Mexico Missouri message. (Mexico, Audrain County, Mo.) 1899-1918, 1915-11-11
PRESIDENT TELLS
PLAN OF DEFENSE
Summarizes His Program in a
Speech Before the Man
haitian Club.
NATION MUST BE PREPARED
Increase Of Army, Training Of Citizen
ny and More Rapid Building Up Of
Navy--Rebuke for Hyphen.
ated Americans.

ated Americans.
New York, Nov. 5.-Setting forth
his ideas of what should be done in
the way of national military prepared
ness, President Wilson last night in an
address at the fiftieth anniversary din
ner of the Manhattan club asked for
support for the administrator pro-
gram.
Our ambition, said Mr.. Wilson, is
not only to be free and prosperous
ourselves, but also to be the friend
and thoughtful partisan of those who
are free or who desire freedom the
world over. We shall, he declared he
believed, never again take another
foot of territory by conquest or seek
to make an Independent people sub
ject to our dominion. Because of the
great European conflict, said the pres
ident, from one end of our own dear
country to the other men are asking
one another what our own force Is,
how far we are prepared to maintain
ourselves against any interference
with our action or development"
Though the mission of America in
the world is essentially a mission of
peace and good will among men. de-
clared Mr. Wilson, we feel justified in
preparing ourselves to vindicate our
right to Independent and unmolested
action by making the force that is in
US ready for assertion.
Plans for the Army.
And we know" continued the pres
Ident, chat we can do this in a way
that will be itself an illustration of the
American spirit. In accordance with
our American traditions we want and
shall work for only an army adequate
to the constant and legitimate uses of
times of international peace. But we
do want to feel that there is a great
body of citizens who have received at
least the most rudimentary and neces-
sary forms of military training; that
they will be ready to form themselves
into fighting force at the call of the
nation; and that the nation has the
munitions and supplies with which to
equip them without delay should 1t be
necessary to call them into action.
We wish to supply them with the
training they need, and we think we
! can do so without calling them at any
! time too long away from their civilian
| pursuits.
at is with this idea, with this con.
! ception in mind that the plans have
been made which it will be my privi-
lege to lay before the congress at its
next session. That plan calls for only
such an increase in the regular army
of the United States as experience has
proved to be required for the perform
ance of the necessary duties of the
army in the Philippines, in Hawaii, in
Porto Rico, upon the borders of the
United States, at the coast fortif1ca
tions, and at the military posts of the
interior. For the rest, it calls for the
training within the next three years
of force of 100000 citizen soldiers tt
be raised in annual contingents of 1873.
600, who would be asked to enlist fol
three years with the colors and three
years on furlough, but who during
their three years of enlistment will
the colors would not be organized al
a standing force but would be expect
ed merely to undergo intensive train
ing for very brief period of eacl
year. Their training would take plae,
in immediate association with the OF
ganized units of the regular army. l
would have no touch of the amateu
about It, neither would 1t exact of tn
volunteers more than they could Civ
in any one year from their civilian
pursuits.
"And none of this would be done 4
such a way as in the slightest degre
to supersede or subordinate our pref
ent serviceable and efficient Nationa
Guard On the contrary. the Natione
Guard itself would be used as a par
of the fundamentally by which trair
ing would be given the citizens VIII
enlisted under the new conditions, an
should hope and expect that the lei
islation by which all this would be a
complished would put the Nations
Guard itself upon a better and NOR
permanent footing than it has eve
been before.
) For Development Of the Navy.
, 1T has been American policy tin
( ont of mind to look to the navy {
l the first and chief line of defens
The navy Of the United States is q
ready very great and efficient fore
Not rapidly. but slowly, with caref
: attention, our naval force has bee
= developed until the navy Of the Unite
a States stands recognized as one of Il
o most efficient and notable of the mo