The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1895-12-15

It is time that this country WAS in
sured and adequately policed. Lane
Notifications are the insurance of
nation; fleets and armies are its police
It is time, say, that the proper polio
ing of this country should begin.
The inhabitants Of nation, a state
city or house are supposed to be
competent and responsible. IL so, why
selves, their property and the properly
of the community against foreign ag
gression or internal anarchy?
Everybody knows that vigilance is
the price of safety-everybody knows
that it costs something to insure any
thing. Sometimes the price is dollars,
sometimes temporary sacrifice of self,
which is personal devotion. When the
security Of personal property is in
question those who can afford it pay
for it's protection. When the security
of commonwealth is at stake nobody
can afford to shrink from personal sac.
rifice to insure it.
Today our nation is like fat, inno-
cent, overfed sheep, feeding in a rich
pasture, surrounded by ring of
butchers. If this be jingoism, make
the most Of it,
There is not today single nation in
Europe that would not be perfectly
delighted to see us humiliated; there
are many nations who would, when an
opportunity presented, gladly COM
bine to effect such a result. We are
not popular. Anybody who doubts
this can easily verify it for himself; he
has only to spend few months in
London, Vienna, Paris, Munich or Ber-
lin.
1t is perhaps of small consequence
what makes us unpopular, whether it
be the Monroe doctrine. the protective
tariff, our form of government, or re-
pudiatiop of all responsibility in
Europe-our wise policy of non-inter-
ference with what does not concern us.
Perhaps it is all these together that
make us the object of jealousy and sus-
picion; anyway, the attitude of Eu-
ropean powers toward the United
States is unmistakable to those who
have eyes and ears and who know how
to use them.
The recent sinister rumor of coali-
ton of the powers for the purpose Of
testing the Monroe doctrine is not,
perhaps, alarming, but it is terribly
significant.
It may be that at present, and for
years to come, no power ana no COM
bination of powers will be in a posi-
ton forcibly to investigate any Amer
lean institution. Mutual jealousies,
interbickerings, and other questions
may make it impossible. Also, man
may trust to luck that his house will
not burn. And tomorrow it may be
blazing. Therefore, the wise and pru-
(Nnt insure their houses; and wise
,1Hd prudent commonwealth insures
itself. If, to demand personal security
and national insurance is jingoism,
then am lingo.
Fire menaces our homes always; for
eign political CONGREGATIONS menace
our nation, and will always as long as
the world endures.
Are we insured? Our assurance is
unlimited, our insurance nil.
Here we sit on this blessed continent
of ours, gaping stupidity into the muz-
Zles of countless foreign cannon-can-
non frowning from Halifax to Trini-
dad, from Quebec to the Pacific. IN
moved, we watch the construction of
great military works, fortresses, Ca
nails, harbors, barracks, ooaling sta
tions. We see foreign vessels of war,
squsdrons, fleets, gather, concentrate,
dispense, only to gather and manoeu-
yer again at the very gates of the CONT
nent; we see splendid, powerful war
like nation constructing canal across
the neck of the continent. For whom
is all this preparation? These foreign
powers are not in the habit of wasting
hi, hA-
their pennies where they will do the
most good to themselves and the great
est harm to others. 1t is not diplo-
is not Christian, but it is true.
Thousands of troops, thousands of
cannon, dozens Of cruisers, gunboats
and transports, forts, torpedoes, coal
ing stations, canals, munitions of war
of every ription-these are the
material ready, when the moment
comes, to furnish fuel for a conhsgra-
ton along our coasts and frontiers.
1t may not occur. IL it does, are we
insured? What have we done to secure
ourselves and our country against
conf1agration of any kind, internal or
external?
Nothing" says the pessimist
"You're jingo!" screams the political
hermaphrodite. "Everythingw shouts
the great self-sstistied. All are wrong
-pessimist, hermaphrodite and great
self-satisfied. The latter will point
proudly to our two second-class bat
4tleships, our one first-cless and our
commerce destroyers, and he will say:
"Behold our tieet" Then he will pat
you on the back and show you Fort
Hancock, Sir" and he will speak mys-
teriously of guns of enormous calibers,
of mortars, of mines, of dynamite. He
will speak vaguely Of armies, he will
mention the excellence of our regular
army of $4,000 men, and then he will
dazzle and confound you with Squad
ron A and the Seventh regiment, Sir!'
Dear old self-satisfied. | love him,
but when [ remember the Franco
Pr0ssian war, where mot button was
missing from the CATERS of the French
infantry when consider the Chinese;
how they got it in the neck; and, alss
when | talk with any regular army offi-
Ger l. feel chills destroying the mi
crobes of enthusiasm, and | say to
myself: "Self-satisfied, thou art anass!"
1t is national delusion that we are
invulnerable. The truth is, we are as
helpless as China. Ask any army Of
f1cer how well New York City is pre-
pared for lively Smelling, in spite of
Fort Hancock. Ask anybody who
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