The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1916-06-01

would like special advice, write to the
lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Co., Lynn,
Mass.
in a twinkling. We enlisted for service
o27, 1854 men; the British had force of
somewhere between 10000 and So, 900
regulars and 10000 Indians. Yet it re-
quired three years end the lives of thou
sands of our men to fight that war; and
with the exception OF Andy Jackson's
battle behind the cotton bales at New
Orleans, which came after the conclusion
of peace-We won only one decisive vic
tory: the battle of the Thames, where
the force against US was 800 men.
A few thousand English regulars land
ed on the shores of Chesapeake Bay,
marched unhindered to the outskirts of
Washington, defeated four times their
number OF our troops, entered Washing
ton and burned the Capitol.
1t has been said by competent authori-
ties that if the United States had had an
organized army of $4,000 men in 1860
there would have been no Civil War.
Such force could have stamped out re-
bellion before it had time to organize.
But Congress, learning nothing from
previous wars, had kept our army at a
useless minimum and wholly unequipped.
Instead of ending the Civil War quick
ly, we used 2,673,3 4l men to fight a Con-
Iederate force that was never greater
than l, 500, 600 and probably nearer l, 000,-
600. We sacrificed thousands of men,
paid So, 81 ,079, IT'S. % in money, and have
already paid almost that much in pen
sions.
Napoleon, after some practice, discov-
cred that he could embark l3G, 900 men in
boats with full equipment in three hours.
In the Spanish-American War it took US
three weeks to land force of 5000 men
IN Cuba, and it was two weeks more be-
fore we were able to land three DAYS
provisions.
With the further unhappy details of our
lnethclency in that war and the Mexican
War and our Indian campaigns l am not
now concerned. They are all written in
such volumes as Huidekoper's military
Unpreparedness of the United States"
and he who seeks them will find enough
to make his heart sick They all point
to one conclusion:
Thousands and thousands of American
lives have been ruthlessly sacrificed in
the past hundred and fifty years-not by
the "militarists,' who have demanded
adequate preparation for war, but by the
"paciticlsts, who refusing to take any
precautions until the danger was actually
upon them, have sent unframed and I'M
equipped men to be fed to the cannon.
A Preparedness Program for Boys.
l have been thinking about writing this
article for several months: but yester-
day | received a letter from a mother
which made me determine to write it at
Once-nOW.
1t was long letter. She asked me to
use my influence as an editor against the
mad, un-Christian campaign for big
army and navy that is sweeping the coun-
try" And she ended her letter thus;
care you father? Would you want
your boy to be shot?"
l am father. have boy. | would
not want him to be shot. AS nearly as |
can plan it out, this is what should like
to have happen to him:
AS soon as he is old enough to walk
alone should like to have him join the
Boy Scouts. First, because | want him
to be physically strong, and the Boy
Scouts train boys to be strong; but also
because l want him very early in his life
to learn discipline, to learn an ideal of
service for others, to realize that there is
a nobler standard by which to determine
conduct than the merely selfish consider
alton of his own convenience.
When he goes on through school and
college. | should like him to be member
OF military organization of which every
other boy was also member. l should
like him to be private first, so that he
might learn obedience and the value of
teamwork; and an officer later, SO that
he might learn to handle men.
While he is being taught discipline and
books, should like him also to be taught
trade. And, when his schooling was
over, l should like to have himewith
every other boy of his age-spend one
year in out-of-door camp life, under dis.
clpjine. 1t would mean health to him; it
year with broader patriotism, finer
ideal of service.
Is that mllitarism? Is that undemo-
cratic? Is that :retarding progress by
sacrificing one year out of every Young
mans life?" Is Switzerland militaristic?
Is France undemocratie? Has France
contributed less to civilization in the
years since her young men began to be
trained as we'll as schooled? One eminent
English observer who saw the crowds of
sallow-cheeked, flat-chested youth mar
shaled into the ranks year ago, and
saw them again six months later, their
cheeks full, their muscles hard, remark
ed:
"What pity that any one of them
has to be killed! That six months of
training and discipline has re-
generated England?"
What this Program Would Do.
Our boys enter business too young,
anyway. | would gladly give one year
of my boys life if he could enter bust
ness, not boy, but trained, discl-
plined, hard-muscled man.
And what should like for my own boy
l should like also for every boy in the
land. What would it result in "a ''pre-
paredness program" if you want to
term it such, like this?
1t would, first of all, Danish cornes
lOafers from the United States. Loaferr