Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1914-12-09
All important Problem Which
Now ConfrontS Congress,
Says President.
SHIPS OUR GREATEST NEED
America Fears No Nation and Is Am
ply Able to Defend ltself-Great
Task Ahead in Helping to
Restore Probationary
Is Strongly Urged.

Washington, Dec S.-President Will
son today delivered his annual address
to congress. Problems brought out by
the great conflict in Europe engaged
the greater part of his attention. The
message follows:
Gentlemen of the Congress:
The session upon which you are now
the Sixty-third congress, congress,
venture to say, which will long be re-
membered for the great body of
thoughtful and constructive work
which it has done, in loyal response
to the thought and needs of the coun-
try should like in this address to re-
view the notable record and try to
make adequate assessment of it; but
no doubt we stand too near the work
that has been done and are ourselves
too much part of it to play the part of
historians toward it. Moreover, our
thoughts are now more of the future
than of the past.
While we have worked at our tasks
OF 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 char
acter or of intelligence, with sober
enthusiasm and a confidence in the
principles upon which we were acting
which sustained us at every step Of
4; I, 4 lii, - 10,
done. II has passed from our hands.
1t is now an established part of the
legislation of the country. Its useful
ness, its effects, will disclose them
selves in experience. What chiefly
strikes us now, as we look about us
during these closing days of a 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 with
out partisan feeling, like men who
have forgotten everything but a com
mon duty and the fact that we are
representatives of 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.
Europe Will Need Our Help.
War has interrupted the means of
trade not only but also the processes
of production. In Europe it is destroy
ing men and resources wholesale and
upon a scale unprecedented and ap-
palling. There is reason to fear that
the time is near, if it be not already
at hand, when several of the coun-
tries of Europe will find it difficult 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 our
help and our manifold services as they
have never needed them before; and
ready than we have ever been.
ass 1t is Of equal consequence that the
nations whom Europe has usually sup
piled with innumerable articles of
manufacture and commerce of which
they are in constant need and without
which their economic development
halts and stands still can now get only
a small part of what they formerly i'm
ported and eagerly look to us to supply
their all but empty markets. This is
particularly true Of our own neighbors,
the states, great and small, of Central
and South America. Their lines of
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. | do not stop to
inquire why, or to make any comment
on probable causes. What interests us
just now is not the explanation, but
the fact, and our duty and opportunity
in the presence of it. Here are mar
kets which we must supply, and we
must find the means of action. The
United States, this great people for
whom we speak and act, should be
ready, as never before, to serve itself
and to serve mankind; ready with its
resources, its energies, it's forces of
production, and its means of distribu-
tion.
We Need Ships.
1t is very practical matter, Ieat-
ter of ways and means. We have Che
resources, but are we fully ready to
use then? And if we can make retdy
what We have, have we the means at
hand to distribute It? We are not fully
ready; neither have we the means of
distribution. We are willing, but we
are not fully able. We have the wish
to serve and to serve greatly, gener-
ously; but we are not prepared as We
should be. We are not ready to mo-