"This," adds Jefferson, "I hope will be our wisdom." But it is only a hope and circumstances which cannot be changed by pious hopes exist and have to be confronted. In order to avoid every cause of conflict it would be necessary to abandon the ocean altogether, and "to leave to others to bring what we shall want, and to carry what we shall spare." This unfortunately is impossible, since a large portion of the American people are attached to commerce and insist on following the sea. What then is the answer?--Preparedness.--"Wars then must sometimes be our lot; and all the wise can do, will be to avoid that half of them which would be produced by our own follies, and our own acts of injustice; and to make for the other half the best preparations one can." One would not have to search long in the speeches of Woodrow Wilson to find the same idea expressed in almost identical terms. Even a Republican president such as Mr. Coolidge did not speak differently, when he simultaneously proposed conferences of disarmament and recommended that appropriation for the navy be enormously increased. This combination of will to peace, these reiterations of the pacific policies of the United States have been since the early days combined with the fixed determination to maintain a naval force adequate to cope with any attacking force. For such is the policy advocated by Jefferson. One should not be deceived by his very modest statement, "the sea is the field on which we should meet an European enemy. On that element it is necessary that we should possess some power." What he proposes is simply the building in one year of a fleet of thirty ships, eighteen of which might be ships of the line, and twelve frigates, with eighteen hundred guns. And he significantly adds, "I state this only as one year's possible exertion, without deciding whether more or less than a year should be thus applied." But, so as not to leave any potential aggressor in doubt as to the resources of America, he mentions that this naval force should by no means be "so great as we are able to make it."