I have been told by those who have a greater knack at guessing statistics than I have that there are probably several million men in the United States who, either in this country or in other countries from which they have come to the United States, have received training in arms.  It may be; I do not know, and I suspect that they do not either, but even if it be true, these men are not subject to the call of the Federal Government.  They would have to be found; they would have to be induced to enlist; they would have to be organized; their numbers are indefinite; and they would have to be equipped.  Such are not the materials which we need.  We want to know who these men are and where they are and to have everything ready for them if they should come to our assistance.  For we have now got down, not to the sentiment of national defense, but to the business of national defense.  It is a business proposition and it must be treated as such.  And there are abundant precedents for the proposals which have been made to the Congress.  Even that arch-Democrat, Thomas Jefferson, believed that there ought to be compulsory military training for the adult men of the Nation, because he believed, as every true believer in democracy believes, that it is upon the voluntary action of the men of a great Nation like this that it must depend for its military force.

There is another misapprehension that I want to remove from your minds:  Do not think that I have come to talk to you about these things because I doubt whether they are going to be done or not.  I do not doubt it for a moment, but I believe that when great things of this sort are going to be done the people of this country are entitled to know just what is being proposed.  As a friend of mine says, I am not arguing with you; I am telling you.  I am not trying to convert you to anything, because I know that in your hearts you are converted already, but I want you to know the motives of what is proposed and the character of what is proposed, in order that we should have only one attitude and counsel with regard to this great matter.

It is being very sedulously spread abroad in this country that the impulse back of all this is the desire of men who make the materials of warfare to get money out of the Treasury of the United States.  I wish the people that say that could see meetings like this.  Did you come here for that purpose?  Did you come here because you are interested to see some of your fellow-citizens make money out of the present situation?  Of course you did not.  I am ready to admit that probably the equipment of those men whom we are training will have to be bought from somebody, and I know that if the equipment is bought, it will have to be paid for; and I dare say somebody will make some money out of it.  It is also true, ladies and gentlemen, that there are men now, a great many men, in the belligerent countries who are growing rich out of the sale of the materials needed by the armies of those countries.