It may well be submitted to the serious
consideration of Congress whether the deepening and control of the
channel of a great river system, like that of the Ohio or of the
Mississippi, when definite and practical plans for the enterprise
have been approved and determined upon, should not be provided for
in the same way.
Then, too, there are expenditures of Government absolutely
necessary if our country is to maintain its proper place among the
nations of the world, and is to exercise its proper influence in
defense of its own trade interests in the maintenance of
traditional American policy against the colonization of European
monarchies in this hemisphere, and in the promotion of peace and
international morality. I refer to the cost of maintaining a
proper army, a proper navy, and suitable fortifications upon the
mainland of the United States and in its dependencies.
We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be
capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the national
militia and under the provisions of a proper national volunteer
law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all
probable invasion from abroad and to furnish a respectable
expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance of our
traditional American policy which bears the name of President
Monroe.
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