The Green Forest tribune., 1915-12-10
President Wilson Pleads for Pre- paredness Against Foes
 Abroad and Within.
MESSAGE READ 10 CONGRESS
Laraer Army and Navy Urged Trained Citizenry the Nations Greatest Defense - DisIoyal Acts of Foreign-5orn Citi- zens Scored-No Fear
 cf War.

jrAssfr4g you on the state of the Union the war of nations on the other side of the sea, which had then only begun to disclose its portentOuS proportions, has extended it's threatening and sinister scope until it has swept within it's flame some portion of every quarter of the globe. not excepting our hemisphere has altered the whole face of international affairs, and nov presents a prospect of Feorganiza- ton and reconstruction such as states men and peoples have never been called upon to attempt before
 We have stood apart, studiously neutral. Ii was our manifest duty to do so In the day of readjustment and recupera- ton we earnestly hope and believe that we can be os infinite service.
 In this neutrality, to which they were pidden not only by their separate life and their habitual detachment from the poIl- tics of Europe but also by a clear per ception of international duty, the states of America have become conscious of hew and more vital community of inter est and moral partnership in affairs, more clearly conscious of the many common sympathies and interests and duties which bid them stand together.
 We have been put to the test in the case of Mexico, and we have stood the test. Whether We have benefited Mexico by the course we have pursued remains to be seen. Her fortunes are in her own hands. But we have at least proved that We will not take advantage of her in her distress and undertake to impose upon her an order and government of our own choosing.
 We will aid and befriend Mexico, but we will not coerce her; and our course with regard to her ought to be sufficient proof to all America that we seek no po- htical suzerainty or selfish control
 Not Hostile Rivals.
 The moral is, that the states of Amer lea are not hostile rivals, but cooper ating friends. and that their growing sense of community of interest, alike in matters political and in matters eeonom- ic, is likely to give them a new signif- canoe as factors in international affairs and in the political history of the world. 1t presents them in a very deep and true sense unit in world affairs, spir- ttual partners, standing together because thi3Eing togetht Jict with common athies.esa t4-e-u6aall aeals. -sepaEat-. ed, they 1are subject to all the cross cur rents of the confused politics of a world of hostile rivalries; united in spirit and purpose they cannot be disappointed of their peaceful destiny.
 This is Pan-Amercanism. It has none of the spirit of empire in it. It is the ern- bodiment. the effectual embodiment, of the spirit of law and independence and liberty and mutual service
 There is, venture to point out, an espe- cial significance just now attaching to this whole matter of drawing the Amer icas together in bonds of honorable part nership and mutual advantage because of the economic readjustments which the world must inevitably witness within the next generation, when peace shall have at last resumed its healthful tasks. In the performance of these tasks l believe the Americas to be destined to play their Ia [ into tod EN your attention on this prospect now be- cause unless you take 1t 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 I ad- dress you today I mean national de- fense.
 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 practice of the arts of peace, Great demoeracies are not belligerent. They do not seek or de- sire war. Their thought is Of individual liberty and of the free labor that supports life and the uncensored thought that gutckens 1t. Conquest and dominion are not in our reckoning, or agreeable to our principles. But just because we demand At'N''S4SStSA AGFSl bpl4iGIlt ana the unQlS- turbed government of our own lives upon our own principles of right and liberty We resent, from whatever quarter il may come, the aggression we ourselves will not practice. We insist upon security in prosecuting eur self~chosen lines of na- nonai deVetgpment We do more than that We demand it also for others. We oo not coafine our enthusiasm for indi- ytdual liberty and free national develop ment to the incidents and movements of arairs which affect only ourselves We feel 1t wherever there is a people that tries to walk in these difficult paths of independence and right From fine first we have made common cause with all partisans of liberty on this side of the sea, and have deemed 1t as important that our neighbors should be free from all outside domination as that we our serves should be; have set America aside as whole for the uses of independent nations and political freemen
 Might to Maintain Riqht.
 Out of such thoughts grow all our Doli- cles. We regard war merely as a means Of asserting the rights of a people against aggression And we are as fercely 1eal- ous or coercive or dictatorial power with In our own nation as of aggression from without We will not maintain stand Ing army except for uses which are as necessary in times of peace as in times
 
 that our military peace establtshrnent is no longer than is actually and continuous iy needed for the uses of days in which no enemies move against us. But we oo believe in a body of free citizens ready and sufficient to take care of themselves ana or the governments which they have set up to serve them. In our constitutions themselves We have commanded that "the IiSht or the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," and our commence has been that our safety in umes of danger would lie in the rising of the nation to take care of itself. as the tarmers rose at Lexington.
 But war has never been a mere matter or men and guns. It is a thing of dtsci phned might. If our citizens are ever to Hsht enectively upon sudden summons, they must know how modern fighting is oone, and what to do when the summons comes to render themselves immediately available and immediately effective. And