New Britain herald., 1916-03-06
C0nnecticut q 2arget
 For InpadInq Armies
George B. Chandler Says This State Would Be One of First Seized By Hostile Anny-Tells Why
 U. S. Should Be Prepared.

] II will be two years before statutes 1 are passed and two years more before
 they will be made effective. Tn fact there are two many cooks not only in the matter of preparedness, but even in national honor. The personnel of the present congress has not the same spirit as the founders of the national congress. The present members are working for votes and the citizens
 should ask and demand an answer
 from any one desirous of election the
 question: Are you for America all the time?' The attitudes of the mem- bers should be scrutinzed careflly be- fore clecting them.
 Army and Navy Inefficient. At the outbreak of this war,
 Germany had an army of 100000
 men, France 3,oOO,O0O and England 96O, ,0OO. United States has only 10000 regular trained troops, which
 is not as many as are participating In the present battle of Verdun. We
 could mobilize in thirty days 6O,OOO
 men, so some say, but it has been
 demonstrated that it will take year 1 10 make a sold;-. This army Of ! 100, ,O00 man could be put into the ! Yale Bowl and then there would be room enough left to play a football same. naval program was started in 1903 and at the present time we , gre ten battleships. behind the pro- gram. The recent sinking of the Bluecher in the North Sea, demon- strated that a battleship must be able
 to make more than twenty-three
 knots an hour to escape the dread
 ,11e hoy ,0f cir Crl Q
 ship which can make that speed.
 The guns on the Queen Elizabeth,
 now in the process of construction in
 England, are fifteen inch guns, while the largest we possess is only twelve
 inches. We are also way behind in submarines, mines and mine layers.
 Therefore it can be seen that in our
 present condition we could not cope
 With any first class foreign power successfully.
 Preparedness Does Not Cause War.
 The present war was not caused by arguments, but by the ambition of the house of Hohenzollern to rule over a world wide empire The armament was not the cause but the means of doing this. This war, I believe was brought about by the scheming of the governments with no popular demand for it, but every Am erican war, with the exception of the Mexican war came from the people.
 Lack of preparation is absolutely no protection against war and pre- paraton does not make people War like. It is an old saying that we have gotten along alright in the past but to tell the truth, we have gotten along Wretchedly. Tn every war in which we engaged we have easily Outnumbered our opponents. yet we let thousands die because of War, in which more men died of dis ease then fell in battle, we managed 10 beat force that King Nicholas of Montenegro could have conquered. The United States has never fought first class power with it's hands free. In our two wars with England that nation was occupied with other conflicts and could only dispatch part of its forces against us Some day we will face a first class power and God grant that we can make an al liance with some nations that will teach us the value of preparedness We will never have true democracy until we have universal military ser vice. We cannot say we are mem- hers of q true democracy until every man can say I am ready to do my share