Iditarod pioneer., 1915-08-28

war overwhelmed poor Belgium before she had more than barely entered on the path that Switzerland had so wisely trod.
 chna's Position
 China offers an even more perfect par alIel to the condition to which in practice the doctrines of the ultra pacifsts would lead us. Fifty years ago Japan and China occupied substantially the same positions as regards the world at large. Japan now stands abreast of the leading civilized na- tions of the world her progress having been on the whole more remarkable than that of any other nation known to history. This is not merely due to her development of fighting efficiency, for the history of Turney has shown that mere fighting efficiency by itself will not save a nation from ruin. But it is no less true that without fighting eff ciencv all other national efficiency amounts to is a house built on the sand. Japans progress would have been absolutely i'm possible if it had not induced progress in fighting efficiency exactly as in industrial and social efficiency.
 China, on the other hand, had for gen erations been trained to regard peace as the most desirable of all aims and to look down upon war and soldiers She has acted on the theory that the worst peace was better than the best war. and therefore she has suffered all the evils of the worst war and the worst peace The average Chlnaman took the view that China was too proud to l fight, and in practice made evident his ! hearty approval of the sentiments of that abject pacificist song, I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be Soldier song which should l have as a companion piece one entitled l Didn't Raise Mv Girl to Be a Mother ap proval of which of course, deDrives any men or women of all right of knshiD with the soldiers and with the mothers and wives of the soldiers whose valor and services we commemorate on the Fourth of July and on ! Decoration dav; song the singing of which seems incredible to every man and woman caDable of being stirred to lofty and gener- ous enthusiasm by the tremendous surge of Julia Ward Howp's Battle Hymn of the 1 Republic China has steadfastlv refused to prepare for war Accordingly China has had province after province Topped off her, until onp-half of her tnrritorv is now under Jan anese. Russisn. English and French control.
 Peace at Any Price Decried
 '"The professional pacifcists, the peace at any price, non-reslstance, universal arbltra- tion people, are now seeking to Chinafy this country While the best people in China are painfully endeavoring to raise the new China to position of international aspect and of national self-respect, well-meaning people here are doing their best to reduce this country to the level of impotence to which the old China has sunk-to which she has sunk primarily because for genera tions the moral fiber of the Chinese people has been closely eaten into by the doctrines of the professional paCIhClsts, so that she | has shown herself incapable during the last thirty years of preparing herself against war and for self-defense.
 ! "Probably the worst feature of our na- | tional life is the habit of using words with no relation to facts, of making promises which are not to be kept, as l have said above, of treating elocution as an adequate substitution for action. This habit has worked particular damage to us in lnterna- 1 tional relations and most of all in connec- tion with the arbitration treaties peace con ventions and the like into which we have entered. We can accomplish nothing real for international peace until we understand that it is disgraceful not to make our deeds square with our words and therefore dis | N4'AASA ought not to or cannot keep,
 Preparedness Corrective of MiIitarisn
 T advocate preparedness against war as the best type of peace insurance. Prepared- ness for war may be not only the best but the only corrective for the spirit of mill tarism Switzerland is the most democratic of republics, and the least mlhtarlstlc, and yet relatively to its size it Is the one best prepared against war.
 1 Preparedness is not the affair of day. If we begin at once, year or two must elapse before we shall have accomplished even a beginning We should do what Swltz- erland and Argentina for example, have already done They now have universal military service in Argentina. The Argen tine army is great deal more fit to uphold the Monroe doctrine south of the equator than our army, and in spite of its high av craze of individual efficiency and because of 1 its lamentable smalness, is unfit to uphold the Monroe doctrine north of the equator.
 Finally, and most important, let us re member that there can be no efficient pre- paredness against war unless we prepare our own souls. If we become soft and fabby ! physically and morally, we shall fail. No nation ever amounted to anything if its population was composed of pacifcists and poltroons, if it's sons did not have the fight ing edge, if its women did not feel as the mothers of Washington's continentals felt, as 1 the mothers of the men who followed Grant and Lee felt men who are not ready to fight 1 for the right are not fit to live in free democracy
 "The only women fit to be wives and mothers in free republic are those who l feel that their sons are not sons of theirs unless when their country calls their souls are eager and their feet iubilant to answer the mighty trumpet note which announces that the hearts of men are being sifted out before the judgment seat"
 PARROT TO PLAY PART