Comes a murmur from all sides the regular army and the navy should be augmented. Those who dare say nay are forthwith stigmatized as madmen. At the outbreak of the European War, however, armaments were acknowledged by everyone as the cause of the conflict. But now it seems that belligerency has so heated our blood that cool reason has been boiled out of our heads. Facts, nevertheless, remain; even though our opinions and sentiments have changed. Whether we at present care to consider it or not, it is a sorry truth that Europe’s armies have rendered the Hague helpless and inaugurated an era of horrors. And now, must we, the only nation influential enough to champion Peace, genuflect to Mars? Notwithstanding the lively jeers of militaristic scribes, the statement stands that the possession of weapons is the strongest stimulus to their use. Germany armed to the teeth, felt too puissant for Peace; too easily she found a cause for war: the world weeps. Experience is the queen of instructors; but do her pupils always learn? Mammoth calamities have testified, and are at this moment witnessing, that martial means to avert trouble draw down on men their greatest sorrows. They have caused History to be couched with a sword-point and blood. The nations across the sea are now madly struggling for life, although up to a few months ago, they were cheerfully and blindly making ready for death,—creating the instruments with which to slay one another. Are we, who should be wise with a firm realization of their lack of wisdom, about to be false to our national policy and follow the unhappiest of examples? If the defects of our present national defence speak to foreign countries of our weakness, an increase of militia would indicate military design. A reputation for bellicoseness, fully as much as for impotence, invites complications. Martial rivalry, suspicions, and jealousies are the recipe for disaster.