The trouble in the Spanish war was not with the then existing officials of the War Department; it was with the representatives of the people as a whole who, for the preceding thirty years, had declined to make the necessary provision for…
Teddy Roosevelt
The Public Record
Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. A member of the Republican Party, he was born on October 27, 1858, in New York. Roosevelt was a prominent leader of the Progressive Movement, advocating for domestic policies that included trust-busting, regulation of corporations, and conservation of natural resources. His administration is noted for significant reforms and the establishment of national parks and forests.
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In particular it is essential that we should possess a number of extra officers trained in peace to perform efficiently the duties urgently required upon the breaking out of war.
But months would pass before any large body of efficient volunteers could be put in the field, and our Regular Army should be large enough to meet any immediate need.
But again and again in the past our little Regular Army has rendered service literally vital to the country, and it may at any time have to do so in the future.
A mere glance at these figures is sufficient to show the absurdity of the outcry against militarism.
The number of deaths in battle in all the foreign wars put together, for the last century and a quarter, aggregate considerably less than one year's death record for our industries.
Such a record makes the death rate in all our foreign wars utterly trivial by comparison.
For the entire country, therefore, it is safe to say that the deaths due to industrial accidents aggregate in the neighborhood of twenty thousand a year.
Each has its price, and industry in the United States now exacts, and has always exacted, a far heavier toll of death than all our wars put together.
The evils we have to fight are those in connection with industrialism, not militarism.
We are glad to help in any movement for international peace, but this is because we sincerely believe that it is our duty to help all such movements provided they are sane and rational, and not because there is any tendency toward…
It is declamation against a non-existent evil, one which never has existed in this country, and which has not the slightest chance of appearing here.
Declamation against militarism has no more serious place in an earnest and intelligent movement for righteousness in this country than declamation against the worship of Baal or Astaroth.
But there is not one evil that now exists, or that ever has existed in this country, which is, or ever has been, owing in the smallest part to militarism.
As a Nation we have always been shortsighted in providing for the efficiency of the Army in time of peace.
Every foreign war in which we have engaged has cost us many times the amount which, if wisely expended during the preceding years of peace on the Regular Army, would have insured the war ending in but a fraction of the time and but for a…
But again and again we have suffered because enough care has not been given to it, because it has been too small, because there has not been sufficient preparation in advance for possible war.
Never in our entire history has the Nation suffered in the least particular because too much care has been given to the Army, too much prominence given it, too much money spent upon it, or because it has been too large.
Never at any time in our history has this Nation suffered from militarism or been in the remotest danger of suffering from militarism.
There never has been any other large nation, not even China, which for so long a period has had relatively to its numbers so small a regular army as has ours.
Not only there is not now, but there never has been, any other nation in the world so wholly free from the evils of militarism as is ours.
The proposition involves no new principle, but permits the efficient discharge of public functions now inadequately performed or not performed at all.
That profit I believe should be devoted to strengthening maritime power in those directions where it will best promote our prestige.
Briefly those theories are, that it is the duty of a first-class Power so far as practicable to carry its ocean mails under its own flag; that the fast ocean steamships and their crews, required for such mail service, are valuable…
To a greater extent than seemed probable even a dozen years ago, we may look to an American future on the sea worthy of the traditions of our past.
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