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 ; 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 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below NOV 1 8 1935 301949 MAY 2 6 1951* [D.URL .JUL8 68 WAY 1 6 W9 THREE NON-RENEWA (j-lf Form L-9-15m-3,'34 UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES LIBRARY T 000 691