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DEFENSELESS
AMERICA
BY
HUDSON MAXIM
[Illustration]
"_The quick-firing gun is the greatest
life-saving instrument ever invented._"
Page 83.
HEARST'S INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY CO.
NEW YORK
Copyright, 1915, by
HEARST'S INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY CO., INC.
_All rights reserved, including that of translation into the
foreign languages, including the Scandinavian_
FOREWORD
* * * * *
THIS BOOK IS PRESENTED
WITH THE
COMPLIMENTS OF THE AUTHOR
To a Few Selected Leaders of American Thought and Shapers of Public
Opinion
* * * * *
DEAR READER:
I send you this book in the hope that if not already convinced, you will
be convinced by it of the defenseless state of this country--convinced
that our danger is as great as our weakness. I hope that you may be
moved to use your influence that this country may, by adequate
preparation against war, safeguard the property, honor and lives of its
people and the sanctity of the American home from violation by a foreign
foe.
If you are already convinced of our great need then the reading of this
book may still strengthen your conviction and stimulate your efforts in
the cause of national defense.
After you have read the book, kindly lend it to your friends, that they
also may read it.
Defenseless America was published a year ago at two dollars per copy.
Several editions of the book have already been printed and sold.
Soon after the publication of the work I presented ten thousand copies,
with my compliments, to students graduating in American universities.
This has given many persons the impression that Defenseless America is a
book for free distribution.
To correct such an impression, let me say most emphatically that this
book is not free, except to a few persons whom I have selected, and to
whom I have sent it free at my own personal expense, for the good of the
cause of national defense.
The book has exerted so marked an influence in rousing the people of
this country to their needs for defense against the red hell of war,
that the publishers, through patriotic duty, have placed the good it is
doing above all considerations of profit to themselves, and have
supplied me copies of this edition of the work absolutely at cost.
The publishers have also put an edition of the book on sale, of which
this copy is a specimen, at only fifty cents a copy. In order to enable
them to do this, I have cut out all royalties on sales which they may
make.
This edition of the book may be bought of or ordered through any book
store at fifty cents a copy, or from the publishers, Hearst's
International Library Company, 119 West 40th Street, New York, N. Y.,
who will send single copies of the book to any address on receipt of
sixty cents, or they will send ten copies of the book, in a single
package, to any address on receipt of five dollars--fifty cents a copy.
Copies of the regular library edition, printed on superior paper and
bound in extra cloth, gold stamping, may be obtained from booksellers or
direct from the publishers at two dollars a copy.
Many of the readers of this book have already seen that wonderful motion
picture play, "The Battle Cry of Peace," founded upon it.
Commodore J. Stuart Blackton, President of the Vitagraph Company of
America, who wrote the scenario of "The Battle Cry of Peace", has this
to say about Defenseless America:--
"To the fearless patriotism of Hudson Maxim and the plain,
practical, straightforward truths in his book, 'Defenseless
America,' I owe the inspiration and impetus which caused me to
conceive and write the scenario of 'The Battle Cry of Peace.'
"The object of both book and picture is to arouse in the heart
of every American citizen a sense of his strict accountability
to his government in time of need, and to bring to the notice
of the greatest number of people in the shortest possible time
the fact that there is a way to insure that peace for which we
all so earnestly pray."
Commodore Blackton, being a staunch patriot and a man with phenomenal
vision and breadth of understanding, and being one of the largest
producers of motion pictures in the world, saw at once, as soon as he
read Defenseless America, that the best way to impress the American
people with the message of the book, as he had himself been impressed by
reading it, was to visualize that message in a great motion picture.
Then the people would be able to see, with their own eyes, those
terrible things happening in our country and in our very homes, which
are happening abroad and which are surely going to happen to us if we do
not prepare, and immediately and adequately prepare to save the country.
Faithfully yours,
HUDSON MAXIM.
MAXIM PARK,
LANDING P.O.,
NEW JERSEY,
1916
PREFACE
The main object of this book is to present a phalanx of facts upon the
subject of the defenseless condition of this country, and to show what
must be done, and done quickly, in order to avert the most dire calamity
that can fall upon a people--that of merciless invasion by a foreign
foe, with the horrors of which no pestilence can be compared.
We should bring a lesser calamity upon ourselves by abolishing our
quarantine system against the importation of deadly disease and inviting
a visitation like the great London Plague, or by letting in the Black
Death to sweep our country as it swept Europe in the Middle Ages, than
by neglecting our quarantine against war, as we are neglecting it,
thereby inviting the pestilence of invasion.
Self-preservation is the first law of Nature, and this law applies to
nations exactly as it applies to individuals. Our American Republic
cannot survive unless it obeys the law of survival, which all
individuals must obey, which all nations must obey, and which all other
nations are obeying. No individual, and no nation, has ever disobeyed
that law for long and lived; and it is too big a task for the United
States of America.
It is the aim of this work to discover truth to the reader, unvarnished
and unembellished, and, at the same time, as far as possible, to avoid
personalities. Wherever practicable, philosophic generalizations have
been tied down to actualities, based upon experiential knowledge and
innate common-sense of the eternal fitness of things.
The strong appeal of Lord Roberts for the British nation to prepare for
the Armageddon that is now on, which he knew was coming, did not awaken
England, but served rather to rouse Germany.
Admiral Mahan pleaded long with his country for an adequate navy. All
the Great Powers of the world except America were stimulated by his
logic to strengthen their navies. The beautiful, imaginative, logical
language of General Homer Lea, on America's military weakness, in his
"Valor of Ignorance" and "The Day of the Saxon," has caused many a gun
to be made, many a battalion of troops to be enlisted, and many a
warship to be built--in foreign countries.
The eloquent words of wisdom of Lord Roberts, Admiral Mahan, Homer Lea,
and all real friends of peace and advocates of the only way of
maintaining peace--by being prepared against war--have fallen on a deaf
America. I am well aware of the fact that nothing I can say will rouse
the people of my country to the reality and magnitude of their danger,
and to a true appreciation of the imperative necessity for immediate
preparation against war.
Possibly this book may lessen a little the effect of the pernicious
propagandism of the pacifists--may somewhat help Congressional
appropriations for defense--may place a few more men and a few more guns
on the firing-line, and thereby save the lives of a few of our
people--may save a few homes from the torch--may lessen the area of
devastation--may, by adding a little power to our resistance, help to
get slightly better terms from the conquerors for our liberation.
Pacifism has ringed the nose of the American people and is leading them,
blind and unknowing, to the slaughter. War is inevitable. It matters not
that, if this country could be roused, it might be saved. When it is
impossible to vitalize the impulse necessary to the accomplishment of a
thing, that thing is impossible. So, I say, war is inevitable and
imminent.
The American people could not now be roused sufficiently to avert the
impending calamity even by a call that would rift the sky and shake down
the stars from heaven!
Fate has decreed that our pride shall be humbled, and that we shall be
bowed to the dirt. We must first put on sackcloth, ashed in the embers
of our burning homes. Perhaps, when we build anew on the fire-blackened
desolation, our mood may be receptive of the knowledge that we must
shield our homes with blood and brawn and iron.
HUDSON MAXIM.
Maxim Park,
Landing P.O.,
New Jersey.
March, 1915.
CONTENTS
PREFACE v
OUR GREAT OBSESSION xiii
I DANGEROUS PREACHMENTS 1
II CAN LAW BE SUBSTITUTED FOR WAR? 22
III OUR INCONSISTENT MONROE DOCTRINE 56
IV MODERN METHODS AND MACHINERY OF WAR 68
V THE NEEDS OF OUR ARMY (With Letter from General
Leonard Wood) 113
VI THE NEEDS OF OUR NAVY 141
VII LANGUAGE OF THE BIG GUNS 181
VIII AERIAL WARFARE 203
IX OUR ARMAMENTS NOT A BURDEN 222
X EGO-FANATIC GOOD INTENTIONS AND THEIR RELATION TO
NATIONAL DEFENSE 235
XI A DANGEROUS CRIMINAL CLASS? 247
XII THE GOOD AND EVIL OF PEACE AND OF WAR 265
WHAT SHALL THE END BE? 306
INDEX 309
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Vast Territory that Our Inflated Monroe Doctrine Obligates
Us to Defend 60
The Heart of America 76
Relative Numerical Strength of Field Artillery 104
Portrait of General Leonard Wood, U. S. A. 114
Number of Officers and Enlisted Men of U. S. Regular Army 118
Strength of Regular Armies on Peace Footing 124
Portrait of Admiral Austin M. Knight, U. S. N. 150
Strategic Spheres of Vital Importance in the Pacific 160
Battleship Strength of the Nations 168
How New York Could Be Bombarded from a Position off Rockaway
Beach Beyond the Range of Our Forts 188
Opposing Fleets in Action _between_ 197 and 198
Some Annual United States Expenditures 226
Enormous Resources of the Warring Nations 232
Casualties of Peace and War Compared 296
INTRODUCTION
OUR GREAT OBSESSION
Success in every human pursuit depends upon ability to discern the truth
and to utilize it. Facts, though they may be stern, are our best
friends, and we should always welcome them with an open mind.
Napoleon said that with good news there is never any hurry, but with bad
news not a moment is to be lost. Consequently, those who discover to us
certain facts of serious concern are our friends, even though it may be
bad news. It is every man's duty, not only to himself, but also to those
dear to him, to know the truth about anything which may menace his and
their welfare, in order that he and they may become awakened to the
danger and prepare for it accordingly.
Those who deceive us by warning us of danger when there is no danger may
not do us any harm; in fact, they may even do us good by cultivating our
alertness and awareness. The hare may jump at a thousand false alarms to
every one of actual danger; but it is the false alarms that have given
him the alertness to save himself when real danger comes. On the other
hand, those who convince us that there is no danger when there is great
danger are the worst of enemies; they expose us, naked of defense, to
the armed and armored enemy.
Among the great deceivers with whom the human race has to contend is the
confidence man, for he plays upon the fears, vanity, and credulity of
his victim with the skill of a Kubelik upon the violin. He enlists his
victim with him, and they work together to the same end. No man is
greatly deceived by another except through his own co-operation. Every
one has his pet egoistic illusion always under the spotlight of
self-view; to him, his own importance is a veritable obsession.
A nation is only a compound of individuals, and what is true of an
individual also holds true of any aggregation of individuals.
We, the people of the United States of America, are at this moment, and
have been for many years, afflicted with a dominating egoistic obsession
concerning our greatness, our importance, and our power, while we
correspondingly underrate the greatness, the importance, and the power
of other nations and races. Our accomplishments have indeed been
marvelous, and we have not neglected to award them all the marveling
that is their due.
There is no denying the fact that in many competitive pursuits requiring
intellectual acuteness for the greatening of material welfare we have
outstripped the rest of the world. But the rest of the world has been
busy, too, and though we may possibly deserve more credit for our
accomplishments in the aggregate than any other people, still, others
have far outdone us in many important respects.
Our hitherto isolated and unassailable geographical position has enabled
us to utilize our unequaled resources to become the greatest industrial
and the wealthiest people in the world.
We have not been obliged to concern ourselves very much thus far with
measures for national security, and having at home all the land we
needed, we have acquired the habit of looking upon national armaments in
the light of frills, which we must maintain merely for national
respectability. Many of us look upon our Navy as dress-parade
paraphernalia, to be worn on gala occasions.
Our response to the advocacy of a sufficient navy, of coast
fortifications, and of a standing army adequate to our needs, has been
that we have no use for either army or navy, and that coast
fortifications would be a useless expense.
Our enormous wealth and inexhaustible resources have been and still are
pointed out as reasons why we require no armaments, although, as a
matter of fact, they are the strongest possible reasons for armaments of
a magnitude proportionate to that wealth and those resources.
In America, we pride ourselves upon our so-called free institutions,
blindly believing that they are free, and that, therefore, every man
being an aristocrat, we, by consequence, have no aristocracy, entirely
oblivious to the fact that we have merely substituted the esteem of
wealth, and the power and the privilege which it represents, for the
esteem of family worth and family name, and the power and the privilege
which they represent.
Isolation and wealth beget vanity and arrogance; and vanity, resting
upon the laurels of past accomplishments, rapidly fosters decadence and
weakness; so that the very pride of strength and virility begets
weakness and effeminacy.
It has been said that usually there are but three generations between
shirt-sleeves and shirt-sleeves. The old man trades upon the name made
in the days of his younger strength, and the son, seldom possessing the
strength of the father, trades on the father's name, while the third
generation generally gets back to shirt-sleeves again. Although this
statement is not a general truth, it has truth enough to excuse it.
The main reason why luxury and opulence lead to degeneracy, weakness,
and effeminacy, is that those who live on Easy Street, being relieved of
the intense strife necessary to gain a livelihood and to climb to
positions of opulence and power, suffer from weakness and decay, and
finally find their way down to shirt-sleeves, at the foot of the
economic and social ladder, either to be submerged in hoboism, or to
make the climb of old progenitors over again.
What is true of individuals and families in this respect holds true also
of nations, only it takes a little longer time, starting from
shirt-sleeves, to get back to shirt-sleeves again.
We Americans were taught by the promoters of the American Revolution--in
short, by the fathers of our country--that all men are created equal in
respect to privilege, and that no class distinction and no class
privilege were worthy of honor unless earned. By consequence, the symbol
and the badge of our class distinction became the dollar.
Taught to despise aristocracy, we immediately created for ourselves a
new aristocracy in the shape of a plutocracy. This aristocracy of wealth
was fast becoming as tyrannical and unbearable and as much a menace to
the freedom of the people as the old aristocracy which it had replaced.
The old aristocracy had been established by the right of the sword; the
new aristocracy had been established by the purchasing power of the
dollar, and the people learned that combinations of wealth were a
compelling power as great as the combination of armies, and that a
government dominated by the dollar might become as intolerable as any
form of absolutism.
Then there came another American revolution, led by the labor unions,
which proved that it is only necessary for the people to organize, in
order to conquer with the short-sword of the ballot as effectually as
with the sword of steel.
Unhappily, just as intolerance and avarice have always led conquerors to
be overgrasping and tyrannical, so have intolerance and avarice made
prosecutions under the Sherman Law veritable persecutions. Now that the
common people have found their power, nothing under heaven can halt
them, or prevent them from abusing that power, except a higher education
of the common people and their leaders, compelling them to understand
the great truth that the people of a nation must co-operate with a
patriotism that shall emulate the spirit of the hive of bees so
admirably interpreted by Maeterlinck.
Nevertheless, we must remember that, while we may with advantage imitate
the bee in this respect, the bee does not progress. There has been no
enlightenment in bee-life for a hundred thousand years, for the very
reason that the bees are dominated by that beautiful spirit of the hive.
We owe our ability to progress and to become more and more highly
intelligent and enlightened, to the existence of that instability and
heterogeneity which stimulate and develop us by causing us to strive for
stability and homogeneity.
Life is a series of reactions between the individual and environing
stimuli. For this reason, stern and exacting stimuli are required to
develop a man to the full. In all the ages during which the race has
been developing there have existed formative influences of the sternest
and most exacting kind; so that, just as our ears are constituted to
hear only a certain character of sounds, and sounds of a limited pitch,
duration, and loudness, and are deaf to all other sounds, so are we
constituted to react only to certain environing stimuli, and to react
with each stimulus in a certain definite measure, and only in a certain
definite measure. It is impossible for us to react supremely, or to be
developed supremely, by mediocre stimuli, but we must have supreme
stimuli, and in order to get those stimuli, there must be a prompting to
activity that demands of a man every ounce of his strength; and
everything that is dear to him must be staked to bring out and develop
all the latent, larger energies that are in him.
Nothing that can be said and done by all the friends of national defense
will make this country take adequate measures for its defense. Nothing
but a disastrous war will supply the necessary stimulus. In all the
history of the world, this truth has been made manifest--that no nation
can be made adequately to prepare against war, no matter what the menace
may be, without either suffering actual defeat, or being so embroiled in
war as to realize the necessity for preparedness.
This country must first be whipped in order to prepare sufficiently to
prevent being whipped. Therefore, our business at the present time is to
pick our conquerors. I choose England. I would much rather see the
red-coat in the streets of New York than the spiked helmet. I would much
rather see the genial face of the British Tommy Atkins than the stern
mystery of the Japanese face.
If England does not give us a good, timely whipping, we are going to be
whipped by Germany or Japan, and the humiliation will be more than is
really needed to stimulate us for adequate preparation.
When the present war is over, the precipitation of a war with England
may not depend on what England will choose to do, but it may depend on
what we shall choose to do. We have been a lamb rampant for a long time
in a jungle alive with lions, and we have owed our security to the fact
that the lions have been watching one another, and have not dared to
avert their eyes long enough to devour us. If we did not have a
grandiose sense of our importance and power, we should not need a
whipping in order to prepare against war, but so long as we believe that
we can beat all creation without any preparation, we are going to act
just as though it were true, and England, although she may be friendly,
may be forced, by our inconsiderate bluff and arrogance, to declare war
on us. Much better England than any other country. England now has no
territorial aspirations that would make her want to annex some of our
land. She would be satisfied with a good big indemnity, which we could
well afford to pay for the benefit we should gain from the war. If
England will merely come over seas, and whip us, and tax us for the
trouble, and thereby lead us to prepare adequately to defend ourselves
against less friendly nations, she will do us the greatest possible
good.
We are living and working not alone for ourselves, but also for those
who are our own, and for all others insomuch as their interests and
their welfare are in common with our own.
Our welfare is part and parcel of the aggregate welfare of all those for
whom we are working, and our welfare and their welfare are not only a
condition of the present, but are also a condition of the future. The
welfare of our children and our children's children, and of those whose
interests will be in common with theirs, is part and parcel of our own
present welfare. This is the true philosophy by which we who are sane
and conscientious are guided. Upon such philosophy are based all
economics and all prudence.
The false philosophy of the selfish and the sensual, the spendthrift and
the debauchee, is the philosophy of such as they whose acts of omission
and commission brought on the French Revolution, and who said, "_Apres
nous le deluge_"; but such should not be our philosophy.
Therefore, if now there be a calamity in the making, which we are able
to foresee must surely descend upon the heads of our children, even if
it does not come soon enough to fall upon our own heads, it is a thing
that should awaken our concern and stimulate our inquiry, and lead us to
seek ways and means for averting it.
It is a fact, which I absolutely know as certainly as anything can be
known in human affairs, that we, and all of those who are near and dear
to us, are sitting today on a powder magazine with the train lighted,
and it is only a question of the slowness, or quickness, of the fuse
when the time shall arrive for the explosion.
The laws that govern human events are as mathematically accurate and as
immutable as the laws that govern the motions of the heavenly bodies;
the laws that govern human reactions--the reactions between men and men,
communities and communities, nations and nations--are as immutable and
are governed as exactly by the laws of cause and effect as are chemical
reactions. Nothing can happen without a cause, and there can be no cause
that does not make something happen. Every event is the child of its
parents--cause and effect.
Now let us look at the parentage of the cause and effect whose progeny
are soon to bring upon us the great red peril of war, and, finding us
unprepared, will treat us as Germany has treated Belgium. We are
rich--our country from one end to the other possesses a vast wealth of
enticements to the invasion of a foreign foe--and we are defenseless.
These conditions are the parents of vast impending calamities.
Europe, today, is involved in the greatest war in the history of
mankind, and--in spite of all the saving grace of our so-called modern
civilization, in spite of all the mercifulness of the Christian
religion, in spite of all the charitable kindness of the Red Cross--the
sum of brutality, savagery, and misery of this war is certainly not much
less than it has been at any other time in the history of a striving
world, every page of which has been written with blood.
We have arrived at a time when we must decide whether or not our safety
can be better secured and peace maintained with armaments or without
armaments.
DEFENSELESS AMERICA
CHAPTER I
DANGEROUS PREACHMENTS
"There will be no war in the future, for it has become impossible now
that it is clear that war means suicide."
_I. S. Bloch, "The Future of War," 1899._
"What shall we say of the Great War of Europe ever threatening, ever
impending, and which never comes? We shall say that it will never come.
Humanly speaking, it is impossible."
_Dr. David Starr Jordan, "War and Waste," 1913._
They who are loudest in their vociferations about the calamities that
the warring nations of Europe have brought upon themselves are those
peace-palavering persons who have been telling us all along, during the
past twenty-five years, that human nature had improved so much lately,
and the spirit of international brotherhood had become so dominant, that
the fighting spirit was nearly dead in the souls of men.
The peace praters have assured us from time to time that the last great
war of the world had been fought; they have told us that no great
nations would dare to go to war any more, because war between any of
the Great Powers would now mean bankruptcy and national suicide; they
have assured us that all international differences would hereafter be
settled by jurisprudential procedure, and that law would be substituted
for war.
About fifteen years ago, a M. de Bloch "proved" in his book, entitled
"The Future of War. Is War Now Possible?" that war had become so deadly
and destructive, and, above all, so expensive, as to be impossible. So
impressed was the Czar of Russia with de Bloch's arguments that he
called a conference of the nations to consider disarmament. Since that
time a thousand different persons have, in a thousand different ways,
"proved" to us that war on a large scale was not only impossible, but
also absolutely unthinkable. Droll, isn't it, that the nations keep
right on fighting? We are consoled, however, by the insistence of the
peace prophets that this war is truly the last great war. We are assured
that this war will be the death of militarism, and then the lamb can
safely cuddle up to the lion. Consequently, we have been told that, war
on a large scale being now impossible, the United States needs no army
and no navy, and that it would be folly to waste the taxpayers' money on
such useless things.
Many believe that this country should set the other nations of the world
a great moral example by pulling the teeth of our dogs of war, making
them lambs, and inviting the lions to lie down with them, unheedful of
the lesson of all ages that when the lion does lie down with the lamb,
the lamb is always inside the lion.
Furthermore, we have been assured that the mere possession of armaments
leads a nation to wage war, because being able to fight makes one want
to fight; and that, obviously, the best way to avoid a fight is to be
unable to fight.
I quote the following from Theodore Roosevelt's book, "America and the
World War":--
* * * * *
"_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!_"
* * * * *
When the prophet Isaiah told the Jews that there were big troubles
brewing for them in the East, he spoke to unhearing ears, because
unwilling ears. There were in those days, as in our day, the false
prophets of peace who said that Isaiah was wrong; that there was no
cause for worry about the indignation of Jehovah; that even at the worst
His wrath could be appeased at any time, as necessity might arise, by a
few burnt offerings and sacrificial mumblings. Their assurances were
more pleasing than the warnings of Isaiah, so the Jews listened to the
false prophets instead of to Isaiah, and they paid the penalty in
Babylonian bondage.
The Isaiahs of true prophecy have long warned the people of this
country that there is big trouble brewing for us in the East and in the
Far East, and that we need armaments and men trained to arms to
safeguard us against that trouble. These Isaiahs have told us that we
cannot safeguard ourselves by any sacrifices made upon the altar of
international brotherhood, or forefend ourselves against the great red
peril of war by a few mumblings written down in arbitration treaties;
but that we must have guns and men behind the guns. The Isaiahs who
have been telling us these things are our true peace-advocates.
Those self-styled peace-men who are telling us that the best way to
avoid war is to be unable to defend ourselves are not peace-men, but
war-breeders. Though they emulate the dove in their cooing, they are far
from being doves of peace. They ought to be styled dubs of peace. Their
intentions may be good, yet they are enemies of peace, and betrayers of
their country. Those who prevent the building of coast fortifications,
which are our modern city gates, by advising against them, betray their
country as actually as those who opened the gates of Rome to the hordes
of Alaric.
Those who are trying to defeat our Congressional appropriations for a
larger navy, for an adequate army, and for sufficient coast
fortifications, although they may mean well, are as truly enemies of
their country as if they should, in war, contribute to the armament and
fighting force of an enemy, for the effect in both cases is identical.
Again I quote from Mr. Roosevelt:
* * * * *
"_We object to the actions of those who do most talking about the
necessity of peace because we think they are really a menace to the just
and honorable peace which alone this country will in the long run
support. We object to their actions because we believe they represent a
course of conduct which may at any time produce a war in which we and
not they would labor and suffer._
"_In such a war the prime fact to be remembered is that the men really
responsible for it would not be those who would pay the penalty. The
ultra-pacifists are rarely men who go to battle. Their fault or their
folly would be expiated by the blood of countless thousands of plain and
decent American citizens of the stamp of those, North and South alike,
who in the Civil War laid down all they had, including life itself, in
battling for the right as it was given to them to see the right._"
* * * * *
But the false prophets of peace have assured us all along that there is
no danger whatever of war between the United States and any other
country. They tell us further that our armaments are a menace to other
nations; that they evidence suspicion of other nations, and thereby
place us under suspicion. According to such philosophy, the college man
who becomes an athlete is a trouble-breeder, for the reason that the
mere possession of muscle makes him a menace to other men.
Now, if we are in any danger of war, we ought to do the right thing to
secure the safety of our country, of our homes and our families, and all
things that are dear to us.
If it be true that the possession of armaments is an inducement for
those who have them to use them, and if it be true that armaments fret
the fighting spirit of other nations as a red rag frets a bull, and
thereby lead to war, then, surely, we do not need more armaments, but
less. Instead of arming ourselves any more, we should disarm until we
are defenseless enough to be perfectly safe. On the other hand, if there
be any likelihood that this country may be invaded by a foreign foe, we
should be prepared to meet the invaders in the right way, and with the
right spirit.
If it be the proper way to go and meet them as the inhabitants of
Jerusalem went out to meet Alexander, with the keys to our gates, and
with presents and sacrificial offerings, then we should adopt that way
of preparing to pave their path with flowers and make them drunk on
grape-juice and the milk of human kindness.
Dr. David Starr Jordan believes in disarmament. He further believes that
armor-plate, guns, battleships, and ammunition should not be made by
private manufacturers, but that, on the contrary, these things should be
made exclusively by the government, for he is of the opinion that
manufacturers of war materials foment disorder and promote war in order
to bring themselves more business.
Long association with the manufacturers of war materials, especially of
explosive materials, has enabled me to know whereof I speak, and I do
know that such a belief is the utterest nonsense. The manufacturers of
war materials with whom I am acquainted are among the staunchest of
peace men, and they would no more be guilty of promoting war to bring
themselves business than a reputable surgeon would be likely to string a
cord across the street to trip up pedestrians and break their limbs in
order to bring himself business.
In the treatment of human physical ailments, we should deem it folly to
confound remedy with disease, and to hold the physician responsible for
pestilence. No one would think of looking upon our science of sanitation
and our quarantine system as breeders and harbingers of pestilence, and
no one would think that our laws against crime and our system of police
protection tend to foster crime. Yet such is the attitude of many
well-intentioned but overzealous persons with respect to our naval and
military system and armaments. They consider them breeders and
harbingers of war.
An army and navy are merely a mighty quarantine system against the
pestilence of war. We must fortify our shores, police our seas with
armor-clads, and be prepared to patrol the skies with aeroplanes around
our entire national horizon when the need may come.
But it is urged that the people are overburdened with the cost of
maintaining armies and navies. Assuming that the burden is great, was it
ever less? Was it ever so small as it is now, compared with the numbers
and wealth of the people? Again, cannot we well afford to bear a
considerable burden of armaments as an insurance against war, and as a
further insurance that if war comes, it will be far less deadly than it
would be without them?
If Dr. Jordan were better acquainted with the manufacture of war
materials, he would know that they can be made more cheaply, with equal
excellence, by private concerns, than by the government. Furthermore, he
would know that big manufacturers of war materials are obliged to employ
a very large force of skilled labor, and that this labor has to be
supplied employment when there are no government orders for war
materials. For example, the manufacture of armor-plate by the United
States Steel Corporation is only a small part of that company's
business. The manufacture of guns and armor-plate by the Bethlehem Steel
Company does not keep it constantly occupied, and it has to furnish
other employment for its men when government orders are not forthcoming.
Consequently, it is obliged to make things besides armor-plate and guns
and war materials.
The du Pont explosives companies do a far larger business in high
explosives and smokeless powders for commercial purposes than they do
for government purposes.
Therefore, if the manufacture of war materials were to be confined
entirely to government shops, then the government would truly have to
promote war to keep its employees busy. At any rate, the government
would have to maintain a large labor force, making war materials alone,
for the government could not devote itself to the manufacture of
automobiles, chairs, cloth, artificial leather, dynamite, sporting
powder, and the like, for commercial purposes, as private manufacturers
do.
There is another reason why the private manufacturers of war materials
should be encouraged by the government, and it is that, in the event of
war, the government would find the large capital and plants of the
wealthy Steel Trust, the Bethlehem Steel Company, and the du Ponts
available for the purpose of national defense in addition to the
government's own resources. This is very important.
The battle of Lake Erie was quite as much a du Pont victory as a Perry
victory; for the resources, energy, and generalship of the du Pont
Powder Company overcame inconceivable difficulties, carted the powder
from Wilmington, Delaware, all the way overland to Lake Erie, and got it
there on time.
It is unfortunate that a person's confidence in his knowledge of a
subject is often directly proportionate to his ignorance of the subject.
It is a psychological truth that ignorance may be taught, just like
anything else, and a person may become very erudite in things which are
not true, just as he may in things which are true.
Dr. Jordan, in recent public utterances, has said that he would rather
the United States should lose its Pacific possessions than that we
should go to war; and he has remarked that now, while the world is drunk
with war, is a bad time to lay in more liquor. This is an ingenious
metaphor, and well designed to trip the intelligence of the unwary. As a
matter of fact, when the world is drunk with war, and rapine, murder,
and plunder are rife, it is exactly the time to lay in more ammunition.
Had Dr. Jordan been in the position of Captain John Smith in the
Virginia colony, when the Indians were on the war-path, he would have
advised the settlers to disarm and destroy their stockades and forts.
The Indians at that time went on the war-path and got drunk for war
because they had a grievance.
When the present war is over and international commerce is
re-established, we are destined to give some other nation a grievance,
for the same reason that we then gave those Indians a grievance, and
that other nation will go on the war-path, just as those Indians did,
and that other nation when it takes up the torch and the sword and gets
a taste of blood, is going to be as savage as the men engaged in the
present European conflict.
There are two kinds of true prophets: The one kind, like Isaiah, who is
directly inspired of God; and the other kind, who judges the future by
the lessons of the past. The scientist is a true prophet; but he is not
one of the inspired kind. The way he does his predicting is the way of
the astronomer, who uses a base line the width of the earth's orbit in
order to triangulate the parallax of a star. So the scientific prophet
triangulates the parallax of future events from a base line compassing
all human history.
There is no one lesson which history teaches us more plainly than that
the possession of wealth by a defenseless nation is a standing _casus
belli_ to other nations, and that always there has been the nation
standing ready to attack and plunder any other nation when there was
likely to be sufficient profit in the enterprise to pay for the trouble.
Never have we seen any treaty stand for long in the way of such
practices between nations. Treaties have always been mere scraps of
paper, which, like the cobweb, ensnare the weak, while they let the
strong break through.
It is strange that those who recommend that this country try the
experiment of disarmament to secure peace by setting other nations a
great moral example, should not have read history to see whether or not
the experiment were a new one; and whether or not, judging by past
experiments, it were likely to prove a success or a failure. Should
these men look back through history, they would find that ancient Egypt
tried the experiment, and went down under the sword and torch of fierce
invaders from over the desert. They would learn that the Greeks tried
the experiment and found it a failure. They would learn that India and
China have bled through the ages because of their peaceableness. They
would learn that the fall of Carthage was due not so much to the
superior military power of Rome, or to the reiterations of Cato that
Carthage must be destroyed, as it was to the peace talk of Hanno, which
withheld the necessary support of Hannibal in Italy. They would learn
that when old Rome lost her vigor and neglected her defenses, she was
hewn to pieces by fierce barbarians. They would learn that the fathers
of our own country, after the Revolution, tried the same old experiment,
with the result that the city of Washington was captured and burned by
the British in the war of 1812. They would learn, furthermore, that all
prophets who have said that the nations will war no more, have been
false prophets.
Four years before the Russo-Japanese war, I wrote an article for a New
York magazine, in which I prophesied that war, and predicted Japanese
victory. I predicted also at the same time that there would be in the
near future a general European conflict. It has come.
The following quotations from that article may be of interest:
* * * * *
"_By far the greatest probability of imminent war lies in the Far East,
between Russia and Japan. Japan feels the sting of the Russian whip that
made her drop Port Arthur and withdraw from the continent of Asia, thus
relinquishing the chief advantages gained by her victory over China. The
whole sum paid Japan by China as a war indemnity has been expended on
her navy and on armaments. In the East, in both naval and military
strength, she is superior to Russia_.
"_Whether or not we shall soon have war will depend on whether Japan
will quietly wait until Russia shall have finished the Trans-Siberian
Railway, secured Korea, intrenched and fortified herself along the
Asiatic coast, and built a fleet of sufficient strength entirely to
overawe the little empire. It is doubtful if Japan will wait for the
time when Russia shall be ready to strangle her. She may strike and
drive Russia from Korea and secure, as well, a fair share of Chinese
territory; or, what amounts to the same thing, a lease of a portion of
the Celestial Empire. She will thereafter be better able to protect her
interests in Chinese trade and opportunities. Should she strike soon,
and she and Russia be left to themselves, Japan ought to win, for she is
close at hand and will be able to bring to bear upon the points of
collision a much greater force than Russia. She will also be able to
act with correspondingly greater celerity._
* * * * *
"_If we would essay to predict future events, we must draw the lines of
divination in the direction that we see the nations grow, and these
lines must be parallel with those of great commercial interests--be
parallel with those of national self-interests. We then have but one
more question to consider, on which to base a priori judgment. It is the
question of might--of national resources and blood and iron._
"_What was true on a small scale, with primitive tribes of men, is also
true on a large scale, with the great world powers of today. In early
times, like the ebb and flow of the tides of the sea, conquest and
re-conquest, victory and defeat, followed one another. Then destruction
succeeded growth and growth destruction._
"_As the great banyan tree constantly encroaches upon the territory of
surrounding flora, to overtop and blight and kill all upon which its
shadow falls, so do and so must nations in their growth encroach upon
their neighbors._
"_In recent times, the tremendous strides made in the arts and sciences,
and the birth of new industries, and the enormous growth of all, have
provided room and occupation for the earth's great dominating peoples.
Vast land areas have been reclaimed, and boundless resources
developed. Thus far the overflow has been upon the lands of the tameless
American Indian--of the lazy African--of the docile Hindoo, and the
simple savage of the southern seas. Now it is China's turn, and the
wolves of greed, in the guise of trade, are already howling at her
gates._
"_Growth is proceeding with constantly accelerating rapidity, and soon
the overflow must be on lands already filled to overflowing--not then
with simple savages. It will then be Greek to Greek, over fortresses
that frown along the whole frontier. Then there will be a clash. It is
coming. Where the storm will first break, and when, is a question. That
a great conflict will come, and at no distant date, is certain."--"The
Home Magazine," July, 1900._
* * * * *
At the first annual banquet of the Aeronautical Society four years ago,
I predicted exactly the use of the aeroplane in war that it has had
since that time. President Taft was one of the speakers, and his subject
was his pet peace and arbitration treaties. He said that there were not
likely to be the requisite wars for testing out the aeroplane, as
predicted. He said that there was going to be a shortage of wars.
Since that time, we have had the revolution in China, the Italian war
with Tripoli, the Balkan wars, a continuous revolutionary performance
in Mexico, and finally, we have the present great European War. Not
much of a shortage in wars, truly!
The following quotation from Dr. David Starr Jordan's "War and Waste" is
an excellent illustration of the prophetic wisdom that is keeping the
United States of America unprepared against war:
* * * * *
"_What shall we say of the Great War of Europe, ever threatening, ever
impending, and which never comes? We shall say that it will never come.
Humanly speaking, it is impossible._
"_Not in the physical sense, of course, for with weak, reckless, and
godless men nothing evil is impossible. It may be, of course, that some
half-crazed archduke or some harassed minister of state shall
half-knowing give the signal for Europe's conflagration. In fact, the
agreed signal has been given more than once within the last few months.
The tinder is well dried and laid in such a way as to make the worst of
this catastrophe. All Europe cherishes is ready for the burning. Yet
Europe recoils and will recoil even in the dread stress of
spoil-division of the Balkan war...._
"_But accident aside, the Triple Entente lined up against the Triple
Alliance, we shall expect no war...._
"_The bankers will not find the money for such a fight, the
industries of Europe will not maintain it, the statesmen cannot. So
whatever the bluster or apparent provocation, it comes to the same thing
at the end. There will be no general war until the masters direct the
fighters to fight. The masters have much to gain, but vastly more to
lose, and their signal will not be given._"
* * * * *
Eight years ago, when the great Peace Conference was held at Carnegie
Hall, New York, to discuss the limitation and abolishment of armaments,
the most notable of the pacifists represented were invited by the
Economic Club of Boston to attend a banquet in that city for the free
hot-airing of their views.
There was much sophistical palaver about destroying our old battle-flags
and leveling our soldiers' monuments and all landmarks and reminders of
war. William T. Stead, however, was more rational, and he was annoyed by
the silly impracticable nonsense of some of the dubs of peace. Stead's
better sense was evidenced by the fact that the following winter he
recommended to the British Parliament that England build two battleships
to every one built by Germany.
Invited to speak in defense of armaments, I held that we must arm for
peace, and not disarm for it. I began my remarks by telling them this
story:
In a small paragraph in an obscure place upon the back page of a
leading Boston paper, I once saw the announcement that Herbert Spencer,
the great philosopher, was very ill, and not expected to live. On the
front page of the same paper, under bold headlines, was a three-column
article on the physical condition of John L. Sullivan.
John L. Sullivan was a fighter, while Herbert Spencer was only a
philosopher; hence the difference in public interest.
John L. Sullivan, in his time, standing on the corner, would deplete the
hall and break up any peace meeting in the world, and block the street
with massed humanity for a square, jostling for a sight of him.
Several years ago, a reverend gentleman by the name of Charles Edward
Jefferson elicited much applause by his public utterances on the
blessings and advantages of non-resistance and meekness mild. He made it
as clear as the day dawn of June, to the unreasoning, that it is all a
mistake to build guns, warships, and coast fortifications; that our war
colleges are not institutions of actual learning at all, but are
institutions for teaching ignorance. He declared that militarism is
squandering the taxpayers' money by the hundreds of millions, and all
because the advocates of militarism and the friends of militarism are
perverse and wilfully wot not what they do, though wisdom radiant as the
rainbow stares them in the face; and because our military men, who have
been educated at government expense and who, we have thought, were
devoting their lives to the country's service in studying its needs and
fighting its battles, are desirous merely of promotion and of widening
the sphere of their activities.
According to Dr. Jefferson, these men are not what we have supposed
them--a bulwark against trouble, but are trouble-makers, ignorant of the
primary essential of their profession, namely militant meekness; and
instead of being guardians of peace and an assurance against war, they
are actual war-breeders. He seems to think that there is a real
conspiracy to squander the taxpayers' money in the interest of a
military clique.
A man may be wrong, and yet be honest. Prejudice is honest. Dr.
Jefferson is doubtless honest, and if it should be that he is right,
then his doctrine is practicable. If he is right, our military men are
wrong. If our army and navy officers, who have been educated at the
public expense and in the school of experience, do not know and
understand better this country's needs in the respects and particulars
for which they have been educated than does this good ecclesiastic, then
it is proved that the church is a better military school than Annapolis
or West Point. Theology, and not military science, should hereafter be
taught in those institutions. The military parade should be called in
from the campus and be replaced by knee drill in the chapel, and
hereafter, at Annapolis, at West Point, and along the firing-line, the
command should be Shoulder Psalms, instead of Shoulder Arms.
Let us lay down our arms and spike our guns, disband the military parade
from the campus, as the sentimentalists desire us to do, and we shall
very soon, with Kubla Khan, hear "ancestral voices [George Washington's
among them] prophesying war."