Two big pool operators of Wall Street one evening were standing in
front of a prominent theater watching the crowds surge into the
doorways. There was much display of ermines, sables, diamonds and
general wealth. One of the two asked the other: “Say, where do these
lambs get all the money we bears take away from them?”
Today many people say, “Where do these soldiers get all this peace
stuff we extreme pacifists take away from them?” The answer lies in
cold facts--cold facts the historians don’t tell us--cover up almost
completely. Lewis and Clark, for instance. Why, yes, they were two
fellows who were the first to go across our Continent and back again.
But who ever told you that it was _Captain_ Meriwether Lewis and
_Lieutenant_ William Clark who took four sergeants and twenty-three
privates in that hazardous trek between the Atlantic and the Pacific
from 1803 to 1806--that it was the soldier who made surveys and maps
and created friendships with the Indians, many of whom were seeing a
white man for the first time?
Pike’s Peak! O yes, that was discovered by a man by the name of
Pike. But where was it mentioned that it was _Lieutenant_ Z. M.
Pike? And what did he do? With three non-commissioned officers and
sixteen privates, he explored in 1806 and 1807 from the source of the
Mississippi to its mouth, doing from north to south what Lewis and
Clark had done from east to west. Turning west he discovered the peak
which bears his name. In what is now New Mexico, he even beguiled
the Spaniards into taking him prisoner so that he could learn their
intentions, customs and country. For his great deeds of exploration
and pacification he received the personal praise of the President
of the United States. Then there was Captain Long who in the same
way went through what is now Colorado, and for whom Long’s Peak is
named; Captain Bonneville who voluntarily lived with the Nez Perces
and Flatheads for five years, creating friendships and learning their
language; Lieutenant Litgreaves, who explored the Colorado River; and
Lieutenant Whipple and Lieutenant Ives, who separately went through
the southwest. And then John C. Fremont. O yes, the histories are
crazy about calling him the Pathfinder, but never told you that it was
Lieutenant John C. Fremont in 1838 when he started out, and Lieutenant
Colonel John C. Fremont in 1844--after he had explored 10,000 miles
of freezing mountain and sickly basin? In this brief space I can’t
even touch on many of these gigantic wedges of understanding. It was
the soldier who made the first trails, dug the first wells, built the
first roads, bridges and canals, made the first maps, surveyed most of
our boundaries, erected most of our lighthouses, dredged our harbors
and waterways, escorted the settlers, braved the Indian and suffered
in silence. The Hon. John W. Weeks, former Secretary of War and United
States Senator, wrote: “The Army was virtually the pioneer of pioneers.
As our citizens moved west over the prairies and through forests, they
traveled routes which were surveyed by army engineers, constructed by
the army and protected by military posts. The titles of their land were
valid only because of army surveys.... Up to 1855 there was scarcely a
railroad in this country that was not projected, built, and operated
in large part by the Army. Army engineers located, constructed, and
managed such well-known roads as the Baltimore and Ohio; the Northern
Central; the Erie; the Boston and Providence; the New York, New Haven
and Hartford; and the Boston and Albany. Practically all of the
transcontinental railroads were projected by the army. An army officer,
Lieutenant G. W. Whistler, built the best locomotive of his time, after
his own design.” The building of the Union Pacific Railroad, the first
to connect the two oceans, illustrates the soldiers’ contribution to
national welfare. The set-up for this mighty link was a military one.
The workmen were organized into companies and battalions. Soldiers
would dig and hammer and at the cry “Indians,” would rush to their
stacked arms and give battle. Nearly every man was a veteran of the
Civil War. The heads of the most of the engineering parties and all
chiefs of construction had been officers in the Civil War. The chief
of the track-laying force, General Casement, had been a distinguished
division commander. In a twinkling, General Dodge, the chief engineer,
could call into the field a thousand men, well-officered, ready to
meet any crisis. General Sherman also furnished troops. The builders
contended that this great bridge of progress could not have been
finished without soldiers and army training. During the enterprise
Oakes Ames said, “What makes me hang on is the faith of you soldiers.”
The soldier went further than highways in his works. Let’s look at
buildings. How many know that the difficult Washington Monument,
the wings and dome of the National Capitol, the old Post Office
Building, the Municipal Building, the Washington Aqueduct, the
Agriculture Building, the Government Printing Office, the War College
and the beautiful Library of Congress were all built by the Army?
Army engineers supervised the building of the Lincoln Memorial, the
Arlington Bridge, the parks and even the playgrounds of the District
of Columbia. They even organized the Weather Bureau--and all this our
government got at the comparatively small pay of the soldier.
But the soldier didn’t stop at exploring and building. He didn’t stop
at just contributing to development and peace. He went further. He even
tried his best to prevent war. So many were his attempts that they can
scarcely be hinted at tonight. Here is one conspicuous example. In
1832, South Carolina was verging on secession and civil war. President
Jackson called in General Winfield Scott and sent him to the scene of
the trouble. There Scott by skillful persuasion and conference helped
to quiet the difficulties and return the state to peace, without any
troops at his back. In 1838 there was a revolt against Great Britain
by Canadian patriots. Many in our border states were sympathizing with
the rebels. Blood had been shed. It looked horribly like a third war
with Great Britain. Scott was sent north to the place of the struggle.
After great effort and the most tactful arbitration he brought harmony
between the British officials and our own sympathizers. By his work,
war was averted. In the same year the great educated, peaceful tribe
of Cherokees in Georgia and the Carolinas, was enraged at the attempt
of the whites to force it away from its native home because gold had
been found there. 15,000 Indians refused to move. General Scott was
sent by the government to conduct them west to what is now Oklahoma.
Sensing the right on their side, but being compelled to carry out
the government’s unjust orders, he was left with nothing but his
personality and good sense to keep us out of a big fight. By his
masterful appeal to the Indians not to cause war, by his instructions
to his soldiers to be gentle and firm, by his square dealing and
carrying out of his promises to the letter, he was able to escort the
whole tribe west, without the slightest sign of trouble. So great was
his kindly power, that he even had these superstitious redmen submit
to vaccination. It is estimated that this prevention of war saved the
government two and one-half billion dollars and untold loss of life.
(Besides he very nearly washed clean the government’s dirty linen.)
But he had scarcely finished this delicate task when he was called to
Maine. There the boundary question was about to plunge us into that
third war with Great Britain. The government had already called out
eight thousand militia. Things were pretty bad. Scott hustled back and
forth holding conferences, calming this party and that, and finally
closed the issue to the satisfaction of all. In 1848 after he had
conducted the brilliant campaign which closed the Mexican War, Mexico
was in a state of unrest. It was there that he established a rule so
just and kindly that peace came more rapidly, and possibly composed
Mexico for many years. Never had the Mexicans been treated so decently.
Their representatives came to him and begged him to be their dictator.
Though he didn’t accept, it was probably the first time in history
where a conqueror of foreign territory had been so cordially urged.
Two years later after he had returned to the United States, trouble in
Vancouver Island in the northwest again threatened that ever-skulking
third war with Great Britain. The British Navy was already beating down
upon the little island of San Juan. Scott arrived on the scene. By the
cleverest tact he engineered a joint evacuation of the island. And no
war came. Six times had this man, who towered six feet five and weighed
two hundred forty pounds, showed us that his heart and character were
as great as his stature. Six times had he saved us. In keeping us out
of war who can compete with him? But he is not alone. Many another
soldier gave us peace and many another built for peace.
In 1907, after long years of trial, President Theodore Roosevelt came
to the conclusion that high-salaried civilians could not complete the
Panama Canal. They would walk out on him and were inclined to the
spoils system of wasting money. He wanted someone who would stay on
the job, who would carry on the work for the work’s sake. He turned
to the Army. He appointed a commission of soldiers. Colonel George
Goethals with his able assistants, Colonels Gaillard and Sibert, Corps
of Engineers and Colonel W. C. Gorgas of the Medical Corps, were sent
south to construct the Canal. Gorgas purged the place of yellow fever
and malaria while the others forged ahead on the building. After bitter
trials and maddening set-backs, they finished the Panama Canal. This
vast public work, which others had failed to complete in almost half a
century, the soldier gave to his country in the surprising space of six
years.
But this commercial short-cut could not have been so quickly finished,
had it not been for the work of another soldier. In 1900 Major Walter
Reed with a group of medical officers and men was sent to Cuba to study
yellow fever. For several years soldiers risked their lives repeatedly
in their attempt to find out what caused the disease. It came to the
point where a little banded-legged mosquito was suspected of carrying
the fever from the sick to the well. But the suspicion had to be
proved. Men had to let themselves be actually bitten by the deadly
insect in order to vouchsafe to the world that the mosquito was the
only carrier. Volunteers were called for. Officers and men responded
with such willingness that the ready victims were always in excess
of demand. One day Privates Kissinger and Moran came to Major Reed
as volunteers. He explained to them what their offer meant--extreme
suffering and probable death. They still insisted. They would gladly
run the risk, if it would save lives afterwards. He then told them that
they or their relatives would receive money. Both men showed their
disgust. Kissinger stepped forward and said, “I want it understood
that we are doing this in the interest of humanity and for science.”
Major Reed rose, touched his cap and said with tears in his eyes,
“Gentlemen I salute you.” The two privates were allowed to be bitten
by mosquitoes which had fed on persons stricken with the malignant
yellow fever. They took the disease, but God was with them. They pulled
through. Major Reed said of them: “This exhibition of moral courage
has never been surpassed in our history.” Reed finally proved that the
mosquito was the only carrier of the disease. Once the world found out
the cause, the rest was easy--riddance of the horrible insect that
had made so many countries places of horror and death. In the United
States alone yellow fever had taken a toll of more than half a million.
Commerce had been interrupted, states and cities had been turned into
turmoil and whole populations wiped out. Shortly after the proof of
the discovery General Leonard Wood purged Havana in a few months. And
today it is estimated that by the heroic service of Major Walter Reed
and his soldiers, thirty million lives have been saved in the Western
Hemisphere.
Has the soldier done anything for peace? Has he done anything for
progress? Sentiment, theory, loud arguments don’t talk, but somehow
deeds, facts do.
_III_