WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING? 



than those who could march thirty miles a day; 

 more men able to criticize the umpire than are able 

 to take a rifle and find the bull at five hundred yards 

 on a gray day with a five-o'clock wind. He was 

 of the belief that more of the attendants at such 

 games would be able to do accurate practice with 

 the pop bottle or a seat cushion than would be able 

 to lift their own weight a hundred times on the 

 parallel bars. In short, he did not consider the 

 average baseball fan a good specimen of the Ameri- 

 can citizen. And understand, this was his con- 

 clusion, reached independently. 



I do not know that it should be the one ambition 

 of a nation to raise soldiers. But I do know that 

 soldiers, a lot of them, good ones, may be needed by 

 this or any other country on mighty short notice. 

 Where did England get them? Where should we 

 be obliged to get them? Where did Germany get 

 them? As to the latter nation, it certainly is true 

 that she did not get them in baseball parks, but out 

 of turner societies and drill barracks. In Munich, 

 in Dresden, and other towns where there were mili- 

 tary barracks, I have sometimes seen German re- 

 cruits being trained by their officers. They were 

 not taught to read the score sheet, or to recognize 

 Mr. Connie McGraw or Mr. Willie Collins on sight, 

 or to smite the umpire in the twenty-four ring 



3" 



