Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 148, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1917 — WE WILL WIN BUT WHAT COST [ARTICLE]

WE WILL WIN BUT WHAT COST

E. L. HOLLINGSWORTH WRITES OF INTERESTING MEETING AT CHAUTAUQUA LAKE. One of the greatest conferences since the declaration of war was the Speakers’ Training Camp for Education in Patriotic Service, at Chautauqua, N. Y., July 2nd to July 7th. It was a conference of all the important organizations engaged in patriotic education, under the direct auspices Security Leagues, with all the established agencies, Red Cross, Navy League, Y. M. C. A., Boy Scouts, co-operating. The leaders of public thought and education from every state in the union were present. Indiana was ably represented by Profs. Thomas F. Moran and Howard Babson, of Purdue, who were the Governor’s special representatives. The National Security League is a non-partisan, non-political league of American men and women who are earnestly working to secure adequate national defense through promotion of patriotic education and universal military training. It is the pioneer agency of national defense. Joseph H. Choate was honorary president from its organization until his death May 14, 1917. The League is not endowed, but is supported by the gifts of patriotic citizens. Its officers serve without pay. - The limits of this sketch forbid any more than a brief mention of some of the impressions received during three days at the convention. The keynote was expressed by the letter written by the Hon. Elihu Root, head of our commission to Russia. He stated that we must win this war—but the awful concern was that the nation might awaken in ;ime to meet the enemy at a cost in ife and treasure that we could not afford to pay. Mr. Henry P. Davison, head of the Red Cross War Council, said that it took the murder of women and children by Zeppelin bombs to awaken Britain. “What,” he asked, “will it take to awaken the American people from their apathy, to arouse them to the fact that the Jnited States is now fighting for its very existence?” Every speaker laid emphasis on the necessity of showing every citizen the seriousness of the situation and the urgent necessity of haste in our preparedness. Prof. McElroy, of Harvard University, just returned from a year in the war zone, froze the blood of his hearers by his picture of the horrors of Germany’s treatment of Belgium, n tones of thunder he avowed that >ur fate would be national death, if by some lucky. stroke or by some blunder of the Allies, Germany should shake herself free from the Allied blockade, she would be on our shores before we could resist, and then would begin repetition of the horrors of Belgium, Poland and Roumania. Ie quoted the words of President Wilson that this country has embarked upon the gravest enterprise in American history and the test will involve for all our people the greatest self denial and sacrifice.

Every section of the conference was a serious council of ways, and means. The tons was one of hopefulness. The one greatest danger in the present situation, as the best informed men saw it, was the tendency of the press in many sections to emphasize good news and soften the most serious conditions as they are known to rfsxist. We are induced to think that the Allies can hold the kaiser in lesh until, we are ready with our army and our 100,000 aeroplanes. We are pinning our faith on the British navy—what if the German U-boat warfare, with a total of 7,000,000 tons a year, should force England to sue for peace—then the enemy have command of the seas above and below the surface and who knows how soon then we would be paying Germany’s war bill and giving allegiance together with Canada and Mexico to a Hohenzollern governor general? A sad forecast, you may say, but I assure you it is a true echo of the thought and counsel of the wisest and best informed men in the councils of the nations. The food question came in for serious consideration. The first assistant to Food Comissioner Hoover told us that unless the 50,000,000 men now under-arms can be put back to producing crops within a year, Europe will be starving. Already sugar, milk .and butter are luxuries. Food may be the controlling factor in this war. The supply of food to England usually received from, Argentina and Australia, is cut off, in our case by the short, crops, in the other by the dangers of the long journey, beset as it is by the U-boats. So the United States must feed the Allies and to do it we must save, save, save. It should be a crime to hoard, waste or destroy a morsel of food, when there are millions of human . beings on the danger line of starvatiqn. I wish that every man and woman who has the welfare of this nation at heart, might have been present, under the roof of that greatest of auditoriums, the parent of our chautauquas, and have breathed the spirit of patriotism and service that was the keynote of every spoken word. It was the crowning experience of my life and has given me more zeal and determination to devote my time and my talents to the task of saving

dur nation from the horrors of German autocracy, then to make this nation and the world safe for democracy.