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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Voi,. XXVIII. No. 728 



We are the greatest industrial people in 

 the world, and we do not want to be 

 burdened with a large standing army. 

 Furthermore, we are fearful that a large 

 standing army would be a menace to our 

 liberties under the guidance of some 

 favorite general or autocratic president. 



But we do need something of an army, 

 and at the present time we have prac- 

 tically no army at all. The standing army 

 of the United States to-day numbers 75,- 

 000 men — mostly engaged as common 

 laborers and servants to the officers. We 

 ought to have at the very least an army 

 of 250,000 men. 



The ordnance department asked the last 

 congress for the privilege of keeping im- 

 portant inventions secret and not to make 

 them public by being obliged to advertise 

 for bids for manufacture ; but this petition 

 congress has denied. 



Water can not rise above its source, and 

 the wisdom of the American congress can 

 not be expected to rise far above the 

 average intelligence of the common people. 

 This is a government of the people, by the 

 people and for the people; and altogether 

 it is the best government in the world for 

 white men to live in. But a government of 

 the few, by the few, and for the few, may 

 make a better war machine. 



In Japan, it is only necessary for the 

 Mikado and a few advisers to hold a board 

 meeting and to decide and act upon any 

 measure. Such facility of action as com- 

 pared with the cumbersone methods of 

 our congress, is like fishing for trout with 

 a light rod and reel compared with fishing 

 with a huge pine tree and making every 

 movement with a derrick. 



All the other great powers are arming 

 themselves to the teeth. "But how does 

 this concern us?" asks the American ego- 

 tist. "We believe that we are the beloved 

 of all the nations. They are all our 

 personal friends." 



The present attitude of our American 

 egoism is that we are absolutely without 

 fear. ' ' We have whipped and shall always 

 be able to whip all creation. We are such 

 terrible fighters that guns would only be 

 an encumbrance and burden us in our 

 headlong rush upon the enemy to wring his 

 neck. 



"Besides, there is the great American 

 genius which we can draw upon at any 

 time, as we would draw cider from a barrel, 

 and it is only necessary for the conjunc- 

 tion of the American genius with oppor- 

 tunity to make the fantasies of Jules 

 Verne, H. G. Wells and Boy Norton become 

 actualities. The world would have to step 

 in and hold us then or we should do some- 

 thing awful." 



Armies can not be made in a day. It 

 takes three years to convert the average 

 citizen into a real soldier. For the first 

 year an army of raw recruits is only a mob. 



The modern battalion of veterans is like 

 the flying wedge of a football team— it 

 acts as a unit. How many undisciplined 

 citizens would be required to oppose the 

 onslaught of the flying wedge of Tale? 

 A plain citizen may have the making of a 

 very great pugilist, and still, without train- 

 ing and experience, he could not stand for 

 long in front of a lusty prizefighter. 



Arm the American soldier and train him 

 as the soldiers of other nations are armed 

 and trained, and protect him from sickness 

 as the Japanese soldiers are protected, and 

 there is no army in the world that could 

 whip an American army on equal terms. 



We do not want to become a great mili- 

 tary power and the only way to prevent it 

 is to maintain a navy so powerful as to 

 preclude any possibility of an invasion of 

 a foreign foe— a navy strong enough to 

 withstand any possible coalition against us. 



Then we should not need a large stand- 

 ing army. Then we might love and trust 

 our neighbors — but cut their cards. 



