OUR PEACEMAKER, THE NAVY
The course of the present administration in foreign affairs has now
and then combined officiously offensive action toward foreign powers
with tame submission to wrong-doing by foreign powers. As a nation we
have refused to do our duty to others and yet we have at times tamely
submitted to wrong at the hands of others. This has been notably
true of our conduct in Mexico; and we have come perilously near such
conduct in the case of Japan. It is also true of our activities as
regards the European war. We failed to act in accordance with our
obligations as a signatory power to the Hague treaties. In addition to
the capital crime committed against Belgium we have seen outrage after
outrage perpetrated in violation of the Hague conventions, and yet the
administration has never ventured so much as a protest. It has even at
times, and with wavering and vacillation, adopted policies unjust to
one or the other of the two sets of combatants. But it has immediately
abandoned these policies when the combatants in violent and improper
fashion overrode them; and it has submitted with such tame servility
to whatever the warring nations have dictated that in effect we see,
as Theodore Woolsey, the expert on international law, has pointed out,
the American government protecting belligerent interests abroad at the
expense of neutral interests both at home and abroad. Not since the
Napoleonic wars have belligerents acted with such high-handed disregard
of the rights of neutrals. Germany was the first and greatest offender;
and when we failed to protest in her case the administration perhaps
felt ashamed to protest, felt that it was estopped from protesting, in
other cases. England in its turn has violated our neutrality rights,
and while exercising both force and ingenuity in making this violation
effective has protested as if she herself were the injured party. As a
matter of fact, England and France should note that in view of their
command of the seas our war trade is of such value to them that certain
congressmen, whose interest in Germany surpasses their interest in
the United States, have sought by law totally to prohibit it. This
proposed--and thoroughly improper--action is a sufficient answer to
the charges of the Allies, and should remind them how ill they requite
the service rendered by our merchants when they seek to block all our
intercourse with other nations. They, however, are only to be blamed
for short-sightedness; there is no reason why they should pay heed to
American interests. But the administration should represent American
interests; it should see that while we perform our duties as neutrals
we should be protected in our rights as neutrals; and one of these
rights is the trade in contraband. To prohibit this is to take part in
the war for the benefit of one belligerent at the expense of another
and to our own cost.
Of course it would be an ignoble action on our part after having
conspicuously failed to protest against the violation of Belgian
neutrality to show ourselves overeager to protest against comparatively
insignificant violations of our own neutral rights. But we should never
have put ourselves in such a position as to make insistence on our own
rights seem disregard for the rights of others. The proper course for
us to pursue was, on the one hand, scrupulously to see that we did
not so act as to injure any contending nation, unless required to do
so in the name of morality and of our solemn treaty obligations, and
also fearlessly to act on behalf of other nations which were wronged,
as required by these treaty obligations; and, on the other hand, with
courteous firmness to warn any nation which, for instance, seized or
searched our ships against the accepted rules of international conduct
that this we could not permit and that such a course should not be
persevered in by any nation which desired our good-will. I believe I
speak for at least a considerable portion of our people when I say that
we wish to make it evident that we feel sincere good-will toward all
nations; that any action we take against any nation is taken with the
greatest reluctance and only because the wrong-doing of that nation
imposes a distinct, although painful, duty upon us; and yet that we do
not intend ourselves to submit to wrong-doing from any nation.
Until an efficient world league for peace is in more than mere process
of formation the United States must depend upon itself for protection
where its vital interests are concerned. All the youth of the nation
should be trained in warlike exercises and in the use of arms--as
well as in the indispensable virtues of courage, self-restraint, and
endurance--so as to be fit for national defense. But the right arm of
the nation must be its navy. Our navy is our most efficient peacemaker.
In order to use the navy effectively we should clearly define to
ourselves the policy we intend to follow and the limits over which we
expect our power to extend. Our own coasts, Alaska, Hawaii, and the
Panama Canal and its approaches should represent the sphere in which
we should expect to be able, single-handed, to meet and master any
opponent from overseas.
I exclude the Philippines. This is because I feel that the present
administration has definitely committed us to a course of action which
will make the early and complete severance of the Philippines from
us not merely desirable but necessary. I have never felt that the
Philippines were of any special use to us. But I have felt that we had
a great task to perform there and that a great nation is benefited by
doing a great task. It was our bounden duty to work primarily for the
interests of the Filipinos; but it was also our bounden duty, inasmuch
as the entire responsibility lay upon us, to consult our own judgment
and not theirs in finally deciding what was to be done. It was our
duty to govern the islands or to get out of the islands. It was most
certainly not our duty to take the responsibility of staying in the
islands without governing them. Still less was it--or is it--our duty
to enter into joint arrangements with other powers about the islands;
arrangements of confused responsibility and divided power of the
kind sure to cause mischief. I had hoped that we would continue to
govern the islands until we were certain that they were able to govern
themselves in such fashion as to do justice to other nations and to
repel injustice committed on them by other nations. To substitute for
such government by ourselves either a government by the Filipinos with
us guaranteeing them against outsiders, or a joint guarantee between us
and outsiders, would be folly. It is eminently desirable to guarantee
the neutrality of small civilized nations which have a high social
and cultural status and which are so advanced that they do not fall
into disorder or commit wrong-doing on others. But it is eminently
undesirable to guarantee the neutrality or sovereignty of an inherently
weak nation which is impotent to preserve order at home, to repel
assaults from abroad, or to refrain from doing wrong to outsiders. It
is even more undesirable to give such a guarantee with no intention of
making it really effective. That this is precisely what the present
administration would be delighted to do has been shown by its refusal
to live up to its Hague promises at the very time that it was making
similar new international promises by the batch. To enter into a joint
guarantee of neutrality which in emergencies can only be rendered
effective by force of arms is to incur a serious responsibility which
ought to be undertaken in a serious spirit. To enter into it with no
intention of using force, or of preparing force, in order at need to
make it effective, represents the kind of silliness which is worse than
wickedness.
Above all, we should keep our promises. The present administration was
elected on the outright pledge of giving the Filipinos independence.
Apparently its course in the Philippines has proceeded upon the theory
that the Filipinos are now fit to govern themselves. Whatever may be
our personal and individual beliefs in this matter, we ought not as a
nation to break faith or even to seem to break faith. I hope therefore
that the Filipinos will be given their independence at an early date
and without any guarantee from us which might in any way hamper our
future action or commit us to staying on the Asiatic coast. I do not
believe we should keep any foothold whatever in the Philippines. Any
kind of position by us in the Philippines merely results in making
them our heel of Achilles if we are attacked by a foreign power. They
can be of no compensating benefit to us. If we were to retain complete
control over them and to continue the course of action which in the
past sixteen years has resulted in such immeasurable benefit for them,
then I should feel that it was our duty to stay and work for them
in spite of the expense incurred by us and the risk we thereby ran.
But inasmuch as we have now promised to leave them and as we are now
abandoning our power to work efficiently for and in them, I do not
feel that we are warranted in staying in the islands in an equivocal
position, thereby incurring great risk to ourselves without conferring
any real compensating advantage, of a kind which we are bound to
take into account, on the Filipinos themselves. If the Filipinos are
entitled to independence then we are entitled to be freed from all the
responsibility and risk which our presence in the islands entails upon
us.
The great nations of southernmost South America, Brazil, the Argentine,
and Chile are now so far advanced in stability and power that there is
no longer any need of applying the Monroe Doctrine as far as they are
concerned; and this also relieves us as regards Uruguay and Paraguay
the former of which is well advanced and neither of which has any
interests with which we need particularly concern ourselves. As regards
all these powers, therefore, we now have no duty save that doubtless if
they got into difficulties and desired our aid we would gladly extend
it, just as, for instance, we would to Australia and Canada. But we can
now proceed on the assumption that they are able to help themselves and
that any help we should be required to give would be given by us as an
auxiliary rather than as a principal.
Our naval problem, therefore, is primarily to provide for the
protection of our own coasts and for the protection and policing of
Hawaii, Alaska, and the Panama Canal and its approaches. This offers
a definite problem which should be solved by our naval men. It is for
them, having in view the lessons taught by this war, to say what is
the exact type of fleet we require, the number and kind of submarines,
of destroyers, of mines, and of air-ships to be used against hostile
fleets, in addition to the cruisers and great fighting craft which must
remain the backbone of the navy. Civilians may be competent to pass
on the merits of the plans suggested by the naval men, but it is the
naval men themselves who must make and submit the plans in detail. Lay
opinion, however, should keep certain elementary facts steadily in mind.
The navy must primarily be used for offensive purposes. Forts, not the
navy, are to be used for defense. The only permanently efficient type
of defensive is the offensive. A portion, and a very important portion,
of our naval strength must be used with our own coast ordinarily as a
base, its striking radius being only a few score miles, or a couple
of hundred at the outside. The events of this war have shown that
submarines can play a tremendous part. We should develop our force of
submarines and train the officers and crews who have charge of them
to the highest pitch of efficiency--for they will be useless in time
of war unless those aboard them have been trained in time of peace.
These submarines, when used in connection with destroyers and with
air-ships, can undoubtedly serve to minimize the danger of successful
attack on our own shores. But the prime lesson of the war, as regards
the navy, is that the nation with a powerful seagoing navy, although it
may suffer much annoyance and loss, yet is able on the whole to take
the offensive and do great damage to a nation with a less powerful
navy. Great Britain’s naval superiority over Germany has enabled her
completely to paralyze all Germany’s sea commerce and to prevent goods
from entering her ports. What is far more important, it has enabled the
British to land two or three hundred thousand men to aid the French,
and has enabled Canada and Australia to send a hundred thousand men
from the opposite ends of the earth to Great Britain. If Germany had
had the more powerful navy England would now have suffered the fate of
Belgium.
The capital work done by the German cruisers in the Atlantic, the
Pacific, and the Indian Oceans shows how much can be accomplished in
the way of hurting and damaging an enemy by even the weaker power if
it possesses fine ships, well handled, able to operate thousands of
miles from their own base. We must not fail to recognize this. Neither
must we fail heartily and fully to recognize the capital importance of
submarines as well as air-ships, torpedo-boat destroyers, and mines,
as proved by the events of the last three months. But nothing that
has yet occurred warrants us in feeling that we can afford to ease up
in our programme of building battle-ships and cruisers, especially the
former. The German submarines have done wonderfully in this war; their
cruisers have done gallantly. But so far as Great Britain is concerned
the vital and essential feature has been the fact that her great battle
fleet has kept the German fleet immured in its own home ports, has
protected Britain from invasion, and has enabled her land strength to
be used to its utmost capacity beside the armies of France and Belgium.
If the men who for years have clamored against Britain’s being prepared
had had their way, if Britain during the last quarter of a century had
failed to continue the upbuilding of her navy, if the English statesmen
corresponding to President Wilson and Mr. Bryan had seen their ideas
triumph, England would now be off the map as a great power and the
British Empire would have dissolved, while London, Liverpool, and
Birmingham would be in the condition of Antwerp and Brussels.
The efficiency of the German personnel at sea has been no less
remarkable than the efficiency of the German personnel on land. This
is due partly to the spirit of the nation and partly to what is itself
a consequence of that spirit, the careful training of the navy during
peace under the conditions of actual service. When, early in 1909, our
battle fleet returned from its sixteen months’ voyage around the world
there was no navy in the world which, size for size, ship for ship,
and squadron for squadron, stood at a higher pitch of efficiency. We
blind ourselves to the truth if we believe that the same is true now.
During the last twenty months, ever since Secretary Meyer left the Navy
Department, there has been in our navy a great falling off relatively
to other nations. It was quite impossible to avoid this while our
national affairs were handled as they have recently been handled.
The President who intrusts the Departments of State and the Navy to
gentlemen like Messrs. Bryan and Daniels deliberately invites disaster,
in the event of serious complications with a formidable foreign
opponent. On the whole, there is no class of our citizens, big or
small, who so emphatically deserve well of the country as the officers
and the enlisted men of the army and navy. No navy in the world has
such fine stuff out of which to make man-of-war’s men. But they must
be heartily backed up, heartily supported, and sedulously trained.
They must be treated well, and, above all, they must be treated so as
to encourage the best among them by sharply discriminating against the
worst. The utmost possible efficiency should be demanded of them. They
are emphatically and in every sense of the word men; and real men
resent with impatient contempt a policy under which less than their
best is demanded. The finest material is utterly worthless without
the best personnel. In such a highly specialized service as the navy
constant training of a purely military type is an absolute necessity.
At present our navy is lamentably short in many different material
directions. There is actually but one torpedo for each torpedo tube. It
seems incredible that such can be the case; yet it is the case. We are
many thousands of men short in our enlistments. We are lamentably short
in certain types of vessel. There is grave doubt as to the efficiency
of many of our submarines and destroyers. But the shortcomings in our
training are even more lamentable. To keep the navy cruising near
Vera Cruz and in Mexican waters, without manœuvring, invites rapid
deterioration. For nearly two years there has been no fleet manœuvring;
and this fact by itself probably means a twenty-five per cent loss of
efficiency. During the same periods most of the ships have not even
had division gun practice. Not only should our navy be as large as our
position and interest demand but it should be kept continually at the
highest point of efficiency and should never be used save for its own
appropriate military purposes. Of this elementary fact the present
administration seems to be completely ignorant.
President Wilson and Secretary Daniels assert that our navy is in
efficient shape. Admiral Fiske’s testimony is conclusive to the
contrary, although it was very cautiously given, as is but natural
when a naval officer, if he tells the whole truth, must state what
is unpleasant for his superiors to hear. Other naval officers have
pointed out our deficiencies, and the newspapers state that some
of them have been reprimanded for so doing. But there is no need
for their testimony. There is one admitted fact which is absolutely
conclusive in the matter. There has been no fleet manœuvring during
the past twenty-two months. In spite of fleet manœuvring the navy may
be unprepared. But it is an absolute certainty that without fleet
manœuvring it cannot possibly be prepared. In the unimportant domain
of sport there is not a man who goes to see the annual football game
between Harvard and Yale who would not promptly cancel his ticket
if either university should propose to put into the field a team
which, no matter how good the players were individually, had not been
practised as a team during the preceding sixty days. If in such event
the president of either university or the coach of the team should
announce that in spite of never having had any team practice the
team was nevertheless in first-class condition, there is literally
no intelligent follower of the game who would regard the utterance as
serious. Why should President Wilson and Secretary Daniels expect the
American public to show less intelligence as regards the vital matter
of our navy than they do as regards a mere sport, a mere play? For
twenty-two months there has been no fleet manœuvring. Since in the
daily press, early in November, I, with emphasis, called attention to
this fact Mr. Daniels has announced that shortly manœuvring will take
place; and of course the failure to manœuvre for nearly two years has
been due less to Mr. Daniels than to President Wilson’s futile and
mischievous Mexican policy and his entire ignorance of the needs of
the navy. I am glad that the administration has tardily waked up to
the necessity of taking some steps to make the navy efficient, and if
the President and the Secretary of the Navy bring forth fruits meet
for repentance, I will most heartily acknowledge the fact--just as
it has given me the utmost pleasure to praise and support President
Wilson’s Secretary of War, Mr. Garrison. But misstatements as to actual
conditions make but a poor preparation for the work of remedying these
conditions, and President Wilson and Secretary Daniels try to conceal
from the people our ominous naval shortcomings. The shortcomings
are far-reaching, alike in material, organization, and practical
training. The navy is absolutely unprepared; its efficiency has been
terribly reduced under and because of the action of President Wilson
and Secretary Daniels. Let them realize this fact and do all they can
to remedy the wrong they have committed. Let Congress realize its own
shortcomings. Far-reaching and thoroughgoing treatment, continued for
a period of at least two and in all probability three years, is needed
if the navy is to be placed on an equality, unit for unit, no less than
in the mass, with the navies of England, Germany, and Japan. In the
present war the deeds of the _Emden_, of the German submarines, of Von
Spee’s squadron, have shown not merely efficiency but heroism; and the
navies of Great Britain and Japan have been handled in masterly manner.
Have the countrymen of Farragut, of Cushing, Buchanan, Winslow, and
Semmes, of Decatur, Hull, Perry, and MacDonough, lost their address and
courage, and are they willing to sink below the standard set by their
forefathers?
It has been said that the United States never learns by experience
but only by disaster. Such method of education may at times prove
costly. The slothful or short-sighted citizens who are now misled by
the cries of the ultrapacificists would do well to remember events
connected with the outbreak of the war with Spain. I was then
Assistant Secretary of the Navy. At one bound our people passed from
a condition of smug confidence that war never could occur (a smug
confidence just as great as any we feel at present) to a condition of
utterly unreasoning panic over what might be done to us by a very weak
antagonist. One governor of a seaboard State announced that none of the
National Guard regiments would be allowed to respond to the call of the
President because they would be needed to prevent a Spanish invasion
of that State--the Spaniards being about as likely to make such an
invasion as we were to invade Timbuctoo or Turkestan. One congressman
besought me to send a battle-ship to protect Jekyll Island, off the
coast of Georgia. Another congressman asked me to send a battle-ship
to protect a summer colony which centred around a large Atlantic-coast
hotel in Connecticut. In my own neighborhood on Long Island clauses
were gravely inserted into the leases of property to the effect that
if the Spaniards destroyed the property the leases should terminate.
Chambers of commerce, boards of trade, municipal authorities, leading
business men, from one end of the country to the other, hysterically
demanded, each of them, that a ship should be stationed to defend
some particular locality; the theory being that our navy should be
strung along both seacoasts, each ship by itself, in a purely defensive
attitude--thereby making certain that even the Spanish navy could pick
them all up in detail. One railway president came to protest to me
against the choice of Tampa as a point of embarkation for our troops,
on the ground that his railway was entitled to its share of the profit
of transporting troops and munitions of war and that his railway
went to New Orleans. The very senators and congressmen who had done
everything in their power to prevent the building up and the efficient
training of the navy screamed and shrieked loudest to have the navy
diverted from its proper purpose and used to protect unimportant
seaports. Surely our congressmen and, above all, our people need to
learn that in time of crisis peace treaties are worthless, and the
ultrapacificists of both sexes merely a burden on and a detriment to
the country as a whole; that the only permanently useful defensive is
the offensive, and that the navy is properly the offensive weapon of
the nation.
The navy of the United States is the right arm of the United States and
is emphatically the peacemaker. Woe to our country if we permit that
right arm to become palsied or even to become flabby and inefficient!