The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1915-11-05
OF HIS CAMPAIGN FOR NATION.
AL DEFENSE WHICH WILL BE
LAID BEFORE CONGRESS
MUST Be PREPARED
Sht Not for War - "Let Il Be For
Defense Only - We Must Be Free
and Prosperous-Put Aside Aqress.
i've Purposes"

New York, Nov. 5.--m aa address
delivered last night at the nftieth
anniversary dinner of the Manhattan
club in New York City, President
Wilson outlined his national defense
program, which will be submitted TO
congress-
The address In full follows:
MI. Toastmaster and Gentlemen:
warmly felicitate the club upon
the completion of fifty years of suc-
cessful and interesting life. Club
Iife may be made to mean n great
deal to those who know how to use
II. | have no doubt that 70 n crent
many OF you has come genuine stimu-
lation in the associations of this
place and that as the years have
multiplied you have seen more and
more the useful ends which may be
served by organizations of this sort.
But | have not come to speak
wholly of that for there are others
or your own members who can sneak
OF the club with a knowledge and an
Intelligence which no one can have
who bas not been Intimately associ-
ated with It, Men band themselves
together for the sake of the associa-
tlon, no doubt but also for something
greater and deeper than that.-,be-
cause they are conscious of common
interests lying outside their business
occupations, because they are mem
Ders OF the same community and in
frequent intercourse find mutual
stimulation and roal maximum of
vitality and power. | shall assume
that here around the dinner table
on this memorial occasion our talk
should properly turn to the wide and
common interests which are most in
our thoughts, whether they be the
interests of the community or of the
nation.
year and a half ago our thought
would have been almost altogether of
great domestic questions. They are
many and of vital consequence. We
must and shall address ourselves to
their solution with diligence, firmness
and self-possession, Notwithstanding
we find ourselves in the midst of
world disturbed by great disaster
and ablaze with terrible war; but
our thought is now inevitably OF new
things obout which formerly we gave
ourselves little concern. We are
now chiefly of our relations
with the rest of the world,-not our
commercial relations,-about those
we have thought and planned always,
but about our political relations,
our duties as an individual and indie.
pendent force in the world to our
selves, our neighbors, and the world
Itself.
Our principles are well known It
Is not necessary to avow them again.
We believe in political liberty and
founded our great government to
obtain It, the liberty Of men and of
men to choose their own
ives and Of peoples to choose their
)wn allegiance. Our ambition. also.
III the world has knowledge Of. 1t
s not only to be free and prosperous
ourselves, but also to be the friend
md thoughtful partisan of those who
ne free or who desire freedom the
world over. If We have had aggress-
We purposes and coyetous ambitions,
hey we're the fruit Of our thought
ass youth as a nation and we have
ut them aside. We shall, conf
emily believe, never again take an
ther foot of territory by conquest.
We shall never in any circumstances
eek to make an independent people
ubject to our dominion; because we
elieve, we passionately believe. in
he right Of every people to choose
heir own allegiance and be free
lasters altogether. For ourselves
re wish nothing but the full liberty
( self-development; and with our
elves in this great matter We asso-