We have only thirty-two 6-inch howitzers and smaller pieces, none larger.
Militia:
Total enlisted men, 119,087, of which only 52.56 per cent. have had any rifle practice, and only 33.43 per cent. have qualified as second-class marksmen or better.
From the Report of the Chief of Staff for the year ending June 30, 1914, we learn that out of our 120,000 militiamen, 23,000 failed to present themselves for the annual inspection; 31,000 absented themselves from the annual encampment; and 44,000 never appeared on the rifle range from one year's end to the other.
Congressman Gardner tells us, further, that 60 per cent. of our militia were unable, in 1913, to qualify even as third-class marksmen, and that half of that 60 per cent. (30 per cent.) did not even try to qualify.
For years prior to the breaking out of the great European conflict, Lord Roberts pleaded with the English people, and prayed that they might hear his appeal to prepare for war with Germany. Like a voice crying in the wilderness, he called the British nation to arms. His voice was not heeded, and the nation did not arm.
The voice of Lord Roberts sounded harshly on the ears of sensitive English officialdom. Lord Haldane, to emphasize his attitude, disbanded 80,000 British troops at the very moment when England should have enlisted and begun to train 800,000. Also, he threatened to abolish Lord Roberts' pension if he did not keep quiet. The grand old soldier was spared by a kind Providence to stand on the firing-line when the great war came which he had foreseen, and there he saw thousands of his country's dead who had fallen from failure to regard his timely warning.
We have a Lord Roberts, too. There is a grand old American soldier who for years has appealed to us to fly to arms with all speed in preparation against war. He has even greater reason than Lord Roberts had, because our danger is many times greater than was England's danger. We are practically defenseless, while England was not.
I quote the following from the American Lord Roberts, General Leonard Wood: