ould
organize them if they had a clean sheet of paper to write upon.
Certainly the Government of the United States is not. I think that it is
generally agreed that there should be a systematic reorganization and
reassembling of its parts so as to secure greater efficiency and effect
considerable savings in expense. But the amount of money saved in that
way would, I believe, though no doubt considerable in itself, running,
it may be, into the millions, be relatively small,--small, I mean, in
proportion to the total necessary outlays of the Government. It would be
thoroughly worth effecting, as every saving would, great or small. Our
duty is not altered by the scale of the saving. But my point is that the
people of the United States do not wish to curtail the activities of
this Government; they wish, rather, to enlarge them; and with every
enlargement, with the mere growth, indeed, of the country itself, there
must come, of course, the inevitable increase of expense. The sort of
economy we ought to practice may be effected, and ought to be effected,
by a careful study and assessment of the tasks to be performed; and the
money spent ought to be made to yield the best possible returns in
efficiency and achievement. And, like good stewards, we should so
account for every dollar of our appropriations as to make it perfectly
evident what it was spent for and in what way it was spent.

It is not expenditure but extravagance that we should fear being
criticized for; not paying for the legitimate enterprises and
undertakings of a great Government whose people command what it should
do, but adding what will benefit only a few or pouring money out for
what need not have been undertaken at all or might have been postponed
or better and more economically conceived and carried out. The Nation is
not niggardly; it is very generous. It will chide us only if we forget
for whom we pay money out and whose money it is we pay. These are large
and general standards, but they are not very difficult of application to
particular cases.

The other topic I shall take leave to mention goes deeper into the
principles of our national life and policy. It is the subject of
national defense.

It cannot be discussed without first answering some very searching
questions. It is said in some quarters that we are not prepared for war.
What is meant by being prepared? Is it meant that we are not ready upon
brief notice to put a nation in the field, a natio