for the first time in the history of the world. The machine gun is the
latest practical product of American inventive genius applied to war.
The first form of this weapon tried, the mitrailleuse, was not very
successful. It failed, not on account of faults of construction, or
imperfect mechanism, but because its proper tactical employment had
not been thought out by the French army. Since that time machine guns
have been greatly improved, but no one has succeeded in making their
great value appreciated by military authorities. The failures of the
French brought the gun into disfavor, and created a prejudice against
its employment.

The Artillery of the world, which poses in every country as an
elite body of scientific fighters, and is often found on the
battle-field to be an aggregation of abstruse theorists, were jealous
and contemptuous. They said, "See how easily the artillery knocked out
machine guns at Gravelotte." The Cavalry of the world, famous
everywhere for an _esprit-du-corps_ which looks haughtily down on
all other arms of the service, were too deeply absorbed in the merits
of saber vs. revolver, and in the proper length of their
spectacular plumes, to give a second thought to this new, untried, and
therefore worthless weapon. The world's Infantry, resting upon the
assumption that it is the backbone of all armies, and the only real,
reliable fighting body under all conditions, left the consideration of
these vague dreams of mechanical destructiveness to lunatics, cranks,
and philanthropists.

In our own country the Ordnance Department, which is the trial court
before which all military inventions must appear, scouted the idea of
usefulness of machine guns even after war was declared, and adhered to
the view that machine guns, in the very nature of things, could never