Willmar Tribune

Answering your telegram, I think Woodrow Wilson one of the grandest men that ever served as president, but as a congressman I am unwilling to commit myself now to any very large extension of our army or navy. I would like to double or treble our army and navy schools, preparing an adequate number of young men for expert service in time of need; enlarge our Rock Island arsenal; manufacture and keep on hand an ample supply of first-class guns, munitions and like equipments; plant several aeronautic stations on our shores with submarine and mine equipments. Thus prepared and relying on a citizen soldiery, if we give the citizen freedom and fair play at home, we will be impervious to all attacks from any source.

I fear a very large part of this clamor for preparedness is inspired by the money trust, steel trust, powder trust, shipbuilding trust, etc., which are growing fabulously richer and more powerful over the war contracts from Europe and want to have this country in a frenzy over a big army and navy so when their big contracts with the Allies in Europe close, they can feast a few years more on our own federal treasury in big, fat contracts at home.

What countries do we expect to attack us? If our program is only defensive, I see no danger of trouble. The clashing governments of Europe are now bankrupting their governments, and murdering their men by the million. Unless Morgan, or some of our predatory rich, furnish them money, it would be impossible for them to invade and maintain a war with our country. Stupid must be the man who thinks that Japan or China, even both, could mobilize an army, wade the ocean ten thousand miles and invade our country. Germany seems to be the specter of dread that the 'Jingoes' refer to, Germany will have enemies enough in Europe to keep her busy for a generation, even if she comes out of this dreadful war alive.

Bryan, Wilson's great partner in this wonderful peace and prosperity we now have, made solemn treaties with most nations of the earth, to refer all questions to The Hague one year before a declaration of war, or an overt act of violence. Shall we tell the world that we have no confidence in its treaties? Is Christianity dead, and honor extinct, and the world a prize ring in which brute force alone is master? Kings, emperors, aristocrats and great, greedy corporations will keep the world in a maelstrom of misery and war if democracy, freedom and justice are not allowed to assert themselves. It is the mission of our government to lead the way in this great universal civilizing program.

I would have the government make its own army supplies, munitions, guns, gunboats and aeroplanes. One who feels a pang of sorrow over the present cruel war grows horrified and heartsick as he sees the great gun and powder factories of the earth in partnership, supplying the guns and munitions that prepare both sides for the slaughter. The Krupps in Germany and the Armstrongs in England leagued in corporate partnership, have furnished deadly machines of murder that thunder on both sides of every battle. If war is 'Hell,' as Sherman said, then let us keep out of 'Hell' by preparing for a glorious civilization at home, enlarge our ports and merchant marine, curb the rapacity of the malevolent rich, who concentrate our natural and productive resources into a few greedy hands.

'Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,' not make all our farmers tenants and our laboring millions serts to soulless corporations, and our merchants peons to a few trusts in order that a few bankers like Morgan and Rockefeller may be masters of all our gigantic enterprises, thus promoting debt, discord, riot, strikes and misery among the masses.

'Provide for the common defense' by making our people free, prosperous and happy and then the combined world could not invade and conquer us. A contented citizen soldiery is invincible. 'Promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty' to the masses and not to the big corporate classes.

The price of several warships would better be spent in impounding the vast snows melt along the base of the Rock mountains for irrigation over the fertile valleys below which stand thirsting for that which, if interned, would bless millions of people and make their homes prosperous. The price of a few more warships and the price of a large standing army could well be spent in dredging and disinfecting sluggish and malarial swamps and streams; giving health and wealth to vast sections of country now infected with disease, stagnation and death. The price of a few dreadnaughts would be far better spent in erecting a system of continental military-highways.

Some provision must be made in our defense program to prevent the great corporations from feasting on the ruin of our country in war, and money be made to fight for its country the same as men. All goes down in war except gold, which stands triumphant over every battlefield, cleans up the wreck and makes millions out of its cruel carnage. The more ferocious the war the larger its margins. The moanings of millions of mangled soldiers and grief-stricken citizens helpless in poverty by war, are songs of jubilation and joy to the world's gold syndicate, which stands in splendor over ruined and ravished humanity. The cadaverous faces of a million dead soldiers only emphasize the triumphant march of gold to more sumptuous splendor when it can clip the coupons from government bonds and command the tax collectors to pay homage of millions of dollars taken from the honest enterprise and toil of the survivors of a cruel slaughter, which the lords of gold themselves in league with great gun, powder and munition factories, have often instigated.

Until these unscrupulous molochs of misery and death can be muzzled and forbidden to feast in ghoulish glee on the dead and dying men in war, we may expect greed and gold to keep the world in conflict by piling up immeasurable millions in time of peace in preparation of a preconcerted struggle.

The gold syndicate of today holds the earth in the hollow of its hand. At the close of the war it will be the royal receiver of the famished and bankrupt nations, with every custom house its fiscal agent, and every tax collector a sub-agent, in obedience to these masters of civilization, who, from their castles and corridors will compel even the emperors and kings to obey orders.

With much respect,

J. H. DAVIS.