Preparedness; the American versus the military programme

Front matter

Class Book Copyright N!*.

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CQfVRIGMT DEPOSIT.

Preface

THIS book has been written by one who is neither a military nor a naval expert. It has taken, therefore, the standards of adequacy and efficiency as laid down by the military and naval experts themselves, and has used them as a measurement of the adequacy and efficiency of the programmes for preparedness which are now being spread before the American people.

The innumerable facts and figures upon which it is based have been taken, in so far as is possible, from the official documents.

The book is by no means purely or chiefly negative. It seeks not only to show the utter inadequacy of the programmes for military preparedness, and the evils of a genuinely adequate military programme ; but also to state concisely the parts of the American programme for preparedness, their support by reason and experience, and the inevitable and insuperable obstacle which each and all of them find in the military programme.

It endeavors to give full credit to the genuine and laudable desire of most of the military prepareders " to defend this country " ; but it attempts to determine precisely what a " defensive war," against a first-rate power, in Twentieth Century warfare, would mean, and precisely what kind of a military programme would be truly adequate for it. Finally, it endeavors to prove to the countless Americans who loathe the thought of militarism, but who see no other adequate means of defense, that there is another means which is as definite, as practicable, as adequate and as American, as it is justified by reason and tried and proven by experience.

Contents

I The Campaign for Preparedness . . ii

Its Origin and Growth — Denunciation and Ridicule of the Pacifists — " Frightfulness " — Literary and Newspaper Aids — The Organized Campaign — The Navy League — The Women's Section — The American Legion-^The National Security League — Summer Training Camps — The Governors' Conference — Massachusetts in the Lead — The Congressional Campaign — The Presidential Contest.

II Past Attempts at Preparedness . . 36

II Past Attempts At Preparedness

SUCH are some of the phases of the campaign for preparedness which has our country in its throes at present. In view of the alarm which is being sounded everywhere and incessantly, it may be sensible to pause for a moment to inquire whether we have ever prepared before this year of grace and enlightened patriotism, 1916, or whether we are only just now, under an unprecedented prodding, beginning to get ready to commence to prepare? Many millions of words were talked into the Congressional Record last winter by members who insisted that we are absolutely unprepared, and that it is the prime duty of the present to prepare.

Glancing back casually over a few years of recent history, we may be surprised to learn that we have been at least going through some of the motions of promoting preparedness.

THE PRESENT GENERATION'S PREPAREDNESS

Taking the work of the present generation, — the past thirty-four years, — for example, we find that we have increased our regular army from 25,000 to 90,000 men, or hy 350 per cent. Even during the Civil War of 1861- 1865, our regular army was increased to only 50,000 men.

One generation ago, in 1880, our expenditure for the army (exclusive of pensions) was $38,000,000; to-day, the same expenditure is $106,000,000. In 1880 our expenditure for the navy was $13,500,000; to-day, it is $145,000,000.

PAST ATTEMPTS AT PREPAREDNESS 37

Thus, the increase on the army during the generation has been nearly 300 per cent., and on the navy 1,100 per cent. At the same time, the expense for the army and navy, per capita of population, has increased from $1.00 to $2.50, and from one-fifth of the total expenditures to more than one-half.

Most of this extraordinary increase in military and naval expenditures has occurred during the latter half of the generation. In the seventeen years from 1882 to 1898, our expenditures on the army amounted to $818,- 000,000, or less than one-sixth of the total; during the seventeen years since the Spanish War, from 1899 to 191 5, they have amounted to $2,340,000,000, or more than one-fourth of the total. In the first seventeen years, from 1882 to 1898, our expenditures on the navy amounted to $419,000,000, or one-thirteenth of the total expenditures; in the second seventeen years, from 1899 to 191 5, they amounted to $1,800,000,000, or one-fifth of the total.

If we had spent upon the army and navy during the seventeen years from 1899 to 191 5 the same sum that we spent upon them during the seventeen years from 1882 to 1898, we would have saved the tidy sum of three billions of dollars. That is to say, we could have built the Panama Canal eight times over with the mere increase in our army and navy appropriations during the past seventeen years !

Our work for " preparedness," then, during the past generation and especially during the latter half of it, has increased enormously, whether it be viewed from absolute increase in size and expenditure, or from the increase relative to population, total expenditures, or great national tasks.

AMERICAN, GERMAN AND BRITISH PREPAREDNESS

Again, if we compare our recent work for " preparedness " with that of the so-called "militaristic" nations of Europe, we cannot be said by any means to have done nothing, or even to have fallen behind them as far as expenditure of the people's money is concerned. Consider, for example, the following brief comparison of our military and naval expenses with those of " militaristic " Germany and " navalistic " Great Britain.

Between our war with Spain in 1898 and the beginning of the present war in 1914, we expended for military and naval purposes (exclusive of pensions) the sum of four billions of dollars. During the same period, Germany expended for the same purposes a sum not quite so large. And yet we have complained bitterly of Germany's " militarism " and " preparedness," while our experts tell us that we are "absolutely unprepared." In 1881, we spent $38,000,000 on our army, and Germany spent $91,000,000 on its army; thirty years later, we spent $122,000,000 on our army and Germany spent $204,000,000 on its army.

During the same thirty years, while Germany increased its annual expenditures on the navy from $11,000,000 to $114,000,000, we increased ours from $13,000,000 to $120,000,000. A former Secretary of the Navy has declared that our navy has cost $500,000,000 more than Germany's navy has cost, but that ours is a poor second to it! There is evidently something rotten in another State than Denmark.

Even Great Britain, " the mistress of the seas," increased her annual naval expenditures between 1881 and 191 1 from $51,000,000 to $203,000,000, or by only 400 per cent., while we increased ours within the same period by more than 900 per cent.

Evidently, if militarism and navalism are to be measured by expenditures for military and naval purposes, the United States may well be accused of illustrating the familiar phenomenon of the pot calling the kettle black. At all events, the facts stated above are proof positive and superabundant that we are not now just beginning

PAST ATTEMPTS AT PREPAREDNESS 39

to " prepare," but that we have led the world, during recent years, by our colossal efforts in that direction.

AMERICA AND THE SWISS SYSTEM

It is the fashion in our great Republic for the prepareders to demand " at least as much preparedness as the little Republic of Switzerland provides." But it is quite possible that our people are ignorant of the fact that while Switzerland has expended for military purposes during the past ten years the sum of $65,000,000, we have expended for military purposes (exclusive of the navy) during the same time, the sum of $1,300,000- 000, or just about twenty times as much!

It is true that our army numbers less than one-fifth as many men as are trained for war in Switzerland, — the latter possessing an army of " citizen soldiers " numbering a half-million. To balance this disadvantage, however, we have, instead of the Alps, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and a navy upon which we have expended during the past ten years the sum of $1,200,- 000,000.

Our preparedness upon the land, however, must be made equal to Switzerland's, even though it cost us one hundred times as much as Switzerland expends ; and our rank as a " world power " demands a military preparedness able tO' cope with that of a victorious Germany, and a naval preparedness second to none, — not even to that of an undefeated Great Britain ! So say our valiant prepareders, and they are moving heaven and earth to accomplish their object of " preparing " our reluctant Republic by means of a campaign unprecedented for energy, ability and enthusiasm even in the Continent of War Lords and Political Despots.

in

PREPAREDNESS FOR WHAT?

THE energy, ability and patriotic sentiment back of the campaign for " preparedness " would certainly be most praiseworthy, were they exerted for a truly praiseworthy purpose. It is an excellent thing to prepare, with energy, ability and love of country, provided that we prepare for the right thing and by the right means. The plausible term " preparedness " is usually explained or defined by the further plausible terms " adequate armaments " and an " efficient army and navy." Now, there is something peculiarly attractive to the man of the Twentieth Century, and particularly to the American, perhaps, in the term " adequate " or " efficient." Whatever we have, we desire to be " adequate " or " efficient."

It is impossible, however, for anything to be merely adequate or efficient; it must be adequate for something, it must be efficient for something. What is it, then, for which the armaments that are being so vociferously demanded in the United States at the present time are to be adequate or efficient?

In our Southland, the Captain Hobsons predict every little while an inevitable war with Japan; let us, then, they insist, make our armaments adequate to prevent Japan from causing the sun of our national greatness to set in the Pacific.

In New England, the Captain Gardners dream of the Yellow Peril and its menace to the white man's civilization ; of perfidious Albion striking at our hearts through Canada, or sweeping our commerce from the seas and bombarding Boston and New York; of a vic-

PREPAREDNESS FOR WHAT? 41

torious Germany invading our own coasts or South America with submarines, superdreadnoughts and an army of several milHon veteran soldiers. Therefore, they wail. Let us arm! Let us prepare to defend our firesides and our Monroe Doctrine !

In our Middle States and throughout the West, the Colonel Roosevelts iterate and reiterate the warning that the United States must guard againsj the imminent danger of being Belgiumized or Chinafied, and like the agitators of old they clamor : To your tents, to your tents, O Israel ! " The most important lesson for the United States to learn from the present war," they declare, " is the vital need that it shall at once take steps to prepare."

The tumult of the European War has mingled with these voices of fear and warning, and many of our fellow-countrymen have caught the contagion. From the builders of superdreadnoughts down to the " social leaders " who are shouldering muskets or making lint and bandages, Americans are busily, even hysterically, engaged in " preparing." Now, in spite of the fact that our country has not been attacked by a foreign foe throughout a century of " unpreparedness," and in spite of the further fact that our potential enemies are busily engaged in destroying each other's armaments, it is nevertheless entirely possible that these prophecies of evil may be realized some time in the future. All things are possible, — even that Mars may make an attack upon the Earth by way of the Moon !

IV

IT is true that to the unimpassioned observer of the prevalent passion for " preparedness," there appear other reasons for the advocacy of " adequate armaments " than a genuine fear of foreign invasion and a determination to get ready to repel it. Before discussing this last reason, then, let us briefly consider three of the others. These are not so popular, and not so generally accepted, — at least in public ; but they undoubtedly exist, and they add considerable weight to the momentum of " the campaign."

POLITICS

In the first place, there is politics. Such adroit politicians as the Roosevelts and the Hobsons leave us to conjecture, rather than supply us with admissions, as to the close connection between politics and the preaching of " preparedness." The Gardners, however, have supplied us with publicly acknowledged, — or boasted, — and most convincing, testimony as to the value of the armaments plank in the platform of the politician ambitious to secure the suffrages of his fellow-citizens. For example, after Representative Gardner, of Massachusetts, had made some speeches in Congress on " Preparedness," had offered a resolution for the appointment of a commission of inquiry into our " unpreparedness," and had given out newspaper interviews and a carefully prepared statement to thirty-two selected newspapers, his " next step," he naively admits, " was to go home to be reelected." " I spoke continuously upon this topic," — during his campaign for reelection, — he testifies, " and upon very little else in my district. The people were so disgusted with my views of the question that they elected me by over 12,000 plurality, — somewhat in contrast to what happened last year. I have the honor to be the worst defeated man who ever ran for governor in Massachusetts on the Republican ticket. But this year, after preaching this doctrine, I had 12,000 plurality." ^

This emphatic testimony as to gubernatorial aspirations and success has not fallen by the wayside, but has been taken to heart by the candidates for the governorship of Massachusetts in 1915. One of these candidates has taken it so much to heart that he has made his campaign in an armored automobile that is later to perform another kind of campaign service on the battle-line in France. His automobile is built like a torpedo, painted battleship gray, and provided with peep-holes or port-holes, through which machine guns are to pour their missiles upon the Germans, and through which the belligerent candidate pours the hot shot of his oratory.

In a speech before the House of Representatives, January 21, 1915, Mr. Gardner repeated and emphasized his testimony as to the political value of advocating " preparedness," as follows : " I know what I am talking about, for I have already tried several experiments in that line. I am not eloquent. I have not even the sublime gift of the gab. Hitherto I have never been able to make an audience applaud me more than a small fraction of a small second. Hitherto I never in my life felt the glowing consciousness that an audience wanted me to continue. But on this question of the national defense I have got my audience going as if I were William Jennings Bryan talking prohibition to a convention of patent medicine dealers. Never before in my life have I had applause as if my audience were paid a dollar a clap,

^ Mr. Gardner's testimony before the House of Representatives' Committee on Naval Affairs, December 18, 1914.

and I confess I like the new sensation. So I just give fair warning that if any one of you pacifico Members of Congress wants to challenge me to a joint debate in the month of March before any audience, — black, white, yellow or pink, — I am at your service, and you will not have to give me any gate receipts or honorarium or any other of the fifty-seven different varieties of high-brow pickings either."

We must acknowledge that Mr. Gardner's contentment with I'otes alone as compensation for his elocutionary efforts is entirely explicable ; and we must accept his convincing testimony as to the value of " preparedness " as a vote-getter. His listening colleagues in Congress were duly impressed, doubtless, by this testimony; for we are already launched in the mid-stream of a congressional campaign, the chief slogan of which is " preparedness." The protagonists of the respective parties are already contending for the credit of having brought this issue before the public; and Republican leaders are copiously lamenting the advantage that the Democratic congress and administration have in being able to carry through a programme for preparedness during the coming winter, and before the election of 1916. From ex-presidential aspirants for " third cups of coffee," down to candidates for the office of borough alderman, politicians anxious to serve their country are filling the air with vociferous demands for " adequate armaments " or " preparedness."

All this has its amusing side, characteristic of American political life ; but, fundamentally, it is playing with fire. The man who dares to appeal to the fighting instincts of the American people, — and we are a fighting people ; who inflames our national passions, — and we have them; who evokes our international and racial prejudices, — and these too are not unknown among us; such a man, be he desirous of the highest or of the lowest office within the gift of the people, richly deserves to be overwhelmed by an avalanche of votes at the polls and retired to, or kept in, the innocuous desuetude of private life!

The influence of " politics " on the programme of preparedness, — after the political aspirant has ridden into office on the wave of preparedness agitation, — may be judged by the following facts relating to coaling and naval stations which a former Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Meyer, recalled in a recent magazine article. " Until within a few years," writes Mr. Meyer, " no naval appropriation could pass the Senate which did not meet the sanction of both a Northern and Southern Senator, each of whom was a member of the Committee on Naval Affairs. It is interesting, in consequence, to analyze some of the appropriations between 1895 and 1910. In 1899 a site was purchased in Frenchman's Bay, Maine, at a cost of $24,650, — far above the assessed valuation, — and later an additional amount of $600,000 was expended to obtain there an absolutely unnecessary coalingstation, which has since been dismantled, as it was practically unused. At the Portsmouth Navy- Yard, so called, in Kittery, Maine, a dock was built at an expense of $1,- 122,800, and later it was found necessary to blast away rock in the channel in order to reach the dock, at an additional expense of $745,300. Between 1895 and 1910 improvements, machinery, repairs and maintenance in the yard amounted to $10,857,693, although there was a large navy-yard within seventy miles.

" On the other hand, at Port Royal, South Carolina, a dock was built at the insistence of the Southern Senator, at a cost of $450,000, which proved useless, and, although the original cost of the site was but $5,000, it was not abandoned as a naval base until $2,275,000 had been expended. Not the least daunted by this extravagant waste, the same Senator determined to have a share of the naval melon for his State, so, with the assistance of the Northern Senator, he obtained the establishment of another naval station at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1901. There was no strategic value thus accomplished, nor was it necessary, with the Norfolk Navy- Yard located at Hampton Roads. The $5,000,000 which has been squandered at Charleston includes a dry-dock built for battleships, costing $1,250,000, but which experience shows can only be used by torpedo-destroyers and gunboats.

" The United States has over twice as many first-class navy-yards as Great Britain, with a navy more than double the size of ours, and more than three times as many as Germany, whose navy is larger than that of the United States. The total cost of navy-yards up to June 30, 1910, with land, public works, improvements, machinery and maintenance, including repairs, amounts to $320,600,000. Overburdened with a superfluous number of navy-yards distributed along the Atlantic Coast from Maine to Louisiana, in 1910 I recommended that Congress give up and dispose of [eight] naval stations, . . . none of which was a first-class station. The average yearly cost of maintaining these stations between 1905 and 1910 was $1,672,675, and very little useful work had been performed at any of them. Later, I practically closed them, but could not abolish or dispose of them, no action having been taken by Congress. Pensacola and New Orleans have since been reopened by my successor. The Pensacola Navy- Yard, originally a military reservation, had cost the United States Government, up to 1910, $12,200,000, with little return in the way of output.

" The fundamental cause of excessive expenditures is due to the fact that appropriations are not made with the sole view of the battle efficiency of the fleet (which is the navy) and its military requirements. Politics and log-rolling, as I have shown, have entered into the making of appropriations by Congress. A more recent case is the training-station outside of Chicago, established in

1905. The original site was a gift, but $3,646,000 has been expended, buildings erected on a lavish scale, quite unnecessary and not suitable, due to the zeal of a congressman of the district, a member of the Naval Committee. One-half the amount w^ould have more than met the requirements and have been better adapted to what a training-station should be."

PROFITS

Next to the alliance between preparedness and politics, there has been discovered a close connection between preparedness and profits, between dividends and dreadnoughts. Certain manufacturers of war supplies have engaged actively in the manufacture of war scares. Regularly, for years, when Congress has had before it appropriation bills for the army and navy, a war scare has swept over the country, or at least over the capitol, and the " imminent " danger of war with Japan or with Germany has been used to dragoon the congressmen into voting as large appropriations for preparedness as possible. In Germany, Great Britain and Japan, investigation has revealed the fact that similar war scares have been stimulated by the manufacturers of armaments with the object of increasing a demand for their products. In our country, such men as Mr. Orville Wright are moderate and modest enough to say : " I do not advocate the acquisition (by the Government) of too many machines because I happen to be in the aeroplane business " ; but, he naively adds : " What would stimulate most the manufacture of aeroplanes here [in the United States] would be some real business from the Government. If a builder knew that he had a market for, say, 100 machines, provided they came up to the requirements laid down by the authorities, it would prove the most powerful incentive possible." It has since been reported that the syndicate which recently bought the aeroplane patents, factories, training-school and equipment of Mr.

Wright's company at Dayton, Ohio, has promised " to cooperate in every way possible to make the preparedness movement a success."

Not all the inventors and manufacturers of military equipment are so moderate and frank as Mr. Wright. For example, the head of the Bethlehem Steel Company, — whose " war orders " in four months made 1914 the banner year in the company's history, — gave out an interview to the newspapers as follows :

" A strong navy is a nation's chief asset. Germany is now splendidly equipped upon land, but as control of the seven seas has always been Great Britain's policy, Germany must equal the latter's fleet to win. Nations controlling the seas have ruled the world in the past, and it will always be so. Let America take warning."

These fervent adjurations to the public to prepare are usually salted with " patriotism," the injunction to purchase large quantities of their own products being coupled with expressions of undying affection for the land of their nativity, — or adoption, — and a hyphenated citizenship and the last drop of blood being freely promised to the altar of the country's defense.

But this " patriotism " would be more impressive if the American public knew that American-made arms and ammunition, battleships and airships, would be sold only to the American government. The lamentable fact, however, is that patriotism is not permitted to interfere with profits, and American manufacturers have engaged with desperate energy in enabling America's possible enemies to " prepare." For example, before the President placed an embargo on the shipment of arms and ammunition into Mexico, American manufacturers poured an avalanche of such material across the border into the hands of the government and the rebel troops alike. During the continuance of the embargo, the manufacturers piled up their products in Mobile, New Orleans and other Southern ports, and as soon as the embargo was lifted, the avalanche began again. Throughout all this period, it appeared but too probable that the United States government would be called upon to intervene in Mexico itself; and American manufacturers who were loudly demanding this intervention were supplying the Mexicans with guns and bullets which were enabling the Mexican anarchy to continue and which would be used, in case of intervention, against American soldiers.

Again, both before and during the present war in Europe, these same manufacturers have joined lustily in the demand that the United States shall " prepare," and yet they have made and shipped hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military equipment to the very nations against whom we are called upon to prepare. And they have actually reversed the maxim that " charity begins at home," by selling this equipment to foreign governments at lower prices than they exact from our own government. For example, as is shown in the report of the Secretary of the Navy for 1913: in 1894 one of our producers furnished armor plate to Russia at $249 a ton, while charging our own government $616.14 a ton. In 191 1, the same company furnished armor plate to Italy at $395.03, while charging the United States $420; and in 191 3, they furnished armor for the Japanese ship, Haruna, building at Kobe, at $406.35 a ton, while exacting prices ranging from $440 to $504 for the American battleship No. 39.

Another significant fact is revealed in the report of the Secretary of the Navy for 1914, which says : " Twice were the armor-plate factories saved a monopoly of this business through a * mysterious providence.' There are only three concerns in the country which make armor plate, and last year when bids were invited, all three made identically the same bids to a cent. They justified this sham of bidding by saying that the department had fixed the price and divided the business between the three concerns regardless of the bidding, making the award on one-third the quantity desired to each firm at the lowest figures quoted, which was always, as may be supposed, a figure which gave inordinate profits."

In the light of such facts, there is small wonder that the question has been raised, Is the lack of battle cruisers in our navy, and the incessant demand for more dreadnoughts, due, partly at least, to the fact that the battle cruiser, — which is of very, great effectiveness, — requires far less armor plate than does the dreadnought? There is small wonder, also, that the larger question has been raised. Would it not be advisable for the government to manufacture its own military and naval supplies?

The shipment of military supplies of all kinds to as many of the belligerent nations of Europe and Asia as can procure and pay for them has been enormously stimulated by the present war. Naturally laws forbid the direct shipment of warships ; but parts of ten or more submarines have been manufactured in Pennsylvania, assembled in Canada, and shipped to Great Britain, by a single American company. This company has also built eight or more submarines in Massachusetts for the British government, and these are being guarded by United States naval officials " until such time as a disposition satisfactory to all parties can be arranged."

But, although debarred for the present by neutrality laws from shipping warships and armies complete, to our " possible enemies," our American manufacturers have found a bonanza in the shipment of everything needful for them. In fact, certain large fields of American industry have been revolutionized by the attempt to supply the great powers of Europe and Asia with military equipment. By June of 191 5, the war orders placed in the United States totalled more than one billion dollars, and the country was informed that this was a mere beginning. Fifteen firms in Detroit received a $31,-

000,000 order in one day from Russia, New England is declared to be more prosperous than at any other time in its history, its exports from its own ports having trebled and quadrupled within six months after the war began, besides other uncounted millions shipped by New England manufacturers through New York. The exports from New York in the single month of July, 191 5, increased nearly $100,000,000 over those of July, 1914, — the month before the war began. Every railroad and every coastwise steamship line running into the city have been congested for weeks by exports for the war. In one day, there cleared from New York seven steamships loaded with 100,000 tons of military supplies, including ammunition, armored automobiles, guns, — two of these 14-inch guns, 53 feet long and 60 inches wide at the breach. Part of the cargo of these steamers was made up of hospital supplies and coffins; thus, the old-time policy of shipping rum and copies of the Bible on the same ship to " the heathen " is paralleled by the present-day shipments of death-dealing and body-healing equipment on the same steamer. The exports of surgical goods have doubled during the year, and American undertakers have felt the stimulus in trade. Another day's consignment was that of 100,000 shells on Norse and Danish steamers for use in the German army. Orders for 25,- 000,000 shrapnel shells costing $400,000,000, were placed in the United States before the end of the first year of the war. The pressure on the New England railroads, which traverse " the ammunition belt," has been enormous. The piers of the N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R. are surrounded by lighters, on which men are working night and day to keep pace with the accumulating freight. Various ports on the Pacific coast have been nearly overwhelmed by the war exports to Vladivostok and Japan. To move these exports on the other side, 20,000 freight cars and 400 locomotives had to be shipped from America to transport into Russia such commodities as armored cars, dynamite, pig-lead and copper, guns, rifles, barbed wire for the trenches, etc.