The Washington times., 1916-01-21
COLONEL PLEADS FOR
:''ADEQUATE" DEFENSE
Calls Proposed Continental Army
a Sham-WouId Make Mill
tary Training Compulsory.

sAsserting that every man who is
both intelligent and patriotic must
: therefore advocate preparedness" The
odore Roosevelt addressed a strong plea
for preparedness to the National Sc
curity League, which was read at last
nights session. He said, in part:
1T seems to me there are two mat
tors which every good American citi-
zen should now get clearly before his
mind as regarde national defense.
THE first of these matters is not to
mistake names for facts. Peace Is not
a question of names. 1t is a question
OF facts. If murders occur in city,
and IL the police force is so incompe-
tent that no record is made of them
officially, that does not interfere with
the fact that murders have been COM
mttted and that life is unsafe.
w In. just the same way, IL lives are
taken by violence between nations, 1t
~ not OF the slightest consequence
whether those responsible for the gov
:ernment of the nation whose citizens
have lost their lives do or do not assert
that the nation is at peace. During
the last three years we have been tecn-
rncally at peace. But during those
three years more Of our citizens have
been killed b. Mexicans Germans,
Austrians, and Haitians than were
Killed during the entire Spanish war.
80. ~.
"1t is true that the American citi-
zens>, killed during the past three
years have been mostly non -comba-
tants including women and children,
although many men wearing the ma
.tional uniform have also been killed,
some .of them on American soil But
the fact that women and children are
Killed instead of full-grown men in
uniform surely increases instead of
dimintshes the horror.
. tWe have had q great many more
citizens killed during this time of al
+ legged peace, and thanks to the ac-
tivtties of the emissaries of foreign
governments with the torch and the
bomb on our own soil, we have had
4. much more American property de-
=: gtroyed, than was the case during
the open war with Spain; and whereas
no benefit whatever has come from
this loss of life and destruction of
property during the last three years,
the short war with Spain brought in
calculable benefits to Cuba Porto
Rico, the Philippines, not to speak OF
ourselves.
Campaign of Sheer Murder.
~on February IL it will be a year
since the time when we notified Ger
many that in case any of our citizens
were killed, we would hold her to a
strict accountability; and during these
eleven months the passenger ships
sunk by German or Austrian subma-
rtnes in defiance of our warning have
included among others the Falaba,
Iusttania, Arabic, Hesperian, Ancona.
YaFaka, Willie de la Ciotat, and Per-
sian.. They were British, Italian, jap
-anese, and French. Many hundreds of
Americans were among the passengers
and a couple of hundred of these, in-
cluding many women and children,
were killed.
THE total deaths on these ships since
March last amount to between 9.aAO and
2lOO. The campaign against them has
been campaign of sheer murder. son a
Yaster scale than anv INDUCED in in
like time by any of the old-time pirates
Of the Indian Ocean and the Spanish
Main.
Should Prepare Adequately.
Now, the total number of lives of
non-combatants. including many hun
dreds of women and children. thus
taken exceeds many times over the ag-
gregate in all the sea-6ghts of the
War of 1917 both on the American and
on the British side. 1t is over double
the number of lives lost by the British
sailors in Nelson's three great victories
at the Battle of Trafalgar, at the Bat
tie Of the Nile and the Battle of the
Baltic combined 1t much exceeds the
total number of lives lost in the Union
navy-and indeed in the Union and
- Confederate navies combined-during
the civil war.
1T remains therefore for us to pre-
pare in adequate fashion. ] commend
to you very strongly the speeches and
statements of Congressman Augustus
p. Gardner on this subject
Warning Has Been Ample.
For eighteen months. with this
world-cyclone before our eyes, we as a
nation have sat supine without pre-
pairing in any shape or way. It is an
actual fact that there has not been one