_The Militarists will never initiate an adequate system for national
defense in the United States, because such a system necessitates an
organization under civil control in time of peace. It must be an
organization that will at all times act as a self-operating and
self-perpetuating influence to promote peace and prevent war. It must also
automatically and instantly become an impregnable defense against foreign
attack or invasion if, in spite of all precautions and efforts to prevent
it, war should actually occur at any time in the future._
Whatever we do for national defense should be done primarily to _prevent_
and _safeguard against_ the breaking out of war. Every plan for national
defense should, like the plan proposed in this book, be formulated with
that end in view. That should be its clearly defined objective. There
should be no possibility of any mistake about that. It should be made so
plain that there never could be any misunderstanding as to that being the
primary purpose of the plan.
A national force should be organized primarily for civil duty in time of
peace. It should be organized in such a way that it could at a moment's
notice be converted into a military machine for national defense in case of
war. But that conversion should be a secondary object. The necessity for
such a conversion should be regarded as a remote possibility, to prevent
which every human power would be exerted, but which might occur,
notwithstanding all that could be done to prevent it.
An illustration of this situation might be drawn from the case of an
aeroplane constructed for aerial service. It would be needed and built for
work in the air. But if it were possible that it might be needed for use
over water, then it might be so constructed that in the event of falling on
the water it could still keep afloat and propel itself. Aerial navigation
would be the primary purpose of its construction. Water navigation would be
secondary, and not intended to be resorted to except in case of accident.
It would serve as a safeguard against death which might otherwise be caused
by an event only remotely possible.
If the necessity for making our system for national defense primarily an
instrument of peace is constantly borne in mind, it will make progress
easier and more rapid and certain. It will eliminate many complications
that would result if we should undertake to look to the military
establishment to formulate plans for a system of national defense that
would be operative for peace as well as for war. In the past the whole
matter of national defense has been left to the Army and Navy. That is the
reason why no satisfactory system has been evolved. Naturally the Army and
the Navy can see nothing in any plan which does not involve simply a
greater army and a greater navy.
If it is now left to the War Department to make plans for a military system
that will be adequate for national defense, there are many reasons why a
satisfactory system will never be devised. The idea would be
incomprehensible to a Regular Army man that a national organization,
available for civil duties in time of peace, could in time of war be
automatically expanded into a military machine strong enough for the
national defense.
Men educated and trained in the military profession do not comprehend
conditions outside of the purely military environment in which they live.
They do not understand humanity or the temper of the people in civil life.
They have been trained in an atmosphere of social exclusiveness and
educated to believe that they belong to a superior caste. They live in a
world of their own, separate and apart from their fellowmen. This is every
whit as true in America as it is in Germany. The only difference is in the
relative size of the armies.
The Militarists have no real sympathy with any peace movement. They say
that we always have had war and that we always will have war. They look
forward with enthusiastic anticipation to the next war as an opportunity
for activity and promotion. War is their trade, their profession. They
regard with patronizing pity all who have risen to the higher level that
regards war as an anarchistic anachronism, and are willing to make any
sacrifice to end it forever. They have never read the chapter entitled "The
Iron in the Blood" in "The Coming People," by Charles F. Dole.
They are devoted to their duty, as they understand it, and are as brave and
loyal _soldiers_ as ever existed on the earth. But really it is
unreasonable to expect a soldier to be anything but a Militarist. He is
bred if not born to war, trained to fight and to study the war game, the
war maneuvers, to fortify, to attack, to repel, to figure out a masterly
retreat if it becomes necessary. You cannot expect him to be a peace
advocate or to work out plans which will prevent or abolish war. It is no
part of his duty as he sees it to undertake to devise plans for peace that
would render the professional soldier obsolete and relegate him and his
brother soldiers to a place by the side of the chivalrous Knights of the
Middle Ages, or the Crusaders who fought the Saracens to rescue the Holy
Sepulcher from the infidels--picturesque and romantic but expensive and
useless.
Moreover, Army officers are hampered in all planning for constructive work
by their rigid adherence to precedent. They have a medieval contempt for
everything non-military, and for all civil duties and affairs. All this
results from the existence of a military caste in this country which is as
supercilious, self-opinionated, and autocratic as the military aristocracy
of the most military ridden nation of Europe.
They lack initiative and originality because their whole education has
operated to drill it out of them, and to make men who are mere machines,
doing what they are told to do, _and doing it well_, but doing nothing
else. That is the exact opposite of the type of mind demanded in an
emergency requiring initiative and the genius to originate and carry out
new and better ways of doing things than those that have prevailed in the
past.
Men with the military training appear to entirely lack the analytical mind
that seeks for _causes_, and comprehends that by removing the _cause_, the
evil itself may be safeguarded against, or may in that way be prevented
from ever coming into existence.
_This fact is well illustrated by the stupendous losses the country has
suffered from floods because the Army Engineers have for years so
stubbornly refused to consider plans for controlling floods at their
sources._
Solid arrays of facts presented to them have contributed nothing to
breaking down their stolid egotism.
They will not originate, or approve, any plan that does not center
everything that is proposed to be done in the War Department and thereby
enlarge its influence and prestige. They oppose every plan to coordinate
the War Department with other departments, or to put the Army on the same
plane with the others in working out plans for constructive cooperation.
The members of the military caste do not seem to be able to comprehend that
the stamp of an inferior caste which they put upon enlisted men, and the
menial services exacted from private soldiers by their officers, create
conditions that are revolting to every instinct of a man with the right
American spirit of self-respect. They are a relic of the barbaric period
when the private soldier was an ignorant brute. Those conditions alone are
sufficient to render impracticable any plan for a reserve composed of
soldiers who have served out their term of enlistment.
In "On Board the Good Ship Earth," Herbert Quick says:
"All institutions must sooner or later be transformed
so as to accord with the principles of democracy--or
they must be abolished. The great objection to standing
armies is their conflict with democracy. They are
essentially aristocratic in their traditions. The
officers must always be 'Gentlemen' and the privates
merely men. The social superiority of officer over man
is something enormous. Every day's service tends to
make the man in the ranks a servile creature, and the
man with epaulettes a snob and a tyrant."
The standing army to-day represents an economic waste of labor of the
entire body of enlisted men. Many soldiers are demoralized by the
inactivity or idleness of the life of the camp or the barracks.
The whole conception of the military caste as to what the Army ought to be
is medieval and monstrously wrong. The United States Army should be a
training school for the very highest type of self-respecting, independent,
and self-sustaining citizenship that this country can produce. It should be
a great educational institution, training every enlisted man to be an
officer in the Reserve, or to be a Homecrofter after he returns to private
life. Daily manual constructive labor should be a part of every soldier's
duty. The relation between officer and enlisted men should be that of
instructor and student. Such a relation is entirely consistent with the
absolute authority that would be vested in the instructor.
The Army System should be such that an opportunity to serve a term as an
enlisted man would be coveted as much as an appointment to West Point is
now coveted. The Army should train men for civil life and citizenship, not
ruin them for it as it now so often does.
The many wrong conditions above referred to result from the unfortunate
attitude of mind of those who compose the military caste. They would make
it impracticable to ever successfully carry out any plan for useful
constructive labor by enlisted men in the military service. If such a
Reserve were made subject to the control of the War Department, it would be
impossible to ever enlist as a Reserve a construction force composed of men
who believe in the dignity of labor and refuse to recognize the superiority
of any caste in American life or citizenship.
If this statement is not a fact, why is it that no useful, constructive
work is accomplished by the fifty odd thousand able-bodied enlisted men of
our Regular Army? The same men would accomplish superhuman manual labor in
case of war. And the same conditions would obtain if our army was 100,000
or 200,000 or 500,000 strong.
This wasteful situation taken as a whole makes it impracticable to work out
any plans which might otherwise be initiated or formulated by the War
Department for creating a great reserve force that would be entirely under
the control of the civil departments of the national government in time of
peace. It is imperative that such civil control should prevail. Were it
otherwise, the same danger of military domination in government affairs
would arise that would result from the maintenance of a standing army in
this country large enough to serve as a national defense in time of war
with any first-class power.
_And the establishment of a National Construction Service as a Reserve
force, enlisted for work to be done under civil control in time of peace,
but available for military service in time of war, constitutes one of the
most practicable plans for creating a Reserve from which an army for
national defense could be instantly mobilized in time of war._
The plan proposed by the War Department, of a short term of service in the
regular army, followed by liability to service in a reserve made up of men
discharged after this short-service term, could never be worked out
effectively.
The impracticability of that plan has been clearly shown by Representative
James Hay, Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs of the House of
Representatives, in a recent magazine article in which he says:
"Military authorities, backed by the opinions of many
persons high in civil life, insist that we should be
provided with an adequate reserve of men, so that we
may in any time of trouble have men who will be
prepared to enter the army fully trained for war. In
this I concur; but in a country where military service
is not compulsory the method of providing a reserve is
an extremely complex problem, one that has not yet been
satisfactorily solved by anybody. It is proposed, among
other things, to have short enlistments, and thus turn
out each year a large number of men who will be trained
soldiers. Let us examine this for a moment and see
where it will lead, and whether any good will come out
of it, either for the army or for the country.
"After giving this question of a reserve for the army
the most careful thought, after having heard the
opinion of many officers of our army,--and those too
best qualified to give opinions on a matter of this
sort,--I am convinced that, under our system of
military enlistment, it is impracticable to
accumulate, with either a long-term or a short-term
enlistment period, a dependable reserve force of fairly
well trained men. To use our army as a training school
would destroy the army as such, and fail utterly to
create any reserve that could be depended upon as a
large body of troops.
"The proposal of the General Staff of the army has been
that the men should enlist for two years and then spend
five years in the reserve. The five years in the
reserve is impossible in this country, because we have
no compulsory military service and because it is
intended by the authors of the plan not to pay the
reserve men. And it is an open-and-shut proposition
that men cannot be expected to enter the reserve
voluntarily, without pay, when the regulations would
require them to submit to such inconveniences as
applying to the department for leave to go from one
State to another or into a foreign country, and when
they would be compelled to attend maneuvers, often at
distant points, at least twice a year."
The Militarists, the professional military men, and those who draw their
inspiration from that source, present no plan for enlarging our army in
time of war except:
(1) The proposed Reserve system so clearly shown in the above quotation to
be impracticable; (2) Reliance upon State Militia to reenforce the regular
army--a plan rejected by all who are willing to learn by experience; and
(3) The increase of the standing army, to bring it up to a point where it
could at any time cope with the standing armies of other powers, and its
maintenance there.
Another quotation from the same article by Representative Hay will give the
facts that show the impracticability of the plan for increasing the
standing army:
"But, in order to make more evident what Congress has
given to the army and the consequent results that must
have been obtained therefrom, let me call attention to
the fact that during the last ten years the
appropriations for the support of the military
establishments of this country have amounted to the
grand total of $1,007,410,270.48, almost as much as is
required to pay all the other expenses of the
government, all the salaries, all the executive
machinery, all the judiciary, everything, for an entire
year.
"Thus, during this period, the army appropriations have
annually been from $70,000,000 to $101,000,000; the
Military Academy appropriations, from $673,000 to
$2,500,000 a year; for fortifications, from $4,000,000
to $9,300,000; for armories and arsenals, from
$330,000 to $860,000; for military posts, from $320,000
to $4,380,000; by deficiency acts, military
establishment, from $657,000 to $5,300,000; and for
Pacific railroads transportation and the enlisted men's
deposit fund, a total for the ten years of $11,999,271.
"The totals for the ten fiscal years 1905 to 1915 have
been as follows:
Permanent appropriations (including
Pacific railroads transportation and
enlisted men's deposit fund) $11,999,271.00
Fortification acts, armories and arsenals,
and military posts in sundry
civil acts, and deficiencies for military
establishments in deficiency
acts 113,071,133.17
Army appropriation acts 868,536,993.31
Military Academy acts 13,802,873.00
----------------
Total $1,007,410,270.48
"However, in spite of this showing of the great expense
of maintaining a small army, the Militarists keep up
their clamor--particularly at such a time as this, and
again whenever a military appropriation bill is up for
consideration in the House--that this country be
saddled with a great standing army. There is not the
slightest need of such an establishment. But, if there
were some slight indication of trouble with a fully
equipped great power, would the people of this country
be ready to embark on a policy that would mean the
permanent maintenance of a regular standing army of
500,000 men? It would cost this country, at a
conservative estimate, $600,000,000 a year to go
through with such an undertaking."
Now after fully weighing that situation in the mind, as set forth by
Representative Hay, put beside it the following facts as given by Homer
Lea, in "The Valor of Ignorance":
"European nations in time of peace maintain armies from
three hundred and fifty thousand to five hundred
thousand men and officers, together with reserves of
regulars varying from two to five million, with a
proportionate number of horses and guns, for the same
money that the United States is obliged to expend to
maintain _fifty thousand_ troops with _no reserve_ of
regulars.
"_Japan could support a standing peace army exceeding
one million men for the same amount of money this
Republic now spends on fifty thousand._
"This proportion, which exists in time of peace,
becomes even more excessive in time of war; for
whenever war involves a country there exists in all
preparation an extravagance that is also proportionate
to the wealth of the nation.
"_During the last few years of peace, from 1901 to
1907, the United States Government has expended on the
army and navy over fourteen hundred million dollars: a
sum exceeding the combined cost to Japan of the Chinese
War and the Russian War, as well as the entire
maintenance of her forces during the intervening years
of peace._"
And again, the same author says:
"A vast population and great numbers of civilian
marksmen can be counted as assets in the combative
potentiality of a nation as are coal and iron ore in
the depths of its mountains, but they are, _per se_,
worthless until put to effective use. This Republic,
drunk only with the vanity of its resources, will not
differentiate between them and actual power.
"_Japan, with infinitely less resources, is militarily
forty times more powerful._
"Germany, France, or Japan can each mobilize in _one
month_ more troops, scientifically trained by educated
officers, than this Republic could gather together in
_three years_. In the Franco-Prussian War, Germany
mobilized in the field, ready for battle, over half a
million soldiers, more than one hundred and fifty
thousand horses and twelve hundred pieces of artillery
in _five days_. The United States could not mobilize
for active service a similar force in _three years_. A
modern war will seldom endure longer than this.
"Not only has this nation no army, but it has no
military _system_."
We have in the United States a military establishment adequate to
suppressing riots, controlling mobs, preventing local anarchy, and
protecting property from destruction by internal disturbance or uprisings
in our own country. As a national police force, our army is an entirely
adequate and satisfactory organization. But policing a mining camp and
fighting an invading army, are two widely different propositions. So would
fighting a Japanese army be from fighting a few Spaniards or Filipinos.
When it comes to a "military system" adapted to the needs of a foreign war
with a first-class nation, we have none; and thus far none has been
proposed. A system that depends on creating the machinery for national
defense by any plan to be undertaken _after hostilities have begun_, is no
system at all, and cannot be classed as a system for national defense. It
is a system for national delusion. A Volunteer Army belongs in this class,
and so in fact does the State Militia.
The question of national defense involves two separate and distinct
problems:
First, the defense of the nation against invasion by another nation.
Second, the defense of the nation and of its social, civil, and political
institutions from internal disturbance and civil conflict.
It may safely be assumed that there will never again be a civil conflict
between any two different sections of this country. That there will
inevitably be such a conflict between contending forces within the body
politic itself, no sane man will deny, if congested cities and tenement
life are to be allowed to continue to degenerate humanity and breed poverty
and misery. They will ultimately undermine and destroy the mental and
physical racial strength of the people. We will then have a population
without intelligence or reasoning powers. Such a proletariat will
constitute a social volcano, an ever present menace to internal peace.
Conflicts such as that which so recently existed in Colorado, approach very
closely to civil war. They have occurred before. They will occur again.
They may occur at any time. Whenever they do occur, it may be necessary to
invoke the power of the nation, acting through the army as a police force,
to preserve the peace and protect life and property.
For that work it must be conceded that we need an army. As it has been well
expressed, we need "a good army but not a large army." It may be conceded
that we need for that purpose, and for Insular and Isthmian Service, and
for garrison duty, an army as large as that now authorized by Congress when
enlisted to the full strength of 100,000 men, _but no more_. Set the limit
there and keep it there, and fight any plan for an increase.
The question whether we should have an army of 50,000 men or 100,000 men is
of comparatively small importance. As to that question there need be no
controversy on any ground except that of comparative wisdom of expenditure.
There are other things this country should do, _that it is not doing_, of
more importance than to maintain an army of 100,000 instead of 50,000, or
than to build more battleships at this time.
An army needed as a national police force to safeguard against any sort of
domestic disturbance is a very different proposition from the army we would
need in the event of a war with any of the great world powers. An army of
100,000 is as large as we will ever need to safeguard against domestic
disturbance. An army any larger than that, for that purpose, should be
opposed as a menace to the people's liberties, and a waste of the nation's
revenues.
It is conceded on all sides, however, that if it ever did happen, however
remote the possibility may be, that the United States became involved in a
war with a foreign nation of our own class, an army of 100,000 men would be
impotent and powerless for national defense. So would an army of 200,000
men. An army of 200,000 is twice as large as we should have in time of
peace. In the event of war with any first-class power we would have to
have an army five or ten times 200,000.
It would therefore be utterly unwarranted and unwise to increase our
standing army from 100,000 to 200,000. There is no reasonable ground or
hypothesis on which it can be justified. Any proposition for such an
increase should meet with instant and just condemnation and determined
opposition.
A war between the United States and some other great power is either
possible or it is impossible. If it is impossible, then we need do nothing
to safeguard against it. If it is possible, either in the near or distant
future, then we should safeguard against it adequately and completely; we
should do _everything that may be necessary to prevent war or to defend
ourselves in the event of war_.
To say that war is impossible is contrary to all common sense and reason,
and runs counter to conclusions forced by a careful study of probabilities
and of the compelling original causes for war that may in their evolution
involve this nation.
Field Marshal Earl Roberts told the English people, over and over again,
that they were in imminent danger of a war with Germany. No one believed
him--at least not enough of them to make any impression on public
sentiment--and England was caught unprepared by the present war.
Therefore, let full weight be given to Lord Roberts' declaration and
warning as to the future, as recently published:
"_I would ask them not to be led away by those who say
that the end of this great struggle is to be the end of
war, and that it is bound to lead to a great reduction
of armament. There is nothing in the history of the
world to justify any such conclusion. Nor is it
consonant with ordinary common sense._"
Such a statement as this, from such a man, cannot be whistled down the
wind. This country must inevitably face the condition that in all
probability the present war will increase rather than reduce the danger
that the United States may become involved in war.
It may be argued that Germany, once a possible antagonist, will be so
weakened by this great conflict as not to desire another war. The contrary
will prove true. If Germany should prevail, the ambition of her War Lords
would know no limit, until Germany dominated the world.
If Germany should not prevail, no matter how much she may be humbled by
defeat, she will start over again, with all the latent strength of her
people, to rebuild from the ruins a more powerful military nation than she
has ever been. With the record before us of what Germany has accomplished
since the close of the Thirty Years' War, can anyone deny that a great
Teutonic military power might again be developed from the ashes of a ruined
nation?
If we look across the Pacific at Japan, we see a nation strengthened and
proudly conscious of victory as a result of the present war. Whatever other
nations may suffer, Japan gets nothing from this war but national
advancement and national glory. The latter is a mighty asset for her,
because of the inspiration and stimulus it affords to her people in all
their national efforts and ambitions for advancement and expansion.
Russia, England, and France, however great their losses may be, will come
out of this war with enormously enlarged national strength, and with their
national forces solidified and concentrated behind the military power in
those governments. In none of them will this new accretion and
concentration of military governmental power be thereafter voluntarily
limited or surrendered.
Let us then not deceive ourselves by any visions of world peace which exist
only in dreams, or follow shadows into the quicksands in which we would
find ourselves mired down if this nation were caught unprepared in a war
with any of the great nations above named.
The question of national defense, in the event of such a war, is not one of
battleships, so on that point we need not trouble ourselves much with the
controversy about how many battleships this country should build in a year.
If we had as many battleships as England has to-day, they might prove a
broken reed when tested as a means of national defense in case of a war
with either England, France, or Japan.
A standing army of 100,000 men, or even of 200,000 men, would prove utterly
inadequate for our national defense in such a war. Worse than that, our
whole military system is fatally defective. It entirely lacks the capacity
of instant automatic expansion necessary to quickly put an army of a
million men in the field. It would be imperative and unavoidable that we
should do so, the moment we became involved in war with a first-class
power. A million men would be the minimum size of the army we would need
the instant war started with any great nation like Japan. As a system for
national defense in such a war our standing army is a dangerous delusion.
Its existence, and the false reliance placed on it, delays the adoption of
a system that would prove adequate to any emergency.
The militia system of the United States is another delusion, and in case of
war would be little better than useless. Washington had his own bitter
experiences to guide him, and he warned the people of this country against
militia in the following vigorous terms:
"Regular troops alone are equal to the exigencies of
modern war, as well for defense as offense, and when a
substitute is attempted, it must prove illusory and
ruinous.
"No Militia will ever acquire the habits necessary to
resist a regular force. The firmness requisite for the
real business of fighting is only to be attained by
constant course of discipline and service.
"I have never yet been a witness to a single instance
that can justify a different opinion, and it is most
earnestly to be wished that the liberties of America
may no longer be trusted, in a material degree, to so
precarious a defense."
In the face of all these facts, the people of the United States are groping
in the dark. They may have a vague and glimmering idea of their danger, but
as yet no definite and practicable plan for national defense in case of war
has been suggested, except that proposed in this book.
The beautiful iridescent dream and vision of an army of a million patriotic
souls hurrying to the colors in the event of national danger brings only
counter visions of Bull Run and Cuba, of confusion, waste, death, and
devastation, before we could possibly get these men officered, trained,
equipped, and organized to fight any first-class power according to the
methods of modern warfare.
As an illustration, what would our pitifully small army, and our almost raw
and untrained levies of militia, do in a grim conflict with the 200,000
trained and seasoned and perfectly armed and equipped soldiers which Japan
could land on our shores within four weeks, or the 500,000 she could land
in four months, or the 1,000,000 she could land in ten months? We could not
by any possibility get a military force of equal strength into action on
the Pacific coast in that length of time or in anywhere near it.
That is where our danger lies, and therein exists the startling menace of
our unpreparedness for war. It is not that we lack men or money. No nation
in the world has better soldiers than those now serving under our flag. We
no doubt have the raw material for a larger army than any nation or any two
nations could utilize for the invasion of our territory, but any one of
three or four nations could humble and defeat us several times over before
we could whip this raw material into shape for a fighting force and get it
armed and equipped for actual warfare.
The conclusion from this would on the surface naturally seem to be that we
must have a larger standing army. The strange and apparently contradictory
but undeniable fact is that a larger standing army, organized in accordance
with our present military system, would merely increase our danger, and
might precipitate a war that would otherwise have been avoided.
A great standing army in this country would ultimately create the same
national psychological condition that existed in Germany before this last
war. There were many who averred when this war broke out that it was the
war of the Kaiser and his War Lords, and contrary to the spirit and wishes
of the German people. The exact opposite has been thoroughly established.
Strange as it may seem, we must accept the fact that the German people, as
the result of generations of education from childhood to manhood, look upon
war as a necessary element of German expansion and the growth of the
empire to which they are all patriotically devoted.
More than this, ringed about as they have been for centuries with a circle
of armed adversaries, it was inevitable that a spirit should be developed
in the minds of the people that their only safety as a nation lay in
Militarism, however much they might deplore its necessity as individuals,
groan under its burdens, or personally dread military service.
The moment the people of the United States accepted as a fact the belief
that a standing army large enough for national protection is the only way
for this country to safeguard against an armed adversary, that moment would
the attitude of mind of our people towards war become the same as that of
Germany and France. After this war it will be the attitude of mind of the
people of Great Britain. England has been shaken to her core, and never
again will she be found unprepared for war at any moment that it may come.