But after all these people, though often noisy, form but a small minority of the whole. They would be swept like chaff before the gust of popular fury which would surely come if ever the nation really saw and felt a danger or an insult. The real trouble is that in such a case this gust of popular fury would come too late. Unreadiness for war is merely rendered more disastrous by readiness to bluster; to talk defiance and advocate a vigorous policy in words, while refusing to back up these words by deeds, is cause for humiliation. It has always been true, and in this age it is more than ever true, that it is too late to prepare for war when the time for peace has passed. The short-sightedness of many people, the good-humored indifference to facts of others, the sheer ignorance of a vast number, and the selfish reluctance to insure against future danger by present sacrifice among yet others--these are the chief obstacles to building up a proper navy and carrying out a proper foreign policy. The men who opposed the war of 1812, and preferred to have the nation humiliated by unresented insult from a foreign power rather than see her suffer the losses of an honorable conflict, occupied a position little short of contemptible; but it was not much worse than that of the men who brought on the war and yet deliberately refused to make the preparations necessary to carry it to a successful conclusion. The visionary schemes for defending the country by gunboats, instead of by a fleet of seagoing battle-ships; the refusal to increase the Navy to a proper size; the determination to place reliance upon militia instead of upon regularly trained troops; and the disasters which followed upon each and every one of these determinations should be studied in every school-book in the land so as to enforce in the minds of all our citizens the truth of Washington’s adage, that in time of peace it is necessary to prepare for war.