Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1915-12-08

| the country or putting any TOO great
| charge upon individual expenditure. A
one per cent tax per gallon on gasoline
! and naptha would yield, at the present
estimated production. 100000; tax OF
/ so cents per horsepower on automobiles
and internal explosion engines, SIS, 00o, 900;
| a stamp tax on bank checks, probably
| SIS, coo 900; a tax of Is cents per ton on
| pig iron, $10O 900; a tax of so cents per
| ton on fabricated iron and steel. proba-
| bly, $10000.000 In q country Of great In
| dustries like this 1t ought to be easy to
| distribute the burdens of taxation with
| out making them anywhere bear too
| heavily or too exclusively upon any one
set of persons or undertakings. What Is
clear is, that the industry of this gener-
| alton should pay the bii:s of this genera
ton.
The Danger Within.
I have spoken to you today, gentlemen,
upon a single theme, the thorough prep
| aration of the nation to care for its
| own security and to make sure of entire
| freedom to play the impartial role in this
| hemisphere and in the world which we
| all believe TO have been providentially
| assigned to it. l have had in mind no
| thought of any immediate or particular
| danger arising out Of our relations with
| other nations. We are at peace with all
| the nations of the world, and there ls
| reason to hope that no question in con-
| troversy between this and other govern
| ments will lead to any serious breach of
| amicable relations, grave as some differ
| ences of attitude and policy have been
! and may yet turn out to be. / am sorry
| to say that the gTavest threats against
| our national peace and safety have been
uttered within our own borders. There are
| citizens of the United States, / blush to
| admit, born under other flags but welcomed
| under our generous naturalization laws
| tn the full freedom and ODDOrtunitY OF
| America. who have poured the poison of
! disloyalty into the very arteries of our
Irrational life; who have sought to bring
| the authority and good name of our gov
| eminent into contempt, to destroy our in
| dustries wherever they thought 1t effec-
| tive for their vindictive purposes to strike
| at them, and to debase our politics to the
| uses of foreign intrigue. Their number
| is not great as compared with the whole
] number of those sturdy hosts by which
| our nation has been enriched in recent
| generations out of virile foreign stocks;
| but it is great enough to have brought
| deep disgrace upon and to have made
| it necessary that should promptly
/ make use of processes of law by which
| we may be purged of their corrupt dis
| tempers. America never witnessed any
| thing like this before. 1t never dreamed
| it possible that men sworn into its own
| citizenship, men drawn out of great free
| stocks such as supplied some of the best
| and strongest elements of that little but
| how heroic, nation that in high day of old
| staked it's very life to free itself from
| every ENHANCEMENT that had darkened
the fortunes of the older nations and set
up a new standard here-that men of such
origins and such free choices of allegi-
| ance would ever turn in malign reaction
| against the government and people who
| had welcomed and nurtured them and
| seek to make this proud country once
hAfh had 0f Y1nc cin a
| little while ago such a thing would have
| seemed incredible. Because 1t was in
credible we made no preparation for 1t.
| We would have been almost ashamed to
| prepare for it, as If we were suspicious
| Of ourselves, our own comrades and
neighbors! But the ugly and incredible
| has actually come about and we are with
| out adequate federal laws to deal with
| It, l urge you to enact such laws at
| the earliest possible moment and feel that
| in so doing 1 urging you to do moth
| ing less than save the honor and self
| respect of the nation.
Must Be Crushed Out.
| Such creatures of passion, disloyalty
| and anarchy must be crushed out They
| are not many, but they are infinitely ma
| lignant and the hand of our power should
| close over them at once. They have
| formed plots to destroy property, they
| have entered into conspiracies against the
neutrality of the government, they have
sought to pry into every confidential
transaction of the government in order
| to serve interests alien to our own. 1t Is
| possible to deal with these things very
| effectually. I need not suggest the terms
| in which they may be dealt with
l wish that it could be said that only q
| few men, misled by mistaken sentiments
of allegiance to the governments under
which they were born. had been guilty of
resenting the temper and principles of
the country during these days of terrible
war, when it would seem that every man
who was truly an American would in
stinctively make it his duty and his pride
to keep the scales of judgment even and
prove himself a partisan of no nation but
his own. But 1t cannot. There are some
men among us, and many resident abroad
who, though born and bred in the Unit
ed States and calling themselves Amer
leans, have so forgotten themselves and
their honor as citizens as to put their
passionate sympathy with one or the 9TH
er side in the great European conflict
above their regard for the peace and dig
nifty of the United States. They also
preach and practice disloyalty. No laws,
| suppose, can reach corruptions of the
mind and heart; but I should not speak
of others without also speaking of these
and expressing the even deeper humilia-
ton and scorn which every self-possessed
and thoughtfully patriotic American must
feel when he thinks of them and of the
sdiscredit they are daily bringing upon US
Transportation Problem.
The transportation problem is an ex-
ceedingly serious and pressing one in this
country. There has from time to time
of late been reason to fear that our rail-
roads would not much longer be able to
cope with it successfully at present
equipped and co-ordinated. 1 suggest
that 1t would be wise to provide for q
commission of inquiry to ascertain by a
thorough canvass of the whole question
whether our laws as at present framed
and administered are as serviceable as
they might be in the solution of the prob
lem. 1t is obviously a problem that lies
at the very foundation of our efficiency
as a people. Such an inquiry ought to
draw out every circumstance, and opinion
worth considering and need to know
all sides of the matter IL mean to
do anything in the field of federal legisla-
ton.
For what we are seeking now what In