and we severed relations with Germany as the first move in our sixty
days’ stern foremost drift into, not going to, war, but admitting
that we were already at war. During those eight months we have paid
the penalty for our criminally complete failure to prepare during the
previous three years by not having yet to our credit one single piece
of completed achievement. The Administration has unwisely striven to
cover this past failure to prepare, and present failure to achieve, by
occasional grandiloquent pronunciamentos as to the wonderful things
we are going to do in the future; and usually the language used is
designed to convince ignorant people that these things have already
been done.
One day it is announced that we have discovered an infallible remedy
against submarine attacks; and the next day it is announced that the
toll by submarines is heavier than during any previous month. We read
that the British drive is successful, but stubbornly resisted; that
some thousands of prisoners have been taken; and that the losses have
been terribly heavy. We read at the same time that we are going to have
an immense army of aircraft--some time next spring. And actually there
is less boasting over the former statement than over the latter! We
read of the valor and suffering of the French in some heroic assault;
and the Administration proudly announces that, after eight months, the
drafted men are beginning to assemble in their camps--and omits to
mention that they have neither guns nor uniforms, are short of blankets
and sweaters.
So far the Sam Wellers who have done things are our allies. Uncle
Sam is still complacently engaged in taking off his coat, like Mr.
Snodgrass. Under such circumstances it is unwise for him to announce
overloudly what he is going to do when at last he begins. Let him wait
until he has done it; and meanwhile bend all his energies to doing it,
and doing it soon. Brag is a good dog. But Holdfast is a better.
BROOMSTICK PREPAREDNESS
OCTOBER 4, 1917
At present we Americans have two prime duties.
The first is to make the best of actual conditions; to prepare our
army, navy, merchant marine, air service, munition plants, agriculture,
food conservation, and everything else as speedily as possible, so as
to fight this war to a completely victorious conclusion.
The second is not to fool ourselves, but to face the fact of our
complete and lamentable unpreparedness. And to inaugurate a policy of
permanent preparedness which will prevent our ever again being caught
in such a humiliating condition.
The men of the national guard and of the drafted army are of admirable
type. I do not believe that any other great nation can produce quite
their equals on such a scale as we can; the zeal, energy, and adaptable
intelligence with which they are doing all they can in the various
camps must be a matter of pride for all Americans. There is all the
more reason why such first-class material should be given a first-class
chance for speedy and efficient action. It has not been given that
chance. The steps we as a nation are now taking ought to have been
taken three years ago. Failure to take them then has meant broomstick
preparedness now. Failure to take them as a permanent policy now means
broomstick preparedness in some future vital crisis when we may not
have allies willing and able to protect us while we slowly prepare to
meet the enemy.
The Ordnance Bureau of the War Department admits that we have not
rifles for our national army, but attempts to excuse matters by saying
that it is of no consequence because we shall have rifles a few months
hence when our men are ready to go abroad. The admission is correct.
The excuse is not. Even for training, it is better to arm infantrymen
each with the weapon he is to use rather than to give each man a
broomstick or to give every four men an antiquated rifle which cannot
be used in service, and most of our artillery regiments at present
either have no guns or wooden guns or, in rather rare cases, old-style
guns which cannot be matched against any present-day artillery.
Moreover, and this is the vital point, we now have the time to prepare
only because the English and French fleets and armies protect us. Eight
months have passed since Germany openly went to war with us. As yet
we have not rifles for our infantry. As yet we have not guns for our
artillery. It will be at least a year after we were dragged into the
war before our army will have received the weapons with which we are to
wage the war.
This is broomstick preparedness, and there is not the slightest use in
trying to justify or excuse broomstick preparedness.
THE BONDHOLDERS AND THE PEOPLE
OCTOBER 7, 1917
Not many years ago one of the favorite cries of those who wished to
exploit for their own advantage the often justifiable popular unrest
and discontent was that “the people were oppressed in the interest
of the bondholders.” The more ardent souls of this type wished to
repudiate the national debt, to “wipe it out as with a sponge,” in order
to remove the “oppression.” The bondholders were always held up as
greedy creatures who had obtained an unfair advantage of the people as
a whole.
Well, the Liberty Loan now offers the chance to make the people and the
bondholders interchangeable terms. The bonds are issued in such a way
that the farmer and the wage-worker have exactly the same chance as the
banker to purchase and hold as many or as few as they wish. No matter
how small a man’s means, he can get some part of a bond if he wishes.
The Government and the big financiers are doing all they can to make
the sale as widely distributed as possible. Some bankers are serving
without pay in the effort to put all the facts before the people as a
whole, and so make the loan in very truth a people’s loan. It rests
with the people themselves to decide whether it shall be such.
The Government must have the money. It is a patriotic duty to purchase
the bonds. And they offer an absolutely safe investment. The money
invested is invested on the best security in the world--that of the
United States; of the American Nation itself. The money cannot be lost
unless the United States is destroyed, and in that case we would all
of us be smashed anyhow, so that it would not make any difference.
The people can, if they choose, now make themselves the bondholders.
If they do not so choose, and if they force Wall Street to become the
largest purchaser of the bonds, which must be bought somehow, then they
will have no right in the future to grumble about the bondholders as a
special class. We can now, all of us, join that class if we wish.
FACTORIES OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP
OCTOBER 10, 1917
The training camps for the drafted men of the national army are huge
factories for turning out first-class American citizens. Not only are
they fitting our people for war; they are fitting them for the work
of peace. They are making patriotism, love of country, devotion to the
flag, and a sense of duty to others living facts, instead of unreal
phrases. The public schools are laboratories of Americanism for our
children; the training camps are laboratories of Americanism for our
young men.
I have just seen a party of drafted men from the East Side of New
York City start for Camp Upton with a band playing, an American flag
flying. And two of their number in front, one dressed as Uncle Sam,
and the other as the Kaiser, dragged along in manacles. There is no
fifty-fifty Americanism in men with such spirit. A captain at this
camp, a Plattsburg man, told me that his company of East Side New
Yorkers showed all the intelligence and the zealous desire to learn
which the fine young college graduates at Plattsburg have shown.
Another captain told me that one of his men, a young Jew, had come
to him and said that at first the East Siders had hated coming, not
knowing what was ahead of them, but that now they felt that they were
in a University of American Citizenship. A surgeon in the camp told me
that men also, proved physically lacking after a week’s trial, were
in most cases bitterly chagrined at being sent away. A colonel from
a Southern camp has reported that already his country boys from the
remote farms are straightening and broadening morally, mentally, and
physically, and that the improvement is really incalculable. From every
camp we hear of the eagerness with which the men are doing their duty,
of their resourcefulness and of the real patriotism which is being
rapidly learned. All this means not merely good soldiers in war, but
good citizens in peace; it means an immense growth in the spirit of
Americanism.
The young men are learning to be efficient, alert, self-respectful and
respectful of others; they are learning to scorn laziness, slackness,
and cowardice. All are serving on a precise equality of privilege
and of duty and are judged each only on his merits. The sons of the
foreign-born learn that they are exactly as good Americans as any one
else, and when they return to their home their families will learn it,
too.
Let all good Americans insist that now, without delay, we make this
state of affairs our permanent national policy by law. We have
built the camp, we have encountered the failures to provide army
uniforms and blankets and all the other exasperating delays which are
inevitable when a nation like ours has foolishly trusted to broomstick
preparedness. We shall avoid all these things for the future if we
continue these camps, as permanent features of the life of all our
young men, and change the selective draft unto a system of universal
obligatory military training for all our young men of nineteen and
twenty, it being understood that they are not to go to war until they
are twenty-one. We are now suffering, and the whole world is now
suffering, from the effects of our broomstick preparedness. Let us do
away with broomstick preparedness for the future and substitute real
preparedness.
PILLAR-OF-SALT CITIZENSHIP
OCTOBER 12, 1917
When Lot’s wife was journeying to safety, she could not resist looking
back to the land she had left and was thereupon turned to a pillar of
salt. The men from the Old World who, instead of adopting an attitude
of hearty and exclusive loyalty to their land, try also to look
backward to their old countries, become pillars-of-salt citizens, who
are not merely useless, but mischievous members of our commonwealth.
The dispatches of the German Government, just published by the State
Department, give us an illuminating glimpse, not only of German methods
and of German conduct towards this country, but also of certain phases
of our own citizenship. The German Government proposed to use this
country as a basis of operations for wrecking the Canadian railway. It
also proposed to use and pay its agents and certain of our citizens for
“sabotage in every kind of American factory for supplying munitions of
war,” and for “a vigorous campaign to secure a majority in both houses
favorable to Germany.” The German staff, in issuing these directions
and in naming certain American citizens as tools for the treacherous
work, insisted that the embassy should not be compromised and that
“similar precautions must be taken in regard to Irish pro-German
propaganda.”
Good citizens who have been misled by false counsel must now clearly
see that the campaign of dynamite against our industries, with the
attendant wreckage and murder, was a deliberate act of secret war by
the German Government; that the attempt by Americans to secure an
embargo on sending munitions to the Allies was an effort to aid Germany
in thus making war on the United States; that the Irish pro-German
movement in this country was financed and guided from Germany, and that
our citizens, whether of foreign or native birth, whether of native
American or German or Irish origin, who took part in pushing these
movements, were doing substantially the same kind of work that Benedict
Arnold once tried to do.
Some of them were doubtless paid, others were doubtless not paid,
but the paid and the unpaid alike were serving Germany against the
United States. These matters are now all of public record. The excuse
of ignorance can no longer avail any one. Henceforth the citizens of
German or Irish birth who take part in such activities as those of most
of the German-American alliances and the like, are at best standing in
the position of pillar-of-salt citizenship; at worst they, and above
all their native American associates, who now indulge in pacifist
movements or demand a peace without overwhelming victory or ask for
a referendum on the war, or in any other way serve the brutal and
conscienceless ambition of Germany, stand unpleasantly near the lonely
eminence occupied by Benedict Arnold.
BROOMSTICK APOLOGISTS
OCTOBER 14, 1917
The chief of the Ordnance Bureau of the army, in commenting on the
shortage of rifles, has said that it is of no consequence, because
“every soldier will be supplied a rifle when he starts for France.”
Of course he will, otherwise he cannot start. One of the leading papers
of New York backs up the statement by saying that the “drilling in the
camps without rifles is ended now” and that “General Crozier delayed
the work so as to get rifles with the same ammunition our allies are
using.”
Neither statement is correct. The last is the reverse of truth. On
October 2 in one camp there were still only one hundred rifles for
twenty thousand men and other camps were scarcely better off, and the
delay in getting rifles during the last eight months has been due
primarily to the refusal of the Ordnance Department to get rifles using
the ammunition of our allies.
If during the two years preceding our entry into the war the Government
factories had been run full speed, we would have had over two million
of Springfield rifles instead of under one million. Our shortage was
due solely to our policy of dawdle. Our factories produced a mere
dribble of rifles and no big field guns until the inevitable happened.
War came. Having no rifles of our own for the new army, the War
Department decided to adopt the English rifle, the Enfield, which was
being built in this country at the rate of nearly nine thousand a day
in private plants, and by speeding them up the number could have been
immediately increased to fourteen thousand a day. But the authorities
insisted that the Enfields should be changed to take our ammunition,
and that certain parts should be standardized and made interchangeable.
As regards this excuse, it is sufficient to point out that in the
first place it was a very grave error, while making the parts of our
Enfields interchangeable, at the same time to make their ammunition not
interchangeable with that of the British Enfields, for the number of
Springfields on hand was negligible compared to the millions of rifles
we would ultimately need, and in the second place the delay even for
this purpose was wholly inexcusable. The German submarine note came on
January 31. An alert War Department would have had its rifle programme
minutely mapped out within two weeks. The delay in furnishing final
specifications to the factories was such that they could not begin on
the complete rifle until the latter part of August. Six months is a
“perfectly endurable delay” only if we are content to accept the speed
standards in war of Tiglath-Pileser and Pharaoh Necho. The United
States must learn to adopt the war speed standards of the Twentieth
Century, A.D., instead of those of the Seventh Century, B.C.
If in April we had been ready to proceed with the Enfield rifle, we
would now have about two million of the new rifles instead of about
one-fiftieth of that number. General Crozier says that we have only had
to wait “two or three months--a perfectly endurable delay.” Surely if
there is anything this war teaches it is the vital importance of time.
Two or three months’ waiting in order to get a rifle which does not
carry the ammunition of our allies represents not merely an undesirable
delay but grave unwisdom.
General Crowder handled the draft to perfection because he appreciated
that the difference between sending a telegram at 5 or at 4:45 might
be of momentous consequence. General Crozier has bungled the rifle
situation because of the attitude which makes him regard two or three
months as “a perfectly endurable delay.”
For two years and a half before entering the war we relied upon
broomstick preparedness. For the first eight months of the war we have
followed the same policy as regards the vital matter of rifles for our
troops.
THE LIBERTY LOAN AND THE PRO-GERMANS
OCTOBER 16, 1917
Mr. Victor Berger, the Socialist leader of Milwaukee, is reported in
the press as sneering at the Liberty bonds, berating the Administration
for, as he says, appointing thirty-three wealthy capitalists on the
National Council of Defense, and in effect seeming to persuade his
hearers that they ought, at this crisis of foreign war, to be hostile
to those of their countrymen who are “capitalists” instead of the
Kaiser.
This is natural. The Socialist party machine in this country is run by
Germans. Socialists, who were sincerely desirous of social betterment
and who were sincere in this hatred of tyranny and wrongdoing, have
left the Socialist party. Those who remain in it have turned it into a
mere tool of the brutal militaristic autocracy which now threatens the
world. These men are completely dominated by the Germans, and German
Socialists in America have shown in this crisis that they are Germans
first, Socialists a long way second, and not Americans at all. In
fact, they are venomously hostile to the country in which they dwell
and claim citizenship, and are eagerly ready to sacrifice Socialism
itself to the interests of the Germany of the Hohenzollerns. They stand
well to the front among the Shadow Huns who, within our gates, are the
allies of the Huns without our gates.
While in Wisconsin I was told that the German-American Alliance, in its
efforts to persuade American citizens to betray their citizenship in
the interests of Germany, had relatively as many adherents among the
Socialists as among the two great parties.
When the Socialists under such leadership oppose or sneer at the
Liberty Loan, it is proof positive that all patriotic citizens should
buy Liberty bonds up to the limit of their ability. The Socialists
attack the Liberty Loan in order to hurt America and help Germany.
The domination of “American capitalism” is a mere blind to obscure the
service they are trying to render to the capitalists and militarists of
Germany.
For the composition of the National Council of Defense, I am sorry
that more labor men and farmers are not on it, but I wish they could
be put on in addition to, not as substitutes for, the men of means who
are on it, for these men of means, taken as a whole, have at much cost
to themselves rendered devoted and invaluable service to the Nation.
Their absence would be a general calamity to America and a great aid
to Germany, and all true lovers of America should recognize this
fact. I know some of these men personally, and those whom I know have
sacrificed time, effort, and money in order to be of help to the Nation
at this juncture. In fact, I have never known more devoted public
service than that they rendered at this crisis.
It is unpatriotic at this time to attack good Americans because they
have capital and are trying to make this capital of service in the
war. Capital is necessary to business and industry, and in this war
industrial efficiency is almost as necessary as military skill. The
factories at home are almost as important as the armies in the field.
Wise war taxation of capital and profits is eminently necessary, but it
must not go to an extent that will interfere with production and the
forward movement of business, or widespread calamity would result.
We are a great Nation, engaged in a stupendous war. Let us use dollars
as we use the loaded shells, and each can do its best work only under
the leadership of the ablest man: the business man in one case, the
military man in the other. By all means let the people be masters of
the capital of the country at the present time. The surest way to do
this is for the people themselves to buy the Liberty bonds and not
leave them to Wall Street. They are the one absolutely safe investment,
both for men of small means and men of large means.
A DIFFICULT QUESTION TO ANSWER
OCTOBER 18, 1917
A correspondent in Pueblo, Colorado, writes me as follows:
By what logic are we “at peace” with Austria, when she is furnishing
troops or artillery to Germany to fight and kill our soldiers on the
western front? The same question might apply to Turkey. Remember, too,
that we are furnishing money and supplies to Italy, our ally, in her
struggle with Austria. The Western folks are looking to you to answer
hard questions of this sort for us which we don’t understand.
Neither I nor any one else can satisfactorily answer the question.
A limited liability war in which we fight Germany ourselves and pay
money to Italy and Russia to enable them to fight Austria and Turkey,
with whom we are at peace, savors of sharp practice and not of
statesmanship. It is a good rule either to stay out of war or to go
into it, but not to try to do both things at once.
Moreover, this matter squarely tests our sincerity when we announced
that we went to war to make the world safe for democracy. The phrase
must have been used in a somewhat oratorical fashion, anyhow, because
we have ourselves within the last year or two made the world entirely
unsafe for democracy in the two small and weak republics of Haiti and
San Domingo. Therefore, the phrase must have meant that we intended to
make the world safe for well-behaved nations, great or small, to enjoy
their liberty and govern themselves as they wished. If it did not mean
this, the phrase was much worse than an empty flourish, for it was
deliberately deceitful. If it did mean this, then we are recreant to
our promise unless we at once go to war with Austria and Turkey.
Both these nations are racial conglomerates, in which one or two
nationalities tyrannize over other subject nationalities. The world
will not and cannot be safe for democracy until the Armenians, the
Syrian Christians, and the Arabs are freed from Turkish tyranny, and
until the Poles, Bohemians, and Southern Slavs, now under the Austrian
yoke, are made into separate, independent nations, and until the
Italians of Southwest Austria are restored to Italy and the Rumanians
of Eastern Hungary to Rumania.
Unless we propose in good faith to carry out this programme, we have
been guilty of a rhetorical sham when we pledged ourselves to make
the world safe for democracy. The United States must not make promises
which it has no intention of performing. We are breaking this promise
and incidentally are acting absurdly every day that we continue at
nominal peace with Germany’s fellow tyrants and subject allies, Austria
and Turkey.
NOW HELP THE LIBERTY LOAN
OCTOBER 20, 1917
The concrete services to the United States which every decent American
not fortunate enough to be a soldier can now render, is to buy as many
Liberty bonds as he can afford.
The Treasury Department has set forth in the public press the facts
about the campaign which the pro-Germans in the United States are
waging against the Liberty Loan. The campaign is being waged by trying
to prevent banks from handling the Liberty Loan, and by the publication
in certain newspapers of articles tending to discourage people from
investing in the bonds. Senator La Follette’s speeches, which are to
the same effect, are also being circulated with a view to check popular
subscriptions. Senator La Follette, by the way, represents exactly
the type which tries to prevent the people from owning the bonds and,
nevertheless, will in the future probably rail at the purchasers of the
bonds as having, somehow or other, obtained an improper and excessive
profit.