12031915 13

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EIGHT GREENVILLE DAILY PIEDMONT, TUESDAY DECEMBER 7, 1915.
Great Democracies Are Not Belligerent; They Do Not Seek or Desire War

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PRESIDENT WILSON'S MESSAGE

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Chief Executive Details His Plans For
National Preparedness—Disloyalty
at Home Denounced—Urgent
Need of Our Own Ships.

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FOLLOWING is the message of
President Wilson delivered at
a joint session of the senate and
house at the beginning of the
Sixty-fourth congress.

Gentlemen of the Congress. Since I
last had the privilege of addressing
you on the state of the Union the war
of nations on the other side of the sea,
which had then only begun to disclose
its portentous proportions has extend-
ed its threatening and sinister scope
until it has swept within its flame
some portion of every quarter of the
globe, no excepting our own hemi-
sphere, has altered the whole face of
international affairs, and now presents
prospect of reorganization and re-
construction such as statements and
epistles have never been called upon
to attending before.

Studiously Neurtral.

We have stood apart, studiously neu-
tral. It was our manifest duty to do
so. Not only did we have no part or
suggest to the policies which seem to
have brought the conflict on; it was
necessary, if a universal catastrophe
was to be avoided, that a limit should
be set in the sweep of destructive war
and that some part of the great fam-
ily of nations should keep the process-
es of peace alive. If only to prevent
collective economic ruin and the break-
down throughout the world of the in-
dustries by which its populations are
fed and sustained. It was manifestly
the duty of the self governed nations
of the hemisphere to restrain, if possi-
ble, the balance of economic loss and
confusion to the other, if they could
do nothing more. In the day of read-
justment and preconception we earnest-
ly hope and believe that they can be
of infinite service.

In this neutrality, to which they
were bidden not only by their sep-
erate life and their habitual detach-
ment from the politics of Europe, but
also by a clear perception of interna-
tional duty the states of America have
become conscious of a new and more
vital community of interest and moral
partnership in affairs, more clearly
conscious of the many common sympa-
thies and interests and duties which
bid them stand together.

There was a time in the early days
of our own great nation and of the re-
publics fighting their way to independ-
ence in Central and South America
when the government of the United
States looked upon itself as in some
sort the guardian of the republics to
the South of her as against any oth-
er encroachments or efforts at political con-
trol from the other side of the water;
felt at its duty to play the part even
without invitation from them, and I
think that we can claim that the task
was undertaken with a true and disin-
terested enthusiasm for the freedom
of the Americas and the unmolested
self government of her independent
peoples. But it was always difficult to
maintain such a role without offence
to the pride of the peoples whose free-
dom of action we sought to protect
and without provoking serious mis-
conceptions of our motives and every
thoughtful man of affairs must wel-
come the altered circumstances of the
new day in whose light we now stand,
when there is on claim of guardian-
ship or thought of wards but instead
a full and harmonious association as of
partners between ourselves and our
neighbors in the interest of all Ameri-
ca, north and south. Our concern for
the independence and prosperity of the
states of Central and South America
is not altered. We retain unabated the
spirit that has inspired us throughout
the whole life of our government and
which was so frankly put into words
by President Monroe. We still mean
always to make a common cause of
national independence and of political
liberty in America. But that purpose
is now better understood so far as it
concerns ourselves. It is known not to
be a selfish purpose. It is known to
have in it no thought of taking advan-
tage of any government in this hemi-
sphere or play political fortunes
for our own benefit. All the govern-
ments of America stand, so far as we
are concerned, upon a feeling of genu-
ine equality and unquestioned inde-
pendence.

Put to the Test in Mexico.

We have been put to the test in the
case of Mexico, and we have stood the
test. Whether we have benefitted Mex-
ico by the course we have pursued re-
mains to be seen. Her fortunes are in
her own hands. Be we have at least
proved that we will not take advan-
tage of her in her distress, and under-
take to impose upon her an order and
government of our own choosing. Lib-
erty is often a fierce and intractable
thing, to which no bounds can be set
and to which no bounds of a few
men's choosing ought ever to be set.
Every American who has drunk at
the true fountains of principle and tra-
dition must subscribe without reserva-
tion to the high doctrine of the Vir-
ginia bill of rights, which in the great
days in which our government was set
up was everywhere amongst us accept-
ed as the creed of free men. That doc-
trine is, "That government is, or ought
to be instituted for the common bene-
[cut off]

fit, protection, and security of the
people, nation, or community"; that
"of all the various modes and forms
of government, that is the best
which is producing the greatest de-

[column 2]

gree of happiness and safety and is
most effectually secured against the
danger of maladministation, and that
when any government shall be found
inadequate or contrary to these pur-
poses a majority of the community
hath an indubitable, inalieable and
indefeasible right to reform, alter or
abolish it in such manner as shall be
judged most conducive to the public
weal". We have unhesitatingly ap-
plied that heroic principle to the case
of Mexico and now hopefully await
the rebirth of the troubled republic,
which had so much of which to purge
itself and so little sympathy from any
outside quarter in the radical but nec-
essary process. We will aid and be-
friend Mexico, but we will not coerce
her, and our course with regard to her
ought to be sufficient proof to all Amer-
ica that we seek no political suzerainty
or selfish control.

That moral is that the states of Amer-
ica are not hostile rivals, but co-op-
erating friends, and that their grow-
ing sense of community or interest,
alike in maters political and in mat-
ters economic is likely to give them a
new significance as factors in interna-
tional affairs and in the political his-
tory of the world. It presents them as
in a very deep and true sense a unit
in world affairs, spiritual partners,
standing together because thinking to-
gether, quick with common sympathies
and common ideals. Separated they
are subject to all the cross currents of
the confused politics of a world of hos-
tile rivalries; united in spirit and pur-
pose they cannot be disappointed of
their peaceful destiny.

None of the Spirit of Empire

This is pan-Americanism . It has none
of the spirit of empire in it. It is the
embodiement, the effectual embodiment,
of the spirit of law and independence
and liberty and mutual service.

A very notable body of men recently
met in the city of Washington, at the
invitation and as the guests of this
government, whose deliberations
are likely to looked back to as marking
a memorable turning point in the his-
tory of America. They were repre-
sentative spokesmen of the several
independent states of this hemisphere
and were assembled to disuss the
financial and commercial relations of
the republics of the two continents
which nature and political fortune
have so intimately linked together. I
earnestly recommend in your perusal
the reports of their proceedings and of
the actions of their committees. You
will get from them, I think, a fresh
conception of the ease and intelligence
and advantage with which Americans
of both continents may draw together
in practical cooperation and of what
the material foundations of this hope-
ful partnership of interest must con-
sist, of how we should build them and
of how necessary it is that we should
hasten their building.

There is, I venture to point out, an
especial significance just now attach-
ing to this whole matter of drawing
the Americans together in bonds of hon-
orable patriotism and mutual advan-
tage because of the economic readjust-
ments which the world must inevitably
witness within the next generation,
when peace shall have at last resumed
its healthful tasks. In the perform-
ance of these tasks I believe the Amer-
icas to be destined to play their parts
together. I am interested to fix your
attention of this prospect now because
unless you take it within your view
and permit the full significance of it to
command you thought, I cannot find
the right light in which to set forth
the particular matter that lies at the
very font of my whole thought as I
address you today. I mean national
defense.

No one who really comprehends the
spirit of the great people for whom we
are appointed to speak can fail to per-
ceive that ther passion is for peace,
ther genius best displayed in the prac-
tice of the arts of peace. Great democ-
racies are not belligerent. They do not
seek or desire war. Their thought is
labor that supports life and the un-
censored thought that quickens it.
Conquest and domination are not in our
reckoning or agreeable to our princi-
ples. But just because we demand un-
molested development and the undis-
turbed government of our own lives
upon our own principles of right and
liberty, we resent, from whatever,
quarter it may come, the aggression we
ourselves will not practice. We insist
upon security in prosecuting our self
chosen lines of national development.
We do more than that. We demand it
also for others. We do not confine our
enthusiasm for individual liberty and
free national development to the inci-
dents and movements of affairs which
affect only ourselves. We feel it wher-
ever there is a people that tries to walk
in these difficult paths of independence
and right. From the first we have
made common cause with all partisans
of liberty on this side of the sea and have
deemed it as important that our neigh-
bors should be free from all outside
domination as that we ourselves should
be, have set American aside as a whole
for the uses of independent nations and
political freemen.
[cut off]

Out of thoughts grow all our policies.
We regard war merely as means of
asserting the rights of people
against aggression. And we are

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as fiercely jealous of coercive or dicta-
torial power within our own nation
as of aggression from without. We
will not maintain a standing army ex-
cept for uses which are as necessary
in times of peace as in times of war;
and we shall always see to it that our
military peace establishment is no
larger than is actually and continuous-
ly needed for the uses of days in which
no enemies move against us. But we
do believe in a body of free citizens
ready and sufficient to take care of
themselves and of the governments
which they have set up to serve them.
In our constitutions themselves we
have commanded that "the right of
the people to keep and bear arms shall
not be infringed," and our confidence
has been that our safety in times of
danger would lie in the rising of the
nation to take care of itself, as the
farmers rose at Lexington.

War Disciplined Might.

But war has never been a mere mat-
ter of men and guns. It is a thing
of disciplined might. If our citizens
are ever to fight effectively upon a
sudden summons, they must know
how modern fighting is done, and what
to do when the summons comes to
render themselves immediately avail-
able and immediately effective. And
the government must be their servant
in this matter, must supply them with
the training they need to take care of
themselves and of it. The military
arm of their government, which they
will not allow to direct them, they may
properly use to serve them and make
their independence secure,-and not
their own independence merely, but
the rights also of those with whom
they have made common cause, should
they also be put in jeopardy. They
must be fitted to play the great role
in the world, and particularly in this
hemisphere, for which they are quali-
fied by principle and by chastened am-
bition to play.

It is with these ideals in mind that
the plans of the department of war for
more adequate national defense were
conceived which will be laid before
you, and which I urge you to sanction
and put into effect as soon as they can
be properly scrutinized and discussed.
They seem to me the essential first
steps, and they seem to me for the
present sufficient.

They contemplate an increase of the
standing force of the regular army
from its present strength of 5,023 offi-
cers and 102,985 enlisted men of all
services to a strength of 7,136 officers
134,707 enlisted men, or 141,843,
all told, all services, rank and file, by
the addition of fifty-two companies of
coast artillery, fifteen companies of en-
gineers, ten regiments of infantry, four
regiments of field artillery and four
aero squadrons, besides 750 officers re-
quired for a great variety of extra
service, especially the all important
duty of training the citizen force of
which I shall presently speak, 792 non-
commissioned officers for service in
drill, recruiting and the like, and the
necessary quota of enlisted men for
the quartermaster corps, the hospital
corps, the ordnance department, and
other similar auxiliary services. These
are the additions necessary to render
the army adequate for its present du-
ties, duties which it has to perform
not only upon our own continental
coasts and borders and at our interior army
posts, but also in the Philippines,
in the Hawaiian Islands, at the Isth-
mus, and in Porto Rico.

By way of making the country ready
to assert some part of its real power
promptly and upon a larger scale
should occasion arise, the plan also
contemplates supplementing the army
by a force of 400,000 disciplined citi-
zens, raised in increments of 133,000 a
year throughout a period of three
years. This it is proposed to do by a
process of enlistment under which the
serviceable men of the country would
be asked to bind themselves to serve
with the colors for purposes of train-
ing for short periods throughout three
years, and to come to the colors at call
at any time throughout an additional
"furlough" period of three years. This
force of 400,000 men would be pro-
vided with personal accoutrements as
fast as enlisted and their equipment
for the field made ready to be supplied
at any time. They would be assem-
bled for training at stated intervals at
convenient places in association with
suitable units of the regular army.
Their period of annual training would
not necessarily exceed two months in
the year.

It would depend upon the patriotic
feeling of the younger men of the
country whether they responded to
such a call to service or not. It
would depend upon the patriotic spirit
of the employers of the country wheth-
er they made it possible for the young-
er men in their employ to respond un-
der favorable conditions or not. I, for
one do not doubt the patriotic devotion
either of our young men or of those
who give them employment—those for
whose benefit and protection they
would in fact enlist. I would look
forward to the success of such an ex-
periment with entire confidence.

At least so much by way of prepara-
tion for defense seems to me to be ab-
solutely imperative now. We cannot
do less.

The programme which will be laid be-
fore you by the Secretary of the Navy
is similarly conceived. It involves only
a shortening of the time within which
plans long matured shall be carried
out but it does make definite and ex-
plicit a programme which has heretofore
been only implicit, held in the minds of the
[cut off]

Committees on Naval Affairs and
disclosed in the debates of the two
Houses but nowhere formulated or
formally adopted. It seems to me very

[column 4]

clear that it will be to the advantage
of the country for the Congress to adopt
a comprehensive plan for putting the
navy upon a final footing of strength
and efficiency and to press that plan
to completion within the next five
years. We have always looked to the
navy of the country as our first and
chief line of defense; we have always
seen it to be our manifest course of
prudence to be strong on the seas.
Year by year we have been creating a
navy which now ranks very high in-
deed among the navies of the maritime
nations. We should now definitely de-
termine how we shall complete what
we have begun, and how soon.

The Navy Program.

The programme to be laid before you
contemplates the construction within
five years of ten battleships, six bat-
tle cruisers, ten scout cruisers, fifty
destroyers, fifteen fleet submarines,
eighty-five coast submarines, four gun-
boats, one hospital ship, two ammuni-
tion ships, two fuel oil ships, and one
repair ship. It is proposed that of this
number we shall the first year provide
for the construction of two battleships,
two battle cruisers, three scout cruisers,
fifteen destroyers, five fleet submarines,
twenty-five coast submarines, two gun-
boats, and one hospital ship; the second
year two battleships, one scout cruiser,
ten destroyers, four fleet submarines,
fifteen coast submarines, one gunboat,
and one fuel oil ship; the third year
two battleships, one battle cruiser, two
scout cruisers, five destroyers, two fleet
submarines, and fifteen coast subma-
rines; the fourth year two battleships,
two battle cruisers, two scout cruisers,
ten destroyers, two fleet submarines,
fifteen coast submarines, one ammuni-
tion ship, and one fuel oil ship; and
the fifth year two battleships, one bat-
tle cruiser, two scout cruisers, ten de-
stroyers, two fleet submarines, fifteen
coast submarines, one gunboat, one am-
munition ship, and one repair ship.

The Secretary of the Navy is asking
also for the immediate addition to the
personnel of the navy of 7,500 sailors,
2,500 apprentice seamen, and 1,500 ma-
rines. This increase would be suffii-
cient to care for the ships which are
to be completed within the fiscal year
1917 and also for the number of men
which must be put in training to man
the ships which will be completed
early in 1918. It is also necessary that
the number of midshipmen at the Na-
val academy at Annapolis should be
increased by at least 300 in order that
the force of officers should be more
rapidly added to; and authority is ask-
ed to appoint, for engineering duties
only, approved graduates of engineer-
ing colleges, and for service in the avi-
ation corps a certain number of men
taken from civil life.

If this full programme should be carried
out we should have built or building in
1921, according to the estimates of sur-
vival and standards of classification
followed by the General Board of the
Department, an effective navy consist-
ing of 27 battleships of the first line, 6
battle cruisers, 25 battleships of the
second line, 10 armored cruisers, 13
scout cruisers, 5 first class cruisers, 3
second class cruisers, 10 third class
cruisers, 108 destroyers, 18 fleet sub-
marines, 157 coast submarines, 6 mon-
itors, 20 gunboats, 4 supply ships, 15
fuel ships, 4 transports, 3 tenders to
torpedo vessels, 8 vessels of special
types, and two ammunition ships. This
would be a navy fitted to our needs
and worthy of our traditions.

But armies and instruments of war
are only part of what has to be con-
sidered if we are to provide for the su-
preme matter of national self-sufficien-
cy and security in all its aspects.
There are other great matters which
will be thrust upon our attention
whether we will or not. There is, for
example, a very pressing question of
trade and shipping involved in this
great problem of national adequacy.
It is necessary for many weighty rea-
sons of national efficiency and devel-
opment that we should have a great
merchant marine. The great merchant
fleet we once used to make us rich,
that great body of sturdy sailors who
used to carry our flag into every sea,
and who were the pride and often the
bulwark of the nation, we have almost
driven out of existence by inexcusable
neglect and indifference and by a hope-
lessly blind and provincial policy of
so called economic protection. It is
high time we repaired our mistake and
resumed our commercial independence
on the seas.

Ships of Peace Needed.

For it is a question of independence.
If other nations go to war or seek to
hamper each other's commerce, our
merchants, it seems, are at their mer-
cy, to do with as they please. We must
use their ships, and use them as they
determine. We have not ships enough
of our own. We cannot handle our
own commerce on the seas. Our inde-
pendence is provincial, and is only on
land and within our own borders. We
are not likely to be permitted to use
even the ships of other nations in ri-
valry of their own trade, and are with-
out means to extend our commerce
even where the doors are wide open
and our goods desired. Such a situa-
tion is not to be endured. It is of cap-
ital importance not only that the Uni-
ted States should be its own carrier on
the seas and enjoy the economic inde-
pendence which only an adequate
merchant marine would give it, but
also that the American hemisphere as
a whole should enjoy a like independ-
ence and self-sufficiency, if it is not
to be drawn into the tangle of Euro-
pean affairs. Without such independ-
[cut off]
ence the whole question of our political
unity and self-determination is very seri-
ously clouded and complicated indeed.

[column 5]

Moreover, we can develop no true or ef-
ective American policy without ships of
our own—not ships of war, but ships of
peace, carrying goods and carrying much
more; creating friendships and rendering
indispensable services to all interests on
this side the water. They must move
constantly back and forth between the
Americas. They are the only shuttles
that can weave the delicate fabric of
sympathy, comprehension, confidence, and
mutual dependence in which we wish to
clothe our policy of America for Ameri-
cans.

The task of building up an adequate
merchant marine for America private cap-
ital must ultimately undertake and
achieve, as it has undertaken and achiev-
ed every other like task amongst us in the
past, with admirable enterprise, intelli-
gence, and vigor; and it seems to me a
manifest dictate of wisdom that we should
promptly remove every legal obstacle that
may stand in the way of this much to be
desired revival of our old independence
and should facilitate in every possible
way the building, purchase, and American
registration of ships. But capital cannot
accomplish this great task of a sudden.
It must embark upon it by degrees, as
the opportunities of trade develop. Some-
thing must be done at once, done to open
routes and develop opportunities where
they are as yet undeveloped, done to open
the arteries of trade where the currents
have not yet learned to run, especially
between the two American continents,
where they are, singularly enough, yet to
be created and quickened, and it is evi-
dent that only the government can un-
dertake such beginnings and assume the
initial financial risks. When the risk has
passed and private capital begins to find
its way in sufficient abundance into these
new channels, the government may with-
draw. But it cannot omit to begin. It
should take the first steps, and should
take them at once. Our goods must not
lie piled up at our ports and stored upon
side tracks in freight cars which are dai-
ly needed on the roads, must not be left
without means of transport to any foreign
quarter. We must not await the permis-
sion of foreign shipowners and foreign
governments to send them where we will.

Government Owned Ships.

With a view to meeting these pressing
necessities of our commerce and availing
ourselves at the earliest possible moment
of the present unparalleled opportunity
of linking the two Americas together in
bonds of mutual interest and service, an
opportunity which may never return
again if we miss it now, proposals will
be made to the present Congress for the
purchase or construction of ships to be
owned and directed by the government
similar to those made to the last con-
gress, but modified in some essential par-
ticulars. I recommend these proposals to
you for your prompt acceptance with the
more confidence because every month
that has elapsed since the former propo-
sals were made has made the necessity
for such action more and more manifest-
ly imperative. That need was then fore-
seen. It is now acutely felt and every-
where realized by those for whom trade
is waiting but who can find no convey-
ance for their goods. I am not so much
interested in the particulars of the pro-
gramme as I am in taking immediate ad-
vantage of the great opportunity which
awaits us if we will but act in this emer-
gency. In this matter, as in all others, a
spirit of common counsel should prevail,
and out of it should come an early solu-
tion of this pressing problem.

There is another matter which seems
to me to be very intimately associated
with the question of national safety and
preparation for defense. That is our pol-
icy towards the Philippines and the people
of Porto Rico. Our treatment of them
and their attitude towards us are mani-
festly of the first consequence in the de-
velopment of our duties in the world and
in getting a free hand to perform those
duties. We must be free from every un-
necessary burden or embarrassment, and
there is no better way to be clear of em-
barrassment than to fulfill our promises
and promote the interests of those de-
pendent on us to the utmost. Bills for
the alteration and reform of the govern-
ment of the Philippines and for rendering
fuller political justice to the people of
Porto Rico were submitted to the Sixty-
third congress. They will be submitted
also to you. I need not particularize their
details. You are most of you already fa-
miliar with them. But I do recommend
them to your early adoption with the sin-
cere conviction that there are few meas-
ures you could adopt which would more
serviceably clear the way for the great
policies by which we wish to make good,
now and always, our right to lead in en-
terprises of peace and good will and eco-
nomic and political freedom.

Counting the Cost.

The plans for the armed forces of the
nation which I have outlined and for the
general policy of adequate preparation for
mobilization and defense, involve of
course very large additional expenditures
of money, expenditures which will consid-
erably exceed the estimated revenues of
the government. It is made my duty by
law whenever the estimates of expendi-
ture exceed the estimates of revenue, to
call the attention of the congress to the
fact and suggest any means of meeting
the deficiency that it may be wise or pos-
sible for me to suggest. I am ready to
believe that it would be my duty to do
so in any case, and I feel particularly
bound to speak of the matter when it ap-
pears that the deficiency will arise di-
rectly out of the adoption by the con-
gress of measures which I myself urge
it to adopt. Allow me, therefore, to speak
briefly of the present state of the treas-
ury and of the fiscal problems which the
next year will probably disclose.

On the 30th of June last there was an
available balance in the general fund of
the Treasury Of $104,170,105.78. The total es-
timated receipts for the year 1916, on the
assumption that the emergency revenue
measure passed by the last congress will
not be extended beyond its present limit,
the 31st of December, 1915, and that the
present duty of one cent per pound on sugar
will be discontinued after the 1st of May,
1916, will be $670,365,500. The balance of
June last and these estimated revenues
come, therefore, to a grand total of $774,-
535,605.78. The total estimated disburse-
ments for the present fiscal year, includ-
ing twenty-five millions for the Panama
canal, twelve millions for probable defi-
ciency appropriations, and $50,000 for mis-
cellaneous debt redemptions, will be $753,-
891,000, and the balance in the general fund
of the treasury will be reduced to $20,644,-
605.78. The emergency revenue act, if con-
tinued beyond its present time limitation,
would produce, during the half year then
remaining, about forty-one millions. The
duty of 1 cent per pound on sugar, if
continued, would produce during the two
months of the fiscal year remaining after
the 1st of May, about fifteen millions.
These two sums, amounting together to
fifty-six millions, if added to the revenues
of the second half of the fiscal year, would
yield the treasury at the end of the year
an available balance Of $76,644,605.78.

The additional revenues required to car-
ry out the programme of military and naval
preparation of which I have spoken,
would, as at present estimated, be for
the fiscal year, 1917, $93,800,000. Those fig-
ures, taken with the figures for the pres-
ent fiscal year which I have already giv-
en, disclose our financial problem for the
year 1917. Assuming that the taxes im-
posed by the emergency revenue act and
the present duty on sugar are to be dis-
continued, and that the balance at the
close of the present fiscal year will be
only $20,644,605.78, that the disbursements
for the Panama Canal will again be about
[cut off]

twenty-five millions, and that the additional
expenditures for the army and navy are auth-
orized by the congress, the deficit in the general
fund of the treasury on the 30th of June, 1917,
will be nearly two hundred and thirty-five millions.

[column 6]

To this sum at least $50,000,000 should be
added to represent a safe working bal-
ance for the treasury, and $12,000,000 to in-
clude the usual deficiency estimates in
1917, and these additions would make a
total deficit of some $297,000,000. If the
present taxes should be continued
throughout this year and the next, how-
ever, there would be a balance in the
treasury of some $76,500,000 at the end of
the present fiscal year, and a deficit at
the end of the next year of only some
$50,000,000, or, reckoning in $62,000,000 for
deficiency appropriations and a safe treas-
ury balance at the end of the year, a
total deficit of some $112,000,000. The ob-
vious moral of the figures is that it is a
plain counsel of prudence to continue all
of the present taxes or their equivalents,
and confine ourselves to the problem of
providing $112,000,000 of new revenue rath-
er than $297,000,000.

Millions of Bonds.

How shall we obtain the new revenue?
We are frequently reminded that there
are many millions of bonds which the
treasury is authorized under existing law
to sell to reimburse the sums paid out of
current revenues for the construction of
the Panama canal, and it is true that
bonds for the amount of $222,000,000 are
now available for that purpose. Prior to
1913, $134,631,980 of these bonds had actually
been sold to recoup the expenditures at
the Isthmus, and now constitute a con-
siderable item of the public debt. But I
for one do not believe that the people of
this country approve of postponing the
payment of their bills. Borrowing money
is shortsighted finance. It can be justi-
fied only when permanent things are to
be accomplished which many generations
will certainly benefit by and which it
seems hardly fair that a single genera-
tion should pay for. The objects we are
now proposing to spend money for cannot
be so classified, except in the sense that
everything wisely done may be said to be
done in the interest of posterity as well
as in our own. It seems to me a clear
dictate of prudent statesmanship and
frank finance that in what we are now,
I hope, about to undertake we should pay
as we go. The people of the country are
entitled to know just what burdens of
taxation they are to carry, and to know
from the outset, now. The new bills
should be paid by internal taxation.

To what sources, then, shall we turn?
This is so peculiarly a question which the
gentlemen of the house of representatives
are expected under the constitution to
propose an answer to that you will hard-
ly expect me to do more than discuss it
in very general terms. We should be fol-
lowing an almost universal example of
modern governments if we were to draw
the greater part or even the whole of the
revenues we need from the income taxes.
By somewhat lowering the present limits
of exemption and the figure at which the
surtax shall begin to be imposed, and by
increasing, step by step throughout the
present graduation, the surtax itself, the
income taxes as at present apportioned
would yield sums sufficient to balance the
books of the treasury at the end of the
fiscal year 1917 without anywhere making
the burden unreasonably or oppressively
heavy. The precise reckonings are fully
and accurately set out in the report of
the secretary of the T\treasury which will
be immediately laid before you.

Tax on Gasoline.

And there are many additional sources
of revenue which can justly be resorted
to without hampering the industries of
the country or putting any too great
charge upon individual expenditure. A 1
per cent per gallon on gasoline and
naphtha would yield, at the present esti-
mated production, $10,000,000, a tax of 50
cents per horse power on automobiles and
internal explosion engines, $15,000,000, a
stamp tax on bank cheques, probably $18,-
000,000; a tax of t25 cents per ton on pig
iron, $10,000,000, a tax of 25 cents per ton on
fabricated iron and steel, probably $10,000,-
000. In a country of great industries like
this it ought to be easy to distribute the
burdens of taxation without making them
anywhere bear too heavily or too exclu-
sively upon any one set of persons or un-
dertakings. What is clear is, that the in-
dustry of this generation should pay the
bills of this generation.

I have spoken to you today, gentlemen,
upon a single theme, the thorough prepa-
ration of the nation to care for its own
security and to make sure of entire free-
dom to play the impartial role in this
hemisphere and in the world which we all
believe to have been providentially assign-
ed to it. I have had in my mind no
thought of any immediate or particular
danger arising out of our relations with
other nations. We are at peace with all
the nations of the world, and there is rea-
son to hope that no question in controver-
sy between this and other governments
will lead to any serious breach of amica-
ble relations, grave as some differences of
attitude and policy have been and may
yet turn out to be. I am sorry to say that
the gravest threats against our national
peace and safety have been uttered with-
in our own borders. There are citizens of
the United States, I blush to admit, born
under other flags but welcomed under our
generous naturalization laws to the full
freedom and opportunity of America, who
have poured the poison of disloyalty into
the very arteries of our national life, who
have sought to bring the authority and
good name of our Government into con-
tempt, to destroy our industries wherever
they thought it effective for their vindic-
tive purposes to strike at them, and to de-
base our politics to the uses of foreign in-
trigue. Their number is not great as com-
pared with the whole number of those
sturdy hosts by which our nation has been
enriched in recent generations out of virile
foreign stock, but it is great enough to
have brought deep disgrace upon us and
to have made it necessary that we should
promptly make use of processes of law by
which we may be purged of their corrupt
distempers.

Disloyalty Denounced.

America never witnessed anything like
this before. It never dreamed it possible
that men sworn into its own citizenship,
men drawn out of great free stocks such
as supplied some of the best and strong-
est elements of that little, but how he-
roic, nation that in a high day of old
staked its very life to free itself from ev-
ery entanglement that had darkened the
fortunes of the older nations and set up a
new standard here—that men of such
origins and such free choices of allegiance
would ever turn in malign reaction against
the government and people who bad wel-
comed and nurtured them and seek to
make this proud country once more a hot-
bed of European passion. A little while
ago such a thing would have seemed in-
credible. Because it was incredible we
made no preparation for it. We would
have been almost ashamed to prepare for
it, as if we were suspicious of ourselves,
our own comrades and neighbors! But
the ugly and incredible thing has actually
come about, and we are without adequate
federal laws to deal with it. I urge you
to enact such laws at the earliest possi-
ble moment and feel that in doing so I
am urging you to do nothing less than
save the honor and self-respect of the
nation. Such creatures of passion, disloy-
alty, and anarchy must be crushed out.
They are not many, but they are infinite-
ly malignant, and the hand of our power
should close over them at once. They
have formed plots to destroy property,
they have entered into conspiracies against
the neutrality of the government, they
have sought to pry into every confidential
transaction of the government in order to
serve interests alien to our own. It is
possible to deal with these things very
effectually. I need not suggest the terms
in which they may be dealt with.
[cut off]

I wish that it could be said that only a few
men, misled by mistaken sentiments of
allegiance to the governments under

[column 7]

which they were born, had been guilty of
disturbing the self-possession and mis-
representing the temper and principles of
the country during these days of terrible
war, when it would seem that every man
who was truly an American would in-
stinctively make it his duty and his pride
to keep the scales of judgment even and
prove himself a partisan of no nation but
his own. But it cannot. There are some
men among us, and many residents abroad
who, though born and bred in the United
States and calling themselves Americans,
have so forgotten themselves and their
honor as citizens as to put their passion-
ate sympathy with one or the other side
in the great European conflict above their
regard for the peace and dignity of the
United States. They also preach and
practice disloyalty. No laws, I suppose,
can reach corruptions of the mind and
heart, but I should not speak of others
without also speaking of these and expres-
sing the even deeper humiliation and
scorn which every self-possessed and
thoughtfully patriotic American must feel
when he thinks of them and of the dis-
credit they are daily bringing upon us.

[To?] Mobilize Resources.

While we speak of the preparation of
the nation to make sure of her security
and her effective power we must not fall
into the patent error of supposing that
her real strength comes from armaments
and mere safeguards of written law. It
comes, of course, from her people, their
energy, their success in their undertak-
ings, their free opportunity to use the
natural resources of our great home land
and of the lands outside our continental
borders which look to us for protection,
for encouragement, and for assistance in
their development; from the organization
and freedom and vitality of our economic
life. The domestic questions which en-
gaged the attention of the last congress
are more vital to the nation in this its
time of test than at any other time. We
cannot adequately make ready for any
trial of our strength unless we wisely
and promptly direct the force of our laws
into these all-important fields of domestic
action. A matter which it seems to me
we should have very much at heart is
the creation of the right instrumentalities
by which to mobilize our economic re-
sources in any time of national neces-
sity. I take it for granted that I do not
need your authority to call into syste-
matic consultation with the directing offi-
cers of the army and navy men of recog-
nized leadership and ability from among
our citizens who are thoroughly familiar,
for example, with the transportation fa-
cilities of the country and therefore com-
petent to advise how they may be co-
ordinated when the need arises, those who
can suggest the best way in which to
bring about prompt cooperation among
the manufacturers of the country, should
it be necessary, and those who could as-
sist to bring the technical skill of the
country to the aid of the government in
the solution of particular problems of de-
fense. I only hope that if I should find
it feasible to constitute such an advisory
body the congress would be willing to
vote the small sum of money that would
be needed to defray the expenses that
would probably be necessary to give it
the clerical and administrative machinery
with which to do serviceable work.

For Rural Credits.

What is more important is, that the in-
dustries and resources of the country
should be available and ready for mobili-
zation. It is the more imperatively ne-
cessary, therefore, that we should promptly
devise means for doing what we have not
yet done—that we should give intelligent
federal aid and stimulation to industrial
and vocational education, as we have long
done in the large field of our agricultural
industry; that, at the same time that we
safeguard and conserve the natural
resources of the country we should put
them at the disposal of those who will
use them promptly and intelligently, as
was sought to be done in the admirable
bills submitted to the last congress from
its committees on the public lands, bills
which I earnestly recommend in principle
to your consideration; that we should put
into early operation some provision for
rural credits which will add to the exten-
sive borrowing facilities already afforded the
farmer by the reserve bank act, ade-
quate instrumentalities by which long
credits may be obtained on land mort-
gages; and that we should study more
carefully than they have hitherto been
studied the right adaptation of our eco-
nomic arrangements to changing condi-
tions.

Many conditions about which we have
repeatedly legislated are being altered
from decade to decade, it is evident, un-
der our very eyes, and are likely to change
even more rapidly and more radically in
the days immediately ahead of us, when
peace has returned to the world and the
nations of Europe once more take up their
tasks of commerce and industry with the
energy of those who must bestir them-
selves to build anew. just what these
changes will be no one can certainly fore-
see or confidently predict. There are no
calculable, because no stable, elements in
the problem. The most we can do is to
make certain that we have the necessary
instrumentalities of information constan-
tly at our service so that we may be sure
that we know exactly what we are deal-
ing with when we come to act, if it should
be necessary to act at all. We must first
certainly know what it is that we are
seeking to adapt ourselves to. I may ask
the privilege of addressing you more at
length on this important matter a little
later in your session.

Efficiency and Security.

In the meantime may I make this sug-
gestion? The transportation problem is
an exceedingly serious and pressing one
in this country. There has from time to time
of late been reason to fear that our
railroads would not much longer be able to
cope with it successfully, as at present
equipped and coordinated. I suggest that
it would be wise to provide for a commis-
sion of inquiry to ascertain by a thor-
ough canvass of the whole question wheth-
er our laws as at present framed and ad-
ministered are as serviceable as they
might be in the solution of the problem.
It is obviously a problem that lies at the
very foundation of our efficiency as a peo-
ple. Such an inquiry ought to draw out
every circumstance and opinion worth
considering and we need to know all
sides of the matter if we mean to do any-
thing in the field of federal legislation.

No one, I am sure, would wish to take
any backward step. The regulation of the
railways of the country by federal com-
mission has had admirable results and
has fully justified the hopes and expecta-
tions of those by whom the policy of regu-
lation was originally proposed. The
question is not what should we undo. It
is whether there is anything else we can
do that would supply us with effective
means, in the very process of regulation,
for bettering the conditions under which
the railroads are operated and for mak-
ing them more useful servants of the
country as a whole. It seems to me that
it might be the part of wisdom, therefore,
before further legislation in this field is
attempted, to look at the whole problem
of co-ordination and efficiency in the full
light of a fresh assessment of circum-
stance and opinion, as a guide to dealing
with the several parts of it.

For what we are seeking now, what in
my mind is the single thought of this
message, is national efficiency and secur-
ity. We serve a great nation. We should
serve it in the spirit of its peculiar gen-
ius. It is the genius of common men for
self government, industry, justice, liberty
and peace. We should see to it that it
lacks no instrument, no facility or
[cut off]

vigor of law, to make it sufficient to play
its part with energy, safety, and assured
success. In this we are no partisans but
heralds and prophets of a new age.