Reform Organizations and Naval Expansion
By Editor
Mrs. John Henry Hammond has organized a parents' league "among prominent men and women in New York society." Mrs. Hammond says, "We hope to make it fashionable to be sensible, and unfashionable to be foolish." The aim is a very commendable one, but the task is stupendous. It is interesting to observe, however, that almost every day in the year brings the launching of some new organization for the purpose of working out some much needed reform in society. Either these good people are very greatly mistaken in regard to needed reforms, or else the same ones are mistaken when they are continually telling us that the world is getting better and better all the time. If the world is growing better so rapidly, why the need of such a multitude of reform organizations? A bill as reported to the House by the Naval Affairs Committee appropriates $140,200,000 for the navy for the next fiscal year. This is exclusive of amounts to be spent for armor and armament. The appropriation provides for two first-class battle-ships of the highest speed and the largest possible radius of action, and to rank among the world's greatest Dreadnoughts. It also provides for one powerful 1,300-ton sea-going submarine with a speed of twenty-one knots. It has not been so very long since these little submarine vessels had a speed of only eight to ten knots. A large number of influential people, representing one of the great political parties of the state of California, recently met in San Francisco. Many political measures were discussed, and resolutions concerning them were passed. One of those resolutions opposes the campaign in California for state-wide prohibition, on the ground that it will destroy the wine industry, which, it is affirmed, is one among the greatest business enterprises of the state. California has, in addition to its wine industry, a great many thousands of young men and women who are being ruined every year by wine and other kinds of strong drink. The question, then, resolves itself into a very simple one: Will we protect the dollars and cents that are invested in the wineries, or will we protect our young men and women? Where do you stand? Which do you regard the more highly, money, or boys and girls, and especially if those boys and girls happen to be your own? Let the issue be clearly defined. It is a simple one. It is, in plain English, whether we will protect wineries or boys and girls. People who have the ordinary sentiments of human beings, ought to be able readily to know where to stand in an issue of this character. A news despatch a few days ago stated that there is a continual demand in government and state institutions for persons who have been trained and are skilled in the giving of hydrotherapy treatments. The people who are represented by this paper have been urging the value of hydrotherapy for more than half a century. They have their sanitariums and treatment rooms in every part of the world, where hydrotherapy occupies a leading place in combating the inroads of many diseases. The treatments were at first a subject for a great deal of ridicule; but, like anything else that has real merit, they can afford to endure the ridicule because of the advantages to be gained by humanity later on. Recent despatches say that excavations in Louisiana have unearthed skeletons of a race of giants that averaged some twelve feet in height. If evolution be true, and man is developing upward from a lower form, why is it that we are constantly finding in so many parts of the world skeletons of individuals who were very much larger than any man that exists on the earth at the present time? If the evolutionists could make their theories to harmonize with the stubborn facts of geology, there would probably be more sense in what they persist in saying. An attorney in Seattle has brought suit against one of the transportation companies in that section for $2,500 damages for the illness of his wife, occasioned, as he alleges, by the nuisance of tobacco smoke permitted by the company in their cars. His suit also demands a permanent injunction to prevent the smoking of tobacco on the street-cars of the company against which the suit is filed. It would be a splendid thing if this nuisance could be abated, not only in Seattle, but in all parts of the world. Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt has given her support to a fight against the indiscriminate sale and use of "habit-forming drugs." It is expected that the matter will be carried to Congress for appropriate legislation. There are many drugs to which individuals become addicted that fasten upon them the most slavish chains of habit, and these drugs produce all kinds of mental and physical disorders. The warning against them should be sounded as widely as possible. Speaking of the breaking of a dam of the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company, a short time ago, a Western newspaper says, "The loss of life and property in the United States in the last five years alone, because of breaking dams and floods, is really appalling when considered in totals." Representative L'Engle, of Florida, has introduced a bill appropriating fifteen million dollars for an aeroplane fleet. Mr. L'Engle gave a word picture of cities being destroyed by bombs from invading air craft, and urged that this nation is very far behind the other nations in sky fleets.