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Show H dudes at West Point to pose on dress parade all M their lives, the inference being it was a useless 1 school, thrtt we needed nothing of the kind. But H1 among those "dudes" there were such men as M Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, H Philip Sheridan, Robert B. Lee, both the John- M stons, Thomas Jackson, George H. Thomas, A. P. H Hill, Hooker, Scofleld, Slocum, Longstreet, Canby, m, Pickett, Hood, Bragg and plenty more who, later H in life, proved what kind of dudes they were; H and those young men led the army that went to j Mexico, and on the plains, up the heights, into i the very fastnesses of the enemy they, one to H four of their enemies in numbers, forged their n way, captured the capital of the enemy's country, H? hut in the doing a greater proportion of them lost B: their lives than ever was seen in a modern war l before. f When the great rebellion came on the Amer- H ican people knew nothing about war. The south- B erners, because of their habits, were better ac- i quainted with weapons, and the war cost in K heroic lives thousands and thousands of men, be- 1 cause at first they knew no discipline; second, ( they had no sufficient commanders, and third, K they knew nothing about camp life and how to M manage when they passed out from under the Hl soft light of peace into the red glare of war. Hi When war was suddenly declared against 1 Spain, because of our unpreparedness, all South- m em Europe made merry at what the result would . be when the disciplined armies of Spain and the j great warships of Spain should meet in battle 1 that wild mob of Americans. That want of pre- 't paredness cost all that war cost in life and treas- H ure, because had we been half prepared Spain m would never have permitted any war. M Just now we have a little army which does not amount to a police force for the nation. It is U scattered everywhere, it is short of officers; were ii a sudden war to come upon us the result would W be as it has been in the past, fearful sacrifices of f1 lives and mighty waste of treasure. 1 Across the Pacific from the United States the L first power is Japan. Japan intends to have con- f trol of the Pacific trade, and eventually to doml- i nate the whole empire of China. Her armies are ij perfectly trained. Every child able to bear arms, M so soon as he reaches the age when he can, is made a thorough soldier or sailor. Japan has H nearly as large a fleet as ours, and is building H ! more ships. When the Japanese-Russian war H '' broke out, before it was proclaimed to the world H;j Japan had destroyed a Russian fleet, and her M' armies were assembled and ready for war. Hj Japan keeps a trained corps of expert officers H. spying out the defenses of every country which li ever threatens to be an opponent of hers. She H . has better maps of our west coast than our own H officers. She knows every point where a ship- H can land on our west coast. She knows every de- H fense about Hawaii and the Philippines. She is H the most treacherous power on earth. She is the H only power that the United States need have any H I apprehension of, and yet a year and a half ago when the battleship fleet was on our coaBt, instead in-stead of keeping it there, our government ordered It home. Three or four times in the last four years there has been much friction between our country coun-try and Japan; that Is, between our people and tho Japanese people. Every time Japan has sent kindly assurances that it did not esteem those things of any point, knowing the friendly feeling of our government toward her. But this is true: a great many thousand of her bravest and best died in the Russian war; she is waiting for a generation to grow up and be disciplined, and then, if our government pursues the policy it has for years past, sometime there will be friction and Japan will throw down the gauntlet and say she has borne those things long enough, and before be-fore our government is awake to what is going on, she will have landed on our west coast a great army that will simply march hither and thither and prey on the country as it pleases. These are all facts, and It is in the minds of thoughtful people a sorrowful thing that our government gov-ernment does not take the advice of George Washington Wash-ington to "in time of peace prepare for war." |