But the great giant was stirring in his sleep. Trumpet calls came from men high in public esteem, among whom it is sufficient now to mention Roosevelt and Leonard Wood. "Preparedness" was their reveille. Our young men heard it, and in 1916 at Plattsburgh, and I think elsewhere, sprang up the training camps. The colleges offered their facilities; and although in the fall of 1916 there was still, as in 1860 and 1861, a large proportion of "peace-at-any-price" men, so large in 1916 as to permit the election of a President on the party slogan "He kept us out of war," the time was fast growing ripe. Infatuated Germany, confident of victory in Europe and of later victory on this continent, or risking all on the submarine issue, went a step too far, and the giant woke up.
Woke up,--yes; but about as helpless as Gulliver on the Island of Lilliput. The "man mountain" was tied fast with the cords of unpreparedness, red tape, departmental inefficiency, official jealousy and hostile intrigue. As in 1812, in 1847, in 1861 and in 1898, there was little or nothing ready; all had to be created. The lowering of the thunder-cloud had been unheeded. We had some destroyers and battleships and cruisers; these were sent at once where most needed. But to our shame, be it said, we had no trained men except the little regular army; no great guns; no appreciable number of field pieces; no machine guns; no small arms even, although our .30 cal. Springfield rifle is justly pronounced the best small arm in the world. I have shot it and know it well. They cost at that time about fifteen dollars apiece. A million of them would have cost 15 million dollars, a sum which in these days makes us laugh at its insignificance; it is one-half of one per cent. of our first Liberty loan. We had not even the special tools to make barrels for these small arms in quantity, and actually had to use English tools to make English type rifles, greatly inferior to our own, to get any at all for our men. The other day I saw it announced with pride in the newspapers that our rifle had won in competition over all others; but we did not have them when wanted, and probably have not made them yet. We had no field pieces to use abroad, and our artillery was equipped with the French .75. A few naval guns were landed and mounted toward the termination of hostilities. The aeroplane scandal is known of all men. And it was a year after we declared war before we entered Europe in force, and equipped then with English rifles and French field guns; and our men were transported to Europe mainly on British ships.