THE BLOOD OF TEE NATION. 137 



that better men fell on both sides when 'Kentish Sir Byng stood for the 

 King' than when the British arms forced the opium trade on China. 

 Ko doubt, in our own country, better men fell at Bunker Hill or Cow- 

 ]iens than at Cerro Gordo or Chapultepec. The lofty cause demands 

 the lofty sacrifice. 



It is the shame of England that most of her many wars in our day 

 have cost her very little. They have been scrambles of the mob or 

 with the mob, not triumphs of democracy. 



There was once a time when the struggles of armies resulted in a 

 survival of the fittest, when the race was indeed to the swift and the 

 battle to the strong. The invention of 'villainous gunpowder' has 

 changed all this. Except the kind of warfare called guerrilla, the 

 quality of the individual has ceased to be much of a factor. The clown 

 can shoot down the hero and 'doesn't have to look the hero in the face 

 as he does so.' The shell destroys the clown and hero alike, and the 

 machine gun mows down whole ranks impartially. There is little play 

 for selection in modern war save what is shown in the process of en- 

 listment. 



XLI. America has grown strong with the strength of peace, the 

 spirit of democracy. Her wars have been few. Were it not for the 

 mob spirit, they would have been still fewer, but in most of them 

 she could not choose but fight. Volunteer soldiers have swelled her 

 armies, men who went forth of their own free will, knowing whither 

 they were going, believing their acts to be right, and taking patiently 

 whatever the fates may hold in store. 



The feeling for the righteousness of the cause, ''with the flavor of 

 religion in it," says Charles Ferguson, "has made the volunteer the 

 mighty soldier he has always been since the days of Naseby and Mars- 

 ton Moor." Only with volunteer soldiers can democracy go into war. 

 When America fights with professional troops, she will be no longer 

 America. We shall then be, with the rest of the militant world, under 

 mob rule. "It is the mission of democracy," says Ferguson again, "to 

 put down the rule of the mob. In monarchies and aristocracies it is the 

 mob that rules. It is puerile to suppose that kingdoms are made by 

 kings. The king could do nothing if the mob did not throw up its cap 

 when the king rides by. The king is consented to by the mob because of 

 that which in him is mob-like. The mob loves glory and prizes. So 

 does the king. If he loved beauty and justice, the mob would shout 

 for him while the fine words were sounding in the air; but he could 

 never celebrate a jubilee or establish a dynasty. When the crowd gets 

 ready to demand justice and beauty, it becomes a democracy, and has 

 done with kings." 



It was at Lexington that the embattled farmers 'fired the shot that 

 was heard around the world.' To them life was of less value than a 



