Norwich bulletin., 1914-12-09

Washington, Dec. s.-President Will son. in his annual address to congress today, gave his answer to those wne contend the United States is unpre- pared for national defense.
 Let there be no naiscenception, he said. 'Trhe country has been rnfszn- formed. We have not been negligent of national defense. We are not un- mindful of the great responsibility resting upon us. We shall learn and profit by the lesson of every experience and every new circumstance; and what is needed will be adequately done
 Assembled in joint session Tn the hall of the House, senators ano Eepae5s sentatives heard the president read his address in person from the clerk $ desk The text of the message 1ol- lows.
 Gentlemen of the Congress:
 The aessioa upon which you are now entering will be the closing session of the Sixty third Congress, a congress [ venture to say, which will long pc remembered for the great booy W oi dhcugntAlI and constructive work Wnicr it has done, in loyal response to the thought and needs of the country. ] should like in this address to review the notable record and try to make az : eauate assessment Of It; but no couot we stand too near the work tnat mas been done and are ourselves too much part of 1t to play the part Of historians toward if.
 Moreover. our thoughts are now more of the future than of the past. While we faye worked st our tasks or peace the circumstances of the whole age have been altered by war. What We have done for our own land and our own people we did with the best that was in us. whether of character or Of intelligence, with sober enthusiasm and a confidence in the principles upon which we were acting which sustained us at every step of the difficult under taking: but it is done. It has passed from our hands It is now an estab- l:shad part of the legislation of the country. Its usefulness, it's effects will disclose themselves in experience. What chiefly strikes us now, as We LOOK arout US during these closing days of year which will be forever memorable in the history of the world, is that we face new tasks, have been facing them these six months, must face them In the months to come,-face them without partisan feeling. like men who have forgotten everything but common duty and the fact that we are repre- sentatives of g great people whose thought is not of us but of what America owes to herself and to all mankind in such circumstances as these upon which we look amazed and anxious.
 War Interrupts Trade and Production.
 War has interrupted the means of trade not only but also the processes of production. In Europe it is de- stroying men and resources wholesale and upon q scale unprecedented and appalling. There is reason to fear that the time is near, if 1t be not al- ready at hand. when several of the of will fi,,6 E111lf to do for their people what they have hitherto been always easily able to do, many essential and fundamental things. At any rate. they will need cur help and our manifold services as they have never needed them before: and we should be ready, more fit and ready than we have ever been.
 If is of equal consequence that the nations whom Europe has usually SUD- piled with innumerable articles of man. ufacture and commerce of which they are in constant need and without which their economic development halts and stands still can now get tonly 3, small part of what they formerly imported and eagerly look to us to supply their all but empty markets. This is par ticulariy true of our own neighbors the States, great and small, of Central and South America. Their lines oi trade have hitherto run chiefly athwart the seas, not to our ports but to the ports of Great Britain and of the older continent of Europe. I do not stor to inquire why, or to make any com nent on probable causes. What in terests us just now is not the explana. ton but the fact, and our duty and op- portunity in the presence of 1t. HerG are markets which we must supply. ana we must find the means of action. Int United States. this great people fol whom we speak and act, should bt ready, as never befcfe. to serve itsel and to serve mankind; ready with it: resources, its energies its forces O production, and it's means of distribu- ton.
 It is a very practical matter. a mat. ter of ways and means. We have th' resources, but are we fully ready tt use them? And, if we can make read, what we have. have we the means a hand to distribute it? We are no fully ready; neither have we the means of distribution. We arc willing, bu we are not. fully able. We have tn, wish to serve and to serve greatly generously; but we are not prepared as we should be. We are not ready to mobilize cur resources at once. W.