a strong supporter of the Administration and that it takes the view
I have for months been taking, and which various well-meaning but
sheeplike creatures have bleated against on the ground that it implies
criticism of the Administration. I was merely advocating before the
event the course, which, after the event, all will agree ought to have
been followed. It is in this matter precisely as it was in regard to
our building ships to meet the terrible U-boat menace. We should, with
the utmost energy and speed, have begun to build them within a week,
within a day, of the German note of January 31. Instead of this we
dawdled and wrangled for six months before seriously beginning. In
the one case as in the other foolish creatures did immense harm by
protesting against pointing out our blunders on the ground that we must
not speak of spilt milk, whereas, of course, we can only stop future
spilling by showing where it has been spilt in the past.
Nine tenths of wisdom is being wise in time, is the lesson as taught
afresh by the Italian disaster and the shortage of cargo ships. Let us
at last profit by it.
WE ARE IN THIS WAR TO THE FINISH
NOVEMBER 2, 1917
The disaster to our Italian ally should make every American worth
calling such awake to the real needs of the hour and should arouse in
him the inflexible purpose to see that this war is fought through to a
victorious conclusion, no matter how long it takes, no matter what the
expense and loss may be.
Our first troops are now actually in the trenches; American infantry
and American artillerymen are under fire; blood has been shed. Our sons
and brothers have begun the trench life of wearing fatigue, of cold, of
inconceivable hardship and exposure and of cruel danger. A few women
at home suffer as much. Otherwise, no civilians outside the regions
conquered by the Germans can begin to realize the terrible strain to
which constantly increasing numbers of our soldiers will be exposed as
additional divisions are trained for and put into the actual fighting.
We who stay at home must back up those men in every way. We must stand
by and energetically support every effort of the Government to add to
their efficiency and to back them up, including the sending over of
constantly increasing numbers of soldiers to the aid of the men already
there. We must back up the loans and taxes necessary in order to supply
them with arms, munitions, equipment, food, hospitals. We must hold
to the strictest accountability before the bar of public opinion any
Government official responsible for needless delay, or for shortage in
shipping, clothing, or material, or for deficient ammunition, or faulty
gas-masks, or for any other shortage which exposes our men at the
front to needless danger and hardship. We must make their effort and
their suffering avail by highly resolving that the whole power of this
Nation, and all its resources in men and in wealth, shall be used to
bring the peace of complete and overwhelming triumph over Germany and
over Germany’s subject allies, Austria and Turkey.
Finally, every brave and patriotic American owes it to the men at the
front to make the lash of scorn felt by the Hearsts and La Follettes
and by all others like them. These men have given or now give aid
and comfort to Germany, and therefore show themselves enemies to the
soldiers in the American uniform by opposing the war, or by asking for
an inconclusive peace, or by assailing the allies of the United States,
or by condoning or keeping silent concerning the hideous atrocities
which have made the Prussianized empire of the Hohenzollerns the arch
enemy of every liberty-loving and self-respecting civilized nation on
the face of the globe.
SINISTER ALLIES
NOVEMBER 3, 1917
There are well-meaning, but not overwise, persons who bleat against
any sincere and truthful effort to make us more efficient in this war
by protesting against grave shortcomings. These worthy persons should
realize that they are acting against the interest of the United States
and in the interest of Germany. If they doubt this, they have only to
ponder the fact that in their attitude they stand beside such sinister
allies as German papers like the New York Staats Zeitung and Illinois
Staats Zeitung and the various papers of Mr. Hearst.
These papers have opposed our going to war, or have assailed our
allies, or have condoned or passed over in silence the brutal infamy
of Germany. They have opposed the Government in its actions against
Germany. In so doing they have been the enemies of America. And they
have been no less the enemies of America when they have eagerly
defended the Government from criticism for shortcomings which impair
our efficiency and therefore tell in favor of Germany. Exactly as they
once opposed preparedness, or excused the murderous sinking of the
Lusitania, or protested against our going to war, so they now zealously
exhibit a sham loyalty of the most hurtful kind by denouncing honest
and truthful men because they tell the truth.
In order really to serve this country, it is necessary to point out
the dreadful damage done by our failure to prepare; of the evil effect
of trying to train our troops with broomsticks and wooden guns; the
worse than folly of failing to declare war on Austria and Turkey, and
the harm done by the delays, including the dawdling for six months
before we began the vitally necessary work of shipbuilding. To cover
up such shortcomings deceives no one but ourselves. Germany knows all
about them. We help her to find out by our failure to treat her spies
with drastic severity. And the men who suffer know all about them;
the artillerymen with only a wooden cannon, or the sentry in a cotton
uniform on a cold night stands in no need of enlightenment on the
subject. When these pro-German papers with loud professions of loyalty
protest against telling our people the truth about such matters, they
are merely serving Germany against the United States.
Loyalty to the Nation demands that we subscribe to the Liberty Loans;
that we practice food conservation; that we ardently support sending
our soldiers abroad until we have millions of men on the firing
line; that we stand for universal obligatory military training and
service; that we heartily uphold our allies and condemn as traitors
to America all who attack them; that we insist on prosecuting the war
to complete victory and condemn as false to this country all who seek
an inconclusive peace. Loyalty to the Nation no less demands that we
make our people understand the lasting harm done by our failure to
prepare during the two and a half years before the war broke out and
the grave damage now caused by needless delay, by irresolution, by the
appointment or retention of inefficient men, and by any and all types
of half-heartedness in waging the war.
THE NEW YORK MAYORALTY ELECTION
NOVEMBER 8, 1917
The triumph of Tammany in New York City and the large Socialist vote
have in some quarters been hailed as showing that New York City is for
peace at any price and that it is against the Administration. Neither
statement is warranted by the facts.
The Socialist vote was about one-fifth of the total vote. It included
most of those who wished the war stopped at once, this number being
made up of professional pacifists, of red flag Anarchists, and of poor,
ignorant people who pathetically believed that a Socialist mayor would
somehow bring peace at once. But it also included its professional
Socialists and poor, ignorant people who did not think of the war, but
who pathetically believed that a Socialist mayor would somehow give
them five-cent milk. The voters in New York City who wish immediate
peace without any regard to national honor, or to what future horrors
such a peace would bring, are certainly less than a fifth of the whole.
The vote was not anti-Administration. A far larger proportion of the
supporters of the Administration voted for Mr. Hylan than for Mr.
Mitchel, and officially the Administration was neutral between the two.
A goodly number of pro-Germans supported Mr. Hylan, but he was also
supported by a large number of entirely loyal men, and he himself,
unlike the Socialist candidate, Mr. Hillquit, was avowedly for America
against Germany, and for the prosecution of the war. The election in
actual fact turned directly on local issues. New York occasionally
witnesses an occasional insurrection of virtue, but the city has
never in fifty years given a good administration a second term. The
insurrection of virtue at one election is followed by a Tammany
revival at the next.
The result of the election in New York City was not heartening
to patriotic persons, but right next door, in the Connecticut
congressional district which includes Bridgeport, a contest for a
vacant congressional seat resulted in a way that speaks well for the
Republic. The Republican candidate, Schuyler Merritt, a man of high
probity and capacity, with a forward look in international affairs,
came out in bold and straightforward fashion, saying he would support
the President in all measures for the efficient prosecution of the
war until victory came, that he would do all he could to prevent our
again falling into the condition of shameful unpreparedness we had for
three years occupied, and that he was for universal obligatory military
training for our young men. He won by a majority much greater than that
which his predecessor received at the time of the presidential election
last year.
GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA
NOVEMBER 13, 1917
There have recently been published various books by Americans who,
during the Great War, have officially represented this country in
Germany and in Belgium, when the Germans conquered it. Ambassador
Gerard is one writer. Mr. Gibson, secretary of our legation at
Brussels, is another. Mr. Curtis Roth, until recently vice-consul at
Plauen, Saxony, is a third. Their testimony is of profound significance
because of their official position and personal standing.
Two facts leap to the eye from their writings. The first is that the
German people have stood practically united behind their Government
in upholding and insisting upon the systematic infliction of hideous
brutality upon their foes. With deliberate purpose the German
Government has carried on a war of horror, a war of obscene cruelty, of
wholesale slaughter, of foul treachery and bestiality, a war in which
civilians, including women, children, nurses, doctors, and priests,
as well as wounded soldiers, have been murdered wholesale. The German
people have enthusiastically supported and approved their acts. Our
war is as much with the German people as with their Government, and we
should regard with loathing all Americans, whether men or women, who
any way attempt to justify or defend Germany’s action. The Americans
who so act are traitors to their country and to humanity at large.
The second fact is the extreme malevolence of hatred with which Germany
regards America, a hatred which blossomed into full growth before we
went to war, and which was immensely aggravated because of the contempt
inspired by our tame submission to outrage for over two years. Mr.
Roth’s testimony is peculiarly interesting. He shows that the Berlin
Government actively stimulated the campaign of hatred and revenge
against America, that the German people eagerly accepted the view
that Americans were cowardly, avaricious, and effeminate, and that in
Germany it was constantly announced that, sooner or later, there would
be a day of reckoning when America would have to pay a huge indemnity
or suffer the fate of Belgium.
Mr. Roth shows that the German people think exactly as their leaders
think. They now hate and despise us Americans as they hate others of
their foes. Says Mr. Roth:
They are resolved to make our country drink to the dregs out of the
bitter cup of humiliation. Nothing do they find more despicable
than our talk about peace, which they attribute to cowardice and
flabbiness. They look on the American pacifist as a weakling, as a
God-given tool in the hands of German interest.... The Germans, if
possible, feel more bitterly towards Americans of German extraction
than towards Americans of other lines of descent.
Germany has definitely decided on America’s ruin. She has definitely
decided that there must be an intense anti-American spirit in both
Government and people. She may bide her time, and she will doubtless
try to separate us from our allies, but her purpose towards us is both
relentless and ruthless.
If we are true to ourselves, if we prepare our armed strength and keep
it prepared, if we show farsightedness and valor of soul, we can be
sternly indifferent to this foul and evil hatred. But we must keep
steadily in mind that Germany respects nothing whatever except courage
and prepared strength and that the pacifists and pro-Germans, the Huns
within our gates, the Hearsts and the La Follettes, are playing the
game of our German foes, and if they have their way will bring shame
and disaster to our land.
START THE SYSTEM OF UNIVERSAL MILITARY TRAINING AT ONCE
NOVEMBER 17, 1917
Lieutenant-General S. B. M. Young, U.S.A., retired, gave long,
faithful, and efficient service to this country, from the beginning of
the Civil War, for nearly half a century. But he never has rendered
greater service than by his steady insistence upon the immediate
introduction by law in this country of the system of obligatory
universal military training as our permanent policy. This should be
done at once; and all the young men from nineteen to twenty-one should
be called out as soon as there are means of training them. They need
not fight until they are twenty-one. But they are least needed as
economic assets; they are most needed as military assets; and it is
cruelty to them not to train them in advance.
The selective draft was far better than nothing. But let us never
forget that it represented doing imperfectly after the event that which
ought to have been done thoroughly long before the event. We have
been at war three quarters of a year, and the drafted men, admirable
material though they are, are only just beginning to be trained and
as yet are not even armed and properly clothed. We are trying to train
our soldiers to perform the duties of soldiers after the war has begun;
and we can attempt the experiment at all only because the English and
French protect us from our enemies while we make it. Hereafter let us
train the man to perform the tasks of a soldier before he is called to
be a soldier in war. Only thus can we be just both to him and to the
country.
The present economic disturbance in the Nation was inevitable, in view
of our failure at the outset of the Great War to introduce the system
of universal, obligatory military training; and this failure is also
responsible for the fact that our national army, nine months after our
entry into the war, has only begun training, instead of being already
trained. Let us now at least provide for the future. The amendment
to the law above outlined, as advocated by the National Association
for Universal Military Training, of which General Young is president,
would add nearly two million men to our army, would cause the minimum
of interference with our economic life, and would not necessitate any
additional expense for training quarters.
The men thus trained will be immensely benefited from the standpoint of
their success in civil life; for universal training would be of immense
economic benefit to the Nation. As Cardinal Gibbons has well said, “The
legislation proposed will benefit youths from nineteen to twenty-one
years, morally as well as physically, and help to prepare them for
their work in peace as well as for the sterner needs of war.”
This is the only democratic system. General Young himself rose from
being an enlisted man in the ranks to being the lieutenant-general
of the army of the United States. Under universal training let all
candidates for West Point and all other candidates for commissions be
chosen with absolute fairness from among the men who have served a year
in the field with the colors. And in the navy let all candidates for
Annapolis be chosen from enlisted men of the navy who have served at
least a year as such and who are still serving.
A FIFTY-FIFTY WAR ATTITUDE
NOVEMBER 20, 1917
The attitude of the United States at this moment toward Germany’s three
vassal allies, Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria, is a fifty-fifty attitude
between peace and war. It is not honest war, neither is it honest
neutrality. It is the attitude of the backwoodsman, who, seeing a black
animal in his pasture at dusk and not knowing whether it was a bear or
a calf, fired so as to hit it if it was a bear and miss it if it was a
calf. Such marksmanship is never happy.
Bulgaria is now simply the tool of Germany and Turkey. I was formerly
a stanch champion of Bulgaria, and would be again if she returned to
her senses. But she now serves the devil, and shame be upon us if we do
not treat her accordingly. No one can doubt that the Bulgarian Legation
is an agency for German spies in this country. The Administration
has published reports showing that for over a year, previous to our
entry into the war, the German Embassy was the center of the spies and
dynamiters with whom Germany was already waging war against us. These
papers show that Germany’s allies are her mere tools and that Germany
is withheld by no scruple from the commission of every conceivable
treacherous intrigue and brutal outrage against us. Under these
conditions it is a grave offense against our allies not to declare war
on all of Germany’s allies.
Turkey has been and is the tool of Germany, but Germany has permitted
her on her own account to perpetrate massacres on the Armenian and
Syrian Christians which renders it little short of an infamy now to
remain at peace with her. It is hypocritical to express sympathy with
the Armenians and appoint messages to be read in the churches about
them and yet refuse to do the only thing that will permanently help
them which is to declare war on Turkey.
With Austria our present relations are less definable than our
relations with any other power. No one can truthfully say exactly
whether our attitude is one of peace or war. We have not declared war
on Austria and yet we are furnishing money, coal, and munitions to
Italy in order to enable her to fight Austria. If we really are at
peace with Austria, we are flagrantly violating our duty as a neutral
and we ought to be condemned in any international court. But if we are
really at war, then we are committing the cardinal crime of hitting
soft. If we had gone to war with Austria when we broke with Germany and
had acted with proper energy, the disaster to Cadorna would probably
not have occurred.
We are now taking part in the general council of our allies. The only
way in which to make our part in the war thoroughly effective and our
leadership felt to the utmost is whole-heartedly to throw ourself into
the war on the side of all our allies and against all their and our
enemies.
THE GERMANIZED SOCIALISTS AND PEACE
NOVEMBER 26, 1917
The American Socialist party at the present time is a thoroughly
Germanized annex of the Prussianized militaristic and capitalistic
autocracy of the Hohenzollerns. Honest social reformers have left it.
No patriotic American ought longer to stay in it. It is purely an aid
to the capitalist and militarist Hohenzollern party of Germany. It
is a bitter enemy of the United States and a traitor to the cause of
liberty throughout the world. Its leaders are the supporters of an
alien autocracy and are seeking to secure a peace which would immensely
benefit this Prussian autocracy. They stand beside the Bolsheviki,
whose antics have made Russia at this moment a by-word, both of
derision and hope to every believer in despotism and every opponent of
liberty throughout the world.
Any man who feels that there is the slightest exaggeration in the above
statements would do well to read the articles in which the New York
Tribune has recently set forth the connection of Mr. William Bayard
Hale with the pro-German propaganda in this country, with the Hearst
papers and with the Socialist campaign in New York on behalf of Mr.
Hillquit and a peace satisfactory to Germany. These articles should
be published in permanent form and circulated as a tract among all
decent Americans who still believe that the Germanized Socialist party
in America to-day is anything except the foe of America, the foe of
democratic liberty throughout the world, and the tool and ally of the
autocrats, the capitalists, and the brutal and unscrupulous military
chiefs of the Prussianized Germany of the Hohenzollerns.
Exactly as the reactionary is in the end the worst foe of order;
exactly as the conscienceless and greedy man of wealth is in the end
the worst foe of property and of honest and duty-performing holders
of property, so the Anarchist and the wild Socialist, whose doctrines
when applied necessarily lead to Anarchy and the I.W.W., and the
crack-brained professional pacifists inevitably themselves are the
worst enemies of freedom, of true democracy, and of righteousness. It
is natural that in this terrible and melancholy world crisis these men
should have struck hands with the sordid tools of German intrigue in
this country. The masters of Germany find all these men, whatever their
nominal differences, united in the evil bond of a common subserviency
to German purposes. The German rulers, who at home trample on the
Socialists and dragoon the labor organizations and bully the leader
of democratic thought, cynically profit by aiding in other countries
the men who in the name of social reform seek to overthrow orderly
liberty and thereby show themselves the sinister allies of tyranny and
despotism.
MOBILIZE OUR MAN POWER
DECEMBER 1, 1917
It has been announced from Washington that, in view of the shortage of
labor on the farms, there will be an effort in Congress to permit the
importation for temporary use on the farms of Chinese coolies. I do not
believe the effort will be successful, and if it were successful it
would be one of the greatest calamities that could befall the American
people.
Never under any condition should this Nation look at an immigrant as
primarily a labor unit. He should always be looked at primarily as a
future citizen and the father of other citizens who are to live in
this land as fellows with our children and our children’s children. Our
immigration laws, permanent or temporary, should always be constructed
with this fact in view. No temporary advantages from the importation of
Chinese coolies would offset the far-reaching ultimate damage it would
cause.
Neither ought we to approve the plan, sometimes set forth by zealous
and high-minded men, to get the Government to open up vast tracts of
land and farm it with wage labor. This is a proposal to substitute a
wage-earning agricultural proletariat for a farming population which
owns the land it tills. It is a move in exactly the wrong direction.
We ought by law to do everything possible to put a stop to the growth
of an absentee landlord class and of huge estates worked by tenant
farmers. Methods identical with or similar to those advocated by me, in
my recent book, “The Foes of Our Own Household,” point the way to the
proper permanent solution of the question.