Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1915-12-06
PREPAREDNESS AND PAYING FOR 1T.


President Wilson S stirring call for adequat,
defense plans, and the announcement weeks
ago that he would appeal for support to Re
publicans as well as Democrats, viii probably
not eliminate but will minimize the partisan
treatment of this subject by the Congress JUS
assembled
But there will be plenty of opposition-fac
tional and otherwise. William Jennings Bry
an, visionary as ever and more than ever
swollen with conceit, is working day and night
to undermine the president and Bryan has
senator's and representatives in Congress will
ing to follow his erratic banner. And then, too
there will be two elements of ultra-pacifsts
and ultra militarists opposing the admins
tration program or any other program.
The ultra pacfists, some of whom hold with
Bryan and some of whom hate him, maintain
that the president is driving the country into
the stern grasp of militarism. They say that the
military and naval expenditures proposed will
wreck the nation financially and wrong it NOR
ally. They are the men and women who de-
nonnce every plan for defense, no matter how
reasonable, as the plot of armament makers.
The ultra militarists go as far the other way.
They deride the president program as empty
Of real effect They would have the country
vastly increase its army and navy willy-nilly.
Col. Roosevelt commands the admiration of
this group because he criticises the admiris-
tration s policy as inadequate, weak, pusillani-
nous. Recently he lamented that the admin
istration scheme does not present any real and
substantial plan of defense instead of a
shadow
zel,o
Preparations for the coming fiscal year by near
" $200000,000. 1t was not many decades ago
that when Congress appropriated $500, 100000
for all purposes it was criticised for wasteful-
ness, incompetence
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS is the cry of
the congressional fnanciers The duty on
sugar is sure to be. retained, that is foregone
conclusion. The old rate may be restored
Various other propositions are offered
There is one method which has not yet been
suggested, so far as Hawaii has heard, but it
would not be surprising if it were preached be-
for Congress has been in session many days
special tax on the profits from manufacture
and sale of war-supplies. Millions upon mil
lions are being made daily by the purveyors of
vaccinations and other materials The stocks
Of their concerns in some cases have increased
500 per, cent. They can we'll afford to turn
some Of these huge profits over to the govern
ment. It will be difficult to frame such taxa
ton act but perhaps it may be done.
Hawaii first, last and all the time, is good
enough slogan ard if any man or woman who
works for a living doubts the fact, let him or
her try some other part of the world for
while. More work, less wages and higher
cost of living will be found the usual run of
things. If men are land hungry and can afford
to pay FIVE thousand dollars for tract of land,
even in installments, there are many places on
this globe where good land can be obtained at
far less cost, in fact for nothing in some places,
and where any money that the settler might