y the better.

Moreover it was not necessary to look across the ocean to foresee the
necessity for military readiness. Our neighbor to the south was in the
grip of armed lawlessness and terrorism. Northern Mexico was infested
with banditti which were a constant menace to the safety of our
border. Such government as the stricken country had was either unable
or unwilling to hold them in check. It appeared to be inevitable that
the United States, by armed intervention, must sooner or later come to
the protection of its citizens. In that event the little handful of
troops of the regular army must of necessity be reinforced by units of
the state militia. It might be that soldiers of the National Guard
would be used only for patrolling the border, and it might well be
that they would be sent, as was one of Penfield Butler's ancestors,
into the heart of Mexico to enforce permanent peace and tranquility at
the point of the bayonet.

So this was the situation, and this was the appeal to Pen's patriotic
ardor. And the appeal was a strong one. But he did not at once respond
to it. His work and his study absorbed his time and thought. It was
not until late in the fall of that year, the year 1915, when the
crises, both at home and abroad, seemed rapidly approaching, that Pen
took up for earnest consideration the question of his enlistment in
the National Guard. Given by nature to acting impulsively, he
nevertheless, in these days, weighed carefully any proposed line of
conduct on his part which might have an important bearing on his
future. But he resolved, after due consideration, to join the militia
if he could.

He went to a young fellow, a wool-sorter in the mills, who was a
corporal in the militia, to obtain the necessary information to make
his application. The corporal promised to take the matter up for him
with the captain of the local company, and in due time brought him an
application blank to be filled out stating his qualifications for
membership. It was necessary that the paper should be signed by his
mother as evidence of her consent to his enlistment since he was not
yet twenty-one years of age. She signed it readily enough, for she
quite approved of his ambition, and she took a motherly pride in the
evidences of patriotism that he was constantly manifesting.

Armed with this document he presented himself, on a drill-night, to
Captain Perry in the officers' quarters at the armory. The captain
glanced at the pape