utting his beliefs into effect,
when he furthermore arrived at a point where there was not the
immediate necessity for feeding a starving people, or fighting a
hostile military force, or reorganizing a tumbled-down state, or doing
any of the things demanding immediate action with which he had been
employed during most of his life--then with characteristic energy he
did begin. Time could not be bought by him any more than it could be
by others and his work of preparedness had to await a period of peace
when the time was at hand. This period having arrived in 1912 and 1918
he found that in order to produce any impression, to get action upon
this plan, he must not only have a high and powerful position but he
must awaken the public {203} to its importance before he could expect
legislative or departmental action. Hence the volume of the Creed of
the Patriot.

With his accustomed energy therefore he started upon a campaign of
writing, speaking and promoting in all ways open to him to bring this
new plan before the people of this country and in doing so he
developed the hitherto unsuspected qualities of a speaker of the
highest, because the simplest and most homely order.

To him there was nothing new in the plan of preparedness for the
nation. He might have said to himself in 1913: "I have found that in
order to be a doctor a young man must study so many years; in order to
fight Apache Indians successfully a man must train for a physical
condition that permits him to walk and ride and live harder than his
already trained opponents, that he must train soldiers for that
particular job, must train and care for horses to cover that
particular country. I have found by sad experience that to have a
regiment of Rough Riders in proper condition to fight Spaniards in
Cuba the men must be taught by long training to understand military
principles, {204} subordination to military rule of procedure, the use
of guns and animals and the laws and tactics of military action in the
field; that these men must be taught to take care of themselves in the
open, that ammunition and equipment must be at hand and in use. I have
found that in order to produce order in a community where there is no
order, health in a land where there is only sickness, happiness
amongst a people where there is only misery and fear and worry--in
order to do all this laws must be made and respected, people must
learn that they owe something to their state and that the