The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1939-11-23
Walsh Urges
Preparedness
In Talk Here
SECURITY DEPENDS ON
MILITARY STRENGTH,
OFFICER BELIEVES


IN war torn world, greatly re-
duced in size by modern trans
: portation facilities, was graphi-
Nlcally brought to the attention of
Redwood Falls residents Tuesday
evening when Adjutant General
+. A. Walsh spoke at the Com
pany l. banquet and smoker at
the armory. Nearly $50 men,
company members, their fathers
and business men attended.
General Walsh traced the his
tory of the army from the de-
mobilization period after the
World war through the era of
minimum provision for defense
brought on by the pacifistic and
self-secure feeling of a decade ago
and up to the present day stress
on army strength fostered by
trouble in Europe.
81 cannot help being some
what cynical about the sud-
den interest in army affairs"
he declared.
Mentioning that amateur stra-
tegistS are having a Roman holi-
day eXpounding theories of how
the nation should be defended, he
stressed the danger of imagining
that we are secure with battle
lines drawn on our own shores
and frontiers. "He who seeks to
defend everywhere is strong no
where" is an ancient army axiom
he quoted.
Declaring that our dangers lie
no: in the friendly nation to the
north or the weak nation to the
south, but in invasion from an
other continent, he said, ITO be
secure we must have land army
Of 100000 men, partly civilian, a
navy sufficient to outnumber and
overpoWer any navy or combin-
alton of navies which ours may
face and an air force sufficient to
act as eyes for sea and land for
ceS.
With such a force he
stressed, we are secure and in
little danger of being attack
ed or otherwise involved in
war.
The treaty of Versailles, he
said, is partly responsible for the
strength of the present German
military machine because the
complete disarming of Germany
necesSitated its rebuilding en-
tirely new while other nations
have much outmoded war equip
ment.
He drew on history to refute
the theory that a military mach
inc might someday dominate this
country, pointing out that when
we had great and victorious ar
mics after the Civil and World
wars, they disbanded with but
one thought, to get home to civil
ian life.
Briefly he dealt with the rela-
tive expense and merits of var
ious army and navy equipment;
the facts that a fleet of airplanes
sufficient to cope with one battle
ship is considerably more eXpen-
sive and much more limited in
the period of use without return
ing to a base. A battleship, he
said, becomes obsolete only after
a period of approximately "a
years while a fighting plane is
out of date in two years. One
point brought out was that for
each fighting plane, ground
crew of Is men for work of SER
vicirg is considered essential by
German tacticians while Is is
better and II is deemed ideal.
Former Congressman Frank
Clague spoke briefly of the his
tory of the company, which has
IS men and was organized in
1908, and told the group that
Redwood Falls was the first city
in the state to take advantage of
terms offered by the state in 1911
for getting armories. He intro
duced Captain w. H. Lamberton
and two former commanders, DR..
J. w. Inglis and N: r. Ryerson
who were in the audience and
Major w. A. Sanborn of Mankato.
In introducing General Walsh,
Mr.. Clague spoke of serving eight
years on house subcommittee
on military affairs before which
the speaker was often the spokes-
man of the National Guard and
declared he was very highly re-
garded by the committee. General
Walsh in turn complimented Mr..
Clague as the ranking member of
the committee who served his
community, state and nation ex-
tremely well.
Mrs. L. A. Cheney was in
charge of preparing and serving
the dinner which was followed by
a brief program which included
tap dancing by Juanita Eller and
Sue st. Clair from the Lower
Sioux Agency with John Crooks
at the piano. S. w. Limburg dir
ected the orchestra which played