President Wilson and National Defense

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 18, 1915

President Wilson and National Defense

PRESIDENT WILSON opened the administration campaign for its national defense program in a comprehensive and carefully prepared address delivered in New York, the evening of November 4, at the Manhattan Club banquet. The address was printed in full in the Washington Post of November 5, but we shall quote only that part which refers to the so-called “Continental Army:”—

It [the administration plan] calls for the training within the next three years of a force of 400,000 citizen soldiers to be raised in annual contingents of 133,000, who would be asked to enlist for three years with the colors and three years on furlough, but who, during their three years of enlistment with the colors, would not be organized as a standing force, but would be expected merely to undergo intensive training for a very brief period of each year.

Their training would take place in immediate association with the organized units of the regular army. It would have no touch of the amateur about it, neither would it exact of the volunteers more than they could give in any one year from their civilian pursuits.

This plan is to be laid before Congress at its next session.