There are nations who only need to have peaceful ideals inculcated, and to whom militarism is a curse and a misfortune.  There are other nations, like our own, so happily situated that the thought of war is never present to their minds.  They are wholly free from any tendency improperly to exalt or to practice militarism.  These nations should never forget that there must be military ideals no less than peaceful ideals.  The exaltation of Nogi’s career, set forth so strikingly in Stanley Washburn’s little volume on the great Japanese warrior, contains much that is especially needed for us of America, prone as we are to regard the exigencies of a purely commercial and industrial civilization as excusing us from the need of admiring and practicing the heroic and warlike virtues.

Our people are not military.  We need normally only a small standing army; but there should be behind it a reserve of instructed men big enough to fill it up to full war strength, which is over twice the peace strength.  Moreover, the young men of the country should realize that it is the duty of every one of them to prepare himself so that in time of need he may speedily become an efficient soldier—­a duty now generally forgotten, but which should be recognized as one of the vitally essential parts of every man’s training.

In endeavoring to get the “Rough Riders” equipped I met with some experiences which were both odd and instructive.  There were not enough arms and other necessaries to go round, and there was keen rivalry among the intelligent and zealous commanders of the volunteer organizations as to who should get first choice.  Wood’s experience was what enabled us to equip ourselves in short order.  There was another cavalry organization whose commander was at the War Department about this time, and we had been eyeing him with much alertness as a rival.  One day I asked him what his plans were about arming and drilling his troops, who were of precisely the type of our own men.  He answered that he expected “to give each of the boys two revolvers and a lariat, and then just turn them loose.”  I reported the conversation to Wood, with the remark that we might feel ourselves safe from rivalry in that quarter; and safe we were.

In trying to get the equipment I met with checks and rebuffs, and in return was the cause of worry and concern to various bureau chiefs who were unquestionably estimable men in their private and domestic relations, and who doubtless had been good officers thirty years before, but who were as unfit for modern war as if they were so many smooth-bores.  One fine old fellow did his best to persuade us to take black powder rifles, explaining with paternal indulgence that no one yet really knew just what smokeless powder might do, and that there was a good deal to be said in favor of having smoke to conceal us from the enemy.  I saw this pleasing theory actually worked out in practice later on, for the National Guard regiments with us