war, we will have been defeated no
more by the enemy than by our own
politicians says Julian Street in his
excellent Golfers article on "Our Next
War"
Many secretaries of the navy have
made earnest efforts to concentrate
and get the most possible out of the
expenditures of the government But
their efforts have been blocked by pol
liticians.
Every lawmaker> wants to take care
of his own locality and thereby get
votes. This is one of the most dam
aging weaknesses of our system Of
government. A congressman will
make most any kind of deal with an
other, to get the others vote for some
project that will please "the folks back
home" He, in turn, has to vote for
| the other fellows project, when he
knows that by doing so he is adding an
unnecessary burden on "the folks back
home and is wasting public money.
When Won L. Meyer was secretary
of the navy he tried to close all but
His plan failed because certain con-
gressmen had to look after their To-
cal interests and keep more yards open
even though the American people had
to foot the bill of this inefficient sys-
tenn.
! Now there are nine navy yards on
the Atlantic coast
One was opened by the Democrats
at New Orleans Experts have de-
clared that this was done merely to
please the Southerners by spending
| oOI4lC VI tAC government 1lOAOy IHClC.
| If Germany had wasted the public
money as American congresses have
been doing, that empire would not
have lasted three months in the pres
ent war. She would not have been
prepared for conflict
For political reasons, ships must be
built in certain localities. Comment
ing on this phase of our. trouble, Mr..
Street says:
"A notable example of the latter fact
occurred some years since when three
monitors were constructed at Bath
Me- Battleships were needed at the
time, and monitors were recognized by
naval men as vessels of obsolete type
More important, however, than these
considerations appeared to be the need
for the expenditure of government
money in the state OF Maine. The wa
ter was not deep enough at Bath fol
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. monitors.
1T is as logical sequence to this
sort of thing that the United States
gets fewer ships in proportion to its
naval appropriations than any other
nation. In the period from 1900 tt
1918, inclusive our expenditures fol
naval purposes exceeded those of Ger
many by 500 millions of dollars, yet thu
tonnage in battleships finished II
the same period by Germany vastly ex
ceeded ours. Lower cost Of construc
ton and lower pay Of officers and me1
in the German navy account for only
part of this discrepancy.
From the beginning of 1912 to dat
our naval appropriations have amount
ed to approximately 400 millions. o
which sum only about 20 per cent wen
into new construction. though any wei
run navy should put at least 40 pei
cent Of its naval expenditure into new
ships.
Army men have repeatedly tried t.
break down the patronage at Washing
ton and concentrate large bodies 0
troops and abandon useless posts. Blu
they have failed, because Of our "Yo,
Iscratch me and I'll scratch you sys
Item.
The artillery, cavalry, supply depart
-lment and infantry should practice to
[gether. But they can't because the,
} are scattered into such small groups
II there 10 not An awakening II
congress to the need Of real patriotism
and policy Of doing what IL beat n
ways for the largest number. the Unit
ed States II likely 70 find hersslt n ,
lpretty bad mees before many years
II the worst doss come and thousand
LOT lives have to be sacrificed becaus'