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''OUR MILITARY FEVER 
 
 D. C. PEARSON 
 
 CAPTAIN SECOND CAVALRY 
 UNITED STATES ARMY 
 
 1895 
 
T5/ 
 
 the new york printing co. 
 
 (the republic press) 
 
 14 lafayette place, n. y. 
 
''OUR MILITARY FEVER." 
 
 The following was published in October, 1894, by one of the 
 most able and influential journals in New England: 
 
 " OUR MILITARY FEVER. 
 " To the Editor of the Transcript : It is not a pleasant task to 
 protest against public opinion; neither is it easy to elbow your 
 way through a crowd going in the opposite direction. Nothing 
 but a sense of duty, therefore, can compel me to raise my voice 
 against the growing military fever of the American people. 
 Let me confess at once to a deep interest in military matters. 
 In my travels, I have become familiar with the armies of Ger- 
 many, France, Italy, Austria, and especially of Switzerland, 
 Everywhere the tread of soldiery, the drums, the crack of mus- 
 ketry have attracted me. It has been part of my work in his- 
 torical research, to visit and examine battlefields, to learn 
 something about tactics and strategy. At one time, I imagined 
 that a great military establishment was just what was needed in 
 the United States to weld public spirit into a more vigorous 
 form, to divert the attention of our men from the present all 
 devouring commercialism, and to give our male population a 
 much needed set-up. That is what I thought until I began to 
 study social and economic questions, and to realize that mili- 
 tarism is a part of the old order of things which the world is 
 outgrowing. Whatever the glories of its past may be, the reg- 
 ular army of the United States is to-day an antiquated sur- 
 vival — as out of place in this progressive nation of sixty-five 
 millions as would be a coat of mail upon a modern battlefield, 
 or a wooden ship in the next naval encounter. No army of 
 mercenaries deserves popular support; and in truth, even to 
 raise the relatively insignificant force of twenty-six thousand 
 men, great difficulty is experienced. About one-third of the 
 accepted recruits are foreigners, and not a few illiterate. 
 Almost ten per cent, of the army deserts each year. Courts- 
 martial are alarmingly frequent and our military prisons are 
 kept well filled. The regular army is as much a last resort for 
 American-born men, as domestic service is for women. Noth- 
 
but the pressure of hard times can ever fill the one or the other 
 with good material. Furthermore, the process by which the 
 majority of officers is obtained for this force creates a distinct 
 hierarchical caste which is incongruous with a true democracy. 
 And in order to maintain this force of Federal policemen, the 
 people of the United States spend on an average over forty- 
 eight millions of dollars a year, making an annual cost per man 
 nearly five times as great as Germany with her magnificent 
 army. Now a demand is heard from headquarters for an addi- 
 tion to the regular army. Upon what plea ? Partly on account 
 of the danger of foreign invasion, but principally to quell popu- 
 lar movements. The first danger may be dismissed without a 
 moment's consideration. A new era is even now dawning upon 
 civilized communities, in which mere international questions 
 will be completely over-shadowed by the great social and econ- 
 omic questions. Diplomacy, which has played at chess too long 
 with the nations, will soon become a lost art. The last mon- 
 archs who may still have power to produce war, will fall from 
 their genealogical trees like over-ripe apples. It ought to be 
 our glory not to be prepared to make war upon our neighbors, 
 or even to repel an attack from the outside, but to settle any 
 and every foreign dispute by peaceful means, and arbitration if 
 need be. * « * * 
 
 (Signed) W. D. McCrackan." 
 
 In his "History of Civilization in England," Buckle says: "In 
 " our time we frequently meet with men whose erudition ministers 
 " to their ignorance, and who, the more they read, the less they 
 " know." 
 
 And Locke, in his "Essay on Human Understanding," has 
 noticed this "learned ignorance for which many men are remark- 
 able." 
 
 We do not propose to look any further to discover to what sort 
 or class of readers and writers our critic belongs. After read- 
 ing the foregoing specimen of "learned ignorance," one is at loss 
 to decide if it be worthy of consideration. But, thinking of the 
 great probability of its acceptance as sound doctrine by many in- 
 telligent readers, under the circumstances of its publication, and 
 in view of the bonds we are under to deliver an essay, we address 
 ourselves to the subject of our Military Fever, so-called. 
 
If Mr. McCrackan were writing under the spur of the neces- 
 sity of earning his daily bread, or under any such pressure as 
 would be commensurate with War Department orders compelling 
 him to write an essay, we find him "Guilty, with a recommenda- 
 tion to mercy." But if, as the major part of the evidence shows, 
 he has desired to exploit himself at the expense of the United 
 States Army, we convict him, and there is no mercy for him ! 
 
 Let us look at the dummies composing the battery which he 
 has trained upon us. 
 
 ** The United States Army is an antiquated survival." 
 " The United States Army is a body of mercenaries." 
 " The United States Army is raised with great difficulty." 
 " One-third of the United States Army are foreigners." 
 " The United States Army contains not a few illiterate." 
 " Nearly ten per cent, of the Army deserts yearly." 
 " The frequency of courts-martial is alarming." 
 " The regular army is a last resort." 
 " Officers form a hierarchical caste." 
 " The United States Army costs the people forty-eight 
 
 millions a year." 
 " The United States ought not to be prepared to repel an 
 attack from the outside." 
 Consider first, as he says, that the United States army is as 
 much out of place in this progressive nation of sixty-five millions, 
 as would be a coat of mail upon a modern battlefield, or a wooden 
 ship in the next naval encounter! From things in reality an- 
 tiquated, let us turn attention to things which the experience and 
 usages of all time, since the world began, have wrought out for us. 
 There is only one sense in which, by a' great strain of the 
 meaning of the word, the United States army can be said to be 
 antiquated. If the accumulated experience of allages, and of all 
 countries, teaches that a strong right arm is indispensable to the 
 head that administers the laws; if the long-established quality 
 or essence of a thing; entitles it to be called antiquated, then may 
 the United States army be said to be antiquated. But more is the 
 purpose of this fling than centers about the duration of years. 
 The idea of obsoleteness is the metal in this particular dummy. 
 As well say that the custom of drinking when thirsty; of eating 
 when hungry; of protecting the weak; of controlling and sub- 
 duing the vicious; of locking treasure vaults; of cladding ships 
 
with iron; of resisting tiie ferocity of wild beasts; of staying the 
 invaders of all nations and climes, who are forever waiting to 
 encroach upon the defenceless; as well say that the customary 
 duty and action in the connections mentioned have become obso- 
 lete, as to make that affirmation of the United States army! 
 
 Observe the elements of disintegration in Mr. McCrackan's 
 very words. The army is as much out of place in this nation as a 
 "coat of mail upon a modern battlefield," or a "wooden ship in 
 the next naval encounter." Observe the quite correct apprecia- 
 tion, which, apparently unawares, creeps out of his own language 
 touching what has become in reality obsolete, and touching what 
 is not obsolete, and setting forth the universally recognized prin- 
 ciples in wars upon land and sea, which are yet to come and 
 inevitable. In other words, wars have not become obsolete, but 
 he will have it that the means of conducting them are no longer 
 necessary. There are battlefields and naval encounters just 
 beyond the veil of to-morrow; but no regular army is required! 
 Did he ever contemplate what this progressive nation of sixty-five 
 millions would have been, or would become, in the absence of the 
 army he abuses! Imagination can hardly picture the decay, the 
 shame which this nation would without doubt be offering to tj^ 
 jnMHiHSii^^he gaze of mankind ! After becoming tributary to some 
 other nation, the American people would be whipped and scruffed 
 from the face of the earth, obliterated as a people, and succeeded 
 by a people more worthy to occupy the land ! Our adversary, while 
 gazing eastwardly upon Switzerland, seems to have been wilfully 
 oblivious to the westward trend of population, commerce and 
 wealth, within our own boundaries, and all those things which 
 redound to a nation's glory, and which have most indubitably 
 depended upon, and had their creating force in, the United States 
 army ! 
 
 The United States Army — which he styles a body of mer- 
 cenaries! Where can the man, or body of men, be found, out- 
 side of the lunatic, pauper, prisoner and barbarian classes, who 
 does not work for pay ? What civilized beings are there who lie 
 down upon soft couches, and, looking up to heaven, have food and 
 drink drop from nowhere into their mouths, and raiment, to fit 
 and to please, automatically come and clothe their bodies? And 
 what people of equal intelligence and capacity, give their lives 
 and their services for more moderate rewards than soldiers of the 
 
United States Army? There are laws in this world from which 
 there is no escape. One of these laws is that you shall not have 
 a thing of value from your fellow-men for nothing. It is fair 
 exchange that is no robbery. The benefits of peace and good 
 order, the security of life and family and property, the unhindered 
 pursuit of liberty and happiness, are worth more than can be 
 expressed by the enumeration of dollars and cents. While the 
 easily calculated cost for rations, pay, clothing, transportation 
 and shelter of the United States soldiers is not only a tax of less 
 than fifty cents a year (less than a nickle a month) to each Ameri- 
 can citizen — and even that finds its way, in the main, back to the 
 country's coffers and channels of trade — are the soldiers of the 
 United States Army mercenaries? So is the lawyer; so is the 
 schoolmaster; so is the clergyman; so is the merchant; so is the 
 legislator; so is the literary man! 
 
 There is truth in the statement that the United States Army 
 is raised with difficulty; but the truth is not on the side of the 
 McCrackan argument. What is the difficulty? Not in the num- 
 ber applying for admission. I have the facts for the statement 
 that for 250 men accepted into the Army, in a period of twenty- 
 five months, nearly 3,000 made application. But twelve men out 
 of every hundred making known their desire to enter, under the 
 rigid rules of the recruiting service, came up to the mental, moral 
 and physical requirements. The United States Army is getting 
 the cream of American manhood; whereas, according to Mr. 
 McCrackan, it is getting nothing but skim milk, and mighty little 
 of that. It may very naturally happen that many intelligent 
 communities, in their entirety, know very little of the stamp of 
 men who are in the tanks to-day; of the high average mentality; 
 of the physical superiority; of bodies as nearly without blemish 
 as was rigorously demanded of sacrifices to Jehovah in Bible 
 history; and of character and reputation similarly without blem- 
 ish, as far as it be possible to secure for any army upon the foot- 
 stool. 
 
 I affirm that it might prove very astonishing and not a little 
 humiliating, for the majority of even that class who animadvert 
 upon the United States Army, to know that it would be impossi- 
 ble for them to pass the examination for admission. There is a 
 saying that nothing worth having in this world can be had except 
 by hard work. Gold is hard to get. Dirt can be picked up any- 
 
8 
 
 where. There is the definition of the great difficulty with which 
 the United States Army is raised. 
 
 The objections that officers form a hierarchical class, is another 
 puerile objection, against an order of things established from the 
 foundation of the world. Principles are immutable. Said the 
 Philosopher Poet: 
 
 Order is heaven's first law, and, this confessed, 
 Some are and must be, greater than the rest. 
 
 In the material world, if one would secure the greatest possi- 
 ble power by the employment of the units from which the power 
 is derived, how futile to employ those units separately, or with as 
 many different directions and impulses as there are units. On 
 the other hand, combine and band such units together, like the 
 cemented parts of masonry, like the parts in the locomotive 
 driver, like the details of the architecture of the Leviathans that 
 cover the ocean, and you see, in each case, a grand, resulting 
 unit, fit for the accomplishment of great ends. 
 
 Again, take the view of this question, as offered in the assem- 
 bling of men outside of the military, in the many occupations of 
 the world at large — in building railroads and houses and bridges, 
 in mines and factories, in merchandising, in charitable and relig- 
 ious enterprises — what headway or success could be made with- 
 out the combinations of individuals; and to what useful purpose 
 would such combinations tend, except, in all cases, there be those 
 whose function it is to order, to direct, to command ? Has 
 Mr. McCrackan anything to say against all that hierarchy of su- 
 perintendents, master-mechanics, captains, chief clerks, engineers, 
 bishops and deacons ? 
 
 Mistaken conclusions always and inevitably result from ex- 
 clusively contemplating one feature, or one side, or one aspect of 
 a composite thing. Government is a composite thing. Black- 
 stone says that "the three grand requisites, of goodness, of wis- 
 " dom, and of power ought to be found in every well constituted 
 " frame of government." Now, it is plain that our adversary of 
 the quill has been gazing too exclusively, and with blurred vision, 
 at one element of the power of the United States. Would he be- 
 hold it in its true relationship and importance, let him stand back 
 a little and take a new point of view, and turn the subject of the 
 power of our government over in all of its aspects. At the 
 foundation of all, there must be laws; the laws will not always 
 
enforce themselves. Two instrumentalities are provided, the 
 civil and the military, in that order of precedence. Erase the 
 military, and what do you do ? You have taken the feet and 
 limbs away which support the head and trunk of the body politic, 
 and the backbone has disappeared as well. If we look to the other 
 requisites of government, which will save and rescue: wisdom, or 
 goodness, or both ? 
 
 Optimism in these two directions has few followers. Employ- 
 ing an old-fashioned and time-honored implement of the farm, the 
 three-legged milking stool, as an illustration of the specimen of 
 iconoclasm now under consideration, let us do away with one 
 of the three supports, and behold the condition of unstable equi- 
 librium — of maid, milking pail and milk ! Heaven forbid that the 
 Goddess of Liberty should ever find herself in an analogous situ- 
 ation ! 
 
 And so, one-third of the United States Army are foreigners, 
 are they ? And what objection can Mr. McCrackan or any other 
 man with that same first syllable to his name, consistently offer to 
 the foreigners in our army ? Is he of American lineage so 
 aboriginal as to justify him in a slur at foreign ancestry more or 
 less remote? Is he just now so afflicted with Americo-mania as 
 to close his mouth, his eyes, his ears, and to refuse to inflate his 
 lungs, were he all at once landed in Paris, London or Berlin ? In 
 the words of a recent publicist, "All of us are so near the alien 
 " line that prejudice against foreigners is scarcely consistent." 
 Be it known that the foreigners in our Army form a most welcome 
 and soldierly and valuable integer in our forces. It is not the 
 slightest reflection in the world upon the United States Army that 
 it contains a goodly number of those who have been subjects of 
 older nations than our own; nations in which the art of war has, 
 from time immemorial, been the business of the inhabitants; gen- 
 eration after generation having been governed and moulded by 
 military ideas. The foreigners in our army are very apt to be 
 men of military antecedents, some of them having family tra- 
 ditions transmitted from the days and by veritable actors of the 
 great campaigns, and under great commanders, of which and of 
 whom our historians have to make mention, and whence cometh 
 instruction for the military student. And be it known that the 
 foreigners as well as the Americans in our army are not of the 
 skim milk variety. What officer is at a loss to call to mind the 
 
brave and loyal Irishman, the man of unquestioning obedience to 
 orders ? or the reliable, the clean, the methodical Dutchman ? 
 
 Touching the subject of aliens throughout our land, let us see 
 how it stands. A bulletin from the Census Office shows the fol- 
 lowing: In the western division, comprising Montana, Wyoming, 
 Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Washing- 
 ton, Oregon, California, the aliens make up almost one half of 
 the population — 43.67. In the North Atlantic division, they 
 make 47.21 of the total, while in the South Atlantic, Delaware, 
 Maryland, District of Columbia, the Virginias, the Carolinas, 
 Georgia and Florida, only 6.92, and in the South-Central, Ken- 
 tucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississipi, Louisiana, Oklahoma and 
 Arkansas, 7.59. 
 
 Taking the entire country, therefore, in 1890, the percentage 
 of aliens was 33.02. How reasonable that the United States 
 Army should tally with the nation at large in its proportion 
 of aliens and non-alieas! With exceptionable accuracy Mr. 
 McCrackan states that the percentage of aliens in our army 
 is one-third. The latest census bulletin puts the Nation's 
 percentage of aliens almost precisely at the same figures. What 
 nicer adjustment of percentages could be desired! The official 
 figures, however, as handed into the United States Senate 
 by the Secretary of War, the other day, show that the per- 
 centage of aliens in the United States Army is very nearly one- 
 fourth. 
 
 And now, were a comparison of the illiterate to be made, 
 between our Nation and our Army, or between our Army and any 
 army that ever marched, is there anybody so fundamentally igno- 
 rant as to lift his voice in unfavorable allusion to the United 
 States Army ? How this man has racked his brains to trump up 
 indictments against us! The saying that "where there's a will, 
 there's a way" was never better illustrated, especially a wrong 
 way. The United States Army has never claimed to be literary. 
 In propriety, of course, it should make no boasts of any kind, but 
 simply be grateful to its friends, who will speak for it. To a body 
 of men whose motto is "Deeds, not Words," among whom brave 
 and splendid action is the corollary of disciplined minds and 
 bodies, among whom the verses of Virgil and Horace cut no figure 
 in comparison with respect for authority and loyalty to duty — to 
 such a body of men, we do not apply the standards by which 
 
orators, professors and men of letters are judged. Right to the 
 point, is what Macaulay said of Oliver Cromwell: 
 
 " Wherefore you speak contemptibly of his parts, I know not. 
 But I suspect you are not free from the error common to studi- 
 ous and speculative men. Because Cromwell was an ungraceful 
 orator, and never said, either in public or private, anything 
 memorable, you will have it that he was of mean capacity. Sure 
 this is unjust! Many men have there been ignorant of letters, 
 without wit, without eloquence, who yet had the wisdom to 
 devise, and the courage to perform, that which they lacked 
 language to explain. Such men often, in troubled times, have 
 worked out the deliverance of nations, and their own greatness 
 — not by logic, not by rhetoric, but by wariness in success, by 
 calmness in danger, by fierce and stubborn resolution in all 
 adversity. The hearts of men are their books. Events are 
 their tutors. Great actions are their eloquence." 
 I shall now proceed to consider in what sort the Army is a 
 " last resort." Let us take up this ill-tempered afifiirmation, and 
 see what it is worth. Let us admit that it is true, to a degree, 
 that the Army has been, to some, a last resort. Is that, of 
 necessity, a grave indictment against the Army! Is it to be re- 
 gretted, on the score of private or public good, that the Army 
 offers an honorable opening and profession to men who have 
 theretofore been unsuccessful and unfortunate in other pursuits ? 
 As before stated, false impressions are broadcast in relation 
 to the Army, But charge that not to the Army! Charge it, 
 in the first place, to the almost universal ignorance, of which 
 men, in their own lives and business, are guilty, touching the 
 lives and business of others who may be near them or who may 
 be remote. Charge it, in part, to the conceit and preference for 
 the affairs and the locality with which a man is identified, in com- 
 parison with the uncertain and unknown of another sphere in life. 
 Charge a great deal of it to the disinclination of the average man 
 to place himself for a term of years under the proverbial strictness 
 and restraint of a military life. 
 
 Taking his specious views, one might go the whole length 
 with Mr. McCrackan, in his doctrine of the undesirability of the 
 Army for a livelihood, by listening to many applicants, who come 
 into the recruiting office and say that their reason for enlisting 
 is that times are hard, and they cannot find anything to do. 
 
But, right here, let it be distinctly understood that such a 
 declaration is no passport to the Army! Nine times out of ten, 
 just the contrary ! The recruiting office is not the only place where 
 men of that description apply for a job, when hard up; and what 
 reflection is it upon the grocers, the butchers, the bakers, the 
 tailors, the carpenters, the painters, that men, unsmiled upon by 
 fortune, should seek a job among their ranks, as constantly 
 happens in every town and city of the land ? Hard times swell 
 the number of the unemployed, of course. But, taking all 
 trades and professions in view, the Army is far down in the list 
 as to quantity of legitimate candidates for employment. Indeed, 
 when the conditions of eligibility for employment in the Army, 
 as to eyes, ears, teeth, mind and limb, character and reputation, 
 are brought to mind, we are again making the comparison, per- 
 force, of the process of gold-sifting! On the other hand, what is 
 to be inferred from applicants, also many, who go to the recruit- 
 ing office to consummate the ambition of their lives ? I have 
 known them. I recall a man who came to me and said: " My 
 father was nine times wounded and three times made prisoner, 
 and my uncle was a general in the war. I am old enough to 
 enlist now, and I want to keep our name at the front." I recall 
 quite a multitude, in the total, who, at different times, have come 
 to me, saying: "We have always liked the Military; we have 
 been in the Militia and have learned the drill, and now we want 
 to do some real soldiering." And, too, I recall the disappoint- 
 ment which often settled upon the faces of men, sound and 
 suitable for almost any other avocation, who did not come up 
 to the requirements of the examination for enlistment. 
 
 Would that "studious and speculative men," as Maccaulay 
 described them, were more " studious " and less "speculative" 
 when they write up the United States Army for the contemplation 
 of the Public! 
 
 The next dummy we will touch and explode is — "The fre- 
 quency of Courts-Martial is alarming." What does he mean ? 
 He says that Court-Martial is frequent. Its frequency is alarm- 
 ing. The Court-Martial of whom ? Of officers ? Or of men ? 
 Does he mean the Court-Martial, by repetition, of individuals? 
 Or the total brought to trial? And who is to blame — the misbe- 
 having, or those who draw up the charges, or those convening 
 the Courts? I deliberately affirm that the author of the state- 
 
13 
 
 ment dwells in Cimmerian darkness touching the various phases 
 of the subjects here alluded to. 
 
 It is conceivable that a Court-Martial would be more or less 
 alarming to the man arraigned and tried. It is also conceivable, 
 by a severe exercise of the imagination, that the people of the 
 United States, to a very trifling extent, regard the Court-Mar- 
 tial statistics of the Army as indicating a bad state of disci- 
 pline and morals, and so fraught with danger to the land. But 
 they may rest their souls in peace. Let them come away from 
 the fantastical dish set before them. Regarding one possible 
 meaning of our critic, that the hierarchy of ofificers are the 
 accusers, and the "mercenary" and "illiterate" soldiers the 
 accused, the former persecuting the latter with unnecessary sever- 
 ity, this may perhaps be the place to state the facts in their 
 general tenor. What is true of one garrison is very apt to be true 
 of any other. That is, there is no reason to doubt that the 
 occasions of trial and the relationship of ofificers and men, in that 
 regard, are pretty much alike throughout the entire Army. 
 Therefore, conclusions drawn from the experience of any of us, 
 at any or all of the stations where we have served, may safely 
 be taken to characterize and comprehend the whole subject. 
 Utterly destroying, demolishing and over-turning the theory that 
 ofificers habitually persecute and harass their men, is the law of 
 self-interest, and its certain operation throughout human society. 
 The interest of the men and the interest of the officer are one 
 and the same. The regard and solicitude the officer has for 
 the comfort, the welfare, and the contentment of his men, is 
 so invariable and commonplace, as seldom to be remarked 
 among military men. Is it likely, then, that the ofificerwill need- 
 lessly harass his men by Courts-Martial and punishments if he 
 can possibly, and for the best interest of all, avoid doing so ? 
 In every organization, almost without exception, the candidates 
 for Court Martial are a very small quota of the whole. Let it be 
 emphasized that the generality of soldiers are self-respecting, 
 observant, well behaved, worthy members of their immediate 
 community — most suitable servants and defenders of their 
 country. 
 
 Touching the attitude of ofificers towards the really few offend- 
 ers against discipline — it is one of patience and repeated condon- 
 ation. But how little of the truth of this — to which the experi- 
 
14 
 
 ence of every officer who has commanded a troop or company is 
 witness — is to be gathered from the missive which has been 
 brought to our attention ! A further sinister meaning is contained 
 in the exaggerated statement in regard to desertion, chargeable, 
 as it were, to interior mismanagement of the Army. There is 
 the familiar saying that water will not rise higher than its source. 
 The country-at-large is the source of the Army. The estimation 
 in which the crime of desertion is held by the country-at-large 
 is the undoubted explanation, to a large degree, of the desertions. 
 It is outside of the Army that missionary work upon that subject 
 is needed. Why deserters are harbored and without reason 
 sympathized with, among civilians, ought to be an interesting 
 and fruitful topic for the consideration of "studious" and 
 " speculative " writers. 
 
 'J'his is one of the peculiarities of human nature which will 
 probably never be eradicated, and, it has a leaning to the side 
 of virtue when the exemplification consists in a generous man 
 befriending a fugitive from military slavery, as depicted by some 
 public writers. A cardinal principle, to be sure, of the American 
 people, is that their land shall evermore be the asylum of the 
 oppressed. But here is a case in which the truth has been abused 
 without mercy and for the time being, at least, is seeking a refuge 
 in the Army ! Dummies cannot hit the mark except by accident, 
 of course. Here the tendency has been to over-shoot. He says 
 that ten per cent, of the Army deserts yearly. The cannoneer has 
 taken very coarse sight and somewhere about double proper ele- 
 vation. And the same as respects his statement that the Army 
 costs the people yearly forty-eight millions, one half of which sum 
 is about the correct figure. Is it that McCrackan regards 
 24,000,000 dollars a trifle by which he would willingly have one 
 of his mistakes weighed and measured ! If, in this dissertation, 
 it be a fact that the defining and the consideration of "Our 
 Military Fever" has found a small place, the same fact is to be 
 noticed in the article to which our observations have been ad- 
 dressed. 
 
 That writer upon " Social and economic questions " injects the 
 words, " our military fever," once into his composition and then 
 proceeds to give the Army Hail Columbia ! Does a fusilade upon 
 the regular Army demonstrate military fever anywhere ? How 
 bravely, with pen in hand, has he been able, after all, to elbow 
 
15 
 
 his way through his fever-stricken crowd, without taking the con- 
 tagion ! But let us try to define his subject, from his own stand- 
 point. What would he have us understand by the term, "Our 
 Military Fever?" Does he not mean it to be inferred that the 
 American people have displayed a temporary, exaggerated, unde- 
 sirable, unnatural, over-appreciation of the profession of arms ? 
 Upon its face, is not that the meaning of the phrase ? Un- 
 questionably, the attention of its author was drawn to the dis- 
 turbance, of national dimensions, occurring in the summer of 
 1894, and for the quieting of which the strong arm of the military 
 was absolutely indispensable. The effective use of the military 
 was a gratification to the law-abiding, a decided setback to law- 
 breakers, and a revelation to both classes that the government 
 had such a prop in the regular army. The fever was not a mili- 
 tary fever. The remedy for a disease should not be confounded 
 with the disease itself. The medicine that cures does not aptly 
 describe a fever, except as a contrasting term. The military 
 ardor of the people of the United States rises whenever there is 
 occasion for it, and, as illustrative of its quick abatement, behold 
 the press and the legislators of the land, in the main, concurring 
 that the military establishment, invaluable as it has proved itself, 
 shall remain in statu quo. It is reasonable to conclude that an 
 effort to reduce the army, in spite of the events of 1894, would 
 stand a good prospect of success. 
 
 Surely, the symptoms of military fever are conspicuous by 
 their absence. 
 
 As a military power upon this hemisphere, the United States 
 stands first. 
 
 As a military power upon the continent of which it forms a 
 part, our country is irresistible. 
 
 Take away the sinews of war of this country, and what would 
 be its classification ? 
 
 D. C. Pearson, 
 Captain, 2d Cavalry. 
 Fort Wingate, N. M., March 21, 1895.