Page:William Howard Taft - America Can't Quit (1919).djvu/16

 in this Conference that Germany played in that. Do you like the example? Do you like the leadership? Isn’t it absurd for us to object to limitation of armament under these conditions when the nations on the other side are willing to have a limit of armament? They are near the possible center of disturbance, yet they are willing sincerely and honestly to enter into such an arrangement; we have the Atlantic ocean between us and them, and yet we are not going to "lay ourselves naked to our enemies" by any such limit. And it is a bit humorous for us to get excited about this. We have lived as a nation for one hundred twenty-five years, and never in the history of that nation, except in time of war have we had adequate armament even to do the police duty of the nation. Between the Civil war and the Spanish war we had our regular army, for one hundred million people, between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a domain reaching from Canada to the Gulf, an army limited to twenty-five thousand men—less than a single division that we sent over to this war. Do you think that was "laying ourselves naked to our enemies?" Then it was increased to one hundred thousand—that is, it was given to the President to increase the number of the army within one hundred thousand, but we never could get it to one hundred thousand because Congress would not appropriate the money for the purpose. I have been President of the United States, and I have been Secretary of War, and I know what I am talking about. I think we have been inadequate in our armaments.

But how does it work? Why, you get a Congress that has some vision, and it tries to make some preparation, and it votes some appropriation that increases taxation, and the members who voted go home and find perspiring patriots who are willing to take the place of those gentlemen who voted for that preparation, by agreeing not to vote for future appropriations. And very often the gentlemen who voted for the appropriation are left at home to contemplate the grandeur of their action.

Therefore, what I venture to say is that when this limit is fixed in a League of Nations—and it will be liberal because the nations on the other side are not afraid of us, they are quite willing to have us have enough to comply with the obligations of the League—and although I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, I venture to say that when that limit is fixed, except in time of war Congress won't come within gunshot of the limit.