Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1918-02-23
What Doth Il Profit a Man?

Nv - ~
scheme that ingenuity can devise and
money can put into operation, to make
American workingmen traitors to their
country in its hour Of need" says the
Conference Committee OF National
Preparedness, which is sending cut
hundreds of thousands of ~placards
bearing the following:
What doth it profit a man if he sends
his sons and brothers to the battle
fields, and after he gets them there he
betrays them to the enemy by stop
ping the industrial home work without
which they can neither win nor es-
cape?
The courses of nations-the lives of
~millionS-are changed by very small
events. Had the Monitor not been
ready for the Merrimac exactly when
she was, the Union fleet would have
been rendered useless and the Civil
War might have had a different end
ing. Had someone then succeeded in
making serious trouble in a mine, a
foundry, or a shop-had someone then
succeeded in <~Saying transportation
while the Mon;-or was under construc-
ton, what would have become Of the
/ which was blockading the Southern
ports?
confused when a similar crisis comes.
Our whole nation is preparing for the
determine whether every man shall
have a chance to work out his destiny.
or whether he and his country are to
become subject to the dictation Of Il
Prussian group.
If we are not fully ready when the
test comes it will be easier for German
armies and German ships, German sub
marines and German aircraft, to kill
tho men that so out from your COM
mnnity to protect YOU and your rights.
Whoever from n motive delays
work bearing directly or indirectly or,
the war will he an accessory to the
murder Of his fellow Americans.
Every strike in the United States.
while this wal is in progress, is a blow
in favor of Germany.
What doth it profit a ma to Increase
his wages or decrease his working
hours if 10y so doing he contributes to
the victory of a nation that makes
slaves of white men and scourScs them
as they work:
The condition Of the blacks IN Amer
lea before the Civil War was far better
than the condition of the whites o,
Belgium who today are carried off like
cattle, are overworked, underfed,
beaten and, sick or we'll, must labor in
~ccssantly, often under the fire Of their
W guns.
What doth it profit q mar to aid a
monarch who in this ann has
shamelessly r~e-cstablished the slavery
OF white men? Tho kincman in
American who obstructs the cutting of
wood. the mining of fuel, the weaving
of cloth, the turning Of wheels IN fac
tories or on rails while this wal is in
proGress-he is helping the slave mas
tors. the destroyers of civilization, the
murderers of ONE and children.
What doth it profit a man who has
lived in u land of Incompatible liber-
ties, of advantages unparalleled in all
the history of the world, to contribute
by an act. however small, to the sue
cess of an autocracy to whom a com
mon man is but a clod of earth?
The w~orkingman who stands faith
fully by his duties day by day, allowing
no person and no thought TO get be
tween him and an honest performance
of his work, is rendering the highest
kind of patriotic service to his nation
and to his family.
What doth it profit a man to sell his
manhood, his self-respect, perhaps his
soul, for u little selfish gain in such an
hour? When life'S services are meas
ured up at the end, those who have
faithfully labored through the war
shall be entitled to their credit as well
as those who have led the charges in
battle.
What doth it profit a man who wants