_Senator Dick; Members of the Association_: I trust it is hardly necessary for me to say what a genuine pleasure it is to me to-day to greet this organization. I have been a member of the National Guard myself, and both at the time when I was Governor (as the present Assistant Secretary of War can say) and since I have been President, and even when I was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, I have always done all that in me lay to further the interests of the National Guard. I have a good many things on hand, but one of the things that are interesting me most at present, Senator Dick, is the encouragement of rifle practice to the National Guard. I want to have it understood, gentlemen, that I do not care anything like as much for how your regiments march and perform parade-ground and armory maneuvres as I care for how they are instructed in the work that would make them valuable as soldiers in time of war. I earnestly hope that the National Guard, and, Mr. Taft, the Regular Army also, especially the Regular Army, will more and more have the kind of instruction that will make it second nature for the man who marches to march fully equipped as he would be in time of war. If he is trained to march that way he will not throw away his equipment the first time he goes to war; otherwise he will do it. I want to see the average National Guardsman know how to shoot well. I want to see the fund that we have for rifle practice distributed among the several State organizations, partly at least with reference to the way in which those State organizations promote marksmanship. I want to see the young fellow who has been through the National Guard receive a training which will make him able to do his work in time of war if the need comes.