But the most striking instance of the utter failure of unpreparedness to stop war has been shown by President Wilson himself. President Wilson has made himself the great official champion of unpreparedness in military and naval matters. His words and his actions about foreign war have their nearest parallel in the words and the actions of President Buchanan about civil war; and in each case there has been the same use of verbal adroitness to cover mental hesitancy. By his words and his actions President Wilson has done everything possible to prevent this nation from making its army and navy effective and to increase the inefficiency which he already found existing. We were unprepared when he took office, and every month since we have grown still less prepared. Yet this fact did not prevent President Wilson, the great apostle of unpreparedness, the great apostle of pacificism and anti-militarism, from going to war with Mexico last spring. It merely prevented him, or, to speak more accurately, the same mental peculiarities which made him the apostle of unpreparedness also prevented him, from making the war efficient. His conduct rendered the United States an object of international derision because of the way in which its affairs were managed. President Wilson made no declaration of war. He did not in any way satisfy the requirements of common international law before acting. He invaded a neighboring state, with which he himself insisted we were entirely at peace, and occupied the most considerable seaport of the country after military operations which resulted in the loss of the lives of perhaps twenty of our men and five or ten times that number of Mexicans; and then he sat supine, and refused to allow either the United States or Mexico to reap any benefit from what had been done.