The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1918-01-18
1918 IN ITS NAKED CLARITY

are dead and dry, when the turkey
bones have served their use as soup
stock, when the toys are broken, when
the shouting and the clamor of kick
ing the old year away is over, it is
well to look on the 1918 prospect as
it is in its naked clarity.
The United States has been at war
for nine months. In these nine months
the stork has found time to come out
Of the land of the unborn and leave
a baby in the nesting arms of the
young mother. Our war machine is
more slow aborning.
In these nine months we did much
cheering and much Grating.
We re-echoed the pre-war declara-
tions that we were the smartest, the
most liberty-loving and greatest peo-
pie on earth. We have volleyed in
lip service up and down all the ma
tional highways and byways, across
the suds bars and the soft drink ia
bles.
On April we thought that by Jan
uary this nation, about whose PROV
ess, quickness and inventive genius we
had marveled much, would present a
battle front serried with big guns and
little guns, millions of men, reinforced
by tormenta bellorum, so marvellous
in their destruction capacity that the
French and English would draw
apart and cheer on the side lines as
we Yankee Doodled and Dixied into
the heart of the German Empire.
All of these things we might have
expected from the amount of the pre-
war talk we did.
The first of the year finds none of
these brilliant imaginnings realized.
Our navy has made splendid rec
ord, but the curse of the blathering
politician who would cut war APP
preparation for machine guns from
100000 to 100000, and an appropri-
alton for heavy artillery from ST.
100000 to 100000, did not quite reach
the navy.
Somehow, under the veor-lordship
of Dewey, was begun a program of
certain powerful preachments for a
big navy. The politicians did not have
the nerve to emasculate this organi-
cation.
There have been some revelations
in Washington.
The heads of the ordnance depart-
ment have failed to grasp the necessi.
ties of the occasion.
The brains of the bureau of chiefs
seem to have been atrophied and
would not expand to a point where
they could measure the colossal mag
nitude of the job we are up against.
Crozier is sorry spectacle. Sharpe
admitted that in some things he was
mere rubber stamp.
But if Crozier and Sharpe and a
half dozen other bureau chiefs were
court-marshaled, those really respon-
sible for the lack of initiative would
not be reached.
Yea, verify, three years ago there
were mighty preachments for peace.
All sorts of peace associations were
being formed. A lot of husbands who
had no sons and a lot of wives who
had no babies, for the lack of some
thing else to do, went into the peace
business eugenics and other muscle
softening and brain weakening uplifts.
Politicians caught the force of this
faced movement.
Peace at any price appeals to the
lazy element in humanity and the
greatest struggle men and women
have to make is to overcome the vidus
of laziness. a
Two years ago we heard Mr.. Bry-
an lecture in this city. His lecture
was philanthropic.
Oh, philanthrophy! How many of
our boys must pay the price for the
many foolish fakes that are done in
thy name?
Mr.. Bryan was talking against a
big army and navy. Mr.. Bryan was
against universal military service. Mr..
Bryan laughed at the prospect Of
war. And then Mr.. Bryan dismissed
the war by announcing that if we did
get into the war a nillion Ford cars
would start for the four corners of
the republic and meet the foe at the
shores of the Atlantic.
And Congress was niggardly with
the War Department.
Congress would provide nothing for
heavy artillery. There were millions
for postoffices and sloughs and con-
and forest reservations and
pensions, but not a cent for six-inch
howitzers, munitions, aeroplanes and
training schools.
Our people in the churches refused
longer to draw the text from the
glorious wars of the Old Testament.
The Maccabees, Samson, David the
General, were beginning to be regard
ed as ancient outlaws.
The wrath of the Savior of man,
when He drove the money-changers
from the temple, were never referred
to.
The blare of the brass bugle and
the clash of the cymbals were no long
err heard in the choir loft. We want
ed only the soft tones from the flute
pipes of the organ.
We, have got rich and fat and sell
fish. We ne longer read with indig-
nation the stories of the sufferings
Of our forefathers at Valley Forge.
We do not care to hear the tales of
the marching of men, in the depth of
winter, with bare feet, after the ter
rible fighting at Nashville.
We enjoy soft music, soft hymns,
soft services, soft light, soft dancing,
and soft food.
In 1913 there must be regenera-