OCR Text |
Show THE 12 EDdwiifl CITIZEN tiDne (Sflffadl to Bill liy Over polished lava boulders the Colorado river sucked its muddy waters down the gorge. F our thousand feet above us towered the Toro-wea- p, on the North llim of the Grand Canyon. We were eight who had made the perilous descent over the cinder and lava poured in ages past down the walls of the canyon. We were eight who faced that tortured climb back out again. I think the strange adventure had stripped the civilized shell from all of us, and left us savage. Comforting protection was missing. The gorge was malignant, and the fastidious Robert was on his belly lapping up the silt and mud which was the river. Six of us were office workers, enthusiasts who had followed the grizzled professor of geology and Ren, as guide, in a wild endeavor to reach the Colorado River from the rim, between the Ruckskin and the Trumbull. History has it that one of Major Powells men had fled from the terrors of the lower gorge and had made his way to the south rim at this point. His trail ended in the Prospect valley, where thirst and the Navajos overtook him. Ren was the only living man who had made his way down the lava flow from the north rim, and back again. What a trail! Smooth slopes of cinder and pumice, where you sank to your knees. As steep as the stuff would cling. Rotten ledges of lava, with a crevice down which you scuttled. Sheer bluffs 500 feet high. You crawled around the edge like a fly and inched your way down a Down. Down. fractured spur. Four thousand feet. A man was cut off from the usual supports on which he leaned. Savage. The Colorado sucked and boomed down the gorge. On either side the first sheer walls of the canyon were etched like steel against the sky. Above and beyond, that damnable four thousand feet, beaten by a pitiless sun. I smiled. Robert, the contemp- - A2SfflSi?s DritiiAM tuous, on his belly. Professor X, undisturbed, scraping at the sand with his pick. Ben languidly sprawled on his back. How different from a carefully appointed office. I knew that Robert, who played splendid golf, who was athletic, sucpessful, confident, would be deathly sick. The river mud in his belly would take care of that. Ren and the professor and I would burn the spines from a barrel cactus, cut off its top and suck up the juice. Wed done it before and could top out all right, barring the slip of a foot. But of the others there would be none of the gentlemanly After you, when we reached the cached IVritten for This Paper by FRANK P. LITSCHERT The New York Herald Tribune said recently: Our future lies on the sea, and we cannot turn away from it. We must achieve and maintain full equality of naval power with any competitor as long as the Washington treaty lasts. The first step toward parity is the passage of the fifteen cruiser bill. Others will come under domestic economic pressure just as they have always come in the case of the more sea minded nations. The time is not far distant when we shall not turn to m sea minedness only when we observe Navy Day. canteens. Ren knocked the heel from his pipe. Lets get out of here. Call a taii if you want it. The haughty Roberts face was stricken. The placid Colorado chuckled, but you felt it booming down the rapids. The fifteen cruiser bill has passed and the first step in our return to sea mindedness, as the New York paper puts it, has been carried out. It may seem a little far fetched to the average citizen surrounded by the rolling prairies and broad plains of the Middle West, that we should be Golden Grain To Golden LoaS Yet it is more important today than ever before, that we become sea minded important to the interior of the country as well as to the seaboard. For the great Middle West depends on the prosperity sea minded. (Continued from Page 6) natural brittleness, and insure its passage through the rolls without becoming pulverized or what is termed milled to death. Wheat makes better dour if before milling it contains about 13 moisture. This j)roceedure also requires the expert direction of the chemist in determining the correct ratio of absorption necessary to the individual texture of the grain. The wheat then goes through an intricate series of cracking and machines, each one grinding the kemal a little finer. After the fifth break the bran is separated from the flour and sold largely as feed for cattle and chickens. When the wheat has completed its journey through the grinding and breaking process it is put through sifters of silken bolting cloth and refined down to the finest degree. The flour is then sacked and sewed and ready for storing without having been humanly touched. Old flour is much better for bread making than new and for this reason the company attempts to hold it in storage for at least sixty days before releasing it on the market. The relative monetary and energy -- unit value of flour as compared , with meat, is very interesting and instructive. One pound of beef at 54 cents contains about 1200 energy units. One pound of flour at a cost of 3 cents contains approximately 1600 energy units. The energy ratio per given value by this comparison is shown as 1 to 15 in favor of flour. By comparing flour with all other foods and judging by energy and protein tests, one cannot help agreeing with the old adage that Bread is the Staff of life. ro-li- ng of agriculture for its substantial progress. One of the problems of agriculture today is cheaper freight rates, and this is being answered by the improvement of our great inland waterways. But when the products of the western farmer get to the seaboard, what will it avail him if the amount he has saved by internal is more than taxed against him by a foreign shipping trust, a trust which may fail him altogether in case of another European war and leave his products rotting on the wharves in America ? Now it is a pretty well established policy that we are to have a great merchant marine, one capable of taking care of American interests in time of peace, and in time of war, no matter whether in that war we are a neutral or a belligerent. Con- gress has already passed legislation looking to that effect and with the cooperation of the American people, especially of the American shipper, our merchant marine problem will eventually be successfully solved. Rut it is to noted that the merchant marine problem requires more for o solution than American ships and goods to fill the ships. We must have men to man them, and in order to get the proper sort of a personnel for our merchant marine, we must, as the Herald-Tribustates, become minded sea once more. The term once more is used, because there was a time when America was as sea minded as any country on the globe. This was in the early days when the American clipper sailed all over the world, and proudly kept the Stars and Stripes floating on every sea. With the decline of the sailing vessel and the trouble of our Civil War America turned away from the sea. This was a costly mistake and it took the World War to show us the real costliness of the error. ne One real American hero who has recently pointed out this necessity for sea mindedness is Captain George Fried, the commander who with his brave men recently rescued the crew of the Italian freighter Florida from the icy waters of the Atlantic. Cap- tain Fried was recently the guest of the officials of the Shipping Board and the United State lines at a banquet in Washington, and in the short address which he made he pointed out the fact that the greatest need of the Amercian Merchant Marine today is men enough men and the right sort of men. Lack of men, he declared, was handicapping the success of our merchant marine more than any other one thing and he advocated the early establishment of additional recruiting offices for the marine service through the middle western states. Captain Fried said: Recruits from the Midwest are young fellows from the farms, ambitious young men who have never seen the sea and who are enthusiastic and capable. The navy gets them with its recruiting stations in the Middle West, but we are forced to take men from the Eastern States, of which there are not always enough of the type we need. Here is a real tribute to the boys of the Middle West by a man who knows. It is evidence that a boy does not have to live within soun of the sea to become a good sailor, and it is further evidence of the truth of the assertion that we ought to become sea minded, and sea minded as an entire nation. BINGHAM STAGE LINES COMPANY to Regular Bumtwo ham, every from 7 a. m. to Offices 107 Bing- hours 11 p. m. E. 2nd Phone Was. 1069 SPECIAL CARS AT ANY TIME So. |