South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-12-07
Declares That II Full Nav
Program Is Carried Out
We VIII Have a Fleet For
Defense That VIII 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 10 this whole matter Of drawing
the Americas together in bonds of hon.
orable partnership and mutual advan-
tage because of the economic readjust-
ments which the world must inevitably
witness within the next generation,
when peace shall have at last resumed
its healthfu tasks. In the perform
ance OF these tasks believe the Amer
icas TO be destined 10 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
4. the right light in which to set forth
the particular matter that lies at the
very front of my whole thought as 1
address you today. 1 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 I'M
censored thought that quickens IT.
Conquest and dominion are not In our
reckoning or agreeable to our princi-
Piles. But just because we demand UNI
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 eur
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 n 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
domination 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 assertin- 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 n standing 2 my eX-
cept for uses which are as cessary
in times of peace as in tim of war,
and we shall always see that our
military peace eStabiI an is no
larger than is actually ltinuous-
" needed for the uses OF N which
no enemies move again But we
do believe in n body &c citizens
ready and sufficient to e care Of
themselves and Of the ve.nments
which they have set up TO serve them.
In our constitutions themselves we
have commanded that the right Of
the people 10 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
nation to take care of itself, as the
farmers rose at Lexington.