The daily Nome industrial worker., 1915-12-08

preparedness than the militsrists ask for
 Preparedness does not consist merely in building up a great army and great navy which may scethe with a discomfort reflected from the economic condition of the masses ot the people.
 The economic discontent which the present system engenders will have to be removed as tho first call of preparedness. There results then united nation, without classes, which will be simply invul- nerable.
 Militarists have pointed to China as a fine example of the danger from unpreparedness. But they forget thet China has lavisheil enormous sums on forts, ships, arms and ammunition just the same. But the masses of the Chinese are sunk in such poverty, outrageously mal- treated, robbed by a corrupt man. darin class, exploited by a corrupt employing class for miserable wages buffeted by every miserable econo- mic fortune, that the fate af China and the glory of their flag are, to the vast masses of the people, mat, ters of sublime indifference They have nothing to fight for. They have no reason to get prepared to fight for anything.
 The greatest of all preparedness is economic justice and industrial equality Men will fight like demons to support a free soil where a na- ton of ruined and rack rented te- hants will declare let the devil tai-e the hindmost. What does the leaded slave of the uninspected shelter care for his country when his final portion is the Potter S field? Why should the factory worker who sees after another year of slavery, the painful death from an occupational disease acquired toiling for another's profit care q whocp in HaJes fer any country Why should tho man that 5tands shiver;ng n a breadline three or four months of t-to year and the harsc |. cola ct, blosko IT. cnths :, that, fgit fer ar.ytiang except to better tto damncble condition tnat throws him Ike a broken machine on the junk pile? How can any na- tion hope to face fee without when there is economic injustice and industrial rottonaess within !? Would the driven end harried and bull-dczed miners Of Colorado con- sider tL@t the properties of their dcspotic industrial r2cstels we e worth doe2nding? You cannot de- velop industrial slavery in any country and expect thc industrial slaves to fight lik3 froemen. 45 never las been done and never vii be conc though ycu try till Dccms- day The independent and free and untamod warriors of Scythia tri- umphed over the drilled and season ed but slayishly minded veterans Of Rome, and the Fall of the great e.n- piro was due not to any dcgencr&cy upon the part of the individual, but the economic dry rot that set iii within the heart of the nation.
 When the Roman legionaries felt that their motto Senate and the People of Rome" meant that each individual warrior was fighting for their country's well being, they were unconquerable When they became merely the mercenaries of the oppressors of an exploited po- pulace they were subdued by every wild eyed but free-souled barbar- ian.
 Great wealth will not save the nation although battleships invul- nerable were built by the score; the riches of the land may be lavished upon marching myriads but in time they will melt away like the win ter's snows before the summer sun if right ideals of truth, freedom and justice are not the keynote of the national organization.
 Great, immortal and true were words of the great American poet and philosopher who said:
 Mot Gold, but only man. can make A people great and strong
 Men who for Truth and Honor's Stand fast and suffer long.