The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-12-28

NWTlIIGn Dy FTanClS J. OppenHelIHer for the National Security League.) The Great War has settled one question, and peace will raise many others. Though less dramatic than hurling back a brutal, ignoble foe, the task of strengthening out the tor tured, twisted forms of civilization will require ingenuity amounting to genius. Greece and RomeA are gone and Europe to be rebuilt. And the plumbing of the new regime must all be "open," for there will be no secret treaties"
 But who will play the Heads" in this Great Renaissance?
 Not artists, as in the singing and dancing Italian awakening.
 Not philosophers, as in the Greek Age of Perfection.
 Nor lawyers with "precedents' nor political stump" speakers, will be able to put a reeling planet back in it's right orbit
 By way of answering this question, a Belgian Relief Comnnissioner asks, "Do you realize that within ten years the engineers of this country will be the deciding factors In the govern ment?" Strong meat this, "enough to give us pause" as the phrase monger would say. But after all, isn't there something to the chal- lenge?
 Engineering certainly has taken it's place with the historic professions, law, medicine and theology, and these must heed the presence of the new arrival-philosoph in overalls. 'Tis our engineers these days who are shaping in terms of human experi- ence the distractions of the labora- tory, not the Mystics; and the ma chine-shop, not the sheltered grove, setting the pace for industrial pro- gress.
 Uncle Sam "cleaned up house" for mediaeval Europe, but to achieve supremacy in the rewards of peace he will also have to capture the markets of the world Internal pros perity will not be enough, for na- tional strength is in direct ratio to foreign trade. Nations satisfied with a provincial performance fade from history's pages. Perplexing read1ust- ments, and many are in the wake oS the feverish demands of peace, need subtler solution than foreign invest ments.
 Our ships of trade can be victorious on the seven seas, our mills kept running full speed on, but newer economies must constantly be tmpro' vised and the old national foes Waste forever slain. Quick action" mus be avoided and careful advance planning" perfected. All this spell: engineering in its finest sense ant makes for an efficiency such as su pervised our war industries, the sue cessful co-ordiation of which gav' humanity the strings to draw th' curtain for all times on the ghastl! Pageant of Autocracy.
 But if we think we are going tt "Walk away" with the worlds busi ness without many star bouts" w are in for a rude awakening. Snc 1914, England has bought fifty mil lion dollars worth of machine tools and organized a huge army c woman workers, most of whom ha never before been inside a factory The tense years have girded Britain Joins with industrial confidence. Ger many. even before her defeat on til field, with characteristic thorough ness, planned out back-star cam paigns to capture international trad' Dot feller Fritz is a smart feller. s watch out for the old made In Gel many" bird under camouflage of Spanish or a Hollandaise dressing.
 Let's face facts as bravely as W face bullets. In problems calling fc industrial finesse, our methods, of times, are crude enough, as witne the Aircraft Production Board. An before the war we couldn't make ou railroads pay-led the world in LII employment, and scraped away on bad third fiddle in the Export Ovel turs of the Nations
 Any mural decorator will tell yo tha. Commerce is the Horn Plenty. And Wealth, the greate weapon of triumphant democrac is the gift of applied science. Me do not work any harder now tha they ever did and never were the more intensive thinkers than u Greeks. These Attic philosopher however, looked upon exact know edge as a pitiable thing, and treat' 1t ike a metaphysical step-chil Plato, you remember, boasted that didn't know how to pack his vali and Socrates ignorance of natur science was pathetic.