circumstances
suffer the nation to be hampered in the essential matter of national
defense. At the present moment circumstances render this duty
particularly obvious. Almost the entire military force of the nation is
stationed upon the Mexican border to guard our territory against hostile
raids. It must be supplied, and steadily supplied, with whatever it
needs for its maintenance and efficiency. If it should be necessary for
purposes of national defense to transfer any portion of it upon short
notice to some other part of the country, for reasons now unforeseen,
ample means of transportation must be available, and available without
delay. The power conferred in this matter should be carefully and
explicitly limited to cases of military necessity, but in all such cases
it should be clear and ample.

There is one other thing we should do if we are true champions of
arbitration. We should make all arbitral awards judgments by record of a
court of law in order that their interpretation and enforcement may lie,
not with one of the parties to the arbitration, but with an impartial
and authoritative tribunal.

These things I urge upon you, not in haste or merely as a means of
meeting a present emergency, but as permanent and necessary additions to
the law of the land, suggested, indeed, by circumstances we had hoped
never to see, but imperative as well as just, if such emergencies are to
be prevented in the future. I feel that no extended argument is needed
to commend them to your favorable consideration. They demonstrate
themselves. The time and the occasion only give emphasis to their
importance. We need them now and we shall continue to need them.

SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE

[On being offered the nomination for President by the Democratic Party.
Delivered at Shadow Lawn, Sea Girt, N.J., Saturday, September 2, 1916.]

SENATOR JAMES, GENTLEMEN OF THE NOTIFICATION COMMITTEE, FELLOW-CITIZENS:

I cannot accept the leadership and responsibility which the National
Democratic Convention has again, in such generous fashion, asked me to
accept without first expressing my profound gratitude to the party for
the trust it reposes in me after four years of fiery trial in the midst
of affairs of unprecedented difficulty, and the keen sense of added
responsibility with which this honor fills (I had almost said burdens)
me as I think of the great issues of national life and policy involved
in the present and immediate future cond