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Show itcrSts and free traders to attempt to capture the markets rd by letting the world capture the markets of America, behalf and whom we surely saved 'already made in their od licking at the hands of the Huns. CONSIDER THE HEN AND THE CROW. there are Americans who have this conception of Americas seresuf and duty, seems astounding; but what would appear mnng would be our acceptance of their perverted ideas. .. 6,301 3,730y : '? 8 iI I SUBSIDIZING AMERICAN SHIPS. 743 6,1981 3,0531 215lpear8' that the matter of a subsidy for a fleet of merchant the red, white and blue ensigne of the United States, jart&of the world, dr a continual flow of millions from the treasury to keep a huge fleet of pathetically idle ships 0,336jand iocked harbors, is now the question of the hour. 774i.dehtf Harding approves and urges the subsidy to again of this country on the high seas on an equality with 0f all other nations, in defiance of the wishes of other 2,5213 countries and also in defiance of the mandates of big 35,565'tates money interests that has huge wealth distributed 2,687iropcan owneJ" ships. 2,237icarry .Jates congress, recently, President Harding dealt with oursituation frankly and honestly. Like the president, the know that government owned ships have proven a colossal 74,967 gigantic failure and a lementable source of national extra- That the country must get out of the shipping business1 1,00,lh it to private initiative, if it is to survive, is manifest to all. ll,997ears that it can only survive by being placed in a position 21,340.e successfully with the cheaply operated ships of foreign IWp lower the standard of American citizenship by making 17,3Hjs work and live like Asiatics is unthinkable, hence it also hat only a subsidy for our coean-goin- g ships of traffic will lace them in a position to proudly flaunt the flag of Amer-- ; ports of distant lands. lout taandwriting has been on the wall for months since 1919 The United States has. been pouring as high as $16,000,000 scue cnto the shipping sump. The entire shipping board situation rman$.lorable tangle that amounts to a national scandal. Govern-g- c inited shipping has failed and at ruinous cost to the taxpayers. wetnation has traditionally and consistently fought ship sub-- , he aft has been stubborn and thick-heade- d about it for more cge, V; a century. As a result the subsidized ships of all other ; be carnations are, today, carrying the bulk of international com-t- h to file our mighty and magnificent fleet of merchant ships, jin, toliunt ghosts at anchor in our inner harbors, but ttyorlds war was our great lesson. Then we appreciated the so we the ownership of a big merchant fleet was paramount to l the and defense of the country. So wc slambanged into a landsfip. building campaign from which we issued, in 1920, with and tons of steel shipping, costing in round numbers, ig under government ownership it has been costing us tb a llre millions each year since the close of the war to keep k It is an historical fact that in two months these idle ships ma) more money that the proposed ship subsidy will cost in a Ms months. 7e ! 1 $3,500,-myingA- 1 nd has turned back to private ownership as the U 1C tangle. Congress has come to the m'hty Vl J decision. Government ownership and operation has had 100 foiled. Nationally wc have been converted to the idea c 1116 a merchant marine. The slogan, American ships for c sPpin s the thought of the hour. Inland industry and ver VC liat fo 110 ler esson lngcr A geographical n trlen.CVS exl)orthig surplus must be carried to foreign mar-'h- 1 friean bottoms in order to secure fair treatment and otTset lC 'zed cargoes of European and Asiatic bottoms, 7Cnt ar(ln 1 1 1 only i illion There is a Hindu fable regarding the hen and the crow, which contains a moral for the former. A hungry crow approached a hen hatching a nest of eggs. Why do you sit on these eggs all the time, when it is so beautiful and there is so much to see? asked the hungry crow. Because I want some pretty chickens and by sitting here all the time I may get them, replied the hen. Why, I just saw a great bunch of pretty chickens down the road, which, if you went after, you could have without all this trouble and this life of solitude, replied the crow. Whereupon the hen left her nest in vain search of the chickens and the hungry crow made a meal off the eggs. The moral of this is particularly applicable to the drive now being made to. get the American farmer to abandon the American Those who are manufacturer and go in search of world markets. trying to persuade the agricultural, interests to start on this vain and attractive world markets are merely search of ready-mad- e scheming to eat all the eggs themselves by getting their hands on the American market. with the So long as the farming interests continue to industrial interests, both will prosper. But if the farmer is misled into joining the 'movement to let in a flood of foreign goods, in the belief it will enable him to buy in a cheap market and sell in a profitable world market, he destroys not only the prosperity of the manufacturer, but he destroys his own prosperity. It can not be gainsaid that for a brief time the farmer, in common with every other consumer of manufactured products, might make some small saving in the purchase of many commodities by opening the American market to the importation of commodities cheaply made in foreign countries. But the savings thus made, at the best, are only transient, for as soon as the importing interests succeeded in driving American made goods out of the home market, they would raise their prices and the farmer, as well as other consumers, would be paying as much for foreign made goods as they formerly paid for American made goods, the additional profits going into the pockets of the importers. During this process the American farmer would be killing the best market he has, namely : the market supplied by the millions of well paid American working men and co-oper- ate - women. It is not a theory, it is a fact demonstrable by cold figures, that there is no market in the world at all comparable to that of the United States. When the working classes of the United States have steady employment, they live better than the working classes of any other country in the world and buy more liberally of those products which the farmer furnishes. It is a matter of common knowledge that the American working man, when he has employment, cats white bread three times a day and red meat at least once a day, a diet which the working classes of no European country can afford. Government data issued by the Department of Commerce conclusively proves that the price of American farm products varies, not according to the volume of exports of those products (that is, by the amount the American farmer sells in the foreign market) but by the amount of those products consumed in the United States. The rise and fall of farm prices is in almost direct proportion to the rise and fall of domestic consumption of those products. When American working classes are profitably employed they are liberal consumers of farm products and prices advance. When the working classes arc not employed and they arc compelled to cut down on their living, the consumption of farm products declines and with the decline of consumption there is a decline in prices. Nothing would be so fatuous (in fact it would be suicidal) as for the agricultural interests of this country to align themselves with the movement fathered and financed by international bankers. |