274 A Forgotten Maxim 



which would surely come if ever the nation really 

 saw and felt a danger or an insult. The real trouble 

 is that in such a case this gust of popular fury would 

 come too late. Unreadiness for war is merely ren- 

 dered more disastrous by readiness to bluster; to 

 talk defiance and advocate a vigorous policy in 

 words, while refusing to back up these words by 

 deeds, is cause for humiliation. It has always been 

 true, and in this age it is more than ever true, that 

 it is too late to prepare for war when the time for 

 peace has passed. The short-sightedness of many 

 people, the good-humored indifference to facts of 

 others, the sheer ignorance of a vast number, and 

 the selfish reluctance to insure against future danger 

 by present sacrifice among yet others these are the 

 chief obstacles to building up a proper navy and 

 carrying out a proper foreign policy. 



The men who opposed the War of 1812, and 

 preferred to have the nation humiliated by unre- 

 sented insult from a foreign power rather than see 

 her suffer the losses of an honorable conflict, occu- 

 pied a position little short of contemptible; but it 

 was not much worse than that of the men who 

 brought on the war and yet deliberately refused to 

 make the preparations necessary to carry it to a suc- 

 cessful conclusion. The visionary schemes for de- 

 fending the country by gunboats, instead of by a fleet 

 of seagoing battleships; the refusal to increase the 

 Navy to a proper size; the determination to place 

 reliance upon militia instead of upon regularly 

 trained troops; and the disasters which followed 



