The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-03-06
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

The cry Is for ships. tpen more ships, for at the beginning of the war Ameri- ca was practically without merchant marine.
 More and more the world is beginning to realize that whoever controls the sea has a great advantage not only in times of peace, but in the hours of war. 1
 ] It seems hard to realize how slow our people were to wake up to the fact that the cry for a strong navy and large mercantile fleet was not born in the brains of military visionaries, but was | the most needful and practical thing If we wished to play our part in the shap- I ing of events.
 l I can remember making many speeches ] to show how the cost of dreadnaugnt could be made to build and endow col- leges or build miles of good roads, or be used in legitimate avenues of trade. also wrote many editorials in similar vein. It was quite the fashion. I ad-
 
 in the same boat now pretend that they were never asleep.
 Now let's acknowledge the corn and say openly that for years our diplomacy was without backbone and those in seats of power were babbling about the beauty of peace and the improbability of war ever being again waged on 8 great scaie.
 
 Sure, I read with breathless interest Stead's United States of Europe, and his grand tour in which he hobnobbed with princes, kings, emperors and prime min- isters who all joined in one great peace chorus and secuted the idea that the concert of Europe would ever be broken up by any of them singing out of tune. Then came the ponderous tome of M. Bloch, who, with rows of marshaled fig ures sufficient to stagger trained statis- ticians, made out such an overwhelming case against war that the. mere thought of European conflict was so suicidal that it seemed impossible that any one but madman would light the torch which would set the conflagration going We were informed that the rulers wanted the status quo undisturbed, that the bankers would not permit the mili tarists to have their way even though they willed war, that the commercial in | terests would see to 1t that nothing should happen to interfere with trade, and that it was unthinkable that the so- cialists would countenance fighting | Then the dreams of the pacifists great white Czar dramatically sprung l his peace rescript and all eyes were | turned to The Hague, until at last the magnificent peace palace took shape and was dedicated to international pacifism and Nicholas became the pat will toward all men.
 1 Now appeared strange contest, for Cousin William of Germany went into 1 competition with Dear Nick'' as an apostle of peace, and correspondents who got glimpse of life at court in Ber- lin filled papers and magazines with articles in which the Kaiser was pie tured as the true peace keeper of Eu- rope. And so the world outside of Ger many was practically lulled to sleep with the peace lullaby sung by the 1 trained chorus to drown the beating of | the drums alarms.
 | In the light of present-day knowledge, it seems unbelievable that Germany was able to hoodwink so completely the poo pie of England as to her real purpose of the sea. Russia to certain extent had
 made preparation and in the subcon- sciousness of France was the desire to win back Alsace and Lorraine, or at lease be able to repel a further invasion from her enemy beyond the Rhine. | Every now and then there trickled into our American ears strange rumors of Germany's design in South America, and that one day she would put to test the Monroe doctrine, foment a revolution in Mexico, or blow up the Panama canal, or seize the Philippines, but no one really paid any attention to such stories and set them down as idle tales to force the administration to grant money for the navy.
 1 The Emperor was all the time dinning it into the public's consciousness that Germanias ideal was peaceful work, and that she was merely striving to lead in cultural studies, to overcome with scien- tific methods, to build up peaceful mar kets in which goods made in Germany might find sale to cement the coun- tries into closer bond of union with the fatherland, and that the last thing | In her mind was war for it would but interfere with her educational and com mereial programme.
 ] It is true that she wanted place in the sun. but it was to come through colo nization, not won by a conquering army of soldiers, but led by enterprising sales men bent upon finding new spheres Of influence for German goods and Pr'is- i sian cultural ideas. Ships laden with goods and not monitors loaded down with soldiers was to be the means of conauests.
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