Military preparedness meets two needs. In the first place, it is a partial insurance against war. In the next place, it is a partial guarantee that if war comes the country will certainly escape dishonor and will probably escape material loss.

The question of preparedness cannot be considered at all until we get certain things clearly in our minds. Right thinking, wholesome thinking, is essential as a preliminary to sound national action. Until our people understand the folly of certain of the arguments advanced against the action this nation needs, it is, of course, impossible to expect them to take such action.

The first thing to understand is the fact that preparedness for war does not always insure peace but that it very greatly increases the chances of securing peace. Foolish people point out nations which, in spite of preparedness for war, have seen war come upon them, and then exclaim that preparedness against war is of no use. Such an argument is precisely like saying that the existence of destructive fires in great cities shows that there is no use in having a fire department. A fire department, which means preparedness against fire, does not prevent occasional destructive fires, but it does greatly diminish and may completely minimize the chances for wholesale destruction by fire. Nations that are prepared for war occasionally suffer from it; but if they are unprepared for it they suffer far more often and far more radically.

Fifty years ago China, Korea, and Japan were in substantially the same stage of culture and civilization. Japan, whose statesmen had vision and whose people had the fighting edge, began a course of military preparedness, and the other two nations (one of them in natural resources immeasurably superior to Japan) remained unprepared. In consequence, Japan has immensely increased her power and standing and is wholly free from all danger of military invasion. Korea on the contrary, having first been dominated by Russia has now been conquered by Japan. China has been partially dismembered; one half of her territories are now subject to the dominion of foreign nations, which have time and again waged war between themselves on these territories, and her remaining territory is kept by her purely because these foreign nations are jealous of one another.

In 1870 France was overthrown and suffered by far the most damaging and disastrous defeat she had suffered since the days of Joan of Arc—because she was not prepared. In the present war she has suffered terribly, but she is beyond all comparison better off than she was in 1870, because she has been prepared. Poor Belgium, in spite of being prepared, was almost destroyed, because great neutral nations—the United States being the chief offender—have not yet reached the standard of international morality and of willingness to fight for righteousness which must be attained before they can guarantee small, well-behaved, civilized nations against cruel disaster. England, because she was prepared as far as her navy is concerned, has been able to avoid Belgium’s fate; and, on the other hand, if she had been as prepared with her army as France, she would probably have been able to avert the war and, if this could not have been done, would at any rate have been able to save both France and Belgium from invasion.

In recent years Rumania, Bulgaria, and Servia have at times suffered terribly, and in some cases have suffered disaster, in spite of being prepared for war; but Bosnia and Herzegovina are under alien rule at this moment because they could no more protect themselves against Austria than they could against Turkey. While Greece was unprepared she was able to accomplish nothing, and she encountered disaster. As soon as she was prepared, she benefited immensely.

Switzerland, at the time of the Napoleonic wars, was wholly unprepared for war. In spite of her mountains, her neighbors overran her at will. Great battles were fought on her soil, including one great battle between the French and the Russians; but the Swiss took no part in these battles. Their territory was practically annexed to the French Republic, and they were domineered over first by the Emperor Napoleon and then by his enemies. It was a bitter lesson, but the Swiss learned it. Since then they have gradually prepared for war as no other small state of Europe has done, and it is in consequence of this preparedness that none of the combatants has violated Swiss territory in the present struggle.

The briefest examination of the facts shows that unpreparedness for war tends to lead to immeasurable disaster, and that preparedness, while it does not certainly avert war any more than the fire department of a city certainly averts fire, yet tends very strongly to guarantee the nation against war and to secure success in war if it should unhappily arise.

Another argument advanced against preparedness for war is that such preparedness incites war. This, again, is not in accordance with the facts. Unquestionably certain nations have at times prepared for war with a view to foreign conquest. But the rule has been that unpreparedness for war does not have any real effect in securing peace, although it is always apt to make war disastrous, and that preparedness for war generally goes hand in hand with an increased caution in going to war.

Striking examples of these truths are furnished by the history of the Spanish-American states. For nearly three quarters of a century after these states won their independence their history was little else than a succession of bloody revolutions and of wars among themselves as well as with outsiders, while during the same period there was little or nothing done in the way of effective military preparedness by one of them. During the last twenty or thirty years, however, certain of them, notably Argentina and Chile, have prospered and become stable. Their stability has been partly caused by, and partly accompanied by, a great increase in military preparedness. During this period Argentina and Chile have known peace as they never knew it before, and as the other Spanish-American countries have not known it either before or since, and at the same time their military efficiency has enormously increased.

Proportionately, Argentina and Chile are in military strength beyond all comparison more efficient than the United States; and if our navy is permitted to deteriorate as it has been deteriorating for nearly two years, the same statement can soon be made, although with more qualification, of their naval strength. Preparedness for war has made them far less liable to have war. It has made them less and not more aggressive. It has also made them for the first time efficient potential factors in maintaining the Monroe Doctrine as coguarantors, on a footing of complete equality with the United States. The Monroe Doctrine, conceived not merely as a measure of foreign policy vital to the welfare of the United States, but even more as the proper joint foreign policy of all American nations, is by far the most efficient guarantee against war that can be offered the western hemisphere. By whatever name it is called, it is absolutely indispensable in order to keep this hemisphere mistress of its own destinies, able to prevent any part of it from falling under the dominion of any Old World power, and able absolutely to control in its own interest all colonization on and immigration to our shores from either Europe or Asia.

The bloodiest and most destructive war in Spanish-American history, that waged by Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay against Paraguay, was waged when all the nations were entirely unprepared for war, especially the three victorious nations. During the last two or three decades Mexico, the Central American states, Colombia, and Venezuela have been entirely unprepared for war, as compared with Chile and Argentina. Yet, whereas Chile and Argentina have been at peace, the other states mentioned have been engaged in war after war of the most bloody and destructive character. Entire lack of preparedness for war has gone hand in hand with war of the worst type and with all the worst sufferings that war can bring.

The lessons taught by Spanish-America are paralleled elsewhere. When Greece was entirely unprepared for war she nevertheless went to war with Turkey, exactly as she did when she was prepared; the only difference was that in the one case she suffered disaster and in the other she did not. The war between Italy and Turkey was due wholly to the fact that Turkey was not prepared—that she had no navy. The fact that in 1848 Prussia was entirely unprepared, and moreover had just been engaged in a revolution heartily approved by all the ultrapacificists and professional humanitarians, did not prevent her from entering on a war with Denmark. It merely prevented the war from being successful.

Utter and complete lack of preparation on our part did not prevent our entering into war with Great Britain in 1812 and with Mexico in 1848. It merely exposed us to humiliation and disaster in the former war; in the latter, Mexico was even worse off as regards preparation than we were. As for civil war, of course military unpreparedness has not only never prevented it but, on the contrary, seems usually to have been one of the inciting causes.

The fact that unpreparedness does not mean peace ought to be patent to every American who will think of what has occurred in this country during the last seventeen years. In 1898 we were entirely unprepared for war. No big nation, save and except our opponent, Spain, was more utterly unprepared than we were at that time, nor more utterly unfit for military operations. This did not, however, mean that peace was secured for a single additional hour. Our army and navy had been neglected for thirty-three years. This was due largely to the attitude of the spiritual forebears of those eminent clergymen, earnest social workers, and professionally humanitarian and peace-loving editors, publicists, writers for syndicates, speakers for peace congresses, pacificist college presidents, and the like who have recently come forward to protest against any inquiry into the military condition of this nation, on the ground that to supply our ships and forts with sufficient ammunition and to fill up the depleted ranks of the army and navy, and in other ways to prepare against war, will tend to interfere with peace. In 1898 the gentlemen of this sort had had their way for thirty-three years. Our army and navy had been grossly neglected. But the unpreparedness due to this neglect had not the slightest effect of any kind in preventing the war. The only effect it had was to cause the unnecessary and useless loss of thousands of lives in the war. Hundreds of young men perished in the Philippine trenches because, while the soldiers of Aguinaldo had modern rifles with smokeless powder, our troops had only the old black-powder Springfield. Hundreds more, nay thousands, died or had their health impaired for life in fever camps here in our own country and in the Philippines and Cuba, and suffered on transports, because we were entirely unprepared for war, and therefore no one knew how to take care of our men. The lives of these brave young volunteers were the price that this country paid for the past action of men like the clergymen, college presidents, editors, and humanitarians in question—none of whom, by the way, risked their own lives. They were also the price that this country paid for having had in previous cabinets just such incompetents as in time of peace Presidents so often, for political reasons, put into American cabinets—just such incompetents as President Wilson has put into the Departments of State and of the Navy.

Now and then the ultrapacificists point out the fact that war is bad because the best men go to the front and the worst stay at home. There is a certain truth in this. I do not believe that we ought to permit pacificists to stay at home and escape all risk, while their braver and more patriotic fellow countrymen fight for the national well-being. It is for this reason that I wish that we would provide for universal military training for our young men, and in the event of serious war make all men do their part instead of letting the whole burden fall upon the gallant souls who volunteer. But as there is small likelihood of any such course being followed in the immediate future, I at least hope that we will so prepare ourselves in time of peace as to make our navy and army thoroughly efficient; and also to enable us in time of war to handle our volunteers in such shape that the loss among them shall be due to the enemy’s bullets instead of, as is now the case, predominantly to preventable sickness which we do not prevent. I call the attention of the ultrapacificists to the fact that in the last half century all the losses among our men caused by “militarism,” as they call it, that is, by the arms of an enemy in consequence of our going to war, have been far less than the loss caused among these same soldiers by applied pacificism, that is, by our government having yielded to the wishes of the pacificists and declined in advance to make any preparations for war. The professional peace people have benefited the foes and ill-wishers of their country; but it is probably the literal fact to say that in the actual deed, by the obstacles they have thrown in the way of making adequate preparation in advance, they have caused more loss of life among American soldiers, fighting for the honor of the American flag, during the fifty years since the close of the Civil War than has been caused by the foes whom we have fought during that period.2

But the most striking instance of the utter failure of unpreparedness to stop war has been shown by President Wilson himself. President Wilson has made himself the great official champion of unpreparedness in military and naval matters. His words and his actions about foreign war have their nearest parallel in the words and the actions of President Buchanan about civil war; and in each case there has been the same use of verbal adroitness to cover mental hesitancy. By his words and his actions President Wilson has done everything possible to prevent this nation from making its army and navy effective and to increase the inefficiency which he already found existing. We were unprepared when he took office, and every month since we have grown still less prepared. Yet this fact did not prevent President Wilson, the great apostle of unpreparedness, the great apostle of pacificism and anti-militarism, from going to war with Mexico last spring. It merely prevented him, or, to speak more accurately, the same mental peculiarities which made him the apostle of unpreparedness also prevented him, from making the war efficient. His conduct rendered the United States an object of international derision because of the way in which its affairs were managed. President Wilson made no declaration of war. He did not in any way satisfy the requirements of common international law before acting. He invaded a neighboring state, with which he himself insisted we were entirely at peace, and occupied the most considerable seaport of the country after military operations which resulted in the loss of the lives of perhaps twenty of our men and five or ten times that number of Mexicans; and then he sat supine, and refused to allow either the United States or Mexico to reap any benefit from what had been done. It is idle to say that such an amazing action was not war. It was an utterly futile war and achieved nothing; but it was war. We had ample justification for interfering in Mexico and even for going to war with Mexico, if after careful consideration this course was deemed necessary. But the President did not even take notice of any of the atrocious wrongs Americans had suffered, or deal with any of the grave provocations we had received. His statement of justification was merely that “we are in Mexico to serve mankind, if we can find a way.” Evidently he did not have in his mind any particular idea of how he was to “serve mankind,” for, after staying eight months in Mexico, he decided that he could not “find a way” and brought his army home. He had not accomplished one single thing. At one time it was said that we went to Vera Cruz to stop the shipment of arms into Mexico. But after we got there we allowed the shipments to continue. At another time it was said that we went there in order to exact an apology for an insult to the flag. But we never did exact the apology, and we left Vera Cruz without taking any steps to get an apology. In all our history there has been no more extraordinary example of queer infirmity of purpose in an important crisis than was shown by President Wilson in this matter. His business was either not to interfere at all or to interfere hard and effectively. This was the sole policy which should have been allowed by regard for the dignity and honor of the government of the United States and the welfare of our people. In the actual event President Wilson interfered, not enough to quell civil war, not enough to put a stop to or punish the outrages on American citizens, but enough to incur fearful responsibilities. Then, having without authority of any kind, either under the Constitution or in international law or in any other way, thus interfered, and having interfered to worse than no purpose, and having made himself and the nation partly responsible for the atrocious wrongs committed on Americans and on foreigners generally in Mexico by the bandit chiefs whom he was more or less furtively supporting, President Wilson abandoned his whole policy and drew out of Mexico to resume his “watchful waiting.” When the President, who has made himself the chief official exponent of the doctrine of unpreparedness, thus shows that even in his hands unpreparedness has not the smallest effect in preventing war, there ought to be little need of discussing the matter further.

Preparedness for war occasionally has a slight effect in creating or increasing an aggressive and militaristic spirit. Far more often it distinctly diminishes it. In Switzerland, for instance, which we can well afford to take as a model for ourselves, effectiveness in preparation, and the retention and development of all the personal qualities which give the individual man the fighting edge, have in no shape or way increased the militarist or aggressive spirit. On the contrary, they have doubtless been among the factors that have made the Swiss so much more law-abiding and less homicidal than we are.

The ultrapacificists have been fond of prophesying the immediate approach of a universally peaceful condition throughout the world, which will render it unnecessary to prepare against war because there will be no more war. This represents in some cases well-meaning and pathetic folly. In other cases it represents mischievous and inexcusable folly. But it always represents folly. At best, it represents the inability of some well-meaning men of weak mind, and of some men of strong but twisted mind, either to face or to understand facts.

These prophets of the inane are not peculiar to our own day. A little over a century and a quarter ago a noted Italian pacificist and philosopher, Aurelio Bertela, summed up the future of civilized mankind as follows: “The political system of Europe has arrived at perfection. An equilibrium has been attained which henceforth will preserve peoples from subjugation. Few reforms are now needed and these will be accomplished peaceably. Europe has no need to fear revolution.”

These sapient statements (which have been paralleled by hundreds of utterances in the many peace congresses of the last couple of decades) were delivered in 1787, the year in which the French Assembly of Notables ushered in the greatest era of revolution, domestic turmoil, and international war in all history—an era which still continues and which shows not the smallest sign of coming to an end. Never before have there been wars on so great a scale as during this century and a quarter; and the greatest of all these wars is now being waged. Never before, except for the ephemeral conquests of certain Asiatic barbarians, have there been subjugations of civilized peoples on so great a scale.

During this period here and there something has been done for peace, much has been done for liberty, and very much has been done for reform and advancement. But the professional pacificists, taken as a class throughout the entire period, have done nothing for permanent peace and less than nothing for liberty and for the forward movement of mankind. Hideous things have been done in the name of liberty, in the name of order, in the name of religion; and the victories that have been gained against these iniquities have been gained by strong men, armed, who put their strength at the service of righteousness and who were hampered and not helped by the futility of the men who inveighed against all use of armed strength.

The effective workers for the peace of righteousness were men like Stein, Cavour, and Lincoln; that is, men who dreamed great dreams, but who were also pre-eminently men of action, who stood for the right, and who knew that the right would fail unless might was put behind it. The prophets of pacificism have had nothing whatever in common with these great men; and whenever they have preached mere pacificism, whenever they have failed to put righteousness first and to advocate peace as the handmaiden of righteousness, they have done evil and not good.

After the exhaustion of the Napoleonic struggles there came thirty-five years during which there was no great war, while what was called “the long peace” was broken only by minor international wars or short-lived revolutionary contests. Good, but not far-sighted, men in various countries, but especially in England, Germany, and our own country, forthwith began to dream dreams—not of a universal peace that should be founded on justice and righteousness backed by strength, but of a universal peace to be obtained by the prattle of weaklings and the outpourings of amiable enthusiasts who lacked the fighting edge. About 1850, for instance, the first large peace congress was held. There were numbers of kindly people who felt that this congress, and the contemporary international exposition, also the first of its kind, heralded the beginning of a rÉgime of universal peace. As a matter of fact, there followed twenty years during which a number of great and bloody wars took place—wars far surpassing in extent, in duration, in loss of life and property, and in importance anything that had been seen since the close of the Napoleonic contest.

Then there came another period of nearly thirty years during which there were relatively only a few wars, and these not of the highest importance. Again upright and intelligent but uninformed men began to be misled by foolish men into the belief that world peace was about to be secured, on a basis of amiable fatuity all around and under the lead of the preachers of the diluted mush of make-believe morality. A number of peace congresses, none of which accomplished anything, were held, and also certain Hague conferences, which did accomplish a certain small amount of real good but of a strictly limited kind. It was well worth going into these Hague conferences, but only on condition of clearly understanding how strictly limited was the good that they accomplished. The hysterical people who treated them as furnishing a patent peace panacea did nothing but harm, and partially offset the real but limited good the conferences actually accomplished. Indeed, the conferences undoubtedly did a certain amount of damage because of the preposterous expectations they excited among well-meaning but ill-informed and unthinking persons. These persons really believed that it was possible to achieve the millennium by means that would not have been very effective in preserving peace among the active boys of a large Sunday-school—let alone grown-up men in the world as it actually is. A pathetic commentary on their attitude is furnished by the fact that the fifteen years that have elapsed since the first Hague conference have seen an immense increase of war, culminating in the present war, waged by armies, and with bloodshed, on a scale far vaster than ever before in the history of mankind.

All these facts furnish no excuse whatever for our failing to work zealously for peace, but they absolutely require us to understand that it is noxious to work for a peace not based on righteousness, and useless to work for a peace based on righteousness unless we put force back of righteousness. At present this means that adequate preparedness against war offers to our nation its sole guarantee against wrong and aggression. Emerson has said that in the long run the most uncomfortable truth is a safer travelling companion than the most agreeable falsehood. The advocates of peace will accomplish nothing except mischief until they are willing to look facts squarely in the face. One of these facts is that universal military service, wherever tried, has on the whole been a benefit and not a harm to the people of the nation, so long as the demand upon the average man’s life has not been for too long a time. The Swiss people have beyond all question benefited by their system of limited but universal preparation for military service. The same thing is true of Australia, Chile, and Argentina. In every one of these countries the short military training given has been found to increase in marked fashion the social and industrial efficiency, the ability to do good industrial work, of the man thus trained. It would be well for the United States from every standpoint immediately to provide such strictly limited universal military training.

But it is well also for the United States to understand that a system of military training which from our standpoint would be excessive and unnecessary in order to meet our needs, may yet work admirably for some other nation. The two nations that during the last fifty years have made by far the greatest progress are Germany and Japan; and they are the two nations in which preparedness for war in time of peace has been carried to the highest point of scientific development. The feat of Japan has been something absolutely without precedent in recorded history. Great civilizations, military, industrial, and artistic, have arisen and flourished in Asia again and again in the past. But never before has an Asiatic power succeeded in adopting civilization of the European or most advanced type and in developing it to a point of military and industrial efficiency equalled only by one power of European blood.

As for Germany, we believers in democracy who also understand, as every sound-thinking democrat must, that democracy cannot succeed unless it shows the same efficiency that is shown by autocracy (as Switzerland on a small scale has shown it) need above all other men carefully to study what Germany has accomplished during the last half century. Her military efficiency has not been more astounding than her industrial and social efficiency; and the essential thing in her career of greatness has been the fact that this industrial and social efficiency is in part directly based upon the military efficiency and in part indirectly based upon it, because based upon the mental, physical, and moral qualities developed by the military efficiency. The solidarity and power of collective action, the trained ability to work hard for an end which is afar off in the future, the combination of intelligent forethought with efficient and strenuous action—all these together have given her her extraordinary industrial pre-eminence; and all of these have been based upon her military efficiency.

The Germans have developed patriotism of the most intense kind, and although this patriotism expresses itself in thunderous songs, in speeches and in books, it does not confine itself to these methods of expression, but treats them merely as incitements to direct and efficient action. After five months of war, Germany has on the whole been successful against opponents which in population outnumber her over two to one, and in natural resources are largely superior. Russian and French armies have from time to time obtained lodgement on German soil; but on the whole the fighting has been waged by German armies on Russian, French, and Belgian territory. On her western frontier, it is true, she was checked and thrown back after her first drive on Paris, and again checked and thrown slightly back when, after the fall of Antwerp, she attempted to advance along the Belgian coast. But in the west she has on the whole successfully pursued the offensive, and her battle lines are in the enemies’ territory, although she has had to face the entire strength of France, England, and Belgium. Moreover, she did this with only a part of her forces. At the same time she was also obliged to use immense armies, singly or in conjunction with the Austrians, against the Russians on her Eastern frontier. No one can foretell the issue of the war. But what Germany has already done must extort the heartiest admiration for her grim efficiency. It could have been done only by a masterful people guided by keen intelligence and inspired by an intensely patriotic spirit.

France has likewise shown to fine advantage in this war (in spite of certain marked shortcomings, such as the absurd uniforms of her soldiers) because of her system of universal military training. England has suffered lamentably because there has been no such system. Great masses of Englishmen, including all her men at the front, have behaved so as to command our heartiest admiration. But qualification must be made when the nation as a whole is considered. Her professional soldiers, her navy, and her upper classes have done admirably; but the English papers describe certain sections of her people as making a poor showing in their refusal to volunteer. The description of the professional football matches, attended by tens of thousands of spectators, none of whom will enlist, makes a decent man ardently wish that under a rigid conscription law the entire body of players, promoters, and spectators could be sent to the front. Scotland and Canada have apparently made an extraordinary showing; the same thing is true of sections, high and low, of society in England proper; but it is also true that certain sections of the British democracy under a system of free volunteering have shown to disadvantage compared to Germany, where military service is universal. The lack of foresight in preparation was also shown by the inability of the authorities to furnish arms and equipment for the troops that were being raised. These shortcomings are not alluded to by me in a censorious spirit, and least of all with any idea of reflecting on England, but purely that our own people may profit by the lessons taught. America should pay heed to these facts and profit by them; and we can only so profit if we realize that under like conditions we should at the moment make a much poorer showing than England has made.

It is indispensable to remember that in the cases of both Germany and Japan their extraordinary success has been due directly to that kind of efficiency in war which springs only from the highest efficiency in preparedness for war. Until educated people who sincerely desire peace face this fact with all of its implications, unpleasant and pleasant, they will not be able to better present international conditions. In order to secure this betterment, conditions must be created which will enable civilized nations to achieve such efficiency without being thereby rendered dangerous to their neighbors and to civilization as a whole. Americans, particularly, and, to a degree only slightly less, Englishmen and Frenchmen need to remember this fact, for while the ultrapacificists, the peace-at-any-price men, have appeared sporadically everywhere, they have of recent years been most numerous and noxious in the United States, in Great Britain, and in France.

Inasmuch as in our country, where, Heaven knows, we have evils enough with which to grapple, none of these evils is in even the smallest degree due to militarism—inasmuch as to inveigh against militarism in the United States is about as useful as to inveigh against eating horse-flesh in honor of Odin—this seems curious. But it is true. Probably it is merely another illustration of the old, old truth that persons who shrink from grappling with grave and real evils often strive to atone to their consciences for such failure by empty denunciation of evils which to them offer no danger and no temptation; which, as far as they are concerned, do not exist. Such denunciation is easy. It is also worthless.

American college presidents, clergymen, professors, and publicists with much pretension—some of it founded on fact—to intelligence have praised works like that of Mr. Bloch, who “proved” that war was impossible, and like those of Mr. Norman Angell, who “proved” that it was an illusion to believe that it was profitable. The greatest and most terrible wars in history have taken place since Mr. Bloch wrote. When Mr. Angell wrote no unprejudiced man of wisdom could have failed to understand that the two most successful nations of recent times, Germany and Japan, owed their great national success to successful war. The United States owes not only its greatness but its very existence to the fact that in the Civil War the men who controlled its destinies were the fighting men. The counsels of the ultrapacificists, the peace-at-any-price men of that day, if adopted, would have meant not only the death of the nation but an incalculable disaster to humanity. A righteous war may at any moment be essential to national welfare; and it is a lamentable fact that nations have sometimes profited greatly by war that was not righteous. Such evil profit will never be done away with until armed force is put behind righteousness.

We must also remember, however, that the mischievous folly of the men whose counsels tend to inefficiency and impotence is not worse than the baseness of the men who in a spirit of mean and cringing admiration of brute force gloss over, or justify, or even deify, the exhibition of unscrupulous strength. Writings like those of Homer Lea, or of Nietzsche, or even of Professor Treitschke—not to speak of Carlyle—are as objectionable as those of Messrs. Bloch and Angell. Our people need to pay homage to the great efficiency and the intense patriotism of Germany. But they need no less fully to realize that this patriotism has at times been accompanied by callous indifference to the rights of weaker nations, and that this efficiency has at times been exercised in a way that represents a genuine setback to humanity and civilization. Germany’s conduct toward Belgium can be justified only in accordance with a theory which will also justify Napoleon’s conduct toward Spain and his treatment of Prussia and of all Germany during the six years succeeding Jena. I do not see how any man can fail to sympathize with Stein and Schornhorst; with Andreas Hofer, with the Maid of Saragossa, with Koerner and the Tugendbund; and if he does so sympathize, he must extend the same sympathy and admiration to King Albert and the Belgians.

Moreover, it is well for Americans always to remember that what has been done to Belgium would, of course, be done to us just as unhesitatingly if the conditions required it.

Of course, the lowest depth is reached by the professional pacificists who continue to scream for peace without daring to protest against any concrete wrong committed against peace. These include all of our fellow countrymen who at the present time clamor for peace without explicitly and clearly declaring that the first condition of peace should be the righting of the wrongs of Belgium, reparation to her, and guarantee against the possible repetition of such wrongs at the expense of any well-behaved small civilized power in the future. It may be that peace will come without such reparation and guarantee but if so it will be as emphatically the peace of unrighteousness as was the peace made at Tilsit a hundred and seven years ago.

When the President appoints a day of prayer for peace, without emphatically making it evident that the prayer should be for the redress of the wrongs without which peace would be harmful, he cannot be considered as serving righteousness. When Mr. Bryan concludes absurd all-inclusive arbitration treaties and is loquacious to peace societies about the abolition of war, without daring to protest against the hideous wrongs done Belgium, he feebly serves unrighteousness. More comic manifestations, of course entirely useless but probably too fatuous to be really mischievous, are those which find expression in the circulation of peace postage-stamps with doves on them, or in taking part in peace parades—they might as well be antivaccination parades—or in the circulation of peace petitions to be signed by school-children, which for all their possible effect might just as well relate to the planet Mars.

International peace will only come when the nations of the world form some kind of league which provides for an international tribunal to decide on international matters, which decrees that treaties and international agreements are never to be entered into recklessly and foolishly, and when once entered into are to be observed with entire good faith, and which puts the collective force of civilization behind such treaties and agreements and court decisions and against any wrong-doing or recalcitrant nation. The all-inclusive arbitration treaties negotiated by the present administration amount to almost nothing. They are utterly worthless for good. They are however slightly mischievous because:

1. There is no provision for their enforcement, and,

2. They would be in some cases not only impossible but improper to enforce.

A treaty is a promise. It is like a promise to pay in the commercial world. Its value lies in the means provided for redeeming the promise. To make it, and not redeem it, is vicious. A United States gold certificate is valuable because gold is back of it. If there were nothing back of it the certificate would sink to the position of fiat money, which is irredeemable, and therefore valueless; as in the case of our Revolutionary currency. The Wilson-Bryan all-inclusive arbitration treaties represent nothing whatever but international fiat money. To make them is no more honest than it is to issue fiat money. Mr. Bryan would not make a good Secretary of the Treasury, but he would do better in that position than as Secretary of State. For his type of fiat obligations is a little worse in international than in internal affairs. The all-inclusive arbitration treaties, in whose free and unlimited negotiation Mr. Bryan takes such pleasure, are of less value than the thirty-cent dollars, whose free and unlimited coinage he formerly advocated.

An efficient world league for peace is as yet in the future; and it may be, although I sincerely hope not, in the far future. The indispensable thing for every free people to do in the present day is with efficiency to prepare against war by making itself able physically to defend its rights and by cultivating that stern and manly spirit without which no material preparation will avail.

The last point is all essential. It is not of much use to provide an armed force if that force is composed of poltroons and ultrapacificists. Such men should be sent to the front, of course, for they should not be allowed to shirk the danger which their braver fellow countrymen willingly face, and under proper discipline some use can be made of them; but the fewer there are of them in a nation the better the army of that nation will be.

A Yale professor—he might just as well have been a Harvard professor—is credited in the press with saying the other day that he wishes the United States would take the position that if attacked it would not defend itself, and would submit unresistingly to any spoliation. The professor said that this would afford such a beautiful example to mankind that war would undoubtedly be abolished. Magazine writers, and writers of syndicate articles published in reputable papers, have recently advocated similar plans. Men who talk this way are thoroughly bad citizens. Few members of the criminal class are greater enemies of the republic.

American citizens must understand that they cannot advocate or acquiesce in an evil course of action and then escape responsibility for the results. If disaster comes to our navy in the near future it will be directly due to the way the navy has been handled during the past twenty-two months, and a part of the responsibility will be shared by every man who has failed effectively to protest against, or in any way has made himself responsible for, the attitude of the present administration in foreign affairs and as regards the navy.

The first and most important thing for us as a people to do, in order to prepare ourselves for self-defense, is to get clearly in our minds just what our policy is to be, and to insist that our public servants shall make their words and their deeds correspond. As has already been pointed out, the present administration was elected on the explicit promise that the Philippines should be given their independence, and it has taken action in the Philippines which can only be justified on the theory that this independence is to come in the immediate future. I believe that we have rendered incalculable service to the Philippines, and that what we have there done has shown in the most striking manner the extreme mischief that would have followed if, in 1898 and the subsequent years, we had failed to do our duty in consequence of following the advice of Mr. Bryan and the pacificists or anti-imperialists of that day. But we must keep our promises; and we ought now to leave the islands completely at as early a date as possible.

There remains to defend—the United States proper, the Panama Canal and its approaches, Alaska, and Hawaii. To defend all these is vital to our honor and interest. For such defense preparedness is essential. The first and most essential form of preparedness should be making the navy efficient. Absolutely and relatively, our navy has never been at such a pitch of efficiency as in February, 1909, when the battle fleet returned from its voyage around the world. Unit for unit, there was no other navy in the world which was at that time its equal. During the next four years we had an admirable Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Meyer—we were fortunate in having then and since good Secretaries of War in Mr. Stimson and Mr. Garrison. Owing to causes for which Mr. Meyer was in no way responsible, there was a slight relative falling off in the efficiency of the navy, and probably a slight absolute falling off during the following four years. But it remained very efficient.

Since Mr. Daniels came in, and because of the action taken by Mr. Daniels under the direction of President Wilson, there has been a most lamentable reduction in efficiency. If at this moment we went to war with a first-class navy of equal strength to our own, there would be a chance not only of defeat but of disgrace. It is probably impossible to put the navy in really first-class condition with Mr. Daniels at its head, precisely as it is impossible to conduct our foreign affairs with dignity and efficiency while Mr. Bryan is at the head of the State Department. But the great falling off in naval efficiency has been due primarily to the policy pursued by President Wilson himself. He has kept the navy in Mexican waters. The small craft at Tampico and elsewhere could have rendered real service, but the President refused to allow them to render such service, and left English and German sea officers to protect our people. The great war craft were of no use at all; yet at this moment he has brought back from Mexico the army which could be of some use and has kept there the war-ships which cannot be of any use, and which suffer terribly in efficiency from being so kept. The fleet has had no manoeuvring for twenty-two months. It has had almost no gun practice by division during that time. There is not enough powder; there are not enough torpedoes; the bottoms of the ships are foul; there are grave defects in the submarines; there is a deficiency in aircraft; the under-enlistments indicate a deficiency of from ten thousand to twenty thousand men; the whole service is being handled in such manner as to impair its fitness and morale.

Congress should summon before its committees the best naval experts and provide the battle-ships, cruisers, submarines, floating mines, and aircraft that these experts declare to be necessary for the full protection of the United States. It should bear in mind that while many of these machines of war are essentially to be used in striking from the coasts themselves, yet that others must be designed to keep the enemy afar from these coasts. Mere defensive by itself cannot permanently avail. The only permanently efficient defensive arm is one which can act offensively. Our navy must be fitted for attack, for delivering smashing blows, in order effectively to defend our own shores. Above all, we should remember that a highly trained personnel is absolutely indispensable, for without it no material preparation is of the least avail.

But the navy alone will not suffice in time of great crisis. If England had adopted the policy urged by Lord Roberts, there would probably have been no war and certainly the war would now have been at an end, as she would have been able to protect Belgium, as well as herself, and to save France from invasion. Relatively to the Continent, England was utterly unprepared; but she was a miracle of preparedness compared to us. There are many ugly features connected with the slowness of certain sections of the English people to volunteer and with their deficiency in rifles, horses, and equipment; and there have been certain military and naval shortcomings; but until we have radically altered our habits of thought and action we can only say with abashed humility that if England has not shown to advantage compared to Germany, she has certainly done far better than we would have done, and than, as a matter of fact, we actually have done during the past twenty-two months, both as regards Mexico and as regards the fulfilment of our duty in the situation created by the world war.

Congress should at once act favorably along the lines recommended in the recent excellent report of the Secretary of War and in accordance with the admirable plan outlined in the last report of the Chief of Staff of the army, General Wotherspoon—a report with which his predecessor as Chief of Staff, General Wood, appears to be in complete sympathy. Our army should be doubled in size. An effective reserve should be created. Every year there should be field manoeuvres on a large scale, a hundred thousand being engaged for several weeks. The artillery should be given the most scientific training. The equipment should be made perfect at every point. Rigid economy should be demanded.

Every officer and man should be kept to the highest standard of physical and moral fitness. The unfit should be ruthlessly weeded out. At least one third of the officers in each grade should be promoted on merit without regard to seniority, and the least fit for promotion should be retired. Every unit of the regular army and reserve should be trained to the highest efficiency under war conditions. But this is not enough. There should be at least ten times the number of rifles and the quantity of ammunition in the country that there are now. In our high schools and colleges a system of military training like that which obtains in Switzerland and Australia should be given. Furthermore, all our young men should be trained in actual field-service under war conditions; preferably on the Swiss, but if not on the Swiss then on the Argentinian or Chilean model.

The Swiss model would probably be better for our people. It would necessitate only four to six months’ service shortly after graduation from high school or college, and thereafter only about eight days a year. No man could buy a substitute; no man would be excepted because of his wealth; all would serve in the ranks on precisely the same terms side by side.

Under this system the young men would be trained to shoot, to march, to take care of themselves in the open, and to learn those habits of self-reliance and law-abiding obedience which are not only essential to the efficiency of a citizen soldiery, but are no less essential to the efficient performance of civic duties in a free democracy. My own firm belief is that this system would help us in civil quite as much as in military matters. It would increase our social and industrial efficiency. It would help us to habits of order and respect for law. This proposal does not represent anything more than carrying out the purpose of the second amendment to the Federal Constitution, which declares that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free nation. The Swiss army is a well-regulated militia; and, therefore it is utterly different from any militia we have ever had. The system of compulsory training and universal service has worked admirably in Switzerland. It has saved the Swiss from war. It has developed their efficiency in peace.

In theory, President Wilson advocates unpreparedness, and in the actual fact he practises, on our behalf, tame submission to wrong-doing and refusal to stand for our own rights or for the rights of any weak power that is wronged. We who take the opposite view advocate merely acting as Washington urged us to act, when in his first annual address he said: “To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means for preserving peace. A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite.” Jefferson was not a fighting man, but even Jefferson, writing to Monroe in 1785, urged the absolute need of building up our navy if we wished to escape oppression to our commerce and “the present disrespect of the nations of Europe,” and added the pregnant sentence: “A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.” As President, he urged our people to train themselves to arms, so as to constitute a citizen soldiery, in terms that showed that his object was to accomplish exactly what the Swiss have accomplished, and what is advocated in this book. In one annual message he advocated “the organization of 300,000 able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five for offense or defense at any time or in any place where they may be wanted.” In a letter to Monroe he advocated compulsory military service, saying: “We must train and classify the whole of our male citizenry and make military instruction a part of collegiate education. We can never be safe until this is done.” The methods taken by Jefferson and the Americans of Jefferson’s day to accomplish this object were fatally defective. But their purpose was the same that those who think as we do now put forward. The difference is purely that we present efficient methods for accomplishing this purpose. Washington was a practical man of high ideals who always strove to reduce his ideals to practice. His address to Congress in December, 1793, ought to have been read by President Wilson before the latter sent in his message of 1914 with its confused advocacy of unpreparedness and its tone of furtive apology for submission to insult. Washington said: “There is much due to the United States among nations which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it. If we desire to secure peace ... it must be known that we are at all times ready for war,” and he emphasized the fact that the peace thus secured by preparedness for war is the most potent method of obtaining material prosperity.

The need of such a system as that which I advocate is well brought out in a letter I recently received from a college president. It runs in part as follows:

What the average young fellow of eighteen to thirty doesn’t know about shooting and riding makes an appalling total. I remember very well visiting the First Connecticut Regiment a day or two before it left for service in the Spanish War. A good many of my boys were with them and I went to see them off. One fellow in particular, of whom I was and am very fond, took me to his tent and proudly exhibited his rifle, calling attention to the beautiful condition to which he had brought it. It certainly was extremely shiny, and I commended him for his careful cleansing of his death-dealing weapon. Then I discovered that the firing-pin (it was an old Springfield) was rusted immovably into its place, and that my boy didn’t know that there was any firing-pin. He had learned to expect that if you put a cartridge into the breech, pulled down the block, and pulled the trigger, it would probably go off if he had previously cocked it; but he had never done any of these things. It was my fortune to grow up amid surroundings and in a time when every boy had and used a gun. Any boy fourteen years old who was not the proprietor of some kind of shooting-iron and fairly proficient in its use was in disgrace. Such a situation was unthinkable. So we were all fairly dependable shots with a fowling-piece or rifle. As a result of this and subsequent experience, I really believe that so long as my aging body would endure hardship, and provided further that I could be prevented from running away, I should be a more efficient soldier than most of the young fellows on our campus to-day.

I have watched with much dissatisfaction the gradual disappearance of the military schools here in the East. There are some prominent and useful ones in the West, but they are far too few, and I do not believe there is any preliminary military training of any sort in our public schools. I fear that the military training required by law in certain agricultural and other schools receiving federal aid is more or less of a fake; the object seeming to be to get the appropriation and make the least possible return.

If in any way you can bring it about that our boys shall be taught to shoot, I believe with you that they can learn the essentials of drill very quickly when need arises. And even so, however, our rulers must learn the necessity of having rifles enough and ammunition enough to meet any emergency at all likely to occur.

It is idle for this nation to trust to arbitration and neutrality treaties unbacked by force. It is idle to trust to the tepid good-will of other nations. It is idle to trust to alliances. Alliances change. Russia and Japan are now fighting side by side, although nine years ago they were fighting against one another. Twenty years ago Russia and Germany stood side by side. Fifteen years ago England was more hostile to Russia, and even to France, than she was to Germany. It is perfectly possible that after the close of this war the present allies will fall out, or that Germany and Japan will turn up in close alliance.

It is our duty to try to work for a great world league for righteous peace enforced by power; but no such league is yet in sight. At present the prime duty of the American people is to abandon the inane and mischievous principle of watchful waiting—that is, of slothful and timid refusal either to face facts or to perform duty. Let us act justly toward others; and let us also be prepared with stout heart and strong hand to defend our rights against injustice from others.

In his recent report the Secretary of War, Mr. Garrison, has put the case for preparedness in the interest of honorable peace so admirably that what he says should be studied by all our people. It runs in part as follows:

“This, then, leaves for consideration the imminent questions of military policy; the considerations which, in my view, should be taken into account in determining the same; and the suggestions which occur to me to be pertinent in the circumstances.

It would be premature to attempt now to draw the ultimate lessons from the war in Europe. It is an imperative duty, however, to heed so much of what it brings home to us as is incontrovertible and not to be changed by any event, leaving for later and more detailed and comprehensive consideration what its later developments and final conclusions may indicate.

For orderly treatment certain preliminary considerations may be usefully adverted to. It is, of course, not necessary to dwell on the blessings of peace and the horrors of war. Every one desires peace, just as every one desires health, contentment, affection, sufficient means for comfortable existence, and other similarly beneficent things. But peace and the other states of being just mentioned are not always or even often solely within one’s own control. Those who are thoughtful and have courage face the facts of life, take lessons from experience, and strive by wise conduct to attain the desirable things, and by prevision and precaution to protect and defend them when obtained. It may truthfully be said that eternal vigilance is the price which must be paid in order to obtain the desirable things of life and to defend them.

In collective affairs the interests of the group are confided to the government, and it thereupon is charged with the duty to preserve and defend these things. The government must exercise for the nation the precautionary, defensive, and preservative measures necessary to that end. All governments must therefore have force—physical force—i. e., military force, for these purposes. The question for each nation when this matter is under consideration is, How much force should it have and of what should that force consist?

In the early history of our nation there was a natural, almost inevitable, abhorrence of military force, because it connoted military despotism. Most, if not all, of the early settlers in this country came from nations where a few powerful persons tyrannically imposed their will upon the people by means of military power. The consequence was that the oppressed who fled to this country necessarily connected military force with despotism and had a dread thereof. Of course, all this has long since passed into history. No reasonable person in this country to-day has the slightest shadow of fear of military despotism, nor of any interference whatever by military force in the conduct of civil affairs. The military and the civil are just as completely and permanently separated in this country as the church and the state are; the subjection of the military to the civil is settled and unchangeable. The only reason for adverting to the obsolete condition is to anticipate the action of those who will cite from the works of the founders of the republic excerpts showing a dread of military ascendancy in our government. Undoubtedly, at the time such sentiments were expressed there was a very real dread. At the present time such expressions are entirely inapplicable and do not furnish even a presentable pretext for opposing proper military preparation.

It also seems proper, in passing, to refer to the frame of mind of those who use the word “militarism” as the embodiment of the doctrine of brute force and loosely apply it to any organized preparation of military force, and therefore deprecate any adequate military preparation because it is a step in the direction of the contemned “militarism.” It is perfectly apparent to any one who approaches the matter with an unprejudiced mind that what constitutes undesirable militarism, as distinguished from a necessary, proper, and adequate preparation of the military resources of the nation, depends upon the position in which each nation finds itself, and varies with every nation and with different conditions in each nation at different times. Every nation must have adequate force to protect itself from domestic insurrections, to enforce its laws, and to repel invasions; that is, every nation that has similar characteristics to those of a self-respecting man. (The Constitution obliges the United States to protect each State against invasion.) If it prepares and maintains more military force than is necessary for the purposes just named, then it is subject to the conviction, in the public opinion of the world, of having embraced “militarism,” unless it intends aggression for a cause which the public opinion of the world conceives to be a righteous one. To the extent, however, that it confines its military preparedness to the purposes first mentioned, there is neither warrant nor justification in characterizing such action as “militarism.” Those who would thus characterize it do so because they have reached the conclusion that a nation to-day can properly dispense with a prepared military force, and therefore they apply the word to any preparation or organization of the military resources of the nation. Not being able to conceive how a reasonable, prudent, patriotic man can reach such a conclusion, I cannot conceive any arguments or statements that would alter such a state of mind. It disregards all known facts, flies in the face of all experience, and must rest upon faith in that which has not yet been made manifest.

Whatever the future may hold in the way of agreements between nations, followed by actual disarmament thereof, of international courts of arbitration, and other greatly-to-be-desired measures to lessen or prevent conflict between nation and nation, we all know that at present these conditions are not existing. We can and will eagerly adapt ourselves to each beneficent development along these lines; but to merely enfeeble ourselves in the meantime would, in my view, be unthinkable folly. By neglecting and refusing to provide ourselves with the necessary means of self-protection and self-defense we could not hasten or in any way favorably influence the ultimate results we desire in these respects.”