Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1917-03-15

Friend Fontaine:
l confess to being a little surprised
at your article in Tuesdays Daily
on La Toilette.
Now, l am not writing this in de-
tense of Mr.. La Toilette. He needs
no defense in general, and my opin-
ion is that his acts in the closing days
of the Congress that just expired
| need no defense.
| will, however, call attention to
the fact that in truth La Toilette took
no part in the "filibuster" that talked
that Congress to death. True the pa
pers that are under the control of
the "steel interests" call it the La
/ Toilette filibuster, and few other pa
pers, without Analysing the situation,
have spread the falsehood, probably
not realizing their error. La Toilette
and a few other clear headed honest
men in the Senate were ready to give
good reasons why several pernicious
bills should not pass. But in fact it
was a supposed friend of the presi-
dent and his EARNED neutrality" bill
! that talked the session to death. That
friend undoubtedly did so because he
was afraid that La Toilette, if he once
got the floor, would show the public
the best reasons why the various bills
ready to be CANNED through" in the
closing hours of Congress should
not pass.
If we will view the present national
and international situations with a
little calmness, we will plainly see that
there is no sufficient cause for k2e
| ''hysteria" that for the last few days
| has been, and to a certain extent still
is sweeping through the public press.
In few days it will subside, and when
it does subside there will be some
chance that cool, deliberate, common
sense action can be had in Congress,
action that will probably keep us
out of the European War.
There have been few startling dis
closures to the public in our foreign
relations in the last few days. But
there is in fact very little really new
in the foreign situation, and very lit
tie that the president and cabinet have
not known for months. For more than
year it has been an open secret that
one of the European belligerents has
been stirring up sentiment in China
| South America, Central America and
Mexico against the United States, and
even that officers from that belliger-
ent have been drilling the soldiers of
Mexico The Zimmerman not to
Mexico is not cause for excitement,
but rather should be a source of relief
to the tension of public opinion. By
reason of that note we have received
renewed assurances that we are in no
danger of trouble with Japan.
We have in fact now little more
cause for war with any European pow
er than we had when that first pas
senger ship, the Lusitania, was sunk
| by one of the belligerents, causing the
loss of a score of American passen-
gers.
If we keep in mind that it was the
cool-headed friends of the people,
men who in the past have always stood
between the people and the avarice of
the steel trust,-that, during the last
few days prevented the stampede Of
Congress into the passage of i'll con-
sidered, dangerous legislation, that
would have cost the country hundreds
of millions and probably billions of
dollars for what the nation does not
need, we will be more likely to ap-
prove rather than condemn the sena-
tors who prevented the passage of the
so-called emergency measures"
l am for intelligent, well-consider-
ed preparedness" for war. But, l
am not and I fully believe that the
people of the United States are not
for spending billions of dollars of the
peoples money for that kind of pre-
paredness that is not now necessary,
will probably not be used in the next
ten years and at the end of ten years
will bo OhcoIa+o a,