GOODWIN' S WEEKLY. 3 fl
trios of the continent over all Spanish America
until they and their children becomo tlio most
potent fa6tors in the forward march of those
states? This is the kind of conquest that our
educators should bo planning. At home will the ,
same work bo going on until on the same area
now being cultivated twice as mucli of food and
, textiles will be" raised as are raised now? Will
our merchant flags by that timo becomo known
on the sea? "Will Mexico grow quiet through ex
haustion by that time and thus make further
watchful waiting unnecessary?
Will our coast shipping bo still paying tolls
when they pass through the Panama canal?
Will the world be bristling with arms on sea
and land, or will the reign of peace have been
ushered in?
Will passenger trains have disappeared from
the railroads and all the- traveling bo in the air,
every man having his own aeroplane? Will the
advertisement read: "The airships of the world
"$- round navigation company leave New York City
every morning at 9 a. m., touching at London,
Paris, Berlin, Constantinople, Caleuta, Shanghai,
Yokohama, San Francisco and Chicago, making
I the journey in five days and seven hours. For
I freight and passage apply, etc?" Will Europe
have recovered from the present war? Will her
I thrones all have melted and will she be a mighty
I confederacy of free states?
Will the horse have disappeared? Will the
churches have all como together and only the
love of God bo preached?
Will the long distance wireless be extended
and will men here be talking as face to face
with the residents in Mars and Mercury and the
cold-blooded old chaps in Saturn and Jupiter?
I Will the worship of the golden calf have finally
J closed, 'and God's own working agent, electricity,
be doubling the products of the soil, cooking the
food and warming the homes of men? And will
man, with more intelligence bo repeating:
"What am I then? Naught,
Naught, but the effluence of thy light divine,
Pervading worlds, has reached my spirit, too,
And thy spirit, in my spirit shines,
As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew."
What Will Stop the War
WITH ten millions of trained soldiers fighting
each other, when will the war stop? That
is a question that thousands of people all around
the world are asking.
The most reasonable answer, as it looks now,
is when starvation and the pestilence enter the
field in force and begin their assaults. The
mighty hourly cost of the war has been computed
and published, and as the world had been taught
to believe that factor would soon be a controlling
one, but when wo reflect that so enraged and in
volved arc the combattants that they have ceased
to regard the number of their soldiers that are
being slain, no regard for money or property can
be expected. But men cannot live without food,
they cannot march and fight when desperately ill.
To us the most significant feature of the dec
, laration of war by Italy, is not that it adds an
other great army and navy to the nations at war
. against the Teutons, but it closes many sources
through which heretofore the Germans obtained
food supplies.
Reducing the food supply is, likewise, making
the spread of diseaso more rapid, for hungry and
faint men are much more susceptible to sickness
than strong and well-fed men.
Already in the track of the' armies the people
w by tens of thousands are suffering for food, cloth
ing and places of shelter. This includes the
women, the aged men and little children.
They already make a spectacle to shock an as-
Itonished world astonished to realize that after
all civilization is but a thin veneer, easily scraped
off but after a little more, what is a dull acho
now will becomo acute agony that should stop tho
frenzy and causo tho lunatics to becomo sane.
Overlooking It
HPHE effort to boom President Wilson for a sec-
ond term, which was conspicuous in the long
screed put out in last Sunday's dispatches,
which in substance was a political biography of
tho president, which began when ho was but a
boy, making him different from all other boys,
which has marked his career as one devoted al
, most exclusively to tho science of perfect govern
ment; which pictured him as absorbed almost to
apparent coldness by the profoundness of his
thoughts and his love of country; his iron will
when he once makes up his mind; his agitation
when he received the news of tho sinking of Lu
sitania; his shutting himself up to meditate and
prepare his note to Germany; tho masterfulness
of tho offspring ho produced when the labor pains
finally ceased and tho mighty parturition was ac
complished; could never have been put out, except
that the president and his friend had decided, that
tho majority of the American people aro easily
caught gudgeons.
To begin with, the letter to the German gov
ernment demanding such indemnity as could bo
made, and insisting that no more such atrocities
should be committed, was a masterful paper, per
fect in conception, splendid in tone and most ele
gant in diction. The nation accepted it as such
and without distinction of party the people of tho
United States fully approved of it. It was differ
ent from any other state paper the president has
over put out since ho has been chief magistrate;
In the ledgers of the memories of his fellow coun
trymen it is engrossed a double entry.
Standing by itself it would have been tho big
gest kind of a card to boost his second nomina
tion. But to follow it immediately by a two-column
press agent's fulsome and obsequious panegyric
which painted tho president as a robust but ra
diant angel in disguise come down to save tho
great republic, causes people to stop and think.
Some years ago a rebellion broke out in Chili;
the president of that republic was overthrown and
made a prisoner and the usurping government de
manded recognition from the United States. At
that time the United States had only a small navy
of wooden ships, while Chile had tho nucleus of
an iron-clad navy and one most formidable iron
clad. When the usurpers in Chile demanded rec
ognition, one Benjamin Harrison was President of
the United States and one James G. Blaine was
secretary of state. A correspondence with Chile
was opened by Mr. Blaine and carried on for some
days, Chile all the time growing more and moro
insistant and hinting at tho possible necessity of
sending her big ironclad up to bombard San Fran
cisco. Mr. Blaine, who had been drooping for
some time was suddenly prostrated with what was
the beginning of his final illness. When the last
half-threatening note came from Chile, Mr. Blaine
was too ill to attend to business. President Har
rison did not lock himself in his room for ten
days; sent to no learned professors to obtain in
formation on international law; did not keep tho
nation and tho world in trembling expectancy of
what was to come, but sat down and thoughtfully
penned a note to tho impetuous, bull-dozing com
pany under the Andes, and they, when they read
it, became quiet as quickly as did tho winds and
-the waves under tho command of tho Master. Wo
refer to that merely to show the difference be
tween a matter-of-fact and a spectacular presi
dent Again, while people are thinking, they cannot
help but revolve in thought, how different our
president is in tlfe handling of affairs with foreign
countries.
If Nicaragua, for instance, starts a rebellion, a
warship is sent there at once to loll tho robols M
to hush up. In Mexico the president refused to M
over learn tho real facts, but read of tho outrages M
going on thero for months, all tho timo proclaim- M
ing the doctrine of "Watchful Waiting" until just jH
before election last summer a fow vagabond Moxi-
can wharf-rats insulted some American sailors
who were sent from a warship in a rowboat M
ashore at Tampico to got tho ship's mails. Then M
tho president at once becamo furious and dc- M
manded that a man in the city of Mexico whom M
ho had always refused to recognize should order M
a salute to the American flag to bo fired, at tho M
same time sending tho whole Atlantic fleet to H
Vera Cruz, at tho samo timo explaining that ho M
loved the Mexican people, but wanted to force a M
president whom he had always refused to recog- H
nizc, to recognize our flag. Ho placed himself in H
a position at once comical, but so dangerous that B
a war would surely have been necessary, had not ,
the ambassadors from Brazil, Argentine and Chile 'Jl
tendered their services to restore quiet. M
Tho outrages and spoliation, perpetrated on H
Americans in Mexico have never brought anything jH
from our president except tho advico to them to H
get out of that country, tout when an assassin of the H
sea destroyed a great foreign ship on which wdro H
some Americans, he shut himself up, wired H
learned experts on international law for advico H
and for ten days was dead to all .the world savo H
his physician, to prepare a paper, and three days H
later had a sycophant wire a two-column dispatch H
to tho world, telling how our country was lion- H
ored and saved in advance, when our president H
was born. Vive la bagatelle! H
What the Matter Is H
COME of the great metropolitan journals once jH
a week publish the views of prominent mer- H
chants, manufacturers and leading men in finances H
on the business conditions of the country. Tho H
struggle seems to be to impress the masses that H
times are either good or aro just going to be, but H
the statements as a rule are filled with ifs and H
buts and whereases. H
Thero is no use to disguise the truth or to H
try to deceive ourselves. H
The fact that there is such" a struggle to make H
a good showing is proof that the showing is not
good. H
This is so apparent that we aro prompted to
say something. H
If a farmer with his year's crop of grain on H
hand was obliged to measure it all in a single M
bushel measure made of red cedar, it would be M
slow work. H
If cedar was hard to obtain, but white ash H
was plenty and it should be decreed that white M
ash measures would answer all purposes the samo H
as red cedar, the farmer's work would bo greatly H
quickened, and ho would doubtless engage his M
next neighbor who needed work to help him.
Now if congress on meeting would order 2,000,- M
00 j ounces of silver to be purchased monthly and M
include in tho bill a clause that should the price M
advance to one dollar per ounce, then silver M
should be monetized at that ratio and have equal H
recognition with gold, within sixty days after tho M
measure took effect, what is now a commodity, M
would become a measure of values and our trade M
would be unrestricted with all Spanish-America
and tho Orient from which our products are now H
indirectly excluded through tho foolish and wicked jH
legislation of 1893, and business would have such H
a thrill as it has not felt for twenty years. H
Again, if a farmer had a superb harvest rip- M
ening and the poor, hungry stock of his neigh- M
bor was gathered lowing outside his fences and H
the farmer's employees should go out and tear 0
down his fences and let into his field tho herd, H
the verdict would be that those employees had H
gone daft. H