I want to say just one word more on an entirely different subject. I have always taken a very great interest in the National Guard in this country. It is our pride that we have the smallest possible regular army. There is not another first-class power, there is not a second or third class power in the world that has not got relatively to its population and wealth a very much larger regular army than we have. We do not need anything but a small regular army. We need and must and shall have the very best regular army of its size that is to be found anywhere. We do not need a large regular army, because of the possibilities of our people in raising volunteer troops. Those possibilities are largely conditioned upon the excellence of the National Guard. Since I have been in Texas, at almost every stopping place there have been members of the National Guard, companies of the National Guard out to do duty in connection with keeping the crowds in order, in preventing any trouble of any kind, keeping the whole proceedings orderly and proper. I have been immensely struck with their soldier-like efficiency. It is only what I ought to expect. When I was last in Texas I was engaged with certain others in raising a volunteer regiment, and as I think I know a good thing when I see it, I got just as many Texans as possible in that regiment. Your whole history, from the days of Austin and Houston and Davy Crockett, right to the present time, shows what fighting material the average Texan makes. But I do not care how good the material, it is not going to amount to much if it is not given a chance. It is a most important thing for all of us, if we desire to keep the regular army small, that we shall have the militia, the National Guard of the several States, kept up to a proper point. Last year, I am happy to be able to say, that, at the manœuvres of the regulars, your Texan troops did admirably. I have been told again and again how well they did. I want to congratulate you upon the excellent law for the administration of the National Guard that has recently been passed by the Texas Legislature. With that law backed up by a sufficient appropriation to make it available, you can count upon having the Texas National Guard a model for the National Guard of the country. I feel very much at home here: I have been Governor, and I have served in the Legislature, so I have a good deal of fellow-feeling with all of you. I have had for a good many years to grapple with just about the problems you are grappling with from time to time here; and I know, as any man who has taken part in active work must know, how easy it is for the outsider to say that everything should be managed perfectly, and how difficult it is in practice to get even fairly good results. There is a heap of difference between the critic, the onlooker on one side, and on the other the doer, the man who does the job. OUTSIDE OF CAPITOL BUILDING, AUSTIN, TEX., APRIL 6, 1905