Life — May 2, 1918 — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

——— DESERTERS SIDE: saying so. Mr. Taft keeps saying so. We may not think so, and of course we all hope that the war is going to be won for us on the western front this year, But no such hope as that is safe to lean on. When it comes to plans and preparations, turn away from the sanguine people and take counsel with the croakers who say we are in for a long job, and must have an army five million strong, and put every ounce of strength we have into pounding the Germans. It is evident that the main supplies of fresh troops must come from us, Neither France nor Britain is Iled white, but Britain has raised, first and last, seven and a half million soldiers, and France has had about as many TEPPING THE GUOSE-STED men killed as we have now under arms. It is up to us to fill the gaps, and the more powerfully and bountifully we respond to that duty the quicker the war will be won and a stop put to ex- pense and destruction, i N EW YORK’S new barge-canal be- ing left out in the open, Mr. McAdoo has seized it. And a good thing! If our great provider and director can make the barge-canal earn its liv- ing this year it will he a great triumph of unforeseen fact over foreboding, 719 For ten years we have been assured hy all respectable authorities that that canal was a criminal waste of good money that ought to have been put into railroads. If its cost had been so ex- pended no doubt it would have done good, for the starvation of the rail- roads is at the bottom of many of our present troubles. But the ditch, being dug and ready for use, has this year a glorious chance to vindicate itself, pro- vided boats to float in it can be con- jured up in time. Mr. McAdoo can conjure them if anyone can, and we shall all hope to see him do it. And if the canal makes good, and relieves the railroads of part of the grain traffic, and eases the strain, we shall all re- joice and enjoy besides the reflection that the prophets of calamity have lost out once more. HERE is a better feeling about ships. They keep turning up from unexpected sources; the last lots from Scandinavia and Japan, following those from Holland. Not only we seem to have borrowed everybody’s ships and to have an un- expected number of them plying across the ferry, but Mr. Charles Schwab has been appointed head shipbuilder, and everyone is pleased with that, and be- lieves the right man is in the right place at last. It looks so, and we all think so, and if it doesn’t turn out so it won't be the fault of the administration. But Mr. Schwab seems to have a_ first-rate chance to make good, He has the means to make ships and the yards to build them in, and if we don't get the ships we shall know why. The papers say some other similarly fit person is to he put in supreme charge of airplane production, so our expectations of airplanes are begin- ning to. swell in, and the winter wheat promises well, and troops are going over pretty fast, and it is getting to seem more and more as though this war that we are in was our war. So buy a bond, everybody, and then another, and keep on pushing. Push behind, push hard; push all the time. That is the home job for all of us who are not fighters. comicbooks.com