conscious or unconscious. Let us be honest with ourselves. Let us look
the truth in the face. Let us remember what Germany, Austria, and
Turkey have actually done. Let us remember what Russia has suffered
from Germany and the worse than folly with which she has behaved to
every one else. Let us remember what has happened to China and what we
have made happen to Haiti and San Domingo. Then let us trust for our
salvation to a sound and intense American nationalism.
The horse sense of the matter is that all agreements to further the
cause of sound internationalism must be based on recognition of the
fact that as the world is actually constituted our present prime need
is this sound and intense American nationalism. The first essential
of this sound nationalism is that the Nation shall trust to its own
fully prepared strength for its own defense. So far as possible, its
strength must also be used to secure justice for others and must
never be used to wrong others. But unless we possess and prepare the
strength, we can neither help ourselves nor others. Let us by all means
go into any wise league or covenant among nations to abolish neutrality
(for, of course, a league to enforce peace is merely another name for a
league to abolish neutrality in every possible war). But let us first
understand what we are promising, and count the cost and determine
to keep our promises. Above all, let us treat any such agreement or
covenant as a mere addition to, and never as a substitute for, the
preparation in advance of our own armed power. Next time we behave with
the ignoble folly we have shown during the last four years we may not
find allies to do what France and England and Italy have done for us.
They have protected us with their navies and armies, their blood and
their treasure, while we first refused to do anything and then slowly
and reluctantly began to harden and make ready our giant but soft and
lazy strength.
No proper scheme designed to secure peace without effort and safety
without service and sacrifice will either make this country safe or
enable it to do its international duty toward others.
An American citizen, personally unknown to me, writes me that his
three sons entered the army at the outbreak of the war, and that one
of them, an aviator, was killed in battle at the front just two weeks
before my own son was killed as he fought in the air. In his letter my
correspondent adds:
Would that my country might learn and never forget that not only
the winning of peace now, but the maintenance of peace at all times
depends not fundamentally on treaties or leagues of nations, but on
the readiness of citizens to fly to the aid of the wronged and to give
their lives if need be that justice may be secured.
There speaks the true American spirit which holds fast alike to
fearlessness and to wisdom, to gentleness and to iron resolution.
There speaks the spirit of that fervent nationalism which would forbid
America either to inflict or to endure wrong.
THE MAN WHO PAYS AND THE MAN WHO PROFITS
AUGUST 9, 1918
The men who do the fighting at the front and their mothers and
wives back here are those who in this great and terrible crisis are
paying--the blood of the men and the tears of the women, and with the
suffering of men, women, and children--for our failure to prepare
during the two and a half years before we entered the World War. For
this failure to prepare, in spite of the most vivid warning ever given
a Nation, the warning that befell the rest of the world during those
two and a half years, the professed pacifists and the politicians who
pandered to them are more responsible than any one else, except the
pro-Germans. If, when the World War broke out, or at latest when the
Lusitania was sunk, we had done our plain duty, we had then begun to
build ships, field cannon and airplanes, and to train men exactly as
we have been doing during the last year and a quarter, except that
we should have done the work on a larger scale with more efficiency
and with much less waste and extravagance. Remember that failure to
provide great numbers of cannon and airplanes means that the infantry
has to pay for it with a huge increase of slaughter. All the guns and
airplanes we left unbuilt during the first three years of the war
has meant so much more bloodshed, so many more Americans killed and
crippled, not to speak of the tremendous loss of life to our allies.
Moreover, when men in small numbers are put into battle, when only a
few hundred thousand are forced to suffer heavy loss in doing work
which two or three million men could have accomplished speedily and
thoroughly and with very little loss, the responsibility rests on those
who prevented the preparation in advance. If we had built quantities of
ships and trained large numbers of men in advance, the World War would
have ended almost as soon as we entered, and an infinite amount of
bloodshed would have been prevented.
The best roll of our army overseas is the American roll of honor. These
men have paid with their bodies for the safety of this Nation in the
present and the future. They have died, and by their death have earned
for the rest of us the right to hold our heads high with pride. But
it is no less true that their blood has been shed, but their gallant
lives have been spent because we did not prepare in advance. We did
not prepare because our people were misled. For this misleading of the
people the professional profiteers share the responsibility with the
pro-Germans, with sham sentimentalists, with the sordid, short-sighted
materialists, and with all the politicians, publicists, and private
citizens, rich or poor, whose vanity or folly or self-interest profited
thereby. We ought not to remember this in any spirit of revenge, but
most certainly, unless we are worse than foolish, we shall remember
it and other warnings to teach us how to behave in the future, and as
a very stern warning against again trusting to the leadership of the
men thus responsible for the deaths of so many fine and fearless young
Americans.
Most of the men who are misled, and some of the men who misled them,
have come frankly forward to admit their error. What is even more
important, most of them have made the real atonement of deeds. They
have, if young, themselves gone into the army, and if not young have
sent their sons or permitted them to go into the army and fight in
freedom’s belated battle. All these men are paying their share of
the joint payment in blood of the Nation. They are to be heartily
respected. They are not seeking to profit by the valor and blood of
others.
So much for the men who pay; now for the men who profit. Some of these
men profit in money. If such profit is excessive it is iniquitous.
But a proper money profit is absolutely necessary, for no business
can be permanent without profit any more than a working-man can
permanently work without wages. The unpardonable profit is that of
the man, especially the rich man, who, having preached pacifism and
unpreparedness, now, when war comes, sees brave men face a death which
pacifism and unpreparedness have made infinitely more probable while
he himself and his sons profit by these other men’s courage and sit at
home in the ease and safety secured by the fact that these others face
death. The worst profiteers in this country are the men and the sons of
the men who decline to face the death which their own actions have made
more probable for others.
Unless in exceptional cases there is no need to discuss individuals
in private life. But when a man seeks public office, it becomes a
duty to discuss his record. Mr. Henry Ford is a candidate for United
States Senator in Michigan. No man in this country strove harder in
the cause of pacifism and unpreparedness than he did during the vital
two years and a half before this country went to War. He received
the cordial applause of the peace-at-any-price people who were
themselves, of course, efficiently playing the pro-German game. He is
a multi-millionaire. If any of his kin are killed, their families are
not merely guarded against poverty, but are sure of wealth. The son of
Mr. Ford ought to feel it absolutely obligatory on him to go to the
war. There is not in this country any other man who ought to feel it
more honorably necessary to pay with his body, if necessary, to atone
with his life for the dreadful wrong done this country by the preachers
of pacifism and unpreparedness during the two years and a half that
preceded our entry into the war. Yet it is announced in the press that
Mr. Ford’s son has obtained exemption from military service and is
employed in the money-making business of his wealthy father.
Mr. Ford’s proper place is on the mourner’s bench and not at the
council board of the Nation.
OUR DEBT TO THE BRITISH EMPIRE
AUGUST 16, 1918
Judge Ben Lindsey has recently written two or three striking
pieces about what Great Britain has done and is doing in this war.
Incidentally he points out how far ahead of us she now is in certain
types of social legislation, such as that dealing with children. But
the lesson he inculcates which is of most immediate concern is the
giant part England has played in this war and the debt we owe to
her because, in standing up for Belgium and France, she was really
defending us during our days of folly when we followed the lead of our
worst enemies, the pacifists and pro-Germans.
The English pacifists are, if anything, even more silly than our own.
They did their best to make England keep out of this war. If they had
succeeded the British Empire would for a few years have trod the broad,
smooth road of peaceful and greedy infamy and would then have tumbled
into the bottomless pit of utter destruction. But in August, 1914,
Great Britain and the gallant overseas commonwealths which share her
empire chose the hard path of immediate danger, of ultimate safety, and
of high heroism. Thereby they saved their own souls and the bodies of
their children, and in so doing rendered an inestimable service to us.
England has raised an immense army which has fought in Europe, Asia,
and Africa. If it were not for this army even the highly trained valor
of the French could not have averted German victory. At the same time
the British fleet has kept the seas free for the food and coal and
munitions needed for the Allied people and armies and has furnished
the transports necessary to enable us to put under Pershing a force
large enough to be of real consequence in the vitally important battle
which has been raging for the last thirty days. If Great Britain had
not been far-sighted enough to realize what her own welfare demanded
when France was invaded, and if she had not been stirred to noble
indignation by the Belgian horror, the whole civilized world would now
have been cowering under the brutal dominion of Germany. If she had not
controlled the seas, not an American battalion could have been sent
to the aid of France as she struggled to save the soul of the world,
and no help could have been given gallant Italy or any others of these
Allied nations to whose stern fighting efficiency we owe it that this
earth is still a place on which free men can live.
We must stand by Great Britain precisely as we stand by our other
allies--in the first place, by waging the war with all our strength,
and in the next place by seeing that the peace is of a kind which
justifies them for all the sacrifices they have made.
One item in waging the war ought to be insistence that every American
of fighting age who resides in the British Empire and every Englishman
of fighting age who resides in the United States be invariably put in
either the British or the American armies. One item in making peace
ought to be insistence that Britain keep every colony she has conquered
from Germany, both in the South Seas and in Africa. Germany has behaved
abominably in Africa. The course Germany has followed in Africa has
made her a menace of evil to the Boer and British Africanders, and to
return to her the colonies which have been taken from her, whether in
Africa or Asia, by Australia or Great Britain, or by France or Japan or
Belgium, would be a crime against civilization.
THE CANDIDACY OF HENRY FORD
AUGUST 20, 1918
Every loyal American citizen in Michigan should read the last two
numbers of Mr. George Harvey’s War Weekly. In these numbers there are
quotations from Mr. Henry Ford’s speeches made two years ago and again
since we entered the war. Mr. Ford has not questioned the accuracy of
these quotations given by Mr. Harvey.
Speaking of American flags over his own factory Mr. Ford said: “I don’t
believe in the flag. When the war is over these flags shall come down
never to go up again.”
The Sedition Act, approved by President Wilson, inflicts a maximum
punishment of twenty years in the penitentiary for any man who, while
we are at war, utters “language intended to bring the flag of the
United States into contempt or disrepute.” During the last year many
poor and ignorant men have been convicted and sentenced for using
language thus forbidden by law. In my view the fact that Mr. Ford is
an enormously wealthy man ought not to give him immunity from the law
if he cannot show that he did not use the language quoted in the War
Weekly. But whether or not amenable to the law, no patriotic American
can afford to put in the Senate, perhaps to help negotiate the peace
treaty, a man who announces that as soon as peace comes he wishes to
haul down the American flag and never again to hoist it. To send such a
man to the Senate professing such sentiments under existing conditions
would give the enemy a wholly wrong idea of the pacifist sentiment in
our country. There is nothing in the world which would now help Germany
as much, or give her so much heart in her struggle for the overthrow of
liberty and democracy as the belief that men professing such sentiments
would have part in the peace negotiations on behalf of this country.
Among the further utterances of Mr. Ford (as given in the War Weekly)
is one that he does “not believe in patriotism” and that he does not
care any more for the United States “than for China or Hindustan.”
The man who does not believe in patriotism is not fit to live in this
country, still less to represent it in the Senate. If these words of
Mr. Ford mean anything, then Mr. Ford is unpatriotic and has no more
right to sit in the United States Senate than a Hindu or a Chinaman.
Unless Mr. Ford can show that he never uttered these words no man
worthy to be called an American, and least of all any religious or
patriotic man, can afford to support him for the Senate.
Mr. Ford has been given immensely valuable war contracts of the
Government. No doubt he has executed them as well as the thousands
of other contractors who now render service to the Government for
pay. But no service he can thus render the Government can offset the
frightful damage he did our people by the lavish use he made of his
enormous wealth in a gigantic and profoundly anti-American propaganda
against preparedness and against our performance of international duty
during the two and a half years before we entered the war. This crusade
against righteousness included the sending of the ridiculous “peace
ship” to Europe. This particular manifestation was too absurd even to
do harm, but so far as it had any effect at all it encouraged Germany
to believe that we were as neutral between right and wrong as Pontius,
and that as far as we were concerned she could safely proceed with
wrongdoing because we held the scales of judgment even between the
wrongdoer and his victim. The crusade also included an extraordinary
series of advertisements issued long after the Lusitania was sunk, in
which Mr. Ford violently opposed and denounced preparedness, advocated
and approved the McLemore resolutions, and announced that it was our
duty to keep out of war; and not merely himself kept silent about the
wrongdoing of Germany, but assailed those who set forth this wrongdoing
on the ground that they “had bred racial hatred by the printing of
incendiary news stories and articles.” It may well be doubted whether
this propaganda did not do more damage to the American people than the
propaganda carried on at the same time by Ambassador Bernstorff.
If we had seen our duty and had fully prepared during these two and a
half years, either we would never have had to enter the war or we would
have brought it to a close immediately after we entered it. The best
and bravest of the young men of the Nation are now paying with their
blood for our unpreparedness and therefore for the pacific propaganda
quite as much as for the pro-German propaganda carried on in this
country during the two and a half years before we entered the war. But
wealthy Mr. Ford’s son is not among these men. He is of draft age. He
applied for exemption. The local board refused his application. He
applied to the President. The President did not act for two months.
Then the revised draft regulations were promulgated, and Mr. Ford was
excepted under the deferred or exempted class which included a married
man with a child, however wealthy that man might be. He has exercised
his legal right. Very many thousands of young Americans, men of small
means who are not sons of multi-millionaires, have declined to take
advantage of this legal right. They have left their wives and babies to
go to war for a great ideal, for love of country, for love of liberty
and of civilization. But Mr. Ford’s son stays at home. These other
young Americans face death and endure unspeakable hardships and misery
and fatigue for the sake of America and have surrendered all hope of
money-getting, of comfort and of safety. But young Mr. Ford, in ease
and safety, is in the employ of his wealthy father.
In private relations I understand that Mr. Ford is an amiable man. But
I am not dealing with him in his private relations. I am discussing him
as a candidate for high office. We are bound truthfully to set forth
what we believe will be the effect of his election, and therefore we
are bound to say that it would be damaging to the United States and
would be encouraging to Germany. No patriotic American should support
Mr. Ford.
SPEED UP THE WORK FOR THE ARMY AND GIVE ALL WHO ENTER IT FAIR PLAY
AUGUST 23, 1918
Our Government must learn that needless delay is worse than a blunder.
We are sending troops to Siberia. This is good, but it would have
been ten times better to have sent them last spring when the need was
precisely as evident as it is now. The Administration is now preparing
to ask Congress to arrange for putting between three and four million
men in France by next July. Six months ago our best military advisers
and our most far-sighted civilian leaders were urging that we prepare
to put five million men in France by next March. The delay has been
absolutely needless and may be very harmful. When last spring the
demand for five million men was being incessantly urged, President
Wilson treated it as merely a case for competitive rhetoric, and asked,
with dramatic effect, why we should limit the number at all. But he
actually has limited it to a much smaller number at a much later date.
Therefore let there at least be no further delay. And above all let
us not be misled by the persons who say that Germany will make peace
before next spring. Our business is to act on the assumption that we
shall have to put forth our utmost effort next spring and not to take
any unnecessary chances.
The Government is now very properly proposing to enlarge the draft age
limits to include all the men of fighting age, all the men of the ages
which furnished the enormous majority of the soldiers of the Civil War.
The number of men in the excepted classes should be greatly reduced.
There are too many exceptions. It is earnestly to be hoped that the
plan will include the institution of universal obligatory military
training of all our young men of eighteen to twenty years old as a
permanent policy.
But we ought not to adopt the plan recently proposed for special
advantages to be given by the Government to young men who go to college
and take certain special courses with a view to becoming officers. This
would amount to giving a special privilege to persons with money enough
to send their boys to college in order to have them escape the draft
and secure commissions. This is not fair. It means giving a privilege
to money. There is no excuse for giving such a preference to young men
of eighteen or nineteen at this time when we have been at war eighteen
months. There is still need to give some of the older men a special
chance to train. But there is no such need in the case of men under
twenty-one.
There was every reason of sound public policy at the outset of the
war to take advantage of the forethought and self-denial of the young
men who at the Plattsburg and similar camps had at their own expense
prepared themselves before the war began, and when, owing to the
failure of the Government to do its duty, they were the only men who
did prepare. There has been good reason for similar camps for young men
during the last eighteen months before our general training camps began
to show their full results. But from now on every young officer should
be chosen on his merits from the men who enter the army in the ranks.
Only the men who show their fitness, by whatever tests are deemed
necessary after service in the ranks, should be sent to officers’
schools, and money should play no part whatever in the matter.
SENATOR LODGE’S NOBLE SPEECH
SEPTEMBER 1, 1918
Senator Lodge’s speech dealing with the principles for which we are
fighting and setting forth in detailed outline the kind of peace which
alone will mean the peace of victory was a really noble speech. Nothing
is easier, and from the national standpoint as distinguished from the
standpoint of personal benefit to the speaker, nothing is less useful
than a speech of such glittering generalities that almost anybody can
interpret it in almost any manner. Only a great statesman possesses the
courage, the knowledge, and the power of expression to set forth in
convincing fashion the detailed statement of the objects which must be
attained if such a war as that in which we are engaged is to be crowned
by a peace wholly worth the terrible cost of life and happiness caused
by the war. This is the service which Senator Lodge has rendered to
this Nation and to our allies.
From time to time in our history the Senate has rendered services
of exceptional magnitude to the Nation. Never in our history has it
rendered greater service than during the last nine months. The greatest
men who have ever sat in it, men such as Clay and Webster and Calhoun
and Benton, did not stand forth in leadership more clearly than a
dozen of the Senators who, during the last nine months, have fearlessly
and disinterestedly borne the burden of speeding up the war and
endeavoring to place our international relations on exactly the right
lines.
These leaders have in actual fact adjourned politics. They have
considered only their patriotic duty in all matters concerning this war
and our relations with our allies and our enemies. The most efficient
service toward speeding up the war and enabling this Nation to do its
duty that has been rendered by any civilian public servants of the
Nation is the service rendered by Senator Chamberlain and the Senators,
both Democrats and Republicans, who acted with him on the Military
Affairs Committee in the investigation of the War Department last
winter. Within the last fortnight a service of similar character has
been rendered by Senator Thomas and his associates in both parties on
the sub-committee which has at last put before the people the truth
about the breakdown of our aircraft programme. The fact that this
summer we have put masses of armed men into France is primarily due to
Senator Chamberlain and the Senators of both parties who have acted
with him. The fact that next summer we shall at last back up American
troops with American airplanes will be due primarily to Senator Thomas
and his associates.
APPLIED PATRIOTISM
SEPTEMBER 8, 1918
The official record of the Illinois branch of the United Mine Workers
of America furnishes an instructive lesson in applied patriotism.
The president of the branch is Mr. Frank Farrington. The United Mine
Workers are affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.