The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1917-07-12
The Homer Fits Company

7 to vindicate and defend-liberty an
| justice and fair dealings and the peae
of nations?
"of course you will not. 1t is incon
} eeivable. Your patriotism is of the sam
! self-denying stuff as the patriotism O
| the men dead or manned on the fields O
France, or else it is no patriotism at all
Let us never speak, then, of profits an
of patriotism in the same sentence, bu
face facts and meet them. Let us d.
sound business but not in the midst o
a mist. Many a grievous burden o
taxation will be laid on this nation, il
this generation and in the next, to pa,
for this war; let us see to it that fo
every dollar that is taken from the PEG
pies pockets il shall be possible to OBJ
tain dollars worth of the sound stuff!
they need.
Let me turn for a moment to the shiI
owners of the United States and the
other ocean carriers whose example they
have followed and ask them if they real
ize what obstacles, what almost insuper.
able obstacles, they have been putting in
| the way>of the successful prosecution OF
this war by the ocean freight rates they
have been exacting. They are doing
everything that high freight charges can
do to make the war a failure, to make
it impossible. | do not say that they
| realize this or intend it. The thing has
happened naturally enough, because the
commercial processes which we are con-
tent to see operate in ordinary times
have without sufficient thought been con.
tinued into period where they have no
proper place. | am not questioning mo.
tives. am merely stating fact and
stating it 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 Germany.
When they realize this we may, / take
it for granted, count upon them to re-
consider the whole matter 1t is high
time. Their extra hazards are covered
oy war fisk insurance.
II know, and you know, what response
to this great challenge of duty and of
opportunity the nation will expect of
you; and / know what response you will
make. THOSE who do not respond in the
spirit of those who have gone to give
their lives for us on bloody fields far
away may safely be left to be dealt
with by opinion and the law-for the law
l am dealing with the matter thus pub
licly and frankly, not because / have
any doubt or fear as to the result but
only in order that in all our thinking
and in all our dealings with one another
we may move in perfectly clear air of
mutual understanding.
"And there is something more that we
must add to our thinking. The public is |
now as much part of the government as
are the army and navy themselves; the
whole people in all their activities are
now modified and in service for the ac-
of the nations task in ,
this war; it is in such circumstances i'm
possible justly to distinguish between
Industrial purchases made by the gov
and industrial purchases made
~ the managers of individual industries;
ind it is Just as much our duty TO sus
ain the industries of the country, all the
Industries that contribute to its life, as
{ is to sustain our forces in the field
md on the sea. We must make the
,rices to the public the same as the
'riees to the government. Prices mean
he same thing everywhere now. They
mean the efficiency or the inefficieney of
hat pays them or not. They mean vic
ory or defeat. They mean that America
viii win her place once for all among the
oremost free nations of the world, or
hat she will sink to defeat and become
second rate power alike in thought and
ction. This is a day of her reckoning )
nd every man amongst us must person
lily face that reckoning along with her.
The case needs no arguing. assume
hat / am only expressing your own
houghts-whst must be in the mind of
very true man when he faces the trsg-
iy and the solemn glory of the present
ar, for the emancipation of mankind.
summon you to a great duty, great
rivilege, a shining dignity and distinc-
on 1 shall expect every man who i
ot Stacker to be at my side through
IT this great enterprise. In it no man Y
IN win honor who thinks Of himself a
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