If this nation is content to be the China of the New World, then and then only can it afford to do away with the navy and the army.

If it is content to abandon Hawaii and the Panama Canal, to cease to talk of the Monroe Doctrine, and to admit the right of any European or Asiatic power to dictate what immigrants shall be sent to and received in America, and whether or not they shall be allowed to become citizens and hold land--why, of course, if America is content to have nothing to say on any of these matters and to keep silent in the presence of armed outsiders, then it can abandon its navy and agree to arbitrate all questions of all kinds with every foreign power.

In such event it can afford to pass its spare time in one continuous round of universal peace celebrations, and of smug self-satisfaction in having earned the derision of all the virile peoples of mankind.

Those who advocate such a policy do not occupy a lofty position.

But at least their position is understandable.
It is entirely inexcusable, however, to try to combine the unready hand with the unbridled tongue.