The Tabor independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1913-19??, 1914-12-10
PRESIDENT DISCUSSES
MILITARY STRENGTH
Wilson's Message to Congress
Says Large Standing Army
Is Not Needed.

/ Washington Special: President will
sons message to congress was as fol-
/ lows:
Gentlemen Of the Congress:
The session upon which you are now
entering will be the closing session of the
| Sixty-third congress-, a congress, VEN
ture TO say, which will long be remem-
/ bered for the great body of thoughtful
and constructive work which II has done.
In loyal response to the thought and
needs Of the country. I should like in
and try to make adequate assessment Of
IL; but no doubt we stand too near the
work that has been done and are our
selves too much part of IL to play the part
i OF historians toward IL.
Moreover. our thoughts are now more
OF the future than of the past. While
we nave worked at our tasks of peace
| the circumstances of the whole age have
Deen altered by war. What we have done
f9T our own land and our own people. we
Gid with the best that was in US, whether
OF character or of intelligence. with sober
| enthusiasm and a confidence in the prin-
ciples upon which we were acting which
sustained us at every step of the difficult
undertaking; but IL is done. 1t has
passed from our hands. 1t Is now an
established part Of the legislation of the
| country. Its usefulness, its effects will
disclose themselves in experience. What
| chiefly strikes US now, as we look about
us during, these closing days of year
which viii 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
saet that we are rrepresentatives Of a
but OF what America owes to herself
and to all mankind in such circumstances
as these upon which we look amazed
| and anxious. ...- .A
Must Help Europe.
War has interrupted the means of trade
not only, but also the processes of pro-
| duction. In Europe IL Is destroying men
| and resources wholesale and upon a scale
unprecedented and appalling. There is
reason to fear that the time Is near, IL
II be not already at hand, when sew
II difficult to do for their people what
| they have hitherto been always easily
able to do-many essential and funda-
| need our 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.
1t Is OF equal consequence that the
nations whom Europe has usually sup
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 only small part of
look to us to supply their all but empty
markets This is particularly true of our
own neighbors, the states, great and
Their lines of trade have hitherto run
chiefly athwart the seas not to our ports,
but to the ports of Great Britain and OF
stop to inquire why, or to make any
comment on probable causes. What in
terests us just now is not the explana-
| ton but the fact. and our duty and OPP
portunity in the presence of it. Here are
| markets which we must supply, and we
must find the means OF action. The
we speak and act should be ready, as
never before, to serve itself and to serve
Itself and to serve mankind; ready with
It's resources, its energies, II forces OF
production and its means Of distribu-
ton.
Urges Merchant Marine.
1t Is very practical matter, a mat
| ter of ways and means. We have the
them? And, If we can make ready what
| We have, nave we the means at hand
to distribute butte 1T? We are not fully ready;
| ton. We are willing, but we are not full
| ly able We have the wish to serve
and to serve greatly, generously; but
We are not ready to mobilize our re-
| sources at once. We are not prepared
| to use them Immediately and at their
best, without delay and without waste.
To sepak plainly, we have grossly erred
| In the way in which we have stunted
and hindered the development of our mer-
chant marine, And now, when we need
| ships, we have not got them. We have
year after year debated without end or
conclusion, the best policy to pursue with
regard to the use of the ores and for
| ests and water powers of our national do
main in the rich states of the west, when
we should have acted; and they are still
| them, the door shut fast at which thou
sands OF vigorous men, full of initiative,
| knock DANGEROUSLY for admittance. The
outside the national domain also, even
| the eastern states, where We have worked
and, planned for generations, is still not
We won't; because the laws we have
made do not intelligently balance en-
couragement against restraint. We with
have come to ask you to remedy and
| correct these mistakes and omissions.
| even at this short session of q congress
which would certainly seem to have done
| all the work that could reasonably be
expected OF it. The time and the cir
| cumstances are extraordinary, and so
/ must our efforts be also.
| Conservation Measures.
Fortunately. two great measures finely
| conceived, the one to unlock, with proper
| safeguards, the resources OF the national
domain. the other to encourage the use of
! tie navigable waters outside that domain
for the generation of power, have already
passed the House of Representatives and
| are ready for immediate consideration and
action by the Senate. With the deepest
| In them both we turn our backs upon
| hesitation and makeshift and formulate
1 genuine policy or use and conservation
/ In the best sense of those words. We owe
| the one measure not only to the people
| Of that great country for whose free and
/ systematic development. as IL seems to
me, our legislation has done so little, but
/ also to the people of the nation as
| whole; and we as clearly owe the other
| In fulfillment OF our repeated promises
that the water power OF the country
| should In fact as well as in name be put
/ ut the disposal Of great industries which
can make economical and profitable use of
| It. the right Of the public being adequately
| guarded the while. and monopoly In the
4 use prevented. To have begun such meas
| ures and not completed them would in
| deed mar the record OF this great con-
gress very seriously. l hope and conf
IDENTIFY believe that they will be COM
pleted. 81"
| And there is another great piece of
| legislation which awaits and should re-
| ceive the sanction of the Senate: I mean
/ the bill which gives a larger measure of
| Belf-government to the people of the Phil
/ ippines. How better, in this time of anx-
/ ious questioning and perplexed policy,
/ could we show our confidence in the prin-
| ciples of liberty, as the source as we'll as
l the expression of life, how better could
1 we demonstrate our own self-possession
/ and steadfastness In the courses of JUS
/ tice and disinterestedness than by thus 60
/ ing calmly forward to fulfill our promises
| to dependent people, who will now look
more anxiOusly than ever to soc uhethar