WASHINGTON'S FORGOTTEN MAXIM* 



A CENTURY has passed since Washington wrote 

 /A "To be prepared for war is the most effectual 

 means to promote peace." We pay to this maxim 

 the lip loyalty we so often pay to Washington's 

 words; but it has never sunk deep into our hearts. 

 Indeed of late years many persons have refused it 

 even the poor tribute of lip loyalty, and prate about 

 the iniquity of war as if somehow that was a justi- 

 fication for refusing to take the steps which can 

 alone in the long run prevent war or avert the dread- 

 ful disasters it brings in its train. The truth of the 

 maxim is so obvious to every man of really far- 

 sighted patriotism that its mere statement seems trite 

 and useless, and it is not over-creditable to either 

 our intelligence or our love of country that there 

 should be, as there is, need to dwell upon and am- 

 plify such a truism. 



In this country there is not the slightest danger 

 of an over-development of warlike spirit, and there 

 never has been any such danger. In all our his- 

 tory there has never been a time when preparedness 

 for war was any menace to peace. On the contrary, 



* Address as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, before the 

 Naval War College, June, 1897. 

 12 (265) 



VOL. I. 



