The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1915-07-30
URGES UNIVERSAL
MILITARY SERVICE
ROOSEVELT IN SAN FRANCISCO,
SPEAKS DERIsIvELY OF "PRo-
FEsSIoNAL PAcIFISTs."
PRICE OF UNPREPAREDNEsS
Colonel Declares Some Day United
States May Have to Pay on Ten
fold Greater Scale Same Price
Belgium Paid.

San Francisco, July 23-Theodore
Roosevelt delivered two addresses al
the Panama-Pacific exposition, one on
military preparedness which was Wig
orous in tone, and the other a brief
personal talk to the men onsthe line. y
soldiers, sailors and marines, at the
Enlisted Mems club.
He held both willingness and abil-
1ty to be soldiers to be desirable at
tributes of good citizens He told the
enlisted men: "A man afraid to fight
is not MT to VOTE and "a mother who
is not willing to raise her boy to be a
soldier is not fit for citizenship"
Before the address at the clubhouse
he planted poplar tree, following the
custom of prominent persons partici-
patins in the exercises at the exposi-
ton.
war and Peace was the topic of
Colonel Roosevelt's main address.
big audience gathered in the
Court OF the Universe to hear him.
He spoke from a high platform that
made him visible to all in the great
court.
For Universal Military Service.
Il firmly believe that there should
be universal military service for our
young men on the Swiss model" said
the former president at one point in
hie>speech
AT another. referring to the price
which Belgium had paid because of
her unpreparedness, he said
Some day or other it may well be
that we shall have to pay on tenfold
greater scale the same price for ex-
actly the same reasons; and, if such
should be the case, remember, my fell
low countrymen, that whereas the
case of the Belgians excited warm
sympathy our misfortunes would ex-
cite nothing but scorn and contempt,
for a rich, powerful, boastful people
invited the ridicule of all mankind if.
whether from sheer Stiffness and short |
sightedness or from soft timidity. or
from gross and greedy devotion to
the material benefits of the moment, it
fails to prepare itself to defend it's
own rights with its own strength"
China Too Proud to Fight.
Colonel Roosevelt spoke derisively
of "elocution as substitute for ac-
tion," and in his arraignment of those
who stood in the way of preparedness
for war he said the professional paci-
fists, the peace-at-any-price non-resist-
ance, universal arbitration people are
seeking to Chinafy this country-to re-
duce it to the level of impotence to
which old China sank" The average
Chinaman, he said, had taken the view
that China was too proud to fight"
and lin practice made evident his
hearty approval of that abject pacifist
song, I Didn't Bring Up My Boy to Be
/ Soldier"
With all of his eld-time vigor, Col
onel Roosevelt denounced the all-in
,lusive arbitration treaties, which the
United States had entered into and
said that in declining to apply their
principle in the case of the Lusitania
here had been evidence of national
or else an utter reckless
less of folly in making promises. 1t .
vas necessary to repudiate the prin- !.
iple in the Lusitania case, the col
mel agreed, but "a shameful thing to
ave put ourselves in such a position !
hat it had to be repudiated''
The United States had treated The
Hague conventions as mere scraps
f paper he said, when the demand :
vas made to show that our sigma
1ros meant Somethinp,,
n