The Washington herald., 1915-01-31


could not today do the worlds sewing
without the sewing machine. and all
| the men in the world and all the wom-
en- in the world combined could not
today do a tenth of the worlds writ
ing without the typewriter and type
setting and printing machinery.
"One of the giant dredges that have
been Iadling out of the Panama Canal
the vast land slides can do the pick
and shovel and wheelbarrow work of
thousand men.
Everywhere. in everything we do,
and in everything done for us. we find
human hands now mainly engaged in
guiding the work of labOr-saving ma
Chincry.
The people of the United States of
America have been able to develop
their enormous resources and keep
breast of the worlds industrial prog
ress mainly by the invention OF labor
saving machinery under the protection
of our patent law.
I'm our competition with other ma
tions for the markets of the world, no
one thinks of referring to the prowess
of our unskilled citizen soldiers of in
dustry unsupported by machinery, but
form labor-saving machinery, and our
skilled labor behind that machinery.
with these pregnant facts before
us, it is very strange that IL should not
be very plain to every one that what
is true of labOr-saving machinery in
peace is likewise true in war. 1t is
very strange indeed that there should
be intelligent men and women among
us unable to see and to understand
10 viz machinery and la thor
skilled in it's use are as applicable and
as indispensable to successful warfare
as to peaceful industry.
Furthermore, labor-saving machinery
i'm war is hfe-saving machinery. The
rapid-fire gun is the greatest Iife-saving
instrument in the world.
War as an Industry.
These persons do not seem TO appre-
ciate that war is an industry. As a mat
ter of fact, war is and has always beef
the biggest and the most vital industry
of mankind, and in no other industry Is
life-saving machinery so important and
vital and in no other industry does
so much depend upon the skill of the
labor operating the machinery.
I'VE are the slaves OF belief, and We
love our chains. Although our faith may
be false, We hate the hand that tries TO
tTee us. The people OF this country nave
a great false faith in the fighting quail
ties of their citizen soldiers, improvised
in time of war. They point proudly to
the War of the Revolution and the war
Of the rebellion to prove how our vOlun-
tc"r soldiers can fight.
They overlook the fact that lighting
then was mostly done by hand; that now
il is mostly done by machinery, and that
il is just as foolish and absurd to think
of taking unframed men off the farm to
operate the guns and machinery of war
as il would be to try to operate the facto-
ries with them where the guns and ma
CEinery are made.
1t takes as long today to convert
farmer into a skilled soldier as it does to
convert him into a skilled mechanic.
"A citizen soldiery without years OF
training in the discipline and weapons
and mechanism of modern warfare is
only n mob, as easily scattered by few
real soldiers as chaff by q whirlwind.
The negligence of England and France
in not being prepared to defend the in
tegrity of Belgium, which they had
pledged themselves to defend, knowing
that it would be violated, was a crime
which we must take into our reckoning
when We declaim about the crime of Ger
many in violating that integrity which
it had pledged itself not to violate.
There are two national crimes of equal
enormity-the one that of military aggres-
sion, and the other that of unprepared-
ness in respect of the necessary sahe-
guards against aggression to protect the
who trust and depend on US to safeguard
thaF,n