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HORSE SHORTAGE DUE TO REFORMERS Representative Sherwood Immortalizes Horse While Decrying Hostile Legislation Against Racing The shortage of suitable horses for army purposes is largely due to hostile legislation against horse raciag tli most alluring recreative and wholesome of all the outdoor sports and pastimes was the deduction drawn by Representative Isaac It Sher ¬ wood of Ohio in Congress recently during the dis ¬ cussion of a bill making an appropriation to the Agricultural Department General Sherwood is a veteran of the Civil War and has aways been a great admirer of the horse He told of the great need of army horses and said that was his excuse for exploiting the horse Part of his speech is here reproduced anil is worthy of consideration considerationAt At the outset of this great world war we find ourselves short of both cavalry artillery and general utility horses says General Sherwood in his speech And all our socalled military experts concede the absolute necessity for cavalry on the flanks of an army or to cover a retreat In the Boer war in South Africa the most expensive aggressive war of conquest Great Britain ever made in a century the lack of cavalry to fight the Boers who were all mounted on fleetfootcd ponies cost Great Itritain more lives of soldiers and more money than all the fortytwo wars waged during the entire eventful reign of Queen Victoria VictoriaToday Today we are seriously hampered in our war preparations for lack of horses and that demand cannot be supplied It was claimed by most of our socalled military experts at the time the United States entered the war that the aeroplane would take the place of the mounted soldier but now the demand for cavalrv is universal From time imme ¬ morial it has been the swift mobilizing cavalry that has won battles in the critical crisis of wavering battle lines This was a vital lesson we learned in the first battle of the civil war when a charge of the Haek Horse Cavalry of Virginia put to rout a superior force of infantrv in the first battle of Hull Hun HunENGLAND ENGLAND LEARNED SEVERE LESSON LESSONAnd And in the twoyears war in South Africa Eng ¬ land learned a severe lesson of humiliation when 70 X Boer farmers mounted on Ioer ponies and neither Boers nor ponies ever saw the inside of a military academy caused the retreat across the Tegula river of 42000 trained veterans of Kngiand commanded by the widely renowned General Ruller RullerAnd And in the present world war it was the Italian cavalry covering the retreat of the Italian army from the AnstroIIungarian border to the Piave river that saved the bulk of that army and the most valu ¬ able of artillery and stores and munitions Not only are we short of artillery but of men trained to take care of horses horsesWe We know how all the high authority machine inotor experts have been indulging in big display line prophecies of a horseless age We remember vividly of the many predictions of the machine and chemical labratory war prophets of a horseless war that the experts in the birdflying aeroplanes drop ¬ ping the aweprovoking bombs would do the terrible work on the flanks and in the rear of a hostile army with no further use for the cavalry horse whose swiftness in battle is conceded to be five times the velocity of a foot soldier soldierThis This is my excuse today for exploiting the horse Our shortage of the speed horse the saddle horse and the general utility horse is largely due to hostile legislation against horse racing the most alluring recreative and wholesome of all the out ¬ door sports and pastimes Legislation that has financially ruined and driven expert breeders out of business legislation aimed at socalled gambling on the pastime with the inevitable result that we have inaugurated prizefighting and gambling on ring contests and football and baseball and election contests increased tenfold This is my excuse for exploiting mans Itest animal friend in all the ave ¬ nues of life in history in chivalry in the holy crusades and on the red fields of war warIn In Jill religions the horse has ever been an omni ¬ present factor The fascinating mythology of the Greeks a race in their prime foremost in art and civilization is full of the horse And the finest dra ¬ matic poem of our great Civil War is Sheridans Hide in which the horse is the hero because without that game flier Sheridan could never have turned defeat into victory in that immortal twentymile ride from Winchester to Cedar Creek Have yon ever stopped to think what would have become of our army that critical day had Sheridan attempted that perilous ride in an automobile with a busted tire Could he have inspired the boys with courage anew sitting in a pulseless machine even without a busted tire instead of the black charger that with foam on bis flanks and nostrils red as blood and eyes flashing fire carried the courage of his great master into the hearts of the musketeers musketeersMAN MAN AND HORSE SHARE HONORS HONORSFrom From time immemorial the horse has been im ¬ mortalized with his immortal master He has been perpetuated in stone and iron and bronze with the poets philosophers and soldiers of the world worldIn In Trafalgar Square London it is Lord Welling ¬ ton and his horse horseIn In Paris it is Na oleon and his horse horseIn In our national capital it is Grant and his horse Jackson and his horse Sherman and his horse Gen ¬ eral Logan and his horse and glorious old Pap Thomas and his horse In Richmond it is Washing ¬ ton and his horse Itobcrt E Lee and bis horse and Stonewall Jackson and his horse horseOn On the obelisks of dead old Egypt on the Arch of Trajan at Koine and the arch of triumph that Napoleon built in Paris to celebrate his victories the horse and his hero rider are multiplied on every ascending circle circleThe The trend of all Christian civilization from the Pharaoh of the Exodus to Jen Phil Sheridan is to paint the horse in the heroics In the glamors of war in the wild witchery of chivalric missions to Jerusalem amid the gloom and glory of the holy crusades in the conquests of Mexico and Peru and in all our modern wars the horse is everywhere a potent and puissant factor And in the peopling and advancement of the 1nited States before the advent of steam and electric motors the horse has ever been recognized as mans greatest helimiate helimiateProfessor Professor Starr of the Chicago University in his valuable book entitled First Steps in Human Prog ¬ ress discusses in a cursory way early Arabic civili ¬ zation He says in his book that as far back as Egyptian records go we find the horse in use and in China are records of his presence and use as a tamed animal for thousands of years The yearsThe biological student of the real human essence calls health the full and free manifestation of life The life that is worth living is the life that is full of vigorous healthy enjoyment Of all the games to amuse and entertain the horse furnishes the most recreative anil the most morally wholesome Our mental and physical lives are indossolubly linked together togetherSome Some men imagine themselves moral reformers when they are only solemn and morose from a tor ¬ pid liver A torpid liver may promote indigestion but never a high moral inspiration inspirationHORSE HORSE ALWAYS MANS BEST FRIEND FRIENDWe We shall always have machine motors as we have wax flowers and crockery dolls and paste dia ¬ monds But wax flowers will never shed fragrance on the bosom of a divine woman like the Godblown blossoms and crockerv dolls will never take the place of real babies neither will the counterfeit blaze of paste diamonds ever mock successfully the brilliant rainbow tints of the real gems And the live horse the horse of history and poetry and sculpture and the heroics will ever remain mans best and most wholesome animal friend The horse stands for good health for life that is full of life for pure air and sunshine and let no leanheaded crimpledmonth clacqner masquerading as a teacher of grim gloom stand between us and the sun In all countries and in all ages the horse is insepar ¬ ably associated with human history and develop ¬ ment No other animal has such omnipresence and no other animal has ever exerted such a potent force in the evolution of the human race raceThe The best and widest field for reformers today is to aiil in the reneal of all restrictive laws that are dead and have never been enforced and to help us learn the lesson that all history teaches that you cannot legislate virtue in the hearts of men The only way to inculcate virtue is to have the teachers practice it itThe The bicycle that was a crazyheaded fad twentyfive years ago as a recreative motor left us a heritage of some six distinct nervous and spinal diseases with no counter benefits and the auto more recreative more alluring killed more human beings last year than the horse in a century 1 am not here to exploit the war horse exclu ¬ sively but the horse of the recreations the horse of peace the horse that carries his master in tin cxhiliration of the wind along nleasant valleys by running brooks and meadows green with verdure by woods vocal witli the song of birds to make him forget his nervous worrv over business cares and catch an appetite and the serene joy that awaits good digestion and a conscience devoid of guile I still hope that the live horse will ever be tin most wholesome recreative factor for the live man and he is only good when alive not like the miser or the pig no good to the world itnril after death
