The Navy and the nation

Front matter

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Contents

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Introduction iii

CHAPTER

II Patriotism Before Business

Now and then we hear some one rise and say that business ought to "go on as usual." The only business in this country to-day is to win the war for universal liberty. If it should happen — and it cannot happen as long as God reigns — that autocracy should rule, no man's business will be worth a fig.

Patriotic Meeting of Retail Merchants of Washington. May 26, 1917.

It is a great pleasure to come to-day and to express, officially, the thanks of the Navy to this patriotic organization of business men in the Capital of the Republic for beginning what I believe will come to be adopted by every city in the country, a program of putting patriotism above business.

The gentlemen of this organization, with the proper conception of their duty to increase the material prosperity of the city, have been accustomed every year to organize an excursion to promote local business. This year, of their own volition, animated by the spirit which I believe is the dominating spirit in America to-day, they have stated that their private business, and the private business of all Washington, and all Amer-

PATRIOTISM BEFORE BUSINESS

ica, is secondary to the preservation of the principles for which this Nation has gone to war.

Now and then we hear some one rise and say that business ought to *'go on as usual." But the only business in this country to-day is to win the war for universal liberty.

If it should happen — and it cannot happen as long as God reigns — that autocracy should rule, no man's business will be worth a fig, and it is the duty of business men everywhere with large vision to understand that if they would have a ''place in the sun" for themselves and their children, this great war must be won, and won by American participation. When your body determined that they would make this an occasion for patriotism rather than for business, they considered in what way they could contribute best to the strengthening of the National Defense and they chose to devote their efforts and energies in cooperation with the Marine Corps to increase the enlistment of these Soldiers of the Sea. There is no finer body of fighting men in the world than the Marines. It is a particular privilege of my life to be daily associated with the officers and men who make up this historic part of the Navy.

In times of great stress, and great war, other branches of the National Defense are called upon, but the Marine is always on the spot ready for his work. If there is trouble in Nicaragua, we send the Marines. If there is trouble imperiling the power of America on this side of the ocean, we send the Marines. If there is trouble in China in which the Legations must protect Americans, we send the Marines; and there is no record of failure in this splendid branch of the American Navy.

A few years ago it was limited to the number of 15,000. Congress ordered an increase and now there are 23,000 stalwart men enrolled in the Marine Corps and, as a result of your rally, and like rallies all over this country, before we celebrate the Fourth of July we shall have 35,000 men in this Corps.

I appeal to young men when considering what service they shall render (and the young man who does not render some service has no right to write the word "American" after his name) that they shall go into that branch of the Service for which they are best fitted. In the Marine Corps there is a place; a place of service and a place of opportunity. The Marine Corps preserves strict discipline with comradeship between men and officers. In this Corps there is opportunity for advancement, unsurpassed in any military branch in the world, unless it be in France, and, thank God 1 we are imitating France in giving a better chance to the enlisted men.

On the recent visit to this country of the mission from France, I asked one of the commissioners whether the story that had been printed in the early days of the war on the Marne was true. You have heard the tale that tells the whole story

PATRIOTISM BEFORE BUSINESS

of why the French people love Joffre and why the whole world loves him. There are great generals, great soldiers in every army in Europe, but no man has won the hearts of his soldiers and the world so much as General Joffre, and it is because there is not a man in the allied forces who has not known that General Joffre sympathizes with every man struggling for liberty.

The story was that a certain general of the French army of the build of General JofTre, an able and splendid officer of strict discipline who had every virtue except the virtue of making his men love him, and therefore he lacked the priceless thing, was walking down the lane and a soldier put his hand on his shoulder to speak with him. The general turned in stern rebuke and said, 'What do you mean by touching me?" And the soldier apologized and in his apology said, '1 beg your pardon, General, I thought it was General Joffre."

There wasn't a soldier in France who did not feel a comradeship with Joffre and there isn't a man in the Marine Corps who does not feel a comradeship with George Barnett, and Colonel Doyen, who is to lead the Marines who go to France. In one of his inimitable stories of the Revolution, Edward Everett Hale tells us that a new word came into common use because of the spirit of that w^ar. He said after a meeting on the Common to rally the young men, a youth of sixteen years, of education and ability, went to his father and said, "Father, what is this word *Independence' I hear so much about?" Mr. Hale said the word "Independence'' up to that time was not known to be in the vocabulary, except by a student of the dictionary. In a moment that word was born and became a part of the spirit and life of the American people. We have been living in days of peace, and I would to God we could have continued in honor in the paths of peace. But, much as we love peace, we love honor and liberty more and are ready to fight for them. We are at war because we "could do no otherwise" and uphold our principles as a nation. There is only one thing worse than death and that is for a people not to stand for independence, liberty and justice.

I have little patience with those who tell us that the heart of the American people is not in this great struggle. I tell you that from ocean to ocean there is agreement ; a determined and patriotic resolution that we will enlist the last man, the last ship, and the last dollar to carry this war to victory, because we know it is to be the last great war of the world. When this conflict is over we shall have a parliament of man preserving liberty and independence for the small nations as well as the great, and we shall look back to this war as the turning point in the world's history, when liberty and justice have been so completely won that they never can be jeopardized again.

Ill

"uncle SAM, HERE I AM''

Most of us sitting in our factories, stores or offices, think of the Government as a separate entity, something that does not concern us, something that is far removed from us. I wish we of every community could think that the Government is ourselves, and that when we serve the Government we are not serving some remote agency. We are serving ourselves and our sons, and promoting our own welfare.

Coal Operators* Conference, Washington, June 26, 1917.

Just as I left the Navy Department my secretary handed me a new song, the title of which was "Uncle Sam, Here I am." On the frontispiece was a picture of Uncle Sam in his war togs, and standing by him in khaki was a splendid type of the American youth. You will find him on the streets of Washington, you will find him on the battleships, you will find him in the camps, you will find him in the homes getting ready for service, offering the utmost thing a man can offer to his country, his life. And I come to speak to you, gentlemen, because I have the faith that the same spirit which is actuating the more than 200,- 000 young men in the Navy to-day and the millions that have signed up to enroll in the army is actuating you. ''Uncle Sam, Here I am" is the motive that has brought you to Washington to-day, and is the spirit in which you have entered upon your contribution to the national defense.

We have witnessed in recent days rapid and wonderful changes. The passion of America is for peace, but I dare say there is not a man in this hall who, during the more than two years when the course of this nation as to whether its duty would call it to war or permit it to follow the paths of peace was in the balance, did not have the thought of national service uppermost in his mind. The day came when the issue bad to be met, and there was but one way to meet it. In a moment, with only brief debate, almost by acclamation, the American Congress, expressing the voice of the American people, declared that 100,000,000 of us would speak and act and fight as one man. I am one of those who believe that Americans at heart are all alike, and that in this struggle in which we are engaged there is no real division. Now do not understand me to say that all people in America are in perfect harmony. There are a few who do not keep step to the music of our national air, but their number is so small and their influence so little that when one of them raises his voice against the national decree, the penalty for treason is so swift and sure that if there be others they are silenced.

The Congress of the United States authorized

"UNCLE SAM, HERE I AM"

an unprecedented issue of bonds, and there were not wanting men in this country, some bankers and others, who doubted whether the American people would rise to the occasion and subscribe those bonds. What did we see? With an interest so low as not to be attractive as an investment, these bonds were oversubscribed. Then we witnessed an even greater achievement, because it was a contribution and not an investment. The Red Cross within a few weeks raised more than $100,000,000 to alleviate the sufferings of war. The traditions of this people have been against compulsory military service. For a hundred years this has been the spirit and belief of the major portion of Americans, and yet when the hour came when a new policy was demanded and necessary, by an overwhelming vote the selective draft was put in operation and more than ten million young men came forward and wrote their names on what will be for many of them the roll of honor, and the achievements and the sacrifices they make will add a new chapter to the glory of American history.

There has been no sacrifice demanded that our people have not made, and we are but at the beginning of these sacrifices. No nation was ever welded until it had suffered. No friendships are so strong as those that are cemented with sacrifice. America no longer asks for volunteers; every man in America is a volunteer, every man is cotBing forward and putting on the altar of his country all he possesses. Aye, and the young men who have gone in the first transports to fight In France are giving not only all they have and all they are, but all they hope to be.

So that we do not come to speak of any class of Americans, because there is no class. We are all one, living in a common country, with all we have in common. No man owns a coal mine, no man owns an oil well, no man owns a railroad. He is the trustee of America to manage that property for victory for America. Last week you saw in the papers that we had a two days' conference here with the committee of the Steel and Iron Institute, discussing the only problem in the United States to-day. There is but one problem, it is distribution. What part of the sacrifice, what part of the service is each man called upon to render ? When that conference was over, with a spirit of hearty Americanism those men representing great interests with a harmonious and united action agreed that every pound of steel and every ton of iron was at the service of the Government, to be used for our own Government or for the Allies or for whatever purpose should be necessary to win this war. As to prices, after some discussion about it the Government officials and the steel officers dismissed the subject. They said in substance: 'This is no time to discuss profits. It is a time to discuss distribution, and we have the faith that the Government experts will be so fair and just that when we hand over

"UNCLE SAM, HERE I AM"

to the Government all the product of our plants for this country and its allies we shall have reasonable and fair profits. We want nothing more.'* The same spirit that actuated these gentlemen actuates you, and you have come out to discuss among yourselves, not the question of prices. That is comparatively an immaterial matter. All you wish to know about price is that your Government, through processes in which you have confidence, will ascertain the cost of your production and pay you a fair profit. The question is one purely of distribution. That is the question the Secretary and officers of the Navy are trying to solve — one of distribution. We have not enough trained officers to man the increasing navy, and our problem is to distribute the officers to the fleets, to the factories, to the navy yards, to all the elements that go to make a strong navy, so as to make it more efficient. That is the problem in Congress; how to distribute the burden of taxation so that it will bear justly and equally, and upon those best able to pay it. Your problem, therefore, is the problem of everybody. Mr. Peabody and his committee are laboring here to help you and help the Government, because you are the Government. I sometimes wish we could get the conception in the mind of every man in America that the Government is not something far removed from us. Most of us, sitting in our factories, stores, or offices, think of the Government as a separate entity, something that does not concern us, something that is far removed from us. I wish we of every community could think that the Government is ourselves and that when we serve the Government we are not serving some remote agency. We are serving ourselves and our sons and promoting our own welfare.

Your chairman has told you the Navy is the largest consumer of coal. We shall need more coal than ever. We shall need coal for our ships patrolling from Halifax to the southernmost part of South America. Our ships will never be idle and will travel more miles this year than they have traveled in a decade. We shall carry to France under the convoy of the Navy thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and, if need be, millions of men to fight until we have achieved victory. And not one man can go across the ocean unless our ships have the coal or the oil, and as most of them are coal-burners, it is to you that we look for proper distribution. We will call upon every man for such portion as his mines, as his resources justify, because the Government must be fair, it must be just, or it is not your Government, and every man must respond in the spirit of giving his just share. The man with a large mine or a large steel plant will come forward and say to the Government, ''I am ready." The man with a smaller plant must furnish less, but all alike each man must make his contribution. Each will voice the words: ''Uncle Sam, Here I am."

"UNCLE SAM, HERE I AM"

Some men will call this service sacrifice. I do not so regard it. I regard it as a high privilege given to men who own the primary necessities for this war, to hand it over freely, in a large spirit. I call it a privilege to serve, and there is not a man within the sound of my voice this afternoon who in this great struggle would not feel that he was a slacker unless he had the right and the privilege to contribute all that he could command to win this war.

So I come this afternoon, not to urge you or exhort you to any sacrifice, but to invite you to the mountain of privilege, the privilege of giving to your country, not your lives — though if this war shall last long no age limit will stand between a man and the trenches — but in the early days of this war to congratulate you that, as your boys go to the front, you are not thinking about profits, you are not thinking about business, except that the price you receive for your product shall stimulate production and shall enable you to do more for the service of your country. You know what you can do, your committee working day and night here will help you, and I assure you the Government to the last ounce of its power, with a sense of appreciation, with a sense of justice and fairness, will cooperate with you in this sacrifice, if you so call it, in this privilege as I call it, of responding quickly and generously with the prime necessity for winning this war.

IV "a place in the sun"

When our eyes shall turn to behold for the last time, the sun in heaven (to paraphrase Webster's great oration), they will not see him shining on a world in the grasp of militarism, with its accompaniment of nations drenched in blood. Their last feeble and lingering glance will rather behold the gorgeous ensign of International Peace through arbitration full high advanced throughout the earth, its arms and trophies streaming in luster, not a thread of the flag of any nation polluted by autocracy, not a single star or emblem obscured, bearing its motto, "The World Safe for Democracy."

Breaking of Ground for Government Armor Plate and Projectile Factory, Charleston, W. Va., August jo, 1917.

This is no ordinary occasion. It is far more than a mere gala day ceremony ; it is, indeed, historic in the deepest and broadest sense of the word, for in breaking ground at this time for the tremendous addition to our war resources which will rise here in the near future I give the visible proof that the Navy believes that in preparing for a terrible war it is taking the surest means to bring about an early and effective peace. Let there be no fear that rumors of peace, or possibilities of a cessation of the struggle will cause us to

"A PLACE IN THE SUN"

remit one moment our activities on sea and shore, in increasing our armament, in strengthening our fleet, and in every way preparing for the conflict. Not until the peace treaty is actually signed, will we remit one single item from our program of preparation.

Our citizens need have no fear that we will be lulled into any relaxation, or deceived by the mirage of peace which is no peace, into slackening of our activities. Within a month, in almost every shipyard of the country, will be heard the clang of hammers as, plate by plate, there rises on the stocks the lean black shapes of swift and formidable destroyers, the terror of the submarine. Even now, as we stand here, did we but possess some magic telephone, we could hear the thud of a thousand mighty hammers shaping huge white ingots into Navy guns, the whir of a hundred thousand lathes forming the shells that are our answer to autocracy. In our own navy yards, night and day, the work goes on as fast as human energy can drive. There has been sometimes complaint that we, as a nation, do not realize that we are at war, but you may rest assured that the Navy has no such illusion. As we, to-day, start building here the great structures that will house our armorplate manufactory of the future, so everywhere the Navy is preparing to-day for that unknown to-morrow, and will continue toprepare.

It seems hardly necessary for me, after the wonderfully clear and vigorous declaration of our

President, to attempt to define what we are fighting for. I think it is now clear in the minds of every one that we fight not only for our own place, but for the place of every democratic nation, in the sunshine, a clear life-giving sunshine of real democracy, of real government for the people, by the people. Germany began this war for "a. place in the sun." It has conducted it with the idea that it must have the place in the sun and the only place. We believe there can be no place in the sunshine for any nation upon earth underneath the ominous shadow of the Prussian Eagle, no sunshine even for the people of Germany themselves. The historian of the future will note that in fighting for the right to live and grow on the part of our own people, on the part of Belgium, on the part of all the democratic nations of the earth, w^e are fighting also the great battle of the people of the German Empire themselves. Unmoved by possibility of material advantage or conquest, patient amid aggravation and aggression, hoping against hope until the last moment that this madness of the Imperial German Government would pass away, America has, at last, drawn her sword, not only for her own rights, her own existence, but for the very existence of freedom itself upon the earth.

The question even now^ when we are summoning all our young men and employing all our resources in the war "to make the world safe for

"A PLACE IN THE SUN"

democracy" is sometimes asked, 'Why did America enter this war?'^

The one and complete answer and justification is that it demands to keep its place in the sun — not merely for itself, for its place is so firmly fixed that it need never fear that any planet or power will shut out its glow and glory ; but a place in the sun for every other nation, great and small, a chance for all people to govern themselves and work out their own destiny. The broad expanse of our territory from ocean to ocean is blessed with a flood of sunshine which goldens its ripening grain in a million fields; which smiles upon our great cities and busy factories of teeming industry ; which cheers the early risen workman as he hastens to his toil and refreshes the jaded traveler on the mountain top as his eyes linger to catch the last golden gleams as the sun sinks to rest, leaving the world a panorama of color that is almost supernal.

Three years ago, when the wearers of crowns doomed this world to the horrors of war, the German savants and philosophers told us that the time had come when their nation must make for itself a place in the sun, meaning thereby that it was not satisfied with its own proud place of wealth and expansion, but that it coveted the smaller places like Belgium and the larger places like France and wished to monopolize the wealth of those nations which were content with their own corner and had no envy of Germany's growing wealth. For years that efficient people had seen their industries multiply and their commerce reach the furthest shores, bringing back to the fatherland riches beyond the dreams of their forebears. Nobody envied them their place in the sun. Nobody sought to limit their wealth. The seas were free to their large fleets. Every port gave them shelter. Every country beckoned welcome. Their colonies were prosperous and sent their most precious products to enrich those who lived in the palaces on the Rhine. In the western hemisphere, where thousands had made homes, there was pride in what was made in Germany and what the skill of its people sent to American markets found ready purchase. The bulk of the German people were proud of all they had achieved, were happy, contented and saw not the cloud on the horizon that portended the coming storm. But the feudal barons, ambitious to monopolize all the rays of the sun, had long cherished the aim not only to keep their own place in the sun but to take from others their portion of its warmth and light. Militarism, which had been hailed as the handmaid of culture and efficiency, would be satisfied with nothing less than world dominion. The weapons had been forged. Eager hands were ready to use them. Greed for power and land, lust for the possessions of others, the idealization of force, and the vaulting ambition that the Kaiser should be supreme, took possession of the Prussian mind.

"A PLACE IN THE SUN"

In the guise of knowledge, science and industry, zest for mastery of the continents got into the blood of a people who had thrived on eras of peace. This transformation was possible only in a people who for generations had been fed upon militarism as the cure-all, and who had become steeped in the creed —

"The good old rule sufficeth them ; the simple plan, That they should take who have the power And they should keep who can."

The ascent in wealth and the descent in ideals Prussianized much of Germany, and when the General Staff ran its hand over the sword and found its temper as they had hoped, the stunned world gasped as it saw the realization of the threat which the world little recked was expressed in German feudal militarism.

"A place in the sun'' they said was all that Germany wanted, but one bloody day in August, when the sun was shot through with crimson, presaging the sea of blood, the world looked to see that it was not the worthy and laudable aspiration for ''a place in the sun" that animated the German autocracy. It was much more than that. It became plain that nothing would satisfy them less than the place in the sun, and the only place.

It was in the spirit of adopting the sun as if it were ''made in Germany," and denying to all others even the chance to feel its warmth, that Prussianism decreed this awful war. And, while thousands of home-loving and peace-loving Ger- " mans have hated war, the long inculcated spirit of accepting what those "born booted and spurred to ride upon the backs of others" decreed for them, closed their mouths as they were rushed to slaughter and to be slaughtered. Was Goethe right when he said, an hundred years ago, that the Germans were born brutal and civilization would make them savages?

Germany has indeed won a place in the sun and its blistering rays beat down upon it. But it is not a place in that ''greater light" which God made ''to rule the day." The place its military measures have brought is in the sun of suffering and anguish and death. They see a sun darkened by the shadow of blood, of rage and wrong and sin which have followed in the train of a worthy ambition debased by the devouring passion for Napoleonic dominion. The Germany that helped to send Napoleon to St. Helena had a place in the sun — the sun of resistance to vaulting ambition. The Germany of to-day in its government, its standards lowered by long vassalage to the Prussian military creed, has taken the place of the armies of Napoleon. Napoleon wanted the world at his feet. His militaristic successor resolved that the sun should shine upon no land not under his sway. History will repeat itself, and the sun shall again shine upon a world where every nation shall be blessed by its light and heat, and where no Colossus shall so bestride it as to

"A PLACE IN THE SUN"

cast his shadow upon those who look up to catch its glorious illumination.

Three years ago, as the oft repeated national aim of Germany was summed up in the shibboleth "a place in the sun," it seemed a noble ambition, for its scholars and artists and chemists assured their own people and the world that their aim was to discover the secrets of nature, to end waste, to promote efficiency, to make the State the agency for the culture and help of all. What higher aspirations could animate a nation? Under its sway, music and militarism seemed to lie down together, chemistry and big guns to be twin brothers, Kultur and Krupp to be inseparable, and the expansion of trade to be joined to the increase of explosives. The Emperor boasted of the many years of peace under his reign which had made possible a greater and a richer Germany. But the germ of Krupp-Kultur was in the veins of the rulers and many of its people had been poisoned by its virus. You cannot sharpen an ax for a decade without intending to use it. No boy can make the blade of his knife keen without a yearning to see how deep it will cut. No nation can give itself over to militarism, under Prussian feudal war lords, without looking for and permitting the bringing about of the day when these weapons will be used. Prussian love of war, concealed in talk of efficiency and veiled in the demand for "a place in the sun,'' had reached the logical point where it knew it must dazzle the people by victories and dominion and indemnities, or lose its prestige. They had tired of a mere place in the sun. They could not brook that neighbor nations, small and unable to resist their aggressions, should bask in the same sun in which they grew to military masterfulness.