Likewise, we need to see the case in its present terms. One may abhor war fully, despise militarism absolutely, deplore all of the impulses in human nature which make armed force necessary, and still agree that for the world as we know it, the main hope is that "peace-loving nations can be made obviously capable of defeating nations which are willing to wage aggressive war." Those words, by the way, were not said by a warrior, but by the eminent pacifist, Bertrand Russell. It does not make the military man any less the humanitarian that he accepts this reality, that he faces toward the chance forthrightly, and that he believes that if all military power were stricken tomorrow, men would revert to a state of anarchy and there would ensue the total defeat of the forces which are trying to establish peace and brotherly love in our lives. The complete identity of American military forces with the character of the people comes of this indivisibility of interest. To think of the military as a guardian class apart, like Lynkeus "born for vision, ordained for watching," rather than as a strong right arm, corporately joined to the body and sharing its every function, is historically false and politically inaccurate. It is not unusual, however, for those whose task it is to interpret the trend of opinion to take the line that "the military" are thinking one way and "the people" quite another on some particular issue, as if to imply that the two are quite separate and of different nature. This is usually false in detail, and always false in general. It not only discounts the objects of their unity but overlooks the truth of its origins. Maybe they should be invited to go to the root of the word. The true meaning of "populus," from which we get the word "people," was in the time of ancient Rome the "armed body." The pure-blooded Roman in the days of the Republic could not conceive of a citizen who was not a warrior. It was the arms which a Roman's possession of land enabled him to get that qualified him to participate in the affairs of state. He had no political rights until he had fought. _He was not of the people; they were of him!_ Nor is this concept alien to the ideals on which the Founding Fathers built the American system, since they stated it as the right and duty of every able-bodied citizen to bear arms. These propositions should mean much to every American who has chosen the military profession. A main point is that on becoming an officer a man does not renounce any part of his fundamental character as an American citizen. He has simply signed on for the post graduate course where one learns how to exercise authority in accordance with the spirit of liberty. The nature of his trusteeship has been subtly expressed by an Admiral in our service: "The American philosophy places the individual above the state. It distrusts personal power and coercion. It denies the existence of indispensable men. It asserts the supremacy of principle."