My Dear Mr. Maxim:
I thank you heartily for your book on "Defenseless America." It is a
capital book and I believe it is safe to say that no wise and
patriotic American can fail to recognize the service that you have
rendered in writing it. I hope it will have the widest possible
circulation throughout our country.
I was glad to see the first-class letters that have been written you
by such good Americans as Oscar Straus, Garrett P. Serviss, Rear
Admiral W.W. Kimball, C.P. Gray, Holman Day, and the others. On the
other hand, I was saddened by the extraordinary letter sent you by the
three young men who purported to speak for the senior class of the
college of which they are members. The course of conduct which these
men and those like them advocate for the nation would, of course, not
only mean a peculiar craven avoidance of national duty by our people
at this time, but would also inevitably tend permanently to encourage
the spirit of individual cowardice no less than of national cowardice.
The professional pacifists, the professional peace-at-any-price men,
who during the last five years have been so active, who have pushed
the mischievous all-arbitration treaties at Washington, who have
condoned our criminal inactivity as regards Mexico and, above all, as
regards the questions raised by the great world war now raging, and
who have applauded our abject failure to live up to the obligations
imposed upon us as a signatory power of The Hague Convention, are, at
best, an unlovely body of men, and taken as a whole are probably the
most undesirable citizens that this country contains.
But it is less shocking to see such sentiments developed among old men
than among young men. The college students who organize or join these
peace-at-any-price leagues are engaged, according to their feeble
abilities, in cultivating a standard of manhood which, if logically
applied, would make them desire to "arbitrate" with any tough
individual who slapped the sister or sweetheart of one of them in the
face.
Well-meaning people, as we all know, sometimes advocate a course of
action which is infamous; and, as was proved by the great Copperhead
Party fifty years ago, there are always some brave men to be found
condoning or advocating deeds of national cowardice. But the fact
remains that the advocates of pacifism who have been most prominent in
our country during the past five years have been preaching
poltroonery.
Such preaching, if persevered in long enough, softens the fibre of any
nation, and, above all, of those preaching it; and if it is reduced to
practice it is ruinous to national character. These men have been
doing their best to make us the China of the Occident, and the college
students, such as those of whom you speak, have already reached a
level considerably below that to which the higher type of Chinaman has
now struggled on his upward path.
On the whole, for the nation as for the individual, the most
contemptible of all sins is the sin of cowardice; and while there are
other sins as base there are none baser. The prime duty for this
nation is to prepare itself so that it can protect itself--and this
is the duty that you are preaching in your admirable volume. It is
only when this duty has been accomplished that we shall be able to
perform the further duty of helping the cause of the world
righteousness by backing the cause of the international peace of
justice (the only kind of peace worth having) not merely by words but
by deeds.
A peace conference such as that which some of our countrymen propose
at the moment to hold is purely noxious, until as a preliminary we put
ourselves in such shape that what we say will excite the respect and
not the derision of foreign nations; and, furthermore, until we have
by practical action shown that we are heartily ashamed of ourselves
for our craven abandonment of duty in not daring to say a word when
The Hague Conventions were ruthlessly violated before our eyes.
Righteousness must be put before peace, and peace must be recognized
as of value only when it is the hand-maiden of justice. The doctrine
of national or individual neutrality between right and wrong is an
ignoble doctrine, unworthy the support of any brave or honorable man.
It is wicked to be neutral between right and wrong, and this statement
can be successfully refuted only by men who are prepared to hold up
Pontius Pilate, the arch-typical neutral of all time, as worthy of our
admiration.
An ignoble peace may be the worst crime against humanity, and
righteous war may represent the greatest service a nation can at a
given moment render to itself and to mankind.
Our people also need to come to their senses about the manufacture and
sale of arms and ammunition. Of course, the same moral law applies
here between nations as between individuals within a nation. There is
not the slightest difference between selling ammunition in time of war
and in time of peace, because when sold in time of peace it is only
sold with a view to possibility or likelihood of war. It should never
be sold to people who will make bad use of it, and it should be
freely sold at all times to those who will use it for a proper
purpose.
It is absolutely essential that we should have stores where citizens
of a nation can buy arms and ammunition. It is a service to good
citizenship to sell a revolver to an honest householder for use
against burglars or to a policeman for use against "gunmen." It is an
outrage against humanity knowingly to sell such a revolver to a
burglar or a "gunman." The morality of the sale depends upon the
purpose and the probable use. This is true among individuals. It is no
less true among nations.
I am speaking of the moral right. Our legal right to sell ammunition
to the Allies is, of course, perfect, just as Germany, the greatest
trader in ammunition to other nations in the past, had an entire legal
right to sell guns and ammunition to Turkey, for instance. But, in
addition to our legal right to sell ammunition to those engaged in
trying to restore Belgium to her own people, it is also our moral duty
to do so, precisely as it is a moral duty to sell arms to policemen
for use against "gunmen."
Wishing you all possible success, I am, faithfully yours,