Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1916 — THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECH [ARTICLE]

THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECH

In his speech yesterday before the National Grain Dealers’ association meeting at Baltimore, President Wilson discussed the business of the country, its relation to the business of the world, and the at-

titude of government toward both. It was argued that we had outgrown the home market, which is true. For many years we have been developing our industries, and it has been clear that the time would come when we should have to devote ourselves to the building up of foreign trade through the cultivation of foreign markets. The President’s idea is that the government ought to help through every agency that it can command, and do what it can to remove all obstacles, legislative or other. He favored the Webb bill, under which combinations the sole purpose of which was to trade abroad, should be exempted from the provisions of the Sherman anti-trust law. And generally he urged that business be freed as .much as possible, that it be fully informed as to its rights under the law, to the end that uncertainty may disappear. But it is also true, as Mr. Wilson pointed out, that our business men, and indeed all our people, need to get a larger vision, and to develop a greater initative in connection with the campaign for the world’s trade. We have been too much disposed to limit ourselves to nearby markets. There is such a thing as American commercial provincialism. We are, however, outgrowing it, and whatever government can do to help the movement it should do. The question of foreign relations is manifestly, as the President said, important. And yet what we need, and may have, is not so much the friendship of governments, as the friendship of the peoples of the various countries, and their confidence. Broadly this is the President’s view. Speaking of the mission of America Mr. Wilson said:

The competition of business either lay the foundations of respect and mutual confidence of the foundations of suspicion and mutual hospitality. America has stood in the years past for that sort of political undertsanding among them which would let every man feel that his rights were the same as those of another; and the mission of America in the field of the world’s commerce is to be the same, that when an American conies info that competition he comes without any arms that would enable him to conquer by force, but only with the peaceful influence of intelligence, a desire to serve, a knowledge of what he is about, before which everything softens and yields and renders itself his subject. That is the mission ot America, and my interest so far as my small part in America is concerned is to lend every bit of intelligence I have to this interesting, this vital, all-impqrtant matter of releasing the intelligence of America for the service of mankind That means that there should be on our part no semi-military alliances, such as are proposed in Europe after the war, for the conquest of trade. Rather we are to consider trade as one of the arts of peace, and as such to be cultivated in a peaceful spirit, and with the idea of doingr, what we can to bind the nations together, and all of them to ourselves. That is clearly the President's idea. It is also or should be—the idea of a civilized humanity.—lndianapolis News.

A FUNDAMENTAL BENEFIT Development of many of the nation’s greatest agricultural states lying west of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio rivers is yet in its infancy. Vast acreages of fertile land which should be under cultivation are in jungle, swamps which should be drained are flooded, farmers who should have silos and efficient modern machinery to add to the volume and economy of production of vegetable and meat foodstuffs are without them, and the condition of farm buildings and farm premises constitute a steady loss to the farmer. The great hindrance has been lack of money for development, extortionate interest rates, and often merciless mortgage holders who have forced the farmer to sacrifice necessities to meet the obligations imposed by rates running as high as 10 per cent.

The Wilson administration by enactment of the rural credits law which will enable the farmer to borrow money at not to exceed 6 per cent and have forty years to pay it back, if he wants >that long a time,' is destined to speedily remedy backward agricultural conditions. From it there can be but one result—greater activity and improvements on the farm in all the states —not merely in favored communities—with money enough to meet all the farmers’ needs and make needed improvements without necessity of resort to the loan sharks who shackled the development of many farm communities.

Thoreau, who obtained such small pay for his famous literary efforts, should have been present when assessors placed a value of $12,500 on a group of his original manuscripts iq the Morgan collection. It is not known where the financier bought them.