The Career of Leonard Wood

by Joseph Hamblen Sears

[VIII]
THE PATRIOT

"There are many things man cannot buy and one of them is time. It takes time to organize and prepare. Time will only be found in periods of peace. Modern war gives no time for preparation. Its approach is that of the avalanche and not of the glacier.

"We must remember that this training is not a training for war alone. It really is a training for life, a training for citizenship in time of peace.

"We must remember that it is better to be prepared for war and not have it, then to have war and not to be prepared for it."

Such sentiments quoted from General Wood's many speeches and writings might be continued until they alone made a volume--a book of the Creed of the Patriot. For in his crusade up and down our land for the last six years he has developed an unsuspected ability for epigrammatic phraseology, for stating in concise, homely {202} language the principle that no one in any successful operation has failed to get ready. This was unsuspected in him, because up to 1913 he had had little to say outside of his official reports. His motto of doing the thing without talking about it had been followed to the letter by himself.

When he finally arrived at a position which was important and powerful enough to give him an opportunity for putting his beliefs into effect, when he furthermore arrived at a point where there was not the immediate necessity for feeding a starving people, or fighting a hostile military force, or reorganizing a tumbled-down state, or doing any of the things demanding immediate action with which he had been employed during most of his life--then with characteristic energy he did begin. Time could not be bought by him any more than it could be by others and his work of preparedness had to await a period of peace when the time was at hand. This period having arrived in 1912 and 1918 he found that in order to produce any impression, to get action upon this plan, he must not only have a high and powerful position but he must awaken the public {203} to its importance before he could expect legislative or departmental action. Hence the volume of the Creed of the Patriot.

With his accustomed energy therefore he started upon a campaign of writing, speaking and promoting in all ways open to him to bring this new plan before the people of this country and in doing so he developed the hitherto unsuspected qualities of a speaker of the highest, because the simplest and most homely order.

To him there was nothing new in the plan of preparedness for the nation. He might have said to himself in 1913: "I have found that in order to be a doctor a young man must study so many years; in order to fight Apache Indians successfully a man must train for a physical condition that permits him to walk and ride and live harder than his already trained opponents, that he must train soldiers for that particular job, must train and care for horses to cover that particular country. I have found by sad experience that to have a regiment of Rough Riders in proper condition to fight Spaniards in Cuba the men must be taught by long training to understand military principles, {204} subordination to military rule of procedure, the use of guns and animals and the laws and tactics of military action in the field; that these men must be taught to take care of themselves in the open, that ammunition and equipment must be at hand and in use. I have found that in order to produce order in a community where there is no order, health in a land where there is only sickness, happiness amongst a people where there is only misery and fear and worry--in order to do all this laws must be made and respected, people must learn that they owe something to their state and that they are responsible for honest care, administration and thoughtfulness of those who look to them as they look to their state. I have found that where nothing but force will do the trick, force must be prepared and ready in advance. I have seen innocent persons go under because they were not ready to offset depredations. I have seen nations injured and destroyed because they were not ready to resist force, whether that force were used in a just or an unjust cause. And now I have arrived at the place where I can prove this to a nation instead of to a military platoon, or a military staff, or a few Cuban or Philippine officials."

THE PATRIOT]