Taft's Warning On War.

New York Times 100 years ago today, May 27, 1913:
We Are "Ludicrously Unprepared," He Says in Lecture at Yale.
Special in The New York Times.
    NEW HAVEN, Conn., May 26.— Ex-President Taft declared to-day that the United States was ludicrously unprepared for war, and urged additions to the army. His subject was "The Military Power Given Under the Constitution," and closed his series of lectures on questions of government. He said in part:
    "The Americans are a shrewd, wise people, usually gifted with foresight, but they have not shown it in their attitude toward the army and navy policy. Congress continues to be reluctant to maintain an adequate army. It's easy to get money for a militia, for a militia has votes and friends, but a regular army is far different. There is a saying that the Lord looks after children and drunken men. This certainly ought to be extended to the United States.
    "Of course, our separation from foreign countries by oceans is cause for not assuming too heavy a burden, but we are very, very much nearer Europe and Asia, many, many times nearer, than we were in Washington's time. Occasionally we get a jar and notice our position, but luck has been with us in the past and we cannot assume that it will always continue thus.
    "Many writers have written of a possible invasion by Japanese and its results and have assumed that Japan could do a lot of impossible things and that in the meantime we would do nothing, but really our coast fortifications are only designed against a sea attack and not on the possibility of a land force.
    "Perhaps you think this a military and warlike address coming from a man supposed to be an advocate of international peace, but I am unwilling to see our country put at a disadvantage by assuming a condition that does not exist."
    In discussing the Panama Canal, Prof. Taft said:
    "The canal was built as a great international waterway, but it was also built for our own National profit to afford a strategic position for our navy where it might operate in either the Atlantic or the Pacific. We have a right to fortify the canal against hostile nations. We are foolish in the extreme if we do not. Such a course is not inconsistent with arbitration."