American Falls press. [volume] (American Falls, Idaho) 1907-1937, 1916-02-24

Moreover, we have no quarrel with either of those pow
ers.
But to believe the news, so soon as the present great
war closes, all the bel!igerents of Europe will suddenly be-
come brothers and join their forces to come over and
smash the United States, and in anticipation of that. all
the Old ladies up and down the Atlantic coast every night,
cover their heads, even as the ostrich burries her head in
the sand when danger threatens, and in troublous dreams
hears the first gun of the bombardment that is to resolve
our whole eastern coast back into chaos.
What shadows we are, what shadows we pursued
Europe is a wreck. The people of Poland and Siberia are
starving. The sorrow of nations is indescribable. Their
business is utterly dislocated. Not one of the great pow
ers can in ten years OF peace reach an aggressive position
in which the animosities of the great war can be done
away with. Then why this sudden cry of danger raised
by President Wilson? To us there can be but one cause.
Despite the pledge made in the platform on which he was
elected, he has permitted his name to go before the Demo-
cratic convention as a candidate for reelection. He knows
that the tariff smashing which he helped Mr.. Underwood
perpetrate, together with his Mexican policy and his utter
lack of practical sense in relation to a merchant marine,
will snow under any Democratic candidate this year un-
less the attention Of the people can be turned from the
facts hence he has blown up this preparedness bubble and
hopes to obtain appropriations enough to give the country
a seeming prosperity. The self-respecting men in his cab
met are r%esigning. Why?
It will require the most adriot work that the president
ever did to keep the masses of the American people from
understanding his real character, as do ex-secretaries,
Garrison and Breckenridge.
The strongest partisan hesitates before assailing the
president because of the homage due that great office. But
if the people make one mistake in selecting an incumbent
v CudC OllICt, IudI . d cTcdSOH WHY Cn6y SHOulU U
repeat that mistake. Mr.. Wilson will not be reelected.
We doubt very much if he will be renominated.
Now Mr.. Wilson expresses regret that no private CAPT.
tai has come forward to begin the rehabilitation of a mer-
chant marine and wants the government to build and run
the needed ships.
This will, if carried through, set all the ship yards ring
ing require an immense expenditure of government
money, and so far as it goes, will influence votes next
November. But we are justified in believing that the
presidents interest, is not in the commerce of the country,
but simply in the votes.
The need of a great American merchant marine is no
more apparent today than it was fifteen months ago.
The proposition that the government build or buy ships
and run them, charging the inevitable deficit to govern
ment account and paying it out OF the national treasury, is
the same he made when the coming of the war showed how
hopeless we were to handle our own ocean commerce, but
at that time he would not agree to run the ships a minute
after the war closed and the great martini powers of
Europe were able to resume their merchant srvice which
showed that the president had no possible conception OF
the need of a great nation to handle its own commerce.
At that time we said the plan would be better than moth
ing but that it was not the correct way, because no great
mmercia sovereignty was ever established that way
and that it was an indirect interference by the govern
ment with the business of the citizens. The presidents
gagged in by citizens, if sincere, shows how absolutely OBJ
fuse his mind is and how impossible it for him to look be-
yond his ~prejudices at the facts.
1t costs less to run foreign ships than our own, and all
the great shipping nations back their ships with subsidies
or bounties.
How could our citizens build and run ships in COMPETE
ton with foreign ships on such terms?
Sixty-five years ago when the first argOnautS went to
California, as they sailed out of Panama harbor to turn
north for California, they saw abeam a British ship that
turned south for Guayaqui, Callao, africa and Valparaiso.
English merchants had trading stations in all those ports
and the service was much more thorough on the east coast
and the ships called at all those ports with the regularity
of the stars in their professions. Germany began the same
practice, so soon as she could build the vessels after the
close of the Franco Prussian war and has made incalcul-
able sums. Since England has paid regular subsidies,
Germany regular bounties.
Both nations know absolutely the commercial condition
in all those countries. In view of this the presidents af-
lfected disappointment that American capital has not en-
80 xr.+L fo~o;~oo~c &c 4, eor;ore ;pI,ot