in but a fraction of the time and but for a fraction of the cost that was actually the case.  As a Nation we have always been shortsighted in providing for the efficiency of the Army in time of peace.  It is nobody’s especial interest to make such provision and no one looks ahead to war at any period, no matter how remote, as being a serious possibility; while an improper economy, or rather niggardliness, can be practiced at the expense of the Army with the certainty that those practicing it will not be called to account therefor, but that the price will be paid by the unfortunate persons who happen to be in office when a war does actually come.

I think it is only lack of foresight that troubles us, not any hostility to the Army.  There are, of course, foolish people who denounce any care of the Army or Navy as “militarism,” but I do not think that these people are numerous.  This country has to contend now, and has had to contend in the past, with many evils, and there is ample scope for all who would work for reform.  But there is not one evil that now exists, or that ever has existed in this country, which is, or ever has been, owing in the smallest part to militarism.  Declamation against militarism has no more serious place in an earnest and intelligent movement for righteousness in this country than declamation against the worship of Baal or Astaroth.  It is declamation against a non-existent evil, one which never has existed in this country, and which has not the slightest chance of appearing here.  We are glad to help in any movement for international peace, but this is because we sincerely believe that it is our duty to help all such movements provided they are sane and rational, and not because there is any tendency toward militarism on our part which needs to be cured.  The evils we have to fight are those in connection with industrialism, not militarism.  Industry is always necessary, just as war is sometimes necessary.  Each has its price, and industry in the United States now exacts, and has always exacted, a far heavier toll of death than all our wars put together.  The statistics of the railroads of this country for the year ended June 30, 1906, the last contained in the annual statistical report of the Interstate Commerce Commission, show in that one year a total of 108,324 casualties to persons, of which 10,618 represent the number of persons killed.  In that wonderful hive of human activity, Pittsburg, the deaths due to industrial accidents in 1906 were 919, all the result of accidents in mills, mines or on railroads.  For the entire country, therefore, it is safe to say that the deaths due to industrial accidents aggregate in the neighborhood of twenty thousand a year.  Such a record makes the death rate in all our foreign wars utterly trivial by comparison.  The number of deaths in battle in all the foreign wars put together, for the last century and a quarter, aggregate considerably less than one year’s death record for our industries.  A mere glance at these figures is sufficient to show the absurdity of the outcry against militarism.