The Strenuous Life 17 



must pay with their blood for the silly, mock hu- 

 manitarianism of the prattlers who sit at home in 

 peace. 



The army and the navy are the sword and the 

 shield which this nation must carry if she is to do 

 her duty among the nations of the earth if she is 

 not to stand merely as the China of the Western 

 Hemisphere. Our proper conduct toward the tropic 

 islands we have wrested from Spain is merely the 

 form which our duty has taken at the moment. 

 Of course we are bound to handle the affairs of our 

 own household well. We must see that there is civic 

 honesty, civic cleanliness, civic good sense in our 

 home administration of city, State, and nation. We 

 must strive for honesty in office, for honesty toward 

 the creditors of the nation and of the individual ; for 

 the widest freedom of individual initiative where 

 possible, and for the wisest control of individual 

 initiative where it is hostile to the welfare of the 

 many. But because we set our own household in 

 order we are not thereby excused from playing our 

 part in the great affairs of the world. A man's first 

 duty is to his own home, but he is not thereby ex 

 cused from doing his duty to the State; for if he 

 fails in this second duty it is under the penalty of 

 ceasing to be a freeman. In the same way, while a 

 nation's first duty is within its own borders, it is not 

 thereby absolved from facing its duties in the world 



