angerous as it is ignoble. The future greatness of America in no small
degree depends upon the possession by the average American citizen of
the qualities which my men showed when they served under me at Santiago.

Moreover, there is one thing in connection with this war which it is
well that our people should remember, our people who genuinely love the
peace of righteousness, the peace of justice--and I would be ashamed to
be other than a lover of the peace of righteousness and of justice. The
true preachers of peace, who strive earnestly to bring nearer the
day when peace shall obtain among all peoples, and who really do help
forward the cause, are men who never hesitate to choose righteous war
when it is the only alternative to unrighteous peace. These are the men
who, like Dr. Lyman Abbott, have backed every genuine movement for peace
in this country, and who nevertheless recognized our clear duty to war
for the freedom of Cuba.

But there are other men who put peace ahead of righteousness, and who
care so little for facts that they treat fantastic declarations
for immediate universal arbitration as being valuable, instead of
detrimental, to the cause they profess to champion, and who seek to make
the United States impotent for international good under the pretense of
making us impotent for international evil. All the men of this kind, and
all of the organizations they have controlled, since we began our career
as a nation, all put together, have not accomplished one hundredth part
as much for both peace and righteousness, have not done one hundredth
part as much either for ourselves or for other peoples, as was
accomplished by the people of the United States when they fought the war
with Spain and with resolute good faith and common sense worked out the
solution of the problems which sprang from the war.

Our army and navy, and above all our people, learned some lessons from
the Spanish War, and applied them to our own uses. During the following
decade the improvement in our navy and army was very great; not in
material only, but also in personnel, and, above all, in the ability to
handle our forces in good-sized units. By 1908, when our battle fleet
steamed round the world, the navy had become in every respect as fit
a fighting instrument as any other navy in the world, fleet for fleet.
Even in size there was but one nation, England, which was completely
out of our class; and in view of our relations with England