Page:Harris Dickson--The unpopular history of the United States.djvu/119

Uncle Sam Counts the Cost a heap of bad medicine, if they continue to get elected right straight along.

After the Revolution you will remember that all knowledge of the military art was practically extinguished by reducing our army to eighty persons, not enough for supe soldiers in a comic opera.

After the War of 1812 Congress provided for a permanent peace establishment of 10,000 men, somewhat more than 1,000 to each million of population and fairly proportioned to the needs of the country. Nearly all of its higher grades were filled by officers who had acquired competent training in the war, while by the increase of the Corps of Cadets in 1812, the lower grades were in future to be filled by young men who had been carefully "trained and taught all the duties of a private, non-commissioned officer and officer." Since this time, whenever our regular army has met an enemy, the conduct of officers and men has merited and received the applause of their countrymen. More than this it has preserved to us the military art. [101]