The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1918-07-11
Meeting the Present Issue

No obstacle is so great that it cannot be over
big until we begin to tackle them Then they
disappear before our onslaughts.
Great questions will confront the United
States after the war is over. Some people are
worrying about them now. The Annalist in a
current issue believes that the future will take
care of itself and that the whole brain power OF
the country should be devoted now to winning the
war. After this is out of the way, we will find
a solution for other problems, argues the writer.
The views of the Annalist are presented as a
timely answer to the fears of persons who, dis
concerted about what the future has in store, are
neglecting to solve the problems of the present.
1t follows in it's entirety:
Who has not had the experience, when travel
ing along straight country road, of approaching
long hill which seemed to offer serious difficult
ties of grade, only to discover at the beginning
Of the ascent that the rise was so gradual as
hardly to be noticeable? So it is with many prob
lens in life and business. A long-distance view
endows them with difficulties that threaten to
prove insurmountable, so that, if the beholder
be accustomed to take counsel of his fears, he
will seek to turn aside instead of meeting the
issues.
States Steel Corporation there hangs a cheaply
printed placard which the Directors face when
ever they lift their eyes from the plans and esti-
mates before them. The card says ''IT CAN BE
DONE" And it can be, of course, as the Steel
Corporation has often shown. Oftentimes it
can be done quite easily, once the beginning is
made.
If there is one quality in which the American
soldier exces his brother in uniform it is in his
ability to adapt himself to his immediate environ
ment. Willingness to try something new is a
heritage from the emigrants who left their
homes to strike out in little-known land. 1t
is the rule rather than the exception in this coun-
try for the boy to seek calling far removed from
that of his father. The trait is not wholly adj
n1irable it is conducive to restlessness and waste
but it serves us to good advantage when new
set of circumstances dislodges the old. The boy
grown up becomes an adventurer in business in
science, in agriculture. His first thought on en-
tering shop or laboratory is the possibility of
finding short cut, of improving upon an old way
of arriving at the top of hill.
One by one big problems have forced them
selves upon us as the war has upset accustomed
practices. ut can't be DONE" said Caution trying
to undermine the national courage "You can't
make an army wholesale out of youth who have
never had military training If you could you
would not be able to clothe them nor arm them.
If you had your army you could not get it to
Europe, for you have no ships"
And in period of little more than year
from the time that the United States found itself
thrust into war, totally pitifully unprepared for
war, Secretary Baker informs the President and
the latter the nation that a few odd thousand
more than a million men are in France. 1t is
almost unbelievable.
1T can't be done,' said Experience when the
War Department asked the maker of sewing