Palatka daily news. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1919-1994, 1922-09-21
With Other Editors
FOR THE UNITED STATES

Jury as an heroic purpose to bind the
nations of the world to a policy of
perpetuating peace. Peace means
prosperity. Revolution or war mean
want
Harding made his campaign pri-
marily on the issue of repudiating
the League of Nations. The repub-
llcan party could not repudiate the
war, so it made an effort to repudi-
ate the outcome of the war. 1t went
back to the declaration of George
Washington on entangling alliances
and said: The Washingto npolicies
and the Wilson policies are in con-
tllct. Well stand with George; we're
for the United States and the United
States alone; let the rest of the world
wag.
Now we are beginning to find out
who was more for the United States.
In Washington's time we were
quite sufficient unto ourselves.
Eighty per cent of our people lived
directly on the land. The southern
planter and the northern farmer
clothed his family from the wool he
sheared, from the cotton he grew.
Beef and pork were home grown and
home cured. So were the cereal
foods, The local tanner dressed
leather. The local cobbler made shoes
for the family and harnesses for the
horses. We used things more than
money. We grew and made things
we used.
Today all this is changed. Only 35
per cent Of our population now live
on the land. Sixty-seven per cent
live in towns and cities. We are tax
ing our bulk production and making
more refined commodities than the
home manufacturer could make. The
cobbler is in Massachusetts, factories.
Cotton is woven into cloth in South
Carolina Beef is cured in Chicago
or Texas towns. And the flour is
milled in Minneapolis.
What is more, we are producing
and manufacturing more than we
consume. When we do not find a
market for that which we produce
the market becomes overstocked and
prices fall.
Because we have not helped to
stabilize Europe, the countries over
seas have not found the peace basis
on which to build a prosperity that
can help us. We are dependent upon
European ports as places to sell our
surplus. Without a European mar
ket what do the American farmers
think they are going to do with their
8 ,0OO,0OO,OOO bushels of corn, their
SOO,O0O,OOO bushels of wheat and all
the rest?
Since we have decided that Wilson
was wrong and we would leave the
rest of the world to wag, the price of
dairy cows has gone from around
5000 down to as low as $50. Wheat
has gone from as high as $1.25 a
bushel down in some instances as low
as % cents bushel. Cotton has fall
en- off so as to affect every southern
state from Georgia to Texas.
What hits the farmer and the
planter hits the town bank. When
the town bank is strained, the clear
ing house tightens on credits; bills
are hard to collect; doctors find it
hard to get their fees; the clergyman
is not paid, and the whole financial
fabric of society is weakened thread
by thread.
We are living in a new world. 1t is
not Washington's world. 1t is a world
which Wilson and not Harding saw.
is repudiating his own palt-
form pledges. The farmer is find
ing out that the League of Nations
was not the idealist's dream, but the
insistent need Of practical business
men. 1t was Wilson who was for the
United States. And he who is for
the United States will not let the rest
Of the world wag, for the rest OF the
world is the port into which our sur
DIus must be sold and from which our
sustained prosperity must come
Jacksonville Journal.