The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1916-01-06

Not in decades has the United Sta
tes entered upon new year with a
brighter outlook.
We have garnered unprecedented
harvests. Most things that we sell
command unprecedented prices. The
dislocations of business brought on
by the world war have come to ad-
justment and trade is gathering an al
most torrential force in its flow.
Net railroad earnings increased
169 million dollars during the past
year and the roads are just entering
a period of extraordinary activity.
The mercantile and financial agencies
tell of commercial activity rarely
equaled. The great industries swing
into the new year with every wheel
a-whirr and evrey machine humming
We are building ships with a fever
ish activity. A Portlander bought one
in the early stages of construction at
price said to be 33 per cent above
the contract figure. There are or
ders at American shipyards for more
than one-third as much tonnage as
the whole American aggregate before
the war.
AS a result of the war, we have be-
come the worlds banker nation. Our
former debts to Europe on American
securities held abroad has been about
fiv billion dollars. Europe flung these
securities at us when war was de-
clared, and though the act drove us
to the verge of panic, We weathered
the storm and began buying. We met
every offer with gold or products
steadily and in addition, loaned the
allies 600 million dollars. The best
authorities now insist that our OBJ
legations abroad do not now exceed
two billions. There is every prospect
that even this balance will be wiped
out by the time the war ends.
The war has almost certainly drift
ed into struggle of exhaustion. A
conflict with it's tremendous exhaus-
tiOn of resources cannot continue in
definitely. The weakening process
must at last have an end. 1t is a de-
plorable consequence, but it remains
the fact that the weakening of Eu-
rope is the Strengthening of America
Thus, the debts that the war has
brought upon the belligerents will
mean tremendous burden of taxa
tion for all the warning peoples here
after. These taxes must be drawn out
of the toll of workers, which means
that European production for the
next generation, if not longer, will
be far more costly than it has been
Heavily taxed production in Europe
will be in no position to successfully
compete with far lighter taxed pro-
duction in America. 1t is one of the
mighty and blighting consequences
of this war upon Europe which turns
to the inevitable advantage of the
United States. If, for the next gen
Grafton, the European worker must
carry a huge burden of taxes upon
his back, he cannot produce in the
open market, at a cost as low as his
almost untaxed competing worker in
America. This strengthened position
of the United tSates is one Of the
greatest of the fruits of peace
through which this nation has been
charted.
Equally important is the fact that
every added billion of capital or re-
source that Europe destroys increases
the comparative Jalue of American
capital and resource. The known ey-
penditures of Great Britain now ap-
proximate eight billion dollars. The
figures form the basis for estimating
the colossal total that the combined
nations have burned up. They reflect
the suicide of continent in men and
treasure, and are omen Of the greatly
heightened comparative strength OF
the United States.
We deplore Europe's horrible loss
es and sympathize with her stricken
and suffering millions. We commits
crate with her people upon the hid
eous fact that they are in a death
grapple. But in the fact that they
are at war and that we are at peace,
in the awful circumstance that they
are destroying while we are produc-
ing, there is the inevitable conse-
quence that this country is advanced
in position of preeminence and para
mountcy in which the future in
fiuence must be wholesome and salu-
tary upon the affairs of the world
and with tremendous profit in peace
and prosperity to all American citi-
zenS.
1t is thus amid an abundance and
strength beyond any that we have
known that this country swings off
into the New Year. 1t comes after a
period of progressive legislation in
which American business has been
made more honest, in which the al
lance between corrupt business and
corrupt politics has been broken up,
in which control of American credit