Part 6 (1/2)

”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 battles.h.i.+ps 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.