The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1915-12-17
THE SALIENT POINTS OF
PRESIDENTS MESSAGE
Patriotism and Preparedness the
Leading Themes.

ACNuAAA6 AASAASS'
The program includes the army
and navy plans; merchant marine;
rural credit law; the Philippine
and Porto Rico bills, which failed OF
final passage at the last session; con-
servation legislation; law giving
federal aid to industrial and voca-
tional education; and the creation OF
a commission to inquire into the
transportation problem.
President Wilson urges an enlarg-
ed army and more effective navy,
and insists that the money to pay for
this protection shall be raised by in
ternal taxation. He opposes bond is
sues, and advocates "pay-as-you-
go" policy, "in the interests OF our
selves and of posterity." He also
asks for a merchant marine, declar-
ing that the country is in need OF
ships of peace.
War, the President declared, was
regarded by the United States merely
as a means of asserting the rights OF
a people against aggression, and that
Eve are as fiercely jealous of CO
ercive or dictatorial power within
our own nation as from aggression
from without" He said the nation
would not maintain standing army
except for uses which are as neces-
sary in times of peace as in times or
war, but that the country did be-
lieve in body of free citizens ready
and sufficient to take care of them
selves and of the government.
The President said there was no
reason to hope that no question in
controversy between this and other
governments would lead to any Sc
rious breach of amicable relations,
and that he was sorry to say that
the gravest threats against national
peace and safety had been uttered
within the country's own borders.
"There are citizens of the United
States, | blush to admit, he de-
clared, "born under other flags but
welcomed anderson generous nat
uraliZation laws to the full freedom
and opportunity of America, who
have poured the poison of disloyalty
into the very arteries of our national
| life: who have sought to bring the
authority and good name of our gov
@ernment into contempt, to destroy
our industries wherever they thought
it effective for their vindictive pur-
poses, to strike at them and to debase
our politics to the uses Of foreign in
trigue.' -.
+ No federal laws exist to meet this
situation, said Mr.. Wilson, because
such a thing would have seemed in
credible in the past 'Such crea-
lures of passion, disloyalty and an
archy," he added, must be crushed
out. They are not many but they are
infinitely malignment and the hand
of our power should close over them
at once"
Proposing that the new bills should
be paid by internal taxation, the
President suggested that by lowering
the present limits of income eXemp-
ton and the figure at which the suH-
tax is imposed, and by increasing
step by step thruout the present
graduation, the surtax itself, income
taxes as at present apportioned
would yield sums sufficient to bal
ance the books Of the treasury at
the end of the fiscal year 1917 with
out anywhere making the burden un-
reasonably heavy. He added that
there were many additional sources
of revenue which justly could be re-
sorted to without hampering the in
dustries of the country or putting
any too great charge upon individual
expenditure. He estimated that l
per cent tax per gallon ON gasoline
and naptha would yield $10,000,000;
tax Of SO cents per horsepower on
automobiles and internal explosion
tengines, SIS, 100000; stamp tax on
bank checks, probably $1S,0OO,OoO,
and tax Of SO per cent per ton on
Fabricated. iron and steel, probably
$1O,OOO,OO0.