The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-04-24
Roosevelt Points Out Folly of
Present Administration.
Our Young Men Only Be
Butchered in Battle.
SAYS HIS SONS WILL EAuIST
No Hesitation on Part of ROOse-
veIts if War Demands.
Peace Of Unpreparedness Leads
to Overwhelming Disaster.

Oyster Bay, n. Y, April Pre-
spending to an inquiry as to the ma
tons preparedness for possible war.
former President Roosevelt has made
the following statement;
Men are saying that they stand
behind the president or by the presi-
dent 1 wish to speak for the men
who in the event of war will stand
In front of the president and between
him and the foreign enemy; and who
therefore will stand between danger
and the men who are behind or beside
the president
These are the men who will go to
the war at once if there is war with
Germany or with any other great
power and who feel as ] do, that We
would far rather go to war unprepared
than see our women and children mu"-
dered with impunity and the honor
of the flag stained
But it is a wicked thing that the
folly of our rulers in obeying the
behests OF the peace at any price peo-
pie and of the apostles of anti-pre-
paredness should make the sacrifice
either useless or else needlessly and
appallingly wasteful in blood
Sons VIII Go.
In the event of such a war my
four sons will go and one and perhaps
both of my sons-in-law, l will go my
self; the young kins folk and friends
Of my sons will go; so my words are
spoken with my eyes open.
1T is of small consequence what
happens to us of the older generation;
but when l think of the young men my
heart grows bitter that their fine and
gallant lives should be sacrificed not
to the nations need, but to the ma
TONS folly.
Il would far rather see them dead
than see them finch from their duty
when the honor of our people is con-
cerned. But If we now go to war the
young men and all their fellows viii
die in thousands of fever and dysentery
and lung trouble in the camps, be-
cause we have not prepared in adj
vance, because they and those who
would lead and care for them have
not been trained in advance.
Butchered i'm Battle.
They will be butehered needIessly
in battle because we have failed co
prepare masses of artillery and ma
chine guns and motor trucks and
chells and aeropIanes and have failed
to provide and train the men who
snail manage all the formidable and
delicate mechanism of war.
''Twenty-one months have passed
since the great war began and dur
ing all this time we have not prepared
IN even the smallest degree, in order
If possible to avert war from us or if
it could not be averted. to wage it eff
nciently and successfully.
The pacifists and snti-preparedness
people have had their will and our
rulers at Washington have bowed to
them and left us helpless; and with
blind faulty they said they did this in
the interests of peace.
Price of Disaster.
When will our people learn that
peace of unpreparedness is the price of
cowardice and folly and NAV at any
time lead to overwhelming disaster
Fourteen months ago we notified
Germany that if she did whatever
since she has done and has continued
10 do. we would hold her to a strict
accountab ility. Such language could
only be justified if immediate and in
thorough going fashion we had bent
our energy to the task of preparing
and therefore showing that we meant
what We said and that we possessed
both the will and the power to make
our words good.
Such q course would not have in
creased, il would have greatly dimin-
ished the chances of war. But We sat
supine. We took not one step to pre-
pare. Naturally Germany did not
treat us seriously; we misled her
Now, fourteen months afterward,
we say that we were serious. If Ger
many now does as we wish, it will. as
/ have said before, be proof positive
that Germany would have pro-
yielded if fourteen months ago we
had so acted that Germany knew we
meant what we said and in such
case, therefore, our rulers at Wash
ington will have been proved respon-
sible for the blood of the thousands of
peaceful men, women and children
who have been killed
Crime Against Nation.
IF she does not yield we are then
faced with a crisis for which during
twenty-one months we have failed TO
prepare in even the smallest degree.
The failure of our rulers at Wash
ington to prepare during these twenty
one months when even a child ought
to have seen what was impending, has
represented folly so extreme that in
its effect it was a crime against the
nation"