One hundred years ago today in the Pantagraph Ex President Taft was speaking at Illinois State Normal University. ISNU was proud to bring important speakers to Normal as part of a lecture series. Taft spoke on "Our National Defenses" to a crowd of people who were daily faced with reports of a war that engulfed the European countries.
Taft pointed out that the distance in time between the US and Europe had shortened to one fifth of the time that it was at the time George Washington said: "our best security for peace is a reasonable preparation for war." Taft alluded to the enlarged responsibilities of a nation that had spread its influence to the Phillipines, Panama and Alaska. Taft criticized the pacifists and said that nations could not be relied upon to be reasonable or to observe moral justice, as already demonstrated during the present war. Taft advocated strengthening the navy and claimed that a stronger navy could not lead to militarism, which was feared by some opponents. The emergence of the submarine was a threat which he said would lead to changes in international laws. He compared the size of the navies of Britain and the US and said that because Britain did not have a large standing army they did not pose a threat. However, he stated, the US could not match the power of the German navy, and had too few men to man the ships we did possess. Taft argued that the army should more than double in size, to 100,000 and that many many more officers should be trained and made active.
The Pantagraph editorial approved of Taft's position, saying that he was taking the sensible, middle ground on this issue.