Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1918-02-01
CRITICISM NOW OR LATER


No man or patriotic newspaper
wants to criticise the administration
in the wor,, of preparing for tsa war.
1t has been a year since we knew we
were going into the conflict i'll Europe.
We have spent more money in that
period than France and Great Britain
did in the first two years of the
struggle We have done enormous
things. There have been a few
stumbling blocks and the chiefest OF
these is the fact that the war depart
nent is wound up in a system OF rec
,rtls and vises and O. KS that have
descended from the beaurocratic times
when in order to have Il job for some
ne. he was given signing power There
vas need for a strong, competent man
"a man skilled in getting results and
With the knowledge that the straight
ne was the shortest distance between
wo points Mr.. Newton ID. Baker was
.ot that man. He had neither the
raining nor the natural adaptability
or the place. He was a lawyer, used
o the delays Of courts and the salts
fled complaisance that follows the
dictllm of the court when it puts. a
case over to the next term.
He was originally a pacifist He
had failed utterly in the Mexican, bor-
der troubles, either to use that cpl
SOde for the making of a nucleus OF an
army. training men for officers or for
with which the air has been ominously
.harged ever since Germany destroyed
Belgium and sunk the Lusitania.
He confronts "a committee of the
senate in it's effort to find what is be-
:ng done with the billions that Con
yress has appropriated of the peoples
money. with the self-satisfied com
olaccncy of remarks that everything
is going on all right. Yet our men
IN France are equipped i'll part. with
machine guns that were made i'll this
Ountry for France or Great Britain
which gun the Ordnance department
under Secretary Baker rejected and
With the airy statement to the men
Who were ready to turn their factories
Dver to the government, his Ordnance
Thief Gen. CrOzier said he was MOI
Interested" Here were these factories
already making many of these guns
taily for the armies of the allies anC
..pady to get to work for the United
States. but the War department was
not interested Instead we have
run that never has had a test in the
field and on which millions have beer
pent and are only within the past few
months being turned out.
Mr. Baker was raised in the Cleve-
and school of politics under the tute
lage of the late Tom Johnson. who
combined in himself about equal ele
nentS of the demagogue, the socialist
md the capitalist. He it was who
sprang into prominence when he owned
/ rival traction line in Detroit, and
made himself solid with the people by
| three-cent fare at the expense of ser
ice 1t was this situation, with a ire
mendous hold on the votes and because
ne was Il clever politician, that enabled
Tom Johnson to will his future to
Newt. Baker. a follower and Il bench
man. and with it the mayOralty of
Cleveland
Up to the time ~of the war declara
ton. Baker had been an earnest OppO-
nent of war He belonged to the
school of David Starr Jordan and Scott
Nearing. who are highly educated,
but who are willing to be the victims
of German ~kultur' rather than to
fight
Hence the demand from one end of
this country to the other, not for poll
tics nor for throwing Instructions
into the machinery, but to speed up
ceeded by some one who is doer of
things rather than theorist, or that a
War Board be formed
Already Crozier, whom the Secretary
said was all right has been practically
succeeded by more efficient man.
The Secretary objects strenuously
to either Il Munitions board or a War
board. But he has appointed, by the
president, Edward Stettinus as muni-
tiolE buying chief.
Nothing is wrong but these cor
rections are admission that something
was vitality wrong, all disclosed by the
senate investigation.
Speed up the war; if anyone gets in
the way. throw him out
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