military establishment.
They are like engineers, doctors, lawyers, or any other class of
professional men whose services people employ because they are expert
in their line of work. They do not initiate wars. Nine-tenths of all
wars have their origin directly or indirectly in {270} issues arising
out of trade. The people make war; the government declares it; and the
officers of the army and navy are charged with the responsibility of
terminating it with such means and implements as the people may give
them."

His voice raised in behalf of preparedness refers therefore to the
military, because as a Major-General in the United States Army he is
not empowered to speak of other walks in life. Yet his own wide
experience in Cuba and the Philippines in administration, very little
of which was military, is a witness of his belief in preparedness in
an life.

He founded schools where there were none to prepare citizens for the
new Cuban republic. He reorganized and built up customs laws and
regulations where there were only attempts at such in order to prepare
revenue to build roads and finish public works to make a busy and
healthy nation. He reestablished sane marriage laws in order to
prepare a solid community resting upon the basis of the clearly
defined family. In the Philippines he instituted local government to
prepare the islands for self-government.

{271}

None of these acts, nor many others of like nature, had anything to do
with the military. They were all based on the law that a sound and
successful community, whether that community be a village, town or
nation, rests in the final analysis on personal, individual
responsibility which in the group makes a responsible government, that
personal responsibility comes only from preparation, from execution as
a result of preparation and from efficiency which is its synonym.

We study for this or that profession. We cannot practice law unless we
prepare and take a degree. We cannot enter the medical profession
unless we study and take a degree. Wood's great thesis is that we
cannot become sound citizens and, therefore, in the group a sound
nation, unless we study and prepare to be such.

It sounds so simple that one wonders why it is written. And yet for
the last two years under the guise of war necessity this country has
been moving in quite another direction. Instead of personal
responsibility we have been substituting more and more government
responsibility. I