It’s a day of questionnaires, of polls of votes. We’ve gone wild with them. The college youth particularly is pursued by this plague. Led on by a professor who either doesn’t know our true history or doesn’t care about our country, the poor lad is gulled into blowing pledge-bubbles. The questions in themselves are so degrading that George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, all our presidents, would sicken at the sight of them. “Would you bear arms in any war of your country?” is the favorite. The poor lad, without background of our whole history wavers. Under the glamorous, treacherous teachings of his professor, he writes: “No.” And he believes what he says. He has no idea he’s giving voice to a flimsy New Year’s resolution. Let me ask him now what he’d do if a bandit attacked his home and tried to ruin his sister. Would he bear arms? He’d bear everything he had to fight with or he wouldn’t be worthy of the name of a man. Yet he said he’d never bear arms against an enemy attacking another home. What of the golden rule? What of selfishness? What of American sportsmanship? Our nation’s ability to protect itself is its highest insurance. For our insurance companies would be nowhere, our commerce, our comfort, our happiness would be nowhere, if our defense broke under attack. There is no insurance to compete with National Defense. For it’s our blanket insurance. It’s just plain business sense. The soldier realizes that we have that sense in almost everything else but National Defense. He realizes we’re living in a world--not heaven, Utopia or the millennium. He’s got to face proven experience and facts as they are, like the doctor, the fireman, the federal agent. He wonders whether we can hold our own against the signs of the times. Or whether we must have just faith without works. _Other Books Recommended_ _The History of the United States Army_--Colonel William Addleman Ganoe--D. Appleton-Century Co., 35 West 32nd Street, New York City. ★ _Chasing Villa_--Colonel Frank Tompkins--The Military Service Publishing Co., 100 Telegraph Building, Harrisburg, Pa. ★ _Inevitable War_--Lieut. Col. Richard Stockton--The Perth Co., 393 Seventh Ave., New York City. TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES Page 83: stray comma removed after “Napoleon the third”. Page 85: missing apostrophe added in “know it’s a funny thing”. Spelling errors corrected and missing quote marks added. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been left unchanged.