raged. Don't suppose that things are specially
'nice,' as a lady would say, in Europe either. They are not." Mr. Bryce
was a very friendly and extraordinary competent observer of things
American; and there was this distinct note of discouragement about our
future in the intimate letter he was thus sending. Yet this was at the
very time when the United States was entering on a dozen years during
which our people accomplished more good, and came nearer realizing the
possibilities of a great, free, and conscientious democracy, than during
any other dozen years in our history, save only the years of Lincoln's
Presidency and the period during which the Nation was founded.

CHAPTER VII

THE WAR OF AMERICA THE UNREADY

I suppose the United States will always be unready for war, and
in consequence will always be exposed to great expense, and to the
possibility of the gravest calamity, when the Nation goes to war. This
is no new thing. Americans learn only from catastrophes and not from
experience.

There would have been no war in 1812 if, in the previous decade,
America, instead of announcing that "peace was her passion," instead of
acting on the theory that unpreparedness averts war, had been willing to
go to the expense of providing a fleet of a score of ships of the line.
However, in that case, doubtless the very men who in the actual
event deplored the loss of life and waste of capital which their own
supineness had brought about would have loudly inveighed against the
"excessive and improper cost of armaments"; so it all came to about the
same thing in the end.

There is no more thoroughgoing international Mrs. Gummidge, and no
more utterly useless and often utterly mischievous citizen, than the
peace-at-any-price, universal-arbitration type of being, who is always
complaining either about war or else about the cost of the armaments
which act as the insurance against war. There is every reason why
we should try to limit the cost of armaments, as these tend to grow
excessive, but there is also every reason to remember that in the
present stage of civilization a proper armament is the surest guarantee
of peace--and is the only guarantee that war, if it does come, will not
mean irreparable and overwhelming disaster.

In the spring of 1897 President McKinley appointed me Assistant
Secretary of the Navy. I owed the appointment chiefly to the efforts of
Senator H. C. Lodge of Massachusetts, who doubtless was actuated