bring it to a point of extraordinary force and efficiency as compared with the other navies of the world is that we should hasten our pace in the policy we have long been pursuing, and that chief of all we should have a definite policy of development, not made from year to year, but looking well into the future and planning for a definite consummation.

"We can and should profit in all that we do by the experience and example that have been made obvious to us by the military and naval events of the actual present. It is not merely a matter of building battle-ships and cruisers and submarines, but also a matter of making sure that we shall have the adequate equipment of men and munitions and supplies for the vessels we build and intend to build.

"Part of our problem is the problem of what I may call the mobilization of the resources of the Nation at the proper time, if it should ever be necessary to mobilize them for national defense. We shall study efficiency and adequate equipment as carefully as we shall study the number and size of our ships, and I believe that the plans already in part made public by the Navy Department are plans which the whole Nation can approve with rational enthusiasm.

"No thoughtful man feels any panic haste in this matter. The country is not threatened from any quarter. She stands in friendly relations with all the world. Her resources are known, and her self-respect and her capacity to care for her own citizens and her own rights. There is no fear among us. Under the new world conditions we have become thoughtful of the things which all reasonable men consider necessary for security and self-defense on the part of every nation confronted with the great enterprise of human liberty and independence. That is all.

"NO PRIDE OF OPINION"

"Is the plan we propose sane and reasonable and suited to the needs of the hour? Does it not conform to the ancient

traditions of America? Has any better plan been proposed than this programme that we now place before the country? In it there is no pride of opinion. It represents the best professional and expert judgment of the country.

"But I am not so much interested in programmes as I am in safeguarding at every cost the good faith and honor of the country. If men differ with me in this vital matter, I shall ask them to make it clear how far and in what way they are interested in making the permanent interests of the country safe against disturbance.

"In the fulfilment of the programme I propose I shall ask for the hearty support of the country, of the rank and file of America, of men of all shades of political opinion. For my position in this important matter is different from that of the private individual who is free to speak his own thoughts and to risk his own opinions in this matter.

"We are here dealing with things that are vital to the life of America itself. In doing this I have tried to purge my heart of all personal and selfish motives. For the time being I speak as the trustee and guardian of a Nation's rights, charged with the duty of speaking for that Nation in matters involving her sovereignty-a Nation too big and generous to be exacting, and yet courageous enough to defend its rights and the liberties of its people wherever assailed or invaded.

"I would not feel that I was discharging the solemn obligation I owe the country were I not to speak in terms of the deepest solemnity of the urgency and necessity of preparing ourselves to guard and protect the rights and privileges of our people, our sacred heritage of the fathers who struggled to make us an independent Nation.

"The only thing within our own borders that has given us grave concern in recent months has been that voices have been raised in America professing to be the voices of Americans which were not indeed and in truth American, but which spoke alien sympathies, which came from men who

loved other countries better than they loved America, men who were partisans of other causes than that of America and had forgotten that their chief and only allegiance was to the great Government under which they live.

"These voices have not been many, but they have been very loud and very clamorous. They have proceeded from a few who were bitter and who were grievously misled. America has not opened its doors in vain to men and women out of other nations. The vast majority of those who have come to take advantage of her hospitality have united their spirit with hers as well as their fortunes. These men who speak alien sympathies are not their spokesmen, but are the spokesmen of small groups whom it is high time that the Nation should call to a reckoning.

"The chief thing necessary in America in order that she should let all the world know that she is prepared to maintain her own great position is that the real voice of the Nation should sound forth unmistakably and in majestic volume in the deep unison of a common, unhesitating national feeling. I do not doubt that upon the first occasion, upon the first opportunity, upon the first definite challenge, that voice will speak forth in tones which no man can doubt, and with commands which no man dare gainsay or resist.

"May I not say, while I am speaking of this, that there is another danger that we should guard against? We should rebuke not only manifestations of racial feeling here in America, where there should be none, but also every manifestation of religious and sectarian antagonism.

"It does not become America that within her borders, where every man is free to follow the dictates of his conscience and worship God as he pleases, men should raise the cry of church against church. To do that is to strike at the very spirit and heart of America. We are God-fearing people. We agree to differ about methods of worship, but we are united in believing in Divine Providence and in worship