That acute philosopher Mr.Dooley proclaimed that in the Spanish War we were in a dream, but that the Spaniards were in a trance.

This just about summed up the facts.

Our people had for decades scoffed at the thought of making ready for possible war.

Now, when it was too late, they not only backed every measure, wise and unwise, that offered a chance of supplying a need that ought to have been met before, but they also fell into a condition of panic apprehension as to what the foe might do.
For years we had been saying, just as any number of our people now say, that no nation would venture to attack us.

Then when we did go to war with an exceedingly feeble nation, we, for the time being, rushed to the other extreme of feeling, and attributed to this feeble nation plans of offensive warfare which it never dreamed of making, and which, if made, it would have been wholly unable to execute.