The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-05-30

IHdI sam DUNG IeITcQ. anu liidt
Adna Chaffee was to take his place |
and be presented as lieutenant gen
eral at the White House, it happened |
that Chaffe's epaulettes had not come |
and Sam Young sent him around MS
own epaulettes with little note read |
ing. These are presented by Private
Young. 81. to Private Chaffee, 81
The two fine old boys had entered the
army in the same year at the begin
ming of the Civil war as privates in
the ranks. and they had worked their
way up by sheer force of courage and
character, and perseverance and
ability, until they stood in succession
in the highest position at the head of
the army in which they had once
served as enlisted men. That SYM
bolized what the American army
should be, and what we could make
the American army under a system of
universal service based on universal
training. 1t is a system which will
give every man an equal chance, which
will make it the duty of each man to
learn how to serve his country, and
which will secure to each man the
right to serve that country in the ca
pacity to which his ability entities
! him. Such an army would be a peo-
pies army; and it would never be used
except in a peoples war
In Name of Peace.
Remember always that what l ask
| is asked in the name of peace and in
| the name of democracy, no less than
in the name of national honor and in
terest. 1t is the men who do not be-
lieve in peace-at-any price who are
most apt to secure the peace which
self-respecting men and women can
accept. l ask that this nation pre-
pare. in the first place. because if
war should be thrust upon US, we
must be able to emerge victorious
from the trial, and we cannot do SO
unless we are prepared; and in the
second place 1 ask that we prepare
4 because it is the surest way to secure
I peace, the surest way to keep war
from our borders. Little Switzerland
is at peace at this moment because
she prepared and only because she
prepared. In the Napoleonic wars
Switzerland was overrun by French,
German and Russian armies; great
battles were fought within her limits
and she became an appanage of the
; French Empire-and all this purely
and solely because at that time she
! had not prepared, she was not able
1 to hold her own against invaders. A
! century later a war even greater
bursts over Europe. Switzerland's
| natural boundaries and defenseS are
/ precisely what they were; the temp
as great for the belligerents. but
! Switzerland had prepared. and there
fore Switzerland today is at peace.
/ Prepare From All Sides
Military preparedness is only one
side of all around preparedness. 1t
would be worthless unless based on
industrial preparedness, and both
would be worthless unless based on
preparedness of the soul and the spirit
You men who wore the Blue and the
Gray. when once the war was over,
turned to the farm and the shop and
the counting house, and again took up
your lifework of earning your living
and supporting your families, and
making provision for the generation
that was to come after you. You did
this work thoroughly. as you had thor
oughly done the work of war.
Our people of today must apply
! your spirit to the changed circum-
stances of today. 1t is never possible
to treat the past as giving the exact
1 precedent for given action in the pres
ent. But the spirit shown by the men
fwho in the great crises in the past
rose, level to those crises, must be
shown by the men of the present in
I the crisis of the present. In this coun-
try we have the double duty of 1rain-
ling ourselves SO as to be willing to die
for the country, and of developing our
internal policy as to make the country
worth living in. In the long run the
country must be worth living in if it
is worth dying for.
For National Purpose
In order to make this country worth
living in we must develop a real ma
tlonal purpose controlled not only by
moral motives but by cool intelli-
gence- If our people put a premium
upon the demagogue by supporting the
man who makes impossible promises,
and who either does not attempt to
reduce these promises to action, or
else fails in attempting to do so. then
We shall go down. The people must
choose their executive and legisla-
tive leaders at Washington men abso-
1utely national in spirit; men whose
theory of government is as far as the
poles from the pork-barrel theory
and this, whether the pork-barrel be
"A considered from a personal, political
a or sectional standpoint-men who look
II forward and not back; men who face
the facts as they actually are. After
Il this war we shall see a new Europe;
a Europe theoretically developing new
) social and economic means of meeting
i new problems. If, under these cir
cumstances, we take refuge in for
: mulae dug out as fossils from the
workings of principles in the past. in
stead of developing these principles SO
as to meet the future. we shall be as
. foolish as if we were to arm our SOL
, diers with flintlocks and send them
I against an army possessing machine
. guns, high power rifles, and modern
: artillery. The time for flintlock
: theories of craftsmanship in this coun-
. try is past.
This applies as much to industry as
to national defense. To let the inter-
. state transportation systems of the
country, for example, be regulated by
, forty-eight small conflicting sovereign
ties, is just foolish as to trust tc
forty-eight conflicting sovereignties ir
military matters. The nation mus
regulate the arteries of traffic for the
: whole country in the interests of the
I whole country. 1t must control the
armed forces of the whole country ir
the interests of the whole country II
such matters there cannot be divided
sovereignty without national weak.
ness. Moreover, what applies to rail
ways directly or indirectly concerned
{ in interstate business, also applies tc
; all great corporations engaged in in
: terState or international business