The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1917-05-10
Ter that threatens to choke them

DAY counts. Every nOuF counts.
Every minute counts. Unless
we can put 5000 ocean-going
craft af1oat within the current
year, victory will be in sight for
Germany.
All talk of sending American
soldiers to Europe is futile and
foolish until we rid the seas of
the submarines. The risk is too
great. 1t would be foolhardy.
With the U-Boats sending J..
100000 tons of commerce to the
bottom Of the ocean each month
the loading of transports with
Europe-bound troops would be
nothing short of criminal. We
can hardly hope to get through
the blockade more than enough
food boats to keep the British
and French armies from starv-
ing. For the present that must
suffice, but in the meantime
American brains, American IN
ventive genius, must devise an
effective weapon against the
deadly submarine. We cannot
win war with temporizing tao
tics.
Oficialdom in Washington is
keeping it's mind fastened on the
fact that the submarine is the
big problem of the war. What
the problem may be tomorrow,
next week, or next month, or
next year, no human mind can
foretell. The changes are too
frequent to permit indulgence in
prophecy.
But it is known that the best
brains of America. and that
means the best brains of the
world, are centering their crea-
tive power on developing an an
tidote for the submarine; that
for weeks and months every
practical inventive force in our
broad land has been applied to
the task of making mucous
these vipers of the deep.
Whether or not tn y have sue
ceeded, or will succeed, remains
to be seen. To the mind of the
Iayn an whose imagination has
been vainly striving to get toe
hold on the problem, it looks like
a hopeless undertaking. But
we must bear in mind that
American inventive genius has
always found a way; that only
half a century ago the maritime
warriors of the world said that
an iron clad fighting ship of the
Monitor type was impossible,
yet the modern superdreadnought
is but an evolution of that type.
And less than twenty years ago,
during the Spanish-American
war, Holland offered us the sub
marine, and he was laughed at
and derided in much the same
way they treated Harvey when
he proclaimed the circulation of
the blood.
Today we no longer laugh at
men of science, but ainstinctively
turn to them for help when we
face a grave national crisis.
America is the land of miracles,
little less startling than those of
Bible days. When we think of
what their creative force has
brought forth within fifty years,
lit is not unreasonable to hope
that the same species of brains
that created the submarine will
also find a force to destroy it.
Dividing their time between
consultations with officials in
Washington, their laboratories in
New York, and the experimental
grounds somewhere on the At
lantic," men like Thomas A. Ed
ison. Alexander Graham Bell,
Howard Coffin, together with
scores of the foremost scientists
and inventors of the nation, are
putting all their brain power to
this problem, and it is not un.
reasonable to hope that they will
achieve the almost miraculous.
1t is their free gift, their patri-
otto service to a people whose
national existence is threatened.
Their work is surrounded by the
greatest possible secrecy. Every
resource of the nation is at their
command. All personal affairs
have been put in the background.
| was told yesterday that Edison
has not even seen his wife for
three months.
: Working hand in hand with
these men are the men who have
contributed so much to making
warfare so deadly in recent
years. Having evolved appall-
ing methods of destroying hui
man life, they are now striving
with feverish energy, to find
something still more deadly that
we can turn against our enc
mics. During the past three