Arizona republican., 1916-02-28
EPAREDNES5
 IF PROTESTS
It Is Typifiedb Declares a Former Spanish-American Soldier, by the Army Prune, Once an Efficient Arm of Service

| (. W. Payton, a warm advocate of preparedness, has recently written the National Society for the Advancement 1 of Patriotic Education. describing the condition of our army at the close of l the Spanish war. His letter follows: 1 Gentlemen: | live in Kansas but I am for pre- paredness. Some folks are just for l peace-I am for peace properly and adequately safeguarded | Having served in the army of the states l am firmly convinced that a l proposition that calls only for q reg ular army of 140,O00 men, is a long, | long way from militarism. It would merely be a unit around which | fighting force would have to be built 1 if We were to ever be engaged in a | real war. A continental army of 500,000 is small proposition. 1 would prefer seeing compulsory service in the United States. larger unit rural school system, and military training in every school to anything yet pro- posed. It is not much in the way of | government when the nation cannot command the services of it's people. l enlisted in 1899 in the 32nd h. | fantry, |. s. V. I. We had concluded our war with Spain and should have | been in pretty good fighting shape if the old minute men" idea has any value today-which it does not. But | hara ic ub I off man in charge of drill squads who | knew considerable about farming, carpentering, blacksmithing, book keeping and gospel team work but 1 hardly a man who knew the first thing about regulation drill the prop CT methods of camp life and sanita- | ton, to preserve the health of the man, and when I embarked at San i Francisco for the trip of faraWey | Philippines, l was loaded onto a char
 tered English boat-think of it-a man on foreign transport. When l
 arrived in the islands I found troops
 using the old Springfield rifle of an-
 tiquity-and we had been fighting a
 long time. And it was a small var. Here the prairie people would re-
 spond to a call to arms just as quick as any people in any part of the | United States. They are patriotic i enough-but they are misled
 | Newspapers, yes, and demagogic
 orators, playing for popular support, condemn the navy as an extravaganza say it is useless-and in face of the 1 fact that without her navy, England l They have not had their pride hurt by the fact that the same English
 navy has told the great and powerful i government of the United States she l could not enjoy her rights on the
 seas-merely because we do not pos
 sess a navy that is proper founda-
 tion for those national sea rights to
 rest upon.
 The fear of governmental graft will
 have to be treated in an educational
 way National vision will have to be
 investigated and instilled in the minds
 of our people. The spinal column of
 the nation will have to be adjusted
 for now when the national toes are | trampled on, no message sent to the | brain awakens the pugnacious spirit | of the country. The people are all 1 right-but the leader. the politician | who fears for his job, if he should l advocate the proper safeguarding of peace, needs to be driven from the | synagogues.
 Here is a good illustration of pres
 ent day conditions In 1898. after the
 war with Spain. we were short of
 artillery batteships, field rifles,
 transports, ammunition, and plans for
 operation, or even for the handling of
 troops That was the condition of
 the navy when I enlisted
 But we were well prepared in one
 particular. The government had
 plenty of prunes.
 I dined on prunes in the states three times day. I heaved them up over the Hawaiian Isles as I saily | sailed out of the Golden Gate. l re-
 viewed crate upon crate of prunes at
 the harbor in Manila, higher than the
 tallest skyscraper, awaiting line duty 1 with the American army.
 The thing that mystifies me now is,
 why don't the men and newspapers
 advocating peace without effort, at
 tack the Prune Growers Association
 of the United States on the ground
 that larger standing army would
 mean long profits for them? Hasn't the Gemagogue the nerve to hop onto a rrune after tacllling a torpedo or a 42-centimeter gun? | A man in the service learns to love what he has in abundance. Being
 short of guns, ammunition, clothing and so on, the boys in the islands learned to love the prune-fOr it was with them always. I composed the | following ode to my old army friend and know the boys who fought the mosquitoes in the jungles of the trop- ical isles will appreciate this tribute, and it shall be recited by every pa | cifist orator in the land and published | in every newspaper urging the saving of money rather than the saving of the country.
 The U. s. Army Prune-1899 Preparedness of Other Days