The present influence of rum in the United States upon morals, manners, society, and politics, must be charged upon those who have labored most earnestly to lessen it. Again I allude to the prohibitionists. They have discouraged every practical effort to abate the evils of the use of liquor. They have regarded all restrictive or regulative measures about as Mr. Garrison once regarded the Constitution of the United States in its relations to slavery—as a compact with the devil. The time must come when it will be not only unfashionable but indecorous and degrading for any man to use liquor, except in cases of sickness; but when that time comes the people will owe no thanks whatever to those who have talked most against the influence of rum. Once more, and for the last time, I allude to the prohibitionists.
CHAPTER X.
NATIONAL DEFENCE.
IF Heaven helps only those who help themselves the United States will be deplorably helpless the first time they fall into difficulty with any foreign power.
Ever since the late civil war ended the general of the army has annually given us earnest and intelligent warning as to the incomplete state of our fortifications, and the inability of our artillery for offensive and defensive operations against the improved armaments with which other nations have amply supplied themselves. The admiral of the navy has made similar reports. For a little while this looked like unnecessary precaution or what a distinguished Congressman once called old woman’s fussiness. Hadn’t we just triumphed over the largest armies that had been brought into the field, except by ourselves, in half a century? Hadn’t we organized a navy out of nothing, armed it splendidly, and done with it whatever was desirable that the naval power of the country should attempt? To be sure, our forts were few, but so were our harbors. The construction of some of the harbor forts in the United States was admired by the engineers of all the other civilized powers only thirty years ago, and the public knew of it. To afterward be told that these splendid and expensive structures were of no use, that they were inadequate, that two or three guns on a second or third-rate ship of some second or third-rate naval power could knock them to pieces would have been humiliating had it not been enraging.
Attempts were made from time to time, in the earlier years following the close of the war, to keep our military and naval establishment in fine condition. We had admirable staff departments, and large “plants” for the manufacture of almost everything required in ordnance and ammunition. We had the nucleus of a navy and army from which a peace establishment unequalled by any on the face of the earth might have been selected. But we let it all go. No such spectacle as the disbandment and disappearance of the great armies of the North and South was ever before seen, and historians have glorified in this. Soldiers, however, whose opinions we may yet be called upon to respect, regarded the spectacle in entirely a different light. We had once before been caught—by England—napping in a most unexpected way, said these old fellows; we paid dearly for our neglect; but now we are repeating exactly the same blunder. Excellent men who
were willing to remain in the service were allowed to go, material of every kind was disposed of at auction as rapidly as possible, and nothing was provided to take its place. The numerical force of the standing army was reduced more and more until even the Indians held us in contempt. Indian massacres on the border have frequently been charged to the rascality or duplicity of the white men. Undoubtedly the Indians have had a great many provocations, but, so far as restraint through fear is concerned, they have been subjected to very little of this very necessary discipline. Large bands of armed Indians have been able to keep brave but small detachments of United States troops within small camps or forts, to isolate them and taunt them for days in succession, to steal cattle, murder settlers, desolate the country, all because they had contempt for an army which was so small that it never could oppose more than a handful to any Indian raid which might suddenly be made.