Let us be safe rather than sorry! Every scene so graphically described by the writer of this book will find its duplicate in the mind of the reader who has kept himself informed of the occurrences in the European fields of war.

In war the law of Nations, conserving the laws of humanity, is superseded by the law of necessity which is invoked and interpreted as to life and property by the belligerent concerned, to excuse every act committed.

Four years of costly and exhausting Civil War found us able to mass on the Mexican border a magnificently trained and virile army to execute our mandate of withdrawal (under the Monroe Doctrine) of a so-called Ruler by Divine Right and his government sustained by foreign arms. From that task the Civil War armies of both sides, trained to look with contempt upon obstacles hitherto regarded as insurmountable, turned and accomplished the construction of trans-Continental railroads that would not otherwise have been built for another generation, thus inaugurating an era of unparalleled national development.

The war in Europe, once ended, will likewise find such virile armies with warships and transport service comparatively unimpaired and aggregating, as to the latter, millions of net tons.

The teaching of history shows that so long as human nature remains unchanged, war cannot be eliminated as a factor in human affairs. Meanwhile, and doubtless for centuries to follow, war is inevitable as a recurrent consequence of the ceaseless operation of an inexorable law of progress toward world unity under that ultimate governmental form that shall approach nearest to the laws of humanity and righteousness.

As our own experience in the Spanish-American war abundantly proves, intervening oceans lost to our command by reason of the insufficient strength of our navy, offer no obstacles to the landing on our shore of a first armed enemy relay sufficient to secure a gateway through which others would rapidly follow. To this we should be able to oppose only an available mobile force—at present little more than double the police force which is deemed somewhat inadequate to preserve order and protect life and property in the City of New York.

This book thus simply stages here in New England, the heart of our industrial efficiency for war or peace, scenes the counterpart of those occurring abroad from day to day, against the actual happening of which in our own land there now intervenes a wholly inadequate navy and but the skeleton of an army, as in the days of the late Thomas Nast.[1]

John A. Johnston,
Brigadier General U. S. Army (Resigned);
President Army League of the U. S.
Washington, D. C. November 1, 1915.