*Debate in New York, March 15, 1925.
IN A MESSAGE to Congress, George Washington, President of the United States, said:
To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.
There is a rank due the United States among nations which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.
The changing conditions of social life have not changed for us the essential truth of that great man’s message to his fellow countrymen, for new conditions have not altered the nature of man. The litany of the church prays, “From the violence of our enemies, Good Lord, deliver us.” But, God helps those who help themselves, and we must use our own strength and our own efforts as well as rely upon the Lord. It is vain to hope that others will exert themselves in our behalf if we ourselves remain passive. If some strong nation seeks advantage over us by war, new international law for peace will not aid much, for among those who should enforce the law will be the very ones who hope to gain by assailing us.
It is contended that the armed forces of the United States are necessary to its industrial security. It is proposed, therefore, to indicate, first, what our industrial position is with regard to the rest of the world, and how others look at it and at ourselves; and secondly, how we may preserve in safety our present favorable economic situation. We all want peace with security and the enjoyment of the fruits of our labor: as the Declaration of Independence puts it, we are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. As individuals, we expect that for ourselves, and as a nation, we must not be seduced into accepting less for the country. We do not know what fortune our pursuit of happiness will bring to each one of us, but assuredly, we need liberty for that pursuit. As individuals, we now have liberty under protection of the law, which itself is backed by the police, by the courts, and by the jails, and, as a nation, we shall have liberty—economic liberty—only under the protection of our own strength. Liberty and security are not always compatible with peace. For this great nation of ours, its security requires armies and navies to protect its coasts from bombardment and our soil from invasion; and, moreover, we must preserve ability to protect our national economic policies from annulment and our standards of living from interference by envious nations. The essential object of this discussion is that we must maintain armed force in order to retain freedom in our business relations with the rest of the world without dictation from nations wielding greater force, perhaps without even-handed justice.
As for our position in the international world, our first forefathers came here three centuries ago, and after a few years of hardship while establishing their footing, they and their descendants to this day have lived in ease which other countries do not enjoy. As we all know, all men are supported either directly or indirectly from the products of the soil. Here, abundance of land has made life less toilsome than for most communities. All of the people of Europe have sent forth their emigrants, drawn here by our prosperity consequent upon unoccupied land.
Now, the western frontier of two generations ago no longer exists and new land is less readily secured. Instinctively, we feel that all of the land now occupied will be needed by ourselves for our children; and for long, the immigration laws have been increasing in stringency in deference to this instinctive impulse. Recently our thought has passed from instinct to reason, and we are resolved to hold this land of ours for ourselves; or at least, if admitting others, only to do so upon our own restrictive terms. But, this decision puts us in conflict with the wishes and policies of other nations, who, urged by poverty and by pressure of population, wish to send their sons to share our prosperity, even against our will. If we yield to those whose policy is to maintain an unrestricted birth rate and export their surplus population, then will the newcomers improve their opportunities at the expense of those now here. We see all employers individually wishing to secure cheap labor. Every housewife wishes her work shared and reduced by low-priced help. For three centuries, while land was still plentiful, each influx of newcomers increased the welfare of those already here. That day has passed, and now the newcomers benefit themselves, but not the general public. Although all employers, from the great corporation to the mistress of the household, individually still seek the lowest priced help, collectively, the people of the country have decided that it is better for the nation to preserve its present high wages and machine industries, even in household work, rather than lower our national standards of living by admitting freely all would-be immigrants. Henceforward, this final decision as to our economic policy must be maintained against the efforts of others, jealous of our prosperity, and anxious to share it, even to our detriment.
For this reason, as it seems to me, we need protection against the violence of others; and the richer we are, the more we need to take measures of security. There are many well-meaning people among us, probably more in this country than elsewhere, who believe that safety may be reached through non-resistance and that war (that is, the application of organized force by one state against another) can be done away with by some form of agreement. It is the view which ignores history, and every true American should review the steps by which the national temperament of our people has developed along lines which deceive us in our international outlook, and perhaps may involve us in loss, even if not in injury. It is our international weakness that temperamentally as a people, we do not realize that other nations lack our complacent, benevolent altruism, and are ready to impose upon us rather than to reciprocate our cooperative spirit. Their behavior toward us is correct only when it must be so.
To understand our temperamental misconception of foreign feeling toward us, we must recollect that the original settlers, coming here to an unoccupied country, were, in large measure, cut off from the traditions and social outlook of crowded Europe, with its jealousies of neighbors and of racial and competing economic groups. Owing to our abundance of land, the life struggle here has been to subdue more unoccupied land; whereas, in Europe, where land is scarcer, men could obtain that ease and comfort which goes with land, chiefly by dispossessing some present owner. Europeans fought their neighbors; we fought the wilderness in alliance with our neighbors, and so developed a rule and an expectation of mutual helpfulness. Today, this country has been brought into economic neighborhood with the rest of the world, without our realizing that what we call a neighborly spirit (i.e., a willingness to cooperate without reward) does not exist in international affairs. That exemption from bitter economic struggle with our fellow citizens, which has made us the richest nation, has also made us credulous and unduly trustful of the professed good will of other peoples who do not reciprocate our friendly disposition.
Generosity and altruism have become with us a national trait, but we are wrong to look for it in other nations. Existence for them has been too strenuous for its development. Our recent great development of manufacturing power has thrown us into the midst of the world struggle of economic rivalry, where we ask little but the right to trade freely and prosper by the exchange of our industrial products. But, owing to our previous isolation in world policies, we are without an inherited national foreign policy for our guidance, such as other nations have. We seem about to pay a high price for instructive experience. Every man in this democracy of ours ought to be acquainted with the general foreign policy which his government is putting forward; but, unfortunately for that, most people are absorbed in the management of their personal affairs. Nevertheless, they will not trust foreign matters to the members of the government whose duty it is to represent the people in external relations. The government should not yield as readily as it sometimes does to the uninformed clamor of noisy minorities who feel no responsibility for the views they urge, and will go unblamed if their counsel, being followed, brings disaster.
Let us take a moment to consider on what our high prosperity must rest in the future. We have a continent with highly varied products of the soil and of the mine, so that we need little from abroad. Our ancestors were almost entirely self-sustaining, but we are less so. We have developed machine industries to a high degree and consume about 90 per cent of our products among ourselves and export the rest in exchange for foreign goods. A considerable part of these exports bring us in return things which are essential to our industrial life, but which are not found within our territory. For example, two of these substances are manganese for the steel works and nitrates for the miners and for the chemical industries which are the foundation of so many others. The whole organization of our national business life and the consequent prosperity of every class of our population rests upon free traffic across the seas in peace and in war, whether we are neutral or whether we are belligerent. With the most complex system of trade and exchange, growing more complex every decade, this country is perilously situated if it is unable fully to protect and control the freedom of traffic on which its prosperity rests. It is not enough to ward our shores from invasion nor for our Navy to grant physical protection to our trade and commerce. Beyond that, we must retain economic freedom to buy and sell as we please. At the present time, cheap transportation brings all the corners of the globe together and local industries depend on supplies from half around the world. The master of transportation controls the business of all his customers. We see that readily enough in our personal affairs. Think what a tie-up in the New York subway means to passengers. It may be the loss of half a day. It is just so in international business. Hostile foreign economic pressure on American commerce through shipping can deeply injure our fragile, complicated system of industrial and social life. At present, this country lacks proper control of her foreign communications. England owns half the shipping of the world, and by that ownership and her system of finance, she influences the industries of all countries. England is our good friend and long may she remain so; but her interests are not identical with ours and her government very properly works for English interests and is not misled by any glittering ideas of international brotherhood. We find brotherhood in the joint pursuit of gain, but it is often forgotten in the subsequent division of profits. Europe, just now, is thinking much of sharing our profits, and when, at last, we realize that, we shall not feel so brotherly. England controls the commerce of the world, but is, above all, a European power. Our interests in Europe are less than England’s and our economic necessities in the way of raw materials lie to the south and west of us. To keep an unshakeable hold on our traffic in those directions, independent of rival great manufacturing nations, we need a great merchant fleet, owned and managed in this country, so that, as a whole, our own people may control our internal and external transportation for the national benefit without danger of interference from the opposing interests of foreign powers. The men of the western part of our country do not yet understand that their own livelihood and local industries are closely connected with foreign trade, and, unfortunately, they regard shipping as something to be left for rich corporations to play with. It is a short-sighted view. A system of shipping under the national flag is as much a public utility as a railway or a highway. An American merchant fleet is necessary in time of peace to enhance our economic prosperity and to preserve the high standards of living of the great body of our people. Should war break out, we being neutral, we should still need such a fleet, for belligerents will pay high rates for war service and so draw off the world’s supply of ships leaving for the maintenance of the business of this country only so many as we have provided for ourselves in time of peace.
So far the effort has been to show that our national prosperity is based on a growing measure of foreign trade whose control it is essential for us to maintain. Now let us consider how best we may make that control secure. It will not be done by trusting rivals nor international groups. In times past, the great industrial and transporting nations needed navies to confer security upon their ocean transportation, and armies to secure and even to extend their territorial peace.
Organized force has always been the instrument of order and civilization. We must not let the frequent cases of violence and of the abuse of force blind us to this great truth. We must remember that it is our army which has made and preserved us a nation.
But we are more particularly occupied with the sea army, as the French call the navy, rather than with the land army. In general, their purposes are similar; that is, to provide a shield behind which the life of the nation may be carried on, unmolested by rival powers.
In all times, navies have been maintained by strong governments primarily to secure the unhindered movements of trade. Of course, the corollary of this proposition is that in war a navy also strives to break up the commercial and military traffic of its enemy, as that is one way of rendering him incapable of continuing the war; for the movement of men and goods forms the basis of war, just as it forms the basis of peaceful productive industry and prosperity.
In the present stage of international relations, we cannot trust ourselves unarmed against the competition of our commercial rivals. Open hostilities are not always necessary to gain economic advantage over this country. There is much business in international affairs. Our riches and our most complex industrial organization put us in economic danger from other nations, and we should be prepared for war which is most likely to come to us in resisting what we regard as an attempt to take unfair economic advantage of this rich people. If we are evidently well prepared for war, our rivals will be less likely to encroach upon our economic freedom.
Last fall at Geneva it was sought to define aggressive war, hoping thereby to forbid all war, but no satisfactory agreement could be reached upon a formula. But, against this country, an aggressive attack is most likely to take an economic form. All the world is now crying out to us, “Give: Relinquish debts: Permit immigration.” Our war, if it comes, will probably be our defense against some such economic attack, to meet which the whole industry of the people needs armed protection just as much as a warehouse needs an armed watchman.
There are many among us who try to persuade their fellow countrymen that it is best to secure ourselves against attack by other means than armed force; but, unfortunately, it is not possible. Let us see what such persons offer us as a substitute for the armed forces which now guard our economic welfare.
At the Women’s Conference last January in Washington, it was urged that love should be relied upon; that children should be trained to non-resistance, and that such a national attitude on our part would engender a forbearing generosity in our opponent. It is a dangerous experiment. We do not see such a spirit prevailing among individuals. How can we expect to find it among the groups of men who make up states and act collectively for the national benefit? Those are wrong who assert that men or nations fight for sport, as they play ball. They fight for gain, or in defense of interests, and to stop war we must deprive men of the desire to gain either wealth or power.
Again, there are believers in internationalism, in a socialism of nations. This creed has not justified itself as a means of maintaining a high standard of living among individuals. A man labors best when he works for himself, and so does a nation.
There is a very vocal class of people who assert that both peace and security can be reached through treaties and agreements, through a League of Nations and through a League Court. In short, they think that international law can replace war, just as municipal law is said to have done away with private violence; but it is the policeman who has put an end to private violence—the law always forbade it.
It is even affirmed that international law, unsupported by force may act as a super-government, and that the unified public opinion of all peoples may become the ultimate authority of the world. It would be a dull and entirely unprogressive world if no one were permitted to differ with his neighbor. What would our pacifists have to fight? As there are now different public opinions in different regions within this country, how can we attain worldwide unity of thought? The church tried that with the Inquisition and attained only a permanent schism. As for the binding force of treaties, agreements which are fitting at one time are unsuited to the next generation. We wear out treaties just as we wear out clothes. No nation feeling strong enough to break it has ever submitted to the terms of a treaty after its conditions have become onerous.
In this country there is an unwarranted confidence in the bare written word of the law. Men quite forget that law is no more than a guide for the application of force. Unless force is at hand, there is no governance. When our ancestors gave up the personal exercise of force in support of their rights, they did not renounce the use of force; they merely transferred its exercise from their own hands to those of the state. Public opinion alone can never become the ultimate authority to either private or international relations, for it is effective only when it is apparent that the public is ready to support it by force. Pascal said that the majority rules because it has more reason, but he was in error; the majority rules because it has more force.
It is alleged that the constructive energies of society may be expected to prevent future wars; that the intelligence of the mass of individuals and the moral sense of the community may maintain peace. We shall readily admit that a community in which all hold the same views cannot fall into a state of war, for no one thinks war desirable in itself. War is only the expression of irreconcilable divergence of opinion as to the international distribution of the good things of the world, and is an effort to amend them. The present methods of settling international dissensions by diplomacy and war cannot be replaced by a league of nations and its permanent court, handing out decisions. If we follow such a dream we shall fall. International law is not law at all, although most lawyers talk as if it were. Law is a rule of conduct enforced by a power so great that resistance is futile. If favorable public opinion is lacking, the executive neglects to enforce the law and individuals break it at pleasure.
As an operative basis for the so-called international law of war, the belligerents take the practice of the last war, and noting changes in economic and political conditions, they introduce such modifications of the previous custom as will put the enemy at the greatest disadvantage without annoying important neutrals so much as to drive them into war. When conducting a war, if a government does not fear the power of neutrals, it could not yield so far to idealism as to risk losing the war by adherence to a rule that the neutral government neglects to make respected. Other nations are more given to trespass than we realize. If such go to war between themselves it will be nothing else than our own fighting strength and readiness for war which will confer on our government the ability to remain neutral without serious loss to our business prosperity. There is no greater menace to the peace of the world than for this richest country to be unarmed and so tempt the cupidity of the world.
As a distinguished historian says in substance, some of the greatest victories of a navy are the battles it has never fought, meaning that its evident strength has forbidden the opponent to contemplate war. But, continuing as to the efficacy of the league, it lacks the power of the purse to employ force to execute its mandates; it is therefore no more than a convenient debating society. The league promotes cooperation in small matters, but without money to pay for an army of its own it cannot crush an incipient conflict between great powers. Although the league began as a political instrument, it now appears that it has an economic aspect also, which enables its great manufacturing members to profit from it. The products of the various nations differ very much; none are wholly self-supporting and self-sustaining. All need the manufactures of a few great powers whose machine industries and systems of transportation form the economic club which drives the smaller nations into the league, and the average voter is glad to have his country enter on account of the deceitful bait of political equality within the league. One of the most important economic features of the league is its control of munitions. Only a few manufacturing nations make the arms and supplies necessary to wage successful war. Every small nation must become an economic client of one of the manufacturing states in order to be able to guard its political sovereignty in disputes with neighbors. At present, the great manufacturing nations of the league do not have full control of the smaller ones, because the United States is outside the league and can deliver munitions without reference to the league.
If our representatives go to Geneva and agree with the other principal states as to the terms on which arms may be furnished to the non-manufacturing nations, it will establish three or four countries in a position to dominate the rest of the world. It might thus happen that the United States might be driven to choose between acquiescence in the policies of Europe toward non-Europe, and a war to release some weak country from the enthrallment of a munitions agreement. Any munitions treaty would go far to convert the League of Nations into a league of manufacturing nations, who, among themselves, would not necessarily be harmonized in their interests, so that really important economic differences would be solved as hitherto, either by submission of the weaker power or by war. The League of Nations is not working as its founders hoped, for it cannot secure uniformity of interest and of purpose among sovereign states. Even the smallest of the units of the league are important enough to have friends among the greater powers and these latter the league cannot coerce. Unless there is unanimity among the great powers, the league cannot constrain a recalcitrant member. Such unanimity has not yet been forthcoming, except that toward us there is a certain unanimity in feeling as a debtor usually does toward the holder of his overdue mortgage. In the present state of the world there is too much difference in industry and civilization between nation and nation to permit the attainment of harmony by coercion jointly exercised by the great powers.
It has been suggested that through the league arrangements might be made for equality of trade opportunities, for tariff accommodations, and for a general balance or handicapping of the natural economic advantage of one nation over another.
But, this requires that some nations should yield their inherent favorable position for the sake of helping others. Unhappily, however, nations are not yet altruistic, but are wholly selfish, even more so than persons. It is this great difference in the economic situation between states which prevents the public opinion of the world from being harmonized and standardized. Thus, the agreements apparently reached by the league will frequently be no more than plays to the gallery, because the responsible national governments will refuse to limit their freedom to promote the welfare of their own peoples as seems best.
As for the last substitute for armed force, the Permanent Court of Justice of the League, that also may prove a snare to us. The legal methods of courts are founded on the assumption that law is a rule of reason and on that assumption courts seek the truth by impartial investigation and by logical methods and then announce the proper rule to apply. But, if the litigants and the court permit emotions to appear, the legal methods of courts are unsuitable and cannot give satisfactory solutions to matters in dispute. Such situations arise when the interests of large bodies of people are involved, for then their emotions are invariably aroused, and legal methods should be abandoned for diplomacy. Diplomacy is the long developed way of dealing with subjects that excite national emotions. Legislatures and executives are the political departments of governments fitted to deal with emotion-stirring affairs, for of such is politics made up. Moreover, the League Court has no established and recognized system of law to apply. There is now a proposition to draft such a code, but it is difficult to be as successful as with a code of municipal law. National laws are rules made to apply to conditions which experience has demonstrated as existing and as needing regulation. But, in international relations we do not foresee the future and cannot prepare today a code suitable for unforeseen conditions. Law and court decisions are largely matters of precedent where vested interests of all sorts enjoy preferential status. By its nature, a court cannot be progressive—it must be conservative. Legislatures, on the contrary, are the progressive element in government. Thus, a court dealing with world affairs by strictly legal methods will lack flexibility to meet new conditions as they arise, and so an international court cannot be greatly serviceable unless it has also the powers of a world legislature. Such authority no one is proposing to entrust to any judiciary body. No doubt, the League Court offers a satisfactory way of dealing with minor international disputes, but it is in great measure superfluous, for already there is the Hague Arbitral Court. Besides the intrinsic objection to authorizing a court to deal by legal methods with political and emotional subjects, there is another. We cannot foresee the line of development of a court composed of men of many nationalities, trained in different systems of law and influenced by all manner of sub-conscious national and racial prejudices. As for this country’s joining the League Court, I say again, the world is jealous of our riches; we cannot afford to agree in advance to submit, we know not what questions, either to the league or to the court. We cannot trust the impartiality of either.
So we come back to the readiness of the Army and Navy to guard the national prosperity and welfare as an indispensable basis for their endurance. This is not a militaristic view, for militarism arises from a discontented and envious national spirit. Such a spirit our people do not have. We arm only for industrial and territorial security, not for aggression.
It has been shown, it is hoped, that it is necessary for our people to decide on a military policy for the national defense, not only in war, but also that our national industrial life may be secured from the threat of economic hostilities. It is repeated, our riches undefended challenge the cupidity of the world.
As for the Army, it will suffice to say that as an insurance against war, it should be large enough to be a sufficient nucleus for quickly developing the military strength of the nation should it unfortunately become involved in war. The General Staff estimates that at present the Regular Army is about half as big as it should be to achieve this end.
As for the Navy, it is our first line of defense to give security to the external policies of the United States in regard to commerce and free intercourse with the rest of the world. At the close of the late war the government appreciated this, and started a large ship-building program, but we have since agreed by treaty to limit its size and effectiveness. It is not generally understood how much we yielded in that treaty to other less wealthy powers who wished to reduce our strength that theirs might become relatively greater.
As it was the United States which called the conference, in order to obtain an ostensible success, the United States had to accept terms suggested by the other powers whose financial situation was more onerous than ours.
Certain great powers are now basing their future position in the world on maritime strength, including therein both naval and commercial fleets. These countries are jealous of the growing international and economic strength of the United States. There is no way for this country to continue in industrial security except to maintain all components of our Navy at the treaty ratio already established for battleships. Further agreements will probably serve to ensnare us. We are new and not clever at international diplomacy.
Our prosperity rests on free world communications in peace and war. We should not further limit our ability to protect those communications and lines of ocean traffic. As the poet says: “To be weak is miserable,” and the world is more likely to be miserable if this country chooses to be weak. As long as our present national spirit lasts, our strength will not be used to the hurt of other nations which do not attack us.