The Benson signal., 1917-07-21

war on the battlefieldS, in the trenches,
amidst the lurking dangers of the sea,
or with the bereaved women and pitt
full 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
triOtfsm of the men dead or MANNED
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 7ound business, but not in
the midst of q mist.
Many grievous burden of taxa
ton will be laid on this nation, in this
generation and in the next, to pay for
this war; let us see to it 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 a 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 insuperable 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 a failure, to make it impos-
sible.
II do not say that they realize this
or intend it. The thing has happened
naturally enough because the CONNER
cial processes which we are content to
see operate in ordinary times have
without sufficient thought been con-
tinued into a period where they have
no proper place.
81 am not questioning motives. I
am merely stating a 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 Ger
many. When they realize this we may,
I take it 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.
II know, and you know, what re-
sponse to this great challenge of duty
and Of opportunity the nation will ex.
pect Of you; and I know what re-
sponse you will make.
"Those who do not respond, 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 must,
Of course, command those things.
II am dealing with the matter thus
publicly 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 an
other we may move in a perfectly clear
air Of mutual understanding.
Must Have Same Prices.
"And there is something more that
we must add to our thinking. The
public is now as much a part of the
government as are the army and navy
themselves; the whole people in all
their activities are now mObilized and
in service for the accomplishment of
the nations task in this war; it is
in such circumstances impossible just
ly to distinguish between industrial
purchases made by the government
and industrial purchases made by the
managers Of industries, and it is just
as much our duty to sustain the indus
trials of the country with all the in
dustries that contribute to it's life as
it is to sustain our forces in the field
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 thing
everywhere now. They mean the eff
cheney or the inefficiency OF the ma
ton, whether it is the government that
pays them or not. They mean victory
or defeat. They mean that America
will win her place once for all among
the foremost free nations Of the world
or that she will sink to defeat and be-
come a second-rate power alike in
thought and in action. This is a day
of her reckoning and every man among
us must personally face that reckoning
along with her.
'"The case needs no arguing. I as
sumo that I am only expressing your
own thoughts-what must be in the
mind Of nvpru tr11o man whom ho faces