Arizona republican., 1917-03-25
ARMY hND NAVY
 HEADS RUSHING
 PREPARATIONS
IRepubIican A. p. Leased Wirel


 WASHINGTON, March 24.-Having taken virtually every defense measure possible before the assembling of con- gress, President Wilson and his ad- Visers in the executive branch of the government are concentrating their effort to preparation for more sweep ing steps, for which congressional au- thority will be-sOught
 Details of the steps to be recOm- mended are held in closest confidence, but officials let it be known today that among the rest a general military budget, co-Ordinating many items of expense deemed imperative, will be laid before the house and senate when the extra session begins.
 During the day the council of na- tioDal defense held a long conference with it's advisory committee of seven industrial leaders who mapped out mo- Utilization plans for the countrys econ omic resources; the navy department awarded contracts for twenty-four de- strOyers and called a conference of steel and other material makers for next week to consider means of speed ing naval construction; the war de- partment announced that failure of the army appropriation bill at the last ses- C greSs would not be permitted to handicap the army's preparations, ;..4d .esdistlions were promulgated to guide the country's neWspa '4ers IT, a voluntary censorship preventing pub lication of details which might embar- rass the government.
 With these developments President Wilson kept in close toucn Late H.. the afternoon after a walk, he and Mrs. Wilson went to the state, war and navy building and paid visits to Secretaries alya1. q no. ,f,aIr hot. N1,, talk with the war secretary lasted neayly an hour.
 In making awards on destroyers to- day, Secretary Daniels accepted the maximum estimate of each of the three companies submitting figures. Of the twenty-four, nine will be built under the emergency fund, congress having specifically authorized only fifteen. A considerable number of other builders were in conference with officials, how ever. and indications are todays order will be doubled or even trebled ii fa- cilities for construction of the vessels can be found.
 Regarding activities of the war de- partment Secretary Baker made this statement:
 Of course everybody knows that the international situation is tense. The war department, like every other de- pertinent of the government, is busy with a state of preparation, but without attempt on the part of the department or anybody else to determine what that preparation is for, except to put our national strength in a state of eff ficiency.
 Everybody realizes that this is a sort of unnatural situation. We are rr"alling nreparations and buying sup plies and all that sort of thine ord vet the policy of the country is still to be determined by the legls.atls. and just what will happen is to be de- t"-mined by the president ana con gress.
 All that you can say of the war department is that it is pressing ahead all purchases of everything that viii be needed to keep an army if the army is to be called upon.
 In awarding contracts for the tWen- ty-four destroyers on the same day that L.ds were opened, the navy department established precedent. All of the ves- sels which will duplicate the thirty five knot type already building, will be built on a basis of cost plus ten per- cent profit. Contracts for ten went to the Union Iron Works, San Francisco; eight to the Fore River Shipbuilding
 (Continued on page two)