if, with the lessons taught the world by the
dreadful tragedies of the last twelve months, we continue with soft
complacency to stand helpless and naked before the world, we shall
excite only contempt and derision if and when disaster ultimately
overwhelms us.

Preparedness against war does not invariably avert war any more than a
fire department in a city will invariably avert a fire; and there are
well-meaning foolish people who point out this fact as offering an
excuse for unpreparedness. It would be just as sensible if after the
Chicago fire Chicago had announced that it would abolish its fire
department as for our people to take the same view as regards
military preparedness. Some years ago I was looking over some very old
newspapers contemporaneous with the early establishment of paid fire
departments in this country, and to my amusement I came across a
letter which argued against a paid fire department upon the ground
that the knowledge of its existence would tend to make householders
careless, and therefore would encourage fires.

Greece was not prepared for war when she went to war with Turkey a
score of years ago. But this fact did not stop the war. It merely made
the war unsuccessful for Greece. China was not prepared for war with
Japan twenty-odd years ago, nor for war with the Allies who marched to
Peking fifteen years ago.

_Colonel Roosevelt then discussed in detail the cases of China and
Belgium, comparing Belgium with Switzerland, and asserting that
Switzerland would have met Belgium's fate if she had not been prepared
to oppose invasion. Then taking up the case of China, he said:_

She has acted on the theory that the worst peace was better than the
best war, and therefore she has suffered all the evils of the worst
war and the worst peace. The average Chinaman took the view that China
was too proud to fight and in practice made evident his hearty
approval of the sentiments of that abject pacifist song: "I Didn't
Raise My Boy to be a Soldier," a song which should have as a companion
piece one entitled: "I Didn't Raise my Girl to be a Mother," approval
of which of course deprives any men or women of all right of kinship
with the soldiers and with the mothers and wives of the soldiers,
whose valor and services we commemorate on the Fourth of July and on
Decoration Day; a song, the singing of which seems incredible to every
man and woman capable of being stirred to lofty and generous
enthusiasm by th