New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-12-06
National Civic Body
Warns Congress to
Strengthen Forces.
RESOLUTION ADVISES
LEGISLATIVE PROBE
Peace Men Offer No Op-
pOsition-Navy Faults
Bared-War Sifted.

With the prevailing sentiment cX
pressed at the closing session of the
annual meeting of the National Civic
Federation yesterday that the instru-
ments of national defence in this coun.
try were inadequate TO meet possible
emergencies arising out Of the Euro
pean war, a resolution was adopted
calling upon Congress to create coun-
ell of national defence to determine
what legislation is necessary to obtain
the efficiency of the existing forces OF
land and sea and provide for the ma
tional defence, without waste or un-
necessary expense.
Talcott Williams, director Of the CO.
lumba School of journalism, intro
duced the resolution, and it was
promptly seconded by several promi.
nent members of the federation. There
was no opposition, even David Starr
Jordan, chancellor Of Leland Stanford
University and head Of the Ameri-
can Peace Society, who had made a
strong plea for disarmament in an ad-
dress delivered few minutes before,
indorsed it.
In presenting the resolution Mr.. Will
Jams said:
"The United States now faces in its
defence a wholly new problem. The
conditions of defence have been radi-
cally changed by the last three months.
Last July the whole civilized world,
military expert and unframed men
alike, believed that a fortress ade-
quately built and adequately armed,
could defeat or at least halt an ad-
vancing army. The naval expert held
that the uper-dreadnought battleship
was a weapon Of defence upon the high
seas which no other weapon could de-
feat except a stronger force of super
dreadnoughts.. Men stiA believed four
nsoaths ago that the defence Of city
and the control ofsterritory by an
armed force was still under essentially
the same conditions as in the past.
War Teaches Lesson.
"The great war has vitally altered
all these conditions. The security of
the fort is gone. II may aid an army,
but without an army it is useless. The
submarine has shown the dreadnought
and the uper-dreadnought are vulner-
able as no one before believed. These
battleshps, while still necessary, are
no longer a safeguard. Lastly, the use
of modern explosives on large scale
from Zeppelins, from aeroplanes with
modern artillery or employed upon the
ground by force temporarily occupy
ing city, has demonstrated that
houses, villages, cities and entire quar-
ters of a city can be ruthlessly de-
stroyed on a scale which quenches re-
sistance.
"Out of all this welter only one thing
has emerged still a national defence,
still safeguarding the security and in
dependence of states-this is the mo-
bile army, organized, equipped, Of
ficered and equal to the new warfare
of trenches, extending, as in France,
over a line of 300 miles.
All else, fort, dreadnought, citizen
warfare, are on the scrap heap. An
army cannot be made in day. Unless
a nation is provided with a mobile
army, drilled and officered, strong
enough to fight wherever it is and
wherever a trench can be dug, the oc-
cupation of it's territory by an invad-
ing force equal to the task is certain.
Because Of the necessity of recasting
and rendering efficient our national de-
fence. ] offer this resolutions:
"Resolved, That the National Civic
Federation recommend that the Con-
gress create by law council OF ma
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