There was apparent none of the concentration of effort and of the calm foresight so necessary for efficiency in modern warfare.

For youth the Spanish American War was a great adventure; for the nation it was a diversion sanctioned by a high purpose.
This abandon was doubtless in part due to a comfortable consciousness of the vast disparity in resources between Spain and the United States, which, it was supposed, meant automatically a corresponding difference in fighting strength.

The United States did, indeed, have vast superiorities which rendered unnecessary any worry over many of the essentials which gripped the popular mind during the Great War.

People believed that the country could supply the munitions needed, and that of facilities for transport it had enough.

If the United States did not have at hand exactly the munitions needed, if the transportation system had not been built to launch an army into Cuba, it was popularly supposed that the wealth of the country rendered such trifles negligible, and that, if insufficient attention had been given to the study of such matters in the past, American ingenuity would quickly offset the lack of skilled military experience.