Page:Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star.djvu/77

Rh their duty, of their resourcefulness and of the real patriotism which is being rapidly learned. All this means not merely good soldiers in war, but good citizens in peace; it means an immense growth in the spirit of Americanism.

The young men are learning to be efficient, alert, self- respectful and respectful of others; they are learning to scorn laziness, slackness, and cowardice. All are serving on a precise equality of privilege and of duty and are judged each only on his merits. The sons of the foreign-born learn that they are exactly as good Americans as any one else, and when they return to their home their families will learn it, too.

Let all good Americans insist that now, without delay, we make this state of affairs our permanent national policy by law. We have built the camp, we have encountered the failures to provide army uniforms and blankets and all the other exasperating delays which are inevitable when a nation like ours has foolishly trusted to broomstick preparedness. We shall avoid all these things for the future if we continue these camps, as permanent features of the life of all our young men, and change the selective draft unto a system of universal obligatory military training for all our young men of nineteen and twenty, it being understood that they are not to go to war until they are twenty-one. We are now suffering, and the whole world is now suffering, from the effects of our broomstick preparedness. Let us do away with broomstick preparedness for the future and substitute real preparedness.