The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-17
STANDING ARMIES.

STANDING ARMIES.
If any new arguments were needed to con-
firm the wisdom of the founders of our re-
public in opposing the creation and mainte-
nance of large standing armies, they would
be furnished by the modern experience of
France. We need this lesson now on account
of the regret felt at the prolongation of our
war, the prevalence of feeling that it was
invited, in part, by the military weakness of
the Government, and the reluctance displayed
in some quarters to the reduction of our army
to its present standard. But when we see
how powerless the regular forces of the En-
pire were against an uprising of hostile
people, and how quickly succession of ter
rible defeats of this vaunted organization
followed upon years of infamous peculation,
we may we'll congratulate ourselves upon
adherence to the old system of relying, in all
great emergencies, upon the citizen soldiery
of the land.
1t is now growing more and more apparent
that one great use to which the French army
was put in peace was the enrichment of
horde of Imperial thieves, the ringleader
being no less parsonage than Napoleon
immense sum that with all his audacity he
scarcely dared to openly ask the nation to
increase it, and to eke it out he became the
aocomplioe of the rascals of lower rank who
pocketed the pay, rations, and supplies of
regiments in buckram. AS France was thus
robbed, America would be victimized under
similar circumstances. In this line of knavery
our politicians and contractors need no les
sons from the Emperor and his fellow-thieves,
and we have plenty of ambitious great men
who would delight in plundering taxpayers
during long peace under the pretext that
they were maintaining splendid standing
army which, in actual war, would go down
before the first powerful foe that attacked it.
We need small regular army as nucleus,
an abundance of well-trained officers, and it
is desirable that there should always be a
considerable body of well-disciplined volun-
teers, but there is scarcely any way in which
such vast sums of money could be uselessly
and injuriously squandered as by an imitation
Of the system which has produced such dis
astrous results in France. If threatening
foreign complications or domestic revolts
render it probable that large force may sud
denly be required, a modification of the
Prussian system could be devised here which
would assure an abundant supply of good
soldiers and during the present generation,
ut least we can count confidently upon the
skill and valor of those who learned the MUIR
derous art in the hard school of the Rebel
lion.
But the corruption for which the regular
army of France furnished a pretext, and its
ineficiency, were not the only objections to
it. 1t was the bulwark of Napoleons tyranny
at home and abroad. Its ranks were always
full enough to keep the French people in sub
lection, to overawe agitation, to prevent
fair expression of public grievances, and to
maintain despotism. We are fortunately
free from such dangers, but if large stand
ing army was maintained in this country, it
would be a mere question of time when it
would be used to crush American liberty.
Sooner or later pretext would be furnished
for its employment as an agent of despotism,
and some popular and ambitious general would
crush the republic of the United States as
Caesar crushed that of Rome and as the first
Napoleon destroyed the first republic in
France.
In THE autumn of 1913 Madame de Stael
wrote in the preface to her work on Germany
these words:-
1T is three years since designated Prus-
sla, and the countries of the north which sur
~ n'';i -, - tie country Of thought; into how
.".r etior has this thought been trans
YEA. 1hat to which the systems of phi
J. ''pters d the way is coming to pass, and
,a@4pen ence of mind is about to Law
i" .ads.. on of the independence of ma
Prussia was then in its infancy. Sixty
years, but small portion of the lifetime of
nation, has since rolled round, and we behold
now how its thought has matured into action.