14 The Strenuous Life 



who built up the navy, and, for the sake of the future 

 of the country, keep in mind those who opposed its 

 building up. Read the "Congressional Record." 

 Find out the Senators and Congressmen who op 

 posed the grants for building the new ships; who 

 opposed the purchase of armor, without which the 

 ships were worthless; who opposed any adequate 

 maintenance for the Navy Department, and strove 

 to cut down the number of men necessary to man 

 our fleets. The men who did these things were one 

 and all working to bring disaster on the country. 

 They have no share in the glory of Manila, in the 

 Tionor of Santiago. They have no cause to feel 

 proud of the valor of our sea-captains, of the re 

 nown of our flag. Their motives may or may not 

 have been good, but their acts were heavily fraught 

 with evil. They did ill for the national honor, and 

 we won in spite of their sinister opposition. 



Now, apply all this to our public men of to-day. 

 Our army has never been built up as it should be 

 built up. I shall not discuss with an audience like 

 this the puerile suggestion that a nation of seventy 

 millions of freemen is in danger of losing its liber 

 ties from the existence of an army of one hundred 

 thousand men, three-fourths of whom will be em 

 ployed in certain foreign islands, in certain coast for 

 tresses, and on Indian reservations. No man of 

 good sense and stout heart can take such a proposi- 



