"_Growth is proceeding with constantly accelerating rapidity, and soon the overflow must be on lands already filled to overflowing--not then with simple savages. It will then be Greek to Greek, over fortresses that frown along the whole frontier. Then there will be a clash. It is coming. Where the storm will first break, and when, is a question. That a great conflict will come, and at no distant date, is certain."--"The Home Magazine," July, 1900._ * * * * * At the first annual banquet of the Aëronautical Society four years ago, I predicted exactly the use of the aëroplane in war that it has had since that time. President Taft was one of the speakers, and his subject was his pet peace and arbitration treaties. He said that there were not likely to be the requisite wars for testing out the aëroplane, as predicted. He said that there was going to be a shortage of wars. Since that time, we have had the revolution in China, the Italian war with Tripoli, the Balkan wars, a continuous revolutionary performance in Mexico, and finally, we have the present great European War. Not much of a shortage in wars, truly! The following quotation from Dr. David Starr Jordan's "War and Waste" is an excellent illustration of the prophetic wisdom that is keeping the United States of America unprepared against war: * * * * * "_What shall we say of the Great War of Europe, ever threatening, ever impending, and which never comes? We shall say that it will never come. Humanly speaking, it is impossible._ "_Not in the physical sense, of course, for with weak, reckless, and godless men nothing evil is impossible. It may be, of course, that some half-crazed archduke or some harassed minister of state shall half-knowing give the signal for Europe's conflagration. In fact, the agreed signal has been given more than once within the last few months. The tinder is well dried and laid in such a way as to make the worst of this catastrophe. All Europe cherishes is ready for the burning. Yet Europe recoils and will recoil even in the dread stress of spoil-division of the Balkan war...._ "_But accident aside, the Triple Entente lined up against the Triple Alliance, we shall expect no war...._ "_The bankers will not find the money for such a fight, the industries of Europe will not maintain it, the statesmen cannot. So whatever the bluster or apparent provocation, it comes to the same thing at the end. There will be no general war until the masters direct the fighters to fight. The masters have much to gain, but vastly more to lose, and their signal will not be given._" * * * * *