Army and Navy Review 1915 Panama-California Edition - Balboa Park

FOREWORD
By COLONEL JOSEPH H. PENDLETON
Commanding Fourth Regiment
U. S. Marines
THIS B EA U T IFU L EXPO SIT IO N , built to celebrate one of the
greatest peaceful achievements of man, the completion of the
Panama Canal, is a triumph of exposition of the peaceful arts.
Here is beauty transcendant, plenty, and peace. The arts of
peace, and the production of useful things, of all kinds, for the
good of man are here portrayed. Nature and art combine to make this one
of the most beautiful spots on our earth today; and to this peaceful exposition,
strange as it may seem to the unthinking or the hasty thinker, the
military have added not a little of attraction. The Marines encamped in
the grounds themselves, the Cavalry in the Park beyond the Eastern Canyon,
the Coast Artillery, a near neighbor at Point Loma, with their excellent
band on the grounds, and frequent and welcome visits from our naval
vessels, and participation of their crews in the parades, and in augumenting
the crowds; all have added to the picturesqueness of the exposition, and
to the pleasure and education of those who came here to enjoy and to learn.
And where could this beautiful Exposition have had a more perfect
setting than in this wonderful City of San Diego ? San Diego with its beautiful
surroundings, its matchless climate, and its wonderful resources, is
the ideal location for this dream of peaceful loveliness which we call the
Panama California Exposition.
And, finally, where could there be a more fitting place for an exhibition
camp of United States Marines? San Diego’s every advantage of climate,
of strategic location, of wonderful natural formation of land and
sea, make it the perfect, the ideal location for a Marine Corps Advance
Base Station. When our visitors see the training of the Marines, their
varied instruction in the different trades of warfare required in Advance
Base and Epeditionary w ork; when they see the benefit of this thorough
training in the almost instantaneous movement of these men when called
upon, as they have been twice, since the opening of the Exposition, for a
sudden dash to the scene of threatened trouble; they appreciate what preparedness
means, and what it should mean in a much larger way. They
can appreciate why San Diego should have a permanent Marine Advance
Base Station, of a Brigade at least, in this most advantageous location, in
this most strategically, and climatically, perfect situation.
As this Exposition has been designed to be in the main educational,
it is well that our visitors may see these things of which I have spoken.
It is well that they may go from here with a beautiful picture in their
minds, a picture of this wonderful Exposition, a picture of this magnificient
city, and a picture which will grow in their minds, as we hope to see
it grow here before our eyes, a picture of peace with preparedness.
J. H. PENDLETON.