The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-04-21

The NEED OF AN EFFICIENT MILITA.-Of
course the primary object to each State in
sustaining its Guard is the possession of pow.
er by which its laws may be enforced, social
order maintained, and the safety and pros
perity of the commonwealth assured against
the sudden violence of popular factions. Mobs,
riots and instructions have always, in every
age and nation, at times defed government;
and under republican form, where the citi-
zen enjoys the greatest liberty, they are the
most frequent and dangerous. The terrible
shock which the country received from the la
Dor riots of 1877, which cost us doubtless over
fifty millions of dollars by the complete paral-
ysis of business in all departments of industry
for the time they lasted, and the feeling of in
security which followed to say nothing of the
millions actually destroyed, is too recent and
too deeply impressed on our minds to require
reference to historical incidents. At such a
time the executive must have at his command
force capabeyof asserting and maintaining
his authority instantly and Inequivocally. The
wisdom and craftsmanship of New York in
preparing for such trial at her leisure were
triumphantly approved by the result. Al
though the teeming slums of her metropolis
were in ferment, and her great arteries of
trade throbbing with excitement, she was able
to take the instruction by the throat, with no
thought OF crying to the President for help,
ana in three days, without the destruction of
property, and with the loss of but a single life,
to suppress an uprising which cost the people
OF Pennsylvania more than one hundred lives
and i've millions of property destroyed. For
such an emergency the military force is essen
tlal; and that its action may be prompt and eff
fectual, its organization should exist wherever
the danger threatens, under the immediate
command of the chief civil authority of the
State: The city population of the country had
already in 1870 increased to 300 per cent. of
the whole from the 3.9 per cent at which it
stood in 1900
In case of foreign war; which almost al
ways involves nation suddenly, and general
ly Unexpectedly, the National Guard is now
our only means of providing temporary de-
tense until an army can be enlisted, organized
and instructed. Our legislators seem to ignore
the fact that railroads, steamships, telegraphs
and science have revolutionized modern war
fare no less than they have manufactures, com
merce and civilization. There can be no more
thirty years wars The possibilities of
rapid concentration, with the whole world for
base of supply, and the terrible destructive
inventions of the last few years, have placed in
the control of the nation which is best prepared
to utilize them, which has officers and men
trained, skillful and disciplined, an almost in
vlnclble power, before which numbers and
wealth and the ordinary elements of national
strength may be swept away like chaff. There
is no longer time now for gathering and or
ganiziDg.after the storm shall have burst upon
our coasts; not even the Atlantic is broad
enough to afford us opportunity to prepare sue
cessiul resistance to military power. If an
efficient National Guard was necessary in the
time OF Jefferson, or when the British ravaged
our coasts and 3400 of them destroyed our capt.
tai, it is a thousand times more so to-day. and
e. " Boss n Hafper
for May.