Hudson Maxim

"Probably the most curious feature of the naval program is the regularity with which the sky clouds over as the day for the consideration of naval appropriations approaches. Year after year, after a long spell of pleasant weather, all at once storm clouds have drifted across the heavens, international relations have become suddenly strained, and the whole land has lain in the shadow of an impending conflict. Fortunately, the storm blows over as soon as the votes are counted, and in the beautiful sunlight which follows the storm, workmen are seen constructing additional battleships. Suspicious persons have occasionally imagined they saw a connection between the international weather and the Navy League."

Dr. Charles E. Jefferson.

"It is criminal that we should expend vast sums on warships and armament on the advice of interested parties alone...."

"War scares are heard the world over. The world over they are set going by wicked men for evil purposes."

Dr. David Starr Jordan, "War and Waste."

The pacifists have delved out of the infinite latency a very startling alleged truth, which they are effulging in language of lavish luminosity, to the effect that it is necessary only for a man to have a pecuniary interest or personal advantage involved in order to commit any kind of crime. They have discovered that room for a motive establishes the motive and proves the crime. They have discovered that those things which we call integrity and honor and conscience are no deterrents whatsoever to the commission of the most heinous offense against one's fellow men, so long as there is profit in it. They believe that, if only there is money in the game, an inventor or manufacturer or merchant will scheme for the commission of wholesale poisoning, maiming, and murder. They believe that the inventors and manufacturers of guns necessarily foster war in order to promote the sale of their wares. They surmise that inventors and manufacturers of smokeless powders and high explosives are capable of standing with the "black hand," capable of being gladdened at the dynamite outrage, at the street riot, at the slaughter of song-birds—anything that will consume dynamite or burn gunpowder.

According to the pacifists, the principal lay of makers of war-materials is to connive with the officers of the Army and Navy to stir up international dissension and foment war, in order to create a demand for their products. The pacifists believe that army and navy officers are only too willing to co-operate in the nefarious business, because war brings higher pay and rapid promotion. They believe that it matters not to these "interested parties" how many of their countrymen are sacrificed on the firing line, or how many widows and orphans are made. The groans of the wounded and dying on the battle-field, and the lamentations in the desolated home, are music to the ears of those who supply the war-materials; for, with every shot from a rifle, fifty grains of gunpowder are burned, while bullets enough miss their mark to equal the weight of each man they kill. Consequently, there is substantial profit to the cartridge-maker and the gunpowder-manufacturer for every man killed with a rifle ball.

But it is in shrapnel and the ammunition for the big guns that the greatest profit lies. Field-guns fire away ammunition costing from ten to twenty dollars a shot, at the rate of from twenty to forty shots a minute. This costs a lot of money. At the battle of Mukden, in the Russo-Japanese war, one battery of eight guns fired 11,159 rounds, or 1,395 rounds per gun. Think of the expense of that ammunition, and the profit to the manufacturers! It is estimated that when the big naval guns are fired, the cost of the smokeless-powder charge, the projectile and bursting charge, together with the wear and tear of the gun, amounts to more than $2,000 a shot, and the damage done to a warship hit may be many millions.

Look at it any way you will, war, according to the pacifist notion, is a real Klondike for manufacturers of war-materials. The peace sophists have been able to put two and two together, with the conclusions that such an opportunity for profit is too strong for human nature to resist, and that, as they have found room for the motive, they have proved the crime.

Of course, their accusation is a pretty severe arraignment of human nature, after all these years of civilization and Christian enlightenment.

It is strange how human nature can have improved so much lately, as claimed by the pacifists, and how the spirit of brotherhood and good-will can have suddenly become so dominant that the peoples of the earth now despise war, and are so afflicted with the horrors of it that, just as soon as the great European War is over, they are not going to fight any more, while still the makers of war-materials remain in the primitive savagery of the stone age. It seems to me that, if human nature has so improved as to be an efficient bar to a nation against waging war for plunder, regardless of the advantage and the profit, it ought also to be a similar bar to inventors and manufacturers of war-materials, and to army and navy officers, against precipitating war for pecuniary or personal advantage.

But, according to pacifist reasoning, those "interested parties" are more endowed with the spirit of the hyena than with the spirit of brotherhood. Perhaps, however, the manufacturers of war-materials, and army and navy officers, were not home when the great improvement in human nature knocked at their door.

If considerations of mere personal profit are sufficient to make the best of us foster war, which the peace fanatics esteem wholesale murder, it is strange that the inventors and manufacturers of drugs and medicines, the proprietors of drugstores, and the medical profession and undertakers, do not form a league and co-operate in spreading infectious diseases, in order to create a greater demand for their wares and for their services.

Of course, the reason may be that they have not yet thought of it, and it may be wrong for me to suggest the thing to them. Still, it is queer that it has not been suggested to them by what the pacifists have said concerning the conduct of our army and navy officers and of the inventors and manufacturers of war-materials.

Let us see what the facts actually are:

The inventors and manufacturers of war-materials, and our army and navy officers, by virtue of the study and experience that qualify them for their business or profession better than others, are also qualified better than others to judge what are our actual needs for national defense.

If the manufacturers of war-materials, and our army and navy men, are to be convicted of inciting war on the evidence that by so doing they create a demand for their services, then necessarily others benefited by a like demand may be convicted on the same evidence.

Mr. Andrew Carnegie himself is the greatest of all American armorers. He it was who introduced the Bessemer steel process into the United States, from which all our gun-makers and all our armament-makers have greatly benefited. It is his name and that of Herr Krupp which Neptune reads graven in the walls of fighting-ships. He still draws an income from his interests in the great armor-making steel corporation—an annual income big enough to pay the combined salaries of all the four thousand officers of the United States Army.

Truly, if the discovery of room for a motive proves both the motive and the crime, and is sufficient to convict these four thousand men of being willing to sell their souls in order to raise their salaries a few dollars, Mr. Carnegie himself is at least open to suspicion.

Likewise, the varied and many institutions—incubators of the doves of peace—born of the great armor-maker's generosity, which continue to be his beneficiaries, cannot escape the suspicion that taints their pedigree.

Even the leading man—the principal star on the stage where Uncle Sammy unter Alles is being played—Dr. David Starr Jordan, is paid from the Carnegie Peace Foundation with money equally tainted by the sweaty hands of the grimy men who are forging armor-plate in the Smoky City.

But we all know that Mr. Carnegie is above any such suspicion. We know that the pacifist method of reasoning must be false.

The education of our army and navy officers teaches them not alone military science, but also national devotion and personal honor. Devotion to duty is necessary in order to keep them in the service, under the altogether inadequate pay they receive. The pay of the American army and navy officers is smaller, in proportion to their knowledge and the value of their services, than that of any other class of men in the country. If every army and navy officer should abandon the service for a position in civil life when he could get a raise of wages for so doing, there would not be a corporal's guard left in the service.

Whenever a public work is placed in charge of an army or navy officer, there is no sub-rosa rake-off, or divvy with civilian contractors. There is absolutely no graft of any kind in their service, and the government is sure of getting the maximum amount of work for the minimum cost. Not one cent of graft has fallen upon the palms either of Colonel Goethals or of any other army officer in the whole course of construction of that mighty work—the Panama Canal. New York City tried to get Colonel Goethals as Police Commissioner. He has received scores of offers of positions in civil life at many times his present salary, because of the military capacity and honor that make the Goethals sort of service very valuable.

I know many army and navy men intimately. I have had opportunities of hearing their off-guard conversations and interchange of ideas on all manner of subjects, and have thereby been enabled to see their character revealed to the naked soul, and I have never yet discovered any other attitude or tendency among them than the emulation of exactly that type of honor, efficiency, and manhood which is Colonel Goethals'.

I cannot award this same high praise to the politicians I have known.

An army or navy officer always drives just as close a bargain as he can on behalf of the government when doing business with civilians, although the economics of the transaction is of no personal concern to him.

When a politician makes a bargain, his first consideration is: "Where do I come in?" His next consideration is: "Where does the party come in?" Duty to the government is a minor consideration.

It is the demand for a thing that leads to its invention, just as it is the demand for a thing that leads to its manufacture. The demand must precede the production.

When the inventor designs a gun, or invents a new explosive, he does not simultaneously try to invent ways and means of creating a market. He may, on the contrary, be inspired with a spirit of patriotism, and feel that in the event of war his work will be of signal service to his country, both by killing his country's enemies and by saving the lives of his own people.

The manufacturers of war-materials are much more likely to be actuated by honorable motives, and to make large sacrifices from a spirit of patriotism, than are the manufacturers of soap, agricultural machinery, or automobiles.

The builders of Ericsson's Monitor were not able to get the government either to approve or to back the enterprise. They were, however, fortunately inspired by a high spirit of patriotism, and by a strong belief in Ericsson's invention; consequently, they built it at their own expense. It was completed just in the nick of time. The terrible Merrimac appeared before the Monitor was quite ready. She could laugh at forts, and the projectiles from the guns of our wooden navy glanced off her mailed sides like raindrops off a duck's back. Whether she would be able to run up the Potomac and bombard Washington, was a question only of the depth of water.

The little coterie of bureaucrats in Washington, who had ridiculed the fantastic innovation of Ericsson, were now on Uneasy Street, and sent urgent appeals for the Monitor to be made ready and sent to Hampton Roads with all speed. The peculiar craft did arrive on the morning of the second day of the naval fight. The result is one of the good stories of history—a story that has never been quite equaled in fiction.

The Monitor had not yet been accepted by the government when she fought the Merrimac; she had not yet received the government's approval.

A country Reuben, who saw a giraffe for the first time at a circus, looked the animal over, and, finding that it did not conform to his ideas of what an animal ought to be, remarked, "By gum, there ain't no sich critter!" Likewise, the naval experts at Washington did not believe that there could be any such fighting-ship. After that fight, however, the Monitor was quickly purchased, and hurried orders were given for more Monitors.

The patriotism and pluck of the warship-builders saved the country.

The pacifists are strongly urging what they term the nationalization of all manufacture of war-materials; that is to say, that all such materials should be made at government plants. Their object is to have the work done by disinterested persons, who will not be tempted to promote war in order to make a market for those materials. By admirable inconsistency, the pacifists would, in so doing, place the manufacture of war-materials in the hands of army and navy officers, whom they pronounce the most pernicious of all promoters of war.

Before Congress acts upon the suggestion of the pacifists to nationalize the manufacture of all war-materials, it would be well to see what would have happened in the past, had the thing been done sooner. We can judge from that concerning the advisability of adopting the measure now.

If it had been adopted at the time of the Civil War, Ericsson's Monitor never would have been built, because its building depended upon private personal patriotism and private enterprise.

If the measure had been adopted twenty-five years ago, then naturally, during that period, private invention and private enterprise would have been eliminated, and the government would not have profited from civilian genius and energy. Let us see, then, what private invention and private enterprise have done for the government for the past quarter-century, since the advent of smokeless powder.

Colonel E. G. Buckner, vice-president of the du Pont Powder Company, in an article in Harper's Weekly, of June 27, 1914, places the credit for the four most important inventions in the development of smokeless powder—first, to Vieille, of France, who produced gun-cotton; second, to MendelÉeff, of Russia, who told us how to colloid it; third, to Francis G. du Pont, who eliminated danger in the manufacture; and, fourth, to Hudson Maxim, who invented the multi-perforated grain that gave absolute control over the burning.

It will be seen that two of the most important steps in the development of smokeless powder were made by American civilian inventors. The alcohol replacement invention of Francis G. du Pont and my own invention of the multi-perforated grain, rendered possible the use of a colloid of pure nitro-cellulose as a smokeless cannon-powder. It would be absolutely impossible successfully to make a pure nitro-cellulose cannon-powder without these two inventions. If the manufacture of smokeless powder had been nationalized twenty-five years ago, this government would not stand, as it stands today, ahead of all other governments, in the excellence of its smokeless powder.

When the government first ordered a pure nitro-cellulose powder, large quantities of solvents were consumed in its preparation. Private manufacturers introduced new processes to overcome this difficulty, resulting in a material reduction in the cost of the powder, which has already effected a saving to the government of more than $2,000,000.

It is a peculiarity of smokeless powder that, regardless of however stable it may be when first made, it gradually begins to decompose after long standing, which, until recently, necessitated its destruction. Several years ago, however, Mr. Francis I. du Pont, son of the Francis G. du Pont above-mentioned, invented a process for the successful reworking of smokeless powder that has begun to decompose, at a mere fraction of the original cost, making it just as good as ever. This invention alone will hereafter save the government more than a million dollars a year.

When the new army rifle was developed, it was found that the smokeless powder then used by the army, containing nitro-glycerin, was so erosive as to destroy the accuracy of the arm when only 1,600 rounds had been fired. The government obtained from abroad some smokeless powder, which enabled 3,000 rounds to be fired before the gun was destroyed, but after that number of rounds, the rifling was practically obliterated.

A private manufacturer invented a new smokeless rifle-powder, with process and apparatus for its manufacture. With this powder, it is now possible to fire as high as 20,000 rounds before the accuracy of the gun is destroyed. This invention easily multiplies the life of the army rifle by six. As the army rifle will now last six times as long by the use of this powder as it would by the use of any other powder, the value of the invention to the government is by far the chief value of the gun itself. Consequently, it is estimated that this invention alone represents a value for the guns that the government now has on hand of more than $15,000,000.

Not only does our small-arms powder effect a great saving in the wear and tear of our shoulderrifles, but also our pure nitro-cellulose cannon-powder effects a similar saving in the life of our big guns. Our big guns, using pure nitro-cellulose powder, last, with equal accuracy, more than twice as long as British guns, which use cordite.

It will be seen from the foregoing considerations and figures that private genius and private enterprise alone have saved the government very many millions of dollars. Of course, it may be argued that, since guns and ammunition and all kinds of military implements and engines have been perfected, there is not now room for civilian inventors to be so useful to the government during the next twenty-five years as they have been in the past twenty-five.

A similar attitude of the average mind would have existed had the same question been raised twenty-five years ago. When our Patent Office was first established, the Commissioner of Patents predicted that within fifty years everything possible of invention would have been invented and that then the Patent Office would have to be abolished for lack of business. The number of inventions received by the Patent Office, however, has rapidly increased, and is still rapidly increasing. More inventions are received now each year at the Patent Office than were received during the first fifty years of its existence. The reason for this is that every invention, either directly or indirectly, creates a demand for other inventions. The inventor is still working in virgin soil, and the room for invention is infinite.

If the manufacture of war-materials were to be nationalized, not only would the government rob itself of the aid of large quasi-government manufactories, but also it would rob itself of the benefits of the inventive genius of the whole people. The value of that genius may be approximated by recalling what citizen inventions have done since the outbreak of the American Civil War.

Breech-loading guns of all kinds, the percussion cap, cartridges for small-arms, fixed ammunition for quick-firing guns, the breech mechanism for all guns, the built-up gun, the great improvements in steel manufacture, the revolving turret and the Monitor type of fighting-ship, the steam turbine, the internal-combustion engine, all of the great inventions in smokeless powders and high explosives, and their adaptability to use in ordnance, the submarine torpedo-boat, the self-propelled torpedo, the aËroplane and the dirigible, and any number of other inventions indispensable to modern warfare, have been the invention of civilians. Of course, army and navy officers have invented a great many important things themselves, and have rendered great service in the development of civilian inventions. But it must be remembered that army and navy officers constitute but a very small part of the population. Even were army and navy men ten times more proficient in the invention of war-materials than civilian inventors, the number and value of civilian naval and military inventions would preponderate enormously over those of government officers.

We have been assured all along by the peace sophists that, if war should come, the great American genius would rise to the occasion and spring to our rescue, with all manner of destructive contrivances, capable of annihilating armies and sweeping fleets of fighting-ships off the seas.

If the beautiful nationalization plan of the peace sophists, however, were to be carried out, the great American genius would get no opportunity to fructify the prophesied militant cataclysmic ogerism to the discomfiture of our enemies.

No other government has nationalized the manufacture of armaments and war-materials to the exclusion of private manufacturers. On the contrary, other governments strongly encourage private manufacture, for they realize the vast importance of drawing upon the inventive genius of the whole people, and of enlisting private energy, private enterprise, and private capital in government work.

The French government for more than a hundred years has made all its own gunpowder, but its chief gun-works are private enterprises. Possibly, if the French smokeless powder had been perfected by private enterprise to meet government requirements, those requirements would have been more exacting with private manufacturers than with government manufacturers, and the battleships JÉna and La LibertÉ would not have been blown up by the spontaneous combustion of bad gunpowder. If this government were to nationalize the manufacture of its war-materials, we know, by what has been done in the past, through private enterprise and private inventive genius, that the government would suffer enormously.

In this era of Congressional investigations, it would be well to have a government inquiry made as to whether or not there should be a new classification of acts of treason. It should be inquired whether or not, in time of peace, public preachments should be allowed advocating the disbanding of our Army and the destruction of our Navy—acts which in time of war might be interpreted as treason, and the offenders backed up against a wall and shot. It should be inquired whether or not foreign emissaries, and possibly spies, have not for years been collaborating with American advocates of disarmament. It should be inquired whether or not the Washington lobby that has been operating against governmental appropriations for the Army and Navy, has not received foreign support. If these things have not been done by representatives of foreign countries, with such a wide-open opportunity, then the diplomats and strategists of foreign nations ought to be sent to a kindergarten for instruction. Could anything be more likely than that foreign Powers should possess the sagacity to grasp such an opportunity to weaken our defenses?