Sauk City High School - Sauk Log Yearbook (Sauk City, WI)

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United States ranks but fourth in naval supremacy, having 550,000 tons of warship displacement, while England has more than three times the naval force of America. At the present rate of increase of the American Navy, the United States would overtake the British Empire in about 1930 when our annual appropriation for new ships would be $170,000,000. It is the only means of protection of our great annual com- merce, our citizens both in America, and foreign countries, and our possesions, whose people are left helpless, that America should maintain the largest and most powerful navy on the globe.

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Orient, with the productive Mississippi River Valley, which merely invites the Orient by way of the Panama Canal. The opening up of China should be different than the opening up of India, and Africa with the slothful population, or that of the American continent with few resources, for which many wars were fought in order to reap the benefits of the country. The European powers will make an inevitable step toward the seizure of China. The rights of America in an equal share of trade with China, can only be safeguarded by building, and maintaining a strong fleet in the far east. A country, as Amer- ica, making such rapid strides in commerce, whose interests can be affected in any quarter of the globe, must depend upon the size of her fleets, which should be the largest in the world. Thus taking into consideration our enormous influence on the outside world, protection of our commerce, safe-guard- ing of our foreign and new markets, which are greater than those of any other nation, by which the exact size of a navy should beestimated. America according to her needs should have a navy equal to the combined navies of the world. European trouble arising in South America, may only be stopped by enforcing the Monroe Doctrine, and sending as big a fleet to South America as Europe can. The United States possessions; Hawaii the Philippines and Alaska, are under the direct protection of our glorious United States. It would be a blot on American history to see the 10,000,000 of helpless people now committed under our charge, to pass under the yoke of any European power. The Monroe Doc- trine has already crossed the Pacific Ocean, covering the Philippine Archipelago 8,000 miles distant. How can a nation of action, such as the United States, protect her help- less citizens except thru a strong Navy ? The resources of the United States are so stupendous, that if our navy equalled the combined navies of the earth, the American tax payer would not even be conscious of the slightest burden. Our shipyards have already the required capacity of building. Why then should our country lie idle and be in time devoured by our European foes ? The Ameri- can Navy increased to the size of the combined navies of the earth, could bring on peace in any quarter of the globe. War injuring the British Empire, with which we have $800,000,000 annual commerce would injure us, and likewise with any other European country. Let there be but one supreme power, to keep the world in a continued reign of peade, and let that country be America.

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•Purttp tn -Politics ROB'T M. RIESER Che sun of the twentieth century had risen, prosperity had made immense strides, our constitution had entirely withstood the changes in our social and political methods for over a century and our advancement seemed to have been unparalleled. We were the all powerful nation of the world. We stood as a Gibraltar of righteousness, utterly impenetrable by graft and corruption, an example to all the nations of the globe, probably so prominently and eminently so, as to partly cause Russia’s awakening. But was not Rome once powerful, was not her mighty arm felt to almost every quarter of the known world. What, is she, what is left of her power ? The lost and forgotten fragments of a once prosperous nation. What caused this ? Corruption, greed, slavery and money. Many of her heroes, whose statues and busts decorated her national government chambers, were forced to be witnesses of legislation and discussions, which in their time would have meant death to the man who attempted it. We find laws existing, which were favorable to few, whose money had secured, either favorable men to make laws for them, or else they bot the representatives of the common people, to whom a hundred dollars were more than just government, who only loved money and riches because they saw the privileges of the fabulously rich of the empire. However corruption cannot rule forever, the rich man cannot prosper without the good support of his inferiors, a country cannot advance that is an instrument of slavery, and so we find Rome lost her heroic support, for as Goldsmith says: “Princes and lords may flourish and decay A breath can make them, as a breath has made, But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied,” and without her power, her dependencies fell off one by one