The patrician class in this country, who are now in their hearts praying for a strong centralized military government,--patiently and persistently planning for it, and making steady progress, too,--are the very class whose estates were confiscated, and their owners proscribed and executed by thousands to enable the Roman Emperors to appropriate their wealth and from that source satisfy the demands of the Army. The Army had to be rewarded for their services in conferring the purple on the Emperor, which they did by virtue of their military control of the government. It was the Army who made and unmade Emperors. The Emperors bought the Army with money and bribed the populace with feasts and games. The money to do both was obtained by the proscription and plunder of the wealthy patricians, the same class which in our time is now trying so hard to establish a gilded caste in New York and other great centers of wealth and a strong military government for this nation. Whatever system of national defense is to be adopted in the United States, it must be a system in which the people themselves, as citizens and not as professional soldiers, furnish the human material for national defense. The people must control our army of citizen soldiery so absolutely that it can never be turned against their personal liberties or property rights. Let us heed the warning of Rome. It is none too soon. Let us beware of either confiscation or proscription as an evolution from a military government to a military despotism. Switzerland alone, of all the civilized nations, and the smallest of them all, stands to-day a living demonstration of the National Spirit and the National System of Universal Service to their Country that should be adopted by all the nations of the world, to the fullest extent that it can be made applicable to their conditions. The Swiss System provides adequate national defense by the entire citizenship of the nation. Any subversion of the people's liberties through the power of the Army is impossible because the people themselves constitute the Army. Australia has already adopted the Swiss System, substantially, and in consequence will escape the danger of military domination which will fasten itself on this country if our system of national defense is to consist only of a steadily increasing standing army. If we are to escape that danger we must never lose sight of the chief merit of the Swiss System, which is that every citizen participates in it and is affected by it, and we must as nearly as possible adapt it to the conditions existing in this country. There are many lessons that we might learn from the Swiss to our great national advantage.