The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1915-07-24

rage Their cities had grown proud
in unchallenged greatness. These pen
nants, slowly raining from their sky,
were infuriating insults.
In the state house in Boston there
were said the words that uttered the
emotion Of all the cities along the At
lantic coast. In that old, rebellious
| town, where American liberty had
been nurtured In the very presence of
an armed foe, there were gathered MANY
eminent citizens, with the officials, the
mayor and the governor of their state.
One of these officials had a pennant
in his hands. What can we DOR he
asked. IF we had the militia of the
state here we would have less than
5000 men. If the foe arrives and Laws
his guns on the town-gentlemen, they
will be guns that fire high explosives
and incendiary shells. We have moth
ing to fight with. If the army cannot
check him before he arrives we must
| to save our peoples lives, we must sur
render peaceably."
4 He turned to a man who bore a fam
! fly name identified with Boston's his
tory from the time of its settlement.
/ His ancestors had stood in Faneuil hall
with James Otis when he dedicated it
to the cause of liberty.
| He took the proclamation, held It for
a moment while he looked around the
! circle and then crumpled it suddenly,
angrily, in his fist. Throwing it to the
floor, he set his foot on it.
81 say he cried, with flashing eyes.
'let him destroy it! Better still, let us
destroy It! When the enemy an
proaches let us send our Boston town
up In flames and fragments! Let us
leave him not so much as a rivet to
pick up for loot"
eff all thought like you" said one,
an old, grave man. "But we have ZOO
! 900 people, and they are not soldiers
! or philosophers; they're human men.
1t is laid on US to protect them at
! whatever price to our national pride.
If humiliation is the price that we
must pay for our past carelessness,
1 why, gentlemen, we must pay it, bitter
though it is"
So it was in New York, in Philadel-
phia, in a score of cities between and
around them. Everywhere was the
first outburst of fury and unrecking
heroism, and then the sober second
thought born not of cowardice, but Of
cold logic. This northeastern Atlantic
seaboard with its chain of 100000
city dwelIers was no Holland to drown
itself under its own sea in order to de-
/ stroy its foe. These cities were no
Moscows to devour themselves in fire
that the enemy might perish with
them. This was the United States of
America, and this was the twentieth
century, and the men, no less brave.
no less patriotic, faced the conditions
Of their place and time.
They formed committees Of safety.
They wrestled with their topheavy mu-
nicipal machineries to make them an
swer the sharp need. Under the stress
all the defects of their political rule
stood out uncompromisingly. not to be
denied. Their overstaffed departments
were lost in the ingenious mazes of
their own contriving. There was only
one answer to the inextricable, blind
confusion. Tt was martial law.
But here, too, there was inef1ciency
-ineficiency that had been cultivated
and tended, like a plant, by politics
through the needless years. In the ar
mories there were no reserve supplies
of weapons or ammunition for the vol
unteers who came to offer their sery-
ices. Although the United States gov
eminent had given the states enough
money annually for many years back
to equip them to full war strength, and
although the militia nowhere had main,
tanned even one-half of that strength
there were no reserves of blankets, OF
uniforms, of tents, of cots.
The volunteers could not even be
shod. Those who were accepted had
to drill in their worthless street shoes
| that never could survive the test OF
rough roads and mud and water.
Politics. politics! 1t stared the appal
Led citizens in the face wherever they
/ turned as 1t had stared them in the
face for a generation, but now they
2 had to look and see! It was politics
. that had left their state militias t.
D1uuuGI c1UA6s C1SA E9 AtSEAls WllnVuI
2 agreement or settled plan. It was pol
? itics that now had sent their plucky
2 intelligent, capable young men into the
e field insuficiently equipped, trained Of
: organized It was politics that now
!, left their cities bare, to be made q
j. sport Of.
: Not one in a thousand Of the volun
d teers ever had built a fire Of sticks
or pitched tent or even washed dish
I es. Not one Of five thousand ever hat
q held a gun In his hands There wer,
s thousands there, and thousands again
L who did not even know what it was t.
d be in the dark, for they had slept al
ii their lives in the electrically lighted
e city.
y 1t was not men that the regular arm!
v | needed. 1t was reserves! And never
J. congress Of all the congresses that hat
g talked and voted and appropriated hat
b voted a practical system of army re
| rov-yaaf