250 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



MILITARY TRAINING AND ITS RELATION TO CITIZENSHIP. 



LIEUT. B. A. LEWIS, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



I propose to talk tonight upon the obligations of citizenship; the duties 

 which each man owes to the community in which he lives, his state and 

 his nation. And I shall speak more especially concerning the just 

 demands which each state may make upon the individual in the way of 

 military duty. 



At no time in the history of our country has thei*e been a greater need 

 for goo^d, honest citizens. It is the general belief that great corruption 

 has entered into our national life, there is a great distrust of political 

 parties and of the men whose names are associated with these parties, 

 and the public conscience is so diseased that honor, worth and ability 

 fall before the methods of the politician. We are confronted with 

 another great danger. For many years the strife between capital and 

 labor, so called, has been waxing more bitter, and each year sees us 

 drawing nearer to the time when organized labor and organized capital 

 will meet in terrible conflict. The problem here presented is an impor- 

 tant one. The statesman may be able to solve it. Our courts may be 

 strong enough to uphold the dignity of our laws. Nevertheless, it is but 

 the part of wisdom to prepare for the failure, for a time, of our laws. 



These two questions, political honor and social justice, are the greatest 

 before the American people today; and such is their magnitude that I 

 repeat my statement, that at no time in the history of our country has 

 there been a greater need for good, honest citizens — for patriots. Now 

 the virtues of patriotism may be thus defined: "Love of counti'y, that 

 devotion to country, its rights, liberties and institutions, that prompts 

 to their defense, and looks to their welfare." And this definition must 

 be understood to apply to the community in which each man lives, to 

 the state and to the nation. It is my intention to only hint at the 

 obligations and duties that fall upon members of a community to attend 

 primaries and work for clean men for office, to vote for those men at elec- 

 tion, to support them in a faithful execution of the laws, and to set a 

 worthy example of honesty and worth. And someway, I believe, it will 

 work out, that when each little town, and hamlet, and district, is well 

 served by faithful officials, that our national life will grow pure and 

 wholesome. 



But one of the elements of patriotism is that which leads to the 

 defense of country in time of peril, and prompts to preparation for such 

 times. I know there are some before me who say that we will never 

 have any mpre wars, the world is too far advanced, and anyway, if it was 

 not, war has become so destructive that it cannot again occur. Now, I 

 do not know just when such talk began. It was common before the war 

 of the rebellion, and no doubt lengthened the war by years, and added 

 hundreds of thousands to the list of dead and wounded. It was heard 

 when gunpowder was invented, and I have no doubt it was heard when 

 our ancestors, discarding stones and clubs, brought the bow and arrow 

 upon the field of battle. I hope we will have no more war, but who can 



