Then, too, there are expenditures of Government absolutely necessary if
our country is to maintain its proper place among the nations of the
world, and is to exercise its proper influence in defense of its own
trade interests in the maintenance of traditional American policy
against the colonization of European monarchies in this hemisphere, and
in the promotion of peace and international morality. I refer to the
cost of maintaining a proper army, a proper navy, and suitable
fortifications upon the mainland of the United States and in its
dependencies.
We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in
time of emergency, in cooperation with the national militia and under
the provisions of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand
into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and
to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the
maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name of
President Monroe.
Our fortifications are yet in a state of only partial completeness, and
the number of men to man them is insufficient. In a few years however,
the usual annual appropriations for our coast defenses, both on the
mainland and in the dependencies, will make them sufficient to resist
all direct attack, and by that time we may hope that the men to man them
will be provided as a necessary adjunct. The distance of our shores from
Europe and Asia of course reduces the necessity for maintaining under
arms a great army, but it does not take away the requirement of mere
prudence--that we should have an army sufficiently large and so
constituted as to form a nucleus out of which a suitable force can
quickly grow.
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