The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-03-07
DEMOCRACY, NOT MILITARISM, IS
 MITCHEL.'S AIM
New York Mayor Eloquent Tn Address Calling For
 Preparedness. =

St. Louis March 7-DeE ocracy is i on trial in the Western hemisphere and the American Congress must meet , the test by establishing, this year, a complete and adequate national de- fense, Mayor John Purroy Mitchell . of New York city declared in recent ] ference of Mayors on Defense. Mayor l Mitchell urged that the Conference l take definite action looking to the ! effective organization of popular opfn- ] ion in home districts and the trans1a- l tion of that organized opinion into immediate and direct pressure" upon |, Congress
 ''The National Congress- he said, l
 is a sensitive body, sensitive to pub- lie opinion, most sensitive to public opinion that means votes in the home district. This convention represents the people of cities. It's voice is the most representative expression of American opinion yet had upon this great question. Its delegates have the opportunity to light, in every community of our broad land, fire of informed and intelligent public sen-l timent that will warm our Congress into a glow of patriotic fervor and endeavor which has been conspicu- ously foreign to that distinguished
 body during the past precious eigh- teen months
 During these months, Mayor Mitch e1 declared, the American people have
 been 'jarred'' into a recognition that their country cannot longer be de- tached nation. standing aloof from the
 international affairs of other people,
 and have come to know that the
 United States 'fmust take her place
 among the nations of the world, on
 equal footing, or suffer the impair
 ment of her every interest at home well in foreign markets
 The preparedness of European na-
 tions ait the beginning of the war,
 Mayor Mitchell asserted, taught the
 etat once precartous and humiliat-
 ing.'
 When, later, the lessons of pre-
 paredn ess and of international cold
 blooded selishness were daily and hourly being driven home to the
 world, we saw our Congress utterly. supine, apparently prepared. to gam
 ble this nations security and future on the accident of chance,''' he said, some of US conceived that it was the duty of local governm ents to stinn-
 u1ate public opinion within their own Jurisdiction and to bring it's impact to bear upon these representatives in Congress who, either through ignor- ant stupidity or the vena1/ service of special interests, have demonstrated that they held the selfish immediate temporary apparent interests of To- Ecalities, classes or groups superior to the security and integrity of the ma ton as 8 whole The Mayor said that it was the duty of the conference to conduct an active campaign to the ends, first,
 that our people may Goe informed as to the nations real situation, present
 resources, and immediate needs in +I,i= NT nfo
 and, second, that our representative congressman and senators may hear
 the massed voices of their constftu-
 ents speaking to them in no uncer-
 tain tone and bidding them to do their duty in the establishment now,
 this year, of complete and adequate
 national defense
 Mayor Mitchell alluded to what he described as 'fmenaces in plenty
 which face the United 5tates-to the
 West, Japan; to the South the neces-
 slty for maintaining the Monroe doc urine, and '+the newer obligations of Pan-Americanism''; and to the East,
 each days developments in the great war; involving American relations as neutral with the belhgerent powers. At the close of this war; he said,
 tour newly established trade relations,
 our expanded commerce, our vast ac- cunnulated wealth, will invite envy, rivalry interference and attack As measures of national defense, Mayor Mitchell emphasized the need 1 of a Navy equal to that of any other nation, coast defenses, a, mobile army
 of strength sufficient to deal with any foreign invading force, organization of the nations physical resources and
 universal obligatory male military i training under federal authority. Mayor Mitchell declared that uni versaI military training was "a, policy | of preservation which the Ameri- l can people must adopt at once, this 1 year, through the enactment of the 1 sitting Congress if they would avoid
 the real and imminent hazard of com plete national disaster"
 1 Let no man call this rnilitarisn' '' ] he said. we are not proposing the ] iron system of the steel-girt nations 1 uf Europe. This system is essential l Iy democratic. It is the system of
 Switzerland and Australia, two of the i most thoroughly democratic political 1 units in the world It recognizes ! that with equal rights go equal obli- | gations the only safe and desirable,
 as well as effective, principle for a 1 dem ocracy to follow. It is essentially | American. Democracy, democracy in the Western hernis- | phere. is on trial.
 1 "God grant that the. American peo- 1 pie meet it face to face, animated by
 the spirit that gave birth to the Re- i public, that has been hers in the l hours of her greatest trial, that has
 never yet been lacking, in any crisis of 1 our national 1ife.''
 l DEzc,,u, CrnD Dncc~"