“Every man who does not go to war must work for the Empire, without reward, for a certain time.”—13th Law of Genghis Khan
When the State says to you, Mr. Civilian, “You shall go to war, risking your life, perhaps losing for the glory and protection of your country,” and to your neighbor, “You may remain at home undisturbed; you may strike, profiteer, ignore patriotic duty and responsibility of any kind”; it is manifestly so unjust, inequitable, even indecent, as to demand remedy.
The remedy is simple, the dosage national in application; and not only is the cure assured but the way is opened by the prescription to treatment of attendant ills and the promotion of Peace.
The professional soldier or sailor has little personal concern with this design. He has been educated and prepared for war. He has been paid and maintained for the day when war can no longer be avoided. Gratitude for all that his government has done for him, added to a developed sense of obligation, makes him ready and willing to endanger his life for the protection or aggrandizement of his country. You cannot, by the nature of things, look at it from the same point of view, Mr. Civilian, you who are the prospective doughboy and bluejacket of the next war. So this design becomes your individual concern.
The Army and Navy do not make war. They simply wage war. When the people through their statesmen have failed to avoid war or have deliberately sought it as the way of attaining a national aim or ambition, the Army and Navy wage war. And when modern war comes, the professional soldiers and sailors do not wage war of themselves. They have studied situations, made plans; then they lead and show the way to vast numbers of civilians who swell the war-time Army and Navy.
To be successful and to secure Peace most quickly, a country should be organized industrially and economically. In some measure during the World War certain countries were so organized or were forced by sore necessity to establish a hurried arrangement. We adapted industry partially and took vague steps in the direction of a national economy but fell far short of effectively organizing our people to meet the crisis of war.
The Selective Service Law (the Draft) as operated in our United States during the World War was a forward step, a tremendous improvement over former haphazard methods of assembling an Army and Navy and maintaining replacements, but it resulted in just the inequity I have mentioned. Stevedores, who were paid almost as much per day as soldiers per month and upon whose effective work the welfare and very lives of our soldiers overseas depended, struck for more pay with shorter hours, and they were allowed to “get away with it.” The authorities were gravely disturbed by their disloyalty, they conferred, besought, and fumbled, but took no positive action. And when suggestion was offered that the strikers be enrolled or drafted into military labor battalions, as was done with their fellow countrymen in the trenches, those same authorities developed the jitters.
While the war period was a heyday of money-making and prosperity for the stay-at-homes, it spelled trial, privation, loss of life opportunity, and literally the end of the world for many men drafted arbitrarily for service with the fighting forces.
A shipmate of mine casually remarked to a drab, forlorn-looking old woman of the water front in Liverpool during the war, “I know you will be happy when this terrible war is ended.” “Like ’ell I will,” came the startling rejoinder, “I’ve got a pianola and a victrola and I lives better than ever in me life and I ’opes to God the war never ends.”
After the Armistice came, I talked with sailors, in from civil life for the period of war only (service you will some day be called upon to perform) who came home for discharge to find their property sequestered by the very ones who cheered them as heroes on their departure for the war zone; to find their jobs filled by newcomers despite the solemn promise of employers who proudly displayed their names on honor rolls; to find their faithless sweethearts and wives estranged by the keepers of the home fires who bought Liberty Bonds till it hurt. Kipling was referring to the professional soldier when he wrote:
“For it’s Tommy this an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Chuck ’im out, the brute!’ But it’s Savior of ’is country, when the guns begin to shoot.”
His tribute to the simple soldier man made plain how ephemeral is the cheering and hero worship once the danger has passed. And you may confidently expect the same consideration when you return from soldiering, Mr. Civilian.
The remedy is a national military survey now—before war comes upon you— with each citizen allocated to his military duty, barring only children below a certain age, the helpless, infirm, or very aged, and those who are confined in institutions for various reasons. All citizens so assigned a military duty would be paid upon the basis of comparative service in the Army, with no one receiving higher pay than that of a general officer of the Army, and would be expected to perform in soldier fashion what might be required of him or her without regard for legal or arbitrary working hours and rules—all restrictions being set aside for the “duration.” Why restricted labor hours for those not in the front lines when the soldier and sailor are required to give the clock endurance tests?
Many a citizen would be inducted into the Army only to be told to continue his usual work or occupation, but this he would do under military supervision and for no greater compensation than his fighting compatriot receives. Let us imagine that the authorities find need of a military barracks, a man-of-war, a road, or a bridge. Will they, as formerly, call for bids, assure 10 per cent plus cost as a profit, submit to endless delays and indifferent workmanship? Indeed not! Major General A. Conn Tractor, U. S. Army, will be assigned the duty of executing the work. General Ian Steele, U. S. Army, will be ordered to assemble all required structural materials. General E. M. Ployer, U. S. Army, will command the necessary labor battalions, and Colonel I. N. Spector, Majors, Lieutenants, Sergeants, U. S. Army, will be told off to see that the work is performed in detail and thoroughly.
Major John Tillman, U. S. Army, will operate his farm, he will receive his army pay and all that he produces will be taken and distributed where needed. Mrs. Matron—“Pardon me, I am not yet accustomed to your title,”—Lieutenant Matron will remain in her usual domicile administering it for the benefit of her family at home or on distant service, obeying such war-time food and other regulations as she may receive from the headquarters of the outfit to which she belongs, and under the command, possibly, for the first time in her life, of Captain Matron, U. S. Army.
No taxes. No Liberty Loans. Whatever may be needed for the conduct of the war or the welfare of the country as determined by proper authority will be appropriated.
You ask, “How can the National Government pay an Army and Navy approximating 100,000,000.” Again the answer is simple. Pay them with an issue of war money—make it good-looking paper money—this money to serve as a legal exchange only for the time of war. Upon declaration of war all present money would be declared non-usable under penalty of permanent confiscation. Such restriction would drive it almost immediately to safe deposits or secret hiding places; at any rate it would disappear. When the war has ended, the special war money is to be declared of no value. It will have served its purpose. No one will hoard money that is definitely to become valueless when war is over. It is to be only a recognized medium of exchange to facilitate distribution of food, material, and services.
But what about the banks and insurance companies? Well, what about them? They offer no great difficulty; the solution, again is simple. A bank and insurance holiday for the period of war will take care of that. We had a national bank holiday about March 4, 1933. It not only worked in that crisis but admittedly it was of benefit. No one will pay insurance premiums, no insurance will be paid until the war is over when insurance will resume the exact status it had when the war began. Everyone is just where he stood at the beginning. Just blot out the war period except for— War.
You may argue, "How about upkeep of property; that must be maintained.” It will be maintained as deemed appropriate and required by a special Army Quartermasters’ Corps under orders to make as little repair and upkeep as necessary—only that which involves danger to life or peril to the conduct of the war. "Ah!” you say, there would be chiseling and some slickster in the Quartermaster Corps would make repairs to his shack and wind up with a mansion or the Ritz-Carlton for his own.”
I can’t tell you how to prohibit chiseling, but I can tell you an effective way of controlling it. Perhaps you have never heard of a G.C.M.—trial by General Court-Martial. The chiseler would hear of it and be would learn that a General Court-Martial moves quickly, justly, effectively. It bears slight resemblance to the Hauptmann trial; there are no quibbling attorneys, there is little chance to befog or sidetrack the issue, and punishment is swift and certain.
No profit for the munitions makers. No pianola and victrola for the old woman of the water front, nothing to be made out of the war except—Peace. No little Italian corner grocer with a stock that never involved more than a few hundred dollars of real money—perhaps none—to boast of making $57,000 during the war, all of which he was taking back to Italy. He wouldn’t be interested in the war money for which this design calls.
Would you not, more joyously, come to the defense of your country absorbing the risks and penalties of war if you were assured that the burden would fall equally on each of your fellow citizens?
Can you picture the concentrated, united effort under these conditions to terminate the war quickly and to find— Peace.
If you believe as has been openly charged to the point of a Senate investigation that wars are fomented by munitions and arms makers, do you not think they would be deterred by a design that leaves them assuredly as poor when the war is terminated as at its beginning?
Would not a probable enemy think twice and most seriously before undertaking a war with a people whose primary, almost sole thought is fighting the war with a wholehearted united front to get— Peace?
Call the roll, muster the forces, and for once we would know who is within our borders, why he is here, and we would have on file his fingerprints. Espionage, sabotage, treasonable dealing under cover with the enemy would be tremendously hampered, possibly reduced to a negligible minimum.
What of the aftermath of War?
The Bonus? Yes, if they insist on it. A bonus of, say, $1,000, and a personal individual tax of $1,000. Every citizen a veteran, every veteran a taxpayer. Put it in his one hand, take it out of the other. Reductio ad absurdum, when everyone serves his country.
No war boom because no one has profited except by the earlier advent of Peace. No depression fifteen years later because there has been no boom.
What has the war cost?
Fewer lives because ended more quickly. Are we not to pay, at least, for the raw materials we have requisitioned? Perhaps! But your life is your property. If the State may appropriate your life for its protection, why may it not take for its safety an owner’s lumber, ore, fuel, or produce?
Those things vital to warfare or welfare, which we cannot produce in our own country, we must purchase elsewhere. Add this to the value of the actual raw materials dissipated in the effort to promote peace plus the cost of rehabilitating the injured, maimed, and helpless fighting men and you have the total cost of war.
Fortunately we possess and can produce in our country practically all the materials and foodstuffs required for a prolonged war without endangering our fighting forces or perilously lowering our general standard of living.
More fortunately, we find ourselves with an enormous gold reserve, about one-half of all the world’s gold, which we may reasonably assume, due to these almost self-contained conditions, will be available as a bulwark to our credit when we resume our domestic and foreign commerce.
Economists, bankers, and industrialists will tell you that this design is unsound economically. Granted! There is no economy in war, for war is waste. Ask them which of the combatant nations profited during the World War, either conqueror or conquered. How does our own United States stand on the books as the result of participation in the last great conflict? Wastage there will be in war—wastage of lives, of assets, of resources, but there will be far less if the period of war can be shortened.
Do you fear that this design will lead to the regimentation of our people? Let me assure you that it will for the period of the war and just so we shall be regimented under any other worth-while plan in a war of major importance. War of the present day is a war of the people and by the people. What do you suppose is happening to the population of China, Japan, France, England, Germany, at this very moment?
When war comes, Mr. Civilian, you will be frightened into turning over to the President any authority, any power that promises to bring peace to you again. It is not war-time regimentation you should fear but regimentation of our people after they have lost a war. Win the war and our government has politically justified its form and administration. We can then revert easily and naturally to pre-war conditions for we have found them good and dependable. Lose the war and you will find yourself in a morass of doubt, indecision, and despair—a fertile ground for the machinations of tyrants, despots, and dictators to whom you will fall an easy prey.
When I drew this design for the consideration of my friend, a hardheaded business man, he waved it aside. “Fantastic!” he snorted. “Why, if you were to put that plan into effect there would be no war.” “That,” I replied, “happens to be one of the basic contours of this design.”
For, in common with most military men who have examined carefully this dirty business of war and who have been trained to end it quickly, I am a pacifist—a true pacifist. I do not believe in war as a policy, but I am convinced that the only sure way to avoid it is to be prepared—to be strong—to foreshadow defeat and disaster to an enemy who may seek to impose its will upon us unjustly or to despoil us of our freedom and our heritage. Contrary to the general belief, men who have devoted their lives to the profession of arms crave peace and tranquility, personally and nationally—so much so that when strife, dissension, or war cannot be avoided, they take up the cudgels cheerfully and sail in with zeal to restore—Peace.