CHICAGO, April 20.?Americanism is on trial, with the national character in the balance, Theodore Roosevelt said in a preparedness appeal here tonight to the people living in the territory between the Alleghanies and the Rockies. The former President, speaking before the Illinois Bar Association, discussed "National Duty and International Ideals," alluding to conditions in Mexico and in Europe, and urging industrial and social, as well as military, preparedness.
"I ask you of the West," he said, "to take the lead in the effort for a robust and virile nationalism, fit and ready to cope with all possible dangers at home and abroad... I ask for military preparedness as an arm to help the soul of the nation. I ask for it to unlock the national conscience, to help the national discipline... I ask you to prepare, so that we may secure peace for ourselves and for others; not the peace of cowardice nor the peace of selfishness, but the peace of righteousness and of justice, the peace of bravo men pledged to the service of this mighty democratic republic, and through that service pledged also to the service of the world at large." 