The waste in our navy and army is very great. This is inevitable as long as we do not discriminate against the inefficient and as long as we fail to put a premium upon efficiency. When I was President I found out that a very large proportion of the old officers of the army and even of the navy were physically incompetent to perform many of their duties. The public was wholly indifferent on the subject. Congress would not act. As a preliminary, and merely as a preliminary, I established a regulation that before promotion officers should be required to walk fifty miles or ride one hundred miles in three days. This was in no way a sufficient test of an officer’s fitness. It merely served to rid the service of men whose unfitness was absolutely ludicrous. Yet in Congress and in the newspapers an extraordinary din was raised against this test on the ground that it was unjust to faithful elderly officers! The pacificists promptly assailed it on the ground that to make the army efficient was a “warlike” act. All kinds of philanthropists, including clergymen and college presidents, wrote me that my action showed not only callousness of heart but also a regrettable spirit of militarism. Any officer who because of failure to come up to the test or for other reasons was put out of the service was certain to receive ardent congressional championship; and every kind of pressure was brought to bear on behalf of the unfit, while hardly the slightest effective championship was given the move from any outside source. This was because public opinion was absolutely uneducated on the subject. In our country the men who in time of peace speak loudest about war are usually the ultrapacificists whose activities have been shown to be absolutely futile for peace, but who do a little mischief by persuading a number of well-meaning persons that preparedness for war is unnecessary. It is not desirable that civilians, acting independently of and without the help of military and naval advisers, shall prepare minute or detailed plans as to what ought to be done for our national defense. But civilians are competent to advocate plans in outline exactly as I have here advocated them. Moreover, and most important, they are competent to try to make public opinion effective in these matters. A democracy must have proper leaders. But these leaders must be able to appeal to a proper sentiment in the democracy. It is the prime duty of every right-thinking citizen at this time to aid his fellow countrymen to understand the need of working wisely for peace, the folly of acting unwisely for peace, and, above all, the need of real and thorough national preparedness against war. Former Secretary of the Navy Bonaparte, in one of his admirable articles, in which he discusses armaments and treaties, has spoken as follows: