The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1918-08-27
BRITISH EXTEND BATTLE
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
COL. ROOSEVELT
SAYS HURRY WAR
WANTS FOUR MILLION AMER
ICANS IN EUROPE BY
EARLY SPRING.

Springfield, H., Aug. 26.--Speed up
the war. prepare to defend ourselves
afterward and make ready to solve the
Industrial and social problems which
will come with peace. were the de
mands" of Theodore Roosevelt expressed
in an address he delivered here today
Colonel Roosevelt spoke at the Cen
tennial celebration of the admission Of
Illinois to statehood.
Two Great Needs.
THE two great needs of the moment"
he said, are to insist upon thorough
going and absolute Americanism
through this land, and to speed up the
war; and secondarily to these needs
come the needs of beginning even now
to make ready to prepare for the tasks
that are to come after the war. the task
of preparing so that never again shall
war find us helpless, and the task Of
preparing for the social and industrial
problems which this earth-shaking con-
flict of giants will leave in its ruinous
wake
ITO insist upon thorough-going, one
hundred per cent Americanism among
all our people is merely another way Of
saying that we insist upon being g ma
ton proud of our national past and
confident of our future as the greatest
OF the nations of mankind; for II we
permit our people to be split into
score of different nationalities-each
speaking a different language, and each
paying its real soul homage to some ma
tional ideal overseas. we shall not be a
nation at all, but merely polyglot
boarding house; and nobody feels much
loyalty to a polyglot boarding house
or IS proud to belong to 1t.
Not lnternatiOnalists.
I'VE are not internationalists. We
are American nationalists. We intend
to do justice to all other nations. But
in the last four years the professed in
ternationalists, like the profound paci.
fists. have played the game Of brutal
German autocracy the game Of the
milltaristic and capitalistic tyrant which
now absolutely rules the Prusslanized
Germany Of the Hohenzollerns. Amer
lean pacifism has been the tool and ally
of German miitarism, and has repre-
sented, and always will represent, deep
disloyalty to our beloved country.
two and a half years before we enetred
the war, the pacifists clamorously in
sisted that If we kept unprepared we
would avoid war Well, we tried the
experiment. We kept completely unpre-
pared. Even after we broke off diplo.
matte relations with Germany, we re-
fused to make the slightest preparation.
Nevertheless we drifted into the war.
Pacifism and unpreparedness never keep
a nation out of war. They invite war;
and they insure that il war comes it
shall be costly and long drawn out and
bloody"
Two Classes OF Enemies.
Let us remember this when peace
comes Don't trust the pacifists; they
are the enemeis of righteousness. Don't
trust the internationalists, they are the
enemies of nationalism and American
ism.
when peace comes, let us accept
any reasonable proposal, whether calling
for a league of nations or for any other
machinery which we can in good faith
act upon. and which does really offer
some chance Of lessening the number
of future wars and diminishing their
area.
This is for the future. Our immediate
duty is to win the war. We must speed
up the war to the limit. We must try
to finish it at the earliest possible mo-
ment, but be resolved to finish 1t, no
matter how long it takes. We must in
sist on the peace of complete and over
whelming victory. We must remember
that a huge army put in the field at one
time will accomplish what the same
number of men put into the field in
driblets can never accomplish. We have
a much larger population and much
greater natural resources than Germany
or France and England combined.
Wants Four Million by April.
Therefore, by next spring. we should
have thousands of our own field guns,
and scores Of thousands of our own air.
planes at the front. and an enormous
ship tonnage In which to ferry across
the ocean so many troops that by April
we NAV have four million trained fight
ing men at the front. not counting non
and reserves. The age linn
its for the draft should be greatly in.
creased and the exemptions greatly d.
minished."
Colonel Roosevelt enumerated some Of
Continued on Page A.