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Show Our Best Assurance of Peace THERE are two issues arising out of the European war on which almost without exception ex-ception Americans can unite. The first Is that America must stay out of the European conflict, if that can be done with honor and assurance of safety for our vital national Interests. The second Is that we must be prepared for any eventuality even the eventuality of war and certainly for the eventuality of a resolute insistence, backed by military might, on American Amer-ican rights and the safety of the western hemisphere. hemi-sphere. If we are agreed on that second issue, then It means that we have a lot of work to do mending mend-ing our military and naval fences. The United States Is not now prepared to fight a wan either- against Invasion of our homeland, aggression in the western hemisphere, hemi-sphere, or for protection of our territorial possessions pos-sessions and rights elsewhere In the world. Certainly wa are not and there Is no need for us to be prepared to fight our own war of aggression anywhere In Europe or Asia. That is not a matter of concern to America. We must be prepared, but for defense, not offense. It Is true that our armed forces are larger nd stronger than they were In 1914-1917. But then we were woefully, weak. It was six months before we were able to put the first division into the field In 1917. Today we must be much better prepared than that because the neWTiIgh apeed war might be all over by the time we were ready to fight. The recent army maneuvers In the east proved that America does not possess an army capable of repelling a first-class Invader. Our first line of defense, even on paper. Is an army of only 546,000 men, and many of these, because be-cause of Inadequate training, art only called soldiers by courtesy. Not only la the personnel of our army Inadequate Inade-quate but we are woefully deficient In equipment. equip-ment. In the eastern First army maneuvers, the troops had only a little over half the 75s they should have had, fifth of the 155s, less than half the allotted number of antiaircraft ! guns, third the number of machine guns, less ; than half the automatic rifles, one-sixth the ! number of trucks and a fourth the number of ; soldiers. No heavy artillery or antitank guns ' were available. General Robert Lee Bullard declared: "We should recognize that, due to advances by others, j we are relatively less prepared today than j in 1917." No less an authority than General Pershing I agreed: "He Is perfectly right about the de-! de-! flciencles of our army. It's very Inadequate." j Our navy and air force Is relatively better i prepared than the army and current building ' programs promise to Improve their status. But even here there are deflclences. Our navy hasn't enough personnel to fully man the fleet With : broad stretches of country and far-flung vital points such as the Panama canal, Hawaii and Alaska to defend, we haven't nearly a large enough air force. Our coast defense Is hopelessly hope-lessly archaic, of almost no value In repelling a determined and powerful Invader. With war already rocking Europe and threatening threat-ening to spread Its baleful scourge over the entire en-tire world. America must face the Issue squarely square-ly that our best assurance of peace in this hemisphere Is for Uncle Sam to have a strong light arm, ready to deliver a crushing blow to anyone who dare to poke his nose across the sea. |