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Show I WAR AND POLITICS. H The American citizen has heard so much about pork H and graft and favoritism, that he has come to regard it Hjj .-as a weary sort of joke. It is to him an abominable Hi rabuse. But it seems rooted in the nature of things, in- H .eradicable. But if war should come as the result of Ger-I Ger-I . many's latest defiance, the politicians will have to do ' some big explaining for things as they are. Our people look with some scorn at Europe for tolerating tol-erating such useless baggage as kings and thrones and uords. Yet we have our own bosses who are quite as powerful and much more mischievous. On the whole the conduct of the war in Europe seems to have been fairly honest. Producers have been all grabbing for profits of course, as the camp follows of any war invariably do. There has been plenty of stupidity and plenty of red tape. But outside of Russia there has been no wholesale complaint of fraudulent supplies. One has to go back to our own little summer holiday war of 1898 to find any badly offensive odor. But suppose in the present exigency, -war should come. Suppose Germany escapes from her bonds of steel, and places a fleet of battle ships in New York harbor har-bor and Long Island sound, ready to attack the coast cities and the big munition plants. Our politicians will have to do a lot of explaining for many deplorable conditions condi-tions that have continued dispite the indignant protest of both the army and navy. Carrying Congressional districts and pleasing the store keepers near navy yards and army posts would look pretty small with an enemy pounding on our doors. Keeping army posts where they yere needed to fight the Indians would not be accepted as.an excuse for the destruction of munition plants needed for national protection. It was thought that after the revelations of the Cuban war, our politicians would have learned a lesson. But it is not recorded that Congressman ever admitted that a navy yard or army post in his own district dist-rict was useless. |