Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1916-04-24
Selected by Tavenner

world, Is letting go by the billions the
accumulated interest bearing bonds of
the last century.
Inc Europe, on the contrary, that
energies from this conflict will have
had its economic and industrial order
shattered from top to bottom; will
have been well-nigh bled to death in
men and resources; will be under a
debt so vast that the interest on 1t
alone cannot be paid, to say nothing OF
the principal. 1t will be Europe no
more resembling that of IS months ago
than the battered, bloody body with
half its bones broken from the fall
over a hundredfoot precipice, resem-
bles the strong, we'll man at the top
before he went over. 1t will be a
Europe saddened, disillusioned, infin-
itely broken, lying amid its ebbing
! life's blood, facing an indefinite per-
! Tod of long, hopeless invalidism. Those
who prophesy danger from any nation
now engaged in this life and death
struggle, surely know little Of the
modern problems of war. They are
reasoning about this war from the
past wars of the world, when every
man who has really studied the prob
lem knows that history presents moth
| ing from which a parallel can be
| drawn.
The greatest book which has been
written on this war and its probable
outcome came out of Russia a dozen
years ago. Maurice dc Bloch, the great
Russian financler, spent twenty-odd
years of his life in the most scientific
investigation which has ever been
made of modern warfare. And he ar
rived at the conclusion that If ever
the great nations Of Europe, after
their enormous preparations, engaged
in war, 1t would be Of such length
! and on such a scale, and so enormous
| ly costly, that neither side could win
a decisive victory All which engaged
| in it would end in financial bank
ruptcy and economic ruin. l earnest
| ly recommend to all men in America
who are today tormented with fears
of what some country in Europe may
do to us when they get through fight
| ing over there, to read De Bloch's
| Future Of Wharf.-The book which led
to the calling of the first Hague con-
ference-the book which is, day by
day, being verified by everything that
is happening in Europe. Though writ
ten II years ago, so scientific were De
Bloch's conclusions that there Is
scarcely a detail which would need re-
statement in the light Of the actua
struggle which is now going on. The
military minds of Europe which were
under the illusion, so strikingly por'
trayed by the unanswerable argument
of Norman Angel, that war could be
made to pay its own way, already see:
the helplesness of recouping theil
losses through indemnities. They will
all spend all they have fighting, leav.
ing nothing but inconceivable povert!
to be divided and endured among
them. In the light of what has al
ready happened, of what has already
been spent, and what now must, witt
the inevitableness of the law Of gray
itation, will be spent, no mind ir
Europe can any longer figure on the
hope of reimbursement. In a dead
lock of physical force they lie, eacf
side waiting for the others financia
exhaustion to put an end to the strug
gle. Meanwhile all together are tum
bling headlong toward financial ant
industrial anarchy.
(To be Continued.)