The Elkins Inter Mountain

U. S. SHOULD SET
EXAMPLE IN ARMS

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23.—(P.)—

Proportionally as the nations make progress in creating effective tribunal for peaceful settlement of international differences they will find themselves able to lessen their military establishment, President Coolidge said in an address today to delegates to the Women's Conference on National Defense as peace insurance.

"If the rule of law were established and certain, then there would be far less need of armaments," the president said.

Speaking to the delegates at the White House, the President made no direct reference to the pending move for another arms conference, but did take occasion to say that "A country so powerful in numbers and wealth, as our own, can and should set an example of moderation in armament, and should invite others to pursue a similar program."

And whenever a particular nation shall convince its neighbors of such a purpose of moderation without aggression," he added, "It will be easier for other nations to adopt a similar attitude.

"Universal and assured peace, under the law of nations, is an ideal to which all of us are devoted. It is true that we have not stopped wars. But it is also true that there is today a more definite and more widely entertained conception than ever before, of the possibility to prevent war under an effective rule of law. This is the great advance. We have not reached the end; probably we shall not reach it for many generations. But it can hardly be doubted that the purpose and aspiration of human kind are definitely, intelligently and insistently enlisted in the effort to make war an impossibility in this world.

Good Faith

"But we are compelled to recognize that national safety requires such a measure of preparedness as shall be the guaranty against aggression, without committing the nation to militarism. For the present, the most we can hope is to secure general acceptance, in good faith and without reservation of the view that whatever armaments we create, whatever preparations we make, shall be limited to the reasonable requirements of security.

"I do not think we should set a good example by abolishing our army and navy. But we can afford to limit our military and naval establishments so as to assure that, while determined and able to defend ourselves, we have no intent of aggression. If every nation would enforce such a policy, the cost of armaments would be enormously lessened, and the general welfare of humanity correspondingly promoted."