"Our skirmish with Spain was a most unusual international episode. We harmed none of the people of the land wherein we fought, but taught them what we could of wise self-government and gave them independence. To battle for the liberation of the slave is worthy work, and this of ours was such a battle. "Our Spanish war was not the outgrowth of our rivalry with any one or any one's with us; it was the manifestation of our high sense of responsibility as strong and healthy human beings for the welfare of the weak and oppressed." That Was Police Work. "It did not make toward militarism on this continent, but the reverse; in a few months it established permanent peace where peace had been a stranger. It was police work on the highest plane, substituting order for disorder." "But did it not emphasize the need for the maintenance, even here, of a competent and efficient naval and military force?" I asked. Mr. Carnegie shook his head emphatically. "That is the old, old argument cropping up again," said he, "the argument that a provocative is a preventive. For us to maintain a great army for the purpose of preventing war thereby would be as sensible as for each of us to be afraid to walk about except with a lightning rod down his back, since men have been struck by lightning. No nation wants to fight us. We have friends throughout the world. "Millions now resident in military nations are hoping that some day they may be able to become citizens of our beloved republic, principally because it now is not, nor is it every likely to be, military. Humanity loves peace. Here peace abides, and, if we follow reason, will remain unbroken. "Note the advantages of our own position. Imagine what the task would be of landing seventy thousand hostile soldiers on our shores! First they would need to cross three thousand miles of the Atlantic or five thousand miles of the Pacific. "And what if they should come? My plan of operation would be to bid them welcome as our visitors, considering them as men, not soldiers; to take them to our great interior, say, as far west as Chicago, and there to say to them: "'Here we shall leave you. Make yourselves at home, if that thought pleases you; fight us if it does not. If you think you can conquer us, try it.' "They would make themselves at home and, learning the advantages of staying with us, would become applicants for our citizenship, rather than our opponents in warfare. "And if they tried to fight us, what would happen to them? Our nation is unique in an important respect. Its individuals are the best armed in the world. Not only, for example, are its farmers armed, but they can shoot, which is far more than can be said of those of Britain or of any other nation.