Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1917 — A NEEDED LESSON [ARTICLE]

A NEEDED LESSON

With the clouds of war looming darkly over the country; with plots and counter plots against the peace of our people; with food disturbances in the large cities; and with the price booster stalking abroad in the land, truly it is a time when the sober sense of the American people should be called into use. But we are unlike any other people on the globe. There seems to be something in the very air we breathe that makes for a different outlook on life from that of any other country. No other land can vie with Us in the vastness of its

resources. The increase in our national wealth during the last two decades would make Croesus appear at piker, find beside our own magnificence the glories of Solomon are as the moonlight to the radiant orb of day. Our strength and our resources are boundless and limitless. But because of these very facts we find ourselves as a people standing on the very brink of national disaster. We are the most confidently careless people on earth, hence find, ourselves now engaged in a gigantic conflict and lamentably unprepared for the task before us. What boots us that our resources in men and material are so vast? Those resources as are the latent heat of coaly— undeveloped and unmobilized. A strenuous campaign of preparation is on, but the one absolutely essential element —time--is in a great measure denied us. Then we are the most magnificently wasteful people in the world. Beside our national extravagance, the prodigality of kings is as pinching economy. And this trait, too. is threatening to be our undoing. Having by our own royal extravagance consumed much, and by shipment from- the country consumed much more, we find ourselves facing a demand for unlimited supplies and with practically empty storehouses. What matters it that other crops may be raised? That same -element—time—-may be denied us e’er the insistent demand is upon us. The remedy? Several.

In the first place, export nothing that is urgently needed in this country. But perhaps you say that the European nations must be fed. Granted, but are we under obligations to feed them and let our own people suffer for food? And was it by any act of ours that the bulk of their -men are now fighting wiieu they should be at peace and producing? It is well to care for our allies to the limit of possibilities, but our own interests' must take precedence. Next,’-get after the price booster. If there is any particular class of

humans—if su.li they can he called (k —-to whom prison garb would be actually becoming, it is these gentry. Without mercy themselves, they deserve none; without pity, they can expect none. Void even pf a sense of justice, they should have meted out to them the justice of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." Then, let America go to work in earnest- —-work with the soil. Let us not be satisfied with increased crops this season,: but let us plan for even greater increases for years to come, in order that the nations of the eaith may be fed and wstill have enough left for our consumption. And when we produce it, let us conserve it and not waste it. If the experiences .through y we are passing shall have the effect of teaching us a rational economy they will be well worth the price It is a lesson we need and should heed.: • . ‘ < ■