Lawrence High School - Lawrencian Yearbook (Falmouth, MA)

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Lawrence High School 9 ing between different nations that our trade with foreign regions has been built up. It is through our trade with foreign countries that we have become sufficiently provided ’with most of life’s necessities. Com- modities originate in many regions, and each region provides us with one or more things essential to our com- fort, welfare, and happiness. If it were not for the contributions of these regions, we should not be liv- ing so comfortably as we are today. Examples of our dependency on ether countries can be found right in our own homes. No instrument is more important or more essential to the business world than the tele- phone. How little we think, as we pick up this instrument, of the far- off regions of the world which have made it possible for us to have it teday. This marvelous device can well be called a world production. Silk growers in Japan furnish silk to cover the telephone cord; men in Brazil furnish the rubber to make the telephone receiver; farmers in Ireland grow the flax for linen paper for the sensitive condenser in the telephone; a miner in far-off India produces mica for the insulation in the telephone; Chile and Spain pro- vide copper; our own southern states furnish cotton. Numerous other contributions come from all over the world. Without the aid of these various countries the telephone would not be in use today. Our clothes are made from the materials gathered from countries outside of the United States. Most of our useful inventions are the result of the thinking of scientists 1 in other countries; our arts, literature, and music are largely contributions from the countries abroad. There are hundreds of such examples il- lustrating our growing dependence on foreign countries. We depend on other nations, not only as contribu- tors to our American industries but also as markets for American goods. Our commerce has bound the world together as one nation. The nations of the world have become our neighbors, and in order not to sever these bonds, we should learn to deal with these countries as neighbors. Just as peace is desired among neighbors, so is it desired among nations. War, settling dis- putes with the loss of lives and the destruction of homes and industries, no longer has its place in this civil- ized world of ours. It is for us to unite with all nations to bring about the elimination of war and the peaceful settlement of all disputes. It is for America and the other en- lightened nations to work toward the establishment of such harmony and goodwill among nations as will bring a lasting peace to all man- kind and make wars to cease in all the earth. Elvira Jean Costa INTERNATIONAL DISARMAMENT! Today the world wants peace, but the nations want individual power; and the only way to have world peace is for each nation to forfeit its selfish desire for power. Nations should disarm by disbanding their excessive armies, by stopping their unnecessary naval competition, and by scrapping their powerful airships! Why should they? Because such arms insinuate war, they provoke war, and inevitably they cause war. Independent armies and navies are burdens to their countries — un- necessary expenses. And who pays for their upkeep? The common folk, the taxpayers, are supporting these huge extravagances. To cover ex-