The Green Forest tribune., 1917-07-20


 what that means.
 Do they mean that you must be paid. must be bribed. to make your contribution, contribution that costs you neither a drop of blood nor a tear, when the whole world Is in travail and men everywhere depend upon and call to you to bring them out of bondage and make the world fit place to live in again, amidst peace and justice7
 Appeals to Honor.
 Do they mean that you will exact price, drive a bargain, with the men who are enduring the agony of this war on the battlefields, in the trenches amidst the lurking dangers of the sea, or with the bereaved women and pitt ful children, before you will come for ward to do your duty and give some part of your life, in easy, peaceful fashion, for the things We are fight ing for, the things we have pledged our fortunes. our lives our sacred hon. or to vindicate and defend-liberty and justice and fair dealing and the peace of nations?
 "Of course you will not. It Is in conceivable. Your patriotism is of the same self-denying stuff as the pa triotism of the men dead or maimed on the fields of France, or else it Is not patriotism at all.
 Full Dollars Worth. +"Let us never speak, then, of profits and of patriotism in the same sen tence, but face facts and meet them. Let us do sound business, but not In the midst of mist.
 Many grievous burden of taxa tion will be laid on this nation, in this generation and in the next, to pay for this war let us see to 1t that for every dollar that is taken from the peoples pockets it shall be possible to obtain dollars worth of the sound stuff they need.
 Let me turn for moment to the ship owners of the United States and the other ocean carriers whose ex- ample they have followed, and ask them if they realize what obstacles, what almost lnsuperable obstacles, they have been putting in the way of the successful prosecution of this war by the ocean freight rates they have been exacting.
 Making War a Failure.
 "They are doing everything that | high freight charges can do to make the war failure, to make it impos- sible.
 "I do not say that they realize this or intend it. The thing has happened naturally enough because the eommer- cial processes which we are content to see operate in ordinary times have | without sufficient thought been con- tinued into period where they have no proper place.
 "f am not questioning motives. am merely stating a fact and stating 1t in order that attention may be fixed upon It.
 "The fact is that those who have fixed war freight rates have taken the most effective means in their power to defeat the armies engaged against Ger many When they realize this we may I take 1t for granted, count upon them to reconsider the whole matter It Is high time. Their extra hazards are covered by war risk insurance. | Warning Is Sounded
 "I know, and you know, what re sponse to this great challenge of dut. and of opportunity the nation will ex pect of you; and I know what re sponse you will make.
 | "ThOse who do not respond, wht 1 do not respond in the spirit of those who have gone to give their lives fol us on bloody fields far away, ma. opinion and the law-for the law must of course, command those things.
 q am dealing with the matter thu publicly and frankly, not because I hay, any doubt or fear as to the result bu only in order that in all our thinking and in all our dealings with one an other we may move In a perfectly clea air of mutual understanding. | Must Have Same Prices.
 And there is something more tha we must add to our thinking. Tn, public is now as much a part of tn, government as are the army and nav, themselves; the whole people in al their activities are now mobilized ant in service for the accomplishment O the nations task in this war; it f. in such circumstances impossible just ly to distinguish between industria purchases made by the governmen and industrial purchases made by th' managers of industries, and 1t is jus as much our duty to sustain the indus trials of the country with all the in dustries that contribute to its life a 1t is to sustain our forces In the fielt and on the sea.
 Think Not of Self.
 We must make prices to the pub lie the same as the prices to the gov ernment Prices mean the same thin, everywhere now. They mean the eff ciency or the inefficiency of the na tion, whether it is the government tha pays them or not. They mean victor. or defeat They mean that Amerlci will win her place once for all anon, the foremost free nations of the worlt or that she will sink to defeat and be come seeondrate power alike il thought and in action. This is da. of her reckoning and every man anon, us must personally face that reckoning along with her.
 "The case needs no arguing. l as sume that I am only expressing you own thoughts-what must be in tn mind of every true man when he face the tragedy and the solemn glory O the present war, for the emancipation of mankind.