CHAPTER V
THE NEEDS OF OUR ARMY
Letter From General Leonard Wood
Governor's Island, N. Y.,
February 6th, 1915.
Dear Mr. Maxim:
I am very glad indeed to learn of your interest in military preparedness. The subject is one which is of vital importance to the American people. We do not want to establish militarism in this country in the sense of creating a privileged military class, dominating the civil element, receiving especial recognition, and exercising perhaps an undue influence upon the administration of national affairs, but we do want to build up in every boy a realization of the fact that he is an integral part of the nation, and that he has a military as well as a civic responsibility. All this can be done without creating a spirit of militarism or of aggressiveness. Take Switzerland as an example. Here we have a country where every boy and young man who is physically sound receives, largely as a part of his school work, military training to the extent necessary to make him an efficient soldier. This is a policy which ought to be followed with our youth. It is not enough that a man should be willing to be a soldier. He should also be so prepared as to be an efficient one. This can only be accomplished through training. Switzerland and Australia have shown that this can be done through the public-school system, and with a resulting vast improvement in public morals and the quality of citizenship. The criminal rate in Switzerland is only a small fraction of ours. Respect for the law and constituted authorities, the flag of the country, and a high sense of patriotism are evident on all sides, and yet there is practically no standing army.
We have here a patriotic people, living not with arms in their hands, or with a large standing army, but trained, equipped, and ready to efficiently and promptly defend the rights of their country. This I believe is the ideal we should strive for. We need a standing army big enough for the peace work of the day, i.e., the garrisoning of our foreign possessions, the Philippines, the Hawaiian Islands, Panama, the little garrisons in Porto Rico and Alaska, and a force in the continental United States adequate for the peace needs of the nation.
We must never again trust ourselves to the emergencies of a great war without proper preparation. If we do we shall meet with an overwhelming disaster. Preparedness is really an insurance for peace, and not an influence for war.
