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Show The Alternative to Arms ' Generally speaking we a:e among i those who regret that the nations of the earth find it necessary to spend billicns cf dollars every year for armament. We are net anu'.g these who ask that this country refrain Lom such expenditures. J There was a time when people : had some reason to believe that a : nation withcut the means f de- fense was reasonably safe in its territorial possessions. That day has passed. Its demise is marked by dead bedies in Manchukuo, Ethiopia Eth-iopia and Spain. We believe that a strong navy and a prepared army ar-my are necessary if the United States does not want t- invite European powers to take over portions por-tions cf South and Central America. Amer-ica. Like it or not, we must face facts in dealing with our w. rid. Germany. Italy, Japan and possibly other countries today wculd not hesitate to use force as a method of securing naticnai aggrandizement. aggrandize-ment. The enly thing that wculd prever.t them from running rough-shed rough-shed over some other nation would be the pewer cf the other nation tc defend itself. If we are to maintain main-tain ourselves in the world then the United States must be adequately ade-quately armed for effective defense. de-fense. The Presidents of the United States, in the last decades, have dore everything possible to prevent an armament race. They have not succeeded. The United States has done what it cculd to develop a better feeling amrng the nations in the 'hope that this would remove distrust and susnicinn and lpari tn peace. We have tried to build up international trade as a method of preventing war. None of these policies pol-icies can be called complete failures fail-ures but neither can they, at this time, be termed successful. The only alternative that we can see today to a continued rac? between be-tween the great nations of the world is the establishment of an armed peace, backed if necessary by sufficient strength to make it effective ef-fective and supreme over any challenge. chal-lenge. That rations could go into such an undertaking is doubtful. Whether the people of this country coun-try wculd countenance American participation in such a power-pact for peace is uncertain, but as an effort to avoid continued armaments arma-ments atd unnecessary expense the idea might De considered. We do not think thit any effective effec-tive pact could be arranged that would guarantee frontiers because this would involve too many applications. appli-cations. However, it is not beyond the possibilities that the United States, Great Britain, France and such other nations as might be willing to abide by the established establish-ed rules of international trade could establish a force that would dominate oceanic trade. This f .rce would be able to prevent overseas expansion that would fend to interfere in-terfere with equal trade opportunities, opportun-ities, such as is the case with Japanese Jap-anese operations in Manchuku:; and North China, the Italian undertaking un-dertaking in Ethiopia and the Germanic-Italian flirtation with Gen. Franco. Such a concert of pewers, acting for definitely restricted purposes, and using naval strength almost exclusively, could exert a tremendous tremen-dous force for peace in the wo-Id. However, there must be r.o hesitancy hesi-tancy to use ships and guns if necessary to maintain the status sought and to let recalcitrant na- 'tiens knew that they are dealing I vi h a fiihtmg unit i t a sysre:n I cf diplomatic pretests. j |