Our National Defense: The Patriotism of Peace Part 6

"Not only has this nation no army, but it has no military _system_."

We have in the United States a military establishment adequate to suppressing riots, controlling mobs, preventing local anarchy, and protecting property from destruction by internal disturbance or uprisings in our own country. As a national police force, our army is an entirely adequate and satisfactory organization. But policing a mining camp and fighting an invading army, are two widely different propositions. So would fighting a j.a.panese army be from fighting a few Spaniards or Filipinos.

When it comes to a "military system" adapted to the needs of a foreign war with a first-cla.s.s nation, we have none; and thus far none has been proposed. A system that depends on creating the machinery for national defense by any plan to be undertaken _after hostilities have begun_, is no system at all, and cannot be cla.s.sed as a system for national defense. It is a system for national delusion. A Volunteer Army belongs in this cla.s.s, and so in fact does the State Militia.

The question of national defense involves two separate and distinct problems:

First, the defense of the nation against invasion by another nation.

Second, the defense of the nation and of its social, civil, and political inst.i.tutions from internal disturbance and civil conflict.

It may safely be a.s.sumed that there will never again be a civil conflict between any two different sections of this country. That there will inevitably be such a conflict between contending forces within the body politic itself, no sane man will deny, if congested cities and tenement life are to be allowed to continue to degenerate humanity and breed poverty and misery. They will ultimately undermine and destroy the mental and physical racial strength of the people. We will then have a population without intelligence or reasoning powers. Such a proletariat will const.i.tute a social volcano, an ever present menace to internal peace.

Conflicts such as that which so recently existed in Colorado, approach very closely to civil war. They have occurred before. They will occur again.

They may occur at any time. Whenever they do occur, it may be necessary to invoke the power of the nation, acting through the army as a police force, to preserve the peace and protect life and property.

For that work it must be conceded that we need an army. As it has been well expressed, we need "a good army but not a large army." It may be conceded that we need for that purpose, and for Insular and Isthmian Service, and for garrison duty, an army as large as that now authorized by Congress when enlisted to the full strength of 100,000 men, _but no more_. Set the limit there and keep it there, and fight any plan for an increase.

The question whether we should have an army of 50,000 men or 100,000 men is of comparatively small importance. As to that question there need be no controversy on any ground except that of comparative wisdom of expenditure.

There are other things this country should do, _that it is not doing_, of more importance than to maintain an army of 100,000 instead of 50,000, or than to build more battleships at this time.

An army needed as a national police force to safeguard against any sort of domestic disturbance is a very different proposition from the army we would need in the event of a war with any of the great world powers. An army of 100,000 is as large as we will ever need to safeguard against domestic disturbance. An army any larger than that, for that purpose, should be opposed as a menace to the people's liberties, and a waste of the nation's revenues.

It is conceded on all sides, however, that if it ever did happen, however remote the possibility may be, that the United States became involved in a war with a foreign nation of our own cla.s.s, an army of 100,000 men would be impotent and powerless for national defense. So would an army of 200,000 men. An army of 200,000 is twice as large as we should have in time of peace. In the event of war with any first-cla.s.s power we would have to have an army five or ten times 200,000.

It would therefore be utterly unwarranted and unwise to increase our standing army from 100,000 to 200,000. There is no reasonable ground or hypothesis on which it can be justified. Any proposition for such an increase should meet with instant and just condemnation and determined opposition.

A war between the United States and some other great power is either possible or it is impossible. If it is impossible, then we need do nothing to safeguard against it. If it is possible, either in the near or distant future, then we should safeguard against it adequately and completely; we should do _everything that may be necessary to prevent war or to defend ourselves in the event of war_.

To say that war is impossible is contrary to all common sense and reason, and runs counter to conclusions forced by a careful study of probabilities and of the compelling original causes for war that may in their evolution involve this nation.

Field Marshal Earl Roberts told the English people, over and over again, that they were in imminent danger of a war with Germany. No one believed him--at least not enough of them to make any impression on public sentiment--and England was caught unprepared by the present war.

Therefore, let full weight be given to Lord Roberts' declaration and warning as to the future, as recently published:

"_I would ask them not to be led away by those who say that the end of this great struggle is to be the end of war, and that it is bound to lead to a great reduction of armament. There is nothing in the history of the world to justify any such conclusion. Nor is it consonant with ordinary common sense._"

Such a statement as this, from such a man, cannot be whistled down the wind. This country must inevitably face the condition that in all probability the present war will increase rather than reduce the danger that the United States may become involved in war.

It may be argued that Germany, once a possible antagonist, will be so weakened by this great conflict as not to desire another war. The contrary will prove true. If Germany should prevail, the ambition of her War Lords would know no limit, until Germany dominated the world.

If Germany should not prevail, no matter how much she may be humbled by defeat, she will start over again, with all the latent strength of her people, to rebuild from the ruins a more powerful military nation than she has ever been. With the record before us of what Germany has accomplished since the close of the Thirty Years' War, can anyone deny that a great Teutonic military power might again be developed from the ashes of a ruined nation?

If we look across the Pacific at j.a.pan, we see a nation strengthened and proudly conscious of victory as a result of the present war. Whatever other nations may suffer, j.a.pan gets nothing from this war but national advancement and national glory. The latter is a mighty a.s.set for her, because of the inspiration and stimulus it affords to her people in all their national efforts and ambitions for advancement and expansion.

Russia, England, and France, however great their losses may be, will come out of this war with enormously enlarged national strength, and with their national forces solidified and concentrated behind the military power in those governments. In none of them will this new accretion and concentration of military governmental power be thereafter voluntarily limited or surrendered.

Let us then not deceive ourselves by any visions of world peace which exist only in dreams, or follow shadows into the quicksands in which we would find ourselves mired down if this nation were caught unprepared in a war with any of the great nations above named.

The question of national defense, in the event of such a war, is not one of battleships, so on that point we need not trouble ourselves much with the controversy about how many battleships this country should build in a year.

If we had as many battleships as England has to-day, they might prove a broken reed when tested as a means of national defense in case of a war with either England, France, or j.a.pan.

A standing army of 100,000 men, or even of 200,000 men, would prove utterly inadequate for our national defense in such a war. Worse than that, our whole military system is fatally defective. It entirely lacks the capacity of instant automatic expansion necessary to quickly put an army of a million men in the field. It would be imperative and unavoidable that we should do so, the moment we became involved in war with a first-cla.s.s power. A million men would be the minimum size of the army we would need the instant war started with any great nation like j.a.pan. As a system for national defense in such a war our standing army is a dangerous delusion.

Its existence, and the false reliance placed on it, delays the adoption of a system that would prove adequate to any emergency.

The militia system of the United States is another delusion, and in case of war would be little better than useless. Washington had his own bitter experiences to guide him, and he warned the people of this country against militia in the following vigorous terms:

"Regular troops alone are equal to the exigencies of modern war, as well for defense as offense, and when a subst.i.tute is attempted, it must prove illusory and ruinous.

"No Militia will ever acquire the habits necessary to resist a regular force. The firmness requisite for the real business of fighting is only to be attained by constant course of discipline and service.

"I have never yet been a witness to a single instance that can justify a different opinion, and it is most earnestly to be wished that the liberties of America may no longer be trusted, in a material degree, to so precarious a defense."

In the face of all these facts, the people of the United States are groping in the dark. They may have a vague and glimmering idea of their danger, but as yet no definite and practicable plan for national defense in case of war has been suggested, except that proposed in this book.

The beautiful iridescent dream and vision of an army of a million patriotic souls hurrying to the colors in the event of national danger brings only counter visions of Bull Run and Cuba, of confusion, waste, death, and devastation, before we could possibly get these men officered, trained, equipped, and organized to fight any first-cla.s.s power according to the methods of modern warfare.

As an ill.u.s.tration, what would our pitifully small army, and our almost raw and untrained levies of militia, do in a grim conflict with the 200,000 trained and seasoned and perfectly armed and equipped soldiers which j.a.pan could land on our sh.o.r.es within four weeks, or the 500,000 she could land in four months, or the 1,000,000 she could land in ten months? We could not by any possibility get a military force of equal strength into action on the Pacific coast in that length of time or in anywhere near it.

That is where our danger lies, and therein exists the startling menace of our unpreparedness for war. It is not that we lack men or money. No nation in the world has better soldiers than those now serving under our flag. We no doubt have the raw material for a larger army than any nation or any two nations could utilize for the invasion of our territory, but any one of three or four nations could humble and defeat us several times over before we could whip this raw material into shape for a fighting force and get it armed and equipped for actual warfare.

The conclusion from this would on the surface naturally seem to be that we must have a larger standing army. The strange and apparently contradictory but undeniable fact is that a larger standing army, organized in accordance with our present military system, would merely increase our danger, and might precipitate a war that would otherwise have been avoided.

A great standing army in this country would ultimately create the same national psychological condition that existed in Germany before this last war. There were many who averred when this war broke out that it was the war of the Kaiser and his War Lords, and contrary to the spirit and wishes of the German people. The exact opposite has been thoroughly established.

Strange as it may seem, we must accept the fact that the German people, as the result of generations of education from childhood to manhood, look upon war as a necessary element of German expansion and the growth of the empire to which they are all patriotically devoted.

More than this, ringed about as they have been for centuries with a circle of armed adversaries, it was inevitable that a spirit should be developed in the minds of the people that their only safety as a nation lay in Militarism, however much they might deplore its necessity as individuals, groan under its burdens, or personally dread military service.

The moment the people of the United States accepted as a fact the belief that a standing army large enough for national protection is the only way for this country to safeguard against an armed adversary, that moment would the att.i.tude of mind of our people towards war become the same as that of Germany and France. After this war it will be the att.i.tude of mind of the people of Great Britain. England has been shaken to her core, and never again will she be found unprepared for war at any moment that it may come.

CHAPTER IV

_The system for national defense in the United States must embrace a National Construction Reserve, organized primarily to fight Nature's forces instead of to fight the people of another nation. It must be so organized that it will furnish a subst.i.tute for the supreme inspiration to patriotism, and the tremendous stimulus to energy and organized effort that war has furnished to the human race through all the past centuries of the existence of the race._

This National Construction Reserve must be an organized force of men regularly enlisted for a term in the service of the national government.

The men in the Reserve must be under civil control when engaged in construction service, and under military control when in military service in time of war. Those enlisted in the Reserve would labor for their country in construction service in time of peace, building great works of internal improvement and constructive national development, with exactly the same spirit of patriotic service that they would fight under the flag and dig trenches or build fortifications in time of war.

We must organize this National Construction Reserve for a conflict to conquer, subjugate, and hold in strong control the forces of Nature. We must organize our national forces and expend our national revenues for that conflict, instead of organizing them for devastation and human slaughter.

We must organize a national system that will create, not destroy; that will conserve, not waste, human life, and homes, and the country's resources.

We must plan to enlist our national forces in a great conflict with Nature, _to save life and property_, instead of enlisting them in conflicts with other nations _to destroy life and property_. We must develop a patriotism that will be as active in constructive work in time of peace as in destructive work in time of war. We must enlist a National Construction Reserve that will put forth in time of peace for constructive human advancement the same extraordinary energy and invincible determination that war arouses.

The construction work of the Forest Service should be done by a Construction Corps enlisted in that Service. Every forester should be a reservist. A regularly enlisted force of fire-fighters and tree-planters should be organized--tens of thousands of them--to fight forest fires and to fight deserts and floods by planting forests. The planting and care of new forests should be done by regularly organized companies of enlisted men, detailed for that work, exactly as they would be detailed for a soldier's duties in time of war.