Newspaper Page Text
V
EDITORIAL. PAGE The Atlanta Georgian THE HOME RARER
England Has Stopped Our Shipment of Cotton;
Should We Stop Our Shipment of Arms?
England ha* made cotton contraband of war, and has illegally
interfered with its free shipment by the United States. Cotton is one
of the chief products of this country. Cotton is one of our main arti
cles of commerce.
Our right under international law to export cotton unhampered
by England’s interference is undeniable, unquestionable, even unde
nied and unquestioned. England does not prohibit our exportation of
cotton to neutral nations as a mea s ure of right, but as a measure of
might.
She sweeps this important article of the commerce of this country
from the seas without ruth and without right because she cares to do
so and because she can do so. She inflicts this severe blow with the
might of her marine power upon a great staple product of this country
because she is fearful of Germany, and, second, because she is jealous
of the United States.
England guards her commerce as she guards her life, because she
has intelligence enough to realize that her commerce is her life. She
has never allowed any nation to build up a commerce to compete with
hers. She would not permit Germany to build up a rival commerce.
She plotted war with Germany and leagued the nations against Ger
many to undermine, hamper and eventually destroy her chief com
mercial rival.
England will not allow the United States in this era of our oppor
tunity to build up a rival commerce. Twice before, in the short his
tory of the country, England has set out to destroy our commerce, and
both times she succeeded in destroying it.
X X X X
«
In the early years of the nineteenth century our commerce was
supreme upon the seas. Our new-born American flag floated in the
farthest harbors. Our goods were distributed wherever the waves
rolled and the winds blew, and we carried not only the products of our
own country, but a large share of the products of other countries as
well.
Then England began, as she is beginning now, to interfere with
our commerce in every possible way, illegally, illegitimately, vigorous
ly, vindictively. She closed the ports of herself and her allies upon
us. She blacklisted our goods with orders in council.
She robbed us of our neutral rights then as she is doing now.
She held up our ships in high sea piracy and robbed them of their sea
men. She finally forced us into war to defend our lately won liber
ties; then, with the same arrogance and insolence of naval power that
she is using and abusing to-day, she pillaged what remained of our
commerce afloat, and as a final act of contempt and defiance burned
and gutted the Capitol of our nation and the White House of our Pres
ident.
Again in the years preceding our Civil War our commerce had
regained its supremacy.
Our clipper ships were the admiration of the world, our skippers
sailed undaunted the most distant seas. But during our Civil War
England again took advantage of American difficulties.
Yet we are not the unusual objects of England’s antagonism.
We are not the specially selected subjects of England’s envy and en
mity.
President Wilson, professor of English history, and also English
professor of history, could tell you, if he would, that it has been the
| persistent policy of England throughout the centuries to destroy every
nation which sought to rival her commerce, to challenge her empire
of the oceans.
X X X X
In the sixteenth century Spain, with a courage and an enterprise
which other nations did not possess, set out to find new roads across
uncharted seas, new lands and riches for itself ancf for the world.
America was discovered, the Father of Waters was found, the west
ern shores of the Pacific were first beheld, the earth was circumnavi
gated, unknown lands explored, undreamed of wealth revealed, all by
expeditions under the flag of Spain.
England trailed enviously and hungrily behind.
What Spain found England stoic. The wealth Spain wrested
from the earth England robbed from, her at sea.
The Raleighs, the Drakes, and all the lusty pirates whom we have
been taught by English textbooks to reverence as heroes, were com
missioned to prey upon Spanish commerce and rob the Spanish gal
leons of their gold. Queen Elizabeth, as able as she was unscrupu
lous, welcomed those sea rovers upon their successful return, shared
in the plunder of their piracy and rewarded them with knighthood in
accordance with the royal custom of her race.
At last Spain, pillaged of the profits of her energy and enterprise,
went to war with England and was beaten; her armada and her com
merce were destroyed.
England once more by force and fesur held hegemony of the seas.
In the seventeenth century Holland, by patience and persistence,
by courage and constancy, created a splendid compierce with the Far
East. The venturesome ships of this brave little country sailed from
the north to the south seas, around the Cape of Good Hope and up
into the Indian Ocean. They carried the goods of Europe and brought
back the wealth of the Orient. Their trade was vast and valuable, and
England coveted it.
England found excuse for war, as usual, and the wealth little Hol
land had so hardly won was taken from her with that smug mixture
of prayer and piracy that is so characteristically English. All that was
best in Holland’s commerce and colonies England acquired—in the
interest of those “free institutions” and of that “higher civilization”
which England takes so much pride—and profit—in representing.
In the eighteenth century it was France which forged to the front
as a commercial and colonizing country, and which was fought and de
feated, her commerce destroyed and her colonies appropriated by Eng
land.
In the nineteenth century it was the United States, as we have
seen, whose commerce and prosperity were the objects of England’s
greed and jealousy.
In the twentieth century it was Germany.
x x x x
Therefore England will not make peace “until Germany’s mili
tarism is destroyed” and England’s navyism is left supreme to domi
nate the seas and render all other nations subject on the waters—which
constitute three-fourths of the earth’s surface and as much of the
world’s opportunity.
A surprising thing in all this series of historical events is that no
nation has learned the lesson of them.
England has always found and always finds some nation to help
her pull her chestnuts out of the fire, some cat’s-paw to help her appro
priate another nation’s commerce and colonies.
In England’s war against France in 1815 it was Germany which
was allied with England and which gave the decisive blow which elim
inated France as England’s rival. In 1915 it is France which is allied
with England, and which is doing more than England herself to elimi
nate Germany from England’s path to world power. One would
think that the nations of Europe would see the folly of continually
fighting each other to further English vaulting ambitions toward the
control of the world in her own interest.
But before we criticise others let us make sure that we are awake
to our own folly.
Is not England using us as a cat’s-paw also? Is not England em
ploying us to destroy her rival, Germany, and to establish herself more
firmly in the hegemony of the seas—her seas and our seas?
Are we not being hired to injure Germany just as German Hes
sians were once hired to fight against us?
Are we not being bribed to sacrifice our own best interests a3 well
as our moral scruples and to send arms to England so that she can ex
terminate the Germans and obliterate Germany and possess herself of
Germany’s commerce and colonies?
Are we not strengthening England and her ally, Japan, in their
control of ocean highways which lead to our very doors? Are we not
as foolish as the most foolish of the European nations which drag Eng
land’s chestnuts out of the fire to their own injury? Have we not had
sufficient experience of how England employs her command of the
seas? If we have not had sufficient experience in the past, are we not
having it now?
Do we not see how our neutral commerce is being destroyed, how
a chief staple of our production is being vitally injured? Worse than
all, if we are patriotic and liberty-loving citizens, do we not see how
our rights are being invaded and violated?
x x x x
We can send our arms to England because England needs them
to murder Germans and to establish herself more firmly as empress of
all the seas and mistress of most of the land, but we can not send our
peaceful products to neutral nations. We can not exercise OUR
RIGHTS because they interfere with England’s AMBITIONS AND
AGGRESSIONS.
Are we an independent nation, or an English colony? Have we
a President who is a British subject or an American citizen? Have we
any moral and any political virtue, or are we subject to bribery in our
moral sentiments and submissive to bullying in our political attitudes?
Are we quite sure that this is after all “the home of the brave and
the land of the free?” If so, now is the time to demonstrate our brav
ery and assert our FREEDOM
England lias stopped our shipment of cotton. Let us stop our
shipment of arms. Let us proclaim our moral courage, our political
independence. Let us clearly define and courageously defend our
rights.
»
Let us be worthy of our ancestors, who fought for freedom and
won it, who contended for “principle” and established it.
Let us reaffirm the inspiring words of Pinckney: “Millions for de
fense, but not one cent for tribute.” Let us be righteous and also just,
independent and also impartial.
Let us say to Germany and England ALIKE: “These are our
RIGHTS, defy them if you dare.”