Military Preparedness 139 



the attitude of Continental Europe generally, in strik 

 ing contrast to that of England. But it is a curious 

 fact that his view reflects not unfairly two different 

 opinions, which two different classes of our people 

 would have expressed before the event opinions 

 singularly falsified by the fact. Our pessimists feared 

 that we had lost courage and fighting capacity ; some 

 of our optimists asserted that we needed neither, in 

 view of our marvelous wealth and extraordinary in 

 ventiveness and mechanical skill. The national trait 

 of "smartness," used in the Yankee sense of the 

 word, has very good and very bad sides. Among 

 the latter is its tendency to create the belief that we 

 need not prepare for war, because somehow we shall 

 be able to win by some novel patent device, some new 

 trick or new invention developed on the spur of the 

 moment by the ingenuity of our people. In this way 

 it is hoped to provide a substitute for preparedness 

 that is, for years of patient and faithful attention 

 to detail in advance. It is even sometimes said that 

 these mechanical devices will be of so terrible a char 

 acter as to nullify the courage which has always in 

 the past been the prime factor in winning battles. 



Now, as all sound military judges knew in ad 

 vance must inevitably be the case, the experience of 

 the Spanish War completely falsified every prediction 

 of this kind. We did not win through any special 

 ingenuity. Not a device of any kind was improvised 



