ot be depended upon as a
reliable military asset. Its very method of control makes it an
undependable force, and at times unavailable. The men and officers
are not at fault; they have done all that could be expected under a
system which renders efficiency almost impossible of attainment. The
militia must be absolutely and completely transferred to Federal
control; it must cease to be a State and become a Federal force,
without any relationship whatever with the State.

The militia must have thoroughly trained reserves sufficient in
number to bring it promptly to war strength. The infantry of the
National Guard, as in the regular army, is maintained on a peace
footing at rather less than half its maximum strength.

For a number of years we have been confronted by conditions which
may involve the use of a considerable force of troops, a force
exceeding the regular army and perhaps even the regular army in
conjunction with the militia. This means that a thousand or more men
would have to be added to each regular and National Guard infantry
regiment to bring it to full strength. In the National Guard only a
small proportion of the men have had long service and thorough
training, and if brought to full strength through the injection of a
thousand practically untrained men it would mean these regiments
would go to the front with not over 30 per cent of well-trained men.
In other words, they would be military assemblages of well-meaning,
but undisciplined and untrained individuals, and unless we are to
repeat the experiences of '98 it will be necessary to hold them for
several months in camp and put them through a course of the most
intensive training. It is probable that if they are called it will
be under an emergency which will not permit such training, and we
shall see again the scenes of '98, untrained, willing boys,
imperfectly equipped under inexperienced officers, rushed to the
front, willing but a more or less useless sacrifice.

Another great lesson should be to heed no longer those false
prophets who have been proclaiming that the day of strife has
passed, and that everything is to be settled by arbitration;
prophets of the class who obstructed preparation in England, who
decried universal military training, and all but delivered her into
the hands of her enemies.

"Our culture must, therefore, not omit the arming of the man. Let
him hear in season that he is born into a state of war, and that
t