The Little River news., 1916-04-05


 Military Authority, Declares That
 Wars Are Invited and Battles Won
 or Lost Under the Great Dome at
 Washington All of Our Armed
 Struggles Have Been Attended by
 Unnecessary Sacrifice of Life and
 Treasure.
 [PART l.1
 That more lives and moe money can be wasted in Washington this winter than have been destroyed in the great est battles iii the European war is the unavodab ble conclusion of every one who reads Upton's Military Policy of the United States buried for years in the government archives and at last rescued from oblivion by Elihu Root when the latter was Secretary of War.
 In the present national crisis this work-merely a paper covered govern meGt document-rises to the height of q great beacon by whose light both the pacificist and the advocate of adequate preparedness may clearly see the route to the nations safety. AS the author, a distinguished veteran of the Civil War, has long since been dead and the book was both written and published years before any of the present-day events claimed attention. it's deduc- tions are free from any suspicion of bias.
 By remarkable assembling of facts in their logical sequence it is plain that our lack of military knowledge has produced and prolonged wars, and has wasted hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars.
 Brushing aside the mass of popular histories of the United States as not only misleading. but as dangerous in the impressions that they give. Gen. Upton presents startling array of facts. He shows for instance that the Revolutionary War should have been ended in two years instead of seven and that the Civil War need not have been fought at all-that had We been adequately prepared in 1861 the four years struggle would have been avoid ed.
 Our want of military policy. he writes, has been tested more than century and while military men are united as to its dangers our final sue cess in each conflict has so blinded the popular mind as to induce the belief that as a nation we are invincible."
 With the greater mass of people, who have neither the time nor the in- clination to study the requirements of military science, no error is more con- mon than to mistake military resources for military strength, and particularly is this the case with ourselves.
 "Enormous and unnecessary sacrifice of life and treasure has attended all our armed struggles"
 "We have rejected the practice of European nations and with little varia- ton have thus far pursued the policy of China" and instead of saving money and lives and producing peace as the paciflsts have thought to be the fact. this policy gave us, from the Declara- ton of Independence down to the time three years of peace!
 Fears Prolonged the Revolution.
 It is the policy of some nations at the present day to carry on in secret among the peoples of rival nations propa- ganda of unpreparedness. Thus the pacifists may become the tools of their cOuntry's enemies. Such policy may have been employed during the Revo- lution, but, in any event, the war had not been under way long when there arose among the colonists q strong feeling of jealousy of what they called standing army, fear that such an army might be detrimental to the wei fare of the new republic.
 '.The intense feeling of opposition al most wrought the ruin of our cause" says Upton. Since then this feeling has been diligently kept up and has formulated itself into the maxim that a standing army is dangerous to liber- ty. The annals of the Revolu ton show conclusively that for the army enlisted for the war we were continually forced to call out double and treble the number of raw troops"
 That the opposition to an army of sufficient size did not wreck the cause of independence is due to the circum stance that England was busy with wars on the European continent, that she was there fighting for her very life just as she is today and her people did not know or foresee the value of thE country.
 Even with the enemy thus handi- capped the Americans would not have won had it not been for the aid extend ed to us by France in the shape of T formidable fleet which, as Washington aptly stated it. cast the deciding vote in our struggle.
 Looking back to the Revolution it is difficult to understand how patriotism should have gone so far astray but is easy to see how disastrous was the ef- feet of this opposition, now again evil dent at time when the signs of trou- ble are no less ominous.
 The early government of the Colo nies wasted money and lives through three mistakes.
 G) Short terms of enlistment @ de- pendence upon militia and (3 failure f, 1rya fbn tr.oi ,iy