The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-12-12
6. 0. P. SEES
 IN HERRICK MAN FOR PRESIDENCY Depend Upon Ohio Man to Combat Strength of Will
 son in South and West GARDNER HAS HARD TIME WITH LINGO CRY News of the National Capital
 Gathered by The Far
 mer Correspondent

m0r COTTeSPOuueuV
 Washington, Dec. 10.-Former Am bassador Myron T. Herrick who has just acquitted himself so splendidly in France and returned to this coun- try, is regarded here to-day as the strongest Republican presidential nominee timber in sight. MT. Herrick halls from Ohio where they have reared many Presidents and geo graphical location counts great deal The Republican party, being sectional party and not a National party like the Democratic party is believed to regard it necessary to se- 1ect a candidate from a state in the Middle West as the popularity of President Wilson is said to be un- bounded in the West, and that an Eastern candidate would be easily beaten by the Presidential he were the candidate of his party for re-elec- ton. It was the former Republican West that gave the Democrats their majority in the House for the 64th Congress and increased the Demo cratic representation in the Senate so that body will be Democratic for sew eraI years to come. The c1ose op- servers says that if Roosevelt is made the Republican nominee in 1916, or or any other Eastern candidate is found, Wilson will hold his own in. the Eastern States and simply sweep the West and South, increasing the victory won by the Democrats in the Nation in the last Congressional cleo tions.
 Representative Gussie Gardner. the millionaire son-in-laW of Senator Lodge has undoubtedly bitten off more than he can chew when he commenced his cry about the weak
 
 of the last Congressional elections, and while the nerves of the American people were on edge because of the great war in Europe.
 MT Gardner intended to show up the Democratic administration at time when it was almost impossible to combat his statements with the truth.
 Hundreds of millions of dollars were appropriated by Congress un- der the Taft and Roosevelt adninis- trations for the purpose of building up the navy and the army. The Democrats have continued to. make the appropriations and were charg- ed with extrayagance by the RepubI- Scanss but no Democrat ever raised his voice against the way that the Republican administrations had spent their money until MT. Gardner began ko tell what we did not have for de- fense, and what our navy could not do.
 Representative Gardner and Sena- tor Lodge wanted the situation inves- tigated by a commission of nine per sons. Senator Lewis of Illinois has settled the question by proposing that the army and navy committees of both houses conduct an investigation and see what hats been done with the money. And the Lewis proposal will probably prevail
 hY1c F1affcrrae, f57a n wv sS.$ half as bad shape as MT. Gardner says that it is even though his own party did have the spending of the money. Admiral Frank Friday Fletcher says that the American na- wy is prepared to meet any navy in the world except the entire British navy at one time. Our coast de- fences plus the use of mines he says, ssare adequate to protect us.'' and seven New York with the use of mines is safe from an invading fleet Z The army, everyone knows, is small bottle itself up with its coast fortifI- cations and navy, and train an army in a few months time.
 MT. Gardner and the rest of the jingoes have never stopped to think that there are several hundred thou sand men who are subject to bear arms in this country who have been trained in the armies of Europe The 1 175yOO0 Germans who swelled the ranks of the Union Army in the Civil War were almost in the whole men who had been trained in Germany. There are hordes Of naturafized Americans here to-day who have been trained in the armies of Russia, Austria, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, | Germany, England, France, and Hun up a Yankee 1andstrums or second 1 line of defence that would be the greatest army for efficiency that the world has ever seen.
 No one knows the strength of what President Wilson calls our Citizen ry,'' but mo one except the jingoes doubts that we have the strength if we have to show it, and an invading I army would have to show something else besides it's ability to occupy 2 plot of ground the size of the state of l Maryland. AsSe
 ssLet any of the foregoing generals take an army of 50O,000 men and try l to move it on American soil over the same route that Sherman chased Hood in 1865, and then make the trip 1 from Savannah to Richmond, and I see how many of the invaders will l finish the march said one, old soldier l who had been reading some of the 1 jingo arguments about an invading l army ttWhy, that would be differ 1 ent kind of a war over there in Eu- rope IT they naG0 room to fttoNS aEOuHo 1 in, and both armies had to move their bases of supplies with then.'' 1 Anyway we are going to find out l what we would be able to do if the in lVader should come and the reso1u- ton of Senator Lewis will require the 1 bureau officers of the Army and Ma. wy to show what was done with the 1 expenditure under Republican rule l with the result that stae Democratic Administration finds itself upon en- tering into power unprepared with itt 1 Army and Navy Between the out.
 going of President Cleveland wht
 built up the first fleet of the moderf
 navy, ''The White Squadron and
 the incoming of President Wilson, tn,
 sum spent for the army and the navy
 was $1,2o0, ,0oo, 900, a sum that shou1C
 have given us something in the wa,