SELF-DEFENSE WITHOUT MILITARISM
The other day one of the typical ultrapacificists or peace-at-any-price
men put the ultrapacificist case quite clearly, both in a statement of
his own and by a quotation of what he called the “golden words” of Mr.
Bryan at Mohonk. In arguing that we should under no conditions fight
for our rights, and that we should make no preparation whatever to
secure ourselves against wrong, this writer pointed out China as the
proper model for America. He did this on the ground that China, which
did not fight, was yet “older” than Rome, Greece, and Germany, which
had fought, and that its example was therefore to be preferred.
This, of course, is a position which saves the need of argument. If
the average American wants to be a Chinaman, if China represents his
ideal, then he should by all means follow the advice of pacificists
like the writer in question and be a supporter of Mr. Bryan. If any man
seriously believes that China has played a nobler and more useful part
in the world than Athens and Rome and Germany, then he is quite right
to try to Chinafy the United States. In such event he must of course
believe that all the culture, all the literature, all the art, all the
political and cultural liberty and social well-being, which modern
Europe and the two Americas have inherited from Rome and Greece, and
that all that has been done by Germany from the days of Charlemagne to
the present time, represent mere error and confusion. He must believe
that the average German or Frenchman or Englishman or inhabitant of
North or South America occupies a lower moral, intellectual, and
physical status than the average coolie who with his fellows composes
the overwhelming majority of the Chinese population. To my mind such
a proposition is unfit for debate outside of certain types of asylum.
But those who sincerely take the view that this gentleman takes are
unquestionably right in copying China in every detail, and nothing that
I can say will appeal to them.
The “golden words” of Mr. Bryan were as follows:
I believe that this nation could stand before the world to-day
and tell the world that it did not believe in war, that it did
not believe that it was the right way to settle disputes, that
it had no disputes which it was not willing to submit to the
judgment of the world. If this nation did that, it not only
would not be attacked by any other nation on the earth, but it
would become the supreme power in the world.
Of course, it is to be assumed that Mr. Bryan means what he says. If he
does, then he is willing to submit to arbitration the question whether
the Japanese have or have not the right to send unlimited numbers
of immigrants to this shore. If Mr. Bryan does not mean this, among
other specific things, then the “golden words” in question represent
merely the emotionalism of the professional orator. Of course if Mr.
Bryan means what he says, he also believes that we should not have
interfered in Cuba and that Cuba ought now to be the property of
Spain. He also believes that we ought to have permitted Colombia to
reconquer and deprive of their independence the people of Panama, and
that we should not have built the Panama Canal. He also believes that
California and Texas ought now to be parts of Mexico, enjoying whatever
blessings complete abstinence from foreign war has secured that country
during the last three years. He also believes that the Declaration
of Independence was an arbitrable matter and that the United States
ought now to be a dependency of Great Britain. Unless Mr. Bryan does
believe all of these things then his “golden words” represent only a
rhetorical flourish. He is Secretary of State and the right-hand man
of President Wilson, and President Wilson is completely responsible for
whatever he says and for the things he does--or rather which he leaves
undone.
Now, it is quite useless for me to write with any view to convincing
gentlemen like Mr. Bryan and the writer in question. If they really
do represent our fellow countrymen, then they are right in holding
up China as our ideal; not the modern China, not the China that is
changing and moving forward, but old China. In such event Americans
ought frankly to class themselves with the Chinese. That is where, on
this theory, they belong. If this is so, then let us fervently pray
that the Japanese or Germans or some other virile people that does not
deify moral, mental, and physical impotence, may speedily come to rule
over us.
I am, however, writing on the assumption that Americans are still on
the whole like their forefathers who followed Washington, and like
their fathers who fought in the armies of Grant and Lee. I am writing
on the assumption that, even though temporarily misled, they will
not permanently and tamely submit to oppression, and that they will
ultimately think intelligently as to what they should do to safeguard
themselves against aggression. I abhor unjust war, and I deplore that
the need even for just war should ever occur. I believe we should set
our faces like flint against any policy of aggression by this country
on the rights of any other country. But I believe that we should look
facts in the face. I believe that it is unworthy weakness to fear to
face the truth. Moreover, I believe that we should have in us that
fibre of manhood which will make us follow duty whithersoever it may
lead. Unquestionably, we should render all the service it is in our
power to render to righteousness. To do this we must be able to back
righteousness with force, to put might back of right. It may well be
that by following out this theory we can in the end do our part in
conjunction with other nations of the world to bring about, if not--as
I hope--a world peace, yet at least an important minimizing of the
chances for war and of the areas of possible war. But meanwhile it is
absolutely our duty to prepare for our own defense.
This country needs something like the Swiss system of war training for
its young men. Switzerland is one of the most democratic governments in
the world, and it has given its young men such an efficient training as
to insure entire preparedness for war, without suffering from the least
touch of militarism. Switzerland is at peace now primarily because
all the great military nations that surround it know that its people
have no intention of making aggression on anybody and yet that they
are thoroughly prepared to hold their own and are resolute to fight to
the last against any invader who attempts either to subjugate their
territory or by violating its neutrality to make it a battle-ground.
A bishop of the Episcopal Church recently wrote me as follows:
How lamentable that we should stand idle, making no preparations
to enforce peace, and crying “peace” when there is none! I have
scant sympathy for the short-sightedness of those who decry
preparation for war as a means of preventing it.
The manager of a land company in Alabama writes me urging that some one
speak for reasonable preparedness on the part of the nation. He states
that it is always possible that we shall be engaged in hostilities with
some first-class power, that he hopes and believes that war will never
come, but adds:
I may not believe that my home will burn down or that I am going
to die within the period of my expectancy, but nevertheless I
carry fire and life insurance to the full insurable value on my
property and on my life to the extent of my ability. The only
insurance of our liberties as a people is full preparation for
a defense adequate against any attack and made in time to fully
meet any attack. We do not _know_ the attack is coming; but to
wait until it does come will be too late. Our present weakness
lies in the wide-spread opinion among our people that this
country is invincible because of its large population and vast
resources. This I believe is true if, and only if, we use these
resources or a small part of them to protect the major part,
and if we train at least a part of our people how to defend the
nation. Under existing conditions we can hardly hope to have
an effective army in the field in less time than eight or ten
months. To-day not one per cent of our people know anything about
rifle shooting.
I quote these two out of many letters, because they sum up the general
feeling of men of vision. Both of my correspondents are most sincerely
for peace. No man can possibly be more anxious for peace than I am.
I ask those individuals who think of me as a firebrand to remember
that during the seven and a half years I was President not a shot was
fired at any soldier of a hostile nation by any American soldier or
sailor, and there was not so much as a threat of war. Even when the
state of Panama threw off the alien yoke of Colombia and when this
nation, acting as was its manifest duty, by recognizing Panama as
an independent state stood for the right of the governed to govern
themselves on the Isthmus, as well as for justice and humanity,
there was not a shot fired by any of our people at any Colombian.
The blood recently shed at Vera Cruz, like the unpunished wrongs
recently committed on our people in Mexico, had no parallel during my
administration. When I left the presidency there was not a cloud on
the horizon--and one of the reasons why there was not a cloud on the
horizon was that the American battle fleet had just returned from its
sixteen months’ trip around the world, a trip such as no other battle
fleet of any power had ever taken, which it had not been supposed
could be taken, and which exercised a greater influence for peace than
all the peace congresses of the last fifty years. With Lowell I most
emphatically believe that peace is not a gift that tarries long in the
hands of cowards; and the fool and the weakling are no improvement on
the coward.
Nineteen centuries ago in the greatest of all books we were warned
that whoso loses his life for righteousness shall save it and that he
who seeks to save it shall lose it. The ignoble and abject gospel of
those who would teach us that it is preferable to endure disgrace and
discredit than to run any risk to life or limb would defeat its own
purpose; for that kind of submission to wrong-doing merely invites
further wrong-doing, as has been shown a thousand times in history and
as is shown by the case of China in our own days. Moreover, our people,
however ill-prepared, would never consent to such abject submission;
and indeed as a matter of fact our publicists and public men and our
newspapers, instead of being too humble and submissive, are only too
apt to indulge in very offensive talk about foreign nations. Of all the
nations of the world we are the one that combines the greatest amount
of wealth with the smallest ability to defend that wealth. Surely one
does not have to read history very much or ponder over philosophy a
great deal in order to realize the truth that the one certain way
to invite disaster is to be opulent, offensive, and unarmed. There
is utter inconsistency between the ideal of making this nation the
foremost commercial power in the world and of disarmament in the face
of an armed world. There is utter inconsistency between the ideal of
making this nation a power for international righteousness and at the
same time refusing to make us a power efficient in anything save empty
treaties and emptier promises.
I do not believe in a large standing army. Most emphatically I do not
believe in militarism. Most emphatically I do not believe in any policy
of aggression by us. But I do believe that no man is really fit to be
the free citizen of a free republic unless he is able to bear arms and
at need to serve with efficiency in the efficient army of the republic.
This is no new thing with me. For years I have believed that the young
men of the country should know how to use a rifle and should have a
short period of military training which, while not taking them for any
length of time from civil pursuits, would make them quickly capable of
helping defend the country in case of need. When I was governor of New
York, acting in conjunction with the administration at Washington under
President McKinley, I secured the sending abroad of one of the best
officers in the New York National Guard, Colonel William Cary Sanger,
to study the Swiss system. As President I had to devote my attention
chiefly to getting the navy built up. But surely the sight of what has
happened abroad ought to awaken our people to the need of action, not
only as regards our navy but as regards our land forces also.
Australia has done well in this respect. But Switzerland has worked out
a comprehensive scheme with practical intelligence. She has not only
solved the question of having men ready to fight, but she has solved
the question of having arms to give these men. At present England is in
more difficulty about arms than about men, and some of her people when
sent to the front were armed with hunting rifles. Our own shortcomings
are far greater. Indeed, they are so lamentable that it is hard to
believe that our citizens as a whole know them. To equip half the
number of men whom even the British now have in the field would tax
our factories to the limit. In Switzerland, during the last two or
three years of what corresponds to our high-school work the boy is
thoroughly grounded in the rudiments of military training, discipline,
and marksmanship. When he graduates he is put for some four to six
months in the army to receive exactly the training he would get in time
of war. After that he serves eight days a year and in addition often
joins with his fellows in practising at a mark. He keeps his rifle
and accoutrements in his home and is responsible for their condition.
Efficiency is the watchword of Switzerland, and not least in its army.
At the outbreak of this terrible war Switzerland was able to mobilize
her forces in the corner of her territory between France and Germany
as quickly as either of the great combatants could theirs; and no one
trespassed upon her soil.
The Swiss training does not to any appreciable extent take the man away
from his work. But it does make him markedly more efficient for his
work. The training he gets and his short service with the colors render
him appreciably better able to do whatever his job in life is, and, in
addition, benefit his health and spirits. The service is a holiday, and
a holiday of the best because of the most useful type.
There is no reason whatever why Americans should be unwilling or unable
to do what Switzerland has done. We are a far wealthier country
than Switzerland and could afford without the slightest strain the
very trifling expense and the trifling consumption of time rendered
necessary by such a system. It has really nothing in common with the
universal service in the great conscript armies of the military powers.
No man would be really taken out of industry. On the contrary, the
average man would probably be actually benefited so far as doing his
life-work is concerned. The system would be thoroughly democratic in
its workings. No man would be exempted from the work and all would have
to perform the work alike. It would be entirely possible to arrange
that there should be a certain latitude as to the exact year when the
four or six months’ service was given.
Officers, of course, would need a longer training than the men. This
could readily be furnished either by allowing numbers of extra students
to take partial or short-term courses at West Point or by specifying
optional courses in the high schools, the graduates of these special
courses being tested carefully in their field-work and being required
to give extra periods of service and being under the rigid supervision
of the regular army. There could also be opportunities for promotion
from the ranks for any one who chose to take the time and the trouble
to fit himself.
The four or six months’ service with the colors would be for the most
part in the open field. The drill hall and the parade-ground do not
teach more than five per cent of what a soldier must actually know.
Any man who has had any experience with ordinary organizations of the
National Guard when taken into camp knows that at first only a very
limited number of the men have any idea of taking care of themselves
and that the great majority suffer much from dyspepsia, just because
they do not know how to take care of themselves. The soldier needs
to spend some months in actual campaign practice under canvas with
competent instructors before he gets to know his duty. If, however, he
has had previous training in the schools of such a type as that given
in Switzerland and then has this actual practice, he remains for some
years efficient with no more training than eight or ten days a year.
The training must be given in large bodies. It is essential that men
shall get accustomed to the policing and sanitary care of camps in
which there are masses of soldiers. Moreover, officers and especially
the higher officers are wholly useless in war time unless they are
accustomed to handle masses of men in co-operation with one another.
There are small sections of our population out of which it is possible
to improvise soldiers in a short time. Men who are accustomed to ride
and to shoot and to live in the open and who are hardy and enduring and
by nature possess the fighting edge already know most of what it is
necessary that an infantryman or cavalryman should know, and they can
be taught the remainder in a very short time by good officers. Morgan’s
Virginia Riflemen, Andrew Jackson’s Tennesseans, Forrest’s Southwestern
Cavalry were all men of this kind; but even such men are of real use
only after considerable training or else if their leaders are born
fighters and masters of men. Such leaders are rare. The ordinary
dweller in civilization has to be taught to shoot, to walk (or ride if
he is in the cavalry), to cook for himself, to make himself comfortable
in the open, and to take care of his feet and his health generally.
Artillerymen and engineers need long special training.
It may well be that the Swiss on an average can be made into good
troops quicker than our own men; but most assuredly there would be
numbers of Americans who would not be behind the Swiss in such a
matter. A body of volunteers of the kind I am describing would of
course not be as good as a body of regulars of the same size, but they
would be immeasurably better than the average soldiers produced by any
system we now have or ever have had in connection with our militia. Our
regular army would be strengthened by them at the very beginning and
would be set free in its entirety for immediate aggressive action;
and in addition a levy in mass of the young men of the right age would
mean that two or three million troops were put into the field, who,
although not as good as regulars, would at once be available in numbers
sufficient to overwhelm any expeditionary force which it would be
possible for any military power to send to our shores. The existence
of such a force would render the immediate taking of cities like San
Francisco, New York, or Boston an impossibility and would free us
from all danger from sudden raids and make it impossible even for an
army-corps to land with any prospect of success.
Our people are so entirely unused to things military that it is
probably difficult for the average man to get any clear idea of our
shortcomings. Unlike what is true in the military nations of the Old
World, here the ordinary citizen takes no interest in the working of
our War Department in time of peace. No President gains the slightest
credit for himself by paying attention to it. Then when a crisis comes
and the War Department breaks down, instead of the people accepting
what has happened with humility as due to their own fault during the
previous two or three decades, there is a roar of wrath against the
unfortunate man who happens to be in office at the time. There was such
a roar of wrath against Secretary Alger in the Spanish War. Now, as a
matter of fact, ninety per cent of our shortcomings when the war broke
out with Spain could not have been remedied by any action on the part
of the Secretary of War. They were due to what had been done ever since
the close of the Civil War.
We were utterly unprepared. There had been no real manœuvring of so
much as a brigade and very rarely had any of our generals commanded
even a good-sized regiment in the field. The enlisted men and the
junior officers of the regular army were good. Most of the officers
above the rank of captain were nearly worthless. There were striking
exceptions of course, but, taking the average, I really believe that
it would have been on the whole to the advantage of our army in 1898
if all the regular officers above the rank of captain had been retired
and if all the captains who were unfit to be placed in the higher
positions had also been retired. The lieutenants were good. The lack
of administrative skill was even more marked than the lack of military
skill. No one who saw the congestion of trains, supplies, animals, and
men at Tampa will ever forget the impression of helpless confusion
that it gave him. The volunteer forces included some organizations and
multitudes of individuals offering first-class material. But, as a
whole, the volunteer army would have been utterly helpless against any
efficient regular force at the outset of the 1898 war, probably almost
as inefficient as were the two armies which fought one another at Bull
Run in 1861. Even the efficiency of the regular army itself was such
merely by comparison with the volunteers. I do not believe that any
army in the world offered finer material than was offered by the junior
officers and enlisted men of the regular army which disembarked on
Cuban soil in June, 1898; and by the end of the next two weeks probably
the average individual infantry or cavalry organization therein was
at least as good as the average organization of the same size in an
Old-World army. But taking the army as a whole and considering its
management from the time it began to assemble at Tampa until the
surrender of Santiago, I seriously doubt if it was as efficient as a
really good European or Japanese army of half the size. Since then we
have made considerable progress. Our little army of occupation that
went to Cuba at the time of the revolution in Cuba ten years ago was
thoroughly well handled and did at least as well as any foreign force
of the same size could have done. But it did not include ten thousand
men, that is, it did not include as many men as the smallest military
power in Europe would assemble any day for manœuvres.
This is no new thing in our history. If only we were willing to learn
from our defeats and failures instead of paying heed purely to our
successes, we would realize that what I have above described is one of
the common phases of our history. In the War of 1812, at the outset of
the struggle, American forces were repeatedly beaten, as at Niagara and
Bladensburg, by an enemy one half or one quarter the strength of the
American army engaged. Yet two years later these same American troops
on the northern frontier, when trained and commanded by Brown, Scott,
and Ripley, proved able to do what the finest troops of Napoleon were
unable to do, that is, meet the British regulars on equal terms in the
open; and the Tennessee backwoodsmen and Louisiana volunteers, when
mastered and controlled by the iron will and warlike genius of Andrew
Jackson, performed at New Orleans a really great feat. During the year
1812 the American soldiers on shore suffered shameful and discreditable
defeats, and yet their own brothers at sea won equally striking
victories, and this because the men on shore were utterly unprepared
and because the men at sea had been thoroughly trained and drilled long
in advance.
Exactly the same lessons are taught by the histories of other nations.
When, during the Napoleonic wars, a small force of veteran French
soldiers landed in Ireland they defeated without an effort five times
their number of British and Irish troops at Castlebar. Yet the men
whom they thus drove in wild flight were the own brothers of and often
the very same men who a few years later, under Wellington, proved an
overmatch for the flower of the French forces. The nation that waits
until the crisis is upon it before taking measures for its own safety
pays heavy toll in the blood of its best and its bravest and in bitter
shame and humiliation. Small is the comfort it can then take from the
memory of the times when the noisy and feeble folk in its own ranks
cried “Peace, peace,” without taking one practical step to secure peace.
We can never follow out a worthy national policy, we can never be of
benefit to others or to ourselves, unless we keep steadily in view
as our ideal that of the just man armed, the man who is fearless,
self-reliant, ready, because he has prepared himself for possible
contingencies; the man who is scornful alike of those who would advise
him to do wrong and of those who would advise him tamely to suffer
wrong. The great war now being waged in Europe and the fact that
no neutral nation has ventured to make even the smallest effort to
alleviate[1] or even to protest against the wrongs that have been
done show with lamentable clearness that all the peace congresses
of the past fifteen years have accomplished precisely and exactly
nothing so far as any great crisis is concerned. Fundamentally this is
because they have confined themselves to mere words, seemingly without
realizing that mere words are utterly useless unless translated into
deeds and that an ounce of promise which is accompanied by provision
for a similar ounce of effective performance is worth at least a ton
of promise as to which no effective method of performance is provided.
Furthermore, a very serious blunder has been to treat peace as the end
instead of righteousness as the end. The greatest soldier-patriots
of history, Timoleon, John Hamden, Andreas Hofer, Koerner, the great
patriot-statesman-soldiers like Washington, the great patriot-statesmen
like Lincoln whose achievements for good depended upon the use of
soldiers, have all achieved their immortal claim to the gratitude of
mankind by what they did in just war. To condemn war in terms which
include the wars these men waged or took part in precisely as they
include the most wicked and unjust wars of history is to serve the
devil and not God.
[1] The much advertised sending of food and supplies to
Belgium has been of most benefit to the German conquerors
of Belgium. They have taken the money and food of the
Belgians and permitted the Belgians to be supported by
outsiders. Of course, it was far better to send them food,
even under such conditions, than to let them starve; but
the professional pacificists would do well to ponder the
fact that if the neutral nations had been willing to
prevent the invasion of Belgium, which could only be done
by willingness and ability to use force, they would by
this act of “war” have prevented more misery and suffering
to innocent men, women, and children than the organized
charity of all the “peaceful” nations of the world can now
remove.
Again, these peace people have persistently and resolutely blinked
facts. One of the peace congresses sat in New York at the very time
that the feeling in California about the Japanese question gravely
threatened the good relations between ourselves and the great empire
of Japan. The only thing which at the moment could practically be
done for the cause of peace was to secure some proper solution of the
question at issue between ourselves and Japan. But this represented
real effort, real thought. The peace congress paid not the slightest
serious attention to the matter and instead devoted itself to listening
to speeches which favored the abolition of the United States navy and
even in one case the prohibiting the use of tin soldiers in nurseries
because of the militaristic effect on the minds of the little boys and
girls who played with them!
Ex-President Taft has recently said that it is hysterical to endeavor
to prepare against war; and he at the same time explained that the
only real possibility of war was to be found “in the wanton, reckless,
wicked willingness on the part of a narrow section of the country to
gratify racial prejudice and class hatred by flagrant breach of treaty
right in the form of state law.” This characterization is, of course,
aimed at the State of California for its action toward the Japanese.
If--which may Heaven forfend--any trouble comes because of the action
of California toward the Japanese, a prime factor in producing it will
be the treaty negotiated four years ago with Japan; and no clearer
illustration can be given of the mischief that comes to our people from
the habit our public men have contracted of getting cheap applause for
themselves by making treaties which they know to be shams, which they
know cannot be observed. The result of such action is that there is
one set of real facts, those that actually exist and must be reckoned
with, and another set of make-believe facts which do not exist except
on pieces of paper or in after-dinner speeches, which are known to be
false but which serve to deceive well-meaning pacificists. Four years
ago there was in existence a long-standing treaty with Japan under
which we reserved the right to keep out Japanese laborers. Every man
of any knowledge whatever of conditions on the Pacific Slope, and,
indeed, generally throughout this country, knew, and knows now, that
any immigration in mass to this country of the Japanese, whether the
immigrants be industrial laborers or men whose labor takes the form of
agricultural work or even the form of small shopkeeping, was and is
absolutely certain to produce trouble of the most dangerous kind. The
then administration entered on a course of conduct as regards Manchuria
which not only deeply offended the Japanese but actually achieved the
result of uniting the Russians and Japanese against us. To make amends
for this serious blunder the administration committed the far worse
blunder of endeavoring to placate Japanese opinion by the negotiation
of a new treaty in which our right to exclude Japanese laborers,
that is, to prevent Japanese immigration in mass, was abandoned. The
extraordinary and lamentable fact in the matter was that the California
senators acquiesced in the treaty. Apparently they took the view, which
so many of our public men do take and which they are encouraged to take
by the unwisdom of those who demand impossible treaties, that they were
perfectly willing to please some people by passing the treaty because,
if necessary, the opponents of the treaty could at any time be placated
by its violation. One item in securing their support was the statement
by the then administration that the Japanese authorities had said
that they would promise under a “gentlemen’s agreement” to keep the
immigrants out if only they were by treaty given the right to let them
in. Under the preceding treaty, during my administration, the Japanese
government had made and had in good faith kept such an agreement, the
agreement being that as long as the Japanese government itself kept out
Japanese immigrants and thereby relieved us of the necessity of passing
any law to exclude them, no such law would be passed. Apparently the
next administration did not perceive the fathomless difference between
retaining the power to enact a law which was not enacted as long as no
necessity for enacting it arose, and abandoning the power, surrendering
the right, and trusting that the necessity to exercise it would not
arise.
I immensely admire and respect the Japanese people. I prize their
good-will. I am proud of my personal relations with some of their
leading men. Fifty years ago there was no possible community between
the Japanese and ourselves. The events of the last fifty years have
been so extraordinary that now Japanese statesmen, generals, artists,
writers, scientific men, business men, can meet our corresponding men
on terms of entire equality. I am fortunate enough to have a number
of Japanese friends. I value their friendship. They and I meet on a
footing of absolute equality, socially, politically, and in every
other way. I respect and regard them precisely as in the case of my
German and Russian, French and English friends. But there is no use
blinking the truth because it is unpleasant. As yet the differences
between the Japanese who work with their hands and the Americans who
work with their hands are such that it is absolutely impossible for
them, when brought into contact with one another in great numbers, to
get on. Japan would not permit any immigration in mass of our people
into her territory, and it is wholly inadvisable that there should be
such immigration of her people into our territory. This is not because
either side is inferior to the other but because they are different.
As a matter of fact, these differences are sometimes in favor of the
Japanese and sometimes in favor of the Americans. But they are so
marked that at this time, whatever may be the case in the future,
friction and trouble are certain to come if there is any immigration
in mass of Japanese into this country, exactly as friction and trouble
have actually come in British Columbia from this cause, and have been
prevented from coming in Australia only by the most rigid exclusion
laws. Under these conditions the way to avoid trouble is not by making
believe that things which are not so are so but by courteously and
firmly facing the situation. The two nations should be given absolutely
reciprocal treatment. Students, statesmen, publicists, scientific men,
all travellers, whether for business or pleasure, and all men engaged
in international business, whether Japanese or American, should have
absolute right of entry into one another’s countries and should be
treated with the highest consideration while therein, but no settlement
in mass should be permitted of the people of either country in the
other country. All travelling and sojourning by the people of either
country in the other country should be encouraged, but there should be
no immigration of workers to, no settlement in, either country by the
people of the other. I advocate this solution, which for years I have
advocated, because I am not merely a friend but an intense admirer of
Japan, because I am most anxious that America should learn from Japan
the great amount that Japan can teach us and because I wish to work
for the best possible feeling between the two countries. Each country
has interests in the Pacific which can best be served by their cordial
co-operation on a footing of frank and friendly equality; and in
eastern Asiatic waters the interest and therefore the proper dominance
of Japan are and will be greater than those of any other nation.
If such a plan as that above advocated were once adopted by both
our nations all sources of friction between the two countries would
vanish at once. Ultimately I have no question that all restrictions of
movement from one country to the other could be dispensed with. But
to attempt to dispense with them in our day and our generation will
fail; and even worse failure will attend the attempt to make believe to
dispense with them while not doing so.
It is eminently necessary that the United States should in good faith
observe its treaties, and it is therefore eminently necessary not to
pass treaties which it is absolutely certain will not be obeyed, and
which themselves provoke disobedience to them. The height of folly, of
course, is to pass treaties which will not be obeyed and the disregard
of which may cause the gravest possible trouble, even war, and at
the same time to refuse to prepare for war and to pass other foolish
treaties calculated to lure our people into the belief that there will
never be war.
I advocate that our preparedness take such shape as to fit us to
resist aggression, not to encourage us in aggression. I advocate
preparedness that will enable us to defend our own shores and to
defend the Panama Canal and Hawaii and Alaska, and prevent the seizure
of territory at the expense of any commonwealth of the western
hemisphere by any military power of the Old World. I advocate this
being done in the most democratic manner possible. We Americans do
not realize how fundamentally democratic our army really is. When
I served in Cuba it was under General Sam Young and alongside of
General Adna Chaffee. Both had entered the American army as enlisted
men in the Civil War. Later, as President, I made both of them in
succession lieutenant-generals and commanders of the army. On the
occasion when General Chaffee was to appear at the White House for
the first time as lieutenant-general, General Young sent him his own
starred shoulder-straps with a little note saying that they were from
“Private Young, ’61, to Private Chaffee, ’61.” Both of the fine old
fellows represented the best type of citizen-soldier. Each was simply
and sincerely devoted to peace and justice. Each was incapable of
advocating our doing wrong to others. Neither could have understood
willingness on the part of any American to see the United States
submit tamely to insult or injury. Both typified the attitude that we
Americans should take in our dealings with foreign countries.