THE PURPOSE OF ARMIES
But the great armies and navies are not really kept to-day for foreign
conquest. Now and then, in obedience to the commercial spirit that rules
the world, these vessels of destruction are sent to foreign seas. But
the rulers of the earth live on fairly friendly terms. Long since, the
most ambitious have abandoned their dreams of world power and are content
to exploit a portion of the earth. When warships are sent to foreign
seas they usually fire a salute rather than train their guns for death.
Monarchs the world over respect each other. They are bound together by
ties of common interest, if not of common love. When a ruler dies, even
though the most tyrannical and despotic, every other ruler promptly sends
condolences to the sorrowing court; their own subjects may die unwept,
but a touch of common feeling moves them to mourn a ruler’s death.
Nations are bound by many ties to preserve peace among each other. Scions
of royal families are handed round in marriage from court to court,
treaties of all sorts are made and ratified in most solemn form; and
even more than this, the real owners of the world, those who possess the
stocks and bonds which rest upon the wealth that the poor have labored to
create, these real rulers who make war or peace by giving or withholding
funds, these own the great bulk of the property of the various nations of
the world, and will not lightly suffer their possessions to be destroyed.
And yet these same real rulers, who stand behind the thrones of all the
world, approve of this preparation for war, approve of taking millions
of men from their homes and training them to kill, approve of every fort
and gun and battleship. More than this, they contribute largely of their
private funds to build batteries and equip militia, especially in the
great cities of the earth. Through the speeches of their agents and the
voice of their press, all this grim visage of war is for the stranger
without their gates. But in reality the prime reason for all the armies
of the world is that soldiers and militia may turn their guns upon their
unfortunate countrymen when the owners of the earth shall speak the word.
And these unfortunate countrymen are the outcast and despised, the meek
and lowly ones of the world, the men whose ceaseless toil and unpaid
efforts have built the forts and molded the cannon and sustained the
soldiers that are used to shoot them down.
To say that these armies and frowning forts and gatling guns are needed
to maintain peace and order at home is to admit at once that the great
mass of men are held captive by the more powerful few. Organized soldiers
and policemen, courts and sheriffs, with guns and forts and jails,
have the greatest advantage over the disorganized mass who cannot act
together, and who know not which way to turn to keep outside the meshes
of the law. Not one in a thousand need be trained to arms and authority
to keep the unorganized mass in the place reserved for it to live. The
purpose of guns and armies is to furnish the few an easy and sure way to
control the mass. Neither are these armies made of the ruling class. The
officers, it is true, are generally taken from the favored ones, but the
regular soldier is the man too poor and abandoned to find his place in
any other of the walks of life. He is only fit to be an executioner of
his fellow man. No ruler can love his subjects when he takes their money
and their labor to buy cannon and train men to shoot them down. That this
is the real purpose of standing armies and warlike equipments is plain
to all who have eyes to see. More and more the rulers have learned to
build their barracks and mass their troops not on the borders of their
land but convenient to great cities, in the midst of districts thickly
populated by working men. As nations grow older the opportunities of the
masses grow less. More men are called to serve the state, and greater
preparations are made to preserve the possessions of the rich. These
soldiers are moved from place to place, are massed at time of need, not
in accordance with the petition of the citizens from whose ranks the
soldiers come, but in response to the request of the ruling class.
* * * * *
Quite apart from the question of the rights of capital on one hand and
labor on the other, what must be the effect of this policy of force and
violence when reaching over long periods of time? A nation is really
great and possessed of the lasting elements of strength in proportion
as her people are strong, intelligent, and free. The rulers of a nation
should owe their subjects some duty in return for the homage and taxes
they receive. The ruler who deliberately governs his subjects by
violence and force, and through tyranny and fear, must find in time
that this policy of hatred and outrage is destroying and sapping the
foundations of the state; the more strength and vitality that he draws
from the poor and the more soldiers required to support arbitrary power,
the greater the chasm that yawns beneath his feet. The loyalty that is
kept through fear is lost with opportunity. The rulers of Rome before
her destruction, and of France before the Revolution, had drawn all the
soldiers from the people that the fields and shops could spare, and
used these to support their tottering power. Kings can gain nothing by
governing soldiers alone. They must have farmers, artisans, all sorts
of producers, or their conquest is not worth the price. The policy of
hatred and violence must in the end destroy the state. It can breed only
hatred in the hearts of the outcast and the poor. If their subjection is
incomplete, the throne is resting upon the shifting sands. If perfect
and complete, their subjects are lifeless machines and their empires
crumbling to decay. It is really idle to speculate as to whether love
and brotherhood could accomplish more; it is certain they could not do
less. To disband the armies and destroy the forts, to diffuse love and
brotherhood, and peace and justice in the place of war and strife, could
tend only to the building up of character, the elevation of the soul, and
the strength and well-being of the state. True, the class lines would
disappear. Brotherhood would have neither ruler nor ruled, would have no
authority of man over man, would treat all as brothers and co-equals, and
from it would grow a stronger state and a higher manhood than the world
has known. Peaceful industry relieved from the burdens of soldiers and
arms would inevitably increase, and life, rendered less burdensome by the
exactions of authority, would lengthen and sweeten through the beneficent
influence of love. No nation can be really great that is held together
by gatling guns, and no true loyalty can be induced and kept through fear.