Page:The web (1919).djvu/386

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lies one of the great future countries, one of the anchoring grounds of humanity. Beyond doubt it will eventually offer support to a vast population. The great population-centers, the great civilizations of the world, always have been along the great river valleys.

In the North, then, we see a rich region, rich in soil, in forests, in minerals. Consider what ore Minnesota and Michigan, by means of natural transportation, have sent to Ohio and Pennsylvania for manufacturing! Consider what millions of feet of rich pine Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota have given the world! And consider, if you can, the wealth which has come out of the soil of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas and all the rest of what we call the North! The earth has known nothing like it. Here was won the great war of the world, in which Peace overthrew Militarism, let us hope, for all time. Here grew the sinew which America put into this war, and it is in great part because of her rich river valleys that America to-day is the hope of all the world in the day of peace.

Naturally, if we should consider all these things, consider the persistence of racial types, consider the natural contest of all these strong men for the wealth of a rich new region, we could in advance predict that here in the North, there would be presented bitter phases of that combat which the enemy fought on this side of the Atlantic.


OHIO

Typical among the thriving industrial cities of the Middle West is Akron, Ohio, a city of 150,000 inhabitants, well known for its prominence in the rubber industry and other lines of manufactory of great use to the Government. The A. P. L. division in such a city might naturally be expected to have something to do. The Akron division began in the brain of a somewhat solitary agent of the Department of Justice, W. A. Garrigan, who was sent to Akron to serve his country all alone, equipped with one perfectly good aegis of the law, but not much else. There were men all about who were more or less actively engaged in helping Germany—men who were spreading Socialistic propaganda hindering the draft; men failing to qualify, knocking the