The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1915-11-11


tons defense which will be submit
ted to congress, a programme which
includes the raising of reserve
army of 100000 citizen soldiers, to
serve three years in the army and re-
main three years in reserve, as sug-
gested by Secretary of War Daniels.
The president approves the plans
of Secretary Garrison of the navy de-
partment. They call for a five-year
building programme at cost of
$5O0,O00,O00. They propose fifteen to
twenty ships of the dreadnaught and
battle cruiser type, nearly 100 new
submarines, several swift scout
cruisers, seventy torpedo boat de-
stroyers, proportionate number of
hospital and supply ships, an ade-
quate fleet of aeroplanes and diri-
gibles.
He asserts that the United States
will never take another foot of soil
by conquest and warned his hearers
that a grave peril confronted the ma
tion through the fact that the Europ-
can nations have placed force above
all other considerations in determin-
ing rights.
Willing to Be Mediator.
In referring to Americas mission,
peace and good will, it is believed the
president gave hint of his willing
ness to act as mediator between the
warning nations.
II warmly felicitate the club upon
the completion of fifty years of sue
cessful and interesting life," said
the president in beginning his
speech. "Club life may be made to
mean a great deal to those who know
how to use it. I have no doubt that
to a great many of you has come
genuine stimulation in the associa-
lions 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 I have not come to speak
wholly of that, for there are others
of your own members who can speak
of the club with knowledge and an
intelligence which no one can have
who has not been intimately associ-
ated with 1t. Men band themselves
together for the sake of the associ-
aticn no doubt, but for something
greater and deeper than that-be-
caEse they are conscious of common
interests lying outside their business
occupations, because they are mem
bers of the same community and in
frequent intercourse find mutual
stimulation and real 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 in
terests of the community or of the
nation.
World Disturbed by Disaster.
"A year and half ago our
thought would have been almost to-
gether of great domestic questions.
They are many and of vital conse-
quences. We must and shall address
ourselves to their solution with dill
gence, firmness and self possession,
Notwithstanding we find ourselves in
the midst of the world disturbed by
great disaster and ablaze with ter
rible war, but our thought is now in
evitably of new things about which
formerly we gave ourselves little
concern.
"We are thinking 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 po-
litical relations; our duties as an in
dividual and independent force in
the world to ourselves, our neigh
bors, 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 OBJ
tain it, the liberty of men and of peo-
ples-of men to choose their own
lives and of peoples to choose their
own allegiance. Our ambition, also,
all the world has knowledge of it.
It is not only to be free and prosper
GUS ourselves, but also to be the
friend and thoughtful partisan of
those who are free, or who desire
freedom the world over"
No Conquest by America.
Reiterating his oft-repeated state.
ment that he hoped America would
never take another foot of ground by
conquest, the president continued:
"If we have had aggressive pur-
posses and covetous ambitions, they
were the fruit of our thoughtless
youth as a nation and we have put
them aside. We shall, confidently
believe, never again will take anoth-
er foot of territory by conquest. We
shall never in any circumstances
seek to make an independent people
subject to our dominion; because we
believe, We passionately believe, in
the right of every people to choose
their own allegiance and be free of
masters altogether.
"For ourselves we wish nothing
but the full liberty of self-develop-
ment; and with ourselves in this
greater matter we associate all the
people of our own hemisphere. We
wish not only for the United States,
but for them, the fullest freedom of
independent growth and of action,
for we know that throughout this
hemisphere the same aspirations are
everywhere being worked out, under
divers conditions, but with the same
impulse and ultimate object.
'.All this is very clear to US and
will cnnfidontlv Dredict become