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Show """ A STORY OF ".WHAT IF " "What if. ." . "-1 -, That is a famous way of starting a stoxy of the just-suppose-this-would-hap-pen sort. ' So let's' try one of that kind. To begin with: It is said there will be no great trouble for the United States and Japan to agree to naval limitation at the coming Armament Conference. Tho rub will be'when it comes to Japan's insistence in-sistence that the United States shall stop threatening her with those Gibraltar-like forts which we are building and have built in the Phillipines and Hawaii. The United Unit-ed States won't want to dismantle those strongholds. WHAT IF........what if we just sent a big force of men with crowbars, sledge hammers and TNT to Hawaii and the Philippines and tee-totally destroyed those forts of ours. What if we just simply sim-ply left both of those dependencies as wide open as we have left our own Canadian Cana-dian border open for over 100 vears. tWouldn't that disarm, soften, pacify Japan so far as we are concerned? Wouldn't it make her as meek to us as our English cousins over in Canada have been for a century. But WHAT IF, on the other hand, Japan should play the snake in the grass and cowardly attack the unarmed Philippines and 'Hawaii ? In other words the improbable improb-able but not the impossible. Wouldn't the whole American nation arise in its wrath and pour its wealth, fighting brawn and exhaustless forceful-ness forceful-ness into a naval assault so overwhelming that Japan would be surrounded and tojtally annihilated as a powers-annihilated even as a nation? Then our cause would be just before all men and in the sight of God. Our success would be certain cer-tain and the greatest object lesson for peace and of righteousness that the world has ever witnessed. |