The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1915-11-10
PREPARE TO OFFEND
PRESIDENT OPENS FIGHT In DE-
FENSE PROGRAM
FORCE Being ASSERTED

President Talks Of Policy of the Unit
ed States-Means no Aggression
and Bigger Armed Forces are t.
Protect Hemisphere in Developing
According to Their Own Decisions
President Wilson opened the ad
ministration campaign for its ma
tional defense program in a compre'
hensive and carefully prepared ad
dress delivered in New York Thurs.
day night at the Manhattan club ban
quet.
The president was received with
enthusiastic applause as he entered
the banquet hall and during his ad-
dress. The hall was decorated with
American flags and filed even to the
galleries with Democrats happy over
their victory on Tuesday in New
York city. When the president arose
to speak, every one got up and ap-
plauded until he was forced to signal
for quiet.
The president said:
''Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen:
II warmly felicitate the club upon
the completion Of so years Of sue
cessful and interesting life. Club
life may be made to mean a great
deal to those who know how to use
it. I have no doubt that to great
many of you has come genuine slim
ulation in the association Of this
place and that as the years have null
| tiplied 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 a knowledge and an
intelligence which no one can have
who has not been intimately associat-
ed with it.. Men band themselves to-
gether for the sake Of the association
nodoubt, 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
bers Of the same community and IN
frequent intercourse find mutual
stimulation and a 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
interests of the community or OF the
nation.
"a year and a half ago our
thought would have been almost al
together OF great domestic questions.
They are many and Of vital conse-
ouence. We must and shall address
ourselves to their solution with dill
gence, frmness and self-possession,
notwithstanding We find ourselves in
the midst of world disturbed by
great disaster and ablaZe with terri
Bile war; but our thought is now il
evitably of new things about which
formerly we gave ourselves little con-
cern.
1--WE are thinking now chiefly with
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 nelghbors,
and the world itself.
"Our principles are well known. 1t
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
oeopIes-of men to choose their own
lives and Of peoples to choose their
own allegiance.
"Our ambition, also, all the world
has knowledge Of. 1t is not only to
be free and prosperous ourselves, but
also to be the friend and thoughtful
partisan of those who are free or VINO
desire freedom the world over. II
we have had aggressive purposes and
covetous ambitions, they were the
fruit Of our thoughtless youth as a
nation and we have put them aside.
I'VE shall, confidently believe,
never again take another foot Of ter
ritory 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 al
Ieciance and be free Of masters alto
gether.
"For ourselves we wish nothing
but the full liberty Of self-govern-
ment; and with ourselves in this
great matter we associate all the peo'
ples 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
diverse conditions but with the same
impulse and ultimate object.
"All this is very clear to US and
will, I confidently predict, become
more and more clear to the whole
world as the great processes OF the
future unfold themselves. 1t is with
a full consciousness of such princi-
pies and such ambitions that we are
asking ourselves at the present time
what our duty is with regard to the
armed force of the nation. Within
a wear we have witnessed what we
did not believe possible, great
European conflict involving many OF
the greatest nations Of the world.
"The Influences of great war ars
everywhere in the air. All Europe Is
embattled. Force everywhere speak:
out with a loud and imperious voice
in a titanic struggle of governments
and from one end Of our own deal
country to the other men are asking
one another what our own force is
how far are we are prepared to main
tain ourselves against any interfer
ence with our national action or de
velopment.
IN no mans mind, am sure,
is there even raised the question OF
the willful use of force on our part
against any nation or any people.
No matter what military or naval
force the United States might de-
J; velop, statesmen throughout the
whole world might rest assured
that we were gathering that force,
not for attack in any quarter, not
fo. oooroccion of aOv kind NOT for