If the Spirit of Switzerland, the self-reliant independence of her people, and their physical and mental vigor, individually and collectively, her national motto "All for each and each for all," dominated a nation of 100,000,000 people, like the United States, with an area of 2,973,890 square miles, exclusive of Alaska, as it does a nation of something less than 4,000,000 people, with an area of only 15,976 square miles, that Spirit and that System of national defense would soon become the universal system of the world. The most dangerous military system for any nation, large or small, is a standing army large enough to invite attack, but not strong enough to repel it. That was the system of Belgium, and to that fact is due the destruction of Belgium. It is the present system of the United States. The most striking feature of our unpreparedness for war is the fact that it would be hopelessly impossible to defend ourselves against invasion without an army so huge as to dwarf our present army into insignificance. The Swiss System is the best for Switzerland and is no doubt the best for Australia, but when adapting it, so far as may be practicable, to the conditions existing in the United States, we must not fall into the error of assuming that numerical strength is the only thing necessary in calculating the strength of an army. Soldiers alone are not all that a nation needs for defense, no matter how well they may be trained and equipped, or drilled and officered, or supplemented by naval strength or fortifications. The foundations on which national defense must be built are social, economic, and human. The question involves every element of the problem of preserving and perpetuating even-handed justice to all, social stability, economic strength and independence, a patriotic citizenship, and a rugged, stalwart, and virile race. The population of Switzerland is less than that of the city of London, but if London were a nation by itself, with its congested population, human degeneration, artificial life, moral decay, and economic dependence, it would be impossible of defense from a military point of view. Just exactly in the proportion that the United States gathers its population into great cities, does it court the same elements of weakness, but with this practical difference. London, being a part of the British Empire, is safeguarded by the whole civil and military power of that nation. Our great seaboard cities, being a part of the United States, are practically defenseless, because our people have no system or policy of national defense. Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, in the event of an attack by the invading military forces of any of the Great Powers, would be surrendered just as Brussels and Antwerp were surrendered, to save them from destruction, if for no other reason. CHAPTER VI