The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-06-22
PREPAREDNESS.

extent to which the preparedness propaganda is being carried on, one need only note the strange places where it's advocates pop up.
 Thus in the Scientific Monthly for last April, a magazine purely devot- ed to me tiers of scientific interest. we find the bulk of the reading mat ter almost wholly confined to this agitation. In fact the only article of importance that challenges place with this series of preparedness writing is Professor Davis Study of Coral Reefs".
 And these are articles which do not consider or attempt to consider the qu .stion in any other but it's po- litico-economic aspect, and hardly in a manner which one would expect from a scientific magazine.
 But that is the preparationists way. There is no attempt made to get down on this proposition to strict facts: the public is asked to consider congratulations, con lectures, theories, speculations ani to consider such while under the in fluence of a patriotic hypnotism thas fails to reason and which simply leaves the mind cloroformed against the rational guide of human intelli- gence.
 Broadly speaking, this prepared ness campaign is due to one cause; the fear which has overcome thoss who have an abundance lest another who covets that abundance may at tempt to loot his treasure. It is not very fattering to the national pride that so many should be carried away with this obsession of fear. Nor does it minimize the evil that that fear is based upon pure fancy or pre- verted facts.
 As we see it, if this country is to protect itself efficiently against any aggression, it must begin in an en- tirely different quarter than with the army and navy. It must begin with the very foundations of society, the ery-little-thought-about masses.
 This country is no better than laws and institutions are no better than the results of their operation upon the lives and dostinies of the people. The people of the country were not created to bow down be- fore any institution however vener- able, nor a flag however to be re- spected, but both the institutions and the flag are supposed to be made for the people. .a.-t. .t
 Accordingly then, to make all these things worth fighting for, the first attention of the people should be towards their own condition.
 If the people are we'll to do, com fortable, have reasonable assurances Ol hApplhCoo, hifS nv esHy ASSS0A to fear for the future and their liv' ing and we'll being is assured within reasonable certainty, the people will need no orators to tour the countr, urging upon them to rise to defend it. They will defend the country spontaneously.
 It is ridiculous for so many peo pie to denounce that class which op poses the frantic appeals for pre- paredness, to denounce their uttel indifference, and their utetr callous ness to the efforts to rouse then from such indifference.
 Reasonable would it be to inquire the reason for such indifference and that might result in some ex ceedingly profitable instruction.
 It needs no very profound studen of social conditions to know tha the man who works twelve hours ; day for a dollar and ninety cent seven days in the week while price are as they are today in the found ries and the furnaces and the facto ries will not be very seriously con cerned about defending the nation It is ridiculous to pretend that h has the same interests at stake a the man who sits in easy street an passes a life of delightful satlsfac ton of his every want and desire It is absurd to think that the miser able factory slave is going to be pos