UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 )R . I.'ALBC
 
 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA
 
 Books by Allan L. Benson 
 
 THE TRUTH ABOUT SOCIALISM 
 OUR DISHONEST CONSTITUTION 
 THE USURPED POWER OF THE COURTS 
 A WAY TO PREVENT WAR 
 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 (See descriptions at the back of this book)
 
 INVITING WAR 
 TO AMERICA 
 
 BY 
 
 ALLAN L. BENSON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 B. W. HUEBSCH 
 
 1916
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1915-16, BY 
 THE PEARSON PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY 
 ALLAN L. BENSON
 
 UAO.3 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. SCARING A PEOPLE INTO CAMP .... 7 
 
 II. WHEN is A NATION "PREPARED"? ... 23 
 
 III. OUR REAL NAVAL STRENGTH 44 
 
 IV. THE POLITICS OF "PREPAREDNESS" ... 69 
 V. A CLOSE VIEW OF THE WAR-ALARMISTS . 85 
 
 VI. QUESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENT .... 108 
 
 VII. BEWARE OF THE WAR "MOVIE" .... 126 
 
 VIII. MR. ROOSEVELT AND WASHINGTON !. . . 131 
 
 IX. POLICIES THAT MAKE FOR WAR .... 142 
 
 X. "CONSPIRATORS AND LIARS" 152 
 
 XL THINGS WORTH FIGHTING FOR .... 158 
 XII. WHAT DOES AMERICA LACK TO MAKE IT 
 
 HAPPY? 162 
 
 XIII. FACTS FOR FARMERS 170 
 
 XIV. DEAR LAND AND POOR PEOPLE 179 
 
 XV. OPPORTUNITY . 186 
 
 280258
 
 INVITING WAR TO 
 I AMERICA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 SCARING A PEOPLE INTO CAMP 
 
 T N this country, at this moment, is being made what 
 * is perhaps the greatest attempt of its kind in all 
 history to stampede a nation into committing an act 
 of monumental folly. For many years, the interests 
 that believed they could derive profit, in one way 
 or another, from making this a great military power 
 have been trying to make it a great military power. 
 So long as we retained our sanity, they had but mod- 
 erate success. 
 
 We are now about to learn whether greed, mas- 
 querading as patriotism and operating upon our fears, 
 can accomplish what thus far we have prevented greed 
 from doing. The war in Europe has been seized by 
 our militarists as the -club with which to drive us 
 into camp. We were more or less deaf when, in 
 times of profound world-peace, they talked to us 
 of love of country and tried to get us to arm. Hav- 
 ing talked love and failed, they are now talking fear. 
 We are invited to behold Belgium, as we are also 
 admonished to beware her sad fate, and the militar- 
 ists who once demanded only a great navy, now de- 
 
 7
 
 8 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 mand a great army, as well. The greatest publicity- 
 machine that was ever set in motion is now running 
 at top-speed to spread fear to the smallest and most 
 remote hamlet in our land. 
 
 Our national history contains the record of no 
 crisis so grave as this. Not even the secession of the 
 Southern States was so freighted with horrible pos- 
 sibilities. What we are facing is the danger of mili- 
 tarism. 
 
 Opponents of "preparedness" cannot be convicted 
 of lack of patriotism. The most of which they might 
 be convicted is lack of sense. But the advocates of 
 militarism are not so fortunately circumstanced. The 
 militarists, unlike their opponents, are not disinter- 
 ested. The peace advocates have nothing to gain by 
 not building a greater navy and summoning a vast 
 army, while the militarists have much to gain if they 
 can put through their program. However much they 
 may protest their patriotism, the militarists cannot 
 escape the fact that some of them would derive hun- 
 dreds of millions of profits from a plunge into "pre- 
 paredness," while the capitalist class as a whole craves 
 great military establishments with which to force 
 its way more deeply into the markets of the world. 
 The great personal profits at stake properly place some 
 of the militarists under suspicion. If their motives 
 are pure, examination cannot make them rotten. If 
 their motives are rotten, examination may save the 
 country from disaster. 
 
 Consider the significant fact that while the mili- 
 tarists declare defense to be their only purpose in 
 urging "preparedness," their pretensions are belied by 
 the kind of weapons they advocate. Their preten- 
 sions are also belied by the weapons they do not ad-
 
 SCARING A PEOPLE INTO CAMP 9 
 
 vocate. It is more than passing strange that men 
 who talk so much about defense are so little inter- 
 ested in purely defensive measures and eagerly alert 
 only when the instruments of offensive warfare are 
 considered. 
 
 A case in point is that of Mr. Edison. The in- 
 ventive genius of Mr. Edison no man will deny. The 
 militarists are not only willing but eager to utilize 
 it. Mr. Edison is, indeed, the chairman of the board 
 of scientists and inventors who have been summoned 
 to strengthen our military machinery. But Mr. Edi- 
 son is more than an inventor he is a man and an 
 American. As an American he has both interest in 
 our country's welfare and ideas as to what should 
 be the nature of its equipment for defense. He has 
 expressed these ideas repeatedly and at length. He 
 expressed them early in the summer of 1915 in an 
 extended interview in the New York World. That 
 they were not hasty conclusions, as hastily abandoned, 
 is proved by the fact that he repeated them frequently 
 during the summer and again in October to Chicago 
 reporters while he was en route to the Panama-Pacific 
 Exposition. When asked to "give his idea" of what 
 America should do toward preparedness, a Chicago 
 despatch to the New York Times quoted him as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 "Well," he replied reflectively, "my idea of that 
 may not be just the same as the idea of many people. 
 Let me see. Consider the great amount of powder 
 being shot off on the European battle front every day. 
 I would build great factories in which twice as much 
 powder as that could be manufactured. I would locate 
 and have stored away enough material to make up 
 the powder. Then I would not make it. I would
 
 io INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 have everything ready, so that within forty-eight 
 hours I could go ahead turning it out. 
 
 "Then as to shells : I think it is a wasteful thing 
 to make shells on lathes, as they make them now. 
 We should get up shell machines for making them 
 rapidly and in enormous quantities. Then I would 
 grease the machines up and store them away with a 
 great quantity of steel billets, ready to be worked up 
 on short notice. In fact, I would make my prepara- 
 tion potential, and I would do it right away. The 
 proposition should not be a military one at all. I 
 don't like this military idea at all. It should be done 
 solely on an economical basis a business basis. 
 
 "Building these powder factories and these ma- 
 chines and ammunition factories wouldn't cost much. 
 But I would keep this in mind in preparing to make 
 stores and ammunition. I would prepare to turn out 
 right along twice as much as is being used now on the 
 whole European battlefield then not make it. 
 
 "Now as to actual fighting. I would rather use 
 machines than men. A man is only a man, after all. A 
 machine can be easily as good as twenty men. Then 
 one man, using it, is as good as twenty men. He 
 should be at least that good if he is an American. 
 
 "America is the greatest machine country in the 
 world, and its people are the greatest machinists. They 
 can, moreover, invent machinery faster and have it 
 more efficient than any other two countries. It is a 
 machine nation; its battle preparation should be with 
 machinery. 
 
 "I am down on military establishments. A stand- 
 ing army is not worth anything unless it is on a war 
 footing, which is absurd. We do need an enormous 
 number of trained officers and drill sergeants, how-
 
 SCARING A PEOPLE INTO CAMP 11 
 
 ever. These should be trained right along, even more 
 than apparently would be needed, then turned back 
 into industry. 
 
 "They should be kept in touch at stated intervals 
 with the latest things in warfare, so that they would 
 be ready as soon as telegraph and railroad could sum- 
 mon them to go into active service. We can gamble 
 on a volunteer army because the American is the 
 quickest-minded human being in things mechanical. 
 He could learn the use of machinery of war with 
 sufficient despatch." 
 
 Mr. Edison, in his Chicago interview, did not dis- 
 cuss the navy, but in earlier interviews he had advo- 
 cated the education of a greater number of officers 
 who should spend a certain number of weeks each 
 year in practice aboard ship, and then return to indus- 
 trial pursuits, where their scientific education should 
 be of great value. Except during such drills, our 
 warships, he said, should be tied up at docks, with 
 nobody aboard except watchmen. In the hour of 
 need officers and crew, at the tick of a telegraph 
 instrument, should hasten to their ships. 
 
 Mr. Edison's ideas are obviously purely defensive. 
 What reception did they receive from the administra- 
 tion at Washington or from the ammunition and gun 
 manufacturers who assert that they wish only to 
 defend the country? Mr. Edison's ideas were utterly 
 ignored. Though Mr. Edison is the head of the 
 government's great defensive board of scientists and 
 inventors, his personal ideas of what should consti- 
 tute our defenses were given no more consideration 
 than as if they had come in a letter from an un- 
 known man. Mr. Edison denounced a standing army, 
 yet the same newspapers that contained his Chicago
 
 12 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 interview also contained the announcement from 
 Washington that Secretary Garrison had formulated 
 a plan to increase the army to 540,000 men, exclusive 
 of the National Guard of the various states. 
 
 Why is Mr. Edison, in matters of defense, so wise 
 one moment and so unwise at others? Why do the 
 munitions patriots regard him as wise when he is 
 inventing things that might be used in offensive war- 
 fare and foolish when he is discussing defensive meas- 
 ures that could not be used for offense? 
 
 If it be assumed that the munitions patriots are 
 frauds and that they and the other capitalists of this 
 country are trying to frighten us into filling their 
 pockets with money, the reasons for the treatment of 
 Mr. Edison's suggestions for defense become plain. 
 
 If the munition patriots are frauds, they would 
 naturally oppose Mr. Edison's plan to prepare to 
 make twice as much ammunition as is being used in 
 Europe "and then not make it." If such great fac- 
 tories were to be built, raw materials assembled, then 
 the machinery greased so it would not rust and the 
 doors locked, obviously the government would have 
 to build the factories and manufacture its own mu- 
 nitions of war, since private individuals would not 
 care to build plants and lock them up, perhaps for 
 twenty years or more. If the munitions patriots are 
 mere grafters in search of loot from the public treas- 
 ury, they would naturally withhold approval from any 
 plan that, if in effect, would cut off their loot. But 
 if the munitions patriots are really patriots, and if 
 they really believe the country is in danger of attack, 
 why should they withhold approval from a plan that, 
 if in effect, would give at the time of need the maxi- 
 mum amount of ammunition at the minimum cost?
 
 SCARING A PEOPLE INTO CAMP 13 
 
 It is such facts as these that the American people 
 must not alone consider but correctly appraise if they 
 are to avert national disaster by giving the right an- 
 swer to the question as to whether we shall proceed 
 to become a heavily armed nation. If we were in 
 danger and only more defenses could save us, we 
 should have more defenses. If we are in danger, 
 why is it that the men who are shrieking so loudly 
 of our peril are so languidly interested in purely de- 
 fensive measures that are also without graft for pri- 
 vate individuals? 
 
 Either the danger is less than they say it is, or their 
 desire for personal profit is so great that it over- 
 shadows their patriotism. 
 
 One or the other of these possibilities is a fact. 
 No submarine was ever more tightly caught in a 
 steel net than these gentlemen are caught in this 
 reasoning. They cannot have their patriotism and 
 eat it too. If they love their country, they will not 
 try to pick its bones. If they believe it is in danger 
 they will not stand in the way of its defense at the 
 least possible cost. If they are mere grafters who, 
 for their private profit, are trying to frighten the 
 people into consenting to militarism, they will prob- 
 ably continue to do as they have long done and are 
 doing. 
 
 Having in mind the success of the Germans, for 
 more than a year, in standing off the entire British 
 navy with mines and submarines scattered along the 
 German coast, I once ventured to suggest the advis- 
 ability of protecting our own coasts with such instru- 
 ments, instead of with dreadnoughts. The idea 
 seemed to me to be worthy of consideration, not alone 
 because German mines have proved so successful, but
 
 14 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 for the further reason that mines planted in home 
 waters and exploded from shore by electric current, 
 are not a menace to any nation that remains at home, 
 nor would the laying of mines by one nation cause 
 any other nation, in self-defense, to increase either 
 its fleet or the extent of its mine-fields. Mr. Finly 
 H. Gray, a member of the House Committee on Naval 
 Affairs, after reading the article, kindly sent me a 
 transcript of certain official testimony in which Ad- 
 mirals Fiske and Fletcher, in reply to Mr. Gray's 
 questions, had admitted that with mines, submarines 
 and land guns, the Panama Canal, with no American 
 ship present, could be held against the largest naval 
 force that could be sent against it. After the publi- 
 cation of these facts, one of the Washington newspa- 
 per correspondents went to the Navy Department to 
 ask why mines, supplemented by submarines, were not 
 better defensive weapons than dreadnoughts. Secre- 
 tary Daniels was not at the department when the cor- 
 respondent called, so the question was put to Assist- 
 ant Secretary Franklin D. Roosevelt. I quote from 
 the report of the correspondent : 
 
 "Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt said 
 that the defense of the entire coast of the United 
 States by means of mines would be impracticable. 
 When his attention was called to the testimony of 
 Admirals Fletcher and Fiske with regard to the Pan- 
 ama Canal, Mr. Roosevelt said that while a harbor 
 could be completely protected by mines and coast de- 
 fense guns, it would not be possible to defend a long 
 coast line in that way. He said that in the event of 
 war, an enemy desiring to capture or destroy the 
 canal would naturally make a landing at sx>me part 
 cjf the coast not belonging to the United States, say
 
 SCARING A PEOPLE INTO CAMP 15 
 
 Costa Rica or Panama, and would march thence to 
 the canal. 
 
 "In regard to mining the Atlantic coast, Mr. Roose- 
 velt said that to be effective, mines must be laid fifty 
 feet apart. One could easily make a calculation, he 
 said, as to the number of mines that would be required 
 to lay only one line along the Atlantic coast. In 
 practise, several lines would have to be laid, and Mr. 
 Roosevelt said the work would take years. Ocean 
 currents, winds and other natural conditions, he said, 
 would make it very difficult to keep mines at certain 
 places on the coast." 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt's interview is reproduced here to 
 show how the desire of the militarists for weapons 
 with which offensive warfare can be waged is power- 
 fully reen forced by the conservatism of the men who 
 stand high in our navy. These charges lie, for the 
 most part, against the professional men in the navy, 
 one of whom I shall soon use as an illustration, but 
 for the present let us consider Mr. Roosevelt, who 
 speaks with all the stolid obstinacy of a sea-dog, 
 though he is but 33 years old, was educated to be a 
 lawyer, and a few years ago was nothing but rather 
 a useless member of the New York legislature. Mr. 
 Roosevelt is a member of the Army and Navy and the 
 Metropolitan clubs in Washington, one of which, as 
 its name indicates, is a professional fighting men's 
 club, where only orthodox ideas with regard to mili- 
 tary measures and weapons are ever heard, and the 
 other is an ultra-exclusive social club which, in large 
 part, is composed of, or at any rate seasoned with, high 
 military personages from both the army and the navy. 
 So, plainly, all that Mr. Roosevelt knows about naval 
 defense matters, if he knows anything, he has picked
 
 16 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 up around Washington during the last year or two, 
 from men whom he is now parroting. He is of 
 momentary importance only because he is functioning 
 as a parrot. 
 
 Let us first consider Mr. Roosevelt's statement that 
 mines, in order to be effective, "must be laid fifty 
 feet apart," that "one could easily make a calculation 
 as to the number of mines that would be required to 
 lay only one line along the Atlantic Coast" and that 
 "in practise," several lines would be required. 
 
 The cost of a mine containing approximately 500 
 pounds of gun-cotton enough to blow up the largest 
 warship that ever was made is $200. 
 
 If such mines were to be laid fifty feet apart, 106 
 mines would be required to lay a single line a mile 
 long. If three rows were laid, side by side, the 
 mines being so placed as to leave a minimum opening 
 between any two of approximately eight feet, the 
 number of mines required to the mile would be 
 318. 
 
 To put three rows of mines along 2,000 miles of 
 coast would require 636,000 mines which, at $200 
 each, would cost $127,200,000. 
 
 If the cost of anchoring each mine ten feet below 
 the keel of the deepest-draught vessel were equal to 
 the cost of the mine itself (and that seems a generous 
 figure), the cost of laying the mines would be $127,- 
 200,000 more. 
 
 The total cost of putting three rows of mines along 
 2,000 miles of coast would therefore be $254,400,000. 
 
 The administration, it is announced, will this year 
 ask for a naval appropriation of $246,000,000, and 
 during the next five years it is planned to expend for 
 new fighting craft $500,000,000 in addition to the cost
 
 SCARING A PEOPLE INTO CAMP 17 
 
 of maintenance of the present fleet, which will amount 
 to $700,000,000 more. 
 
 For this enormous sum one billion, two hundred 
 millions we shall have paid the regular running ex- 
 penses of our fleet and added to it ten dreadnoughts 
 at $18,000,000 each, with an appropriate number of 
 supplementary craft. 
 
 The same amount of money would put six rows of 
 mines along 4,000 miles of coast. The navy we shall 
 have five years hence, if the present program be 
 carried out, will still be smaller than the British navy 
 and, if Germany should take a building spurt, might 
 be little or no larger than the German navy. With 
 which kind of defense should we feel most nearly 
 safe a navy that would be smaller than Britain's 
 and not much if any larger than Germany's, or with 
 six rows of mines along 4,000 miles of coast? 
 
 If we build the dreadnoughts, there will be pre- 
 cisely as much reason, five years hence, for building 
 ten more as there is now reason for building ten. If 
 we lay six rows of mines, they will still be there in 
 five years and we shall not be compelled to lay six 
 additional rows merely because Germany may have 
 added six rows to the mine fields along her coast, or 
 because Great Britain may have built a score of dread- 
 noughts. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt said the work of laying mines "would 
 take years>" Indeed ! The work of achieving national 
 safety by building dreadnoughts takes no time. It is 
 mere child's play. We have been at it fifteen years, 
 during which time our navy has cost us sixteen hun- 
 dred million dollars, with the result that according 
 to the war-alarmists, we are as far away as ever from 
 bur goal of safety.
 
 i8 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt also calls attention to ocean currents, 
 winds, "and other natural conditions" which would 
 make mines "impracticable." Of course, there are 
 no difficulties about the dreadnought plan. Mines do 
 not sink them, nor does the constant progress of 
 invention make them out of date almost before the 
 paint on them is dry. The dreadnought policy, we 
 may gather from Mr. Roosevelt's remarks, presents 
 no great obstacles, but "ocean currents, winds and 
 other natural conditions" would raise the dickens with 
 mines. Mr. Roosevelt talks like a great lawyer. 
 
 Yet Mr. Roosevelt, a few days after this interview, 
 expressed himself in quite a different vein. On Octo- 
 ber 5, 1915, in an article that he wrote for a syndicate 
 of Western newspapers, he said: 
 
 "Strictly speaking, if national defense applies solely 
 to the prevention of an armed landing on our Atlantic 
 or Pacific coasts, no navy at all is necessary." 
 
 And then Mr. Roosevelt added : 
 
 "But if defense means also the protection of the vast 
 interests of the United States as a world nation, its 
 commerce, its increasing population and resources in 
 Alaska and other territory cut off from the United 
 States except by sea, its 'mankind benefiting* enter- 
 prises like the Panama Canal, then and then only 
 does a navy become necessary. And if a navy is neces- 
 sary the success of that navy against any other naval 
 power demands that it be able to receive and repel 
 an attack in force anywhere on the high seas within 
 that sphere in which American interests lie." 
 
 There are the cards on the table. To get a big 
 navy, these gentlemen try to frighten you with the 
 specter of invasion, but what they really want is a big 
 navy with which to safeguard their present and pros-
 
 SCARING A PEOPLE INTO CAMP 19 
 
 pective foreign investments and force into foreign 
 markets American goods that are needed at home and 
 could be consumed at home if our workingmen were 
 paid enough wages to enable them to buy the things 
 they have made. 
 
 What Mr. Roosevelt says about the Panama Canal 
 is true. If it were protected only by mines, subma- 
 rines and land guns, it would still be open to attack 
 through adjoining countries. But that is not the whole 
 story about the Panama Canal. That great waterway, 
 as every well-informed person knows, was built, not 
 for peace but for war. It was not built to carry our 
 merchant marine, because we have none to speak of, 
 but to enable our navy to make a quick shift, in an 
 emergency, from one ocean to the other. Therefore, 
 if the Panama Canal, which was built for war, is a 
 handicap rather than a help, it might be better for us 
 to neutralize it and throw it open to the world, under 
 the world's guarantee of equal treatment to all, than to 
 try to hold it at the cost of a mighty fleet of dread- 
 noughts when, without the canal, we might much bet- 
 ter defend ourselves with mines. 
 
 The American people should not forget that, in the 
 beginning, it was intended to neutralize the canal and 
 place no fortification near it. The fortifications, if 
 not an afterthought, appeared to be. Perhaps we might 
 better go back to the original plan. If the world 
 should guarantee the use pf the canal to all on equal 
 terms, the guarantee, of course, could not be depended 
 upon. In the event of war, any nation that had 
 the incentive and the power would break its pledge 
 and close the canal to its enemy. We should be just 
 as likely to break the pledge as would any other na- 
 tion, and seek to justify it pn the ground of neces-
 
 20 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 sity. But most of the time the canal, if neutralized, 
 would be open to the world on equal terms, precisely 
 as it is to-day. If our control of the Panama Canal 
 compels us to build dreadnoughts when mines would 
 serve us better, there is an exceedingly easy way to 
 get rid of the Panama Canal. Neutralize it. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt may be presumed to know, as every 
 man of sense knows, that competitive construction of 
 armaments leads nowhere but to the poorhouse and 
 the grave. Nothing is ever settled because the more 
 rapidly one nation builds, the more rapidly its potential 
 enemies build. Representative Finly H. Gray of In- 
 diana performed a valuable public service when at a 
 meeting of the House Committee on Naval Affairs, he 
 smoked Admiral Vreeland out on this point. I quote 
 from the testimony : 
 
 "MR. GRAY. I wish to inquire of the admiral if it 
 is not the policy of other governments to increase their 
 navies with all the other leading powers ? 
 
 "ADMIRAL VREELAND. It is, sir. 
 
 "MR. GRAY. What would be the advantage to us 
 or any other powers if the navies were increased 
 equally by all the nations of the world ? Would there 
 be any advantage to us or to any other power ? 
 
 "ADMIRAL VREELAND. Not if you mean in the same 
 ratio. 
 
 "MR. GRAY. Would not the same grounds exist 
 after an increase for a further increase? 
 
 "ADMIRAL VREELAND. It would seem so. 
 
 "MR. GRAY. There would be no advantage gained 
 by any nation, then. How long could that be main- 
 tained, that even increase, and what advantage would 
 it be to any nation ? 
 
 "ADMIRAL VREELAND. If it continues to increase,
 
 SCARING A PEOPLE INTO CAMP 21 
 
 the poorer nation will eventually exhaust itself, and 
 then the other nations, the United States included, 
 will have a free hand I mean, be free to build in ac- 
 cordance with the changed conditions. 
 
 "MR. GRAY. Then it is only a question of the limit 
 of taxation? 
 
 "ADMIRAL VREELAND. Yes, sir." 
 
 Up to a certain point, that is quite frank. Each 
 appropriation paves the way for another appropria- 
 tion until the least strong go broke. It is at this 
 point that the admiral becomes anything but frank. 
 When only the strongest are left which would in- 
 clude the United States they would "have a free hand 
 to build in accordance with the changed conditions." 
 
 Was greater nonsense ever talked? Our "free 
 hand," at such a time, would consist in the necessity of 
 extending ourselves to the uttermost in an attempt to 
 outstrip our most powerful rival, with the certainty 
 that if we should do so, two rivals whom we could 
 not outstrip might combine against us and give us 
 the beating of our lives. We are richer than any other 
 nation in the world, but we are not richer than any 
 two nations. 
 
 Yet the militarists talk of "preparedness" as if no- 
 body but ourselves could engage in it. 
 
 The militarists are frauds. They pretend to love 
 peace and to be concerned only with defense. The 
 Navy League of the United States prates much of the 
 non-aggressive character of its demand for a big navy. 
 The League has headquarters in Washington, has 
 a monthly magazine called The Seven Seas, and is 
 grinding out pamphlets as rapidly as men can write 
 them and presses can print them. One of its pam- 
 phlets is entitled "Sixty-Seven Reasons for a Strong
 
 22 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 Navy for Defense, But Not One Reason for a Navy 
 for Aggression." 
 
 Compare this noble sentiment with the following 
 paragraph from the September number of the League's 
 organ, The Seven Seas: 
 
 "In Germany, though degeneracies such as inordi- 
 nate love of money and preoccupation about pain are 
 manifest as in other Western countries, besides a great 
 deal of anti-government talk, the iron-fisted arm of 
 militarism remedies defects quickly enough. Hard, 
 pitiless for the individual, it all tends, for the state, 
 to the making of a perfect running machine for the 
 purpose of expansion, conquest, world-empire. To 
 adopt German standards of militarism would of course 
 be impossible among Anglo-Saxons, but this does not 
 minimise the fact that world-empire is the only logi- 
 cal and natural aim for a nation that really desires 
 to remain a nation." 
 
 And the Navy League of the United States knows 
 "sixty-seven reasons why we should have a strong 
 navy for defense, but not one reason for a navy for 
 aggression."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 WHEN is A NATION "PREPARED" ? 
 
 IN a military sense, when is a nation "prepared"? 
 It may surprise some gentlemen to know that, 
 eighteen years ago, Charles M. Schwab, now of the 
 Bethlehem Steel Company, expressed the opinion be- 
 fore a Congressional committee that our navy would be 
 "completed" in ten years! At that time, our naval 
 appropriations were running round thirty million dol- 
 lars a year. Since then, we have poured into our 
 navy almost two thousand million dollars. 
 
 When Mr. Schwab, in 1897, predicted that our navy 
 would be "completed" in 1907, he never dreamt of such 
 a navy as we now have. Though he was Mr. Car- 
 negie's head armor plate man and had an armor plate 
 man's appetite for government contracts, he did not 
 dare to hope for such fat pickings as have since been 
 picked. The naval appropriation bill of 1914 took out 
 of the people's earnings the enormous sum of $140,- 
 718,434. Yet, eight years after Mr. Schwab believed 
 our navy would be "completed" and after almost two 
 thousand million dollars have been spent, we are told 
 that we are in a frightful state of unpreparedness ! 
 
 But there is hope. Some of the same gentlemen 
 who, eighteen years ago, told us what to do to be- 
 come prepared are still with us and, as ever, are pa- 
 triotically willing to tell us what to do. If we may take 
 their word for it, all we need to do is to pour dollars 
 
 23
 
 24 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 into the army and navy where we used to pour dimes. 
 Mr. Wilson's defense program contemplates the ex- 
 penditure upon the army and navy, during the next 
 five years, of more than two thousand million dollars. 
 
 Suppose the President's plan should be carried out. 
 In five years, should we be able to say, "We are pre- 
 pared" ? Might we then rest on our oars in the belief 
 that the "completed" navy that Mr. Schwab announced 
 for 1907 had at last come? By no means. The same 
 reasons that account for the failure of the navy to 
 be "completed" at the time set by Mr. Schwab would 
 account for the failure of two thousand more mil- 
 lions to make us "prepared" in 1920. If we should de- 
 cide to spend two thousand millions for armament dur- 
 ing the next five years, there will be two reasons, in 
 1920, for spending ten thousand millions more, for 
 every reason that is now advanced for spending two 
 thousand millions. 
 
 The "preparedness" delusion is the most expensive 
 luxury in which the world ever indulged. Its cost 
 never stands still. It constantly rises in the most ap- 
 palling fashion. In the days when Mr. Schwab had 
 visions of a completed navy only ten years distant, 
 first-class battleships could be built for two million 
 dollars. The cost is now eighteen millions. The 
 twenty-five million ship is coming over the horizon. 
 Where the limit is, no one knows. All we know is that 
 they are multiplying not only the size and the cost, 
 but the number of ships that are required. No mat- 
 ter how many great ships we have, we are still in 
 danger. The naval experts not of this country only, 
 but of all countries never have enough ships. Mili- 
 tary experts have always been in a class by themselves. 
 Lord Salisbury, when Prime Minister of England, had
 
 WHEN IS A NATION "PREPARED"? 25 
 
 his troubles with them. Writing to Lord Cromer, 
 in Egypt, Salisbury said, "Pay no attention to the 
 military experts. If they had their way, they would 
 fortify Mars to prevent an invasion from the moon." 
 Nor are our military experts different from the Brit- 
 ish army experts with whom Lord Salisbury dealt. 
 Given two thousand millions to spend between now and 
 1920, they will be able to cite most alarming cir- 
 cumstances to prove that we are still unprepared and 
 should spend ten billions in the succeeding five years. 
 
 It is indeed very likely that if we should begin so 
 heavily to arm there would be alarming circumstances 
 to cite. Our warlike preparations could not go un- 
 noticed by others and could not fail to excite fear. 
 If any particular neighbor believed we were arming 
 against it, that neighbor, unless it had more sense 
 than have those among us who would further arm 
 America, might arm against us. Such arming against 
 us, as the result of our arming against it, would, in 
 1920, provide a further reason for us to arm some 
 more against our neighbor and thus it would go, back 
 and forth, until the people of both nations, frenzied by 
 fear and hatred, and believing that war between the 
 two countries was inevitable, would at last stoically ac- 
 cept it and leave their fate to clashing arms. 
 
 Germany is the nation .that is here meant and that 
 we all mean. There is no reason why we who are 
 not in office should mince words, as do those statesmen 
 who so often feel it necessary to try to conceal what 
 everybody knows. The plain truth is that if we 
 should decide to spend two thousand million dollars 
 to strengthen our army and navy, we should do so 
 only because we fear Germany, after the European 
 War, might attack us,
 
 26 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 But before we consider what Germany may or may 
 not do, let us consider what would be the effect upon 
 the German people, of our spending two thousand mil- 
 lion dollars to arm ourselves against them. What 
 would be the effect upon us if we were to learn, after 
 the war, that Germany had decided to spend two 
 thousand million dollars to arm against us? If we 
 knew that Germany had only us in mind, do you doubt 
 that we should be alarmed? Do you doubt that we 
 should hasten to increase our own armaments? 
 
 Consider, then, the effect we shall produce upon 
 the German people if we adopt the President's defense 
 program. The German people know there is here no 
 fear of attack from any other European power except 
 Germany. If we still further arm, they will know we 
 are arming against them. Their editors, their states- 
 men and all others in whom they have confidence, will 
 tell them we are arming against them, and quite likely 
 that we are arming with hostile intent. Our insist- 
 ence that we are thinking only of defense will amount 
 to nothing. Every great European nation that is now 
 at war insisted, before the war, that it was arming 
 only for defense, yet not one of these nations believed 
 any of the others. So we may bank on it that if 
 we should decide to arm against Germany, the fear 
 we shall inevitably produce in the Germans will cause 
 them to build ship for ship against us. Then hell will 
 be let loose, as our munitions patriots will be able to 
 prove that a great nation is arming against us and will 
 therefore be able to get out of the national treasury 
 almost anything they want. 
 
 What likelihood is there that Germany would attack 
 us, even if we did not, by further arming ourselves, 
 act as if we were preparing to attack her? The an-
 
 WHEN IS 'A NATION "PREPARED"? 27 
 
 swer to this question must be solely a matter of opinion. 
 A good many facts must be taken into consideration 
 in order to form an opinion that is worth anything. 
 These facts must be construed reasonably. Possibili- 
 ties should not be strained to produce either a sense of 
 danger or a sense of security. Nor can any opinion be 
 worth much that is tainted by a desire to reach it. 
 
 The answer that is most likely to be correct is not 
 the one that is obtained because it is sought, but the 
 one that is received because it cannot be kept back. 
 
 The first fact that we should consider is that the 
 German people are intrinsically a peaceable, home- 
 loving class of human beings. Their instinct for home 
 is so strong that their rulers, who know them best, 
 raised the cry when, in 1914, they wanted to call them 
 to arms, that German homes were about to be overrun 
 by a foreign foe. If the Kaiser had any intention of 
 overrunning the world and dominating it, he knew bet- 
 ter than to assign it as the reason for calling his peo- 
 ple to arms. He knew the soft spot in the heart of 
 his countrymen their love of home and played 
 upon it. 
 
 That is the best feature of the German character 
 upon which we may count in our hopes for peace. 
 The worst feature is the extent to which the German 
 people, in the past, have permitted themselves to be 
 dominated by their militarists. Is it too much to sus- 
 pect that the militarists, at least for the next generation, 
 will not have so much influence in Germany? Is 
 there not a possibility that the militarists themselves, 
 after this war, will not soon be eager for another? 
 The militarists, for the most part, are army officers, 
 who are members of the great land-owning aristocracy 
 commonly called the "Junker" class. This war has all
 
 28 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 but shot that class to pieces. Before this war began, 
 German militarists, when they thought of war, thought 
 of something short. Their minds went back to the 
 war with Austria, which lasted but six weeks, and 
 the war with France, which was won in three months. 
 At the beginning of this war, nobody in Germany be- 
 lieved it would last long. The Kaiser expected to be 
 in Paris in fourteen days. Even after he missed his 
 French dinner, he told his soldiers that they would all 
 be back in Germany "before the leaves fall." 
 
 The leaves that fluttered in the autumn winds above 
 him as he spoke have long since moldered away. An- 
 other crop of leaves has come and gone. The snows 
 of the second winter have beaten down upon the Ger- 
 mans in the trenches. Every hillside in western Russia 
 and northern France is dotted with the graves of of- 
 ficers who were once proud members of the German 
 military party. And, still, there is no peace! 
 
 Need we suppose that the German militarist who 
 may be so fortunate as to survive this war is incap- 
 able of getting enough of a bad thing? Are we bound 
 to believe that, at the close of this war, other young 
 Germans, unmoved by the slaughter of the old mili- 
 tary party, will eagerly rise to form another? Or may 
 we suppose that Germans, being human, like our- 
 selves, are sick unto death of war, and will prize 
 peace when they get it ? Which is the more reasonable 
 conclusion ? 
 
 If indications count for anything, the German peo- 
 ple are eager for peace now. The German govern- 
 ment permits no discussion of the subject, so it is diffi- 
 cult to tell. We can imagine, however, how in the 
 same circumstances we should feel if we had gone to 
 war to resist invasion, and had fought nearly two
 
 WHEN IS A NATION "PREPARED"? 29 
 
 years and there were no army on our soil, and our 
 own armies were deadlocked on alien soils, and our 
 women and children were hungry, and the original 
 purpose of the war had been all but lost sight of. We 
 should probably feel inclined to ask of our rulers, as 
 did Vorwaerts, the organ of the German Socialist 
 Party, "What Are We Fighting For?" The Socialist 
 Party represents a third of the population of Ger- 
 many. It is scarcely possible that only the Socialists 
 among the Germans feel that, the original reason as- 
 signed for going to war having been lost sight of, it 
 is time to go home. Yet, for asking this question in 
 November, 1915, the Socialist organ was suppressed. 
 If Germany had whipped the world in two or three 
 months, as her military party expected she would, and 
 had claimed from her victims indemnities running up 
 into the billions, there would seem to be no reason to 
 doubt that we should have exercised only ordinary 
 precaution if we had proceeded forthwith to arm 
 against her. So great a victory, if won at such slight 
 cost, would have intoxicated the military party and 
 increased its prestige before the people. The German 
 treasury would have been bursting with British, French 
 and Russian gold, while the lands over which the Ger- 
 man flag floated would have been numbered only by 
 the seven seas. Germany would have been the pre- 
 ponderating power, not only of Europe, but of the 
 world, and all the hopes of the militarists would have 
 been realized at the cost of but little sorrow and suf- 
 fering on the part of the people. Germany, with a 
 few of the billions wrung from other powers in the 
 form of indemnities, could have built a tremendous 
 navy and, if she had felt so inclined, trumped up a 
 quarrel with us and fought us.
 
 30 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 But that is all water that has gone under the bridge. 
 The Germany that might have been cannot be dur- 
 ing our generation, if ever. No victory that Ger- 
 many could now win could bring back from their 
 graves the six hundred thousand German dead and 
 thus assuage the pent-up sorrow in the German na- 
 tional heart. Nor could any victory, however great, 
 make whole and well again the three million German 
 soldiers who have seen their flesh torn and their 
 veins opened by shot and shell. Nor could all the vic- 
 tories recorded in history, if duplicated by Germany, 
 blot out from the minds of German soldiers the hor- 
 rors of their soldier-life; the awful cannonade, the 
 ceaseless thunder of the shells, the clash with knives 
 and bayonets at night and the machine gun's sputter- 
 ing song at dawn, the summer's heat and the winter's 
 cold, the weariness, the homesickness and the despair 
 of men who, surrounded by death, know not what 
 moment will be their time to die. 
 
 All of these facts we should take into consideration 
 in trying to ascertain whether Germany, after this 
 war, will soon be anxious for another. Yet there are 
 more facts. In no conceivable circumstances can Ger- 
 many collect a dollar of indemnity from any of her 
 antagonists, and without such indemnities, she could 
 not hope successfully to fight us. 
 
 Even if it were certain that Germany is destined to 
 win the present war, from what nation or nations could 
 she wrest indemnities ? She could not collect anything 
 from Russia except, possibly, territory. Russia is so 
 big that, within certain limits, she can say what she 
 will and will not do. When Russia says, "Not a 
 kopeck of indemnity" as she said to Japan she can 
 have her way. The Russian Empire is so far flung
 
 WHEN IS A NATION "PREPARED"? 31 
 
 that even German armies in it cannot forever remain 
 on the offensive. After a certain amount of pene- 
 tration by the invader, there comes a time when a bal- 
 ance is established between the two armies. The diffi- 
 culties attendant upon bringing up supplies to the in- 
 vading army make up for the relative weakness of the 
 defending army. Russia always has enough room to 
 enable her to back up and wait until the enemy suffi- 
 ciently handicaps himself to make him harmless. 
 
 France, at the beginning of the present war, had the 
 greatest per capita debt in Europe. That debt the war 
 has enormously increased. The piling of a great in- 
 demnity upon France would almost certainly bring 
 revolution. Financially speaking, France is the na- 
 tional image of the celebrated turnip which, so it is 
 said, contains no blood. 
 
 An indemnity might be wrung from Great Britain 
 if the Germans could sink the British fleet. What 
 chance is there that the German fleet can do so? The 
 same chance that there always is that one ship can 
 defeat three that are just as large and just as courage- 
 ously and intelligently handled. If there had been, 
 in the opinion of von Tirpitz, the Grand Admiral, a 
 fighting chance to defeat the British fleet, we may be 
 quite sure that, long ago, he would have tried to do 
 so. The von Tirpitz plan, was to submarine enough 
 of the British ships to bring the two fleets down to a 
 plane of equality, after which he was to go about it 
 with his dreadnoughts to destroy the remainder. The 
 von Tirpitz plan failed. The British fleet is larger 
 than it was when the war began. Twenty-five great 
 ships have been built since the war began. There is no 
 chance whatever that Germany can destroy the Brit- 
 ish fleet, and unless she destroys it, there is no chance
 
 32 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 whatever that she can collect a farthing of indemnity 
 from England. 
 
 England cannot unconditionally surrender to Ger- 
 many and remain an empire. With the lowering of 
 her flag, her colonial empire would break up like a 
 ship in a storm. So long as her navy remains unde- 
 feated, she need not unconditionally surrender. Even 
 if all of England's allies were to be worn out, Eng- 
 land could still fight. With her warships, she could 
 form a lane across the English Channel and through 
 this lane troop-ships could bear her armies back to 
 England. Great Britain could then say to Germany, 
 "Not a farthing of indemnity, nor an inch of territory, 
 and until you sink the British fleet, you cannot sail a 
 ship on the seas or, except through others, do a 
 pfennig's worth of business throughout the world." 
 At the ordinary expense of maintaining her navy, 
 Great Britain could continue such a war indefinitely. 
 It costs no more for ships to blockade than it does to 
 maneuver in times of peace. 
 
 After this war, Germany, like all the other par- 
 ticipants in it, is bound not only to be sick of war but 
 to be poor. She will do well if she rehabilitate her- 
 self in a generation. But such probabilities by no 
 means prevent those who insist upon seeing danger 
 in this quarter from seeing it. J. Bernard Walker, 
 editor of the Scientific American, has written a book 
 entitled "America Fallen : The Sequel to the Eu- 
 ropean War," in which seeming to write after the 
 event he tells how Germany came here, landed troops, 
 took the Atlantic forts from the rear, bombarded New 
 York, captured Philadelphia and Washington and 
 made peace only upon the payment by us of an indem- 
 nity of twenty billions. I may add that Mr. Morgan's
 
 WHEN IS A NATION "PREPARED"? 33 
 
 Navy League of the United States thinks so highly of 
 this book that it has bought a supply for free distribu- 
 tion. 
 
 This book, at least on its cover, looks very impres- 
 sive, as the cover contains a statement signed by Ad- 
 miral Dewey in which he declares that the state of af- 
 fairs described in the book "might well exist if our 
 country is not prepared to maintain itself at peace with 
 all the world." I will venture to say that any man 
 with a little imagination can write a yarn, describing 
 worse horrors, that a bacteriologist who stands as high 
 in his profession as Admiral Dewey does in the pro- 
 fession of arms, will declare over his signature to be 
 within the realm of possibility. 
 
 I will try it myself. 
 
 "The war in Europe is ended. Germany has been 
 conquered and has agreed to pay an indemnity of fif- 
 teen billions. She has nothing in her treasury. She 
 needs money. She knows we have lots of it. The 
 Kaiser holds long, secret conferences with the leading 
 German bacteriologists. They sit up late at night. 
 Night after night, the Kaiser quits the conference at 
 daybreak, the faint light of morning throwing a 
 deadly pallor upon his brow. Night after night 
 until? Until there comes a change, the Kaiser smiles, 
 shakes the hand of one. bacteriologist particularly 
 warmly, pins a grand cross of some kind or other 
 upon his coat and it is plain that the royal eyes see 
 a great rift in the clouds. 
 
 "A few weeks of preparatory work is conducted in 
 German laboratories, but we may well pass over that. 
 
 "The scene shifts to America. All over the country 
 there is suddenly noticed a sharp increase in the death 
 rate from typhoid fever. Boards of health critically
 
 34 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 examine the water and milk supplies. They seem to 
 be all right. The oyster beds are looked into. They 
 are found to contain no more than the usual number of 
 germs. What is the matter? God knows. Without 
 any appreciable reason, the mortality from typhoid is 
 increasing fearfully. One day there were ten thousand 
 deaths in Chicago. The next day there were twenty- 
 five thousand deaths in New York. A telegram from 
 Boston says that people are dying more rapidly than 
 undertakers can bury them and that the state house 
 is piled high with bodies packed in ice awaiting burial. 
 A woman in Cincinnati the mother of six children 
 became crazed when typhoid killed her last child and 
 shot both her husband and herself. Two members of 
 the President's cabinet were stricken, and the disease, 
 in its inexorable way, snuffed out their lives. And 
 then 
 
 "And then a wireless message came from Germany, 
 'via Sayville/ It was brief and strangely directed 
 not to the Secretary of State or to the President, but 
 'To The American People.' Here it is: 
 
 " 'The typhoid epidemic that is devastating your 
 land is the result of German planning. German sci- 
 entists have devised a method of making typhoid 
 germs immune to heat as to all other known methods 
 of killing them. The characteristics of the germs have 
 also been changed so that, although your scientists see 
 them, they do not recognize them as what they are, nor 
 can they be recognized, since there are many other 
 germs which they perfectly resemble. Produced as 
 these germs are in our laboratories, they are of un- 
 usual virulence, which accounts for the present high 
 mortality from the disease in America. In short, Ger- 
 many is waging war against America with the new
 
 WHEN IS A NATION "PREPARED"? 35 
 
 weapons of science. We have the power to annihilate 
 you. Notwithstanding everything your scientists may 
 do, your death rate will rapidly increase until you 
 make peace, as enough germs to kill the world can be 
 carried in a trunk, and trusted agents in America have 
 infected all of your water supplies. We also know 
 how to destroy these germs instantly. Your epidemic 
 will cease immediately upon the payment by America 
 to Germany of an indemnity of twenty billion dol- 
 lars.' ' 
 
 Scientifically possible? Who dare say it is not? 
 Crazy? Yes, in the sense that it is far and away be- 
 yond the bounds of probability. But what about 
 "America Fallen"? How often has America fallen 
 during the last 139 years? 
 
 Let us not, at the behest of the munitions manu- 
 facturers, who fatten on the war and war prepara- 
 tions as buzzards fatten on a dead cow let us not go 
 mad. Let us consider probabilities and reasonable pos- 
 sibilities rather than nightmares. Common sense 
 should tell us that there is far greater possibility 
 that the German people, after the war, will do some 
 fighting for themselves and perhaps drive the Hohen- 
 zollerns out of the country. The prestige of the Ger- 
 man military party required a decisive victory, won 
 at no great cost. Such a* victory for Germany is no 
 longer possible. No kind of victory is by any means 
 sure. 
 
 Americans who denounce German militarism and 
 then, by favoring the sort of "preparedness" that our 
 munitions patriots advocate, invite American milita- 
 rism such Americans would do well to read the his- 
 tory of the introduction of militarism into Germany. 
 They would do well to read this history because
 
 36 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 therein they may see how the poison of militarism, as 
 expressed in huge appropriations, works its way. 
 
 The Germans at first hated the thing. How it was 
 forced down their throats, how they came, first to 
 tolerate it and then to look upon it as a wise measure 
 of "preparedness," is admirably told by Professor 
 Charles Downer Hazen in his important work, "Eu- 
 rope Since 1815." 
 
 The story in brief is this: The present Kaiser's 
 grandfather in 1860 conceived it to be his duty to in- 
 crease the standing army from 215,000 to 450,000 
 men. This was to be brought about by adding 23,000 
 a year to the number of soldiers ordinarily recruited. 
 When the king brought into Parliament the first bill 
 for the maintenance of the additional troops, the legis- 
 lature passed it, believing that it was only of a pro- 
 visional nature. But when the king, the next year, 
 brought in another bill of the same kind and Parlia- 
 ment learned what were his real designs, the bill was 
 thrown out. The king insisted upon his bill. Parlia- 
 ment insisted upon its rights. Says Hazen: 
 
 "A deadlock ensued. The king was urged to abol- 
 ish Parliament altogether. This he would not do be- 
 cause he had sworn to uphold the constitution that es- 
 tablished it. He thought of abdicating. He never 
 thought of abandoning the reform. He had written 
 out his abdication and signed it when he at last con- 
 sented to call to the ministry as a final experiment a 
 new man, known for his boldness, his independence, 
 his devotion to the monarchy, Otto von Bismarck. 
 Bismarck was appointed President of the Ministry 
 September 23, 1862. On that very day, the cham- 
 ber rejected anew the credits asked for by the king 
 for the new regiments. The conflict entered upon its
 
 WHEN IS A NATION "PREPARED"? 37 
 
 most acute phase, and a new era began for Prussia 
 and the world. 
 
 "In this interview, Bismarck told the king frankly 
 that he was willing to carry out his policy whether the 
 Parliament agreed to it or not. 'I will rather perish 
 with the king/ he said, 'than forsake your majesty in 
 the contest with parliamentary government.' His bold- 
 ness determined the king to tear up the paper contain- 
 ing his abdication and to continue the struggle with 
 the. chamber of deputies. . . . 
 
 "For four years the conflict continued. The con- 
 stitution was not abolished, Parliament was called re- 
 peatedly, the lower house voted year after year against 
 the budget, supported in this by the voters, the upper 
 house voted for it, and the king acted as if this made it 
 legal. The period was one of virtual dictatorship and 
 suspension of parliamentary life. The king continued 
 to collect the taxes, the army was thoroughly reor- 
 ganized and absolutely controlled by the authorities, 
 and the lower house had no mode of opposition save 
 the verbal one, which was entirely ineffective." 
 
 From this we see how loath was Germany to be- 
 come militaristic. The people supported the lower 
 house in its opposition to an increased army and a 
 four years' dictatorship was required to make them 
 swallow the dose. Now the world blames Germany 
 for its militarism. Can we be quite sure that if we 
 take the same road, we shall not arrive at the same 
 destination ? Once we seriously make the plunge, is it 
 likely that we shall be able to turn back? We may 
 want to, but shall we dare? If during the next five 
 years we spend two thousand millions, Germany will 
 have much more reason to "prepare" against us than 
 we now have to "prepare" against her, because the
 
 38 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 Germans will know we are arming against them and 
 we do not now know that Germany has ever armed 
 against us. If the Germans, taking fright, should 
 then arm against us, should we be either surprised or 
 affronted? And if they should begin to arm against 
 us could we say, after we had spent our two thou- 
 sand millions, "Our navy is now completed, and we 
 will build no more" ? With Germany building against 
 us, could we say that ? We could, but it is exceedingly 
 unlikely that we would. But if we did not, the build- 
 ing, on each side, would go on to the last bloody chap- 
 ter. Is it not well, while there is still time, to think 
 of these things? 
 
 We should pay no more attention to our munitions 
 patriots than Lord Salisbury told Lord Cromer to pay 
 to the military experts. Their patriotism is of a most 
 peculiar kind. They are always ready to advise the 
 government. They are always ready to shout for 
 the flag. Unfortunately for us, but not for them- 
 selves, they are never ready to take their hands out 
 of the national treasury. They profess to believe the 
 country is in great danger, but they are unwilling that 
 this danger shall be averted until a price has been paid 
 to themselves for its safety. In other words, they are 
 unwilling that the government shall manufacture its 
 own warships and war-materials. They want the 
 profits that can be made by making and selling these 
 things to the government. 
 
 Secretary of the Navy Daniels, in his report for 
 1914, said: 
 
 "Contrary to popular idea, the Navy Department in 
 what it manufactures does so, from a superdread- 
 nought to a gallon of paint or a pound of powder, 
 cheaper than the same can be purchased."
 
 WHEN IS A NATION "PREPARED"? 39 
 
 The Hon. Clyde H. Tavenner of Illinois, in a most 
 remarkable expose of the munitions patriots that was 
 reported in the Congressional Record of February 15, 
 1915, said: 
 
 "Should the government manufacture all of its mu- 
 nitions, I predict that the Navy League would not only 
 lock the doors of its suite in the National Capital, from 
 which it carries on its lobbying, morning, noon and 
 night, but that the same patriots for profit who are 
 now clamoring for a bigger and bigger navy, in the 
 certain knowledge that if their agitation is successful 
 they will draw down contracts worth millions, will be 
 among the loudest in their protestations against an 
 annual expenditure of $250,000,000 for war in time 
 of peace." 
 
 Representative Tavenner's address is altogether the 
 most important contribution that has yet been made 
 in this country to the discussion of the evils of mil- 
 itarism. He quotes names, dates and figures to show 
 by whom and of how much we have been robbed in 
 the past. He shows how the ammunition, gun and 
 armor plate patriots give employment to army and 
 navy officers who are either on the retired list or to 
 whom the government has granted long leaves of 
 absence. He cites at least one case where such an em- 
 ployee of an interest that "was engaged in milking the 
 government actually had deskroom in the Navy De- 
 partment. He shows how the government turns over 
 to the powder trust all the scientific information it 
 can gather about powder, only to have the trust, under 
 an agreement with German powder makers, turn over 
 the information to Germany. He quotes the text of 
 this agreement, which also binds the American pow- 
 der trust forthwith upon receipt of an order from the
 
 40 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 United States government to report all the facts, in- 
 cluding the amount of the order and the kind of pow- 
 der, to the German powder makers. This agreement 
 was made in 1897 and for years was in force. 
 
 Representative Tavenner quotes the testimony of a 
 former sales agent of the powder trust that the con- 
 cern maintained a lobby in Washington and paid 
 the manager thereof $30,000 a year and expenses to 
 dispense "entertainment to their customers" that is 
 to say, to your servants in Washington who have the 
 power to enter into contracts on your behalf. This 
 statement, it is only fair to say, was denied by the pow- 
 der trust, and is therefore probably not true. 
 
 Munitions patriots, the world over, seem to be both 
 a lavish and a merry crew when "customers" are to 
 be entertained. Mr. Tavenner quotes part of an ar- 
 ticle written by M. Jules Huret with regard to the 
 manner in which the Krupps dispense good cheer while 
 contracts from foreign governments or their own, 
 for that matter are under consideration. This French 
 writer, describing the Essener Hof, the private estab- 
 lishment maintained by the Krupps for such purposes, 
 said: 
 
 "This Krupp hotel is a very curious place. With its 
 double marble staircase, with columns of rose-colored 
 marble and bannisters of gilded copper, it has dignity. 
 In the vestibule, on either side of a stone chimney- 
 place, sculptured masks represent the five continents. 
 The ground is covered with red tiles, along which red 
 carpets run. Red leather settees and armchairs are 
 lined along the walls. The guests of the firm dine in a 
 special hall. After a few days, they all know one an- 
 other, and they soon meet around a large round table. 
 Nothing could show better than these occasions how
 
 WHEN IS A NATION "PREPARED"? 41 
 
 much that is artificial our civilization contains. Turks, 
 Bulgars, Serbs, Japs, Chilean and Argentinian rep- 
 resentatives will be there. 
 
 "There will also be Scandinavians, Russians and 
 Belgians. At the end of the meal, when the French 
 wines have got a little into their heads, the voices will 
 rise, and all these enemies will clink glasses for a 
 long time like brothers, amid laughter and the smoke 
 of long cigars, at the cost of the Krupps a thousand 
 leagues from the thought of the reasons that brought 
 them there. All these gentry will perhaps be slaughter- 
 ing one another one fine day" (they are doing it now) 
 "with these guns which they have come to see bored. 
 But while they are waiting for the steel to cool, they 
 'booze,' as William II said to Jules Simon. 
 
 "Some of these representatives stay a year, even 
 two years, to watch the processes of manufacture, so 
 that with its fifty rooms, the Essen hotel costs the firm 
 something like 20,000 a year, without counting inci- 
 dental expenses. Two years ago, for instance, when 
 the Chinese mission arrived eighteen persons with 
 their attendants there was an insufficiency of accom- 
 modation. Frau Krupp invited the Turkish officers, 
 whom she had been harboring for a long time, to make 
 a little journey to London and Paris at her expense, 
 under the guidance of a young officer attached to the 
 works. They stayed away five days, enjoyed them- 
 selves, as may be imagined, and returned when the 
 Celestials had gone again. The stay of the Chinamen 
 themselves had cost 2,000 special trains, banquets, 
 etc," 
 
 If it were true as charged, which of course it is not, 
 that our powder trust maintained an expensive lobby 
 in Washington, we might gather from this pastoral
 
 42 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 German scene some idea of the manner in which pro- 
 ceedings were conducted. We can see, at any rate, 
 how the servants of the capitalist classes, the world 
 over, gather under the roof of one great armament 
 concern and make merry at the expense of a company 
 that is trying to keep the world at peace by prepar- 
 ing it for war. 
 
 Mr. Tavenner goes on further to show the interna- 
 tional character of the munitions patriots, the world 
 over; how the armament trust of one nation owns 
 shares of stock in the armament companies of other 
 nations, and how nations are induced to arm by hiring 
 the newspapers of other nations to print articles in- 
 dicating that an attack is intended. Documentary evi- 
 dence in support of these charges is offered. Mr. 
 Schwab's Bethlehem Steel Company, for instance, 
 owns 4,301 shares of stock in one of the greatest gun- 
 manufacturing companies in England, the Harvey 
 Steel Company or did, at any rate, in 1912. The 
 fact is also noted that in England stock in the great 
 Armstrong gun company is held by 60 noblemen, their 
 wives, sons, or daughters, fifteen baronets, twenty 
 knights, eight members of parliament, twenty military 
 and naval officers and eight journalists. Mr. Taven- 
 ner tried to slip a paragraph into the last naval bill re- 
 quiring all contractors to file lists of their stockhold- 
 ers, but Congress cut it out. Mr. Tavenner wanted 
 the country to know the names of all who are profiting 
 from "preparedness." Congress smelled the mouse 
 and refused to let the names be made public. 
 
 Mr. Tavenner in his expose goes on to show how 
 the government is paying $17.50 for a shrapnel shell 
 that it is itself manufacturing in small lots for $7.50, 
 and $7 for a fuse that the government is making in
 
 WHEN IS A NATION "PREPARED"? 43 
 
 small lots for $2.92. Armor plate that can be made 
 for $279 a ton is sold to the government for $440 
 and has been sold for as much as $600. 
 
 It may be worth while to try the acid test for pa- 
 triotism upon the munitions gentlemen. Ask the great 
 bankers to sign a statement binding themselves, in the 
 event of war, to give the government the use of their 
 fortunes for $15 a month. That is all a soldier gets 
 for the use of his life. Why should bankers get rich 
 in war while poor men are dying in it? 
 
 If the munitions patriots agree to urge the govern- 
 ment to make its own war weapons, and the bank- 
 ers agree to rent their fortunes as cheaply as a sol- 
 dier rents his life then and not until then will these 
 gentlemen have proved their right to be considered un- 
 selfish patriots.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 OUR REAL NAVAL STRENGTH 
 
 COMPULSORY military service is raising its ugly 
 head in America. This in face of the fact that 
 two of the highest authorities in the American navy 
 say we are strong enough on water to defeat Germany 
 or any other nation, save Great Britain. The naval 
 authorities who say our navy is already strong enough 
 to defeat that of Germany are Admirals Fletcher and 
 'Badger. Admiral Fletcher is the highest active officer 
 in the navy, ranking next to Dewey who, while on 
 the active list for life by grace of Congress, is not 
 active in the sense that he goes to sea or, in the event 
 of war, could go to sea. Admiral Fletcher is the com- 
 mander of our greatest fleet the Atlantic and if we 
 were to-day at war would, unless superseded, lead our 
 armada to battle. Admiral Badger, until he retired 
 a year or so ago, held Fletcher's present place. If 
 any one is able to make an accurate estimate of the 
 relative strength of fighting craft, these men should 
 be able to do so. The opinion of each of these officers 
 is that the American fleet is stronger than that of 
 Germany. 
 
 Official proof of these statements will be given here- 
 with. In December, 1914, Admirals Fletcher and 
 Badger were witnesses before the House Committee 
 on Naval Affairs. Both of them were then, as they 
 are now, in favor of a larger navy. Was there ever 
 
 44
 
 OUR REAL NAVAL STRENGTH 45 
 
 a naval officer who was not in favor of a larger navy? 
 But Judge Witherspoon, of Mississippi, who was a 
 member of the committee, was not in favor of a larger 
 navy. He thought he saw through the campaign for 
 greater "preparedness" on water, and fought it. Un- 
 like many members of Congress, he had at his tongue's 
 end the essential facts pertaining to the world's navies. 
 Armed with these facts, he had a way of backing 
 admirals into a corner and making them admit that 
 white was white instead of black. He backed Ad- 
 mirals Fletcher and Badger into a corner. Official 
 stenographers were present and took down a report 
 of the proceedings. This report is incorporated in a 
 volume of 1,100 pages. The American people do not 
 know it exists. It should be available to the public, 
 but it isn't. When I wrote to the Government Print- 
 ing Office for it, I was told that it was out of print. 
 Plenty of reports on hog cholera and the foot and 
 mouth disease are not out of print. I went to Wash- 
 ington and, through the courtesy of the Hon. Clyde 
 H. Tavenner, obtained the copy that he had in his 
 office. The name of the book is "Hearings Before 
 the Committee on Naval Affairs of the House of 
 Representatives on Estimates Submitted by the Sec- 
 retary of the Navy." It is doubtless in many public 
 libraries. It should be in every home in America. 
 If it were, America would not be full of fright. It 
 could not be, because the facts that this book contains 
 are convincing. They show that Germany, with her 
 present strength, could not invade this country if she 
 would. 
 
 In this chapter, I shall quote liberally from that 
 book, in each case giving the number of the page. 
 The reason therefor will become plain.
 
 46 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 The big gun of the munitions patriots and other 
 big interests is fear. If they can thoroughly alarm 
 the people, the interests can get what they have so 
 long sought a greater navy in addition to some- 
 thing that, until now, they never had the hardihood 
 to advocate a great army. Since fear is the weapon 
 with which the militarists are fighting, it is the weapon 
 that must be destroyed if the militarists are to be 
 defeated. 
 
 The testimony of Admirals Fletcher and Badger 
 is an antidote to fear. 
 
 The reader should bear in mind that throughout 
 the testimony to be quoted here, whenever battleship- 
 strength is mentioned that it means in the case of each 
 and every nation, the number of battleships built, 
 building and authorized. The American battleship- 
 strength at the time of the hearings before the House 
 Committee on Naval Affairs was 40. Keep that in 
 mind 40 American battleships. 
 
 On page 545 of the book mentioned, Mr. Butler, a 
 member of the committee, endeavored to obtain from 
 Admiral Fletcher his opinion of our relative naval 
 strength. I quote: 
 
 "MR. BUTLER Where do we stand, Admiral ? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER I have not personally gone 
 into that, but I have estimates that place us about 
 third at the present time." 
 
 Stick a pin there. America third in naval strength. 
 That meant that in his opinion Germany was ahead 
 of us. Let us now turn to the testimony beginning 
 on page 548 and see how Judge Witherspoon com- 
 pelled him to admit that, in his opinion, the American 
 Navy could defeat the German Navy and was second 
 only to that of Great Britain :
 
 OUR REAL NAVAL STRENGTH 47 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON How many battleships has 
 England got? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER According to this table here 
 (indicating) England has twenty dreadnoughts built. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON The total number? How 
 many has she in all? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER This table puts it at 60. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON That is, 60 battleships? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER Sixty battleships. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON I did not ask you about that 
 statement. I have seen that old statement before. I 
 do not care anything about that statement. The Navy 
 Yearbook puts down the number of English battle- 
 ships, completed, building and authorized at 72. Now 
 your idea is that if those 72 ships were pitted against 
 ours, we would not be able to resist them; is that 
 it? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER We could resist them, but 
 we would probably be defeated. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON That is what I mean. We 
 could not resist them successfully? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER No; all else being equal. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON It has been told this commit- 
 tee by high authority in the navy department among 
 others, Admiral Vreeland that if we had a war with 
 England, on account of its relations with other nations 
 in Europe, it could not afford to send more than half 
 its ships against us. Do you believe that is so?" 
 
 Let us pause a moment before we read the admiral's 
 answer. A direct reply to the question might have 
 brought another question as to whether our 40 bat- 
 tleships would be unable to cope with the 36 that Great 
 Britain might be able to send against us. The obvious 
 answer to this impending question would not be good
 
 48 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 for the larger American Navy campaign. So the 
 Admiral replied : 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER That is a question of policy 
 and of political conditions in Europe upon which I 
 would not pretend to pass judgment. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Then your statement that 
 we could not resist England would be on the assump- 
 tion that she could send her entire fleet, or more than 
 half of it, against us? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER Yes, sir; she would control 
 the sea if she could keep there a more powerful fleet 
 than ours. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Or not afraid of war with 
 the rest of the world; not afraid to take all the ships 
 away from her own coast, and to send all of them, 
 or a large majority of them, against us? Your state- 
 ment is based on that? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER Yes, sir. It is based on 
 actual superiority. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Well, on the assumption that 
 what other naval experts have told us is correct 
 that she could not send more than 50 per cent, of her 
 72 against us you would not say then that we would 
 not be able to resist them successfully, would you?" 
 
 Here was the dreaded question that the Admiral 
 had seen coming and tried to dodge. This is the way 
 he dodged it: 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER I would not like to pass 
 judgment on a supposititious case of that kind." 
 
 Everybody knows how a naval officer dislikes to 
 consider "a supposititious case." They will consider, 
 until the cows come home, supposititious cases that 
 point to the necessity of a larger navy. The present 
 hullaballoo for a larger army and a larger navy is
 
 OUR REAL NAVAL STRENGTH 49 
 
 predicated upon the supposition that if Germany were 
 to send her fleet against us we should be defeated. 
 
 But when Admiral Fletcher was asked his opinion 
 as to whether Great Britain, if she could send 36 
 battleships against our 40 could defeat them, he 
 dodged the question on the ground that he did "not 
 like to pass judgment on a supposititious case." I 
 lay this point bare because it gives additional signifi- 
 cance to the Admiral's subsequent admission that, in 
 his opinion, our navy is not, as he told Mr. Butler, 
 third and therefore inferior to that of Germany, but 
 second and superior to that of any nation except Great 
 Britain. The admissions wrung from an unwilling 
 witness are always important. A man's judgment 
 may be warped by his desires. They are never warped 
 against his desires. 
 
 But let us proceed with the testimony: 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Now, according to the Navy 
 Yearbook, Germany has battleships built, building and 
 authorized, 39. Would you say that if she could 
 send all those ships against us, we would not be able 
 to resist them? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER I should say that we ought 
 to, if we have the greater force. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Yes; we ought to. Certainly, 
 we ought; and we could? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER Yes, sir; the greater force 
 should win. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Yes, we could. 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER I think so. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Now, it has been stated to us 
 that if Germany were at war with us she could not 
 afford, either to send more than one-half her ships 
 against us.
 
 50 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER That I do not know. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON I am not asking you whether 
 you do or do not. Assuming that she could send only 
 half of her 39, would you not say that we could suc- 
 cessfully resist that number?" 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER Yes, sir; I would say so if 
 all our force is available to meet her. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON I would too. Now take 
 France. This Navy Yearbook says that France has 
 a grand total of battleships, built, building and author- 
 ized, of 29 eleven less than we have. Would you 
 not say that if she sent all hers against us that we 
 would be able successfully to resist them? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER Yes; our force available be- 
 ing the greater. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON And if she sent only one- 
 half of them, we would not have much of a fight, 
 would we? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER No, we ought not to. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON That is the way I look at 
 it. Here is Japan, which, according to the Navy Year- 
 book, has only 19 battleships, or 21 less than we have 
 got. If Japan should send all of her 19 against us, 
 do you not think we would be able successfully to re- 
 sist them? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER Yes, I should say, if all of 
 our force were free to meet them at the time. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON And if she did not send but 
 half of them, there would not be much of a scrap, 
 would there? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER Probably not. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Now, here is Russia, that the 
 Navy Yearbook says has a grand total of battleships, 
 built, building and authorized, of 15. If she should
 
 OUR REAL NAVAL STRENGTH 51 
 
 send all of them against us, would you not say that 
 we could successfully resist them? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER Yes, sir. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON And if she sent half of them, 
 there would not be any fight at all, would there ? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER Not much. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Here is Italy, that has a 
 grand total, according to the Navy Yearbook, of 17 
 battleships. We could successfully resist them, 
 whether she sent all of them, or a part of them, could 
 we not? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER Yes; I think so. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Now Austria-Hungary, ac- 
 cording to the Navy Yearbook, has a grand total of 
 battleships, built, building and authorized, of 10. We 
 could successfully resist them, could we not? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER I think so. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Then what nation is there 
 that we are not prepared successfully to resist? There 
 is not one on earth, is there, Admiral not a single 
 one? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER Well, Judge, I think there 
 is. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Well, which one? I have 
 gone through the big ones. Tell me which one? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER >I should say that England 
 has a navy so much more powerful than that of any 
 other nation in the world that she could easily keep 
 control of the seas. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON England. Well, what other 
 one, then?" 
 
 The Admiral is now in the corner, and, as the 
 pugilists say, "taking the count." Here is his an- 
 swer :
 
 52 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER I do not think we need 
 greatly fear any other single nation." 
 
 But Judge Witherspoon was remorseless in push- 
 ing the witness. He determined to tie him down even 
 more tightly. Apparently he was not satisfied with 
 the Admiral's admission that, in his opinion, we need 
 not "greatly" fear defeat at the hands of the German 
 fleet. Judge Witherspoon wanted to make him admit 
 that we need not fear defeat at all at Germany's 
 hands. One more question did the business: 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Then there is no other nation 
 except England that, in your judgment, we could not 
 successfully defend ourselves against? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER I think that is correct; yes." 
 
 The witness having changed his mind, without leav- 
 ing his seat, as to the ability of Germany, with her 39 
 battleships, to defeat our 40, Judge Witherspoon asked 
 him if England had any battleships as large as some 
 of ours. Watch how unwillingly the Admiral admit- 
 ted that our largest ships are the most powerful in 
 the world: 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER England has many ships 
 which are very nearly of the same power of our 
 own ships of same date of building. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Let us see about that, now. 
 I do not believe she has, though you know more about 
 it than I do. In this Navy Yearbook, which gives a 
 list of the English battleships, I find that the last five 
 dreadnoughts that England built or is building are 
 named the Royal Sovereign, Royal Oak, Remiles, Rev- 
 olution and Revenge, each of which has a tonnage of 
 26,000. 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER Yes, sir. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON And we have two ships, the
 
 OUR REAL NAVAL STRENGTH 53 
 
 Pennsylvania and the No. 39, which have a tonnage 
 of 31,400, and then we have authorized three more 
 that are to have a tonnage, as I understand, of 31,000. 
 
 "THE CHAIRMAN Thirty-two thousand. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Thirty-two thousand tons. 
 In other words, the tonnage of the Pennsylvania and 
 No. 39 is 5,400 tons greater than that of the last 
 five English dreadnoughts that are building, and the 
 last three dreadnoughts that we are building have a 
 tonnage of 6,000 tons greater than the last five Eng- 
 lish ships. Do you tell me that these English ships 
 are equal to ours? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER No; I did not say that. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON Do not you regard them as 
 inferior to ours? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER Yes; as near as we can esti- 
 mate. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON I do too. And the arma- 
 ment of these five ships is eight fifteen-inch guns, 
 while the armament of the five American ships I have 
 referred to is twelve fourteen-inch guns. Which is 
 the more powerful armament eight fifteen-inch guns 
 or twelve fourteen-inch guns? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER. I think the twelve four- 
 teen-inch guns more powerful, but I am not sure this 
 opinion is concurred in by all authorities. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON. Then, understanding your 
 testimony, after reviewing it, do you want us to un- 
 derstand that England is the only nation on earth that 
 has a navy that we could not successfully resist? 
 
 "ADMIRAL FLETCHER. / think that is the fair con- 
 clusion; yes, sir; at the present time." 
 
 Is this news? If so, is it important? The New 
 York newspapers that are leading the fight for pre-
 
 54 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 paredness do not think so. I know, because I tried 
 them out. I read all of the foregoing testimony dur- 
 ing an address that I made in New York. The re- 
 porters of the leading newspapers were sitting at a 
 table in front of the platform. Before I read the 
 testimony, I pointed to the reporters and told them 
 I was going to give them some news, that I knew they 
 would be willing to write it if their editors would 
 print it, and that I did not believe a newspaper in 
 New York would print this news, though its authen- 
 ticity was attested by the government itself. 
 
 All of the newspapers, the next morning, contained 
 reports of my address. Only one of them mentioned 
 the testimony and that one gave it but a short sen- 
 tence. The New York Times, which daily flaunts 
 the slogan, "All the news that's fit to print," printed 
 a report of my speech, but gave not one word to 
 Admiral Fletcher's testimony. Why ? Was it not "fit 
 to print" ? Or is the Times not fit to print the news ? 
 If the admission of the highest active officer in the 
 American Navy that we need not fear the German 
 Navy is not news, there is no such thing as news. 
 
 The people or a good many of them, at any rate 
 believe we are in danger. They believe our navy is 
 not as strong as that of Germany. They would doubt- 
 less be interested in knowing that our highest active 
 naval officer believes our navy is stronger than that 
 of Germany. 
 
 But they are not permitted to read this fact in the 
 munitions press. It is "not news." But the munitions 
 press never fails to discern the news-value in the ser- 
 mon of some "Christian" minister who is able to 
 deduce from the Scriptures that we should be amply 
 justified in sending this country down the same bloody
 
 OUR REAL NAVAL STRENGTH 55 
 
 chute of "preparedness" that is killing Europe. Such 
 an interview is always worth a column. Also, there 
 is great news-value in the opinion of any nonentity 
 lately returned from Europe that this country should 
 hasten to arm. As if we were not already armed! 
 A nation that has a navy more powerful than that of 
 any other, save one, in the world ! 
 
 Nor is Admiral Fletcher alone in this opinion. 
 Admiral Badger, who preceded him as commander 
 of the Atlantic fleet and highest on the active list, 
 admitted as much. I will quote only the concluding 
 paragraphs of his testimony which appear on page 
 
 495: 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON. Well, I wanted to get your 
 views about that, because I do not like to hear Ameri- 
 cans running around and talking about the German 
 Navy being superior to ours. I know it is not so. 
 
 "ADMIRAL BADGER. You have not heard me say 
 that. 
 
 "MR. WITHERSPOON. No; and I am glad that is 
 so. I hope you never will say it, because there is 
 not any truth in it." 
 
 President Wilson, when he addressed Congress, at 
 the opening of the session in December, 1914, de- 
 precated any attempt to convert this country into an 
 "armed camp." A year Jater, standing on the same 
 spot, he launched the greatest army and navy program 
 that was ever launched in time of peace by an Ameri- 
 can President. 
 
 The Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Daniels, in Decem- 
 ber, 1914, was as unperturbed as the President him- 
 self. I condense two paragraphs from pages 636 and 
 637 of the report of the hearings before the House 
 Committee on Naval Affairs:
 
 56 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 "SECRETARY DANIELS. I think when the war is 
 over in Europe the countries are going to be so ex- 
 hausted in their resources and are going to be so 
 burdened with debt that there is going to be a great 
 revulsion of feeling against war. I think there is 
 going to be such exhaustion and reaction that the peo- 
 ple are going to demand the cessation of this ever- 
 increasing burdensome expense of war." 
 
 On page 572 appears the following report of the 
 Secretary's testimony before the committee: 
 
 "SECRETARY DANIELS. He [the President] abso- 
 lutely refuses to lose his head merely because 'some 
 among us are nervous and excited.' Even if the 
 times are internationally out of joint, no occasion has 
 arisen with us to plunge headlong into any frenzied 
 policy or frantic action." 
 
 From page 586, I take the following : 
 
 "MR. BUCHANAN. In your opinion, will the pres- 
 ent conflict in Europe impair or destroy the resources 
 of our possible opponents in such a manner that it will 
 put us in less danger of having any great conflict? 
 
 "SECRETARY DANIELS. I think the war in Europe 
 is going to exhaust the resources of the countries 
 engaged in it, and I think there is less likelihood I 
 do not think there was much likelihood before of our 
 country in the future having any trouble with those 
 nations." 
 
 When Mr. Daniels was asked his opinion as to 
 the advisability of increasing the navy, as a result 
 of the European War, more rapidly than the past pro- 
 gram had contemplated, he replied (page 581) : 
 
 "SECRETARY DANIELS. I think it would be most 
 unwise for us to act to-day in any particular as we 
 would not have acted if there were no war."
 
 OUR REAL NAVAL STRENGTH 57 
 
 What has happened during the last year so to alter 
 the minds of the President and his Secretary of the 
 Navy? The Lusitania has been sunk. The whole 
 policy of German and, later, of Austrian submarine 
 warfare has been put into practise. German enmity 
 has been aroused by the sale of American munitions 
 of war to the Allies. A certain amount of German 
 enmity has been aroused by the alleged unneutrality 
 of the United States Government. But no one in 
 his senses believes that, after the war in Europe is 
 ended, Germany will attack the United States because 
 Americans did not like the sinking of the Lusitcmia, 
 nor because the American Government opposed the 
 manner in which the Central Powers conducted their 
 submarine campaign, nor because the Central powers 
 believed the United States Government to be unneu- 
 tral during the European War. All of these matters 
 are things to snarl about during war, but none of 
 them is a thing about which to start another war. 
 Yet, save one, they are the only reasons that may be 
 given for plunging into militarism through fear of 
 Germany. 
 
 That other reason is the fear that Germany, as a 
 result of the present war, will become a world-empire, 
 seek to establish colonies in South America, thus chal- 
 lenging the Monroe Doctrine and bringing on war. 
 But if this reason now exists, did it not also exist 
 in December, 1914, when the President, in his address 
 to Congress, opposed the conversion of this country 
 into an "armed camp" and his Secretary of the Navy 
 complimented him for not "losing his head merely be- 
 because 'some among us are nervous and excited' " ? 
 Have not the events of the last year tended rather to 
 decrease than to increase this danger ?
 
 58 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 The fear of danger from this source must be pred- 
 icated upon some notion of vastly increased German 
 power, as a result of this war, together with the desire 
 of the German people that this power shall be used 
 for conquest. 
 
 Is Germany stronger than it was four months after 
 the beginning of the war when the President felt so 
 little fear from this source that he would not raise a 
 finger against it? Is there more or less reason than 
 there was in December, 1914, to expect that Germany 
 will win a substantial victory in this war? Is there 
 more or less reason than there was in December, 1914, 
 to believe that in this war no nation can win a sub- 
 stantial victory? 
 
 Does Secretary Daniels' prediction appear more or 
 less prophetic than it did in December, 1914, when 
 he said that "when the war is over in Europe the coun- 
 tries are going to be so exhausted in their resources 
 and are going to be so burdened with debt that there 
 is going to be a great revulsion of feeling against 
 war?" 
 
 What nation gives promise of being fit as a fiddle, 
 after this war is ended, and ready to start another? 
 What nation among the belligerents is not already 
 "burdened with debt" ? 
 
 Germany with six billions added, and the war still 
 in progress, has more than doubled its national 
 debt. 
 
 Great Britain, with nine billions added, has almost 
 trebled its national debt. 
 
 France, which, before the war, had the greatest 
 per capita national debt in the world, has so added 
 to her debt that national bankruptcy will stare her 
 in the face at the close of war.
 
 OUR REAL NAVAL STRENGTH 59 
 
 Austria-Hungary, like Germany, is piling up an 
 enormous debt. Russia and Italy are no better off. 
 
 In short, what nation is there among the belligerents 
 that has not already amply qualified for admission 
 into the class that Secretary Daniels, in December; 
 1914, intimated he would regard as harmless because 
 they would be "so exhausted in their resources and so 
 burdened with debt" that there would inevitably be a 
 degree of "exhaustion" that would cause a "great re- 
 vulsion of feeling against war"? Is there one such 
 belligerent? If so, which one? 
 
 It cannot be Germany. It should be plain to the 
 blindest that none of the nations involved can come 
 out of this war other than grievously wounded, and 
 Germany, at least in one sense, worst of all. Germany 
 went into this war believing she would quickly emerge 
 victorious and collect from her fallen foes great in- 
 demnities. She cannot now emerge quickly victorious. 
 The war has lasted far too long. Nor is there any 
 certainty that she will, in any sense, be victorious. 
 What is certain is that Germany will collect not a 
 dollar from any nation if, when general exhaustion 
 shall end the war, she shall be the least exhausted 
 and therefore the nominal victor. 
 
 If any indemnity should be paid by any nation, 
 it is more likely that it- will be paid by Germany. 
 It is not likely that even Germany will pay one. It is 
 more likely that the Allies will demand an indemnity 
 and then trade off their demand for the return of 
 any of their territory that, at the end of the war, may 
 be in the hands of the Central Powers. The Allies 
 have already let it be known that they will demand 
 an indemnity and that they will use their superior 
 naval power to prevent all German merchant ships
 
 60 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 from sailing the seas until the indemnity shall be paid. 
 That is not an idle threat since England, if her Allies 
 should desert her, could withdraw her armies and, 
 with her own navy, enforce the claim herself. Ger- 
 man statesmen have long known this. Since Decem- 
 ber 14, 1915, all the world has known that such is 
 the intention of the Allies. Under that date the 
 New York Times printed the following Washington 
 despatch : 
 
 "Several newspapers have received to-night from 
 what may be described as a semi-official source an in- 
 timation of one argument the Allies expect to use in 
 getting satisfactory terms from the Teutonic Em- 
 pires once commissioners meet about the council table 
 to discuss peace. This information confirms private 
 suggestions that the Allies, in spite of their recent 
 reverses, mean to carry the war to the point where 
 they can demand a large indemnity from Germany 
 and Austria. 
 
 "This intimation is conveyed in the following state- 
 ment : 
 
 " 'One of the main points of the Allies' peace terms 
 is that on no account will the German mercantile 
 marine flag be permitted to be seen upon the high seas 
 until full indemnification has been paid. The Allies 
 have the power to do this and mean to use it to the 
 full extent.'" 
 
 Why then should we so greatly fear a nation that 
 we did not at all fear when there was still a chance 
 that she might win a speedy, smashing victory? Do 
 we give the Germans credit for no sense ? Was Secre- 
 tary Daniels wrong when he said, in 1914, that great 
 debts and great depletion of resources would so ex- 
 haust the belligerents that none of them would soon
 
 OUR REAL NAVAL STRENGTH 6r 
 
 care to fight again? Are we to believe that Germany, 
 having failed to win a substantial victory with her 
 army, which is strong, would be eager to attempt a 
 war of conquest with her navy which is relatively 
 weak, against a nation 3,000 miles distant? Would 
 she be likely to begin such a war if that nation had 
 not only a navy, at least as strong as her own, but 
 national wealth of one hundred and fifty billions, as 
 against Germany's eighty billions, and a population 
 of one hundred millions, as against Germany's sixty- 
 seven millions? Germany now has not that much 
 population, nor that much wealth, since these figures 
 were compiled before the war began. 
 
 Yet the identical newspapers that will not print the 
 official statements of Admirals Fletcher and Badger 
 pertaining to the superiority of the American Navy 
 over the German Navy these identical newspapers 
 tell us that fear is justly abroad in the land and that 
 we should make haste to arm. Secretary Daniels, 
 who felt no alarm when Germany was stronger, feels 
 much alarmed when Germany is much weaker and has 
 much less reason for looking forward to a favor- 
 able ending of the present war. He wants Congress 
 to appropriate for the navy this year $217,658,173. 
 That is an increase over the preceding year of about 
 $68,000,000. And he wants this pace kept up for 
 five years. 
 
 Do people stop to think what that means? It means 
 for the navy during the next five years one billion 
 two hundred million dollars. Do people realize that, 
 so far as the navy is concerned, this is out-Germany- 
 ing Germany ? Germany, during the five years preced- 
 ing the outbreak of the present war, spent on her navy 
 $546,454,803. Mr. Wilson wants to spend almost
 
 62 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 twice as much during the next five years as Germany 
 spent during the five years in which she was extending 
 herself to the uttermost to get within striking distance 
 of the size of the British Navy. Nor should it be for- 
 gotten that during the five years while Germany was 
 pouring millions into her navy, we poured out more 
 millions than she did. Our appropriations for the 
 same period were $653,869,371. We are not a nation 
 that, so far as a navy is concerned, are just starting. 
 We are a nation that, for years, have spent more 
 money on our fleet than has any other nation save 
 Great Britain. For the convenience of those who may 
 be interested, I append the naval appropriations of 
 the principal powers from 1900 to 1914, inclusive 
 (see page 63). 
 
 And, in the face of these figures, Mr. Wilson sub- 
 mits a naval building program for the next five years 
 that, if enacted, would, as Representative Claude Kit- 
 chin of North Carolina succinctly put it, "at one 
 bound, increase our already immense naval expendi- 
 ture by more than our total increase during the last 
 fourteen years, and by more than the total German 
 naval increase during the five years preceding the 
 European War, and by more than the combined naval 
 increase of all the nations of the world in any one year 
 in their history!" 
 
 Mr. Garrison, late Secretary of War, wanted an 
 army of 541,000 regulars and "Continentals" at an 
 annual cost of $182,234,559 or a mere matter, dur- 
 ing the next five years, of $911,172,795 ! 
 
 The War College Division of the General Staff of 
 the Army do not believe this goes far enough. These 
 affable gentlemen would have an army of one million 
 men, equally divided into regulars and "Continentals."
 
 OUR REAL NAVAL STRENGTH 
 
 NAVAL APPROPRIATIONS OF THE PRINCIPAL POWERS FROM 1900 TO 1914, INCLUSIVE 
 
 Great Britain, 
 
 Fiscal year Apr. i-Mar. 31 
 1900-1 $145,792,850 
 
 150,569,190 
 150,679.328 
 173.548,058 
 179.138,049 
 161,117,947 
 1906-7 152,954,342 
 
 1901-2. 
 1902-3. 
 1903-4- 
 1904-5. 
 1905-6. 
 
 1907-8. 
 
 1008-9. 
 
 1900-10. 
 
 1910-11. 
 
 1911-12. 
 
 151,880,617 
 156,401,161 
 181,936,341 
 202,056,258 
 211,596,296 
 
 1912-13 224,443,296 
 
 1913-14 237,530,459 
 
 1914-15 260,714,275 
 
 United States, 
 July i-June 30 
 
 $61.721,695 
 68,438,301 
 82,977,641 
 104,126,192 
 116,655,826 
 109,725,059 
 98,392,144 
 117,353,474 
 120,421,579 
 122,247,365 
 111,791,980 
 133.559,071 
 129,787.233 
 136,858,301 
 141,872,786 
 
 Germany, 
 April to March 
 
 $37,173,074 
 
 46,315,800 
 
 48,818,700 
 
 50,544,000 
 
 49,110,300 
 
 54,918,000 
 
 58,344.300 
 
 69,133,500 
 
 80,737,626 
 
 95,047,820 
 
 103,302,773 
 
 107,178,480 
 
 109,989,096 
 
 112,091,125 
 
 113.993.329 
 
 France, 
 Jan. to Dec. 
 $72,683,180 
 67,079,011 
 59.2I7.5S8 
 59,740,222 
 60,178,623 
 61,565,779 
 59,514,296 
 60,685,813 
 62,194,916 
 64.899.589 
 74,102,439 
 80,371,109 
 81,692,832 
 90,164,625 
 123,828,872 
 
 Russia, 
 
 Fiscal year Jan. to Dec. 
 1900-1 $42,101,212 
 
 IOOI-2. 
 
 1002-3. 
 
 1003-4- - 
 
 1904-5-- 
 
 1905-6. . 
 
 1906-7.. 
 
 1007-8.. 
 
 1908-9 . . 
 
 1900-10. 
 
 1910-11. 
 
 1911-12. 
 
 1912-13. 
 
 1913-14- 
 
 1914-15- 
 
 45,488,462 
 50,769.465 
 60,018,895 
 58,076,543 
 60,228,444 
 60,703,557 
 43,012,166 
 49,682,482 
 58,059,040 
 46,520,465 
 56,680,915 
 82,019,633 
 117,508,657 
 128,954.733 
 
 Italy, 
 
 July i-June 30 
 $23,829,206 
 23.875,532 
 23,522,400 
 23,522,400 
 24,300,000 
 24,494.400 
 25,865,668 
 27,516,454 
 30.453,697 
 31,812,885 
 40,595.204 
 40,780,987 
 41,893,420 
 49,550,147 
 56,920,440 
 
 Japan 
 riltoM 
 
 April to March 
 
 Total 
 
 $21,373.954 
 17.654.528 
 17.553.279 
 10,018,024 
 11,378,202 
 30,072,061 
 35,124,346 
 39,347,332 
 35,005,719 
 36,889,158 
 42,944,329 
 46,510,216 
 48,105,152 
 69,111,653 
 
 $423,140,250 
 433,639,620 
 489,053,046 
 497,477.365 
 483,427.831 
 485,846,368 
 504,706,370 
 539.238,793 
 589.008,759 
 615,258,277 
 673.111,187 
 716,335.726 
 791,808,466 
 895,396,088 
 
 We smile at the War College gentlemen now or at 
 any rate, we do if we know no better. What they are 
 advocating now is but the natural sequence of what 
 Mr. Garrison and his kind are advocating now. The 
 appetite for arms is progressive. 
 
 If Congress should enact the Wilson defense pro- 
 gram it would at once be confronted with two prob- 
 lems how to get the money to pay the bills and how 
 to get the soldiers to make the army. 
 
 Mr. Garrison has thought of the soldier part of it. 
 He knows how much advertising the government has 
 had to do to keep intact an army of 100,000 men. And 
 there is where Conscription raises its ugly head. Mr.
 
 64 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 Garrison is looking forward to the necessity of con- 
 scription, in time of peace, to raise the army for 
 which he has asked. 
 
 I quote the following paragraph from his annual 
 report : 
 
 "If the nation requires certain service and offers the 
 most favorable opportunity for the citizens to furnish 
 such service, and, notwithstanding that it cannot se- 
 cure such service, it must then resort to some method 
 of compelling the service." 
 
 Here is visible proof of the Socialist contention that 
 this nation is ruled, not by its people, but by the 
 capitalist class. We need not argue the point there 
 are the animal's claws. What doctrine more mon- 
 strous than that set forth by Mr. Garrison that the 
 nation and its citizens are things apart? 
 
 What power is it in "the nation" that gives it, 
 not only the right to demand but to take services 
 that "the citizens" are unwilling to give? If the 
 citizens of the United States do not constitute the 
 nation, pray who and what do constitute it? Whence 
 comes the power to say that if "the citizens" should 
 decide even to welcome an invader, they would not 
 have the right to do so? 
 
 Mr. Garrison, so far as >his own purposes are 
 concerned, went too far. For a brief moment he 
 threw a beam of light on the ruling class that is 
 administering the government of this nation. He and 
 his class doubtless want a larger army, but he should 
 be more discreet. There is a way of phrasing things 
 to conceal facts and Mr. Garrison should know it. 
 
 Nor was the Secretary of War alone in hinting at 
 the necessity of conscription if the Wilson defense 
 plan should become effective. The patriotic Union
 
 65 
 
 League Club of New York, which is largely composed 
 of antiquated millionaires and men of lesser wealth, 
 was perhaps the first to adopt, by unanimous vote, 
 a resolution urging the government to compel every 
 able-bodied citizen of military age to serve in the army 
 "or contribute financially" to its support. No great 
 gift of imagination seems necessary to frame an ac- 
 curate forecast as to whether the Union League gentle- 
 men would serve in person, or "contribute financially" 
 by hiring substitutes. 
 
 The New York Evening Mail, the editor of which 
 is Mr. S. S. McClure of former magazine fame, is 
 also in favor of conscription. After commending 
 the Garrison plan and asking how the soldiers were 
 to be obtained, it continues : 
 
 "By the present voluntary system of enlistment? 
 Utterly impossible. The excellent project of national 
 defense, fully warranted by the uncertainties and 
 hidden menaces of the international situation, can- 
 not begin to be put into effect without the establish- 
 ment of the principle of obligatory service, imposed 
 by the inexorable requirements of the most vital in- 
 terests of the country." 
 
 Conscription has already raised its head in Con- 
 gress, where on December 13, 1915, Senator Cham- 
 berlain, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Mili- 
 tary Affairs, introduced a bill under the terms of 
 which, if it should become a law, compulsory service, 
 even in time of peace, would begin at the age of 12 
 and continue until the age of 23. 
 
 The little boys would be required to train only a few 
 hours each year and the older boys not much longer. 
 But it is the entering wedge toward the same sort of 
 compulsory military service that, for a hundred years,
 
 66 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 has spared no boy in Europe except the boys of Eng- 
 land. Raise the Wilson army and conscription will 
 follow as a matter of course. This will then be the 
 same kind of a land as those from which millions 
 of Europeans have fled to come to this country. They 
 knew what they were fleeing from and why. We shall 
 better understand why they fled if we let conscrip- 
 tion become fastened upon us. 
 
 Granted that enough conscripts can be drafted to 
 make a huge army, we shall still be confronted with 
 the problem of how to raise enough money to sup- 
 port the army and the navy. This money can come 
 from but one source the working class; the farmers, 
 mechanics, laborers and others who constitute the 
 productive part of the community. The working class 
 produce the wealth with which to pay all the taxes that 
 are paid. If the Wilson defense plan should be put 
 into effect, it would be necessary to impose more 
 taxes. Of course, I do not mean taxes on buildings 
 and land. 
 
 The United States Government never gets a cent 
 that is raised by taxes on buildings and land. The 
 United States Government gets its money from cus- 
 toms receipts, internal revenue taxes on tobacco, 
 whisky, etc., taxes laid upon incomes, and now, to 
 some extent, from special taxes that were imposed 
 as a result of the loss of revenue caused by the 
 shrinkage of imports due to the European War. 
 
 The government is barely keeping its head above 
 water without a larger army and a larger navy to 
 create and maintain. What the taxes would be in ten 
 or twenty years, nobody can tell. The people of 
 Europe know more about such things than we do. 
 
 If these be the things that the American people
 
 OUR REAL NAVAL STRENGTH 67 
 
 want, Mr. Wilson and his party with Republican as- 
 sistance will be pleased to serve them. 
 
 Compulsory military service right away. 
 
 Higher cost of living right away. 
 
 Possibly a war in a few years. 
 
 Yet we are assured by Hiram Maxim, among other 
 munitions patriots, that we should "prepare." Every 
 munitions patriot is purely unselfish in his advocacy 
 of greater armaments. But wait a moment. A des- 
 patch from St. Louis, Mo., to the New York World: 
 
 "PREPAREDNESS MEN PREPARE TO RESIGN. 
 "ADVERTISEMENTS OF $10,000,000 MUNITIONS COR- 
 PORATION SHOCKS ST. Louis. 
 (Special to The World.) 
 
 "ST. Louis. Many members have resigned and 
 others are threatening to resign from the Committee 
 of One Hundred appointed by Mayor Kiel to urge 
 the preparedness program upon Congress. This ac- 
 tion resulted from advertisements in St. Louis news- 
 papers this morning of a $10,000,000 Maxim Muni- 
 tions Corporation offering stock for sale at $10 a 
 share. Hudson Maxim appeared two days ago be- 
 fore the Business Men's League to urge support of 
 the national defense program. 
 
 " That's a pretty swift beginning/ said former 
 Solicitor General of the United States Frederick W. 
 Lehmann in announcing his refusal to serve on the 
 committee. 
 
 " 'One cannot help suspecting an ulterior motive,' 
 said Judge H. S. Canfield in declining to be a com- 
 mittee-man. 
 
 " 'If the activities of the National Security 
 League, at the instance of which the committee was
 
 68 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 appointed, the appearance of Mr. Maxim and the 
 promulgation of the advertisements can be connected, 
 it is treasonable/ said John H. Gundlach, former 
 President of the City Council and member of the com- 
 mittee." 
 
 Nevertheless, the munitions patriots are probably 
 entirely unselfish in their advice to prepare. The only 
 reason they do not advocate the manufacture of guns, 
 ammunition and ships by the government is because 
 they happened to miss the paragraph in Secretary 
 Daniels' report for 1914 in which he said it had been 
 demonstrated that the government could make any- 
 thing "from a dreadnought to a gallon of paint," 
 for less than it could buy the same article from private 
 interests.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE POLITICS OF "PREPAREDNESS" 
 
 TT^ORMER Secretary of War Garrison, speaking at 
 * a banquet attended by a thousand bankers in 
 New York on January 17, 1916, said : 
 
 "The newspapers of the country, either voicing 
 public opinion or leading it, have been insistent for 
 months in their news articles and in their editorials 
 that a wise, sensible military policy is essential for the 
 nation. This public opinion was formulated by the 
 President, as the spokesman of the people, and a policy 
 embracing the essential principles of national defense 
 was by him proposed to Congress." 
 
 The first part of this statement, so far at least as it 
 relates to the responsibility of the press for creating 
 fear in this country, is true. I may be able to throw a 
 little light on the part that relates to President Wilson's 
 share in the matter. 
 
 At a meeting held in Washington in January, 1916, 
 of the Anti-Preparedness Committee, of which I was 
 a member, Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard, publisher of 
 the New York Evening Post and grandson of William 
 Lloyd Garrison, made the following statement: 
 
 "Colonel House told me that the Wilson Defense 
 Program was put up to be knocked down." 
 
 The Colonel House to whom Mr. Villard referred 
 is Colonel E. M. House, closest friend of the Presi- 
 dent. Mr. Villard is the only New York newspaper 
 
 69
 
 ?o INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 editor who is opposing preparedness. He is not a 
 member of the Anti-Preparedness Committee, but he 
 sometimes meets with it. 
 
 The people of this country are entitled to know all 
 of the facts back of the effort to stampede the nation 
 into militarism. If the President, in advocating "pre- 
 paredness," is violating his conscience to play politics, 
 the people have a right to know the truth. 
 
 American history contains no political chapter 
 more disgraceful than that which American politicians 
 are now writing on the subject of "preparedness." 
 The question of whether we are to depart from our 
 traditions and assume the crushing burdens of great 
 military establishments is one that might well have 
 smothered in each American every selfish longing, 
 every unworthy motive, bearing on the subject. So 
 far as some of our politicians and business men are con- 
 cerned, precisely the opposite has taken place. Selfish- 
 ness has run and is running riot. Though these 
 gentlemen are playing with fire around a powder 
 magazine, they are so intent upon the achievement of 
 their own little ambitions that they seem utterly un- 
 mindful of the great, solemn national interests that 
 are involved interests that touch not only the living 
 but generations of the unborn. 
 
 More than any other one man, Theodore Roosevelt 
 is responsible for the wave of fear, now happily 
 passing, that swept over the country. He is the vic- 
 tim and so long as he lives he will doubtless continue 
 to be the victim of a consuming desire to get back 
 to and remain in the White House. He showed these 
 symptoms soon after he returned from Africa. He 
 put forth his greatest efforts to get the Republican 
 nomination in 1912. When he failed he went deliber-
 
 POLITICS OF "PREPAREDNESS" 71 
 
 ately about it to wreck his party and succeeded. 
 From the moment that Mr. Wilson entered the White 
 House he did nothing to the satisfaction of Mr. Roose- 
 velt. For many long months he searched diligently, 
 yet without much success, for an issue large enough 
 so that he could lock horns with the President to the 
 end that he might politically destroy him. 
 
 And then came the great war. Mr. Wilson has 
 done nothing since that Mr. Roosevelt could approve. 
 With fine frenzy he lashed the President because he 
 did not advocate a declaration of war against Ger- 
 many because of the invasion of Belgium. Mr. Roose- 
 velt, of course, knows as well as anybody that even 
 England did not go to war because of Belgium, how- 
 ever much she may have officially pretended to do so. 
 Yet what he doubtless considered his political necessi- 
 ties caused him, almost at the beginning, to decry Mr. 
 Wilson because he did not do his best to plunge this 
 country into the European War. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt did not immediately advocate "pre- 
 paredness" nor criticize Mr. Wilson because he did 
 not advocate. When "prepared" Europe broke into 
 war-flame it seemed as if no sane man ever again 
 could advocate tremendous preparation for war as the 
 best means of keeping the peace. Everywhere it was 
 felt that the great calamity of the European War 
 must lead at least to this much good that it would 
 forever put a stop to the insanity of endless competi- 
 tion in armaments. 
 
 Such views naturally gave alarm to the interests 
 that, for twenty years, had been fattening upon armor 
 plate contracts and other orders related to the business 
 of war. These gentlemen, as we now know, are not 
 entirely without resources. They have in the aggre-
 
 72 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 gate, not only great wealth, but through banking and 
 business connections, they have the power to influence 
 a great deal of wealth that they do not own. They 
 have power over congressmen. They have power over 
 newspapers. And they are not unaware of the fact 
 that the strongest emotion that moves human beings is 
 fear. 
 
 Steps were taken to spread fear throughout the land. 
 Eminent admirals and generals were interviewed. 
 Was there ever an eminent admiral or general who 
 believed the American army and the American navy 
 were large enough? Admirals and generals who 
 believe this country could be shot up before breakfast 
 by almost any ambitious power are so numerous as to 
 be a nuisance. Grant their premises and we must 
 accept their conclusions. There is no doubt that this 
 country can be invaded. There is no doubt that any 
 country can be invaded. Enough men and enough guns 
 can penetrate England, or Germany, or France, or 
 the United States. The point these gentlemen always 
 overlook is that none of the nations that have guns 
 enough to be in our class has ever deemed it expedient 
 to try to invade America with any force that it could 
 spare from its own shores. Our timid admirals and 
 generals never seem to consider that European enmities 
 are our best protection from European attack, since 
 no European nation would dare to leave its own coasts 
 unguarded to bring its entire force against us. Yet, 
 class-conscious admirals and generals that they are, 
 they are always willing to tell anybody who may in- 
 quire that we are in a frightful state of unpreparedness 
 and much need more ships and more soldiers. 
 
 The armament gentlemen, some of whom modestly 
 confess that they have a little armament to sell, did
 
 POLITICS OF "PREPAREDNESS" 73 
 
 their utmost to create fear by spreading these ideas 
 around. Naturally they turned to the newspapers as 
 the best means of carrying on their propaganda. No 
 difficulty was encountered in obtaining extensive 
 editorial support. Caesar's wife edits no newspapers 
 in the great metropolitan districts. Every editor has a 
 publisher and every publisher has a banker. The pub- 
 lisher knows who discounts his notes and who has 
 the power to refuse to renew them. The banker who 
 is financing munitions interests, and profiting thereby, 
 can pull any one of many strings to make the editorial 
 typewriter click out his will. 
 
 Moreover, the publisher of a great newspaper in a 
 great city is usually part and parcel of the industrial 
 and financial group who would have this nation armed 
 mightily so that it might trade tremendously. These 
 gentlemen see in a great navy an excellent means with 
 which to pry open foreign markets. It matters not 
 to them that the American working class should be 
 permitted to consume its own products. It matters not 
 to these gentlemen that the American working class, 
 if it were paid sufficient wages, would be glad to con- 
 sume its own products. These determined men of 
 finance and industry are intent only upon finding 
 foreign markets for what they have filched at home. 
 And they have the unspeakable impudence to ask the 
 American working class, in the name of "patriotism," 
 to provide a navy with which to complete the theft 
 of their own products and, in the event of war as to 
 markets, to give up their lives to enable their masters 
 to get their money for their stolen goods. 
 
 The newspapers, aided mightily by Mr. Roosevelt, 
 spread fear abroad throughout the land. The moment 
 fear was felt the seed of "preparedness" was sown.
 
 74 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 It looked for a while as if the country were in a fair 
 way to go mad. And it was only when it seemed as 
 if the country were about to become of one mind as to 
 the necessity of great military preparations that Mr. 
 Wilson, the politician, not knowing which way the 
 cat might jump, stultified his own brave words of 
 December, 1914, and put up a defense program "to 
 be knocked down." 
 
 Mr. Wilson is an exceedingly adroit politician. I 
 do not know that his character can be better summed 
 up than it was by a New York man who attended 
 Princeton University when Mr. Wilson was its presi- 
 dent. "I would not call Mr. Wilson crooked," said 
 he, "but he is artful." "Artful" is the word. Mr. 
 Wilson is the sort of gentleman who, when he chooses 
 to do so, seeps through a situation instead of cutting 
 it with a knife. There can be no doubt that in his 
 heart he is opposed to the program he has proposed. 
 The reasoning that he employed in his December, 1914, 
 message shows it. Col. House's statement to Mr. 
 Villard proves it. But Mr. Wilson, desiring a second 
 term, and being uncertain as to the extent of the "pre- 
 paredness" mania, felt it necessary to put himself in 
 a position to swim with the tide if there were a tide. 
 
 Yet in the message to Congress in which he launched 
 his defense program he contrived innocently to men- 
 tion that our finances were already in a bad way, and 
 that if the defense program were to be adopted, it 
 would be necessary, each year, to raise some additional 
 hundreds of millions by taxation, and to suggest that 
 these sums might be raised by taxing, among other 
 things, gasoline and steel. He made these suggestions 
 rather lightly, but he must have known that they would 
 raise the howls in the automobile and steel industries
 
 POLITICS OF "PREPAREDNESS" 75 
 
 that they did raise. In this "artful" manner Mr. Wil- 
 son succeeded, not only in bringing to the attention 
 of the whole country what would be the cost of "pre- 
 paredness," but he set different groups of manufac- 
 turers to quarreling as to which industries should bear 
 the bulk of the burden. 
 
 Mr. Wilson's "artfulness" was still further displayed 
 in his whole-hearted endorsement of Secretary Gar- 
 rison's proposed Continental Army. On the face of it 
 this endorsement seemed very generous. It was ample, 
 and it was doubtless uttered to the accompaniment 
 of that bland smile of which the President is peculiarly 
 the master. But the practical value of the endorsement 
 became apparent a little later when the question of 
 conscription came to the fore. Mr. Garrison's Con- 
 tinental Army could not possibly be raised without 
 conscription even its friends admitted that. And Mr. 
 Wilson, when the moment came, permitted a member 
 of Congress to announce in the House that in no cir- 
 cumstances would the President favor conscription. In 
 other words, the President's darling secretary of war 
 had full permission to swim, the only condition being 
 that he go not near the water. 
 
 It may seem as if an effort is being made to picture 
 the President as another Machiavelli somewhat of 
 an improvement, perhaps, over the original, but still 
 of the same kind. Such an inference would be ground- 
 less. No effort is being made. The writer is but a 
 mere relator of events in their chronological order. 
 What these events may show the President to be is 
 for the consideration of the reader, rather than of the 
 writer. Consider, for instance, what the President 
 was doing when the "preparedness" wave was at its 
 height and for some time afterward. He was doing
 
 76 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 nothing. Munitions patriots were fuming. Bankers 
 were scissoring off maple toothpicks with their teeth. 
 The New York Times, a faithful munitions organ, was 
 editorially demanding that the defense bills "Must 
 Come to a Vote at Once." 
 
 The carefully manufactured newspaper wave of fear 
 was even beginning a little to recede and still no 
 word came from the White House. The Washington 
 correspondent of the New York Tribune, early in 
 January, sent a despatch to his newspaper expressing 
 the astonishment of the great interests that the Presi- 
 dent was doing nothing. They could not understand 
 how a President who had been so energetic in pushing 
 some of his other measures through Congress could be 
 so apathetic as to "his" most important measure - 
 the defense program. Only the New York Tribune did 
 not put any quotation marks around the word "his." 
 The President's loyalty to "his" own measures was 
 not questioned. The Tribune seemed only to feel that 
 he had gone to sleep. As if the President ever slept 
 except in bed! 
 
 Mr. Wilson permitted this situation to continue, 
 without a sign that it would ever end, until the latter 
 part of January. By that time the "preparedness" 
 wave had tremendously ebbed, leaving long dirty 
 marks to indicate what had been its higher levels. 
 Everybody admitted that the Garrison army idea was 
 dead beyond resurrection. With a Democratic major- 
 ity in the House of only twenty-three, more than 
 eighty Democrats were known to be opposed to the de- 
 fense measures and more were seeing the light every 
 day. The Republicans, while known to be willing to 
 supply the votes to pass the bills, were also known to 
 be unwilling to incur the odium that was sure to be
 
 POLITICS OF "PREPAREDNESS" 77 
 
 attached to the party that might make possible the 
 enactment of the necessary revenue measures. The 
 "preparedness" advocates, with defeat staring them in 
 the face, were freely fighting among themselves. Then 
 and then only did Mr. Wilson cause it to be announced 
 that on January 27 he would speak in New York, 
 and that in February he would speak in several cities 
 on measures that he favored, among which, of course, 
 would be the "preparedness" bills. After the horse 
 was stolen he consented to lock the barn ! 
 
 The real history of these momentous days will never 
 be written. Whatever may happen, the history that 
 will be written will judge Mr. Wilson leniently. Even 
 if a miracle should happen and, turning to militarism, 
 we should invite and, eventually, get war, still the his- 
 torian would say that in proposing great additions 
 to our military establishments, Mr. Wilson did no more 
 than express the country's desires, which, in a democ- 
 racy, a President should always do. History would 
 take no note of how the desires were manufactured. 
 It would merely record the fact (if it should become 
 a fact) that they existed. On the other hand, if the 
 country, recoiling from militarism, as it certainly is, 
 should cause the defense measures to be defeated, his- 
 tory, recalling the President's defense measures, would 
 content itself with the observation that he placed the 
 question before the country that it might answer it as 
 it saw fit. 
 
 We who are now living are not, however, dependent 
 upon history either for our facts or for our opinions. 
 Of course, results are, in a large sense, what we are 
 after, and if Mr. Wilson by putting up a defense pro- 
 gram "to be knocked down" shall contribute to the 
 defeat of the militarists, the tendency will be to rejoice
 
 78 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 in the end rather than too closely to scrutinize the 
 means by which it was brought about. That is the 
 superficial, generous way in which the American people 
 invariably pass judgment. Yet, to those who see 
 more deeply into things, the fact is as plain as a pike- 
 staff that, as to this exceedingly perilous matter, Mr. 
 Wilson has been playing politics for a selfish purpose. 
 
 If he actually believed the country needed the great 
 additions to armament that he proposed, he should 
 have put his shoulder behind the measures that were 
 drawn to bring them about and pushed with every 
 ounce of his weight. 
 
 If he believed the country should not depart from all 
 its traditions by converting itself into an "armed 
 camp," he should not have contented himself by put- 
 ting up a program "to be knocked down." 
 
 When Mr. Wilson proclaimed his program the 
 question of "preparedness" was balancing in the scale, 
 with the chances in favor of the scale settling on the 
 side of militarism. The country did not know the 
 President was insincere. A breath might have deter- 
 mined the issue. Fortunately, the margin of safety 
 appears to have been large enough so that Mr. Wilson's 
 breath of selfishness did no harm. Mr. Wilson could 
 not have known how wide was that margin of safety, 
 yet for a purely selfish purpose he played on it with 
 the most reckless abandon. Posterity may forget 
 and forgive this. It will be more difficult for those 
 of the present generation who know what he has 
 done. 
 
 But while there may be apologists for what may be 
 considered the President's "artfulness," there can be 
 no apologists for the shameful part played by some 
 of the great metropolitan newspapers in turning over
 
 POLITICS OF "PREPAREDNESS" 79 
 
 their properties to the munitions patriots. They know 
 they are engaged in a crooked game. They know, 
 because they know what they are printing and what 
 they are excluding. They know what they are put- 
 ting big headlines on, and what they are putting 
 little headlines on. Any unknown gentleman who 
 returns from Europe with a superheated opinion that 
 this country should fly to arms can get ample space 
 and good headlines. Any one who believes otherwise 
 cannot get much of anything. Most of the opinion 
 adverse to "preparedness" is suppressed, and the little 
 that is permitted to get into print is put on back pages 
 under small headlines. I am speaking, of course, only 
 of the New York newspapers, who constitute the center 
 of the "preparedness" propaganda. These statements 
 are true of all the New York newspapers except the 
 Evening Post, a newspaper of high character but small 
 circulation. The Post has fought splendidly against 
 the whole "preparedness" program. Many newspapers 
 in smaller cities have done the same. 
 
 As to the suppression of news adverse to "prepared- 
 ness," I was sitting in one of the galleries of the 
 House of Representatives on January 10, 1916, listen- 
 ing to a speech by Judge Shackleford of Missouri 
 against the exportation of ammunition. Near the 
 close of his address Mr. Focht, a Republican of Penn- 
 sylvania, interrupted. To quote from the Congres- 
 sional Record of the same date : 
 
 "MR. FOCHT: The gentleman is opposed to any 
 foreign invasion of this country, and that our defense 
 should be amply prepared for it. 
 
 "Now, I want to call attention and ask the gentleman 
 to amplify some portion of his generally splendid 
 address, and that is in regard to the finances of Europe.
 
 80 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 I think the gentleman recalls that Napoleon said, 'Give 
 me three things and I will have the universe at my feet/ 
 and those things were 'money, money, money!' Now, 
 I understand that Europe is bankrupt, that the rest of 
 the allies are on the pay roll of Great Britain, and 
 that Great Britain is coming here borrowing on her 
 bonds and securities; and since money constitutes the 
 sinews of war, how are they going to prosecute any 
 war against us while they are financially broke? 
 [Applause.] In other words, several years ago when 
 Europe was at her maximum strength on land and sea 
 we heard nothing about this most lavish proposed 
 preparedness. Now, when Europe is on her back, 
 broke and bankrupt, and at her minimum strength, it 
 seems to me much of this fear at this particular time 
 is groundless. [Applause.] 
 
 "MR. SHACKLEFORD: I thought the gentleman 
 interrupted me for a question, but it turns out he has 
 not; nevertheless I must express to him my gratitude 
 for putting so much better than I could the very thing 
 I was thinking. I agree with him, and if I had time I 
 should like to discuss the impropriety of taking the 
 people's credit of this country and loaning it out to 
 the foreign countries who are engaged in war. 
 [Applause.] We should, rather, lend it to our own 
 people to support their own industries and carry along 
 prosperity for ourselves." 
 
 Mr. Focht's incisive reasoning was not met in the 
 House, though plenty of "preparedness" gentlemen 
 sat around, nor has it been answered anywhere else. 
 But did one New York newspaper pay any attention 
 to what he said? Did one of them deign to write 
 an editorial reply to it? Not one. So far as they 
 are concerned, Mr. Focht might as well be dead. For
 
 POLITICS OF "PREPAREDNESS" 81 
 
 them he does not exist. They do not know him and 
 do not want to know him. Perusal of the Congres- 
 sional Record shows that hardly a day passes that some 
 sort of a blow is not landed in Congress upon "pre- 
 paredness." In New York, at least, little or nothing 
 is printed. But let the Honorable Gussie Gardner 
 emit a howl for men and guns and the newspapers ring 
 with it. The easiest way to get publicity in New York 
 last winter was to have something to say in favor 
 of adopting the European plan to avert war. The 
 hardest way was to be against it. 
 
 New York newspaper editors are not all fools. Some 
 of them, if they had a chance, would print some sense. 
 Not all of them would some of them would. The 
 difficulty is that New York newspaper editors do not 
 edit their own newspapers. The publishers edit the 
 editors. The publisher lays down to his editor the 
 newspaper's "policy." A "policy" is both a deadline 
 and a program. It is a list of things to do and a list 
 of other things not to do. Not to advocate opposition 
 to "preparedness" or even to give such opposition 
 favorable consideration in the news columns is a stand- 
 ing order in the office of every New York newspaper 
 except the Evening Post. The editor carries out 
 orders. The publisher gives orders. 
 
 The publisher is not a. publicist he is a business 
 man. Like other business men, he is making money, 
 owing money and looking for money. He has respect 
 for the views of the banker, because he owes him 
 money, or knows he may sometime want to owe him 
 money. He has respect for the views of business men 
 because he knows that they, like himself, are looking 
 for money and the easiest way to get it. What would 
 be good for them is likely to be good for him. What
 
 82 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 would be bad for them would probably be bad for him. 
 As business men they are all in the same boat. And 
 any tendency on the publisher's part to pursue a public 
 policy opposed to the views of his business acquaint- 
 ances might make trouble for him. Business men, if 
 they choose, can reward those who play the game 
 according to the rules, as they can, if they choose, 
 punish those who refuse to do so. 
 
 If the publisher's commodity were soap instead of 
 what purports to be disinterested advice to the public, 
 his position would be ethically unassailable. A soap 
 manufacturer is nothing but a soap manufacturer. 
 He does not pretend to be saving the country except 
 from dirt. The publisher pretends to be saving the 
 country. Day in and day out he is telling his part of 
 the public what to do for their own good. In his 
 news columns he pretends to print the news. The 
 truth is that, when great public questions are before 
 the country, he usually takes an editorial position that 
 is dictated by the selfish interests of a small class of 
 which he is a part, and "prints the news" in such a 
 manner as to fortify his editorial position. 
 
 Such conduct constitutes a fraud against the pub- 
 lic. Newspaper readers are entitled to truthful news. 
 With regard to the "preparedness" mania, they have 
 not been getting it. It is not truthful to misrepresent 
 public sentiment. Public sentiment is misrepresented 
 when nine-tenths of the news space devoted to the 
 subject of "preparedness" is handed over to those who 
 favor it. It is not truthful to represent that this is 
 almost exclusively a land of Gussie Gardners and Hud- 
 son Maxims. We also have with us a considerable 
 number of persons who, unlike Mr. Maxim, have no 
 ammunition to sell and who, unlike Mr. Gardner, do
 
 POLITICS OF "PREPAREDNESS" 83 
 
 not go to bed with goblins and get up with ghosts. 
 The greater part of the country has not lost its head. 
 None of it would have lost its head if the newspapers 
 had not lent themselves to the munitions patriots and 
 the great business interests that, for years, have be- 
 lieved big trade follows a big navy. The few who 
 are still nervous will quickly calm down if the news- 
 papers will but cease turning in false alarms. 
 
 The world-war at last shows signs of burning itself 
 out. The strain is telling upon all of the belligerents. 
 Each shows less speed. If the war were to end to-day, 
 nobody in Europe outside of an insane asylum would 
 want to start another to-morrow. The longer the 
 war lasts, the longer will the memory of it burn those 
 who have felt its fires. It seems likely to drag on, 
 at slower pace, for a year or two. Europe then more 
 than ever will deserve our pity rather than our fear. 
 It will be the saddest sight upon which the sun ever 
 shone. So far as we are concerned, it will be about 
 as dangerous as a cemetery. Yet, there are a few 
 powerful men among us who, for various reasons, 
 would have us arm vastly more heavily against 
 crippled, disillusioned Europe than they ever dared 
 urge that we arm when Europe was at the height of 
 its military power. 
 
 Maybe this is sense. More likely it is dollars. At 
 any rate, it is a crime. It is a crime against America. 
 It is a crime against Europe. It is a crime against the 
 world. We should be talking of something else. 
 When Europe comes out of her terrible struggle we 
 should not greet her with a knife. Europe is suffering 
 tremendously. When her misery ends she will be in 
 no mood to raise more armies and more navies. She 
 will be glad to sink back and rest from war for a
 
 84 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 generation or two, while she binds up her wounds. 
 We should not even seem to threaten her. We should 
 be her friend the friend of every part of Europe. 
 If we so conduct ourselves that we deserve Europe's 
 friendship, we shall get it If we arm ourselves to 
 fight a cripple, some will call us fools, others will call 
 us cowards, and both will be right.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A CLOSE VIEW OF THE WAR-ALARMISTS '" 
 
 THE process of outraging public decency and call- 
 ing it a campaign for "preparedness" goes 
 merrily on in these United States. Perhaps never 
 before were more lies told, more truth suppressed, 
 more insincerity shown or more politics played. Every- 
 body who is in the game had his own particular reason 
 for getting into it, and these reasons are as dissimilar 
 as things can be. The munitions patriots are in it 
 in the hope of reaping immediate profits. Other great 
 capitalistic interests are in it in the hope of ultimately 
 obtaining profits from foreign trade gained at the 
 points of guns. A few timid gentlemen are in it 
 because their souls were so made that they scent fear 
 where there is no danger. Mr. Roosevelt is in it be- 
 cause he loathes "disgraceful peace" and would also 
 like to be in the White House. Mr. Wilson is in it 
 because he feared he might not be able to remain in 
 the White House unless he got into the fight for "pre- 
 paredness." 
 
 But Mr. Wilson, as a fighter for "preparedness," is 
 something of a sight. It is sometimes difficult to tell 
 whether he is more dangerous to his friends or to his 
 enemies. He whirls around and fires rapidly in every 
 direction, sometimes shelling his opponents and, occa- 
 sionally, knocking down some trusted companion like 
 his late Secretary of War, Mr. Garrison. He has 
 
 85
 
 86 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 never made a speech in favor of "preparedness" that, 
 somewhere in it, he did not give a conclusive reason 
 why he should not have made it. His speeches are the 
 arsenal toward which all opponents of "preparedness" 
 turn for their best ammunition. Enemies of "pre- 
 paredness" look fondly toward him as a gunner might 
 look to a soldier handing him shells. We can never 
 forgive him for playing politics about so grave a 
 matter, but we can never forget the weasel-words he 
 has slipped into his speeches the words that show his 
 speeches are not so. 
 
 Indeed, the campaign for "preparedness" is a most 
 amazing campaign. Many men who know nothing 
 of the subject of which they speak now pose as experts. 
 General Leonard Wood has been widely quoted as 
 saying that if the United States were at war with a 
 first-class power our navy would be at the bottom 
 of the sea in sixty days. What General Wood knows 
 about navies and where he learned it might be inter- 
 esting information. He used to be a doctor. Fate 
 made him the friend of Theodore Roosevelt. Though 
 Wood had never been to West Point, except, perhaps, 
 as a tourist, Mr. McKinley jumped him over the heads 
 of hundreds of others and sent him on his way to the 
 head of the army. 
 
 As a general in time of peace, Dr. Wood has worn 
 his gold braid gracefully, and, it is to be presumed, 
 drawn his salary regularly. He has never fought 
 a battle, or planned one that was fought. He has 
 never raided a city or defended one. Unproved 
 as he is, it may yet be true that, if he had an oppor- 
 tunity to become one, he would indeed be a great gen- 
 eral. But where and when under the shining stars did
 
 CLOSE VIEW OF WAR-ALARMISTS 87 
 
 he ever qualify as a great admiral? Echo is still play- 
 ing handball with the word "where." 
 
 If Frank F. Fletcher be not a great admiral, Mr. 
 Wilson cannot be much of a President. Mr. Wilson 
 placed Admiral Fletcher in command of the Atlantic 
 Fleet. The Atlantic Fleet is the largest fleet we have. 
 If the invasion which Mr. Wilson says could not take 
 place and the munitions patriots say could easily 
 take place, were actually to be attempted, Admiral 
 Fletcher, unless displaced, would lead our sea-forces 
 to resist it. If he does not know a superior force from 
 an inferior force, he would be a poor man to lead. 
 He would be a poor leader because, while a leader's 
 first qualification is to know when to fight, his second 
 qualification is to know when to run. It is not good 
 strategy to accept battle with a superior force when 
 to fight means only to be annihilated. The thing to do 
 then, as we understand it, is to get back under the pro- 
 tection of your shore guns and let them help you. 
 
 The point toward which readers are laboriously 
 being led is that Admiral Fletcher, in December, 1914, 
 told the House Committee on Naval Affairs that, in 
 his opinion, the American Navy could defeat any 
 navy on earth except that of Great Britain. He specifi- 
 cally mentioned the navies of Germany, France, Italy, 
 Japan and all the others and said our navy could 
 whip any of them. If he is fit to lead our greatest 
 fleet, it is not a fact that our navy could be sunk in 
 sixty days by any first-class power. If our navy could 
 be so quickly disposed of, General Wood, rather than 
 Admiral Fletcher, should be in command of the At- 
 lantic Fleet. General Wood would at least know, when 
 sighting the mast-tops of a ferocious enemy, that he 
 should immediately retire to the protection of the
 
 88 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 land fortifications. Foolhardy Fletcher might stay 
 and fight, in the belief that our forty-odd battleships 
 could whip Germany's thirty-nine or Japan's nineteen. 
 He might even stay if he should sight the British colors 
 at the mast-tops. Admiral Vreeland said England 
 would not dare remove from European waters more 
 than half of her navy. England, at the beginning of 
 this war, had but 72 battleships built, building and 
 authorized. Foolhardy Fletcher might believe that 
 if England should come here with thirty-six craft, he 
 might be able to stand them off with our forty-three. 
 
 General Wood would make no such mistake. His 
 experience as a doctor and a peace general would per- 
 mit him to fall into no such naval blunder. But why 
 is General Wood still in the army? The President is 
 Commander-in-Chief of the navy. If Fletcher does 
 not know an inferior force from a superior one, the 
 President could remove him and, if he desired, place 
 General Wood at his post. The President has not 
 done so. General Wood is still somewhere in the army, 
 and Admiral Fletcher is still in command of the 
 greatest fleet that ever wore the Stars and Stripes. 
 
 And this, notwithstanding the fact that the Presi- 
 dent, in one of his Western speeches, said our navy 
 ranked fourth among the world's navies. Admiral 
 Fletcher was compelled by Representative Wither- 
 spoon, in the House Committee hearings already men- 
 tioned, to admit that it ranked second. Admiral Bad- 
 ger, who once commanded the Atlantic Fleet, con- 
 curred in the opinion. Where did Mr. Wilson get his 
 authority for the statement that our navy ranks fourth ? 
 It is true that, almost in the next breath, he qualified 
 the statement by saying that owing to the excellent 
 material in the personnel of our navy, it would prob-
 
 CLOSE VIEW OF WAR-ALARMISTS 89 
 
 ably prove, in actual combat, to be better than fourth. 
 But where did he get the slightest authority for saying 
 that it ranked fourth? The 1916 Naval Yearbook is 
 compiled by gentlemen who, for big-navy purposes, 
 are always trying to belittle our navy, yet this Year- 
 book contends only that our navy stands third, and 
 from the data it contains, it is difficult to understand 
 why it places it below second. Herewith is presented 
 the number of ships built, building and authorized by 
 the principal naval powers, according to the United 
 States Naval Yearbook for 1916. The figures for 
 the United States are as of July i, 1915. The figures 
 for the other countries are as of July I, 1914, no data 
 with regard to new construction being available since 
 the outbreak of the war. 
 
 
 1 42 
 
 ; 
 
 <i> E 
 
 13 C 
 
 e 
 
 >^ 
 
 o 
 
 CO 
 
 ' % 
 
 
 I'M 
 
 **. a 
 
 31 
 
 S8 
 
 J 
 
 ^R 
 
 i| 
 
 g-g 
 
 Jf) 
 o 
 
 
 t-. 3 
 
 ta '< 
 
 cfl p 
 
 n ? 
 
 3 
 
 W3 O 
 
 m 
 
 CO * 
 
 cu 
 
 
 W 
 
 
 
 w o 
 
 ^o 
 
 O 
 
 H 
 
 F 
 
 1 
 
 Q 
 
 England . . 
 
 36 
 
 40 
 
 IO 
 
 34 
 
 91 
 
 1 88 
 
 49 
 
 75 
 
 O 
 
 Germany 
 
 2O 
 
 20 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 
 154 
 
 o 
 
 45 
 
 2O 
 
 United States 
 
 17 
 
 22 
 
 o 
 
 IO 
 
 15 
 
 74 
 
 6 
 
 76 
 
 44 
 
 France 
 
 12 
 
 T8 
 
 o 
 
 20 
 
 9 
 
 87 
 
 135 
 
 86 
 
 I 
 
 Japan. . 
 
 6 
 
 13 
 
 4 
 
 13 
 
 15 
 
 52 
 
 27 
 
 13 
 
 2 
 
 Russia 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 17 
 
 
 14 
 
 49 
 
 21 
 
 Italy 
 
 10 
 
 8 
 
 o 
 
 9 
 
 8 
 
 47 
 
 70 
 
 21 
 
 8 
 
 Austria- Hungary .... 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 19 
 
 63 
 
 12 
 
 6 
 
 Based upon the Navy Department's own figures, 
 what nation has elbowed the United States into fourth 
 place since the Yearbook was printed early in 1916? 
 If Germany was indeed second at that time, no amount 
 of additional construction could have affected our rela- 
 tive standing. The same holds true with regard to 
 England. What nation has added to its navy so 
 rapidly that Mr, Wilson had reason to say that it
 
 90 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 had taken third place from us? Is it France, which, 
 according to our Navy Department, had only thirty 
 battleships, as against the thirty-nine that our Navy 
 Department graciously conceded to us? Or is it 
 Japan, which had only nineteen ? 
 
 The truth of the matter is that figures can be 
 juggled, and the General Board of the Navy, which 
 is always working for a larger American navy, has 
 long been accused of juggling figures to indicate that 
 our navy is smaller than it is. Before the naval appro- 
 priations were made at the session of Congress that 
 convened in December, 1915, Representative Wither- 
 spoon read a list of forty battleships that we owned, 
 and all the naval witnesses whom he grilled admitted 
 that we had them. A few weeks later, appropriations 
 were made for two dreadnoughts so large that no navy 
 in the world can match them. We should therefore 
 now have forty-two battleships. The Naval Yearbook 
 says we have but thirty-nine. But the Yearbook admits 
 that certain discretion is used in determining what 
 is a battleship for statistical purposes and what is not. 
 A ship more than twenty years old is not included 
 unless it has been overhauled. The charge has often 
 been made by responsible members of Congress that 
 the General Board of the navy removes from our navy, 
 for statistical purposes, ships of the same worth that 
 it includes, for statistical purposes, in the navies of 
 other powers. Certainly Admiral Fletcher knew what 
 we had a year ago when he said our navy was not 
 second to that of Germany; and, in a recent report, 
 he said that our navy was 15 per cent, stronger than 
 it was a year ago, and 30 per cent, more accurate in 
 gunfire. (Congressional Record for February 3, 1916, 
 page 2266.)
 
 CLOSE VIEW OF WAR-ALARMISTS 91 
 
 What about the German navy, in comparison with 
 what it was at the outbreak of the war? Nobody 
 outside of Germany knows how many ships have been 
 added since August I, 1914. Nobody outside of Ger- 
 many knows all of the German ships that have been 
 lost. But the American Naval Department knows 
 some of the German ships that have been lost, and, 
 in the 1916 Yearbook, prints their names, tonnage, 
 size and number of guns. In the Yearbook it is not 
 contended that these are all the German ships that have 
 been lost. It is asserted only that the ships mentioned 
 were lost between the outbreak of the war and August 
 i, 1915. Here are the figures of German losses during 
 the first year of the war, as vouched for by our own 
 Naval Department: 
 
 Five armored cruisers; 
 
 Ten protected cruisers; 
 
 Three small cruisers; 
 
 Eight gunboats; 
 
 Nine destroyers; 
 
 Four torpedo boats; 
 
 Seven submarines; 
 
 Four mine-layers ; 
 
 Eighteen auxiliary cruisers ; 
 
 One battleship sold to Turkey. 
 
 Sixty-nine ships of a total tonnage of 238,904, every 
 ship of which was included in Admiral Fletcher's cal- 
 culation of Germany's naval strength when he said 
 that in his opinion our navy was stronger than that 
 of Germany. Since then, two dreadnoughts of 32,000 
 tons each have been ordered for our navy, in addition 
 to eighteen submarines, and a considerable number 
 of other ships.
 
 92 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 What nation, by passing us in naval strength within 
 a few weeks, thereby justified Mr. Wilson in placing 
 our navy in fourth place? According to the 1916 
 Naval Yearbook, our Naval Department knows that 
 France, during the first year of the war, lost twelve 
 ships, including a battleship, an armored cruiser, a 
 gunboat, two destroyers and some submarines. Eng- 
 land is declared to have lost 42 ships, of a combined 
 tonnage of more than 254,000, eight of which were 
 battleships. Is it Japan that has gone ahead of us? 
 Not likely. Our last Naval Yearbook says that Japan 
 actually has only fifteen battleships, and that the last 
 of the other four with which she is credited will not be 
 finished until 1917. 
 
 If the United States is a peg below the low place to 
 which the makers of our last Naval Yearbook assigned 
 us, Mr. Wilson, it would seem, should get some new 
 makers of our Naval Yearbooks. If not, it would seem 
 as if Mr. Wilson should be more cautious in his state- 
 ments. It is difficult to believe that the Naval Year- 
 book would assign to our navy a higher relative place 
 than it deserves. It is not difficult to believe that it 
 would assign to our navy a lower place than it de- 
 serves. Something is wrong, somewhere, either 
 Admiral Fletcher, the General Board of the Navy or 
 Mr. Wilson. They cannot all be right because no two 
 of them agree. 
 
 It would be quite easy to ascertain where we stand 
 upon land if we were to take the word of a very 
 eminent gentleman who qualified to give expert testi- 
 mony about armies by spending his life as a New Jersey 
 lawyer and judge. The gentleman in question is Mr. 
 Garrison, former Secretary of War, who, happily, is 
 now of no consequence except as he may serve as an
 
 CLOSE VIEW OF WAR-ALARMISTS 93 
 
 admirable illustration of the vociferousness of some 
 of our inexpert advisers. Mr. Garrison was quite 
 sure we were woefully unprepared. Nothing but a 
 "Continental Army" with its inevitable conscription 
 would put us right. Yet, the man who is in charge 
 of our coast defenses does not think so. He never 
 practised law in Jersey or presided over a Jersey court, 
 but he has practised a good deal with fourteen-inch 
 guns, and weapons of smaller caliber. 
 
 The gentleman in question is Erasmus Weaver. He 
 is a brigadier-general in the United States Army. He 
 is chief of the coast artillery division. His duty, in 
 the event of attempted invasion of this country, would 
 be to direct the operations of the land fortifications. 
 Eminent lawyers and others say these land fortifica- 
 tions are not good for much. No self-respecting 
 European army of 40,000 or 50,000 men would humili- 
 ate themselves by halting before our land fortifications. 
 Yet General Weaver, testifying before the House Com- 
 mittee a year ago said (Congressional Record, Feb- 
 ruary 3, 1915, page 2265) : 
 
 "I have been a close student of the whole subject, 
 naturally, for a number of years, and I know of no 
 fortifications in the world, so far as my reading, obser- 
 vation and knowledge go, that compare favorably in 
 efficiency with ours." 
 
 But that was a year ago. Time is rapidly passing. 
 Maybe we have since become out of date, as to fortifi- 
 cations. It would not seem so, however. General 
 Weaver, on January 19, 1916, again appeared before 
 the House Committee on Military Affairs. He said if 
 he had 11,000 more men to man our coast guns he 
 would ask for nothing more. I quote from pages 48- 
 49 of the report of the hearings:
 
 94 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 "MR. MCKELLAR : If we conclude to carry out your 
 recommendations and give you the 11,000 men, then, 
 as I understand you, you would have a perfect system 
 of coast defense that you think would be adequate for 
 any purpose ? 
 
 "GENERAL WEAVER : Yes. 
 
 "MR. MCKELLAR: Your idea is that your guns 
 are sufficient now ? 
 
 "GENERAL WEAVER: The guns now mounted and 
 those contemplated will give us an entirely satisfactory 
 defense. 
 
 "MR. MCKELLAR : You do not take any stock in the 
 idea that the ships of foreign nations carry guns of 
 long enough range to silence your guns? 
 
 "GENERAL WEAVER : No." 
 
 What a man for chief of our coast artillery! Does 
 he not know that we are totally unprepared and that 
 only the fear, perhaps, of meeting General Leonard 
 Wood in person, keeps the enemy from our gates ? 
 
 But the worst is yet to come. On page 50 of the 
 report of the House Committee hearings appears the 
 following : 
 
 "MR. MCKELLAR : I want to ask you, General, with 
 our present condition, is our condition of preparedness 
 for defense deplorable? 
 
 "GENERAL WEAVER: Except in the matter of per- 
 sonnel, it is not. 
 
 "MR. MCKELLAR : It is in excellent condition, with 
 the addition of a few officers and men, such as have 
 been recommended by the department and by you? 
 
 "GENERAL WEAVER: Yes, sir." 
 
 Turning to page 69, we find this: 
 
 "MR. MCKENZIE: In your judgment, is it not un- 
 'fair and misleading to the American people to have a
 
 CLOSE VIEW OF WAR-ALARMISTS 95 
 
 public man make a statement that would lead you to 
 believe that the coast cities of our country are wholly 
 at the mercy of some invading enemy? 
 
 "GENERAL WEAVER : I do not know that there is 
 any officer who is acquainted with the facts that would 
 make such a statement. 
 
 "MR. McKENziE: Any public man; I do not say 
 an officer. 
 
 "GENERAL WEAVER: I hesitate to criticize public 
 men." 
 
 To what depths of degradation has not this general 
 sunk! Does he not know that Mr. Stanwood Men- 
 ken, President of the National Security League, is 
 going around the country telling how easily "40,000 or 
 50,000 men" could land upon our shores, shoot up 
 New York and hold the city for an enormous indem- 
 nity? Has this general no conscience? Apparently 
 not. Neither has General Nelson A. Miles. General 
 Miles endorses all that General Weaver says and adds 
 more. It is true, the general never practised law in 
 New Jersey or medicine anywhere, though he was" a 
 major-general at the close of the Civil War and later 
 lieutenant-general. This is what General Miles said 
 about our land fortifications (Congressional Record, 
 February 3, page 2265) : 
 
 "Having had much to. do with placing and con- 
 struction of our fortifications and inspecting every 
 one along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf Coasts, as well 
 as having had an opportunity of seeing all the great 
 armies of the world and many of their strongest forti- 
 fications, including the Dardanelles, I am prepared to 
 say that our coasts are as well defended as the coasts 
 of any country, with the same class of high-power guns 
 and heavy projectiles, and I have no sympathy for
 
 96 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 the misrepresentations that have been made in the 
 attempt to mislead the public." 
 
 Isn't that the limit? Nope. On February 8, 1916, 
 the General went before the House Committee on 
 Military Affairs and said : 
 
 "Overseas expeditions, such as we are told would 
 succeed against the United States, are expensive and 
 as a rule disastrous. These overseas expeditions spring 
 from the minds of men writing on preparedness 
 who know less about preparedness than anything 
 else." 
 
 But General Miles never had the benefit of long 
 years of experience at the New Jersey bar. Otherwise, 
 he might not have added that while 500,000 men might 
 be placed upon ships, that many could not be landed 
 upon our shores, and that he "would want to live in 
 some other country" if we could not drive off even 
 500,000 men from our soil. It is perfectly plain that 
 in future, our greatest generals will be graduated from 
 law schools, while our great admirals will come from 
 medical colleges. 
 
 Whether Mr. Wilson is trying to help or to hurt the 
 "preparedness" propaganda is puzzling both the advo- 
 cates and the opponents of increased military 
 expenditures. If the President were a stupid, clumsy 
 fellow, it might be easy enough for either side to 
 believe in his sincerity while denouncing him for occa- 
 sionally shooting his own friends. But the President 
 is particularly adroit and peculiarly agile. Like the 
 conventional gentleman of the French cynic, he "never 
 wounds anybody's feelings unintentionally." When 
 he leads a gentleman to the mountain top and, after 
 briefly viewing the beautiful scenery, proceeds to kick 
 him into the valley, we may therefore be certain the
 
 CLOSE VIEW OF WAR-ALARMISTS 97 
 
 victim can recover nothing upon his accident insurance 
 because it was no accident. 
 
 The late Secretary of War, Mr. Garrison, must 
 feel much as might a guest at a wealthy friend's house, 
 who had been royally entertained during the day and, 
 at night, shown to a bedroom in which a pistol for 
 suicidal purposes was prominently placed on the table 
 beside the reading lamp. When Mr. Garrison con- 
 ceived the idea of a great "Continental Army," White 
 House approval came like April showers to flowers. 
 Full reports were given out to the press and the Ameri- 
 can people were invited to behold how noble or, as 
 Mr. Wilson would say, how "handsome" was the 
 plan of the great Secretary of War. Chairman Hay, 
 of the House Committee on Military Affairs, soon 
 announced that his committee would never report 
 favorably upon the bill, and that the committee would 
 propose, in its place, a regular army based upon the 
 National Guard. Mr. Wilson, in his New York speech 
 on January 27, 1916, threw a delicate bouquet at the 
 National Guard in the center of which was found this 
 brick : 
 
 "But you know that under the constitution, the 
 National Guard is under the direction of more than 
 two score states, and that it is not permitted to the 
 national government directly to direct its development 
 and organization. And, that only upon occasion of 
 actual invasion has the President of the United States 
 the right to ask those men to leave their respective 
 states. I, for my part, am afraid, though some gentle- 
 men differ with me, that there is no way in which that 
 force can be made a direct source as a national reserve 
 under national authority." 
 
 What more might a Secretary of War ask? Had
 
 98 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 not the President hit Mr. Hay's plan on the head? 
 It would seem as if he had. It was true that nobody 
 believed a Continental Army could be raised without 
 conscription, as it was also true that Mr. Wilson had 
 authorized the statement that he was opposed to con- 
 scription. Still, Mr. Garrison went his warlike way, 
 evidently believing that the President was on his side, 
 rather than that of Mr. Hay. 
 
 But there came a time when Mr. Garrison began 
 to have misgivings. Rumors flew about that Mr. Wil- 
 son was not so warm toward the Continental Army 
 plan as the Secretary of War might wish him to be. 
 Mr. Garrison, by this time, was so thoroughly com- 
 mitted to the Continental scheme, and was so on record 
 with regard to the desirability of conscription, if 
 necessary to raise the army, that he could neither back 
 up nor go forward without help. So he wrote to the 
 President, under date of February 9, to ascertain in 
 writing precisely where he stood with regard to Mr. 
 Hay's National Guard proposal. 
 
 Mr. Wilson, under next day's date, told him. 
 Though the President gently rapped Mr. Garrison's 
 knuckles for talking so much about conscription, the 
 letter was otherwise chiefly remarkable for what it did 
 not say, precisely as a crutch that is not there is chiefly 
 remarkable for the support it does not give. Mr. Wil- 
 son was no longer "afraid" the National Guard scheme 
 would not work he was merely "not yet convinced" 
 that it would work. When Mr. Wilson begins to slide, 
 it is always wise for all hands to get off the floor, as 
 it is difficult to tell where he will stop. Mr. Garrison 
 got off the floor by resigning. 
 
 As political coroners, we may now view the remains 
 of the Continental Army. What say you, gentlemen,
 
 CLOSE VIEW OF WAR-ALARMISTS 99 
 
 how did this noble creation come to its finish ? Is this 
 a case of murder, or a case of accidental death? If 
 Mr. Wilson really was in favor of the Continental 
 Army plan, we must assume that it was through sheer 
 clumsiness that he led the chief advocate of the measure 
 into a position where he felt compelled to resign. If, 
 on the other hand, Mr. Wilson secretly opposed the 
 Continental Army, nobody can deny that he despatched 
 his gallant secretary in as graceful a manner as ever 
 a deed was done. 
 
 Mr. Wilson has a wonderful smile. Political op- 
 ponents who bask in it seldom know the knife has 
 slipped between their ribs until they observe that their 
 shoes are full of blood. 
 
 If the President, when he was dealing with Gar- 
 rison, was really working for "preparedness" he must 
 be set down as a frightful blunderer. If he was 
 secretly working against "preparedness," he but con- 
 firmed the truth of the statement that Oswald Garrison 
 Villard, publisher of the New York Evening Post, said 
 Colonel E. M. House, the President's closest friend, 
 made to him. Mr. Villard said Colonel House told 
 him: "The Wilson Defense Program was put up to 
 be knocked down." 
 
 Senator Fall, of New Mexico, seems to have sensed 
 something of the real situation after the resignation 
 of Mr. Garrison. Under date of February 15, the New 
 York Times printed two-thirds of a column under the 
 heading: "Accuses Wilson of Shifting Policy 
 Senator Fall Believes the President Is Again Under 
 the Bryan Influence." Here are a few paragraphs 
 from the article : 
 
 "United States Senator Albert B. Fall, Republican, 
 of New Mexico, charged President Wilson yesterday
 
 loo INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 with deserting the cause of national preparedness for 
 the sake of the Bryan influences. 
 
 " 'The President's sudden change in his prepared- 
 ness policy can be accounted for only on one ground 
 he has gone back to Mr. Bryan and surrendered to 
 the Bryan influences,' said the Senator. 
 
 "It may be recalled that President Wilson, during 
 his tour in advocacy of preparedness, so shaped his 
 itinerary as to keep clear of the Bryan influences. But 
 he counted on the support which this part of his defense 
 program was expected to bring him to secure also the 
 support of the Southern members of Congress, and 
 being disappointed in this he has surrendered com- 
 pletely to the opponents of the measures which he pro- 
 claimed were so vital to the safety of the country. 
 
 "Secretary Garrison in his position was able to 
 realize quickly the change in the situation, and, finding 
 the ground cut from under him, he retired." 
 
 Without question, the belief is gaining ground on 
 both sides of Congress that there is more of politics 
 than sincerity in the President's present attitude toward 
 "preparedness." Heaven knows there is sufficient 
 ground for suspicion. The statement that Mr. Villard 
 attributes to Colonel House is, in itself, enough to 
 show where the President stands if he has not changed 
 again. A close analysis of the President's Western 
 speeches leaves the preponderance of improbability 
 upon the side of the President's insincerity. If his 
 speeches be considered as hurrah-talk for men who 
 cannot think, it is doubtless true that their tendency 
 would be to make that kind of men favor "prepared- 
 ness." The speeches are plentifully sprinkled with 
 references to "our country" and our national honor. 
 But running through the speeches, like a vein of silver
 
 CLOSE VIEW OF WAR-ALARMISTS 101 
 
 through a rock, are paragraphs that, when put together, 
 say, as plainly as if the President had used the words: 
 "For goodness' sake, do not go crazy over prepared- 
 ness. The country is in no danger of invasion. I 
 know of no nation that seems likely to try to invade 
 America and no nation could invade America if it 
 wanted to. I am compelled to play a part in order to 
 prevent Mr. Roosevelt from working you all up and 
 putting me out of the White House, but there will be 
 no war so long as I am President unless you want war 
 to avenge the loss of some rich American exporter's 
 cargo of goods and I cannot see where there would be 
 much glory in dying to protect some rich man's 
 profits." 
 
 Keep this imaginary Presidential declaration in mind 
 while reading extracts from some of Mr. Wilson's 
 speeches. 
 
 In New York, on January 27, Mr. Wilson said : 
 
 "Nobody seriously supposes, gentlemen, that the 
 United States needs to fear an invasion of its own 
 territory. What America has to fear, if she has any- 
 thing to fear, are indirect, roundabout, flank move- 
 ments upon her regnant position in the Western Hemis- 
 phere." 
 
 Would the President have been likely to say that 
 if he had really been in favor of "preparedness" ? The 
 only excuse for "preparedness" is defense. When the 
 average American is told that his country is in need 
 of defense, he thinks of invasion. Munitions patriots 
 and others have repeatedly declared that we might 
 easily be treated to the fate of Belgium. The Presi- 
 dent brushed the thought aside, and flung in the remark 
 about our "regnant position in the Western Hemis- 
 phere," which has about as much power to incite the
 
 102 INVITING WAR. TO AMERICA 
 
 population to arms as would a similar remark about 
 the moon. 
 
 In Cleveland, on January 29, the President took the 
 other tack and urged the creation of an armed force 
 that could move on the "shortest possible notice," 
 adding : 
 
 "You will ask me: 'Why do you say the shortest 
 possible notice?' Because, gentlemen, let me tell you, 
 very solemnly, you cannot afford to postpone this 
 thing. I do not know what a single day may bring 
 forth. I do not wish to leave you with the impression 
 that I am thinking of some particular danger. I merely 
 want to leave you with this solemn impression that I 
 know that we are daily treading amid the most intri- 
 cate dangers. ..." 
 
 Having assured the people in New York that there 
 was no danger whatever of invasion, Mr. Wilson 
 naturally realized that the people would wonder 
 whether he had some particular possible enemy in 
 mind, and, if so, if that possible enemy had com- 
 mitted some outrage of which the people of this 
 country were not yet aware. So in Topeka, Kan., on 
 February 2, he said : 
 
 "You will ask me, 'Is there some new crisis that has 
 arisen?' I answer, no, sir; there is no special new, 
 critical situation which I have to discuss with you, but 
 I want you to understand that the situation every day 
 of the year is critical while this great contest continues 
 in Europe." 
 
 No danger of invasion, no particular possible enemy 
 in mind, no outrage of which only he knew, and still 
 the country was "daily treading among the most intri- 
 cate dangers." Here were all the elements of a conun- 
 drum, upon which Mr. Wilson, in St. Louis,
 
 CLOSE VIEW OF WAR-ALARMISTS 103 
 
 on February 3, proceeded to throw the following 
 light: 
 
 "Gentlemen, the commanders of submarines have 
 their instructions, and those instructions are consistent, 
 for the most part, with the law of nations, but one 
 reckless commander of a submarine choosing to put 
 his private interpretation upon what his government 
 wishes him to do, might set the world on fire. . . . 
 There are cargoes of cotton on the seas, cargoes of 
 wheat on the seas, there are cargoes of manufactured 
 articles on the seas, and every one of these cargoes 
 may be the point of ignition, because every cargo 
 comes into the field of fire, comes where there are 
 flames which no man can control." 
 
 Here, at last, we see the "intricate dangers" among 
 which we are "daily treading." A cargo of hams may 
 be sunk! If so, would not that constitute an enormous 
 stain upon our national honor, for which we should 
 go to war ? We can almost imagine Mr. Wilson trying 
 to keep his face straight. He must have laughed to 
 himself when he suggested that we should go to war 
 if a submarine commander, against his government's 
 orders, should sink a cargo of American hams. Mr. 
 Wilson, of course, well knows that international law 
 requires of no government that it shall do more than 
 exercise "due diligence" in its efforts to prevent its 
 citizens and soldiers from doing harm to the persons 
 and properties of the citizens of other nations. If 
 nations were to be held responsible for the unlawful 
 and unauthorized acts of its citizens, the world would 
 be at war all the while. Again and again, American 
 citizens have mobbed and slain the citizens of other 
 nations. A number of Italians were slain in Louisiana 
 about 25 years ago, and when the federal government
 
 104 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 pleaded its helplessness to interfere with the affairs 
 of a state, Italy did no more than to withdraw her 
 ambassador, for a time, in silent protest. Further- 
 more, if Mr. Wilson had believed what he said, he 
 would have urged Congress to declare war when the 
 Lusitania was sunk. 
 
 However, we must get back to those "intricate 
 dangers." American passengers, bound for Europe, 
 might be drowned. International law gives them the 
 right to travel in safety. Speaking at Topeka, Kan., 
 on February 2, Mr. Wilson said : 
 
 "For one thing, it may be necessary to use the force 
 of the United States to vindicate the right of American 
 citizens everywhere to enjoy the protection of interna- 
 tional law." 
 
 Having proclaimed the right of passengers, under 
 international law, to travel in safety, in the same speech 
 at Topeka, he added: 
 
 "There is another right that we ought to safeguard, 
 and that is our right to sell what we produce in the 
 open neutral markets of the world. We have a right 
 to supply peaceful populations with food. We have 
 a right to supply them with our cotton to clothe them. 
 We have a right to supply them with our manufactured 
 products." 
 
 So, here we have the situation simmered down about 
 to this : American passengers are not in much if any 
 danger, since most submarine warfare is conducted 
 in accordance with international law, nor are Ameri- 
 can cargoes, for the same reason, in much danger. 
 But Great Britain's irregular blockade, against which 
 Mr. Wilson has protested on the ground that it is in 
 violation of international law, is interfering with the 
 desires of American exporters to reap profits from
 
 CLOSE VIEW OF WAR-ALARMISTS 105 
 
 trade with neutrals. "We have a right" to supply these 
 peoples with our food, cotton and manufactured prod- 
 ucts, but England's irregular blockade is interfering 
 with us; and every interference with our rights under 
 international law is a stain put upon our national honor. 
 As to the necessity of keeping our national honor well 
 polished, Mr. Wilson expressed himself at Cleveland, 
 on January 29, as follows: 
 
 "You may count upon my part and resolution to 
 keep you out of the war, but you must be ready if it 
 is necessary that I should maintain your honor. That 
 is the only thing a real man loves about himself." 
 
 Why not go to war, if necessary, to maintain the 
 right of some rich gentleman whom you never saw 
 and for whom you do not care a whoop, to ship his 
 goods to neutrals and get his money? Mr. Wilson 
 made himself plain as to this in Kansas City on Feb- 
 ruary 2 in the following paragraph : 
 
 "Our life is but a little span. One generation fol- 
 lows another very quickly. If a man with red blood 
 in him had his choice, knowing that he must die, he 
 would rather die to vindicate some right, unselfish to 
 himself, than die in his bed." 
 
 Did Mr. Wilson expect that the people would rise 
 en masse, as it were, to resent any interference with 
 the continuous movement'of American beef to Europe, 
 yielding their lives, if need be, in the performance of 
 this sacred duty to their national honor or was the 
 President merely trying to show how stupid it would 
 be to become all heated up when there is nothing more 
 serious at stake than the right of a few rich men, 
 "under international law," to keep their exports going 
 and their profits coming? 
 
 Now, the foregoing is not a "framed-up" case
 
 io6 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 against the President. The quoted paragraphs are 
 actual extracts from his speeches. No words have 
 been put into his mouth. Perhaps I should add a few 
 more of his own words. In his Topeka speech, after 
 elaborating upon the exalted character of our national 
 purposes and the exceeding rectitude of our national 
 conduct, he said: 
 
 "Every nation that makes right its guide and honor 
 its principle is sure of. peace." 
 
 Readers may differ as to whether the foregoing 
 sentiment is true, but the fact remains that the Presi- 
 dent said it was true, and if he believes it is true, and 
 also believes we are nationally as just and high-minded 
 as he says we are, why should we fear attack, and why 
 should we burden ourselves with taxation and con- 
 scription to "prepare"? Something is wrong some- 
 where. 
 
 The President, in his address to Congress, in Decem- 
 ber, 1914, said: 
 
 "We are at peace with all the world. No one who 
 speaks counsel based on fact and candid interpretation 
 of realities can say that there is reason to fear that 
 from any quarter our independence or integrity of our 
 territory is threatened. . . . We have never had, and 
 while we retain our present principles and ideals, we 
 shall never have, a large standing army. . . . The 
 country has been misinformed. We have not been neg- 
 ligent of the national defense. . . . But I turn away 
 from the subject. It is not new. There is no need to 
 discuss it. We shall not alter our attitude toward it 
 because some amongst us are nervous and excited." 
 
 The President has altered his attitude toward the 
 subject of "preparedness"; altered it in spite of the 
 fact that he still says no thoughtful man seriously
 
 CLOSE VIEW OF WAR-ALARMISTS 107 
 
 believes this country could be invaded. In New York, 
 on January 27, he said he had altered his attitude 
 because he had "learned something during the last 
 year." 
 
 What has he learned that Theodore Roosevelt is 
 trying to ride his way back into the White House 
 upon a tidal wave of popular fear that he has done his 
 best to conjure up? 
 
 If Mr. Wilson has learned anything that would 
 justify the enormous military expenditures that he 
 proposes, he certainly has not told what it is.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 QUESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENT 
 
 PRESIDENT WILSON, during his western tour, 
 * frequently said that he knew not in what hour this 
 nation might be plunged into war and that we should 
 hasten to "prepare." At Cleveland, on January 29, 
 1916, he urged the creation of an armed force that 
 could move "on the shortest possible notice" and 
 added : 
 
 "You will ask me : 'Why do you say, the shortest 
 possible notice?' Because, gentlemen, you cannot 
 afford to postpone this thing. I do not know what a 
 single day may bring forth." 
 
 Against these statements should be considered some 
 facts that were brought out in the House of Repre^ 
 sentatives on February 7, 1916, and published in the 
 Congressional Record of that date. Here are the 
 facts : 
 
 On March 3, 1915, the Congress authorized the 
 construction of two dreadnoughts larger than any 
 nation now owns. Not even one splinter has been laid 
 upon another to begin the construction of these ships. 
 When the ships were authorized it was the desire of 
 the administration that they should be built in govern- 
 ment yards, of which there are two, one at Mare 
 Island, Calif., and one at Brooklyn, N. Y. In each of 
 these yards a dreadnought is building that will not be 
 completed until September, 1916. The keels of the 
 
 1 08
 
 QUESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENT 109 
 
 great dreadnoughts authorized in March, 1915, cannot 
 be laid in government yards until the ships building 
 are completed. But President Wilson might have 
 directed Secretary Daniels to abandon his plan to build 
 the ships in government yards, advertise for bids from 
 private builders and directed that construction be begun 
 at once and continued with three shifts of men working 
 eight hours each during the entire twenty-four hours. 
 Or, if Congress, in the act authorizing the construction 
 of the ships, had specifically provided that they should 
 be built in government yards, the President might have 
 asked Congress to authorize their construction in pri- 
 vate yards. The President has done neither of these 
 things. 
 
 The Congressional Record of February 7, 1916, also 
 contains the information that 66 warships which, when 
 completed, will cost $185,000,000, are in process of 
 construction, that the administration has never even 
 intimated that it would be pleased if construction were 
 accelerated, and that the men employed on these ships 
 are working only eight hours a day, in the face of the 
 fact that it would be perfectly feasible to employ three 
 crews working twenty-four hours a day. 
 
 These facts were printed in the Congressional Rec- 
 ord. I read them in the Record, but nowhere else. I 
 do not assert that they were printed nowhere else. 
 I know only that I read most of the New York news- 
 papers and did not see these facts until I saw them 
 in the Record. If they were printed at all they were 
 printed obscurely, and without any of the emphasis 
 that, it would appear, should have accompanied them. 
 
 It seemed as if these facts should be brought before 
 the country. An invitation that came to me in March, 
 1916, gave me what I believed would be an opportunity
 
 no INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 to bring them before at least part of the country. The 
 Anti-"Preparedness" Committee asked me to go to 
 Washington and argue against "preparedness" before 
 the House Committee on Naval Affairs. I laid these 
 facts before the committee and followed with an argu- 
 ment along this line : 
 
 If anybody knows whether we are in danger of being 
 attacked it is the President, since he is in charge of our 
 diplomatic negotiations, and, although he has publicly 
 asserted that he has told the country everything, still 
 there may be impressions in his mind, too nebulous to 
 describe, that make him more nearly competent than 
 anybody else to judge correctly as to the probability 
 or the possibility that we shall be attacked. We all 
 know what the President has said that he knows 
 not what the next day may bring forth and that we 
 should hasten to "prepare." But actions as well as 
 words tell what men think. What do the President's 
 actions tell as to what he thinks? If he really believes 
 our danger to be as great as he says it is, would he 
 be clamoring for more dreadnought authorizations 
 when he has not taken advantage of the two authoriza- 
 tions made more than a year ago ? Would he let con- 
 struction upon 66 other ships dawdle along at an 
 eight-hour-a-day pace when it might as well be boom- 
 ing along at a 24-hour-a-day pace? I might have 
 added : "Would he have maneuvered Big Army Gar- 
 rison out of the War Department and appointed 
 Newton D. Baker, who, as mayor of Cleveland, was 
 one of the few mayors who absolutely refused to have 
 anything to do with the 'preparedness* movement?" 
 
 But there was no time for the last question. Chair- 
 man Padgett with his gavel sounded the signal for a 
 great tumult: The chairman expressed indignation
 
 QUESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENT in 
 
 that I should dare to question the sincerity of the Presi- 
 dent of the United States. I said that if the President 
 were five times as large as he is and the White House 
 were five times as white as it is, still would I question 
 the sincerity of the President with regard to the degree 
 of fear that he entertains that we shall be attacked by 
 any European power. I was invited by the chairman 
 to withdraw my statement from the record. I refused 
 and asked him if he would like to hear a much stronger 
 statement concerning the President's sincerity that had 
 been made to me that morning by one of the most 
 prominent Democratic members of Congress. I had 
 no intention of mentioning the statesman's name, 
 because he had spoken to me in confidence, and I had 
 no authority to do so; but I was willing to tell what 
 he had said. The Democratic gentlemen upon the 
 committee did not seem to want to hear. Several cries 
 of "No" went around the room. When the chairman 
 declared that he would expunge my charge from the 
 committee's records, I told him I had no concern as to 
 what he might do in that direction, nor had I because 
 I knew he could expunge nothing from the newspapers 
 whose reporters were present, and nobody ever reads 
 the records, anyway. When a member of the com- 
 mittee informed me that congressional ethics forbade 
 any reflection upon the. President's sincerity, I asked 
 him if congressional ethics permitted congressmen 
 to say to writers and to each other what they pleased 
 about the President, provided only they said the oppo- 
 site in public? There was a good deal of turmoil in 
 the room and I heard no answer to this question. 
 
 Then Chairman Padgett expressed the intention of 
 adjourning the hearing which meant shutting me off. 
 Representative Callaway of Texas, who is about as
 
 H2 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 tall and lean and rangey as a Texan should be, came 
 forward with a protest. He said any American citizen 
 had a right to criticize the President, or any other 
 official, provided he kept within the law, and that in 
 his opinion I had kept within the law. I think one or 
 two others protested. At any rate, I was permitted to 
 proceed. 
 
 Now, the importance of what I have written about 
 the "scene" before the committee lies in what is to 
 come. Here it is : Immediately after the adjournment 
 of the committee several of its members came to me, 
 introduced themselves in the most cordial fashion, 
 expressed interest in and approval of my opposition to 
 the administration's "preparedness" program, and one 
 of them gave me some additional facts for use against 
 the President. He said : 
 
 "What you said about the dreadnoughts authorized 
 more than a year ago not being begun until next Sep- 
 tember is true as far as it goes, but it does not go far 
 enough. Those dreadnoughts will not be begun until 
 next January or February. The ships now building 
 at Mare Island and Brooklyn will not be completed 
 until next September, but the ships authorized in 
 March, 1915, are to be so much larger than anything 
 we have ever built that the ways in each shipyard will 
 have to be considerably extended before the keels can 
 be laid, and it will require four or five months to 
 extend the ways." 
 
 The truth of the matter is and I assert this upon 
 the basis of first-hand information that the Presi- 
 dent's own party in Congress is bursting with 
 disloyalty to him. It is a loathsome, political row. 
 Principles and politics are so mixed that it is difficult 
 to tell where one ends and the other begins. Some
 
 QUESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENT 113 
 
 of the biggest men in the President's own party say 
 things to me about him that I would not think of 
 asserting upon my own responsibility. One of them 
 said: "The President would be the greatest traitor 
 this country ever produced if he really feared attack, 
 yet did no more to be ready to repel it than he is 
 doing. The President, however, is not a traitor. He 
 knows we shall have no war with any European power 
 unless he makes one." I asked another Democrat of 
 national reputation a question which, because of its 
 bearing upon international relations, it would be unwise 
 to quote, and the answer that he gave me was not only 
 flavored with profanity, but also with scorching criti- 
 cism of the President. Yet, when I toned down the 
 utterances of some of the most prominent members 
 of the President's own party, and ventured to express 
 before a committee of Congress the opinion that the 
 President was insincere in laying so much stress upon 
 the possibility that we shall be attacked, I was treated 
 by the chairman and one or two others as if I had 
 committed a reprehensible act. 
 
 I can say this for Congress, from my personal 
 knowledge: That part of it which belongs to the 
 Democratic party is largely composed of cowards. 
 They talk one way in private and another way in 
 public. The President is. a better politician than they 
 are, and when he swings the lash they run. The Presi- 
 dent is a better politician than they are, first, because 
 he has more courage, and, second, because he is a 
 better judge of men. He measured with deadly 
 accuracy the Democratic membership of the house 
 when, in the face of the statement made to him by 
 Speaker Clark and others that the house stood at least 
 two to one in favor of warning Americans off armed
 
 114 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 merchantmen, he nevertheless publicly declared his 
 belief that the statement was "false" and called upon 
 Congress to put itself upon record. The house crawled. 
 The house had no courage. It was too busy playing 
 politics. Nor was it good politics, even from a fac- 
 tional Democratic point of view. Nothing is good 
 politics that fails. The house, after having declared, 
 through its leaders, that it was opposed to the Presi- 
 dent, nevertheless gave him what was considered at 
 home and abroad an endorsement of his policy with 
 regard to armed merchantmen. 
 
 President Wilson, wavering back and forth as he is 
 between "preparedness" and what, eighteen months 
 ago he would have called sanity, is much more entitled 
 to sympathetic consideration than is the Democratic 
 party in Congress. The President started out right 
 by opposing "preparedness." He is no longer opposing 
 it unless such acts as the appointment of a pacificist 
 Secretary of War may be regarded as opposition. But 
 consider what are the motives and impulses surging 
 within him and without him. The President is human. 
 It is human to be ambitious. An ambitious man who 
 is in the White House for one term usually wants to 
 remain another term. If a considerable part of the 
 country, particularly in the East, had not been fright- 
 ened with the bogey of war, President Wilson might 
 reasonably have looked forward to reelection upon a 
 platform which contemplated no unusual additions 
 to the army and navy. But the big interests that have 
 long wanted great armaments to safeguard their 
 present and prospective foreign investments saw in 
 the fate of Belgium an opportunity to get great ar- 
 maments by creating fear. And the great interests that 
 are engaged in the manufacture of munitions of war
 
 QUESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENT 115 
 
 also saw their opportunity. A good many honest per- 
 sons became frightened and some of them formed 
 "leagues" for the defense of America. 
 
 Yet, all of these things might not have swerved 
 the President if Mr. Roosevelt had not begun, with 
 savage slashes, to capitalize this fear for his own 
 political purposes. First, the President was de- 
 nounced by Mr. Roosevelt for not advocating 
 "preparedness." When the President did advocate 
 "preparedness" he was again denounced by Mr. Roose- 
 velt for not advocating more of it. The Mr. Roosevelt 
 referred to, by the way, is the same gentleman who, 
 as President, in 1906, advised Congress, that in his 
 opinion it was not desirable to increase the size of the 
 navy; that we should content ourselves with replacing 
 ships as they might become incapacitated by age. 
 
 Some of us have known, at least since the days of 
 Emerson, that "The President pays dearly for his 
 White House." There is but one way in which a 
 President can pay. It is in the sacrifice to political 
 expediency of his own honest opinions. That is pre- 
 cisely what Mr. Wilson appears to have done in the 
 matter of "preparedness." I should hesitate to pass 
 judgment upon him if he had not passed judgment 
 upon himself. The dreadnoughts authorized more 
 than a year ago, but not to be started until next winter ; 
 the 66 other ships which are leisurely building; the 
 judicial juggling of Secretaries of War to get a mili- 
 tarist out and a pacificist in; the bald statement that 
 nobody seriously believes this country could be invaded 
 these and many other acts and words that might be 
 cited show where the President really stands. 
 
 If Mr. Wilson had been made of sterner stuff it is 
 doubtful if he could ever have reached the White
 
 ii6 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 House. Let us gain what small comfort we may from 
 the thought that since it seems inevitable, as Emerson 
 said, that the President shall pay "dearly for his White 
 House" that Mr. Wilson seems determined to get back 
 all the change he can. While calling for more dread- 
 noughts, he delays the beginning of those ordered long 
 ago. Sixty-six other ships lazily lie on the ways. He 
 assures us we are in no danger of invasion. What 
 more can the poor man do and hold his White House? 
 
 It is the fashion in Congress to accuse the President 
 of assuming a tyrannical attitude toward the national 
 legislature in general and the Democratic members of 
 it in particular. One of the best known Democrats 
 in Congress said to me: "Tyrants gather around 
 themselves two kinds of persons courtiers and 
 cowards." Another man, equally well known, said: 
 "You writers are largely to blame for the fact that the 
 President is assuming powers that the constitution does 
 not give him, and for the further fact that the Con- 
 gress is losing powers that are plainly vested in it 
 by the constitution. You are always exalting the 
 Presidency and belittling Congress. The people are 
 beginning to believe that Congress is an inferior body, 
 of less importance than the President. I well remem- 
 ber when Mr. Roosevelt was in the White House 
 that some of my constituents used to say when I went 
 home: 'Well, you have a man in the White House 
 now who can make you fellows do as he tells you.' ' 
 
 These are interesting observations. Mr. Wilson, 
 it is true, is well equipped with cowards and courtiers, 
 but it may be worth mentioning that he did not select 
 them and place them in Congress. Not every man 
 in Congress, by any means, is a coward, and no one 
 need be who has the courage to stand for the right,
 
 QUESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENT 117 
 
 as he sees it, regardless of consequences. Nor can it 
 be truthfully said, in my opinion, that Mr. Wilson 
 is a tyrant. That he is an intellectual aristocrat is 
 probably true. That he has a good deal of contempt 
 for some of the weaklings in his own party is also 
 probably true. I know of no reason why he should 
 not have such contempt. Naturally, in playing politics 
 with these gentlemen, he adapts his tactics to their 
 measure. Against their weaknesses and their coward- 
 ice he pits his own daring. Having been officially 
 informed that the house was two to one against him 
 on the question of whether Americans should be 
 warned against riding on armed merchantmen, he pub- 
 licly flung the word "false" at the statement and chal- 
 lenged the house to go on record. The house cringed. 
 The house, by its timidity, placed its own leaders in 
 the attitude of gentlemen who did not know what 
 they were talking about. 
 
 Did the President thereby become a tyrant? Non- 
 sense! He had no power to make the house do his 
 bidding. His victory was not due to his own strength, 
 but to the weakness of the house. The house had the 
 votes, but did not dare use them. 
 
 Nor is it true that the Congress may rightfully 
 place the responsibility for its declining powers upon 
 the press. Congress is itself to blame. Congress will 
 be respected and respectable the moment it has the 
 courage to exercise its constitutional powers. These 
 powers are great. Against them, when used, no Presi- 
 dent can prevail. 
 
 At this moment there is enough irrefutable evi- 
 dence before Congress to block, if it were heeded, the 
 "preparedness" program. The opposition of the farm- 
 ers should be sufficient. The farmers constitute a third
 
 ii8 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 of our population. Any radical change to which they 
 are earnestly opposed might well be held in abeyance 
 until it could be definitely ascertained whether a ma- 
 jority of the people favored it. The newspapers of the 
 East say that the farmers are in favor of "prepared- 
 ness." The farmers themselves say they are not. The 
 farmers themselves have told Congress they are op- 
 posed to any increase whatever in the army and to any 
 material increase in the navy. 
 
 The attitude of the farmers in this matter is so im- 
 portant that an extended extract from the testimony 
 of a representative of the National Grange before the 
 House Committee on Military Affairs will be given 
 here. The hearing took place on February 8, 1916. 
 Three officials of the grange made statements to the 
 committee. I shall quote from the statement of Mr. 
 L. J. Taber, of Barnesville, Ohio, master of the Ohio 
 State Grange and a representative of the National 
 Grange. Here is the statement: 
 
 "MR. TABER: I wish to state, as you gentlemen 
 have probably noticed, that there are three classes of 
 people who have come before this committee oppos- 
 ing the present propaganda of preparedness first, 
 those who are opposed to war in any form, those who 
 believe that there never was an honorable war or a 
 dishonorable peace. We are not of that class. 
 
 "The second class are those who come here op- 
 posing preparedness because they have, possibly, sel- 
 fish or other motives, and who are opposed to the use 
 of an efficient or strong military power because it 
 might be used to maintain order, and in preventing 
 sometimes the fruits of strikes, and the like. We are 
 not of that class. 
 
 "There is a third class who come here opposing
 
 'QUESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENT 119 
 
 preparedness because they really believe that at the 
 present time, that the conditions surrounding us do 
 not demand an increase of the Army and the Navy. 
 
 "I wish to say you are probably all aware of this 
 fact, that the charge has been made in the eastern and 
 western metropolitan papers that the agricultural sec- 
 tions of the great middle West are deficient in patriot- 
 ism, but I think you will agree that such is not the 
 truth, and that the record will show that the enlist- 
 ments from among the farmers of America have been 
 greater than those from the centers of population, and 
 I dare say in the future the enlistments from the 
 farmers in the great agricultural districts will be 
 greater than the enlistments in the great centers of 
 population. 
 
 "The farmers of this country are unanimous on this 
 proposition in regard to a great military increase at 
 the present time. It is not the result of a lack of 
 patriotism; it is not because they are advocates of 
 peace at any price, but, my friends, it is because they 
 know why, or at least think they know why, they are 
 opposed to this great increase at the present time. 
 
 "I think you understand the organizations that 
 exist among the farmers the local organizations, the 
 county organizations, the State organizations, and the 
 National organization. .1 am speaking directly for 
 the grange. These questions have been discussed from 
 the subordinate to the national body, and a vast per- 
 centage of the farmers represented in an organized 
 capacity in this organization are opposed to a great 
 increase in the Army or the Navy. 
 
 "At the Oakland convention the National Grange 
 went on record in connection with this matter, and I 
 will read you the resolutions unanimously adopted at
 
 120 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 that convention, at which 32 States were represented, 
 and after that question had been discussed in the 
 subordinate bodies." 
 
 "THE CHAIRMAN: When were those resolutions 
 adopted ?" 
 
 "MR. TABER: Those resolutions were adopted at 
 the Oakland convention of the National Grange, after 
 a full discussion, on the i6th of November, 1915." 
 
 "MR. KAHN: You mean Oakland, Cal?" 
 
 "MR. TABER : Yes, sir. Thirty-two States were 
 represented, and on roll call, after being discussed by 
 nine gentlemen, the resolutions were unanimously 
 adopted. 
 
 "The resolutions adopted were as follows: 
 
 " 'Whereas there is widespread agitation for the 
 increase of the Army and Navy, involving a huge ex- 
 penditure of money, upon the pretext and supposi- 
 tion that they may be needed to defend this nation 
 against attack from other nations; and this urgent 
 plea under the name of preparedness is being advo- 
 cated by special interests that will be financially bene- 
 fited thereby ; by those who, not directly benefited, but 
 who, through special privilege have amassed great 
 wealth and who wish to increase the Army for their 
 protection; by those who, from training, have a taste 
 for militarism; and by metropolitan newspapers in- 
 fluenced by the foregoing classes, and by their adver- 
 tising patronage; and 
 
 " 'Whereas the reply to it all is : 
 
 "*(i) All the large nations of the world from 
 whom the United States has any reason whatever to 
 fear in its present state of preparedness, are slaughter- 
 ing each other and daily growing weaker physically 
 and financially; one-half their fighting force is already
 
 QUESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENT 121 
 
 killed or maimed and crippled, and, within the prob- 
 able duration of the war, in the end will be in a 
 pitiable and helpless condition. And it is against these 
 helpless nations that selfishness and men who have 
 lost their heads and been carried off their feet are 
 crying out for preparedness. This world's war will 
 close with public sentiment against war as a means of 
 settling disputes. 
 
 "'(2) A nation on the eastern continent sur- 
 rounded by other nations may be forced to arm so 
 long as neighboring nations continue to do so. But 
 the United States is separated from them by wide 
 oceans far from their base of supplies, and the rea- 
 son for a nation in Europe or Asia arming does not 
 apply to us. 
 
 "'(3) Preparedness that will make us efficient 
 and strong in time of peace as well as war is a wise, 
 economic, industrial, and educational policy that will 
 increase opportunity, encourage thrift and industry, 
 increasing the number of home owners and tending to 
 make a prosperous, happy and contented people. In- 
 stead of following a military policy that ruined the 
 civilization of Rome and Spain, and is now destroying 
 that of the other nations of Europe, we should learn 
 wisdom, and that the victories of peace are greater 
 than the victories of war. The $5,000,000,000 con- 
 templated to be spent on the Army and Navy, at 
 $5,000 per mile, would build 1,000,000 miles of macad- 
 amized pikes in the United States, crossing it 500 
 times from ocean to ocean, or from its northern to its 
 southern boundary, putting the money among the peo- 
 ple, tending to make them prosperous, happy and con- 
 tented, to love their nation and ready to defend it. 
 With such a road system an unlimited number of men
 
 122 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 could be transferred in motor cars and concentrated 
 quickly where needed. 
 
 " 'We call attention to the fact that the regular 
 soldier has no wife, is not allowed to marry, has 
 nothing to defend, and the volunteer soldier in times 
 of war has ever excelled him the regular soldier in 
 time of war permanently dropping out of sight. They 
 were whipped at the first battle of Manassas, in our 
 late war, by volunteers and were never heard of after- 
 wards. 
 
 " 'Whereas we hope the time will soon come when 
 democratic ideals will prevail all over the world ; 
 when kings, kaisers, and czars shall be no more and 
 their crimes shall be memories of a past age; when the 
 dove of peace, like a winged messenger of Heaven, 
 shall hover over all the earth ; 
 
 " 'Whereas should all profit be taken away from the 
 manufacture of armor plate and munitions of war and 
 supplies by Government manufacture or control of 
 profits, we believe that much of this clamor for "pre- 
 paredness" would soon cease: Therefore, be it 
 
 " 'Resolved, Until universal peace is established, we 
 favor the manufacture of its own munitions of war by 
 the Federal Government. 
 
 " 'Resolved, That we are opposed to any increase 
 in the standing Army or any material, increase in the 
 Navy. 
 
 " 'Resolved, That we approve the stand the Presi- 
 dent has taken to maintain peaceful relations with all 
 nations. 
 
 " 'Resolved, While we recognize the right of the 
 Government to draft men to protect the Nation, we 
 believe property rights inferior to human rights, and 
 that in event of war to repel invasion or to protect
 
 QUESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENT 123 
 
 our rights on a foreign soil we demand the Federal 
 Government shall assume control of all transportation 
 lines and all plants that may be used for the manu- 
 facture of the munitions of war. 
 
 " 'Resolved, That until such time as the confidence 
 in human integrity and human righteousness enables 
 the people of the earth to maintain world-wide peace 
 without the intervention of military and naval police 
 forces, we favor the formation of an international 
 police force to be contributed to by all adhering na- 
 tions and to be used under the direction and control 
 of such international court of control as the adhering 
 nations may decide.' 
 
 "The committee on peace which submitted those 
 resolutions to the convention was made up from the 
 following: Messrs. W. N. Cady, L. J. Taber, J. D. 
 Ream, and Mrs. Alice Young, Mrs Delia Culbertson, 
 and Mrs. Carrie R. Holmes. 
 
 "These resolutions appear in the journal of pro- 
 ceedings of the convention, beginning at page 167. 
 
 "This, as was stated, is in a measure the attitude 
 we find in the rural sections. We think possibly 
 there may be one other reason for the psychology 
 of the times the fact that those in the cities who 
 have followed the disastrous conflict across the water 
 have more nearly lost their bearings than the men 
 and women who are out on the farms. 
 
 "The change in the attitude at the present time of 
 those who have watched the conflict, the reversal of 
 opinion by the leaders in every walk of life, has not 
 affected those out on the farm as completely as it has 
 affected those in some other classes. 
 
 "As I have said, the farmer, being a little more 
 conservative, has not been so susceptible to what I feel
 
 124 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 is possibly a psychological influence which has changed 
 the attitude of many men in positions of leadership. 
 
 "So I say we insist that the greatest defense of 
 America is found first in preparation for peace, be- 
 cause war has become, in a measure, a question of 
 finances. 
 
 "Some of you possibly have read the extracts from 
 an editorial in a recent issue of a German paper, in 
 which that paper congratulates the German people 
 upon the fact that both England and the United States 
 were preparing to enter upon a policy of preparation, 
 placing the burden of taxation largely upon the peo- 
 ple, and congratulating themselves that they would 
 in the future be on a better footing with those coun- 
 tries. 
 
 "We believe that the adoption of a policy by this 
 Nation which is proposed to give us the greatest 
 Navy in the world and a great Army, because of the 
 fear of something that probably will not happen, and 
 adding to the burdens of taxation on the people, would 
 be a greater weapon in the hands of an enemy than 
 our proposed lack of preparedness." 
 
 The Socialists, who will probably be found to rep- 
 resent considerably more than a million voters and at 
 least 5,000,000 of our population, are opposed to "pre- 
 paredness," a great number of labor organizations are 
 opposed to it, yet Congress but weakly opposes the 
 President, who was himself openly opposed to it until 
 the great financial interests, the munitions manufac- 
 turers and Mr. Roosevelt spread so much fear that 
 Mr. Wilson, apparently, deemed it a necessary political 
 step at least to appear to bend somewhat to the storm. 
 And the newspapers of the East continue to assert that 
 the country is "behind the President" whatever that
 
 QUESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENT 125 
 
 may mean ! One has to skate some to be behind the 
 President these days. 
 
 The fraudulent character of the "preparedness" 
 campaign is nowhere better shown than in the proposal 
 that this Congress shall authorize all of the warships 
 that it is intended to build within the next five years. 
 This means that if, in a year from now, it should be- 
 come apparent to everybody that there was no need 
 of such colossal expenditures, the hands of Congress 
 for the next five years would be tied. The hands of 
 Congress would be tied because, the ships having been 
 authorized, contracts would be awarded. Contracts 
 are legal things which the courts, if called upon to do 
 so, would sustain. Inasmuch as the two dreadnoughts 
 authorized more than a year ago have not been begun, 
 why this feverish desire to compel the present Con- 
 gress to deliver all of the authorizations that the 
 militarists demand for the next five years? Are cer- 
 tain interests afraid this artificial wave of fear cannot 
 be much longer sustained? It has always been the 
 custom for each Congress to make only current ap- 
 propriations. Why try to cause this Congress to 
 legislate for its unelected successor? 
 
 Also, they tell us that we may be attacked to- 
 morrow. If so, what good will the ships contemplated 
 in the five-year program do us? None of these ships 
 could be made ready to shoot within three years. 
 The last of them could not be completed until 1924. 
 
 What is the answer to these questions? There 
 is but one answer. The "preparedness" campaign is 
 fraudulent. 
 
 That is the answer.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BEWARE OF THE "MOVIE" 
 
 ONE great moving picture play has swept over the 
 United States as a storm-cloud rilled with light- 
 ning might drive over the* land. Another "movie" 
 of the same sort has left New York and will soon put 
 the fear of invasion into the hearts of millions. These 
 moving picture plays are frauds. They are impres- 
 sive only because the art of the stage manager and the 
 photographer almost benumb spectators into the be- 
 lief that they are portraying events that have actually 
 happened. On the "movie" screen, it is as easy to 
 show Washington burning an orphan asylum as it is 
 to show him crossing the Delaware. 
 
 The story the war "movie" tells is as simple as 
 it is horrible. During the great war in Europe, 
 America was warned to "prepare." America did not 
 heed the warning. A little later, New York is under 
 bombardment, the sky-scrapers come tumbling down, 
 Washington is captured and the United States is com- 
 pelled to buy peace at the price of an enormous in- 
 demnity. 
 
 I have observed how these plays affect spectators. 
 People seem dazed, and leave the theater in a sober 
 mood. I have heard people say: "That shows what 
 may happen to us if we do not prepare." 
 
 When the Civil War closed, the "movie" had not 
 126
 
 BEWARE OF THE WAR "MOVIE" 127 
 
 been invented. If it had been, why could not such a 
 play as this have been put on : 
 
 ACT i SCENE i. 
 
 General Grant shown in the act of passionately ad- 
 dressing multitudes in New York, Chicago, and other 
 cities. "We must keep our great army and navy in- 
 tact," said he. "Europe will not fail to strike at us 
 after the north and the south have worn themselves 
 out fighting each other." 
 
 ACT I SCENE 2. 
 
 Populace shown in the act of going to sleep. "Gen- 
 eral Grant is a dreamer." Grant bemoans the stu- 
 pidity of his countrymen, but can do nothing. 
 
 ACT II SCENE I. 
 
 Cable operator shown in the act of taking a cable- 
 gram from Europe. "France and England have de- 
 clared war on America. Warships convoying troop- 
 ships have sailed for the United States." 
 
 ACT II SCENE 2. 
 
 President Grant reads to his cabinet the cablegram 
 announcing the declaration of war. Every face turns 
 white. Our navy has been permitted to rot at the 
 docks. Our army has melted away. There is nothing 
 to do but to improvise ,an army of raw recruits. Who 
 shall lead them? "I am the commander in chief of 
 the army," says President Grant, "and I will lead 
 our army in person." Cabinet officers cry, "No, no, 
 you shall not thus sacrifice yourself. The people, 
 against your advice, let the splendid army you once led 
 dwindle to a miserable 25,000 now let them pay the 
 penalty." Grant says : "I must do the best with what 
 soldiers we have. I shall lead the army."
 
 128 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 ACT III SCENE I. 
 
 General Grant shown at the head of his "army" 
 near New York. Foreign ships appear in the distance. 
 Troops come ashore and are engaged by the Ameri- 
 cans. Grant tries to rally his raw recruits, but they 
 are no match for the seasoned Europeans. Foreigners 
 gain a foothold on shore and push back the Americans. 
 Foreigners set up their cannon at the lower end of 
 Manhattan Island and shoot up Broadway. Buildings 
 crash into the street, burying hundreds of persons. 
 
 ACT III SCENE 2. 
 
 Grant fights stubbornly but is steadily pushed back. 
 We see him now at the head of his army. A terrible 
 cannonade fills the air with smoke and we lose sight 
 of him. The smoke-cloud slowly lifts. Horrors! 
 What is this we see? A stretcher, reverently carried 
 by four men. Grant is dead a victim of the unpre- 
 paredness against which he fought. 
 
 No such play was written at the close of the Civil 
 War. Why? Because of its manifest absurdity? No. 
 Far more probability would have attached to such a 
 play then than is attached to any of the dreams of 
 disaster that the preparedness gentlemen are dream- 
 ing now. We were then weak from war and Europe 
 was strong from peace now the conditions are re- 
 versed. England had shown her unfriendliness by 
 permitting Confederate privateers to be fitted out in 
 English shipyards an act for which she paid, by the 
 Geneva award, damages in the sum of $15,000,000. 
 The vain, stupid Emperor of the French, Napoleon 
 III, was already planning to put a scion of the house 
 of Hapsburg on the throne of Mexico, in defiance of
 
 BEWARE OF THE WAR "MOVIE" 129 
 
 the Monroe Doctrine. The situation contained many 
 facts from which a good dreamer of disaster could 
 have conjured up a horrible dream. 
 
 But nobody tried to scare America. As soon as 
 France retired from Mexico, our great army was re- 
 duced to 25,000 men. This came about while Grant 
 was President. While Grant was President our navy, 
 which at the close of the Civil War was the most pow- 
 erful in the world, rotted away until it practically 
 ceased to exist. 
 
 Why was there no demand for "preparedness" at 
 the close of the civil war? Why did a great military 
 man like Grant see no dangers for weak America from 
 strong Europe? Why was there no "movie" play 
 to "awaken" the people? 
 
 There was no "movie" play because "movies" had 
 not been invented. Also, some other things that we 
 now have did not exist. We had no gentlemen en- 
 gaged in the building of dreadnoughts at $18,000,000 
 each. The ships of that day were small and cheap. 
 We had no gentlemen engaged in selling armor plate 
 to the government at prices ranging from $430 to 
 $600 a ton, though the same gentlemen nowadays sell 
 it to our government at these figures and to other 
 governments sometimes for as little as $220 a ton. 
 Nor had we any gentlemen who were intent upon 
 breaking into the markets of the world. The rich 
 men of fifty years ago were not seeking foreign mar- 
 kets, and therefore felt no need of a strong navy to 
 help them. They were intent upon the development 
 and exploitation of the United States. They had 
 taken advantage of Lincoln's preoccupation with the 
 war to put the transcontinental railroad land steals 
 through Congress under his nose. Their only desire
 
 130 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 was to invest their money in the United States and 
 reap such profits as they could. 
 
 Now, everything is changed. The United States 
 is becoming, so far as the investment of capital is 
 concerned, a good deal of a sucked orange. In other 
 words, America has changed from an importer to an 
 exporter of capital. We no longer bring capital from 
 abroad to finance our industries. We send capital 
 abroad to finance the industries of other people. A 
 single instance of our activity in this direction is 
 afforded by the fact that a group of men acting under 
 the leadership of Mr. Rockefeller's National City 
 Bank have formed a company, the avowed purpose 
 of which is to go abroad and seek monopolies and 
 privileges in any and every country on the globe. 
 
 The most powerful American capitalists are frankly 
 in search of foreign investments and foreign trade. 
 The nation that has the most of these things is always 
 the most hated nation. The gentlemen who are going 
 about it to get these things know that. They know 
 they will need fleets and armies to hold what they 
 hope to get. They could not go to the American 
 people and say : "You will not share in this prosperity 
 which we hope to get for ourselves, nevertheless, we 
 want you to provide a great army and a great navy 
 to enable us to get and hold all we can." So they 
 conjure up the bogey of invasion. They believe they 
 can get the army and the navy they want if the people 
 can be well scared.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MR. ROOSEVELT AND WASHINGTON ! 
 
 OO far as Mr. Roosevelt is concerned, America is 
 ^ divided into two classes those who gnash their 
 teeth at him and those who regard him as an able, 
 far-seeing man. The latter class, quite unhappily for 
 Mr. Roosevelt but quite happily for the rest of us 
 is smaller than it used to be. There would be a third 
 class that would regard him as a joke if the public gen- 
 erally knew him as well as the late John Hay did. 
 John Hay was one of Lincoln's private secretaries and, 
 later, Mr. Roosevelt's Secretary of State. Mr. Hay 
 has been dead ten years but his diaries and letters 
 were not published until the summer of 1915. (The 
 Life of John Hay; Houghton, Mifflin Co.) Here 
 is a letter that Mr. Hay wrote from Washington on 
 June 15, 1900, to Mr. Henry White, at the American 
 embassy in London: 
 
 "Teddy has been here; have you heard of it? It 
 was more fun than a goat. He came down with a 
 sombre resolution thrown on his strenuous brow to let 
 McKinley and Hanna know once for all that he would 
 not be Vice President, and found to his stupefaction 
 that nobody in Washington but Platt had ever dreamed 
 of such a thing. He did not even have a chance to 
 launch his nolo episcopari at the major (McKinley). 
 That statesman said he did not want him on the ticket
 
 132 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 that he would be far more valuable in New York 
 and Root said, with his frank and murderous smile, 
 'Of course not you're not fit for it.' And so he went 
 back quite eased in his mind, but considerably bruised 
 in his amour propre." 
 
 That was the way Mr. Hay wrote about Mr. Roose- 
 velt in 1900. After Mr. Roosevelt became President 
 and Mr. Hay and Mr. Root continued in his cabinet, 
 each played the courtier and hailed him as a great 
 man. But Mr. Hay's letters show that he was never 
 able entirely to conceal from himself the fact that he 
 had a certain feeling toward Mr. Roosevelt that 
 amounted almost to contempt. On October 17, 1903, 
 Hay wrote in his diary : 
 
 "I lunched at the White House nobody else but 
 Yves Guyot and Theodore Stanton. The President 
 talked with great energy and perfect ease the most 
 curious French I ever listened to. It was absolutely 
 lawless as to grammar, and occasionally bankrupt in 
 substantives." 
 
 When Mr. Roosevelt seemed to have this country 
 at his heels, it was difficult even for his political 
 enemies to consider him, as John Hay once secretly 
 did, as something of a joke. Mr. Roosevelt's article 
 in the November (1915) number of the Metropolitan 
 may well be considered a national calamity. Mr. 
 Roosevelt therein reveals himself as a desperate man, 
 struggling blindly, bloodily and desperately to regain 
 his lost political prestige. The article was evidently 
 written in two parts. The first three-quarters are de- 
 voted to finding fault with Mr. Wilson for everything
 
 MR. ROOSEVELT AND WASHINGTON! 133 
 
 in general and, in particular, for his refusal to ad- 
 vocate "preparedness." Then there is another section 
 that was evidently written after Mr. Wilson yielded 
 to the fears aroused by the munitions patriots. But 
 in the last section of the article, as in the first, Mr. 
 Roosevelt refuses to be happy. So far as the Presi- 
 dent is concerned, Mr. Roosevelt is like the crusty old 
 lady who "was mad if the cat had kittens and mad 
 if she didn't." To spend two billions, in five years, as 
 Mr. Wilson would like to do, would not be satisfactory 
 to the Oyster Bay ex-President. Mr. Roosevelt, of 
 course, embraces the occasion to repeat the assurance 
 that he is devoted to peace, but the rest of the article 
 indicates that he is about as passionately devoted to 
 it as ducks are to the desert. If confessions between 
 the lines count for anything, what Mr. Roosevelt is 
 passionately devoted to is the White House. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt never writes anything to show how 
 great he is himself without also dragging in Wash- 
 ington and Lincoln. This time, he adds Grant. Grant 
 was President when Charles Dickens visited this coun- 
 try and commended the administration for the manner 
 in which it protected its citizens abroad. Mr. Roose- 
 velt cannot contemplate the present degenerated condi- 
 tion of the government, in this respect, without "bitter 
 shame." That is too had. We who live here have 
 forgotten what American abroad it was whom Grant 
 protected, but if Charles Dickens were still alive, he 
 doubtless could tell us. Grant was the man who said : 
 "Let Us Have Peace," and these words are carved 
 in enduring marble upon his tomb. 
 
 But Roosevelt has no particular admiration for 
 Grant none that would cause him to drag the old 
 general's name into an argument for preparedness
 
 1 3 4 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 without a selfish and dishonest reason. So far as 
 Grant is concerned, Mr. Roosevelt, a little farther 
 along in his article, convicts himself of dishonesty 
 in juggling with the general's fame. I quote : 
 
 "Twenty years after the Civil War, we had let our 
 army and navy sink to a point below that of any third- 
 class power in Europe." 
 
 That, according to Mr. Roosevelt, was very bad. 
 But under whose administrations did the army and 
 navy thus shamefully deteriorate? Well, two of them 
 were General Grant's. Grant was President from 
 1869 to 1877. During Andrew Johnson's adminis- 
 tration, a considerable portion of the army was re- 
 tained to meet possible trouble with France because 
 of the occupation of Mexico by Maximilian. The 
 old Civil War navy was still there, because it had not 
 yet rotted away. But during Grant's administrations, 
 the army shrunk still more and the navy reached a 
 point almost as low as it ever did. Six years after 
 Grant retired, the contracts for the first ships of the 
 "new navy" were let by Secretary of the Navy William 
 E. Chandler, under the administration of Chester A. 
 Arthur. 
 
 Don't blame Mr. Roosevelt. In the haste of pacing 
 up and down the floor dictating a "vigorous" article 
 in favor of "preparedness," a man cannot remember 
 everything. But if Mr. Wilson had beaten Mr. Roose- 
 velt in coming out for preparedness, is it too much to 
 suspect that Roosevelt would have been in favor of 
 "adhering to our ancient traditions of a small army 
 and a small navy" and cited the decadence of the 
 army and navy under Grant as proof that Grant, if
 
 MR. ROOSEVELT AND WASHINGTON! 135 
 
 alive, would be on his side? It is a pretty green 
 stick of wood that Mr. Roosevelt cannot use either 
 for a stool or a candle. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt roundly berates the administration 
 because it did not, immediately upon the outbreak of 
 the war in Europe, begin loading the nation with 
 guns. "If we had done so," he says, "we would now 
 have been able to make our national voice felt ef- 
 fectively in helping to bring about peace with justice 
 and no other peace ought to be allowed." 
 
 What would George Washington whom Mr. 
 Roosevelt so often and so generously approves what 
 would Washington have thought if anybody had told 
 him he should prevent any peace in Europe that he 
 did not consider just? Washington said, over and 
 over again, that America should always keep clear of 
 European rows. If he had said that America should 
 always stick its nose into European affairs, Mr. Roose- 
 velt would doubtless have cited him as authority, but 
 as he said precisely the opposite, the father of his 
 country, upon this occasion, was compelled to go with- 
 out honorable mention or any mention. 
 
 But suppose Mr. Wilson, in 1914, had prepared? 
 How could we have made the "national voice" effective 
 in helping to bring about "peace with justice"? Mr. 
 Roosevelt always couples "peace" and "justice" as an 
 old waiter, from force of habit, couples "ham" and 
 "eggs'' but what could we have done? More dread- 
 noughts would have been useless, since Great Britain 
 already has a navy three times as large as that of 
 Germany, and is prevented from destroying the Ger- 
 man fleet only because of the mine fields that lie in 
 front of it. Should we have sent a million soldiers 
 abroad? Italy, some months after the war began,
 
 136 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 threw more than a million soldiers into the ranks of 
 the Allies and "peace with justice" has not yet come. 
 Should we have sent two millions of soldiers? Would 
 you like to be one of the two millions to face the 
 guns of Germany ? 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt asks you to shudder over the fate of 
 Belgium, which he says, came about as the result of 
 her unpreparedness, though in an article in the Out- 
 look a few months after the beginning of the war 
 he said we were in no wise responsible for what hap- 
 pened to Belgium. On her eastern border, Belgium 
 had the best forts that money and engineering skill 
 could build. Though Germany came with a rush, 
 Belgium also came with a rush and stood off the 
 German armies until France, which was prepared, 
 could come up. In the light of all that has since 
 happened to other armies that opposed the Germans, 
 how badly do you believe Belgium was prepared? If 
 Belgium, with all her forts and her compulsory mili- 
 tary service was, in Mr. Roosevelt's opinion, unpre- 
 pared, can you imagine what the United States would 
 be if it were sufficiently prepared to suit Mr. Roose- 
 velt? And, while at Mr. Roosevelt's request, you are 
 shivering at the fate of Belgium and preparing to 
 answer his question as to whether you wish to fare 
 likewise, turn these facts over in your mind : Belgium, 
 a nation of 7,000,000 population, lies beside a nation 
 of 70,000,000. It was but a run and a jump from 
 Germany into Belgium's front yard. The most popu- 
 lous nation that could run and jump into our front 
 yard is Mexico, with 15,000,000. All the other na- 
 tions would have to take ships and come 3,000 miles. 
 Germany's population is ten times that of Belgium. 
 If there were a nation of a thousand millions right
 
 MR. ROOSEVELT AND WASHINGTON! 137 
 
 beside us, our position would be precisely that of 
 Belgium. Where is the nation? 
 This also from Mr. Roosevelt: 
 
 "Most certainly we should avoid with horror the 
 ruthlessness and brutality and the cynical indifference 
 to international right which the government of Ger- 
 many has shown during the past year, and we should 
 shun, as we would shun the plague, the production in 
 this country of a popular psychology like that which 
 in Germany has produced a public opinion that backs 
 the government in its actions in Belgium, and cheers 
 popular songs which exult in the slaughter of women 
 and children on the high seas." 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt is not ignorant of history and he 
 therefore knows how reluctantly the Germans em- 
 braced militarism and its inevitable fruits. 
 
 So far as brutality is concerned, Mr. Roosevelt ap- 
 parently does not yet know that war brutalizes men. 
 He thinks that only the Germans are brutal. He 
 has doubtless never heard about our own General 
 "Hell-Roaring" Jake Smith's order in the Philippines 
 that every building be burned and every native more 
 than eight years old be slain. Nor evidently has he 
 ever heard how American soldiers used to attach a 
 hose to Filipinos and fill them with water until their 
 bowels nearly burst. Mr. Roosevelt would be per- 
 fectly fair if he had read all of the newspapers. 
 Whenever he is apparently unfair, it is because he is 
 a busy man busy trying to break into the White 
 House again. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt, in this remarkable article, also pro- 
 claims the discovery that every fat, flabby pacifist is
 
 138 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 working against democracy, and declares that, if 
 democracy goes down, the pacifists will be "primarily 
 to blame." Why? Because "the first and the greatest 
 of these responsibilities" (of a democracy) "is the 
 responsibility of national self-defense." 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt, not having a democratic hair in his 
 head, is mistaken. The first responsibility of a de- 
 mocracy, or any other kind of a government, is to dis- 
 pense justice at home. Its second duty is to dispense 
 justice abroad by treating other nations fairly. Its 
 third duty is to be prepared to resist such unjust 
 attacks as may be made. Its fourth duty is not to go 
 crazy as do some men who go to the police stations and 
 solemnly tell the sergeant that mysterious persons are 
 always following them to shoot them up. Sane men 
 occasionally go to the police and get permission to 
 carry a concealed weapon, but sane men do not fill 
 their pockets with pistols and wheel a cannon in front 
 of them to and from their work. When an individual 
 is constantly beset with fears that "mysterious per- 
 sons" are about to take his life, men call him insane. 
 A nation can also become insane through fear. Every 
 European nation, for twenty years, has been crazed 
 by the fear caused by the piling up of armaments. 
 Mr. Roosevelt's idea seems to be that it is the first 
 duty of a democracy to go crazy. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt also believes in conscription. Un- 
 like the Union League Club of New York, which 
 unanimously adopted a resolution urging the gov- 
 ernment to resort to conscription, Mr. Roosevelt 
 avoided the use of the word itself. Instead, he 
 said: 
 
 "I believe in universal service. Universal service 
 represents the true democratic ideal. No man, rich
 
 MR. ROOSEVELT AND WASHINGTON! 139 
 
 or poor, should be allowed to shirk it. In time of war 
 every citizen of the republic should be held absolutely 
 to serve the republic whenever the republic needs him 
 or her. The pacifist and the hyphenated American 
 should be sternly required to fight and made to serve 
 in the army and to share the work and danger of their 
 braver and more patriotic countrymen ; and any dere- 
 liction of duty on their part should be punished 
 with the sharpest rigor." 
 
 Wouldn't this be a lovely land in which to live if 
 every young man were required, upon reaching a cer- 
 tain age, to spend a certain amount of his time each 
 year in maneuvering with an army and, at the out- 
 break of any war that might be trumped up, were 
 dragged from his home and sent to the front? Since 
 we have never had such pleasures, is it not strange 
 that foreigners who do have them at home quit their 
 homes to come here? Here we see Mr. Roosevelt's 
 democracy at its best. He would not trouble the peo- 
 ple to vote on the question as to whether we should 
 declare war, but war having been declared by a few 
 he would give every man an equal opportunity to be 
 killed. Mr. Roosevelt, so it was reported a few years 
 ago and, so far as I know, never denied by him, once 
 said in a letter to a friend that he hoped he might 
 die on the battlefield. . How undemocratic it would be 
 for him to crave an honor that he would deny to 
 others. Nor does Mr. Roosevelt ever forget this part 
 of his democracy. When in the heat of battle in 
 Cuba, he saw a Spaniard running from him, Mr. 
 Roosevelt democratically honored the poor fleeing 
 peasant by shooting him in the back and then 
 bragged about it in a magazine article. His exact 
 words were:
 
 140 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 "Lieutenant Davis' first sergeant, Clarence Gould, 
 killed a Spaniard with his revolver. ... At about 
 the same time I also shot one. . . . Two Spaniards 
 leaped from the trenches not ten yards away. As 
 they turned to run I closed in and fired twice, miss- 
 ing the first and killing the second." 
 
 Having made himself solid with American men by 
 trying to provide each with a bloody grave, Mr. 
 Roosevelt closes his article by seeking the approval 
 of women. Here is his appeal : 
 
 "As for the woman who approves the song, 'I Did 
 Not Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier,' her place is in 
 China by preference, in a harem in China and not 
 in the United States. But she is all right if she will 
 change the song into 'I Did Not Raise My Boy to Be 
 the Only Soldier.' " 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt could hardly have obtained his ideas 
 about women from his mother, who though she died 
 many years ago, is still remembered as a noble woman. 
 So far as his important public utterances go, he seems 
 to regard women chiefly as sex animals. If they 
 meet his approval, they must devote their sexual 
 powers, for a long term of years, to bearing a great 
 number of children. If they do not meet his approval, 
 he would hurry them off to a harem where their sex 
 might prove a delight to men. Mr. Roosevelt has a 
 noble wife. Where did he get such ideas about 
 women ? 
 
 No man can speak for women about this phase of 
 Mr. Roosevelt's character. Only women know 
 whether they are complimented or insulted by Mr.
 
 MR. ROOSEVELT AND WASHINGTON! 141 
 
 Roosevelt's belief that if they do not raise their boys 
 to be soldiers they should be put where their only 
 duty will be to devote their bodies to the gratification 
 of the lusts of men. It seems as if it would be a little 
 cruel to send to a gilded sex-slaughterhouse, gentle, 
 kindly women whose only offense was that they wished 
 their sons neither to kill nor be killed; but kindly, 
 gentle women know best about that. I know a gentle, 
 white-haired woman of 70 years, who, under Mr. 
 Roosevelt's ruling, would be an inmate of a Chinese 
 harem. In a way, I should like to ask her what she 
 thinks of Mr. Roosevelt's statement. I shall never 
 ask her, however. I should be ashamed to.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 POLICIES THAT MAKE FOR WAR 
 
 WHEN war threatens, the danger may be met in 
 either of two ways. Great armies and navies 
 may be raised while the causes that make for war are 
 left to operate. The other way is to remove the causes 
 that make for war. The first way is expensive, un- 
 certain and oftentimes disastrous. Whether the war 
 be lost or won, it is always lost in the sense that it 
 bequeathes to each side a vast amount of human suffer- 
 ing. Moreover, there is no certainty that any amount 
 of preparation can insure success. "Preparedness" 
 is the secret of no nation. 
 
 The second method of meeting the danger of war is 
 cheap, much more nearly certain, and contains every 
 good prospect that can be embodied in a political 
 program. Yet it is the method that capitalist states- 
 men seldom employ. They choose such national poli- 
 cies as, in their judgment, seem likely to bring the 
 most profits to the capitalist class and, when war 
 threatens, shout: "The country is in danger! Bring 
 up the guns." 
 
 We Socialists take to ourselves no particular credit 
 for intelligence when we assert that the capitalist 
 method of meeting the danger of war is an exceed- 
 ingly bad method. It is not bad for the capitalist class, 
 perhaps or at any rate, the gentlemen who compose 
 
 142
 
 POLICIES THAT MAKE FOR WAR 143 
 
 that class seem not to think so but it is bad for the 
 people. We Socialists assert that to remove the 
 dangers of war is better than to let the war come after 
 having raised enough forces to win it. We assert that 
 the abandonment of an unjust or an unwise policy is 
 the -equivalent of enough armies and dreadnoughts 
 to enforce such a policy. 
 
 We are told, as one of the reasons why we should 
 vastly increase our navy, that we have great insular 
 possessions that should be defended. President Wil- 
 son specifically made this assertion in the autumn of 
 1915 in an address before the Manhattan Club of 
 New York. Every advocate of a greater navy makes 
 the same argument. None of them becomes definite 
 and says that to hold the Philippines we need ten or 
 twenty or thirty more dreadnoughts. The nearest 
 that any of them comes to being definite is to say 
 that we should always have in the Pacific a fleet as 
 large as that of Japan, which contains nineteen dread- 
 noughts. They all consider that the Philippines and 
 our other insular possessions constitute a danger of 
 war, and, in true capitalist fashion, most of them wish 
 to meet the danger, not by removing the cause, nor 
 even by looking into the right or the wrong of the 
 matter, but by preparing to fight. 
 
 American possession, of the Philippines undoubtedly 
 constitutes a continuous danger of war. Probably 
 twenty dreadnoughts would be required to hold them 
 if any nation should try to wrest them from us. 
 Twenty dreadnoughts would cost about $350,000,000. 
 How much would it cost to enact a law based upon the 
 following plank in the platform upon which President 
 Wilson was elected : 
 
 "We reaffirm the position thrice announced by the
 
 144 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 Democracy in national convention assembled against 
 a policy of imperialism and colonial exploitation in the 
 Philippines or elsewhere. We condemn the experi- 
 ment in imperialism as an inexcusable blunder which 
 has involved us in enormous expense, brought us 
 weakness instead of strength, and laid the nation open 
 to the charge of abandonment of the fundamental doc- 
 trine of self-government. We favor an immediate 
 declaration of the nation's purpose to recognize the 
 independence of the Philippine Islands as soon as a 
 stable government can be established." 
 
 This demand was placed in the Democratic platform 
 in 1900, and was repeated in the next three national 
 platforms. A bill was introduced in the United States 
 Senate in the winter of 1916 to set the islands free 
 in not less than two years, nor in more than four 
 years. So many Democrats voted against it that the 
 Senate was equally divided. The Vice-President, Mr. 
 Marshall, to his great honor, cast off the tie by voting 
 for the bill. According to newspaper reports, how- 
 ever, the President was opposed to releasing the Phil- 
 ippines in less than ten years. Whether the House 
 will pass the bill, and if so, whether the Philippines 
 will be set free at the appointed time, remains to be 
 seen. Meanwhile, gentlemen are still crying out that 
 our navy should be increased to the end that, among 
 other things, we shall be able to meet the danger 
 of war over the Philippines. 
 
 As common sense is understood among capitalist 
 statesmen, the American attitude toward the Philip- 
 pines may pass for wisdom. We Socialists are quite 
 frank in taking the other view. We believe the 
 Philippines constitute a danger which the capitalist 
 class recognizes, even while refusing to remove it,
 
 POLICIES THAT MAKE FOR WAR 145 
 
 because of the profits that certain members of the 
 capitalist class receive or hope to receive as the re- 
 sult of the retention of the islands. Moreover, we 
 Socialists do not believe Americans have a greater 
 right to rule Filipinos than Filipinos have to rule 
 Americans. Gentlemen who perceive any flaw in our 
 reasoning will do us a favor if they will point it out. 
 America's conduct cannot be justified by the claim 
 that we are more nearly civilized than are the Fili- 
 pinos. Germans may feel that they are more nearly 
 civilized than the English. The French may feel 
 that they are more nearly civilized than are Americans, 
 yet we should hardly welcome the conquest of America 
 merely because some other nation might feel that it 
 had outstripped us in progress. We may rest assured 
 that the Filipinos feel as we should in their circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Another reason that is urged in behalf of a gigantic 
 navy is the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine, 
 in brief, is this: That no European nation shall in- 
 crease its territory in the Western Hemisphere. The 
 doctrine was proclaimed to lessen the likelihood of war 
 between the United States and European nations. 
 Behind the doctrine was no idealism, nor any altruism. 
 We were not trying to help the weak governments of 
 Central and South America, which we could not have 
 helped if we had wanted to do, because we too, a hun- 
 dred years ago, were weak. We were trying only to 
 preserve our own peace by keeping the troublesome 
 nations of Europe away. 
 
 The Monroe Doctrine has now become, not a guar- 
 antor of our peace, but probably the greatest of the 
 war-dangers that are mentioned by capitalist states- 
 men. So long as the doctrine stands, it is in the power
 
 146 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 of any nation that may see fit to challenge it, to hurl 
 us into war at a moment's notice. It is like a fuse 
 hanging out a window that any passer-by may light. 
 It takes the preservation of peace in America out of 
 the hands of Americans and places it in the hands of 
 others. A few years ago, the Danish parliament, ac- 
 cording to the newspaper reports of the time, had 
 all but completed negotiations to sell the Danish West 
 Indies to Germany. Strong protests from America 
 halted proceedings. Sooner or later, one or more 
 European nations and perhaps a combination of 
 European nations are going to try to erect colonies 
 in South America. Germany may try. Germany and 
 England may try. When the attempt is made, either 
 we shall have to abandon the Monroe Doctrine or 
 %ht. 
 
 Is it worth while to fight? President Wilson, in a 
 speech at Topeka, Kansas, on February 2, 1916, while 
 urging the upholding of the doctrine, said: 
 
 "So far as dollars and cents and material advantage 
 are concerned, we have nothing to make by the Mon- 
 roe Doctrine. We have nothing to make by allying 
 ourselves with the other nations of the Western Hemi- 
 sphere in order to see to it that no man from outside, 
 no government from outside, no nation from outside, 
 attempts to assert any kind of sovereignty or undue 
 influence over the peoples of this continent." 
 
 Why then should we heavily arm to maintain this 
 doctrine? If it is no longer a life-preserver, but a 
 millstone around our necks, why should we cling to 
 it? Money is the last reason on earth why we should 
 cling to it, but the President says there is no money 
 in it. The President's spokesman in the Senate, Mr. 
 James Hamilton Lewis of Illinois, is only one of
 
 POLICIES THAT MAKE FOR WAR 147 
 
 hundreds who regard the Monroe Doctrine as the 
 greatest of our war-dangers. He would not remove 
 this danger by abandoning the doctrine he would 
 meet it in characteristic capitalist fashion with guns. 
 But in order that there may be no misunderstanding 
 as to how great a danger Senator Lewis regards 
 the Monroe Doctrine to be, I will quote a few sen- 
 tences from the New York Sun's report of his speech 
 before the Hudson County (N. J.) Bar Association 
 on the evening of February 5, 1916. Senator Lewis 
 said : 
 
 "The future troubles of America will grow out of 
 the reconstruction and enforcement of an international 
 contract designated the Monroe Doctrine. The con- 
 flicts of America will not come during this war, but 
 afterward, and will be sustained by the combined en- 
 mities of all the countries now at war. These coun- 
 tries will deny us the right to serve as guardian of 
 South America, and they will insist that if any coun- 
 try of South America is willing that a European power 
 should establish its government in South America it 
 will be none of our business to prevent it 
 
 "The desire for trade in South America by the 
 European governments and for a new field of ad- 
 venture will cause a demand on the United States to 
 surrender its present -position with regard to the 
 Monroe Doctrine. Then will come the first conflict 
 of arms. 
 
 "The European countries defying us will bring their 
 forces to South or Central America and establish 
 them, and will challenge us to dislodge them. They 
 will know that the United States has not one friend 
 among the nations which would give a life or spend a 
 dollar out of affection for us.
 
 148 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 "Great Britain and Germany will form an alliance 
 for commercial purposes. They will unite in opposing 
 us." 
 
 Former Secretary of War Garrison, while address- 
 ing the House Committee on Military Affairs on 
 January 6, 1916, was asked by Representative Kahn 
 of California whether he did not consider the Monroe 
 Doctrine "a constant source of danger to the coun- 
 try?" 
 
 "Absolutely," replied Mr. Garrison. "We must be 
 prepared to defend it by arms, or abandon it." 
 
 The Monroe Doctrine is but an example of a kind 
 of facts that come up in history again and again 
 the use of a law or a principle for quite a different 
 purpose than it was originally intended. The phrase 
 "due process of law" when inserted into Magna Charta 
 was placed there to protect the people against abuses 
 from the king. In America, where the common law 
 of England is used, great corporations use the "due 
 process of law" phrase to nullify laws enacted by 
 public demand to compel corporations to pay more 
 taxes or charge less for their commodities. In like 
 manner, the Monroe Doctrine, which was devised to 
 insure the peace of America, is retained after it has 
 become a positive menace, for no other reason than 
 that American capitalists would hold the Western 
 Hemisphere as their own private preserve. President 
 Wilson spoke only a part of the truth when he said 
 the Monroe Doctrine offered no financial advantage 
 to the United States. This doctrine, it is true, offers 
 to the American people no possibility of financial gain, 
 but Central and South America offer great possibili- 
 ties of financial gain to any group or groups of capi- 
 talists who may be able to exploit them. Senator
 
 POLICIES THAT MAKE FOR WAR 149 
 
 Lewis put his finger on the facts when he said that the 
 European "desire for trade in South America" would 
 cause European governments to challenge the Monroe 
 Doctrine. It is the American desire for profits in 
 Central and South America that causes American 
 capitalists to demand the enforcement of the Monroe 
 Doctrine even at the cost of war. 
 
 The pretension that there is anything altruistic in 
 the demand is absurd. American capitalists daily and 
 hourly sacrifice the interests of Americans here at 
 home, and their treatment of Latin Americans has 
 long been such that the United States is hated from 
 the Rio Grande to Cape Horn. 
 
 The pretension that any measure of safety lies in 
 the exclusion of European governments from the 
 Western Hemisphere is also absurd. The same gentle- 
 men who are clamoring for the upholding of the Mon- 
 roe Doctrine never tire of telling how easy it would 
 be for any first-class European power to transport a 
 large army across the Atlantic and land it upon our 
 shores. A large part of South America is as far from 
 us as Europe is. Are we to believe that the addi- 
 tional one or two days of sail from Europe, over 
 what it would be from South America, is all that has 
 saved us from invasion for the last hundred years? 
 
 When the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed, Europe 
 seemed far from AmeVica and throughout America, 
 there was great horror of Europe. We remembered 
 our two wars with England. We remembered the 
 bloody French Revolution. We remembered the 
 Napoleonic wars. Far away, upon our own shores, 
 we looked upon this land as a haven of rest, where 
 we should always be secure provided we were able to 
 keep Europe away.
 
 150 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 Time has brought great changes. We now know 
 that Europeans are fully as civilized as ourselves, and 
 the more intelligent know that the governments of 
 France and England are at least as democratic as our 
 own and, that after this war, democracy will make 
 great strides in Germany. Why should we object 
 to the establishment of European colonies in the West- 
 ern Hemisphere? Has Canada been a bad neighbor? 
 Are we so fond of Mexico that we would wade 
 through blood to preserve her? What if the French 
 had remained in Mexico when they came fifty years 
 ago? We know the French people. Do we regard 
 them as bad ? Have we reason to prefer the Mexicans 
 as near neighbors? 
 
 By this line of reasoning it is not intended to reach 
 the conclusion that if Germany were to take over 
 Brazil that, if the capitalist system were to continue, 
 we might not eventually find ourselves at war with 
 Germany. The capitalist system makes wars by creat- 
 ing their causes. But if Germany were to seize a great 
 outlet in South America she would want generations 
 of peace in which to develop the country. Would 
 it be unwise to say that, if we must have war with 
 Germany or any other nation it would be better to 
 postpone it seventy-five years than to have it five years 
 hence over the Monroe Doctrine? 
 
 A great many things may happen in less than 
 seventy-five years. 
 
 Common people, the world over, may come to 
 realize that wars are made by the conflicting greeds 
 of the capitalist groups of the nations, all bent upon 
 obtaining the same profits. The recognition of this 
 fact is making enormous strides. The war in Europe 
 is opening eyes to this fact that, up to this time, have
 
 POLICIES THAT MAKE FOR WAR 151 
 
 remained closed. Why then not postpone every war 
 that insistence upon the Monroe Doctrine might 
 create ? 
 
 The Monroe Doctrine is so bad that our worst 
 enemy might easily be perplexed if it were to try to 
 design any single political principle more dangerous 
 to our peace. As a reason for a greater navy it is a 
 fraud. So is every reason for a greater navy. These 
 gentlemen say they want a greater navy because we 
 must protect the Panama Canal. These same gentle- 
 men, a dozen years ago, advocated the Panama Canal 
 because it would "double the strength of our navy" 
 by enabling us to shift our fleet from one ocean to the 
 other without going around Cape Horn. 
 
 John Hay, who, as Secretary of State, paved the 
 way for the canal, never dreamt that we should fortify 
 it. He believed we should neutralize it. Why not 
 neutralize it, by binding all the world not to close 
 it? Some nation might break its promise and close 
 it for a brief period, but are we sure we can always 
 keep it open by placing force back of it? Are we the 
 unbeatable nation? Can we never be vanquished in 
 war? Have we reason to be sure that we could 
 keep the canal open more days to the century by 
 placing force behind it than we could by placing it 
 under the joint protection of the world?
 
 CHAPTER X 
 "CONSPIRATORS AND LIARS" 
 
 THE President of the United States, on March 25, 
 1916, found it necessary to issue a statement, 
 over his signature, warning the people of the United 
 States not to heed the lying reports published in the 
 American press with regard to our relations with 
 Mexico. 
 
 Mr. Wilson specifically said that "The object of this 
 traffic in falsehood is to create intolerable friction be- 
 tween the government of the United States and the 
 de facto government of Mexico for the purpose of 
 bringing about intervention in the interest of cer- 
 tain American owners of Mexican properties." 
 
 In other words, we are told by the President of the 
 United States that certain American gentlemen who 
 own cattle ranges, forests and mines in Mexico are 
 so desirous that their property shall be increased in 
 price that they are eager to exchange American lives 
 for Mexican treasure, and that a considerable part 
 of the American press is willing to lie to bring about 
 the desired result. 
 
 These are astounding statements. Coming from 
 the White House, as they did, they attracted wide- 
 spread attention. 
 
 But do the American people believe this is the first 
 time that Americans have conspired against the wel- 
 fare of the people? 
 
 Do the American people believe this is the first 
 152
 
 "CONSPIRATORS AND LIARS" 153 
 
 occasion upon which American capitalists have sought 
 to hurt the poor that the rich might be helped? 
 
 Do the American people believe this is the first time 
 that American newspapers have lied to further the 
 schemes of the rich? 
 
 If so, the American people would do well to open 
 their eyes to the facts. 
 
 What President Wilson, over his signature, has 
 proclaimed to everybody is not a new thing, but a 
 very, very old thing. 
 
 Every minute of every hour of every day, the 
 capitalist interests that control this government are us- 
 ing it, in one way or another, to entrench the rich 
 in their riches, which necessarily means the keeping 
 of the rest of the people hard at work for a bare 
 living. 
 
 The American press is controlled by the class that is 
 fattening upon the masses, and daily defends what- 
 ever helps the rich and attacks whatever menaces their 
 riches. 
 
 The American press has not been doing these things 
 for a day or a week or a month it has been doing 
 them ever since there was an American press. It 
 could not defend the capitalist system, which it does, 
 and do otherwise. 
 
 The American press has not suddenly learned to lie 
 about Mexico it has lied whenever and about what- 
 ever the great capitalists desired. 
 
 It lies when it says that the tariff question has any- 
 thing to do with the welfare of the great mass of 
 the American people. The tariff question has to do 
 only with the determination of which part of the 
 capitalist class shall have an advantage in the ex- 
 ploitation of the American people.
 
 154 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 A part of the American press is lying when it 
 flaunts before the people the danger of invasion by a 
 European army, and urges militarism under the mask 
 of "preparedness." The President himself has pub- 
 licly declared that "nobody seriously believes this coun- 
 try need fear invasion," and the President himself 
 publicly opposed "preparedness" until rival politicians 
 forced him to seem to favor it. Yet, lying newspapers, 
 under the control of the great interests that want a 
 huge navy to safeguard their foreign investments, 
 continue to assert that we are in danger of invasion 
 from a Europe so mutilated that it can barely hold 
 up its head. 
 
 The American press lies daily and hourly about 
 Socialism. It heaps upon Socialism all of its scorn, 
 all of its derision, all of its contempt. Why? Be- 
 cause Socialism would harm the country? By no 
 means. Because in the opinion of the great capitalists, 
 Socialism would cut off their great grafts. If Social- 
 ism were a fool's dream, the capitalist interests and 
 their newspapers would pay no attention to it. They 
 care nothing for fools' dreams. But they care a great 
 deal about anything and everything that has within it 
 the power to take this country from the few and turn 
 it over to everybody. They know only too well that 
 if the great industries of the country were collectively 
 owned by the people and operated by the govern- 
 ment not for anybody's profit but for everybody's 
 welfare that the day of the capitalist class would 
 be ended. By opposing us, lying about us and slander- 
 ing us they really declare how convinced they are that 
 Socialism, if put to the test, would do what its ad- 
 vocates assert it would do end poverty. Working- 
 men whom the capitalist system is sweating into four
 
 "CONSPIRATORS AND LIARS" 155 
 
 rooms and a lean living may doubt whether Socialism 
 would work. The great capitalists who are sweating 
 the workingmen have no such doubts. They fear and 
 despise Socialism as a safe-cracker fears and despises 
 a policeman and for much the same reason. If there 
 were a burglars' press we might expect to find in it 
 an endless succession of editorials intended to demon- 
 strate to householders that a police force would 
 inevitably tend to destroy the liberties of the 
 people. 
 
 We Socialists welcome President Wilson's warning 
 to his countrymen. It is altogether the most valuable 
 contribution that he has made to the welfare of the 
 many millions who look to him to wield his great 
 powers in their behalf. The lower tariff that Mr. 
 Wilson promised and gave did not help any. When 
 the President and Congress "reformed the currency" 
 nobody worked fewer hours, received more wages or 
 paid less for his living. None of the President's other 
 "reforms" did the masses any good. But the pos- 
 sibility of every good is wrapped up in the stalwart 
 statement that American capitalists, when it suits their 
 convenience to do so, can and do conspire against the 
 country's welfare, and that many American news- 
 papers, upon such occasions, can and do He. 
 
 The simple truth is that the crimes the President 
 has charged to these interests are the smallest of their 
 crimes. They are the smallest of their crimes because 
 they pertain to a single fact our relations with 
 Mexico. Their great crimes pertain to the continuous 
 attempts of the capitalist class of America to bulwark 
 and entrench a system that makes of this country but 
 a vast place where millions sweat out their lives in 
 hopeless drudgery, while a favored few draw unto
 
 156 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 themselves such riches as the world never before 
 knew. 
 
 The President blew a blast across the land that 
 should challenge every one to thought. Where the 
 President stopped writing, the American people should 
 begin thinking. Are we to believe that the rich men 
 accused of trying to bring on war with Mexico are the 
 only unscrupulous capitalists in America? Are one 
 set of American capitalists better or worse than an- 
 other? Is it a recognized fact that while the Gug- 
 genheims and the Hearsts are scoundrels that the 
 Morgans and the Rockefellers are above reproach? 
 Where is the authority for such classifications ? Where 
 did any of them ever get a certificate attesting his 
 unselfishness and his desire to give the people of 
 this country the full value of the wealth they produce? 
 
 The simple truth is that, the world over, capital- 
 ists are capitalists, precisely as, the world over, capi- 
 talism is capitalism. Every great capitalist is a burglar 
 working at the pockets of the people. He is working, 
 it is true, within the law. So much the worse for the 
 law. It is the law of which Socialists complain. What 
 we are trying to bring home to the consciousness of the 
 American people is that the law was made by capi- 
 talists and operates in their favor. It is not a wise 
 provision that makes the nation's industries the lawful 
 subject of private ownership. These industries are 
 our life. They represent the bread and meat and 
 and shelter of the people. Under private ownership, 
 it is inevitable that a few shall own and control the 
 industries. Is it any wonder that a few are enor- 
 mously rich, having, as they do, the power to determine 
 what others shall pay for the necessities of life? Is 
 it any wonder that the rest are poor? What would
 
 "CONSPIRATORS AND LIARS" 157 
 
 be the effect upon prices if the government were to 
 build factories and compete with those who charge 
 exorbitant prices? Do you believe such a plan would 
 effect prices more or less than do suits to "destroy the 
 trusts" ? 
 
 Think these matters over for yourself. Use your 
 own brain. Do not let the lying newspapers or the 
 conspiring capitalists advise you. Some of the great 
 capitalists who denounce Socialism are the gentlemen 
 who, according to the President, tried to trade the 
 lives of thousands of young Americans for blood- 
 stained Mexican gold. 
 
 If this country is to be relieved from the poverty 
 that afflicts it, and spared from the fate that has 
 overtaken Europe, the common men and women of 
 America must perform these tasks. The rich will not 
 save it. The ignorant cannot save it. The alert, the in- 
 formed, the intelligent and the thoughtful must do it. 
 
 Perhaps you have never cast a ballot in the interest 
 of the people of the United States. If not, might it 
 not be well if you were to say with your next ballot 
 that you refuse longer to stand for a system that en- 
 riches a few, pollutes the land with capitalistic con- 
 spirators, and chloroforms the country with news- 
 paper lies? 
 
 Americans, if they will, can sound a note that will 
 reverberate throughout the world. The need is great, 
 the hour is dark, but what men have done, men can 
 do and minority parties have been converted into 
 majority parties. The people of this country can save 
 this country, but they cannot do it by voting with the 
 conspirators and the liars, whose only conscience is 
 their pocketbook, and whose only standard of justice 
 is the outer wall of the penitentiary.
 
 THINGS WORTH FIGHTING FOR 
 
 THE lines upon which the Socialist party should 
 wage its campaign this year are plain. 
 
 Our first task should be to exert every particle of 
 energy we possess toward preventing our government 
 from embroiling this nation in the European war. 
 
 If we could speak but one word this year that word 
 should be "Peace." Precisely as murder is a more 
 grave crime than robbery, so is the capitalist crime of 
 mass-murder in war more horrible than the capitalist 
 crime of exploitation of labor in peace. 
 
 We should therefore lay the emphasis upon our 
 greatest danger, which is war with a European power 
 over some technicality of international law. We are 
 not interested in technicalities. We are interested 
 in peace. 
 
 We should next concern ourselves with the task of 
 impeding, hampering, delaying and, if possible, pre- 
 venting the enactment of certain legislation which, 
 though put forth under the guise of "preparedness" 
 is really but the attempt of the American capitalist 
 class to obtain great armaments with which to safe- 
 guard both their present and their prospective foreign 
 investments and by "enforcing American diplomacy" 
 to obtain additional markets and increased profits from 
 foreign trade. The American working class has no 
 
 158
 
 THINGS WORTH FIGHTING FOR 159 
 
 interest in this sort of foreign trade. It is interested 
 in domestic consumption. 
 
 If American capitalists, during the present Euro- 
 pean war, could obtain control of all the world's 
 markets outside of Europe, that moment would our 
 fate be sealed. 
 
 If necessary, a combination of all the other nations 
 would be made to destroy us. We could not build 
 a navy strong enough to make us safe. If we can 
 prevent our capitalists from building a greater Ameri- 
 can navy, they will not feel safe in investing so much 
 money abroad, nor will they be likely to obtain and 
 hold so much foreign trade. 
 
 Since modern war comes as the result of commercial 
 rivalries between capitalistic groups of various na- 
 tions, it will hold true, in the long run, that the danger 
 of America becoming involved in war will be in pro- 
 portion to the size of our foreign trade and the extent 
 of American investments abroad. 
 
 We should seize upon the war in Europe as concrete 
 proof of the correctness of that part of the Socialist 
 philosophy that designates capitalism as the cause of 
 modern war. We should seek to show the American 
 people, by careful, patient reasoning that the same 
 forces that brought about the war in Europe are 
 operating here. We should show that the same sys- 
 tem that kills the workers in war robs them in peace. 
 We should use the European war as the door of ap- 
 proach to the public mind. 
 
 The average man seldom has at any given time more 
 than one open door to his mind. 
 
 At the present moment that door is and for months 
 to come will be the European war. It is always easier 
 to make Socialism understood by attaching to it some-
 
 160 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 thing that is more or less understood by the one ad- 
 dressed. Everybody understands the European war 
 came about not because of the assassination of the 
 Archduke of Austria, but because of the conflicting 
 economic interests of groups of capitalists. That 
 is a good deal for the world to understand and we 
 should make the most of it 
 
 As a party we also have an international duty to 
 perform. The war in Europe is plainly nearing its last 
 stage. Peace will probably come within a year. We 
 should be watchful for an opportunity to do whatever 
 may be done, if anything, to hasten the war's end. 
 
 Perhaps no such opportunity will come, but if it 
 should come, we should not miss it. 
 
 In any event, when the end comes, we should unite 
 with our European comrades to make certain that 
 the peace attained shall be a just peace, a peace which 
 shall not contain the germs of another war. 
 
 It comes but to few generations to live during the 
 time of great historic events. The fierce light of pres- 
 ent events will cast long shadows across distant cen- 
 turies. 
 
 It is not a pleasant time to live, but it is a great 
 time to live. It is a great time in the sense that if ever 
 there was need of such a doctrine as ours, it is now, 
 when the development of capitalism is shattering half 
 of the world and is threatening the rest. 
 
 Let us go forward in this campaign with the mighty 
 resolve to work as we never worked before; to give 
 our message to the country so plainly that he who runs 
 may read, and so persistently that he who runs must 
 read. 
 
 Fifty centuries looked down upon the soldiers whom 
 Napoleon gathered at the foot of the Pyramids. All
 
 THINGS WORTH FIGHTING FOR 161 
 
 the centuries that are to come will look back at those 
 who are now on this earth. 
 
 The world is yearning for a message that will save 
 it, and we have the message!
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 WHAT DOES AMERICA LACK TO MAKE IT HAPPY? 
 
 TTT'HAT do we need? When a child is born, the 
 rr first concern of those about it is not to supply 
 it with food. Warm blankets, provided by the 
 thoughtful mother weeks before, are wrapped around 
 it. The human body is so constituted that it can 
 withstand only slight variations in the temperature of 
 the blood. From birth until death, the body, in winter, 
 must have clothing. 
 
 There is practically no limit to the amount of cloth- 
 ing that might be manufactured in the United States. 
 We can produce as much cotton as we want, as much 
 wool as we want, and build any amount of machinery 
 that may be necessary. We already have a tremendous 
 equipment of cloth-making and clothes-making ma- 
 chinery. All we lack is the right to use it when we 
 need it. 
 
 We need food. 
 
 If Texas were as well tilled as Belgium used to be, 
 enough food could be produced within its borders 
 to feed all of our hundred millions. We also have 
 forty-seven other states and one federal district in 
 which something might be raised. We have the land, 
 the men and the machinery with which to make an 
 abundance of every kind of food that is necessary to 
 the well-being of each of us. So far as ability to 
 create foodstuffs is concerned, no more reason exists 
 
 162
 
 WHAT DOES AMERICA LACK? 163 
 
 why any one should go hungry or fear hunger than 
 there is reason why anybody should fear a shortage of 
 air to breathe. Yet, a few days ago, I saw a man faint 
 on a subway platform in New York for lack of food. 
 
 Everybody needs a roof over his head some place 
 to call his home. If it were necessary to do so, the 
 number of houses in this country could be doubled. 
 To build a house for every house that exists would 
 give an enormous amount of work to the people. 
 Millions of men are always unable to get an opportu- 
 nity to work. There is no scarcity of clay out of 
 which to make bricks or of any of the materials that 
 are required to make a house. Workingmen have 
 made all of the houses that exist, yet the great major- 
 ity of workingmen do not own their own homes. 
 After they built them, they lost them. Why are there 
 not enough good homes for everybody, and why do 
 the workers, who built all the homes, own so few 
 of them? 
 
 Every house, except in the 4 far south, must be heated 
 in winter. 
 
 The earth contains plenty of coal. The country con- 
 tains enough undeveloped water power to heat every 
 house in it if there were not a pound of coal and 
 the cost of producing electricity is so low that every 
 house could be heated cheaply. Why is it so hard to 
 get enough money to keep the house warm in win- 
 ter? Why are the poor seldom comfortable from fall 
 until spring? 
 
 Furniture is necessary. 
 
 What limit could be placed upon the amount of 
 machinery we could make with which to manufacture 
 furniture? We still have some timber that the lum- 
 ber barons have not juggled into millions for them-
 
 164 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 selves. Mr. Edison says steel is better than wood for 
 furniture-making purposes, anyway. Chairs, tables, 
 and many articles of office furniture are already made 
 of steel. Steel is made of iron. The earth is stored 
 with iron. Of course, a good deal of labor would be 
 required to convert a large amount of iron, first into 
 steel and then into furniture but are not many per- 
 sons looking for work? 
 
 Pianos, phonographs and the like are also nice. 
 Poor people like music. 
 
 They say in New York that the poor people, who 
 pay to get in the galleries at grand opera, sit more 
 quietly and appear to be more interested than do some 
 of the rich ones below. One cannot always sit quietly 
 in a box. Diamonds scintillate most when they are 
 moved about in the light. At any rate, why should not 
 everybody's love for music be gratified by the best sort 
 of musical instruments in his home? A good phono- 
 graph really yields music. The cheap ones do not. 
 Why should not each home contain a good piano and 
 a good phonograph? Because so much labor would 
 be required to produce them? That cannot be. Is 
 it not the opportunity to labor that we so often lack? 
 When our politicians want our votes, do they not 
 promise us "plenty of work at good wages"? 
 
 Education is important. 
 
 Only five or six children who enter the primary 
 grades ever enter high school and still fewer ever 
 go to college. Why? If we wished, we might have 
 ten times as many teachers as we have. Why should 
 not every child be permitted to finish high school? 
 Why should we accept the poverty of the parents as 
 an excuse for dragging a child from school and thrust- 
 ing him into a workshop? We have millions of men
 
 WHAT DOES AMERICA LACK? 165 
 
 who cannot get work. Why make a bad situation 
 worse by making children work? Children can do 
 certain kinds of work and can be hired more cheaply, 
 but do these constitute valid reasons for robbing so 
 many children of their only opportunity to get an edu- 
 cation? Everybody regrets that the children are 
 robbed, and the men who employ the children feel 
 sorrier than anybody else, but exceedingly little is 
 being done to help the children. How can the children 
 be helped so long as the little they can earn is neces- 
 sary to keep the pot boiling at home? We Socialists 
 say they cannot be helped without so changing con- 
 ditions that a few rich men cannot keep so many mil- 
 lions poor. We are not merely sorry that the chil- 
 dren are robbed we are indignant. Perhaps that is 
 because we are not "practical." The men who are 
 profiting from the system that robs the children say 
 we are not practical. What does "practical" mean? 
 
 In addition to a good phonograph, and some other 
 little things, each head of a house each grown per- 
 son should have something else. He should have 
 some land to live upon. It would not matter whether 
 he "owned" the land. "Own" is such a funny word 
 to use in connection with any part of the earth's sur- 
 face. It reminds me of my grandfather, who once 
 pleased my childish fancy by solemnly giving me a star 
 that nightly hovered over our house. The same power 
 that made the star made every foot of the earth. No 
 man had anything to do with either. 
 
 A lot of grown people experience the same joy in 
 "owning" parcels of the earth that I used to take, 
 when a child, in "owning" the star. As a matter of 
 fact, the only important thing about either the star 
 or enough of the earth to live upon, is the right to
 
 166 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 use the thing, so long as desired, without disturbance. 
 All we care about the stars is to look at them. To 
 shut off our view would constitute disturbance. All 
 we care about the earth is to live on it and get our liv- 
 ing from it. For any man to exact toll for the use 
 of the earth should create disturbance. What a man 
 builds on the earth should be his own, but the earth 
 was made by the power that created the universe, and 
 every one born upon it should have a right to use some 
 part of it as long as he wants to, without tribute to 
 anybody. No one should be required to live all his 
 life on the same piece of land, but no one should be 
 permitted to hold any piece of land a moment longer 
 than he desired to live upon it. Fortunately, there is 
 enough land in this country for a great many more 
 millions than are here to live upon it. Everybody 
 would have enough land to live upon if an interested 
 few were not permitted to "own" land upon which 
 they do not live. 
 
 This should be changed. We need the earth. It 
 is important. It is not important that a few should 
 derive a profit, without labor, by claiming to "own" 
 certain parts of the earth. Private ownership of the 
 earth is a bad principle. The right of each to the 
 exclusive control of what earth he needs is a good 
 principle. The mere fact that the bad principle was 
 here first is no reason why it should remain until the 
 last. We who live upon this earth can establish 
 whatever principles of this sort that we may choose 
 to establish. The earth is not for Astor but for 
 us. 
 
 What do we lack? What do we lack to make us a 
 comfortable and, so far as material things can con- 
 tribute to that end, a happy people?
 
 WHAT DOES AMERICA LACK? 167 
 
 Can you think of anything? 
 
 One thing may be mentioned. We lack the de- 
 termination to take over the earth that no man made, 
 and the improvements upon it which every human be- 
 ing has helped to make, and convert them to our own 
 uses, now and forevermore. 
 
 The Socialist party exists only for the purpose of 
 supplying this lack. We Socialists are trying to create 
 a public determination to increase the owning class 
 from a few to as many millions as there are in the 
 nation. We perceive that every way the people turn 
 they are confronted and perplexed by little gentlemen 
 who own this or that. They are troublesome gentle- 
 men. They always have their hands out. They want 
 to be supported. They want to pay as little wages 
 as they can and keep the rest that the workers pro- 
 duce. 
 
 These little gentlemen are not important, though 
 they think they are. Mr. J. P. Morgan was quite 
 vexed one day, upon returning from Europe, because 
 when the ship had almost crossed the ocean in record 
 time, a sudden storm made it half a day late in reach- 
 ing port. The New York newspapers consumed valu- 
 able paper and ink in laying before millions of little 
 men and women the full extent of Mr. Morgan's ex- 
 asperation at the weather. Mr. Morgan is undoubt- 
 edly entirely conscientious in the belief that he is a 
 person of vast importance, and therefore entitled not 
 only to fair weather, but to be more than royally sup- 
 ported by the working class of the United States. It 
 is doubtful, however, if this is so. Mr. Morgan is 
 not a producer of milk, but a skimmer of cream. He 
 is important only to himself. He is entitled to a man's 
 share of opportunity in this world but no more. Yet
 
 i68 
 
 if he were to try to live upon what he is now produc- 
 ing, he would starve to death, unless relieved by alms, 
 in a few days. He is no worse than others of his class. 
 That is not the point. The point is that the others are 
 no better than he is. They are all skimmers of cream. 
 The mere fact that they would like to continue to skim 
 is not important What matters it what they want? 
 They are entitled to only a fair chance with the rest 
 of us. 
 
 "The earth for those who live on it" is the ideal for 
 which we Socialists strive. It is all a matter of chang- 
 ing the laws. Laws are made by governments. Gov- 
 ernments are made by people or at least exist by 
 consent of the people. When the people begin to de- 
 mand things, and perhaps to growl a little, govern- 
 ments give up a little. The Socialist vote, at present, 
 is a growl. The larger it becomes, the more the 
 present owning class will give up. It is a good deal 
 like a balloonist throwing sandbags overboard to keep 
 from going down. When the Socialist vote becomes 
 large enough, the day of the important little gentlemen 
 will have passed and the day of the rest of the people 
 will have come. 
 
 A million votes added to either of the other political 
 parties at the next election would have for the people 
 of this country no significance. Not one additional 
 good law might reasonably be expected as the result 
 of it. But if a million were to be added to the Socialist 
 vote, the ruling class of America would hasten to 
 throw over sandbags in the form of concessions to 
 the working class. These gentlemen, when pressed, 
 are always willing to give up something to keep the 
 rest. There is no other way of getting so much in 
 the way of immediate, practical results from a ballot
 
 WHAT DOES AMERICA LACK? 169 
 
 cast at the next election as by voting the Socialist 
 ticket. The gentlemen in Washington and in Wall 
 Street always watch the Socialist vote. They know 
 what it means.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 FACTS FOR FARMERS 
 
 "CHARMERS and their wives and children work too 
 * hard and get too few of the things in this worldl 
 that are worth while. It is not necessary to tell farm- 
 ers this. They know it. The only question worth 
 considering is : Is there any remedy for this condition? 
 Any Republican politician will tell you there is a rem- 
 edy and that he has it. Any Democratic or Pro- 
 gressive politician will tell you the same. The remedy 
 of each of these gentlemen is to put somebody out of 
 office and put him in. 
 
 For a hundred years and more, American farmers 
 have been trying to improve their condition by putting 
 somebody out of office to put somebody else in. The 
 plan has not worked well for the simple reason that 
 the men who were put out and the men who were put 
 in stood for much the same thing. Neither class of 
 politicians was willing to get at and do away with the 
 things that really keep the farmer and his family hard 
 at work and poorly paid. 
 
 Another class of gentlemen tell the farmers that 
 what is the matter with them is that they do not know 
 enough about farming. They do not raise enough on 
 their land. They raise little because they lack the 
 scientific knowledge with which to raise more. 
 Scientists tell farmers this. James J. Hill, who has 
 
 170
 
 FACTS FOR FARMERS 171 
 
 made millions but not at farming says the same. 
 What hurts Mr. Hill more than anything else is that 
 American farmers raise an average of only about 
 thirteen bushels of wheat to the acre when they might 
 as well raise thirty-three, as they did in Belgium be- 
 fore the war. It is easy enough to understand why 
 Mr. Hill feels hurt. He is in the railroad business. 
 He would make considerable more money if he could 
 haul thirty-three bushels of wheat for every thirteen 
 bushels that his railroads now haul. 
 
 That does not much matter. The real question of 
 importance is : Would the farmers make more money 
 if they produced thirty-three bushels of wheat to the 
 acre instead of thirteen? The easy way to answer 
 this question is to say they would. The plain truth 
 is that they would not and of this there is proof. 
 
 The first fact that American farmers should con- 
 sider is the Belgian farmers. They raise thirty-three 
 bushels of wheat to the acre. Mr. Hill tauntingly 
 says so and it is true. But does this great production 
 make the Belgian farmers rich? Did anybody ever 
 hear of an American farmer emigrating to Belgium? 
 Is it not a scandalous fact that the people of Belgium 
 are miserably poor and densely ignorant? They are 
 not to blame for being ignorant. They have no op- 
 portunity to learn. They are working too hard, rais- 
 ing thirty-three bushels of wheat to the acre. 
 
 But we need not go to Belgium to find proof that 
 increased farm production does not mean correspond- 
 ingly increased prosperity for the farmer. We have 
 abundant proof in the United States. 
 
 When the first federal census was taken in 1790, 
 ninety-seven Americans out of each one hundred were 
 living on farms. When the last census was taken in
 
 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 1910, only thirty Americans out of each one hundred 
 were engaged in agriculture. Yet the thirty that re- 
 mained on farms produced more pounds of food for 
 each person in the United States than the ninety-seven 
 produced in 1790. In other words, although the pro- 
 portion of the population engaged in agriculture had 
 been decreased two-thirds, the remaining third pro- 
 duced more for each person in the country than the 
 entire three-thirds were able to produce in 1790. 
 Why? Because improved agricultural machinery had 
 vastly increased the power of each farmer to produce 
 crops. 
 
 It would be idle to deny that the farmer has re- 
 ceived nothing from his increased power of produc- 
 tion. It would be as idle to assert that he has received 
 all of his increased product. He has received nothing 
 like his increased product. Like the industrial worker 
 in the city, the farmer has received but a little of the 
 increased product that improved machinery has en- 
 abled the farmer and the industrial worker to produce. 
 Machinery has increased the productivity of the in- 
 dustrial worker by scores of times. The industrial 
 worker lives better than his great-grandfather did, 
 but he has to worry more about getting a job than his 
 ancestors did, and he is still so poor that he cannot 
 afford to live decently nor to keep his children in 
 school long enough to give them a decent education. 
 And the farmer is still poor. By keeping at it all the 
 while, he manages to get along, but it is a hard strug- 
 gle. His wife is compelled to work as hard as he 
 does or a little harder his children are put to work 
 when they should be at school, yet if one farmer's 
 son out of a million happens to go to a city and do 
 well, grafters in the city try to coddle the farmer by
 
 FACTS FOR FARMERS 173 
 
 citing the instance as proof that in this glorious coun- 
 try poverty is no barrier to success. 
 
 Let us now look at such a world as no farmer ever 
 saw. Suppose improved machinery were to make it 
 possible for one man of each one hundred of our 
 population to produce all the food that all the rest of 
 us need. Suppose there were only 1,000,000 Ameri- 
 cans instead of 30,000,000 engaged in agriculture. 
 Would the million receive thirty times as much income 
 as the 30,000,000 now receive ? 
 
 Your Republican, Democratic and Progressive poli- 
 ticians will tell you they would. We Socialists tell you 
 they would not. 
 
 Let us tell you what would happen. Twenty-nine 
 millions of Americans who are now living on farms 
 would be compelled to move into cities and seek em- 
 ployment in factories and in stores. They would be 
 compelled to move into cities because they would be 
 unable to find work on farms. They would be unable 
 to find work on farms because there would not be 
 thirty times the demand for farm produce that there 
 was when 30,000,000 farmers were at work. The de- 
 mand for farm products does not so much depend 
 upon hunger as it does upon the ability of human 
 beings in cities to buy something to eat. Every day 
 there are persons in cities who are hungry, but they 
 create no commercial demand for farm products for 
 the reason that they have no money with which to 
 pay for them. They have no money for the reason 
 that they can find no employment in factories, stores 
 and other places where men and women work. 
 
 Now imagine, if you can, what would happen in 
 cities if 29,000,000 Americans from the farms should 
 be compelled to move from their farms into the cities.
 
 174 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 They would at once be compelled to compete for jobs 
 with the millions who are already in cities, not all of 
 whom, by any means, are now able to find work. 
 These 29,000,000 would be very eager for work. They 
 would have to find work or starve. What would they 
 do? What could they do? The only thing they could 
 do would be to say : "We will work for less than those 
 receive who are now at work." 
 
 What would American employers do? What do 
 they always do? Wouldn't they buy labor where 
 they could get it the cheapest ? That is what they have 
 always done and are still doing. The standard of liv- 
 ing would have to come down. The standard of 
 living would come down. Every family would take 
 twenty-five or thirty roomers, as each city family does 
 in Hungary. Men, women and children would be 
 huddled indiscriminately on the floor. Men who work 
 nights would get into beds still warm from the men 
 who had just arisen to work days. The decreased 
 cost of producing food on the farm would result in 
 cheaper food, but it would not be enough cheaper 
 to enable those in the cities to live as well as they 
 now live, but it would be too cheap to make the farm- 
 ers prosperous. Then, as now, the middlemen would 
 skim off the cream. They would pay the farmer as 
 little as they could and charge the consumer as much 
 as they could. For most of the country, the condi- 
 tions of life would actually be worse because be- 
 cause invention had increased the productivity of 
 farmers 3,000 per cent. 
 
 Does this sound like a dream? It is worse than 
 that. It is a nightmare. But it is unfortunately a 
 fact. It is not spun out of imagination it is con- 
 gealed from experience. Precisely this, on a smaller
 
 FACTS FOR FARMERS 175 
 
 scale, has happened and is happening in the United 
 States. Improved agricultural machinery has driven 
 from the farms sixty-seven of each ninety-seven who 
 were engaged in agriculture 126 years ago. Foolish 
 men in the cities talk about the foolishness of men 
 in the country who do not know enough to stay on 
 their farms. Other foolish men in the cities advocate 
 a "back to the land" movement as the cure for all of 
 our economic troubles. The fact is that farmers come 
 to the cities because improved farm machinery is driv- 
 ing them out of the country. There is only a certain 
 demand for food and thirty can now better satisfy 
 it than ninety-seven could in 1790. Under the present 
 system, every improvement in agricultural machinery 
 and agricultural methods that shall be made will 
 result in driving more men from the farms to 
 compete with the workers already in the cities for 
 jobs. 
 
 It is easy enough to say this is not so, but it is 
 not so easy to prove that it is not so. It is easy 
 enough to say there is still more work in the country 
 than there are men to do it. Many farmers make 
 the mistake of trying to judge the conditions in the 
 entire country by their own experience or that of a 
 neighbor. Because old Bill Brown wanted a farm 
 hand last week and could not find one or found one 
 who was so disgusted and disheartened that he had 
 turned to drink the retort is made : "There is plenty 
 of work in the country, but city workers are too lazy 
 or too drunk to come out here and do it." That 
 is not a fair way to judge conditions. It is like judg- 
 ing a great picture by looking at one little corner of 
 it. A great picture of a battlefield might look like 
 a cornfield if there were a hill of corn in one corner
 
 176 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 of it and a spectator were to look only at the hill of 
 corn and not at the charging horses or the guns. 
 
 The fact is that those who are now engaged in 
 farming could not if they would give continuous em- 
 ployment or even occasional employment to the mil- 
 lions who cannot find work in cities. It is also absurd 
 to expect that a man who has a family settled in the 
 city can leave them at any moment to go hundreds or 
 thousands of miles into the country to get a few days' 
 work. If he is out of work, the chances also are that 
 he is out of money and therefore cannot pay his rail- 
 road fare, and, if he knew where the job was (which 
 he doesn't) and had the money to pay his railroad fare 
 (which he hasn't), in nine cases out of ten he would 
 not be given enough work to buy a round-trip ticket 
 and take care of his family while he was away. And 
 no man, knowingly, is going to spend his last cent for 
 a ticket from Chicago to a farm near Omaha to earn 
 so little money that he will be more in debt when he 
 returns than he was when he left. Rather than do 
 this, men will remain in the cities and walk the streets 
 looking for work that may return enough money to 
 pay expenses. Men do thus remain in the cities and 
 walk the streets looking for work. What wonder if 
 some of them turn to drink ? 
 
 What is the matter with the world? Nothing that 
 has not been the matter with it from the beginning. 
 A few men are running the world in their own inter- 
 est. A few men are trying to roll in wealth at the 
 expense of the rest of us. That is nothing new. That 
 is what chattel slaveholders tried to do and did. 
 The method by which a few men live on the others 
 changes with the ages. When the people get their 
 eyes on one method and abolish it, the grafters plan
 
 FACTS FOR FARMERS 177 
 
 another method. They can no longer own men, but 
 they can get hold of what men produce. That is all 
 they ever owned men for. The wealth that men pro- 
 duce is what they are after. They rob industrial 
 workers in the cities by one method and farmers 
 by another method, but both methods are a part of 
 the same system. 
 
 We Socialists call the present system of produc- 
 ing and distributing wealth the capitalist system be- 
 cause it is based upon the private ownership by capital- 
 ists of the machinery of production and distribution. 
 In the cities, the capitalists own the great manufac- 
 turing industries and will not permit men to work 
 except for wages that represent but a part of their 
 product. In the country, the capitalists do not yet 
 own the farms, but they fix the price of everything 
 the farmer buys and of everything he sells. The 
 price of the reaper is not what the farmer may believe 
 would be a reasonable charge, but what the capitalist 
 believes he can get. The price of wheat is not what 
 the farmer believes it is worth, but what the speculator 
 believes he can buy it for. Freight rates and elevator 
 charges are not what the farmer would be willing to 
 pay, but what the railroad man and the elevator man 
 say he shall pay. 
 
 Every capitalist tells the farmer he is the most in- 
 dependent man on earth and then straightway pro- 
 ceeds to demonstrate that he is among the most 
 dependent. Like the industrial worker in the city, he 
 is the victim of the capitalist class. He and his wife 
 are free to work until the grave closes over them and 
 that is about all. Their liberty is a sham, their in- 
 dependence a fraud. They are ground under an 
 oppressive system so unjust that even if improved
 
 178 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 machinery were to make it possible to produce one 
 hundred bushels of wheat to the acre, and everything 
 else in proportion, the problem of poverty would still 
 be unsolved. So long as farmers and factory workers 
 remain apart, the problem will remain unsolved. If 
 ever the victims are to throw off their master, they 
 must get together. 
 
 We Socialists suggest that the power be destroyed 
 by which a few rob the many by owning privately 
 what the many must use. We suggest that the people, 
 through the government, displace the capitalist class 
 by owning what the capitalist class now owns. We 
 do not see how there could ever be any more robbery 
 if the people themselves could produce wealth without 
 the consent of the capitalist class and consume it with- 
 out paying tribute to the capitalist class. We would 
 have the people, collectively, own the great railroads 
 and all of the great industries. Wherever we might 
 find landlords robbing tenant farmers, we would have 
 the people, collectively, own the land and permit farm- 
 ers to work without paying tribute to a landlord. We 
 would apply the principle of public ownership wher- 
 ever we might find capitalists using private ownership 
 to perpetrate private plunder. And we would have a 
 government made responsive to the public will by the 
 initiative, the referendum and the recall. 
 
 Every Republican, Democratic and Progressive 
 politician wants to help you without interfering with 
 the gentlemen who are using private ownership of 
 what should be public properties to feather their own 
 nests. They all tell you we Socialists are wrong. 
 You have been voting as they told you, probably since 
 you were old enough to vote. // they know how to 
 help you, why have they not done so?
 
 DEAR LAND AND POOR PEOPLE 
 
 T T is the general opinion in cities that farmers are 
 * prosperous. The editor of Better Farming, an 
 agricultural paper published in Chicago, in 1915 in- 
 formed the public generally that "the farmer is the 
 real capitalist." Land had enormously increased in 
 price, he said, and "the purchasing power of the farm 
 family has doubled in ten years." 
 
 The truth of the matter is presented in the follow- 
 ing editorial from the New York Times: 
 
 "A report issued by the Department of Agriculture 
 will be dismal reading for the people who so confi- 
 dently preach the doctrine that the welfare of a coun- 
 try is largely dependent on the division of its land into 
 a great number of small farms. This is the assump- 
 tion on which is based most of the talk about the 
 wisdom and virtue that lie in rural as opposed to urban 
 life, and with it goes the other very common assump- 
 tion that farms of many acres are to be reprehended 
 and those of few praised. 
 
 "The departmental experts have been collecting 
 exact information on this important and interesting 
 subject, and they have figures to prove that the finan- 
 cial status of the small farmer is usually unsound and 
 therefore hopeless. His costs of cultivation are dis- 
 proportionate to his profits in almost all cases. In 
 
 179
 
 i8o INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 short, it is only farming on a fairly extensive scale 
 that gives a reasonable return on investment and labor. 
 "Anybody who thinks of heeding the advice so 
 often heard almost invariably from those who do 
 not even dream of taking it themselves should not 
 go 'back to the land' until he is sure of having land 
 enough to make a living on. And that takes capital." 
 
 The fact is that, agriculturally speaking, we are 
 going the way of the Roman empire. The price of 
 land in the empire was high. The land was fertile. 
 "Farmers" like the Chicago agriculturalist-editor 
 would have said and doubtless did say that the Ro- 
 man farmer was "the real capitalist" of his country. 
 Yet the Roman farmers did not think so. They could 
 not discover that they were making a living. The 
 sons of farmers began to quit their farms and seek 
 occupations in the city just as our farmers' sons are 
 now quitting the country for the cities. The empire's 
 food supply was threatened. The danger eventually 
 became so great that soldiers were stationed at the 
 gates of Rome with orders to shoot down any and all 
 farmers that might try to enter. 
 
 Nor was that all. Rome's wars for years were 
 conducted chiefly for the purpose of capturing agri- 
 cultural supplies from other nations, and these sup- 
 plies were brought to Rome and distributed among the 
 very farmers that should have produced them for them- 
 selves!. Why they did not produce them for them- 
 selves is an interesting story. 
 
 The same facts held good with regard to the valley 
 of the Euphrates. In Bible times, this was one of the 
 richest valleys in the world. It supported a teeming, 
 industrious population. Then the price of land be-
 
 DEAR LAND AND POOR PEOPLE 181 
 
 came high. The valley of the Euphrates is to-day 
 a bleak waste, giving over to thin, scattered patches of 
 grass. The land is exhausted because it held true 
 there as everywhere, that when others exploit the 
 farmer, he exploits his farm. Unable to fertilize it, 
 he takes out without putting back until there is no 
 more to take out. 
 
 In the census of 1910, Iowa was the only state in the 
 Union that showed a loss of population as compared 
 with the preceding census. According to city editors 
 of farm papers, it should have shown a great gain. 
 Superficially, Iowa farmers are smothered with pros- 
 perity. Land is $150 an acre, and much of it is held 
 at $200. Fifty years ago, some of the same land 
 sold for $10 an acre. 
 
 Why does dear land hurt farming? There are sev- 
 eral reasons. Consider the lowan of half a century 
 ago who had 160 acres of land that cost him $10 an 
 acre. The price of his farm was $1,600. If, instead 
 of buying a farm, he had put his $1,600 out at interest 
 at 6 per cent, he would have had an annual income 
 of but $96. He could not have lived on that. There- 
 fore, he was compelled to invest it in something upon 
 which he could expend enough labor to make a living. 
 
 At $150 an acre, the same farm would now be worth 
 $24,000. The annual interest on $24,000 at 6 per 
 cent is $1,440. Considerable labor is required to ob- 
 tain so much money, each year, from the soil. The 
 temptation is to rent the farm and get the $1,440 with- 
 out earning it. That is the beginning of landlordism 
 and tenantry. The high price of land, which makes it 
 impossible for the poor to buy farms, provides the 
 tenants. The owner moves into the village and lives 
 on his income.
 
 182 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 When the owner lived upon and worked his own 
 farm it was required to support only himself and his 
 family. As soon as he rents it, it is required to sup- 
 port two families. Where the owner found it com- 
 paratively easy to make a living, the tenant finds it 
 almost impossible to do so. Every year, the tenant 
 must raise $1,440 worth of crops that he does not get. 
 Exploited himself, he exploits his land. Under con- 
 tinuous exploitation, the fertility of the soil decreases. 
 Crops become poorer. That is why the farmers of the 
 Roman empire could not raise enough to support them- 
 selves. The price of land was too high. Owners re- 
 tired to live in idleness, while tenants came to work 
 in misery. 
 
 High land prices in a community are like high blood 
 pressures in human beings they are danger signals. 
 When a human being's blood pressure becomes high, 
 he is in danger of apoplexy and death. When a 
 nation's land values become high, the community is 
 in danger. Poor men, unable to buy land, are com- 
 pelled to rent. Owners, seeing an opportunity to ob- 
 tain part of the product of a farm without earning 
 any of it, are eager to rent. Land soon becomes so 
 depleted that a given amount of it can no longer sup- 
 port so many persons, and population decreases. The 
 farming land that to-day sells for $200 an acre is 
 really not as good land as it was when it was sold for 
 $10 an acre. Based on its productive capacity, it 
 should sell for less than it did when it was new and 
 strong. Its present price is purely artificial. It rep- 
 resents only the pressure of population upon agricul- 
 tural resources. If the pressure were twice as much, 
 land prices might be twice as high and the difficulty 
 of making a living on a farm would be much greater.
 
 DEAR LAND AND POOR PEOPLE 183 
 
 It is well that the agricultural department has told 
 the truth about farming. Farmers' sons, for twenty- 
 five years, have not been fleeing from the farms for 
 nothing. They are not fooled by city talk about the 
 "prosperity of the farmer." They know the facts. 
 They know the farmers are not prosperous. And, 
 now we have the word of our national government for 
 it that "small farms do not pay;" that only the rich 
 can do well at farming. 
 
 Are we going to do anything about these facts? 
 What are we going to do? Can we conceive of a 
 prosperous, happy nation that, agriculturally, is not 
 made up of small farms? Shall the poor man have no 
 chance anywhere in America? Do we want America 
 to become a nation of large farms, operated by great 
 capitalists, employing hired labor at the lowest price 
 they can obtain it in a labor market that is always 
 glutted? Do we want this to become a nation of 
 great landlords and little tenants? We wonder that 
 the English, in a little island like England, permit a 
 few dukes to own most of the land. Are we to sup- 
 pose that the English forced this land upon the dukes 
 or is it possible that conditions in England gradu- 
 ally wrested the soil away from the peasantry and 
 handed it over to a handful of idle owners? What 
 conditions would be more likely to wrest soil from 
 a peasantry than high land prices? 
 
 This is a burning question to-day. It is not a 
 question of when, if ever, America will be owned by 
 seven grand dukes. What we are confronted with 
 to-day is the scandalous fact that in a rich agricultural 
 country, and with farm products selling at exorbitant 
 prices in the cities, farming on a moderate scale can- 
 not be made to pay. And that is a fact that should
 
 184 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 be of great interest at least to some millions of small 
 farmers. 
 
 It is not a question of middlemen. Cut out the 
 commission men and the result would be the same. 
 If farmers were to receive for their produce the same 
 price that city people now pay for it the problem would 
 remain unsolved. Land prices would increase some 
 more. Tenants would be required to pay more for 
 the use of land. Nothing would be settled. Idlers 
 would still be drawing unearned incomes from farms, 
 either as landlords or as the holders of mortgages, 
 and hungry tenants, exploiting the land, would be de- 
 creasing its fertility. 
 
 The presumption is that the average farmer would 
 do the wise thing if he knew what the wise thing is. 
 He is not wedded to his hardships. He knows he 
 is not having much of a life. But he is pretty busy 
 with his farming. When he gets through at night he 
 is tired. He is not in a frame of mind to blaze out 
 new paths. He is hardly in a frame of mind to read 
 of new paths that others have blazed out. Like every- 
 body else, he is looking for the "easiest way." What 
 is the easiest way? Why, increase or decrease the 
 tariff on wool, as the case may be, or determine to 
 vote out at the next opportunity, the set of officials 
 that, at the last opportunity, he voted in. 
 
 The farmers of this country, for fifty years, have 
 been proceeding upon these lines and accomplished 
 nothing. Conditions to-day are, broadly speaking, 
 worse than they ever were before. Farmers, this year, 
 may be getting a little more for their wheat, because 
 of the European War, but that is of no lasting sig- 
 nificance. The great stubborn fact remains that farm- 
 ing on a moderate scale in this country does not pay.
 
 DEAR LAND AND POOR PEOPLE 185 
 
 The small farmers have always known it and now the 
 government admits it. Conditions are worse than they 
 ever were before because the price of land is higher 
 than it ever was before, the difficulty of buying land 
 is therefore greater than it ever was before, and the 
 soil, which is the basis of our agricultural resources, 
 is poorer than it ever was before. It is becoming 
 farmed out. Much land in the older, eastern states, is 
 no longer worth tilling, and the best land is not what 
 it was when the plow first turned it.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 OPPORTUNITY 
 
 VT'EARS ago, Emerson said: "America is only an- 
 _* other name for opportunity." He might have 
 said the same of a gambling house. I once saw a 
 Wyoming sheepherder win $2,200 at faro bank in 
 half an hour. An American occasionally gets some- 
 thing more for a life of hard labor than a bare living. 
 A gambler occasionally wins at faro. The gambling 
 house is never praised. Why not look America 
 squarely in the face, too? Why not analyze life as it 
 is here and see exactly what it means? 
 
 The head of the telephone trust, Mr. Theodore N. 
 Vail, has some ideas as to what life means in America. 
 He began as a country doctor but soon abandoned 
 medicine. Probably he rattled about as most young 
 men do when they are blindly struggling for a place 
 in the world. Vail finally became a street railway 
 operator in Brazil, made some money, returned to 
 America, entered the telephone business, became the 
 president of the Bell company and a multimillionaire. 
 The day he was 70 years old he compared the op- 
 portunities of the past with those of the present and 
 added : 
 
 "America never before contained so many oppor- 
 tunities. The young man who is willing to work and 
 has ability and a good education is the one who is 
 going ahead." 
 
 1 86
 
 OPPORTUNITY 187 
 
 Let us consider Mr. Vail's first requirement for 
 success, which is willingness to work. Practically the 
 whole nation can meet that test. No slurs can be cast 
 at men who work from ten to twelve hours a day at 
 hard, monotonous work, and there are millions who 
 do so. There are always more men who are not only 
 willing but eager to work than there are jobs. From 
 this point of view, we are all prepared to grasp the 
 great opportunities that Mr. Vail sees before us. 
 
 How about the second test ability? We shall first 
 have to guess what Mr. Vail meant by ability. First, 
 of course, he meant men whose minds have unfolded 
 to a considerable degree to the world about them. 
 A Russian peasant's mind is closed like a bud that the 
 spring rains have not yet opened. Only thinking can 
 unfold a mind. Only experience with the world about 
 one can make one think. Mr. Vail can think because 
 he has brushed up against life in many phases. He 
 has had nearly every advantage that a human being 
 can have. But what if he had remained a country 
 doctor? What if circumstances had held him to a 
 place in a factory? 
 
 Most Americans are and always will be held to 
 humble tasks to plowing and sowing and running 
 street cars and laying asphalt pavement and running 
 machines that knit socks and running other machines 
 that make breakfast food. This must always be so 
 because we cannot live without socks and food and 
 we cannot get to our work without street cars. A 
 million $6-a-week girls can be telephone operators, 
 but there can never be but one head of the telephone 
 trust, because but one is needed and at present that is 
 Mr. Vail. 
 
 So most of us cannot pass and can never pass
 
 188 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 Mr. Vail's second requirement, for the reason that we 
 lack "ability" in the sense in which he uses the word. 
 Our minds are more or less closed because too close 
 confinement to dreary jobs has kept our thoughts on 
 little things and away from big things. 
 
 Mr. Vail's third and last requirement is a "good 
 education." What chance have we? Ninety-five per 
 cent of the children who enter the primary grades 
 never get so far as the high school. The unsanitary 
 housing conditions that are enforced upon the poor 
 tell part of the reason why. The abnormal infant 
 mortality that is found among the poor takes many a 
 little student from his desk. Hard times take others. 
 The parents need the little sums that the children 
 could earn. The half-grown girl goes to a department 
 store and the boy quits school to go into a factory. 
 By the time high school is reached, only five of each 
 hundred who entered school are left. Most of the 
 five finish high school and then go to work. The 
 odd child quite frequently the rich man's child goes 
 to college or a technical school and gets what Mr. Vail 
 calls a "good education." 
 
 I may not have stated this fairly, though I have 
 tried to. After reading it over, I can see no mistake. 
 If there be no mistake, and Mr. Vail has made no 
 mistake in stating the qualifications that are necessary 
 to take advantage of the great opportunities that 
 America presents, I must say that I cannot see where 
 the poor boy or girl has much show. But maybe 
 I am wrong. Let us go a little further. 
 
 Mr. Vail speaks of the great opportunities that 
 America offers to young men who are willing to work 
 and who have both ability and a good education. He 
 naturally expects that such men will become managers,
 
 OPPORTUNITY 189 
 
 directors and presidents of great corporations. Mr. 
 Vail would hardly call the running of a corner grocery 
 a great opportunity. He would have hardly talked 
 so much about opportunity on his seventieth birthday 
 if he had meant that running a street car, or driving 
 a hack, or breaking on a freight train, or shoveling 
 coal under a boiler was a great opportunity. Yet it 
 is these humble tasks, and others like them, that con- 
 stitute the work of America and the work of the 
 world. No great ability is required to shovel coal. 
 No technical ability is required to drive a delivery 
 wagon. A man who had never been to college might 
 be a good locomotive engineer. Willingness to work 
 is the only requirement mentioned by Mr. Vail that 
 is necessary to the doing of most of the jobs that are 
 to be done. Most work is done with machinery. The 
 inventor puts in the brains. The worker puts in the 
 muscle and a little technical skill that he has picked 
 up around the shop. A college man a man "of 
 good education" would not, if he could help it, take 
 such a job, and if he could not help it, his education 
 would do him no good. 
 
 The trouble with Mr. Vail's world is that it is only 
 for a few. He has neglected to consider the human 
 race. If all railway employees, provided they were 
 willing to work, were well educated and able, could 
 be railway presidents, Mr. Vail's world would be a 
 fine place in which to live. But this is not such a 
 world and never can be. It is and must be a world 
 in which most men and women must earn their living 
 by doing humble tasks. There is no way of growing 
 potatoes except by planting them, and the only way 
 to produce woolen clothes is to raise sheep. 
 
 The only kind of opportunity that is worth talking
 
 190 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA 
 
 about is opportunity for all. All men are not fitted 
 to receive "good" educations. But all men are fitted 
 to receive all they produce, and each is fitted, in his 
 own way, to enjoy the world in which he lives. Most 
 of us know next to nothing of the world in which we 
 live. We know all about the places in which we work. 
 We could almost go around in the dark without bark- 
 ing a shin or making a misstep. But we know very 
 little about the world. A single tree contains more 
 beauty than the average mind has ever absorbed. The 
 mind is not to blame. It is the shop, the factory and 
 the everlasting grind of monotonous toil. We could 
 all see if we had the time. We have not the time. 
 
 Opportunity in America will never exist in any true 
 sense until every person who comes here, either by 
 birth or by steamship, is enabled to get some real 
 knowledge of the world about him. This can come 
 only when men have leisure and contented minds. 
 Leisure and contented minds can come only when we 
 all go about it, collectively, to produce, with the least 
 effort and in the least time, what we need. 
 
 If we want this to be a world of happiness it must 
 be a world of square-dealing. Nobody need worry 
 himself about the young man, willing to work, who 
 has both ability and a good education. He will get 
 along. Nor should we exult over any success that 
 may come to him. His success is of absolutely no 
 significance so long as most other people can, in the 
 very nature of things, have no success. The only 
 success that is worth talking about is the success that 
 is within the reach of every human being. So long 
 as America has opportunities only for a few it is not 
 the land of opportunity; it is simply a sweating-out 
 place where human beings are trying to learn to live.
 
 Books by Allan L. Benson 
 
 THE TRUTH ABOUT SOCIALISM: a plain statement of Socialism 
 that Eugene V. Debs says is "the very clearest and cleverest of 
 all." 1 88 pp.; cloth, $1.00; paper, 25 cents. Ninth edition. 
 Published by B. W. Huebsch, New York. 
 
 OUR DISHONEST CONSTITUTION: a survey of the men who 
 
 made our organic law and an explanation of why they made it 
 as it is. "Mr. Benson," says the Chicago News, "states the facts 
 so vividly and with so much sarcastically grim humor, that his 
 book is extremely readable." 1 82 pp. ; cloth, $i .00 ; paper, 25 cents. 
 Published by B. W. Huebsch, New York. 
 
 THE USURPED POWER OF THE COURTS: an analysis of the 
 steps by which the United States Supreme Court claimed the 
 power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional, though no 
 other court on earth claims such power, the constitution gives 
 our Supreme Court no such power, and the court, for several 
 years, did not claim to have such power. This pamphlet has 
 had a circulation of more than 200,000 copies and in 1915 was 
 considered at some length in a report made by the Bar Associa- 
 tion of the City of New York to the convention assembled to 
 draft a new constitution for the State of New York. 64 pp.; 
 paper, 5 cents. Published by National Socialist Party, Chicago. 
 
 A WAY TO PREVENT WAR: both a plea and a plan for the dem- 
 ocratization of diplomacy and the war making power. A book 
 that has been favorably reviewed by the labor press of the world. 
 Two resolutions have been introduced in Congress since this book 
 was published in May, 1915, proposing amendments to the Con- 
 stitution of the United States in harmony with one or more of 
 its fundamental provisions. 180 pp.; cloth, 50 cents; paper, 25 
 cents. Published by the Appeal to Reason, Girard, Kan. 
 
 INVITING WAR TO AMERICA: This is the complete Baedeker to 
 the land of the three P's: Patriotism, Preparedness and Profit. It 
 will confirm your suspicion that the path of glory leads to the 
 corner of Broad and Wall streets. It is convincing proof that the 
 invitation to bloodshed and bankruptcy is not in the interest of 
 national defence but of profits for economic parasites. Cloth f 
 $i .00. Published by B. W. Huebsch, New York.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
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