mainly
by his long and close friendship for me, but also--I like to believe--by
his keen interest in the navy. The first book I had ever published,
fifteen years previously, was "The History of the Naval War of 1812";
and I have always taken the interest in the navy which every good
American ought to take. At the time I wrote the book, in the early
eighties, the navy had reached its nadir, and we were then utterly
incompetent to fight Spain or any other power that had a navy at all.
Shortly afterwards we began timidly and hesitatingly to build up
a fleet. It is amusing to recall the roundabout steps we took to
accomplish our purpose. In the reaction after the colossal struggle of
the Civil War our strongest and most capable men had thrown their whole
energy into business, into money-making, into the development, and above
all the exploitation and exhaustion at the most rapid rate possible, of
our natural resources--mines, forests, soil, and rivers. These men were
not weak men, but they permitted themselves to grow shortsighted
and selfish; and while many of them down at the bottom possessed the
fundamental virtues, including the fighting virtues, others were purely
of the glorified huckster or glorified pawnbroker type--which when
developed to the exclusion of everything else makes about as poor a
national type as the world has seen. This unadulterated huckster or
pawnbroker type is rarely keenly sympathetic in matters of social and
industrial justice, and is usually physically timid and likes to cover
an unworthy fear of the most just war under high-sounding names.

It was reinforced by the large mollycoddle vote--the people who are soft
physically and morally, or who have a twist in them which makes them
acidly cantankerous and unpleasant as long as they can be so with
safety to their bodies. In addition there are the good people with no
imagination and no foresight, who think war will not come, but that if
it does come armies and navies can be improvised--a very large element,
typified by a Senator I knew personally who, in a public speech, in
answer to a question as to what we would do if America were suddenly
assailed by a first-class military power, answered that "we would build
a battle-ship in every creek." Then, among the wise and high-minded
people who in self-respecting and genuine fashion strive earnestly
for peace, there are the foolish fanatics always to be found in such a
movement and always discrediting