FAVORS "ADEQUATE" DEFENSE
Favors "Adequate" Defense SENATOR LA POLLETTE stands for adequate defense of this Nation against any aggressor. In his speech in the United States Senate, criticising the enormous, and unnecessary,...
...Coast fortifications, coast artillery, and a sufficient mobile force of soldiers for coast and horder defense, I will as strongly support as any other Senator here...
...A "Preparedness" News Item THE United States Steel Corporation reported the largest earnings in its history last week, due to the manufacture and sale of war munitions...
...The net earnings of the corporation for the last three months were $81,-12G.048, exceeding by $20,012,424 the highest previous record, made in the first quarter of the current year...
...And Senator La Follette in this speech made further reference to the menace of secret'diplomacy and urged that People's Control of foreign negotiations be substituted for the present dangerous system of secret connivance...
...Senator La Follette is the most progressive Republican there is...
...I give them my cordial support...
...For what?' Why to make sure that never again after this conflict has ceased shall the autocratic heads of European governments have it in their power, THROUGH SECRET DIPLOMACY, to bring on such another world catastrophe...
...Across the water the nations of Europe are giving their life blood in a fratricidal stmggle, which in its inception the people neither desired nor sanctioned...
...They are for defense...
...In his speech in the United States Senate, criticising the enormous, and unnecessary, burden upon the taxpayers contained in the Naval Appropriation bill—expenditures that Congress never would dare to authorize except for its fear of the "manufactured" war hysteria that has no real foundation—he said: "Mr...
...In his speech in the United States Senate, March 10, 1916, setting forth the right of Congress to an authoritative voice in fixing the foreign policy of the United States, Senator La Follette said: "Mr...
...The balance carried to surplus for the quarter was $47,964,535 as against $32,854,172 in the previous quarter and $8,267,645 in the corresponding three months of the previous year...
...IP A MAN doesn't approve of La Follette you may be sure he is not a progressive...
...But the rank and standing of our Navy, the strength of our coast defenses, tlie impossibility of any over-seas expedition, the purposes back of this program, challenges every Senator to study this bill as he has never heretofore studied any naval appropriation bill...
...President, the extent and horror of the European War has caused widespread hysteria...
...But it has also compelled people to think, and among thoughtful people throughout the world there is a deeply settled conviction that this conflict with all its appalling sacrifice, is the result of an EVIL SYSTEM OF SECRET DIPLOMACY...
...To this end, throughout the world, leagues of earnest, determined men and women, animated by a common purpose, are formulating plans, based on the provisions by which, in this country, one orf both of the legislative branches of government liave a sliare in the control of international affairs...
...I am particularly satisfied with his stand on the Mexican question, and with his opposition to the extreme demands of the military and naval experts...
...A large part of the contracts filled heretofore were at the low scale of prices...
...And, in condemning the huge increase in appropriations for the single item of Coast Defenses*—which are at the present time entirely adequate in the opinion of United States military authorities to resist the attacks of any possible enemy—he declared: "I do not speak in disparagement of expenditures of this class...
...Secret Diplomacy—A World Menace THE PLANK on Foreign Relations submitted by the La Follette delegates to the Republican National Convention at Chicago, last June bad this to say in condemnation of Secret Diplomacy : "We denounce the un-American and undemocratic secret diplomacy which continually threatens the Iwnor, peace, and security of our country, and we favor full and immediate publicity in all our relations with foreign governments...
...While I would like to have him act with the Democratic party rather than with the Republican party, I am grateful for the service he has been able to render progressive measures in spite of his party tendencies.—Wuj.taat Jennings Bbyan...
...Domestic control of foreign policies is a basic principle of all organized effort looking for the future establishment of permanent world peace...
...They offer little or no inducement for powerful war traders to lobby Congress for extravagant appropriations...
...He declared : "And, sir, there is a larger international aspect of this question, with its accompanying responsibility, that cannot be shirked or ignored...
...President, I have voted and shall vote for appropriations for adequate defense...
...They cannot be used for over-seas conquest...
...Now the corporation will he able to reap the benefit of the present record prices...
...On the basis of returns for the last quarter and with the ordei-3 already ia hand Wall street estimates that the steel corporation's earnings for 1916 will go to unprecedented figures...
...They constitute one class of expenditures for preparedness which makes for PEACE instead of war...
...And now, the plain people, the saner people of the warring countries are organizing...
...Remember, when once you fix a standard of excessive naval appropriations, it is almost impossible to lower it...
...An extra dividend was declared on the $58,000,000 worth of outstanding common stock...
...It is a system, sir, where the fate of nations and the lives of hundred of millions, in ignorance of a fact or a circumstance in issue, may be sacrificed to win a relatively unimportant diplomatic victory...
...they cannot be used to coerce weaker nations in the interest of speculative investors in foreign countries...
Vol. 8 • August 1916 • No. 8
