Our National Defense: The Patriotism of Peace Part 4

Now they are voting war loans and fighting in the armies.

The labor organizations have long proclaimed their opposition to war.

The war is on, and they are apparently giving little attention to it.

Again and again it has been declared that kings make wars and the people fight them.

That is all very true, in the past and in the present, but once more the people are doing the fighting.

We have been told that the workingmen of the world have power to stop war.

No doubt they have, if they would use it, but they will not do so.

While this greatest of all the world's wars was brewing, the workingmen were busy manufacturing the machinery of destruction.

And they are still doing it.

And they will keep on doing it, as long as wages are to be earned that way.

Every piece of shrapnel that crashes into a human brain, or tears a human heart, or mangles a human hand on a battlefield has been laboriously and patiently made by some other human hand working for wages in some factory.

Some manufacturer has thereby made a profit.

And the money to pay that profit was loaned to some Christian nation for its war chest by some sanctimonious p.a.w.n-broker of the cla.s.s described in "Unseen Empire" by David Starr Jordan.

It is civilized warfare, among civilized nations, in this age of civilization, sustained by civilized legislative representatives of civilized people, conducted by civilized soldiers, equipped for human destruction by civilized business men who furnish machinery of war that is manufactured by civilized workingmen.

And the workingman makes wages, the business man earns his good dividends, the banker gets his snug profit, and the man at the top, "the man on horseback," who started the b.l.o.o.d.y orgy gets dividends, honors, special privileges, and greater power as his share in this twentieth-century ma.s.sacre of humanity by the so-called humane methods of modern civilized warfare.

_It is the hypocrisy of it all that makes it so revolting._

And if it were not that so many _are_ making wages or salaries or profits or dividends out of the whole organized scheme of modern warfare, it would be much easier to put an end to it. That is the vital point where the women of the world should strike first if they are to end war.

It is the private profit made from war by a few that makes it so hard to stop the ruin by war of the many.

The awful waste of war has been made clear, and yet the most monstrously wasteful war of history is now being fought.

It has been urged that the huge debts owing for old wars made new wars impossible, but stupendous new war loans are now being made.

The people of Europe were said to have reached the limit of endurance of war burdens, but they are bending their backs for a heavier load.

America has expressed deep sympathy in the past for the war-ridden and burden-bearing nations of Europe, overlooking apparently, at least in recent years, some important facts.

Germany makes no hypocritical pretenses to being a nation of peace. She is avowedly a nation of warriors and believes in war.

But she gets something for what she spends besides soldiers and battles.h.i.+ps.

While she has been perfecting the most stupendous and perfectly organized war machine that has ever existed in the world, she has perfected just as gigantic and splendidly effective machinery for conducting the affairs of peace.

Her people may well smile in their sleeves at us when we condole with them about the heavy war burdens that have been loaded upon them. They have at least got something effective and efficient for their money. We have got practically nothing.

Germany has, it is true, spent huge sums for armament, but at the same time she has developed her internal resources, constructed vast public improvements, planted great forests, and built a system of waterways that is the marvel of the world.

Have we done the same? No.

Why not? Because we are told by the guardians of Uncle Sam's exchequer that we cannot afford it. We spend so much money on our army and navy,--a quarter of a billion dollars a year--for which we get nothing in return,--not even national defense,--that we are told we cannot afford to enter upon any great plans for internal improvements, or stop floods, or regulate rivers, or build a genuine waterway system.

_And the people stand for it, and allow themselves to be "led by the nose as a.s.ses are."_

This, of course, is very gratifying to the speculators and exploiters who are gathering into their own capacious grab-bags what is left of the natural resources of the country.

When this reason is added to their interest in armor-plate factories, it may account for some of their zeal for militarism. And of course they realize the necessity for a good large standing army that will keep the people from being troublesome when they discover that their heritage has been stolen from them. Any little incident like the French Revolution would be excessively annoying to the intrenched interests in this country. An army looks good to them, and the latch-string is always out, socially, to the members of the military caste who greatly enjoy the hospitality of the gilded caste.

Every one who looks at all four corners of the situation in this country understands why every pretext is seized upon to get bigger and bigger appropriations for the army and navy. A navy provides a big profit in armor plate and an army provides protection for that profit.

_The Wizards of Wall Street are wise._

They see a long way ahead. The people never see very far. They are easily scared by a hue and cry about unpreparedness when naval or military appropriations are wanted.

They readily swallow the bait of economy, when the interests desire to defeat an appropriation that is needed to develop natural resources belonging to the people that are coveted by the Water Power Syndicates, or an appropriation that is needed to build waterways which would make compet.i.tion for railroads.

Water Power Syndicates and Railroads and Armor-Plate Mills are all controlled by the same coterie of intrenched interests. They understand each other and work together perfectly without even the necessity for a gentleman's agreement.

_The people have been asleep a long time but some day they will wake up._

For years the Gospel of Peace has been proclaimed to the world from the United States. During that period we have been busy building battles.h.i.+ps and piling up great private fortunes from making armor plate. We have been urging disarmament while spending millions to increase our own armaments.

We have been advocating arbitration while constantly increasing our military expenditures.

Since the day when Congress in a frenzy of patriotic outburst voted fifty millions in fifteen minutes to start our war with Spain, the peace propaganda has been vigorously prosecuted and in that period we have had war after war: the Spanish-American War, the Russo-j.a.panese War; war in the Philippines, war in Greece, war in the Balkans, war in South Africa, war in Algeria, war in Morocco, war in Tripoli, war in Mexico, war again in the Balkans, and now nearly all of Europe is ablaze with war and its flames are reddening Asia and Africa.

It gives one an unpleasant, gruesome feeling to think about it. The substance seems always to have been on the side of war, the shadow only on the side of peace.

That is no reason why the movement for peace should be abandoned, but is it not a reason for completely changing the ideals and methods of the peace movement, and adopting a plan such as is embodied in this book for a constructive peace propaganda, that will strengthen the peace movement, and at the same time solve our most difficult internal social and economic problems and make sure that if war ever does befall us we will be found not unprepared, not unarmed, not unready, not undefended?

If everything were done that the most extreme Militarist advocates, we would still be undefended, and we will remain so until our whole military system is constructed anew, and a real system of national defense organized as outlined in this book.

_The Frankenstein of war can be controlled._

But it can only be controlled by organizing a system of national defense against Nature's destroying forces, which can, by touching a b.u.t.ton, be instantly transformed, if need be, into a force for national defense against a foreign invasion or to uphold the rights or honor of the nation.

CHAPTER III

_The Militarists will never initiate an adequate system for national defense in the United States, because such a system necessitates an organization under civil control in time of peace. It must be an organization that will at all times act as a self-operating and self-perpetuating influence to promote peace and prevent war. It must also automatically and instantly become an impregnable defense against foreign attack or invasion if, in spite of all precautions and efforts to prevent it, war should actually occur at any time in the future._