The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-08-16

It is very different today. As Mir.
 Hurley remarks, ships are as impor-
 tant to the Kansas grain farmer, the
 Iowa hog raiser, the Wisconsin dairy
 man and the apple growers of the
 south as to the New England cotton
 manufacturer or the Pacific coast
 lumberman. They will not only carry
 our goods to foreign customers, but
 will bring back raw material for our industries and commodities for Amer iican consumers. We shall have, says
 MT. Hurley, not only freight ships, but passenger lines, to bring customers from other countries to our markets,
 and even more important in his opin- lion to carry alert Americans sight
 seeing and understanding in other
 lands.
 MT. Hurley, being business man, l is eager to impress upon the mer-
 chants and manufacturers of the
 United States the idea that the mer-
 chant marine is "a straight selling
 proposition" It is not enough to
 build and operate a great merchant
 marine. "We have got to sell it to
 the great American public and par
 ticularly farmers and workmen who
 make up the backbone of the coun- try"
 The commerce of the United States has been handicapped for years past
 because we have been without mer-
 chant marine, but now that we are
 building great merchant fleet, there
 will be no lack of appreciation and
 no question as to it's ready utilization. # # # | A New York brewer of German origin,
 whose s4o,OOO,OOo estate was taken over
 by the alien property custodian, says he will leave the matter in the hands of do And after the war, if he behaves
 himself, Uncle Sam will probably re-
 store his property to him. 1 # # # \ 1f
 military class regard President Wilson
 as great executive. Naturally, you couldn't expect war lord, trained in the Prussian school of ethics, to have any respect for a man who advocates fair
 play.
 l Some magazine writers say the crown prince is a smart fellow, while others, who are in the majority, by the way, | declare he's blockhead. We may have
 to wait until the war is over to find out l the truth of the matter. A contemporary says much of the late Anna Helds popularity was due to that story about her taking milk baths. We had an idea it was due to the engaging way in which Anna systematically shocked the prudes. ]. # * King George asked an American soldier where he came from, and was told Prom the village of Chicago" George smiled, but does not appear to have been
 sufficiently up in the vernacular to re-
 ply, Some village!" # # X:
 There would have been some excuse for Lieutenant Commander Schweiger. who sank the Lusitania, if he had merely
 obeyed orders without strutting around
 afterward and posing as hero. * # * Young men who scurry to the marriage altar in the hope of evading military service will be wishing a few months happened to them before tnu, got there. ss *, y Sometimes when a reckless aviator l takes up passenger who is ''sick over the side," said passenger is content to stay on Mother Earth for the rest of his life.
 x * x | Those German generals fired by the Kaiser may get even by returning home
 and violating the food laws every time i an opportunity offers. l # * * Even astronomers absorbed in the study of other worlds than ours, occasionally get back to earth and read the war bull
 letins.
 l Arresting allied diplomats won't get
 the bolsheviki anywhere. However, they ceased getting anywhere sometime ago. x !. * 1 Issuing a declaration of war and then
 retiring to parts unknown is apparently
 the bolshevik way of doing business. ], as x 1 The Kaiser's best troops were no match
 for General Pershings chocolate sol
 diers."
 I