severely upon these rulers--although I do not regard some of the actions proposed as proper from the standpoint of warfare as the United States has practised it. To become angry because such plans exist would be childish. To fail to profit by our knowledge that they certainly do exist would, however, be not merely childish but imbecile. I have myself become personally cognizant of the existence of such plans for operations against us, and of the larger features of their details, in two cases, affecting two different nations. The essential feature of these plans was (and doubtless is) the seizure of some of our great coast cities and the terrorization of these cities so as to make them give enormous ransoms; ransoms of such size that our own country would be crippled, whereas our foes would be enabled to run the war against us with a handsome profit to themselves. These plans are based, of course, upon the belief that we have not sufficient foresight and intelligence to keep our navy in first-class condition, and upon not merely the belief but the knowledge that our regular army is so small and our utter unpreparedness otherwise so great that on land we would be entirely helpless against a moderate-sized expeditionary force belonging to any first-class military power. Foreign military and naval observers know well that our navy has been used during the last eighteen months in connection with the Mexican situation in such manner as to accomplish the minimum of results as regards Mexico, while at the same time to do the maximum of damage in interrupting the manœuvring and the gun practice of our fleets. They regard Messrs. Wilson and Bryan as representative of the American people in their entire inability to understand the real nature of the forces that underlie international relations and the importance of preparedness. They are entirely cold-blooded in their views of us. Foreign rulers may despise us for our supine unpreparedness, and for our readiness to make treaties, taken together with our refusal to fulfil these treaties by seeking to avert wrong done to others. But their contempt will not prevent their using this nation as arbiter in order to bring about peace if to do so suits their purposes; and if, on the contrary, one or the other of the several great military empires becomes the world mistress as the result of this war, that power will infringe our rights whenever and to the extent that it deems it advantageous to do so, and will make war upon us whenever it believes that such war will be to its own advantage.