Evening star., 1938-12-20
Arms Propagandists
Are Assai|ed by
Senator Clark
Present U. S. Defense
Is Ample, Missourion
Says on Forum

Is Ample, Missourion
Says on Forum
Senator Bennett Champ Clark Of
Missouri spoke on Reason in Arma-
ments" last night in the National
Radio Forum. arranged by The Star
and broadcast over a Nation wide
network of the National Broadcast
ing Co. The text of his address
follows:
The question of national defense
Is OF the most vital importance to
the American people-both from the
standpoint of insuring our Nation
against attack and from the stand
point of the staggering burdens of
taxation which are imposed upon
our already overloaded people by
the huge increase in the costs OF
armament already authorized and
the truly amazing further increases
being currently advocated. To my
mind it is imperative that we con-
slider the question of our necessities
for national defense in the light of
reason rather than in the fitful
lighting OF hysteria, which is too
often the result of deliberate, selfish
propaganda, and always the result
of intense excitement
Let me say at the outset that all
right-minded citizens are in favor of
every bit of national defense rea-
sonably necesSary-and even with a
fair additional margin of safety-to
defend our shores against attack
from any quarter. l believe that
our people would be willing to make
any sacrifice necessary to protect
our country from invasion in order
to perpetuate our institutions, and
that we might continue in the en-
joyment of those inestimable rights
and liberties passed on to us by the
sacrifices Of the fathers. On the
other hand, it is my belief that an
overwhelming majority of our citi-
zens are unalterably opposed to
ruinous taxation for the building up
of wholly excessive ornaments,
either because of chimerical fears
for our own safety or, more dan
gerous still, for the purpose of Gre
ating a force far beyond our defen-
sive needs, which might we'll be
used in an offensive war, or en-
ployed as a threat to enable us to
interfere in other peoples quarrels
in all parts of the world.
Quagmire Of Debt.
The whole world is weltering in a
quagmire of debt brought about by
the calamitous distractions of past
wars and the outrageous squander-
ings on preparation for a new and
more terrible conflict. The present
progressive rate of expenditures for
armament will soon completely
bankrupt the world even without
another war-if another world war
comes it may we'll mean the actual
obliteration of our whole civilization
Therefore, it seems to me that it
should be the prime prerequisite to
determination Of the amount and
character of our armament for us
to decide as to the purposes it is to
serve and the policies it is to i'm
plement. If it be true, as un-
, doubtedly it is, that we cannot afford
to leave undone anything essential
to our national safety it is none
theless true that without hopelessly
bankrupting ourselves, we cannot
afford to arm against every vague
imagining that the rest of the world
will be banded in sinister league
against U.s. Moreover, in such ex-
cessive and superarmament would
lie the very greatest danger of our
involvement in war.
We are once again faced with a
situation in which a sedulous effort
lis being made to work the country
into state of pre-war hysteria, in
which physical facts will be utterly
disregarded and our people induced
to abandon their hard common sense
and see ghosts on every side. From
high official sources We learn our
Nation is 'tragicallv unprepared, ,
as it is put. Despite the fact that
until very recently our expenditures
for armament actually led the world
and that for the last three years our
expenditures for military and naval
purposes have successfully exceeded
any previous peacetime armament
budget by hundreds of millions OF
dollars. we are now told that we have
no preparation whatever for the de-
fense of our shores against wanton
attack from abroad
Propaganda Assailed.
Last year We appropriated nearly
billion and half, ostensibly for
purposes of national defense. Yet
we are blandly informed by the
:ctive propaganda working in be-
half of vast increases in armament,
and participated in by some high
Government officials, that we are as
helpless against attack as Ethiopia
or China. If this statement were
true-which it is MOTT might be
pertinent for these propagandists to
| inform us what was done with the
staggering sums which have been
poured out if their only effect has
been to leave us futile and helpless;
and to inform us exactly how much
will probably be necessary to make
us secure against the horrid phan-
toms of combinations of nations
which their brains conjure up as
being about to attack us.
If expenditures of billion and a
half year upon an already excel
lent naval and military establish
ment have left us as helpless as
Ethiopia and China. if our splendid
geographical isolation from the the
aters of present or probable con-
flict-always heretofore considered
as our greatest asset in national de-
fense-is suddenly to be counted as
weakness, involving trebled and
quadrupled arming in every point
of the compass, then the sums in
volved would be staggering and over
whelming even as counted against
the total estimated national wealth
of the United States, the richest
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