The Democratic banner. (Mt. Vernon, Ohio) 1898-192?, 1915-12-10
Declares That Il Full Navy
Program Is Carried Out
We viii Have a Fleet For
Defense That Will Be
Fitted TO Our Needs and
Worthy Of Our Traditions.
Greatest Danger to Country
Comes From Within Our
Borders.

Of how necessary it is that we should
hasten their building.
There is, venture to point out, an
especial significance just now attach
ing to this whole matter Of drawing
the Americas together in bonds of hon.
orable partnership and mutual advan-
tage because of the economic readtust-
ments which the world must inevitably
witness within the next generation,
when peace shall have at last resumed
its healthful tasks. In the perform
ance of these tasks I believe the Amer
icas to be destined to play their parts
together. | am interested to fix your
attention on this prospect now because
unless you take it within your view
and permit the full significance Of it to
command your thought l cannot find
the right light in which to set forth
the particular matter that lies at the
very front of my whole thought as
address you today. / mean national
defense.
No one who really cOmprehends the
spirit Of the great people for whom we
are appointed to speak can fail to per-
ceive that their passion is for peace,
their genius best displayed in the prac-
tice of the arts of peace. Great democ-
racies are not belligerent. They do not
seek or desire war. Their thought is
Of individual liberty and of the free
labor that supports life and the un-
censored thought that quickens it.
Conquest and dominion are not In our
reckoning or agreeable to our princi-
pies. But just because we demand un-
mOlested development and the undis-
turbed government of our own lives
upon our own principles of right and
liberty, we resent, from whatever
quarter it may come, the aggression we
ourselves will not practice. We insist
upon security in prosecuting our self
chosen lines of national development.
We do more than that. We demand it
also for others. We do not confine our
enthusiasm for individual liberty and
free national development to the Incl
dents and movements Of affairs which
affect only ourselves. We feel it wher-
ever there is people that tries to walk
in these difficult paths Of independence
and right. From the first we have
made common cause with all partisans
of liberty on this side the sea and have
deemed it as important that our neigh
bOrs should be free from all outside
dOminati ton as that we ourselves should
be; have set America aside as whole
for the uses Of independent nations and
political freemen.
Out of such thoughts grow all our
policies. We regard war merely as a
means of asserting the rights of peo-
pie against aggression. And we are
as fiercely jealous of coercive or dicta-
tOrial power within our own nation
as Of aggression from without. We
will not maintain standing army eX-
cept for uses which are as necessary
in times of peace as in times of war.
and we shall always see to it that our
peace establishment is no
larger than is actually and continuous
ly needed for the uses Of days in which
no enemies move against us. But we
do believe in body of free citizens
ready and sufficient to take care of
themselves and of the governments
which they have set up to serve them.
In our constitutions themselves we
have commanded that 'the right of
the people to keep and bear arms shall
not be infringed," and our confidence
has been that our safety in times of
danger would lie in the rising Of the
hation to take care of itself. as the
farmers rose at Lexington.