TaÌˆgliche Omaha tribuÌˆne. [volume] (Omaha, Nebr.) 1912-1926, 1917-08-01
america FIRST!"
PATRIOTISM AND LOYALTY DE-
MAND STEEL SHIPS.

United States for the benefit Of
England.
Against these men, so far as
the public has been permitted
to know, there stand but two
men, who are not experts, and
one of whom is moved by nor
NAL and naturally selfish mo-
tives in meeting an emergency
of his own country, instead OF
looking to the best interests Of
ours.
1t has been officially announc-
ed in Parliament that England
with definite policy and cease
less industry is building steel
ships, and steel ships, and then
more steel ships" for the per-
manent reinforcement Of the
English navy and the perma.
nent paramountcy of the Eng
lish merchant marine for the
strenuous and conclusive years
which are to come when the
war is done.
England herself announces
that when this war is done, her
navy, which was once superior
to any two navies in the world,
will be equal to all the navies
of the world put together. And
yet England is building steel
ships, and steel ships, and yet
more steel Ships even when
crying to us of America, power
ty-stricken in ships and barren
of a merchant marine, to build
wooden ships" England's
voice is potential against Amer
lean experts and American
statesmen.
We are conscripting our
young men and sending them
abroad to fight beside English
men in the bloody trenches Of
France, while Canada and Au-
stralia and India and South
Africa, which are English colo
! MES, have refused to adopt on
scription and have depended
entirely upon volunteers.
We are sending our grain to
England, not only to make food
for England, bur to make beer
for England, when we have
hardly enough grain for our
own legitimate uses.
Some of these things we
should do, and all Of them we
are doing. But none of these
things should we do to the ex-
tent of injuring ourselves and
of so exhausting our own coun-
try that we may not be able to
take care Of ourselves in the
competitions that will certainly
ensue after this wal is over, or
in the further wars that NAV
ensue, in which the security and
the very existence Of the United
States NAV be involved.
These are war times, and
England is our ally, and we are
fighting by her side with a
loyalty that England eve in
her life showed to any other ma
ton, and (which few countries,
if any countries, have ever de-
monstrated toward any other al
ly nation before.
But we have no right not to be
honest to ourselves and TO u
own people. We have no right
not to look truth and the facts
in the face in war as well as in
peace.
Our loyalty to England in this
hour Of war does not mean our
disloyalty to ourselves. Our Civ
ing of all things, material and
moral, to England in our com.
mon emergency does not oblig-
ate us TO give our own equal
chance Of prosperity and COM
petition with England when we
are no longer at war.
1t IS not that we regard Eng
land less, but America more.
1t is simply America first
now and foreyerl
We shall continue to the end
to be loyal in all the elements
Of lavish and overwhelming con-
tribution TO England's cause,
while England's cause is our
cause. But we are not called
upon, even in the stress of war
itself, to forget our own clear
and enduring interests in the
peaceful years in which we are
to fight our battles Of trade and
comIerce for equality upon the
seven seas.
The people of the United
States should protest against
the betrayal Of American inter
est5 in the folly Of building a
vast fleet Of wooden ships that
It ~