overseas military expedition, which had been in
preparation since the war began.

CHAPTER X. The Preparation Of The Army

When one compares the conditions under which the Spanish American War
was fought with those of the Great War, he feels himself living in a
different age. Twenty years ago hysteria and sudden panics swept the
nation. Cheers and waving handkerchiefs and laughing girls sped the
troops on their way. It cannot be denied that the most popular song
of the war time was "There'll be a hot time in the old town to-night,"
though it may be believed that the energy and swing of the music rather
than the words made it so. The atmosphere of the country was one of
a great national picnic where each one was expected to carry his own
lunch. There was apparent none of the concentration of effort and of the
calm foresight so necessary for efficiency in modern warfare. For youth
the Spanish American War was a great adventure; for the nation it was a
diversion sanctioned by a high purpose.

This abandon was doubtless in part due to a comfortable consciousness
of the vast disparity in resources between Spain and the United States,
which, it was supposed, meant automatically a corresponding difference
in fighting strength. The United States did, indeed, have vast
superiorities which rendered unnecessary any worry over many of the
essentials which gripped the popular mind during the Great War. People
believed that the country could supply the munitions needed, and that
of facilities for transport it had enough. If the United States did not
have at hand exactly the munitions needed, if the transportation
system had not been built to launch an army into Cuba, it was
popularly supposed that the wealth of the country rendered such trifles
negligible, and that, if insufficient attention had been given to the
study of such matters in the past, American ingenuity would quickly
offset the lack of skilled military experience. The fact that
American soldiers traveled in sleeping cars while European armies
were transported in freight cars blinded Americans for a while to the
significant fact that there was but a single track leading to Tampa, the
principal point of embarkation for Cuba; and no one thought of building
another.

Nothing so strongly marks the amateur character of the conduct of the
Spanish War as the activity of the American press. The navy was dogged
by press dispatch boats which revealed its every move. When Adm