empire in South America, after the war. (South American papers please copy!)

The Society cheerfully demands an outfit of colonies "suitable for white colonization "; but just how Germany will find civilized white men who will try to inhabit them on her initiative, we can not imagine. The "program" says that:

"The great needs of Germany and her Allies require the possession of a great colonial empire, and it means the not being hindered by pusillanimous scruples!"

In the name of all the South American republics we say: Thanks, awfully! But we wonder where their interests come in.

The answers to the questions concerning Germany after the war are not impossible to find.

1. The Huns can not be compelled to disarm, and stay disarmed.

2. The Entente Allies must form a United States of Europe for self defense, and remain armed at all times, on land and sea, sufficiently to enforce peace against the mad-dogs of Berlin. Complete disarming would be suicidal folly.

3. In this the United States must take up her share of the white man's burden. We must maintain at least 250,000 first-line fighting men, 750,000 fully armed reserves, and a navy and air fleet that can at all times beat those of Germany, alone and single-handed.

In view of the lessons of the past three years, and the state of things at this time, do we hear from sensible and loyal Americans any objections to that program?

CHAPTER IX

In Time of War, Prepare for Peace

All high-minded and kind-hearted Americans who do not yet believe in a boycott against German goods will do well to read and remember the following passage from "The Audacious War" by C. W. Barron, page 174.

"But what do we think when we find that Germany has for years run a boycott against every American enterprise? . . . All American motor car companies, all American tobacco interests, and, in fact, all foreign companies are boycotted, or barred, or worked against throughout Germany. Placards in shop windows say, 'Don't buy foreign goods. Keep the money in Germany.'"

What shall we say of Americans who tamely swallow such treatment as that, and are too weak in the knees to repay Germany in kind?

All the nations now engaged in the war, and five or six neutrals also, will emerge from the conflict overloaded with cripples and pensionnaires, with many of their regular industries dead, and every living soul enormously burdened with national debt. If Germany is not now on the verge of sweeping national bankruptcy and financial ruin, then no great nation ever was. And alas! Germany never can repudiate her

war bonds. They are all held in Germany, and to do so would at once ruin every one of her banks.

The conversion of war industries back into peaceful industries will, at the close of the war, put upon every warring nation a great strain. The change from peace to a war basis was made quickly, because of fixed government contracts and certain payments. The reverse of the industrial engine after the war must be made on a very different basis,— that of regular business only, along the old lines, with no government orders on which to rely.

Of all the great powers, England, France, Italy, Russia, America, Germany and Austria,― the peaceful industries of Germany are the most thoroughly and universally dead. Germany to-day is ruined, both financially and industrially; but her domineering spirit remains; and of all the greater powers, the government of Germany is the one that is most masterfully centralized, and the most thoroughly skilled in the business of artificially stimulating national industries. It was that experience and national sharp practice that in thirty years made Germany the greatest commercial nation in the world.

After the war, the nations now in the conflict will require long months, and in some cases it will be years, to recover from the shock, readjust themselves and begin again along the old lines of peaceful industry.

Germany will make a gigantic effort to be the first to get upon her feet. Already her feverishly-forehanded government is busily planning campaigns to regain all, and more, of her lost industrial and commercial supremacy, and to get a firm strangle hold upon the resources and people of Russia. No other

nation is doing that,- so far as we can learn; but France is wide awake and is educating her people to keep the rascals out.

The instant the war closes, Germany will begin a tremendous campaign to get hold, by hook or by crook, by fair means or foul, of every market in the world in which her goods can be sold. The government will back these efforts, diligently and persistently, and the rival government that does not help its own people by every legitimate means to get and to hold their place in the sun, very soon will be shoved aside by the power of the Teutonic Push. Let us watch and see what nation dares to go to sleep on that prospect.

After the war, no matter what the terms of peace, Austria, Bulgaria, Russia and Turkey will be Germany's vassals. They will adopt a uniform commercial policy against the rest of the world, and mercilessly devote themselves to fostering their own interests.

The vigor of the German trade drive will be almost inconceivable; and if American, British, French, Belgian and Italian industrialists do not prepare now to meet what is coming, they will meet a surprise as great as that of August, 1914! If the working people of America, and particularly the masses of organized labor, do not promptly line up for a grand push for South American trade, then so much the worse for them. We soon will see the day when every fomentor of strikes will be regarded as a public enemy,- just as they are to-day! Let American Labor now take a solemn warning from the ghastly exhibition of incompetence, folly, ignorance and general asininity of the Soldiers and Workmen" of Russia. There we see

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the effect of the overthrow of the laws of Common Sense; and it is a saddening sight.

Germany has too much of discipline for the individual, too much of Authority, too much subservience, and too great cohesion. Of all those things, America and England both have too little. We are too independent, too impatient of discipline and restraint, too much opposed to system, and too "cockey." Our national traditions are one and all against us; and a great many ignorant and demagogic men are elected to office to make laws on subjects utterly new to them. For example, for sixty years prior to 1914 our merchant marine received no help whatever from our government to enable it to recover from its wreck and ruin by privateers during our civil war. There were times when it was as much as a Congressman's political life was worth to say "ship subsidies." But ship subsidies were just what should have been granted, generously and persistently, until our ocean ship service to South America was at least one-half what it should have been.

But "No! No subsidies! Never!" And so our trade with South America was easily taken from us by the freely subsidized ships of Germany and England. A very considerable portion of our freight from South America to New York reached us via Liverpool! Can you match that for commercial folly?

Already the German government is planning great combinations for buying raw materials in vast quantities, for the whole empire in fact, in order to buy more cheaply than her rivals. Equally powerful selling combinations will be effected. At the same time, Germans will be compelled to spend their money for