virtues, others were purely of the glorified huckster or glorified pawnbroker type—­which when developed to the exclusion of everything else makes about as poor a national type as the world has seen.  This unadulterated huckster or pawnbroker type is rarely keenly sympathetic in matters of social and industrial justice, and is usually physically timid and likes to cover an unworthy fear of the most just war under high-sounding names.

It was reinforced by the large mollycoddle vote—­the people who are soft physically and morally, or who have a twist in them which makes them acidly cantankerous and unpleasant as long as they can be so with safety to their bodies.  In addition there are the good people with no imagination and no foresight, who think war will not come, but that if it does come armies and navies can be improvised—­a very large element, typified by a Senator I knew personally who, in a public speech, in answer to a question as to what we would do if America were suddenly assailed by a first-class military power, answered that “we would build a battle-ship in every creek.”  Then, among the wise and high-minded people who in self-respecting and genuine fashion strive earnestly for peace, there are the foolish fanatics always to be found in such a movement and always discrediting it—­the men who form the lunatic fringe in all reform movements.

All these elements taken together made a body of public opinion so important during the decades immediately succeeding the Civil War as to put a stop to any serious effort to keep the Nation in a condition of reasonable military preparedness.  The representatives of this opinion then voted just as they now do when they vote against battle-ships or against fortifying the Panama Canal.  It would have been bad enough if we had been content to be weak, and, in view of our weakness, not to bluster.  But we were not content with such a policy.  We wished to enjoy the incompatible luxuries of an unbridled tongue and an unready hand.  There was a very large element which was ignorant of our military weakness, or, naturally enough, unable to understand it; and another large element which liked to please its own vanity by listening to offensive talk about foreign nations.  Accordingly, too many of our politicians, especially in Congress, found that the cheap and easy thing to do was to please the foolish peace people by keeping us weak, and to please the foolish violent people by passing denunciatory resolutions about international matters—­resolutions which would have been improper even if we had been strong.  Their idea was to please both the mollycoddle vote and the vote of the international tail-twisters by upholding, with pretended ardor and mean intelligence, a National policy of peace with insult.