"I have never yet been a witness to a single instance that can justify a different opinion, and it is most earnestly to be wished that the liberties of America may no longer be trusted, in a material degree, to so precarious a defense." In the face of all these facts, the people of the United States are groping in the dark. They may have a vague and glimmering idea of their danger, but as yet no definite and practicable plan for national defense in case of war has been suggested, except that proposed in this book. The beautiful iridescent dream and vision of an army of a million patriotic souls hurrying to the colors in the event of national danger brings only counter visions of Bull Run and Cuba, of confusion, waste, death, and devastation, before we could possibly get these men officered, trained, equipped, and organized to fight any first-class power according to the methods of modern warfare. As an illustration, what would our pitifully small army, and our almost raw and untrained levies of militia, do in a grim conflict with the 200,000 trained and seasoned and perfectly armed and equipped soldiers which Japan could land on our shores within four weeks, or the 500,000 she could land in four months, or the 1,000,000 she could land in ten months? We could not by any possibility get a military force of equal strength into action on the Pacific coast in that length of time or in anywhere near it. That is where our danger lies, and therein exists the startling menace of our unpreparedness for war. It is not that we lack men or money. No nation in the world has better soldiers than those now serving under our flag. We no doubt have the raw material for a larger army than any nation or any two nations could utilize for the invasion of our territory, but any one of three or four nations could humble and defeat us several times over before we could whip this raw material into shape for a fighting force and get it armed and equipped for actual warfare. The conclusion from this would on the surface naturally seem to be that we must have a larger standing army. The strange and apparently contradictory but undeniable fact is that a larger standing army, organized in accordance with our present military system, would merely increase our danger, and might precipitate a war that would otherwise have been avoided.