Page:Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star.djvu/82

20 of the new rifles instead of about one-fiftieth of that number. General Crozier says that we have only had to wait "two or three months—a perfectly endurable delay." Surely if there is anything this war teaches it is the vital importance of time. Two or three months' waiting in order to get a rifle which does not carry the ammunition of our allies represents not merely an undesirable delay but grave unwisdom.

General Crowder handled the draft to perfection because he appreciated that the difference between sending a telegram at 5 or at 4:45 might be of momentous consequence. General Crozier has bungled the rifle situation because of the attitude which makes him regard two or three months as "a perfectly endurable delay."

For two years and a half before entering the war we relied upon broomstick preparedness. For the first eight months of the war we have followed the same policy as regards the vital matter of rifles for our troops.

, the Socialist leader of Milwaukee, is reported in the press as sneering at the Liberty bonds, berating the Administration for, as he says, appointing thirty-three wealthy capitalists on the National Council of Defense, and in effect