I am certain that the only permanently safe attitude for this country
as regards national preparedness for self-defense is along its
lines of universal service on the Swiss model. Switzerland is the
most democratic of nations. Its army is the most democratic army
in the world. There isn’t a touch of militarism or aggressiveness
about Switzerland. It has been found as a matter of actual practical
experience in Switzerland that the universal military training has made
a very marked increase in social efficiency and in the ability of the
man thus trained to do well for himself in industry. The man who has
received the training is a better citizen, is more self-respecting,
more orderly, better able to hold his own, and more willing to respect
the rights of others and at the same time he is a more valuable and
better paid man in his business. We need that the navy and the army
should be greatly increased and that their efficiency as units and in
the aggregate should be increased to an even greater degree than their
numbers. An adequate regular reserve should be established. Economy
should be insisted on, and first of all in the abolition of useless
army posts and navy yards. The National Guard should be supervised and
controlled by the Federal War Department. Training camps such as at
Plattsburg should be provided on a nationwide basis and the government
should pay the expenses. Foreign-born as well as native-born citizens
should be brought together in those camps; and each man at the camp
should take the oath of allegiance as unreservedly and unqualifiedly
as the men of its regular army and navy now take it. Not only should
battleships, battle cruisers, submarines, ample coast and field
artillery be provided and a greater ammunition supply system, but
there should be a utilization of those engaged in such professions
as the ownership and management of motor cars, in aviation, and in
the profession of engineering. Map-making and road improvement should
be attended to, and, as I have already said, the railroads brought
into intimate touch with the War Department. Moreover, the government
should deal with conservation of all necessary war supplies such
as mine products, potash, oil lands and the like. Furthermore, all
munition plants should be carefully surveyed with special reference
to their geographic distribution and for the possibility of increased
munition and supply factories. Finally, remember that the men must be
sedulously trained in peace to use this material or we shall merely
prepare our ships, guns and products as gifts to the enemy. All of
these things should be done in any event, but let us never forget that
the most important of all things is to introduce universal military
service.
But let me repeat that this preparedness against war must be based upon
efficiency and justice in the handling of ourselves in time of peace.
If belligerent governments, while we are not hostile to them but merely
neutral, strive nevertheless to make of this nation many nations, each
hostile to the others and none of them loyal to the central government,
then it may be accepted as certain that they would do far worse to us
in time of war. If they encourage strikes and sabotage in our munition
plants while we are neutral it may be accepted as axiomatic that they
would do far worse to us if we were hostile. It is our duty from the
standpoint of self-defense to secure the complete Americanization
of our people. To make of the many peoples of this country a united
nation, one in speech and feeling and all, so far as possible, sharers
in the best that each has brought to our shores.