Bewildered Blatherskites!

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 2, 3 May 1915, Page 5

Bewildered Blatherskites!

AMERICA AND THE WAR. WITH BELGIUM AND THE BRITISH. An interesting opinion of the war fram the Amcican viewpoint and of the political situation in U.S.A. is given by Mr James Kennedy, a cousin whom Mr W. McLoughlin Kennedy met in Scotland during his recent holiday in the Old Country. Writing on March 22nd from New York, where Mr Kennedy occupies a position on the staff of the “Railway and Locomotive Engineering,” a journal devoted to the interests of railroad matters,, he says:—

“About the terrible war. the feeling here is intensely bitter against the Germans or against the Prussian military idea of German supremacy, which is unthinkable and which God in His mercy forbid! The Government here do not in any way reflect popular 1 opinion. The outcry against the Beligian atrocities is of the strongest, and las you no doubt know, the contributions to the relief of the Belgians is munificent beyond any parallel in the 1 world’s history, lender a Republican Government, there would undoubtedly have been some tangible protest, but, the bewildered blatherskites we have in office now are utterly incapable of meeting the situation. We are just as much engaged to defend the treaty with Belgium as the British are. but the Schoolmaster-President and the Showman Secretary of State are in deep water and hug the shore wit i a desperation horn of sheer cowardice. Meanwhile every newspaper in America, with the exception of the Germans. of course, are condemning the Germans for their' brutality, and all prophesy the complete v humiliation of the Kaiser and his misguided confederates. We are hopeful that when the British army gets going there will lie a rapid advance in|to Germany. The turning hack of the Huns from the gates of Paris was really the beginning of the end. and they will certainly never see Paris again. “RELIC OF THE REBELLION.” The business depression continues here, in spite of the fact that there , is a vast amount of war munitions manufactured for the Allies. The Government blames the war ior the dull trade, but as a matter of fact the business depression was upon us Tiefore the war began. ' The trouble began with the sudden change of the tariff laws and the uncertainty of the result. Instead of prices lowering, they have raised, and there will lie no improvement as long as this Government lasts, ’and the Democracy will not likely come into power again for many years. It is a kind of a relic of the Rebellion, the leading men being nearly all Southerners, the so-called Southern autocracy, and the Northern canaille, the off-scour-ings—a most incongruous mixture! The real heart and conscience of the country are in New England, and there will be no revival of trade here until Hie intellectual and spiritual element come into power again. The kind of Commissions they appoint here are pitiful, men who know nothing of the. work expected of them. Men who have done something in partisan politics are appointed to dictate railroad rates and the like, and one third of the railroads are in bankruptcy and the remainder on the brink of it. Personally, the publishing company that I am attached to is fortunate. Our work is mostly educational, among the railroad men, and we have felt little of the depression, but nearly all publications are feeling the effects of the times.