The Durant news. (Durant, Miss.) 1882-1985, 1940-09-12

1t means that we must forever stand
to arms and for an indetermiata
number of years spent fifteen To
twenty billion dollars annually on
ornaments. To arm insufficientlv is
not to arm at all; to arm equally
with the enemy is to run risk of
defeat; to arm in a manner over
&hemlingly superior to the enemy
is to assure the creates probability
of victory. Our defense problem is as
great or greater than that of the
British Empire. Britain has recently
been spending about ten billion dol
lars annually for arms. Germany.
it is reliably estimated, has spent
about seventy-five billions during the
past seven years.
While engaged in a gigantic task
of rearming W. shall have to revise
every department of our economic
life. This calls not only for a wis
dom which we seem hitherto to have
lacked and for an experienced civil
service which we have never taken
the trouble to create but also -
considered merely in money terms
for a new, fast and expensive burea-
ucracy. We shall have to overhaul
our agricultural production. There
is little point in growing cotton, to-
bacco and other crops when there
will be no place to export them to
save a Nazj-controHed Europe which
will take them only in exchange for
manufactures which we ourselves
produce. And if, in the field of in
dustrial exports, the loss of these ex-
ports is compensated for by the pro-
duction of ornaments, it must be
remembered that arms are non-pro-
ductive instruments, the continued
manufacture of which on a girgan-
tuan scale must inevitably lower the
standard of living of the people. We
may find ourselves after awhile
unless we show iron-resolution and
a greater spirit of sacrifice than any
Americans have shown since the War
Between the States-in the position
of France during the regime Of Leon
Blum. He then said that it was i'm
possible for France to build arma-
ments, service the national debt, and
maintain the social services demand
ed by the people. No government that
reduced ornaments could survive!
if the debt vas not serviced there
would be financial chaos; and if the
social services were discontinued or
curtailed there might be internal
revolution. We are a far richer coun-
try than France, but the strain up
on US would be enormous and per-
haps eventually intolerable unless the
people are determined to work with
out regard to hours and pay taxes
without regard to personal comforts.
That is the challenge easy-going,
comfort-loving America faces.
It is impossible to envisage the
problems that we shall face in a
myriad difficult and dangerous Nazi-
dominated world. One of them is al
ready upon US. Congress has passed
a joint resolution to the effect that
no transfer of the possessions of M
European power to another would be
tolerated in this hemisphere by the
United States. But suppose upper
governments are erected in France
and the Netherland- governments
which will control French and Dutch
islands in this hemisphere for the
actual benefit Of the Nazis? What
shall we do then? Or rather, what
shall We do now? It is clear that we
should now take over these possess
sions, alone or in concert with the
Latin-American countries and with
out SO much as a by-your-leave from
anybody? Is the United States a
ladies' sewing circle animated by the
clacking of tongues, or is it a vigor-
u country preparing itself against
the direst peril it has ever known?