Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1918-02-01


ted by several weeks of exceptionally
bad weather which greatly hampered
shipping. The weather is beyond the
control OF man and We are required to
meet bravely whatever damage 1t
causes, but these natural causes should
not be aggravated by such precipitous
orders as were sent out last week. They
were destructive instead of construc-
tive, and although DR.. Garfield had
convinced himself and the President
that heroic measures were necessary,
they should not have assumed that
the opinions of thousands of equally
brilliant men were not to be entertain
ed.
Doubtless some shutting down of in
dustries could have been brought about
which would have helped, but to force
every industry little and big, regardless
of whether or not they had fuel or
whether conditions of particular indus
tries require continuous action, was
destructive. and aroused the ire of SO
pei CCHt. Va tAO5C alOClCu.
The order was bad because it is need
full to have cooperation at this time,
to win. The country has handed over
billions at the request of the Treasurer
of the United States, but if the people
who have handed out so freely are to
be needlessly offended, it will
financing to come hard. We believe
Mr.. Garfield's blow to have been a
punch In the face of the next Liberty
Loan.
We believe in loyalty to Americs,
separated from hero worship, the idea
of royal birth, or humane perfection.
The right to criticise our hig hest Off
Gals becomes the duty of the loyal
when the country is harmed or en-
dangered by Encouragement and In
efficiency. We can only be loyal to
men when their acts help America and
Democracy. America first.
The troubles in this country SO far
as transportation is concerned, began
ten years ago when the people and
theirelective offi cials hsmpered and him
dered the railroads and made 1t i'm
possible for them to grow and provide
surplus facilities. We are reaping the
natural re ward of those errors.
When attempt was made to control
price-fixing at the coal mines, one kind
of coal was priced so low that there
was an immediate Stacking of produc-
ton, and as a result there was an on
slaught on the stores of the smaller sizes
of household coal, for factory use, i'm
mediately tending to a famine In fuel
for household purposes. That mis-
take was a terrible one and entirely un-
called for.
All e. experienced coal men knew what
would happen, but they were not con-
suited nor listened to, and a man who
knew little or nothing about coal OF
the broad line of distribution, was
u ade dictator.
When railroad cong stion became al
most IN bearable largely because of lack
of facilities and drastic %hampering or
ders from food and fuel administrators,
the Government took owe control, and
iust-ad of seeking for the most ex peri
enced aud brightest railroad man in the
country to head this great work, the
President selected Mr.. McAdoo, his
~son-in-law, whose back was already
bending under the biggest financial
burden any man in the world has ever
carried, as Secretary of the Treasury.
This was another mistake. Either 10
is big enough for the brainiest man in
the world, and to saddle them both on
one man with the seeming idea that
there is only one man big enough, was
a greatdisa appointment, illustrating the
fallacious reasoning which has already
cost millions upon millions.
The psychological makeup OF Mr.. VIII
son is a mystery. Heis a man o. splen
did education. fine morality, aud a
spokesman of unusual ability. From
the day he entered executive life as Gov
ernor OF New Jersey he appears to have
had an obsessiou hat the politically
selected head Of any great department
should be a man with experience only
outside of the department to be admin
islered, and not one reared in the kind
OF activities to be reformedor conducted.
To an outsider the reasoning appears
to be that if a banker is selected to ad-
minister banking laws he will be pre-
JUDGED and no efficient, or If railroads
are to be controlled, it must be by a
head outside of the railroad world, and
thus all the way down the line of his
appointments will be seen this guiding
line.
Such reasoning is fallscious, mis-