Omaha daily bee., 1918-12-09
Nebraska Sets the Pace.
Henry L. Stoddard in New York Mail.

Henry L. Stoddard in New York Mail.
There is one state in the union that is not
afraid of peace-Nebraska.
From that state comes refreshing declara-
ton of readiness to meet all reconstruction work
with confidence that the funds the brains and
the energy to meet every requirement are at
| command.
Nebraska sends word to the east that the
state has half a billion deposits in its banks,
| that farm mortgages are as scarce as hens
teeth, that she has a job for every soldier and
sailor she has sent to the war, and that the
people out there see nothing but prosperity
ahead of them Here is part of one dispatch
from Omaha:
Nebraska sent Al 900 men to war The state
can give every one ef these his old position the
will be room for $4,000 more men in this state
if they care to come and ask for work. Ne
braska can care for $4,000 workmen and can
still cry tor more to carry on its regular bust
ness, to say nothing of the increase which nat
| urally comes after two years OF marking time.
Talk of this kind from other states, including
particularly lncluding-our own, ought to
take the place of the timid twaddle going around
regarding the deep problems we face and the
terrible time we are to have while solving them.
Why, to listen to some of the talk, and to read
as patiently as one can some of the interviews
with so-caled financial leaders, one would be
compelled to class Americans as a nation Of
ghost seers, We are seem things at night"
just because we have ceased killing other human
beings and having our own sons and brothers
killed.
Literally, and in word, as a nation we
seem to be afraid of peace!
With half the gold of the world in our pos
session, with a mighty development of OUR in
dustrial resources that half century of normal
times could not surpass, with the task of feed
ing the world on our farms for two years at
least, with more money of the people in savings
banks and in government bonds than we ever
dreamed could be accumulated there, with every
foundation stone of prosperity as strong as
Gibraltar, we shudder at the very thought that
hereafter instead of concentrating our whole
industrial effort on making instruments of de-
structon and death we are to turn back to the
nobler work of building up, of cementing, of
creating instead of destroying.
And we shudder at this splendid task, and,
with furrowed brow, ask each other how we
ever shall do It'll
We went into war in April, 1917, with an
unconquerablc spirit; we knew we had some
thing big to do, and we hadn't doubt that we
would do it and do it we'll.
We are going into peace in November, 1918.
in a timid spirit fearful that the dollars of
profits that were earned so plentifully in war
times may not be earned so plentifully in peace.
We are watching our dollars, piled up in
bank vaults and ignoring opportunities,
which are greater in number and in posSibili-
ties, than Destiny ever offered to any other
people on earth.
Instead of skulking under the shadow of
tmdity our people should be out con-
fldently in the sunshine of anticipated power
and prosperity, precisely as Nebraska says her
citizens are doing.
We have more to do, individually than ever
before; we have more to do at home more to
do abroad than our farms and factories have
ever been called to do; the yield from both will
spell prosperity unequalled in peace times,
more permanent, more widespread, than the
passing prosperity of war times
We are at the end of world confusion; we
are at The beginning of world reconstruction.
We shall have to draw on no nation for our
needs; there is no nation that will not have to
draw on us
Why then, should we be fashioning ghosts
in, Our minds, protesting to be wandering in
darkness, when the clear light of prosperity is
thrown on the path ahead of us?
Are we to let Wall street, which typihes
wealth. and therefore cowardly wealth, make
us a nation of doubters, when the only doubt
is that which we raise against ourselves?
The late J. P Morgan gave Wall street
good many examples of courage, of vision and
of patriotism; but he never said anything better
than when he replied to question put to him
during one of our panic periods: Il am betting
on Uncle Sam every time"
Let us get that spirit into our mult-mlllion-
aires-sO-called captains of industry Tor are
they generals nowO-and go to it, Nebraska"
like, to show the world that we have not grown
too rich out of the war to be courageous, that
we do not prize our energy, Our skill and our
craftsmanship so poorly as to lack faith IN them.
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