have led in the struggle against malice domestic or foreign levy. No
triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumphs of war. The
courage of the soldier, the courage of the statesman who has to meet
storms which can be quelled only by soldierly qualities--this stands
higher than any quality called out merely in time of peace. It is by no
means necessary that we should have war to develop soldierly attributes
and soldierly qualities; but if the peace we enjoy is of such a kind
that it causes their loss, then it is far too dearly purchased, no
matter what may be its attendant benefits. It may be that some time in
the dim future of the race the need for war will vanish; but that time
is yet ages distant. As yet no nation can hold its place in the world,
or can do any work really worth doing, unless it stands ready to guard
its rights with an armed hand. That orderly liberty which is both the
foundation and the capstone of our civilization can be gained and kept
only by men who are willing to fight for an ideal; who hold high the
love of honor, love of faith, love of flag, and love of country. It is
true that no nation can be really great unless it is great in peace; in
industry, integrity, honesty. Skilled intelligence in civic affairs and
industrial enterprises alike; the special ability of the artist, the
man of letters, the man of science, and the man of business; the rigid
determination to wrong no man, and to stand for righteousness--all
these are necessary in a great nation. But it is also necessary that
the nation should have physical no less than moral courage; the
capacity to do and dare and die at need, and that grim and steadfast
resolution which alone will carry a great people through a great peril.
The occasion may come at any instant when
“’Tis man’s perdition to be safe
When for the truth he ought to die.”
All great nations have shown these qualities. The Dutch held but a
little corner of Europe. Their industry, thrift, and enterprise in the
pursuits of peace and their cultivation of the arts helped to render
them great; but these qualities would have been barren had they not
been backed by those sterner qualities which rendered them able to
wrest their freedom from the cruel strength of Spain, and to guard it
against the banded might of England and of France. The merchants and
the artists of Holland did much for her; but even more was done by the
famished burghers who fought to the death on the walls of Harlem and
Leyden, and the great admirals who led their fleets to victory on the
broad and narrow seas.
England’s history is rich in splendid names and splendid deeds. Her
literature is even greater than that of Greece. In commerce she
has stood in the modern world as more than ever Carthage was when
civilization clustered in a fringe around the Mediterranean. But she
has risen far higher than ever Greece or Carthage rose, because she
possesses also the great, masterful qualities which were possessed
by the Romans who overthrew them both. England has been fertile in
soldiers and administrators; in men who triumphed by sea and by land;
in adventurers and explorers who won for her the world’s waste spaces;
and it is because of this that the English-speaking race now shares
with the Slav the fate of the coming years.
We of the United States have passed most of our few years of national
life in peace. We honor the architects of our wonderful material
prosperity; we appreciate the necessity of thrift, energy, and business
enterprise, and we know that even these are of no avail without the
civic and social virtues. But we feel, after all, that the men who
have dared greatly in war, or the work which is akin to war, are
those who deserve best of the country. The men of Bunker Hill and
Trenton, Saratoga and Yorktown, the men of New Orleans and Mobile
Bay, Gettysburg and Appomattox are those to whom we owe most. None
of our heroes of peace, save a few great constructive statesmen, can
rank with our heroes of war. The Americans who stand highest on the
list of the world’s worthies are Washington, who fought to found the
country which he afterward governed, and Lincoln, who saved it through
the blood of the best and bravest in the land; Washington, the soldier
and statesman, the man of cool head, dauntless heart, and iron will,
the greatest of good men and the best of great men; and Lincoln, sad,
patient, kindly Lincoln, who for four years toiled and suffered for the
people, and when his work was done laid down his life that the flag
which had been rent in sunder might once more be made whole and without
a seam.
It is on men such as these, and not on the advocates of peace at any
price, or upon those so short-sighted that they refuse to take into
account the possibility of war, that we must rely in every crisis which
deeply touches the true greatness and true honor of the Republic. The
United States has never once in the course of its history suffered harm
because of preparation for war, or because of entering into war. But
we have suffered incalculable harm, again and again, from a foolish
failure to prepare for war or from reluctance to fight when to fight
was proper. The men who to-day protest against a navy, and protest
also against every movement to carry out the traditional policy of the
country in foreign affairs, and to uphold the honor of the flag, are
themselves but following in the course of those who protested against
the acquisition of the great West, and who failed to make proper
preparations for the war of 1812, or refused to support it after it had
been made. They are own brothers to the men whose short-sightedness and
supine indifference prevented any reorganization of the _personnel_ of
the Navy during the middle of the century, so that we entered upon the
Civil War with captains seventy years old. They are close kin to the
men who, when the Southern States seceded, wished to let the Union be
disrupted in peace rather than restored through the grim agony of armed
conflict.
I do not believe that any considerable number of our citizens
are stamped with this timid lack of patriotism. There are some
_doctrinaires_ whose eyes are so firmly fixed on the golden vision of
universal peace that they cannot see the grim facts of real life until
they stumble over them, to their own hurt, and, what is much worse, to
the possible undoing of their fellows. There are some educated men in
whom education merely serves to soften the fibre and to eliminate the
higher, sterner qualities which tell for national greatness; and these
men prate about love for mankind, or for another country, as being in
some hidden way a substitute for love of their own country. What is
of more weight, there are not a few men of means who have made the
till their fatherland, and who are always ready to balance a temporary
interruption of money-making, or a temporary financial and commercial
disaster, against the self-sacrifice necessary in upholding the honor
of the nation and the glory of the flag.
But after all these people, though often noisy, form but a small
minority of the whole. They would be swept like chaff before the gust
of popular fury which would surely come if ever the nation really saw
and felt a danger or an insult. The real trouble is that in such a
case this gust of popular fury would come too late. Unreadiness for
war is merely rendered more disastrous by readiness to bluster; to
talk defiance and advocate a vigorous policy in words, while refusing
to back up these words by deeds, is cause for humiliation. It has
always been true, and in this age it is more than ever true, that it
is too late to prepare for war when the time for peace has passed. The
short-sightedness of many people, the good-humored indifference to
facts of others, the sheer ignorance of a vast number, and the selfish
reluctance to insure against future danger by present sacrifice among
yet others--these are the chief obstacles to building up a proper navy
and carrying out a proper foreign policy.
The men who opposed the war of 1812, and preferred to have the nation
humiliated by unresented insult from a foreign power rather than see
her suffer the losses of an honorable conflict, occupied a position
little short of contemptible; but it was not much worse than that of
the men who brought on the war and yet deliberately refused to make the
preparations necessary to carry it to a successful conclusion. The
visionary schemes for defending the country by gunboats, instead of by
a fleet of seagoing battle-ships; the refusal to increase the Navy to a
proper size; the determination to place reliance upon militia instead
of upon regularly trained troops; and the disasters which followed
upon each and every one of these determinations should be studied in
every school-book in the land so as to enforce in the minds of all our
citizens the truth of Washington’s adage, that in time of peace it is
necessary to prepare for war.
All this applied in 1812; but it applies with tenfold greater force
now. Then, as now, it was the Navy upon which the country had to depend
in the event of war with a foreign power; and then, as now, one of the
chief tasks of a wise and far-seeing statesmanship should have been the
upbuilding of a formidable fighting navy. In 1812 untold evils followed
from the failure to provide such a fighting navy; for the splendid
feats of our few cruisers merely showed what could have been done if we
had had a great fleet of battle-ships. But ships, guns, and men were
much more easily provided in time of emergency at the beginning of
this century than at the end. It takes months to build guns and ships
now, where it then took days, or at the most, weeks; and it takes far
longer now to train men to the management of the vast and complicated
engines with which war is waged. Therefore preparation is much more
difficult, and requires a much longer time; and yet wars are so much
quicker, they last so comparatively short a period, and can be begun
so instantaneously that there is very much less time than formerly in
which to make preparations.
No battle-ship can be built inside of two years under no matter what
stress of circumstances, for we have not in this country the plant to
enable us to work faster. Cruisers would take almost as long. Even
torpedo boats, the smallest of all, could not be put in first-class
form under ninety days. Guns available for use against a hostile
invader would require two or three months; and in the case of the
larger guns, the only ones really available for the actual shock of
battle, could not be made under eight months. Rifles and military
munitions of every kind would require a corresponding length of time
for preparation; in most cases we should have to build, not merely the
weapons we need, but the plant with which to make them in any large
quantity. Even if the enemy did not interfere with our efforts, which
they undoubtedly would, it would, therefore, take from three to six
months after the outbreak of a war, for which we were unprepared,
before we could in the slightest degree remedy our unreadiness. During
this six months it would be impossible to overestimate the damage that
could be done by a resolute and powerful antagonist. Even at the end of
that time we would only be beginning to prepare to parry his attack,
for it would be two years before we could attempt to return it. Since
the change in military conditions in modern times there has never been
an instance in which a war between any two nations has lasted more than
about two years. In most recent wars the operations of the first ninety
days have decided the result of the conflict. All that followed has
been a mere vain effort to strive against the stars in their courses by
doing at the twelfth hour what it was useless to do after the eleventh.
We must therefore make up our minds once for all to the fact that it
is too late to make ready for war when the fight has once begun. The
preparation must come before that. In the case of the Civil War none of
these conditions applied. In 1861 we had a good fleet, and the Southern
Confederacy had not a ship. We were able to blockade the Southern ports
at once, and we could improvise engines of war more than sufficient
to put against those of an enemy who also had to improvise them, and
who labored under even more serious disadvantages. The _Monitor_ was
got ready in the nick of time to meet the _Merrimac_, because the
Confederates had to plan and build the latter while we were planning
and building the former; but if ever we have to go to war with a modern
military power we shall find its Merrimacs already built, and it will
then be altogether too late to try to build Monitors to meet them.
If this point needs any emphasis surely the history of the war of
1812 applies to it. For twelve years before that war broke out even
the blindest could see that we were almost certain to be drawn
into hostilities with one or the other of the pair of combatants
whose battle royal ended at Waterloo. Yet we made not the slightest
preparation for war. The authorities at Washington contented themselves
with trying to build a flotilla of gunboats which could defend
our own harbors without making it necessary to take the offensive
ourselves. We already possessed a dozen first-class cruisers, but
not a battle-ship of any kind. With almost incredible folly the very
Congress that declared war voted down the bill to increase the Navy
by twenty battle-ships; though it was probably too late then, anyhow,
for even under the simpler conditions of that day such a fleet could
not have been built and put into first-class order in less than a
couple of years. Bitterly did the nation pay for its want of foresight
and forethought. Our cruisers won a number of striking victories,
heartening and giving hope to the nation in the face of disaster; but
they were powerless to do material harm to the gigantic naval strength
of Great Britain. Efforts were made to increase our little Navy, but in
the face of a hostile enemy already possessing command of the seas this
was impossible. Two or three small cruisers were built; but practically
almost all the fighting on the ocean was done by the handful of
frigates and sloops which we possessed when the war broke out. Not a
battle-ship was able to put to sea until after peace was restored.
Meanwhile our coast was blockaded from one end to the other and was
harried at will by the hostile squadrons. Our capital city was burned,
and the ceaseless pressure of the blockade produced such suffering
and irritation as nearly to bring about a civil war among ourselves.
If in the first decade of the present century the American people and
their rulers had possessed the wisdom to provide an efficient fleet of
powerful battle-ships there would probably have been no war of 1812;
and even if war had come, the immense loss to, and destruction of,
trade and commerce by the blockade would have been prevented. Merely
from the monetary standpoint the saving would have been incalculable;
and yet this would have been the smallest part of the gain.
It can therefore be taken for granted that there must be adequate
preparation for conflict, if conflict is not to mean disaster.
Furthermore, this preparation must take the shape of an efficient
fighting navy. We have no foe able to conquer or overrun our territory.
Our small army should always be kept in first-class condition, and
every attention should be paid to the National Guard; but neither on
the North nor the South have we neighbors capable of menacing us with
invasion or long resisting a serious effort on our part to invade them.
The enemies we may have to face will come from over sea; they may come
from Europe, or they may come from Asia. Events move fast in the West;
but this generation has been forced to see that they move even faster
in the oldest East. Our interests are as great in the Pacific as in the
Atlantic, in the Hawaiian Islands as in the West Indies. Merely for the
protection of our own shores we need a great navy; and what is more,
we need it to protect our interests in the islands from which it is
possible to command our shores and to protect our commerce on the high
seas.
In building this navy, we must remember two things: First, that our
ships and guns should be the very best of their kind; and second,
that no matter how good they are, they will be useless unless the
man in the conning tower and the man behind the guns are also the
best of their kind. It is mere folly to send men to perish because
they have arms with which they cannot win. With poor ships, were an
Admiral Nelson and Farragut rolled in one, he might be beaten by any
first-class fleet; and he surely would be beaten if his opponents were
in any degree his equals in skill and courage; but without this skill
and courage no perfection of material can avail, and with them very
grave shortcomings in equipment may be overcome. The men who command
our ships must have as perfect weapons ready to their hands as can be
found in the civilized world, and they must be trained to the highest
point in using them. They must have skill in handling the ships, skill
in tactics, skill in strategy, for ignorant courage can not avail; but
without courage neither will skill avail. They must have in them the
dogged ability to bear punishment, the power and desire to inflict it,
the daring, the resolution, the willingness to take risks and incur
responsibility which have been possessed by the great captains of all
ages, and without which no man can ever hope to stand in the front rank
of fighting men.
Tame submission to foreign aggression of any kind is a mean and
unworthy thing; but it is even meaner and more unworthy to bluster
first, and then either submit or else refuse to make those preparations
which can alone obviate the necessity for submission. I believe with
all my heart in the Monroe Doctrine, and, I believe also that the great
mass of the American people are loyal to it; but it is worse than idle
to announce our adherence to this doctrine and yet to decline to take
measures to show that ours is not mere lip loyalty. We had far better
submit to interference by foreign powers with the affairs of this
continent than to announce that we will not tolerate such interference,
and yet refuse to make ready the means by which alone we can prevent
it. In public as in private life, a bold front tends to insure peace
and not strife. If we possess a formidable navy, small is the chance
indeed that we shall ever be dragged into a war to uphold the Monroe
Doctrine. If we do not possess such a navy, war may be forced on us at
any time.
It is certain, then, that we need a first-class navy. It is equally
certain that this should not be merely a navy for defense. Our chief
harbors should, of course, be fortified and put in condition to
resist the attack of an enemy’s fleet; and one of our prime needs is
an ample force of torpedo boats to use primarily for coast defense.
But in war the mere defensive never pays, and can never result in
anything but disaster. It is not enough to parry a blow. The surest
way to prevent its repetition is to return it. No master of the prize
ring ever fought his way to supremacy by mere dexterity in avoiding
punishment. He had to win by inflicting punishment. If the enemy is
given the choice of time and place to attack, sooner or later he will
do irreparable damage, and if he is at any point beaten back, why,
after all, it is merely a repulse, and there are no means of following
it up and making it a rout. We cannot rely upon coast protection
alone. Forts and heavy land guns and torpedo boats are indispensable,
and the last, on occasion, may be used for offensive purposes also.
But in the present state of naval and military knowledge we must rely
mainly, as all great nations always have relied, on the battle-ship,
the fighting ship of the line. Gunboats and light cruisers serve an
excellent purpose, and we could not do without them. In time of peace
they are the police of the seas; in time of war they would do some
harrying of commerce, and a great deal of scouting and skirmishing; but
our main reliance must be on the great armored battle-ships with their
heavy guns and shot-proof vitals. In the last resort we most trust to
the ships whose business it is to fight and not to run, and who can
themselves go to sea and strike at the enemy when they choose, instead
of waiting peacefully to receive his blow when and where he deems it
best to deliver it. If in the event of war our fleet of battle-ships
can destroy the hostile fleet, then our coasts are safe from the menace
of serious attack; even a fight that ruined our fleet would probably so
shatter the hostile fleet as to do away with all chance of invasion;
but if we have no fleet wherewith to meet the enemy on the high seas,
or to anticipate his stroke by our own, then every city within reach of
the tides must spend men and money in preparation for an attack that
may not come, but which would cause crushing and irredeemable disaster
if it did come.
Still more is it necessary to have a fleet of great battle-ships if
we intend to live up to the Monroe Doctrine, and to insist upon its
observance in the two Americas and the islands on either side of them.
If a foreign power, whether in Europe or Asia, should determine to
assert its position in those lands wherein we feel that our influence
should be supreme, there is but one way in which we can effectively
interfere. Diplomacy is utterly useless where there is no force behind
it; the diplomat is the servant, not the master, of the soldier. The
prosperity of peace, commercial and material prosperity, gives no
weight whatever when the clash of arms comes. Even great naked strength
is useless if there is no immediate means through which that strength
can manifest itself. If we mean to protect the people of the lands who
look to us for protection from tyranny and aggression; if we mean to
uphold our interests in the teeth of the formidable Old World powers,
we can only do it by being ready at any time, if the provocation, is
sufficient, to meet them on the seas, where the battle for supremacy
must be fought. Unless we are prepared so to meet them, let us abandon
all talk of devotion to the Monroe Doctrine or to the honor of the
American name.
This nation cannot stand still if it is to retain its self-respect, and
to keep undimmed the honorable traditions inherited from the men who
with the sword founded it and by the sword preserved it. We ask that
the work of upbuilding the Navy, and of putting the United States where
it should be put among maritime powers, go forward without a break.
We ask this not in the interest of war, but in the interest of peace.
No nation should ever wage war wantonly, but no nation should ever
avoid it at the cost of the loss of national honor. A nation should
never fight unless forced to; but it should always be ready to fight.
The mere fact that it is ready will generally spare it the necessity
of fighting. If this country now had a fleet of twenty battle-ships
their existence would make it all the more likely that we should not
have war. It is very important that we should, as a race, keep the
virile fighting qualities and should be ready to use them at need;
but it is not at all important to use them unless there is need. One
of the surest ways to attain these qualities is to keep our Navy in
first-class trim. There never is, and never has been, on our part a
desire to use a weapon because of its being well-tempered. There is not
the least danger that the possession of a good navy will render this
country overbearing toward its neighbors. The direct contrary is the
truth.
An unmanly desire to avoid a quarrel is often the surest way to
precipitate one; and utter unreadiness to fight is even surer. If at
the time of our trouble with Chili, six years ago, we had not already
possessed the nucleus of the new navy we should almost certainly have
been forced into fighting, and even as it was trouble was only averted
because of the resolute stand then taken by the President and by the
officers of the Navy who were on the spot. If at that time the Chilians
had been able to get ready the battle-ship which was building for them,
a war would almost certainly have followed, for we had no battle-ship
to put against it.