the Egyptian campaign
fresh in memory, have nothing to say, except that it was wholly
admirable and beyond the breath of suspicion of greed, thievery, or
political chicanery. There was no rotten leather, and no poisoned
beef.

Officers, too, in the French war, were called upon to do their duty
and to obey, and no individual brilliancy which interfered with the
general plan was condoned or pardoned, no matter how highly placed the
relatives or how influential the connections of the offender. A
distinguished general, after a successful and heroic victory, who had
been tempted into a bloody battle against orders, was called before
his superiors, told that the first lesson the soldier had to learn was
obedience, and sent home! A brother of the chief of staff went into
the war a captain and came back a captain!

I am wondering what our underpaid, unnoticed regulars in the army and
navy would have to say, were they free to speak, of the conduct of our
last martial escapade with Spain, by our press and by our politicians.
There would be no stories of the German kind, I am sure, and no single
record of an influential civilian who did not get all the glory that
he deserved. My impulsive countrymen are always manufacturing heroes
and saviors, but fortunately the crosses upon which they crucify them
are erected almost as fast as the crowns are nicely fitted and
comfortable, so that there is little danger of permanent tyranny. What
Richelieu said of the French applies to some extent to ourselves: "Le
propre du caractere francais c'est que, ne se tenant pas fermement au
bien, il ne s'attache non plus longtemps au mal."

During and after the Franco-German war there was no cheap heroism, no
feminine excitability producing litters of heroes; no slobbering,
osculatory advertising; no press undertaking the duties of a general
staff, which in our Spanish war almost completely clouded the real
heroism and patriotism that were in evidence. There were no newspaper-made
heroes, hastening back to exchange cheap military glory for votes
and delicious notoriety. For all of which, gentlemen, let us thank
God, and give praise where it is due.

The army, too, is an interesting commentary upon the changes that are
so rapidly taking place in Germany, from an agricultural to a
manufacturing nation. Of every 100 recruits that presented themselves
there were passed as fit, in 1902, for the First Army Corps, of those
from the country 72.76; of those