Page 285 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

266 A Twentieth-Century Outlook.

internal jealousies of Europe, and the purely
—
democratic institution of the levee en masse
the general enforcement of military training —
have prepared the way for great national armies,
whose mission seems yet obscure, so the gradual
broadening and tightening hold upon the senti-
ment of American democracy of that conviction
loosely characterized as the Monroe doctrine
finds its logical and inevitable outcome in a
great sea power, the correlative, in connection
with that of Great Britain, of those armies
which continue to flourish under the most
popular institutions, despite the wails of econo-
mists and the lamentations of those who wish
peace without paying the one price which alone
has. ever insured peace, — readiness for war.
Thus it was, while readiness for war lasted,
that the Teuton was held back until he became
civilized, humanized, after the standard of that
age; till the root of the matter was in him, sure
to bear fruit in due season. He was held back
by organized armed force — by armies. Will
it be said that that was in a past barbaric age ?
Barbarism, however, is not in more or less
material prosperity, or even political develop-
ment, but in the inner man, in the spiritual