In spite of all we are being told to the contrary, there need be no alarm for the future if the country contains enough of such leaders to make themselves heard above the babel of new cries and beliefs, notwithstanding the attractive pictures some of these theorists present. For that reason leaders must always exist where progress is to be { 269} made and the great majority must stand behind them to back them up.
The effective spear cannot do its work without its steel point, nor yet without its long handle to force the point home.
This biographical sketch treats of one of these spear points and as such represents to a greater or less degree all great sane leaders, though it speaks of but one.
Leonard Wood's personality is one of mental sanity and physical health. It is non-reactionary and non-visionary. It is military only in the sense that the army happens to have been his business in life. His business might have been that of the law, of banking, or leather, without in the least changing in it. He once said of this:
"The officers of the Army and Navy are the professional servants of the government in matters pertaining to the military establishment. They are like engineers, doctors, lawyers, or any other class of professional men whose services people employ because they are expert in their line of work. They do not initiate wars. Nine-tenths of all wars have their origin directly or indirectly in { 270} issues arising out of trade. The people make war; the government declares it; and the officers of the army and navy are charged with the responsibility of terminating it with such means and implements as the people may give them."
His voice raised in behalf of preparedness refers therefore to the military, because as a Major-General in the United States Army he is not empowered to speak of other walks in life. Yet his own wide experience in Cuba and the Philippines in administration, very little of which was military, is a witness of his belief in preparedness in an life.
He founded schools where there were none to prepare citizens for the new Cuban republic. He reorganized and built up customs laws and regulations where there were only attempts at such in order to prepare revenue to build roads and finish public works to make a busy and healthy nation. He reëstablished sane marriage laws in order to prepare a solid community resting upon the basis of the clearly defined family. In the Philippines he instituted local government to prepare the islands for self-government.