force were used in a just or an unjust cause. And now I have arrived at the place where I can prove this to a nation instead of to a military platoon, or a military staff, or a few Cuban or Philippine officials." [Illustration: THE PATRIOT] {205} He might have said all this to himself--doubtless has done so many, many times with much more to the same effect--but the outcome is a witness of the fact that he has from a long and active life as fighter, soldier, organizer, administrator, diplomat and statesman in the West, the South, in Europe, in Asia, in Cuba, in the Philippines, in South America, in Washington--in most parts of the earth--learned again and again that nothing can be really done on the spur of the moment, that everybody must prepare from school days to death. And in 1913 he had his first real opportunity to preach this nationally to all the people of his own native land. That within a year of that time prepared Germany should have upset the world and found the British Empire, the French Republic and the Italian Kingdom unprepared--to say nothing of the United States--may have been one of the accidents--strokes of fortune--that some people say have made General Wood. But it would seem that the only thing this Great War did in this {206} connection was to prove by a terrific example that Wood and those with him were right and that those who were against him were wrong. If the war had not come, it would have taken longer to awaken this country to the facts and it would have delayed perhaps the growth of General Wood's name as that of a national and international character of highest importance. But it would not have changed the truth of his Creed--or rather the creed of which he has become the great protagonist. Nor does the fact that the war did come when it did give any ground for making Wood one of the greatest citizens of our country to-day because he preaches preparedness. General Wood stands at the forefront of the leaders in America at this time because of his own personal make-up and character and because of the amazing variety and extent of his services to his country which are written upon every page of its history during the last thirty years. It is the variety of things done which puts him in his present position, just as it is the variety of high qualities that has made the great men of all times great. King David was not only the greatest {207} general of his time. He was one of the greatest administrators of all time and perhaps the greatest poet that ever lived. Washington was not only a fighter of the highest order. He was one of the great generals of history; and a statesman and ruler of a higher order still. It might very aptly be said, therefore, that General Wood's campaign for national preparedness was only the accomplishment of a task for which he had all his life been preparing himself.