The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-06-28

Will show Us What We Lnck and Incite
Us to SuDDly II.

From the st. Louis Globe-Democrat.
This war will benefit the country in
other ways than those which are ordi-
narily considered. 1t will forever pre-
vent the recurrence of the condition of
unreadiness in which the present con-
fict found us. Two war balloons, IL Is
reported, have just been bought in
France. will be i'm readiness for active
use in a few days, and will be sent to
he army which is about to invade III
ba. A supply of smokeless powder. IL
is learned from another source. is be-
ing gathered as rapidly as possible. to
be used instead of the older kind still
employed in the navy. The factories
which manufacture the Krag-Jorgenson
rifle, the u which is used by the in
fantry of the regular army, are being
rushed to such an extent that If the
war should last 10 or IL months longer
enough of these guns would be on hand
to supply all the volunteers with it, as
well as all the insurgents who are like
ly to be found.
Aside altogether from the settlement
of the Cuban problem forever, and from
the acquisition of the Philippines and
Porto Rico. which the war will bring,
1t Will show us what we lack in the
way of national defense, and will incite
us to supply ii for the future. The
country was very far from being ready
for war when war came. The men, in
congress and out of II. who shouted ear
lest, longest and loudest for war were
the men who howled down all attempts
urged by patriotic and sagacious per-
sons TO make adequate preparation for
war If 1t should come. These men OPP
posed every addition which has been
made to the navy and prevented many
additions which were urged. and which.
If made, would have enabled us to have
sent Spain out of Cuba without the fir
ing of a shot on our side, or to have
ended the war in two weeks if Spain
refused to get out peaceably. They
defeated, right along until the war ac-
tually anne, all ~endeavors to increase
the regular army TO a figure which
would insure national safety. The
trivial increase of the army which the
spur of actual war extorted from them
was accompanied by a stipulation
which seeks to reduce the army TO its
old line after the war ends.
All this will be prevented in the flu
ture. The blindness, cowardice and
folly which kept the navy down near
that of bankrupt Spain, and held the
army far below the level of that of
little Switzerland, will end now. One
of the arguments of the opponents of
an adequate army and navy has been
Una FbNh ms nv INV
are a menace TO liberty. Another ar
gument. equally childish. is that a
country with 10000, 900 inhabitants and
over $40, 900, 900, 900 of wealth. as the
United States has, needed neither stand
ing army nor navy. These big figures
Of population m national
would. they commended, protect IL from
assault. Neither of these idiocies will
have any standing in the court of pub
lie opinion hereafter. The present war,
though against an antagonist con-
temptibly weak. has shown hat great
population and immense wealth. unless
when they are transmitted into fighting
ships and fighting men, would cave a
nation as powerless as the giant China
proved to be when assailed by the pig
my Japan. Long ago old Jonathan
Dayton characterized Jefferson's delu-
sion in cutting down the army and navy
as "wasteful imbecility called by the
mann of economy The lessons of this
little war will prevent the unrepublican
spook conjurers and their spendthrift
economists from inficting their follies
on the country hereafter.