Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 191, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1916 — PREPAREDNESS FAULTY HUGHES AVERS [ARTICLE]

PREPAREDNESS FAULTY HUGHES AVERS

Nominee Ln, St. Paul Address, Brands Present Course Inadequate—U. S. Failed to Heed Warning. Charles E. Hughes, speaking Wednesday night in the auditorium at St. Paul, assailed the administration for its preparedness policy, which he declared inadequate, and asserted + hat he regarded “reasonable preparedness as a primary duty,” and purposd if elected “to see that it is discharged to the credit of the American people.” “We are a spirited people,” Mr. Hughes declard. “We are a people that can protect ourselves. We are not too proud to fight." Much of the nominee’s address was devoted to the Mexican situation and the calling of the national guard to service on the border. There had been warnings for two years pnd America should be Mr. Hughes said, yet when the time came to put an army on the border “to do police service was presented a spectacle showing - inefficiency of the first magnitude." The administration’s embargo on arms to Mexico was cirticised as “fast and loose —no pblicy.” “I don’t think it a rash statement,” he said. “I think it is warranted by the facts to say that any American soldier killed in Mexico is killed by American bullets that we have let go over the border.” “The punitive expedition in Mexico was only called punitive.” “The only punishment inflicted was punishment on ourselves,” he said. “We punished nobody else.”' A large portion of the address was devoted to a reiteration of his views of the need for industrial co-operation and preparedness for commercial competition after the European war ends.