Show A Barrier Uncle Sam Must Kick Out of o the e Way Behind the presidents president's plan for nationally owned merchant ships hips lie ie sound and compelling reasons When war stopped slopped the sailings of peace it left us a country country- isolated Un Unwarned warned our foreign trade was severed as with mighty shears e shock was felt throughout the republic It was felt b by bythe Y the he artisan whose wage depends on sales It was felt by the merchant mer mer- chant who cannot thrive if either the farmer or the artisan is crimped It was felt by everyone so closely are all our interests intel intertwined Folks of means might worry least for t had reserves s upon which to tv lean But for the majority there was vas no such recourse leCOurse The toiler cannot miss a pay envelope without putting his very existence in peril The swift resumption tion of our interrupted interrupted interrupted inter inter- commerce was to slim him especially a matter mattel of life or death If Ifa a a city were starving and private trains had halted it would clearly be the duty of government to seize and run th the railroad to relieve the famine famine famine-as as plain a duty as to dynamite private property property prop prop- j erty to check an otherwise uncontrollable fire file Here Hele was the welfare of the entire nation threatened as perhaps per per- h hips haps ps n never ver before and President Wilson promptly saw sav that it was vas the nation itself which must act in its self protection So obvious was this need so compelling so unmistakable that reading merchants bankers business me- me generally cried out for action instinctively The government should spend at once they said to to put a fleet of merchant ships into motion This is as true a month after the wars war's outbreak as it w was s the next day Our Oar foreign trade is still held up The seas are still deserted And at the great terminals our surplus produce is steadily piling higher Meanwhile an ominous figure has appeared on the scene the scene the coarse and bloated figure of Private Monopoly Perceiving in in government ownership a hazard to r future profits this hoary old h hog hob g wants the American people to slow down mark time and wait wart till tin he can fix things to grab all the profit in the carriage arriage of goods upon the high seas He wants the flag flab restored to the sea not for the benefit of the nations nation's millions of producers whose surplus surplus surplus sur sur- plus must be sold if business at ho home e is to prosper and labor be employed but that he may thrust in his fat hand and seize a great toll His interest in the flag is not the patriots patriot's interest interest interest-a a pride in service It is the selfish interest of greed Unless he can make as the flag flies he doesn't want to see it This his is the k kind nd of enterprise t prise which i is massing forces at Washington to fight Wilsons Wilson's broad gauged policy of swift action for a gen genuinely American merchant marine J- J This This' is the barrier which is stretching itself a across oss the path path- path path- pathway way yay of American Am rican welfare I It must b be kicked be-kicked kicked out of the way way |