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Show WILSON CONVINCED CAUSEWILL WIN ENDS SPEAKING TOUR AT ST. LOUIS AND RETURNS TO THE CAPITAL. Believes He Has Explained Why He Considers Immediate Preparedness Imperative, and That He Has Won Many Converts. St. Louis. President Wilson finished finish-ed his speaking tour in St. Loui.s oil Thursday and expressed the conviction convic-tion that his mission had succeeded beyond his greatest hopes. President Wilson's advisers believe he has explained clearly why he consider- immediate preparedness imperative, imper-ative, has won many converts to the movement and his given new impetus to a discussion of the cause. From the sympathetic attitude of most of his audiences, fromthe enthusiasm enthu-siasm his every appearance in public has evoked, from the huge crowds which have greeted him, they have drawn the conclusion that the people overwhelmingly support his plans at least in the middle west. President Wilson on Thursday told an audience of 15,000, cheering tu-multuously tu-multuously at his feet, that the LTnit-ed LTnit-ed States should have the greatest navy in the world. "I believe the navy of the United States should be incomparably the greatest in the world," he said. The president declared that submarine subma-rine commanders abroad have instructions instruc-tions which for the most part conform con-form with international law, but that the act of one commander might set the world afire, including America. "Upon the ocean there are hundreds of cargoes of American goods," he said, "cotton, grain and all the bountiful boun-tiful supplies America is sending out to the world and any one of those cargoes, any one of those ships may be the point of contact that will bring America into the war." For the first time during the tour the president told of how one set of belligerents was cut off from' the world. He said this kept the United States from helping them as it would like. He made the statement in trying try-ing to show that the United States was really neutral. The president opened with the statement that he had "come seeking something in the middle west and found it." He said he had been told the middle west was against preparedness, prepared-ness, hut did not believe it. President Wilson visited Kansas City and Topeka on February 2, in his journey across the country for the purpose of explaining his preparedness prepared-ness program to the people. At Topeka, the president asserted the right of Americans to travel abroad, and their right to send food, cotton and manufactured products to peaceful populations "in open neutral markets" and "wherever the conditions condi-tions of war make it possible to do so under the ordinary rules of international interna-tional law." "It may be necessary to use the force of the United States to vindicate the rights of American citizens to en-J-7 the protection of international law," he declared emphatically. He urged the support of the people of Kansas in preparing that force for use, if necessary. In his address at Kansas City, President Pres-ident Wilson demanded that steps be .taken during the present month to back him up in defending American lives and commerce abroad. His demand de-mand met with shouts and applause from an audience of 16,000 persons who waved American flags, leaped to their seats and cheered. At Des Moines, Iowa, on February 1, the president dealt with the futility of messages and words of protest to meet breaches of international law. "Do you want the situation to be such that all the president can do is to write messages and utter words of protest?" he asked, in advocating preparedness before the largest audience audi-ence of his present trip. "Why, to ask that question is to answer it," he said. "Whenever international law is violated vio-lated by one or the other belligerents," belliger-ents," the president said, "America was called upon to register a 'voice of protest, of insistence'." There are actually men in America who are preaching war, the president declared; men who want the United States to have entangling alliances abroad. He said he did out think they spoke the voice of America, which he declared to be for peace. He added that others go further than he, in advocating peace: "They preach the doctrine of peace at any price," he said, while men in the audience called "Never, never." He said these men did not know the circumstances cir-cumstances of the world. "America cannot be an ostrich with its head in the sand," he said. |