Listening to these voices after the World War, we raised our army to two hundred eighty thousand. We were going to be organized on a business basis for defense. We were at last going to obey the Constitution and give our manhood a chance. The soldier went to work to build for safety. But his efforts were short-lived. In 1922 Congress reduced the army to one hundred and seventy-five thousand men for one hundred twenty million people. Over one thousand officers and one hundred thousand enlisted men were cast out of the service. Then the parings of the budgets began. Since that time the army has never been greater than one hundred nineteen thousand and often less--about forty-two per cent of what in 1920 we felt proper. Today the C.C.C. outnumbers the army three to one--and organized crime many times. We have but fifty-five thousand soldiers in the United States, subtracting for foreign possessions and overhead. They would make a small crowd in the Yale Bowl. It would be difficult to get two divisions of regular troops together. The National Guard has been similarly cut down. In 1920 it was given a strength of four hundred twenty-five thousand. Today it is about one hundred ninety thousand--a reduction of fifty-six per cent. The Reserve Officers number but eighty-nine thousand and their active duty training--their opportunity to keep abreast--has been sliced to the bone. Since 1920 their efficiency has been slowed down sixty per cent. Altogether our land defense in manpower is more than fifty per cent lower than it was fifteen years ago. Our material deficiency is even greater. Our tanks are hopelessly out of date. We have only twelve modern ones--and only one of them is the most efficient type. We have aged field artillery, practically worn out. Our rifles are older. We have only eighty new semi-automatics--the normal weapon of the foot-soldier nowadays. Our ammunition is tremendously short. We have the barest few modern anti-aircraft guns and devices. Our motor vehicles are way behind in numbers. Our airplanes are excellent in quality but slim in quantity. All these supplies would take from a year to two years to manufacture. Does this condition remind you of anything before our other wars? Does it give you a little feeling of the days before the Spanish-American tragedy? Our problem of National Defense has not been critically analysed since 1920. It is due the public to know where we stand. For it’s the public only that can make or break national defense.