Preparedness against war does not invariably avert war any more than a fire department in a city will invariably avert a fire; and there are well-meaning foolish people who point out this fact as offering an excuse for unpreparedness. It would be just as sensible if after the Chicago fire Chicago had announced that it would abolish its fire department as for our people to take the same view as regards military preparedness. Some years ago I was looking over some very old newspapers contemporaneous with the early establishment of paid fire departments in this country, and to my amusement I came across a letter which argued against a paid fire department upon the ground that the knowledge of its existence would tend to make householders careless, and therefore would encourage fires. Greece was not prepared for war when she went to war with Turkey a score of years ago. But this fact did not stop the war. It merely made the war unsuccessful for Greece. China was not prepared for war with Japan twenty-odd years ago, nor for war with the Allies who marched to Peking fifteen years ago. _Colonel Roosevelt then discussed in detail the cases of China and Belgium, comparing Belgium with Switzerland, and asserting that Switzerland would have met Belgium's fate if she had not been prepared to oppose invasion. Then taking up the case of China, he said:_ She has acted on the theory that the worst peace was better than the best war, and therefore she has suffered all the evils of the worst war and the worst peace. The average Chinaman took the view that China was too proud to fight and in practice made evident his hearty approval of the sentiments of that abject pacifist song: "I Didn't Raise My Boy to be a Soldier," a song which should have as a companion piece one entitled: "I Didn't Raise my Girl to be a Mother," approval of which of course deprives any men or women of all right of kinship with the soldiers and with the mothers and wives of the soldiers, whose valor and services we commemorate on the Fourth of July and on Decoration Day; a song, the singing of which seems incredible to every man and woman capable of being stirred to lofty and generous enthusiasm by the tremendous surge of Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic." China has steadily refused to prepare for war. Accordingly China has had province after province lopped off her, until one-half of her territory is now under Japanese, Russian, English and French control. The professional pacifists, the peace-at-any-price, non-resistance, universal arbitration people are now seeking to Chinafy this country.