impression that many of the selectees, at any rate, do not understand
why they are in the Army, nor why there should be conscription, nor why
their period of service was extended. In a word, they have no desire
to fight. Now this could be a most serious matter, since any nation
is doomed if its youth, or any considerable number of them, are not
willing to fight for it, yet this mood would vanish on our entry into
war. The boys are not to blame. To blame are all the leaders who have
confused and deceived them, the teachers who taught them pacifism and
the isolationist politicians who do the work of Hitler. One of the
elements most confusing in the Army mind is the promise rashly made in
the presidential campaign that we should never engage in a “foreign
war,” a promise no American should have made because nobody except
Hitler had the power to fulfill it.
Now we are paying the penalty democracy always has to pay for hypocrisy
and for deceptions in elections. The penalty is the state of mind
exposed in a questionnaire taken at Camp Callan, San Diego, among
selectees, and published with elation by an isolationist journal. The
soldiers answered: (a) Should the United States go to war with the Axis
immediately? Affirmative, 1 per cent. (b) Should the United States
continue its policy of all-out economic aid to Britain and expand
America’s military and naval forces in order to fight the Axis powers
overseas if the Axis powers are not defeated by Britain? Affirmative,
25 per cent. (c) Should the United States guard the Western Hemisphere
but send no military aid outside this area? Affirmative, 39 per cent.
(d) Should the United States be strictly neutral and prepare to defend
only our own territory and possessions? Affirmative, 37 per cent.
These answers would have distressed Count Leo Tolstoy if Tolstoy were
an American living today.
Tolstoy, who was as great a student of war as he was a novelist, has
a formula whereby he could interpret this poll and give us a rough
estimate of the military effectiveness of an army made up of soldiers
with the attitude revealed by this questionnaire. In _War and Peace_,
his epic novel on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, he says: “_In warfare_
the force of armies is the product of the mass multiplied by something
else, an unknown X. X is the spirit of the army, the greater or less
_desire to fight_ and to face dangers on the part of all the men
composing the army.” Note that Tolstoy says “_desire_ to fight” not
just “_willingness_ to fight.” The emphasis is on the positive desire
not passive willingness. This is another way to express the paramount
importance of morale. What is morale? It is knowing what you have to
fight about and having the desire to fight for it. But only one per
cent of the selectees questioned indicated they knew what they had to
fight about and desired to fight; one-third thought we ought to be
“strictly neutral,” and three-fourths were against fighting anywhere
outside of our hemisphere.
Q. _The selectees evidently had been influenced by the arguments for
passive hemisphere defense, but what do you think of the argument that
we should never fight on foreign soil, but if we have to fight, let it
be in America?_
A. It reminds me of the Chinese and the Japanese soldiers at the
beginning of their war. I saw the fall of Shanghai, and I couldn’t help
but remark that while the Chinese soldier said, “I will die for China,”
the Japanese soldier said, “I will kill for Japan,” and so for a long
time the two got along perfectly together. For every American who may
declare, “I don’t want to fight on foreign soil; if I have to fight I
want to fight only at home,” there is a German who declares, “I don’t
want to fight at home; I fight only on foreign soil,” as the Germans
have consistently done to the best of their ability for the last
hundred years. May we never accommodate the Germans in this respect.
Surely of all the isolationist arguments this is the least intelligent,
to prefer that the fearful destruction of war be wrought on our own
homes. It is an argument you will never hear in our Southern states.
Q. _What should we do with conscientious objectors?_
A. Reason with them. Many honest conscientious objectors can be
converted by the right kind of reasoning, and the more honest they
are the easier it is to straighten out their misunderstandings. If
this fails then they ought to be given work to do at some enterprise
of national interest, and be compelled to do it, as the government is
now doing in its camps for conscientious objectors. If they refuse to
register, they go to jail, as no government could afford to tolerate
deliberate defiance of its laws. We as a democracy must observe the
rights even of a minority which would bring ruin upon the country
if its policies were to rule. This is something we can be proud of,
something that marks us more than any other one thing as different
from the tyrannous Nazi state where conscientious objectors and every
variety of pacifist or obstructionist is put to death. We can afford
to treat our objectors as we would defectives. Hitler has to kill his.
He held from the beginning that pacifists were the greatest danger
to the state, and from the moment he came to power he has sought out
and executed every German pacifist who has revealed himself. Hitler
thus proves he feels that pacifist doctrine would be dangerous to his
regime, as it would.
The German nation is being led by Hitler in _aggressive_ war.
Opposition to aggressive war is a form of pacifism which makes sound
sense. The war we and the British are called upon to fight, a war
we did not want but are compelled to carry on in order to save our
national lives, is a war that even a pacifist ought to support.
In this war the man who refuses to fight for his country is like
a person in a lifeboat who refuses to pull an oar. In England a
conscientious objector was asked at his examination whether he would
do non-combatant war work. He answered, “No.” The Judge asked “Would
you not help build an air-raid shelter?” The man answered, “No.” The
Judge then asked, “But if there were an air raid on would you go into
a shelter someone else had built?” The man answered, “Yes.” I wonder
how many of the 1,800 young Americans who have been classified as
conscientious objectors would contend that this is honest, and yet
it is fundamentally the attitude of all conscientious objectors. The
nation shelters the lives, liberty, and property of all its citizens.
Everyone living in the nation is enjoying this protection. Everyone has
a primary obligation to help maintain it. In England today, however,
the government permits more than 40,000 registered conscientious
objectors to enjoy the protection of the air-raid shelters, and of the
Royal Air Force, Army, and Navy, without contributing to it. Is this
not a tribute to the invincible liberalism of Anglo-Saxon democracy?
The conscientious objector had a better case in almost all other wars
than he has in this one. The modern pre-Hitler war had a superficial
course something like this: The victor occupied the vanquished country,
made a peace treaty, collected an indemnity, then withdrew to his
own country with what loot he could carry. A part of the vanquished
country might be annexed to the victor. The defeated nation smarted
under the humiliation but in time the population resumed its ordinary
life, and within a few years a stranger could hardly find signs of any
change as a result of the loss of the war. A pacifist might argue that
under these circumstances it would pay not to resist since the loss by
fighting would be greater than the loss by nonresistance, considerable
though that might be. This is not that kind of war. Hitler does not
intend to restore the sovereignty of the nations he conquers. All
Hitler’s wars are more or less Carthaginian. For as long as Hitler
remains the master, his vanquished will be slave states, with their
citizens chained to the Nazi machine, their women degraded, their
religion persecuted, their schools closed, their books burned, and
all this will continue until Hitler is overcome by force. It is not a
choice between greater or lesser evils. It is a choice between life and
death, for those who physically survive under the Hitler tyranny are
condemned to a living death, as the Poles can testify.
Most of the great pacifist leaders have been converted by their
observation of Hitler. Albert Einstein was thought of as the world’s
greatest pacifist, but he abandoned the doctrine of non-violence after
only a few months spent under the Hitler regime before he escaped to
America. On his way here Einstein passed through Belgium and in an
interview published in a Brussels newspaper declared: “If I were a
young Belgian today, I would not refuse military service.” From a man
who all his life had been a militant pacifist, taking part in world
campaigns against war, this statement ought to persuade any young
man. Britain’s leading pacifist, Bertrand Russell, has likewise been
persuaded to give up his “isolationism” and to advocate that we give
up ours, because the airplane, annihilating distances, has made it
impossible for any nation “to secure peace for itself by isolation.”
But Hitler is more persuasive, it seems to me.
Hitler writes that the Germans “will give what many blinded pacifists
hope to get by moaning and crying,” namely, “a peace, supported not by
the palm branches of tearful pacifist professional female mourners, but
founded by the victorious sword of a people of overlords which puts
the world into the service of a higher culture.” And again he wrote:
“Indeed the pacifist-humane idea is perhaps quite good whenever the
man of the highest standard has previously conquered and subjected the
world to a degree that makes him the only master of this globe.” That
is surely clear enough to convince the most conscientious objector that
if everyone refused to fight Hitler he would conquer the world, and as
President Conant of Harvard says, men would have no more freedom than
horses have now. It is not pleasant to have to agree with Hitler, but
one must admit he defined the conscientious objector correctly when he
declared the healthy, unspoiled boy would willingly give his life for
his country and thus “obeys the deeper necessity of the preservation
of the species, if necessary at the expense of the individual,” while
the pacifist egotistically puts his interest ahead of the nation. The
charge of cowardice is easy to make, and I for one shall not make it.
I prefer to think of most conscientious objectors as men who have not
thought the problem through. After all, one of them was named Sergeant
York.
Q. _Why don’t we have a department in our Army to tell the soldiers why
they are in uniform?_
A. We have a morale section in the Army but it cannot operate
effectively until we are at war. It is forbidden to discuss “politics”
with the soldiers and it would be “politics” now to explain that they
are in uniform to fight the Germans. Yet nothing could be more valuable
for our war effort than to have qualified men visit each army camp,
and after a series of public lectures on America and the war, conduct
a question-and-answer period, followed by individual conferences with
soldiers interested enough to ask for them. Officers would probably
benefit as much from such instruction as the men.
One of the most useful departments of the German Army is its morale
section which teaches a recruit above all things to be proud to be a
soldier, and that it is the highest honor for him to be permitted to
fight for his country. It is my impression that we would have to be
even more elementary than that. Some American youths need to have it
explained that from time immemorial the young men of a family, a tribe,
or a nation have been by nature required to be its physical defenders;
that the old men, women, and children have other duties to perform,
but the young men are the only ones strong enough to go out and fight.
Statements as simple as that are necessary after our last twenty years
of pacifism and materialism. Too many times young men have asked me why
they should fight for a society they do not approve, a society which
does not provide them with good jobs and a comfortable life. The answer
is that if they do not understand now, Hitler will provide a sufficient
explanation later, as the pacifist students of the University of Paris
found out when the Germans occupied their city and shot a score of them
as a lesson.
Hitler will make it plain that this is no class war. Hitler will make
it clear that it is a simple tribal war of a brute soldier-state bent
upon the subjugation of all other states and peoples, good, bad, or
indifferent, and of all classes. The English have learned this is no
class war and every kind of Englishman, rich and poor alike, are united
now in one great fighting tribe. Our youth could learn from the example
of the youth of conquered Europe that if they do not successfully
defend their country, imperfect though it may be, they will be
conquered and cast into slavery.
It would be useful to point out that this generation of American youth
is alive and enjoying the privileges of this country because other
young men years ago and centuries ago fought and defeated the enemies
of America. It would clear up many a young soldier’s difficulties if
he were given an explanation in the simplest language of the origins
and issues of the war. Many of them hardly know the bare facts of who
is fighting whom. The American soldier has a right to be given the
overwhelming evidence that Germany intends to destroy the American form
of life, and subjugate us if she can; and that just now while Britain
and Russia are absorbing so much German energy is the best time for
us to defend ourselves by the only method of defense that has ever
succeeded, by attack; by striking with all the power we possess at the
enemy while he is still far from our shores. The American soldier
should understand that much as we may wish for it, there is little
hope that Britain and Russia alone could defeat the mighty German war
machine, built as it was during the nine years while we slept. He
should understand that this means we must fight in Europe, help destroy
the German Air Force, invade the continent, and finally occupy Germany;
that this will require every available resource of muscle and money and
brain and blood and several more years of war, but that the reward for
this immense payment is the immense reward of freedom. The American
soldier has a right to have outlined to him the kind of world Hitler
would make if he won; and the kind of world we hope to make if we win.
This is the ABC of war, and it is what our soldiers desperately need,
but it is unlikely that they will get it until we go to war.
It takes a great deal of re-education to counter the last two decades
of intellectual rule by our “Irresponsibles,”--professors, writers,
artists, and scholars who debunked our past history and every ideal,
taught that man’s economic life is all that matters, that soldiers are
suckers, that we fought the last war for J. P. Morgan, and so on until
bewildered American boys exclaimed: “My country owes me a living; I
owe it nothing.” Yet that is not youth’s natural way. Hitler won the
German youth not by offering them fun or comfort or material reward; he
appealed to them to sacrifice themselves for their Fatherland, and they
responded joyously, “like demons,” as Colonel Schieffer said. Nobody
can persuade me that our American youth would not respond even more
joyously to an honest appeal, but the appeal has to be clear, simple,
ringing as the notes of a bugle in the morning. Let the cynics and the
selfish jibe, but American youth will eventually respond to the call of
President Roosevelt for the Four Freedoms, not just for themselves, but
for all the world.
Q. _But weren’t we suckers in the last war?_
A. No, we were not suckers in the last war. By fighting and beating
Germany in the last war, side by side with our Allies, we won
twenty-three years of national independence.
Q. _But didn’t we fight the last war to “make the world safe for
democracy” and to “end all war”? We certainly failed to do either.
Weren’t we suckers to have tried and failed?_
A. Don’t you think it was worth while for us to gain the right to live
in peace and freedom from 1918 to 1939 even if we failed to achieve
our whole program? We did not fight the last war just “to make the
world safe for democracy” or to “end all war.” We fought the last
war primarily to make the world safe for the United States, and we
succeeded in that for a good many years. The world has not been safe
for democracy everywhere for a score of years, but only now do we find
it necessary to fight again because only now has it become plain that
the world is again no longer safe for the United States. In the last
war we fought first to preserve America, second to make the world safe
for democracy, and to end war. In this war we are fighting first to
preserve America, second to establish the Four Freedoms everywhere we
can, but we modestly refrain this time from announcing that we expect
to end war. Instead we have much more practically declared that when we
win we will disarm the nations that made this war.
Q. _But what difference would it have made to us if we had not entered
the last war at all?_
A. It would have meant that the Germans probably would have won the
war. The Commander in Chief of the Allies, Foch, and the actual
Commander in Chief of the Germans, Ludendorff, both admitted that the
American entry into the war was decisive. It was not that America “won
the war,” but that without us the Allies could not have won.
Q. _Suppose the Germans had won the last war; what difference would
that have made to us?_
A. If the Germans had won, we should certainly have had to fight
them thereafter and fight them alone. We may have had a few years
respite, long enough for the German Navy to become strong enough to
challenge ours. The general situation today is parallel with the one in
1914-1918, except that Hitler’s Germany is much more powerful and evil
than Hohenzollern Germany. Nevertheless Kaiser Wilhelm had the same
ambition Hitler has. He believed also that the Germans were a master
race, with a divine mission to rule the world. The Germans came late
to nationhood, too late to receive “their share” of the colonies. This
helped give them a bitter sense of resentment against a world which
refused to recognize their superiority. This German belief that they
are superior to everyone on earth is unfortunately strengthened by the
fact that in this industrial age they are among the most talented of
all peoples, and in the natural sciences superior to most others. They
have proved themselves incorrigible except by force.
Q. _Some people argue though, that Hitler actually wants the United
States to come into the war, so that we would keep our war supplies,
instead of sending them to England and to Russia. Is this true?_
A. How could it ever have been true, since Hitler always, at any
moment, could have brought us into the war if and when he wished. He
has only to order one or more of his transatlantic submarines to come
over and sink a few American ships in our territorial waters and even
a pacifist Congress would vote war. A score of other easy devices have
always been at his hand if he wanted war with us, but wished us to
declare it. But why should he wish to bring against him the greatest
single potential power, even if he thought that our entering formal war
would cause us to withhold supplies from Britain and Russia? And what
is there anyway to make anybody think that if we ever became sensible
enough to go to war we would at the same time become so unintelligent
as to cripple the war effort against our enemy? What point would there
be in withholding supplies from Britain and Russia just because we had
gone to war with Germany? Would we in the United States be in any more
danger after having gone to war than before? No, we would actually be
safer, since the safety afforded us by the British Fleet’s control of
the Atlantic would now be augmented by removal of all limitation on the
use of the extra power of our own Atlantic vessels. Suppose, however,
that we thought it desirable for a time to curtail some shipments to
the Allies while we filled in certain gaps in our own armament. Could
this temporary diversion of strength outweigh the danger to Hitler of
America’s strength in the long run?
I venture to say that this argument against our going to war has done
as much harm as almost any other, and upon examination it seems it must
have been of German origin, despite the fact that many a good American
and even some good Englishmen have thoughtlessly repeated it. The
person most competent to judge whether Hitler wants us in the war is
Hitler. As I recently recollected when looking over some old clippings,
Hitler in an interview in 1932 expressed it to me this way: “I was
a soldier in the war and it was my conviction that without American
participation on the side of the Allies, we would surely have won the
war.” This is what he thought of America in the last war. You may be
sure he thinks exactly the same of America in this war.
Q. _But the Germans have frequently expressed not merely indifference
but contempt of us, and have spoken as though they did not care
whether we entered or not. Isn’t it then an exaggeration to say that
our declaration of war would have such a tremendous effect on their
morale?_
A. No, because the Germans have expressed indifference to whether we
enter the war only because they were absolutely convinced that we would
not do so; when we do enter the war it will be an even greater shock
than if they had anticipated it all the time. Our official behavior
for a long time, and the utterances of our isolationists all the time,
led the Nazis to believe we were really for peace at any price; that
nothing, neither injury nor insult, could move us to war. When the
first Neutrality Act was passed in August, 1935, the Germans, as I have
recently been reminded by a friend who was in Berlin at the moment,
chortled with glee, and editorials boasted that now Europe could settle
its troubles secure from the meddlesome Yankee. No one can estimate
how much influence this surrender of American rights had upon Hitler
during that critical time when he was weighing his strength against all
his possible enemies. The Germans are convinced we are a money-loving
people and when the Johnson Act was passed, forbidding credit to any
nation in default on payment of its debt to us, they exclaimed: “Now
the Americans will never go to war again because they can’t make money
out of it.”
The Johnson Act almost persuaded some Germans that we had changed
sides, and Nazis revived their chatter about the essentially Germanic
character of America. We Americans may be wishful thinkers, but the
Germans, fortunately, are even more addicted to the vice than we.
Goebbels’ control of the press promotes it. Every isolationist speech
made is printed at length in the German newspapers and the voice
of Lindbergh is taken as the voice of America. The re-election of
Roosevelt was the first warning the German people had that America
might act to defend herself. Now sensible Germans are beginning to be
frightened. I know how the German people regard America. They call it
the “land of unlimited possibilities.” It has always been the dreamland
of the Germans, and if our immigration laws had permitted it, we should
have had tens of millions of Germans coming to this country after the
war. The tremendous size and economic power of America fascinate all
classes of Germans; they have never forgotten the shock they received
when, after the armistice in 1918, they learned for the first time what
their government had concealed from them, that there were over two
million American soldiers in France. Hitler tried to stamp out German
admiration or regard for any foreign country, and doubtless German
successes in this war have influenced the German attitude to a degree,
but the fundamental element in German thought about America is their
ineffaceable memory of the last war: “America joined our enemies; we
lost. If America goes to war against us again, we cannot win.” It would
be decisive.
Q. _But where would we fight Germany? What is the good of America’s
entering the war if there is no battleground?_