Excerpt from A Treatise on Riot Duty for the National Guard: Prepared for the Militia Bureau; May, 1920 I am firmly convinced that the law of every State should provide that the militia should not be called out until such time as, in the opinion of the governor, it is necessary and proper to declare martial law within the district in which the troops are to serve, and that martial law should be declared the instant the troops go on duty. If this principle were to be consistently followed, it would mean either that martial law would be declared so frequently as to create a most serious disintegration of the common-law structure, or that the communities affected would suffer fre quent and alarming losses before troops were sent to their rescue. It is only by a clear recognition of the essentially preventive nature of military protection, together with a firm determination not to permit local authorities to shirk their duties, that troops can be enabled to perform their full service to the public in the most satisfactory manner. The lack of this recognition, and the constant emphasis on suppression rather than prevention, are largely responsible for the inadequacy of many of the existing manuals, as tested by the demands of actual riot conditions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.