The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1919-01-18
THE POLITICIAN AND THE SOLDIER

There are coolies and coolies of cap-trap flowing out from
Washington and other quarters these days in relation to the
farms and ranches and embryo orchards and vineyards that
are to be placed at the disposal of the boys in khaki who car
rid "Old Glory to the banks of the Rhine and rescued civil
zaticn from the Hun. But where are those farms and ranch
es? And where are the boys in khaki who will want them,
except those who left the farm to don the KHAKI?
Many of these suggestions are hnoest, patriotic and sim
cere; many bear the stamp of political or personal propagan-,
da. thrown out as q bait for votes or popularity. And to read
these carnations without prior knowledge one would draw
the Inference that such a policy would inaugurate a new de-
parture, whereas it applied to those who served i'm the war
of 1912, and to some, at least. of those who fought in the war
of the revolution, even if we forget entirely that larger num-
Der who served with the Union armies in the Civil war OF
1861 IS. But in those days there was a public domain that
vas inviting to the settler; and that invitation having been
accepted and the domain occupied we cannot Dust the settler
VINO settled it.
There isn't an acre of what is left that the Tribune or
any true American would not gladly see placed at the dis
posal of any boy who left his occupation and his home to
carry the flag across the seas in the greatest of all wars, but
what we haven't we cannot give. And if we are to buy a
farm for every boy who wants to be a farmer then we must
buy a store for every boy who wants to be a merchant, and
send through college every boy who wants to be a doctor or a
lawyer. And the only way we could get the farms these pol
iticians are talking about would be to buy them from those
who already own them.
But what most of these returning boys will want is a
lob such as thew left. or a better one, and a chance to get, in
time something more than a job. And here the government
can help. 1t can so shape its economic policy as to keep the
iaDor of the nation employed, to keep the mines and the
mills and the factories open and the wheels gong round. Ii
can keep this Nation a Nation of Opportunity, such as it has
been while striving for and reaching the position of first im-
portance in the world; or it can throttle it by a policy that
will quickly lead to Bolshevism on one hand or Prussianized
socialism ON the other.
Our allies, having suffered more severely than We, are
more keenly alive to the economic problems of the future than
we, and Canada, on our north, is especially alert to the con-
ditions now present in Europe that are likely to affect the
western world acutely, in the years that lie just ahead. And
the policy that is to govern the immediate future must vitality
affect the destiny Of every nation this side OF the Atlantic.
y * X
We are reprinting today from the Christian Science
Monitor an interview with Major-General McRea, former
quarternlaster- general Of the Canadian forces, which outlines
a policy that is likely, if adopted, to attract many from this
country. General McRea is a brother of Randolph McRea,
mining engineer, who has been in Goldfied during the last
six months.
Canada has the public domain which we no longer have,
but she is not depending on that alone. She is counting on
the development of her mines, her other natural resources
and her manufacturing. She is looking to Europe to finance
these developments. We do not require this. We have the
money. We have the men to lead and organize and provide
jobs for every man who wants a job.
But these men are not going to risk their all, with the
savings of others, under any policy that may mean confsca-
ton or place them at the mercy of the demagogue who
stands ready at all times to trade the success OF others for
the votes of the Bolshevist. A policy that will warrant the
confidence of the manufactures and justify the building of
factories and railroads and steamships and the operation of
the mines, will put more men on the farms and keep them
there to feed the men in other industries than all the legisla-
ton that all the dreamers and politicians have conceived in