One hundred fifty years ago, fifty-two men signed their names to an immortal document, the Declaration of Independence. They were educated men; they were students; they were thinkers; they were believers in law and order. They believed in God and the responsibility of man to man. They believed further a most unusual belief in those days—that all men are created equal, that they had certain inalienable rights that nobody might deny, that all possessed the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These later beliefs were felt by those imbued with the divine right of kings to be outlaw thoughts, and yet, as just stated, these fifty-two men were deep believers in law and order. Indeed, so deeply did they believe in law and order and the necessity for anyone taking liberties with any law to defend his actions and state his case, that they began their immortal document with this sentence:
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind' requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Following that declaration, a long drawn out, weary war tested the endurance and strength of the thirteen struggling colonies as never before or since. When peace was signed seven years later, all for a little while were overjoyed that they had at last become free and independent and had assumed among the nations of the world that free and equal place to which they were entitled. And then came trouble and more dark days; darker and darker they grew. There were thirteen governments living side by side, each with the right to establish custom barriers against its neighbors, each with the right to impose taxation and raise armies, and none with the power to enforce those laws. Possible anarchy threw its terrible shadow across the land. Chaos seemed to loom as the end with final dependence on some monarch as King George III, or worse, and the cause for which they fought would be lost. The wise ones saw that law and order must be provided for, that a government must be evolved which would have authority to make laws and the power to enforce them. Failure meant that anarchy must come and after that, no man knew what.
Ten years after that band of fifty-two men signed the Declaration of Independence, another little band of men gathered as the first had gathered in Philadelphia. They gathered in old Independence Hall and there for four long, hot months they talked and wrote and struggled with God and their consciences, and the history of mankind’s endeavors to achieve freedom under the law. Eventually, they wrote another immortal document—the Constitution of the United States. Following the writing of the Constitution, they had the wisdom and the steadfastness of purpose to put that law into effect and to interpret its words and phrases in a way to make the government strong and powerful, and yet to leave to all that inherent right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Times have changed since 1776 and 1786. Events move with the speed of the lightning that Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia first brought from the clouds down his little kite string. With that speed of movement there have arisen new problems. With new problems there must be developed new methods of meeting them. As a result we have today organization after organization, some wonderful, some simply good, some simply indifferent, and some extremely bad.
There is abroad a great fashion of talking universal brotherhood and internationalism. Let us thank God that there are great men and fine women taking the lead in teaching nationalism, in teaching that this country has grown great because it has been intensely national. It has for a century and a half avoided entangling alliances. Curiously enough, out of what has been felt to be the most intensely peaceful eight years of our national history there grew the Monroe Doctrine, essentially a doctrine of nationalism. It went so far as to say that not only was the United States to be free from encroachment but that every other government on the American continent should be free from foreign control if it lay within the power of the United States to guarantee that freedom.
All the history of mankind teaches nationalism as against internationalism. Internationalism in intercourse for social and business purposes is to be encouraged to the greatest possible extent, but an internationalism that says that any foreign power may interfere in the affairs of our government inside its own borders cannot be tolerated. If tolerated, we cease to be a free people and if such an evil should come we will that day have started over the brink of ruin.
Every development of mankind that has made for present day civilization has come through vigorous, proud nationalism of some people within the last four or five thousand years, whether it is the law and organization of Rome, the art and science of Greece, the writing and the alphabet of the Phoenicians and Chaldeans, the religion of our Bible by the Hebrews, or the rights of man as developed by the Anglo-Saxons of the Baltic Sea, the British Isles, and finally by Americans. At no time nor anywhere did a polyglot people with a babel of tongues do other than drag the nation so cursed down to the level of the lowest. It was true of Greece and it was true of Rome. It was true of the Jews, the Babylonians, and the Phoenicians. The United States is a beacon light to all the world and has done more to speed up the development of civilization than anything else in all history, because it was brought forth as a closely knit nation, one in which all spoke the same language, had the same ideas of morality and religion, the same enemies and the same goal for the future.
It is a thing for which in the words of Patrick Henry we can thank Almighty God that there are numerous patriotic organizations standing resolutely for a nationalism that will open its doors only to those foreigners that want to become Americans—for a nationalism that will open its doors to foreigners hereafter only in such numbers as they can be taught the laws, the ideals, and the aims of America. With 110,000,000 we could, if necessary, get along without another immigrant and still go on to greater and greater things as the years go by. One hundred ten million people give ample diversification of physical being, intelligence, and all other things needed to make the nation continue its marvelous development.
The subject, “Law and Order or?” has been chosen for the purpose of discussing some of the dangers that face our nation through the activities of widely scattered groups claiming various ideals.
No matter in what other ways they may differ the pacifist, and the communist, the misguided optimist, and the Red Soviet of Russia have one thing in common; they are all trying to disarm America. Whatever their professions or intentions, the result would be the same. America disarmed would become the prey of the greedy, the brutal, and the misguided, both from within our own borders and from without. Calm reflection must convince every sane person that disarmament means national oblivion and national disgrace, and perhaps the blackest, most murderous page in all history. Today, Soviet Russia holds that frightful distinction.
The communist is international. He is likewise interracial. The communists of Russia, realizing that communism is international, know that unless they can bring other countries into the ranks of the Soviet, sooner or later Russian communism will die as all other attempts at communism have perished in the past.
There are really very few Americans in favor of disarmament, or an America that is weak militarily. These few, however, are very active and well financed. It is a grave mistake to ignore or even to underestimate their power for evil. The world’s history is filled with stories of rule and ruin brought about by a very active minority, dealing with a careless, self-satisfied, ignorant, or unorganized majority. Russia is an example of the terrible fate that has befallen many a nation through allowing an active radical minority to seize complete control.
In attacking national defense, they first centered on three new services because like all new weapons or services these three have been widely advertised and often in a very unjust manner even by well-meaning but uninformed persons. Those three services are chemical warfare, aviation, and submarines. Of the three, chemical warfare, or poison gas, because of its extreme newness and appeal to the imagination, has been seized upon by all classes of disarmament advocates as the Verdun that must first be destroyed. Notwithstanding the evidence is conclusive beyond any shadow of doubt that war gases are the most humane, the cheapest and the most effective means of national defense, the attempt is being brazenly pushed to condemn these gases as barbarous and their use as unfair.
Gas warfare is not barbarous compared with other methods of waging war. The official American medical records of the World War show that barely two out of each hundred gassed died, while twenty-five out of every hundred struck with shells, bullets, bayonets, and bombs died. What do those figures mean? They mean that if the 70,552 American boys who were admitted to hospitals in the World War suffering from chemicals (gas) had been struck by shells, bullets, bayonets, and bombs, 16,455 more American boys would be buried in “Flanders fields where the poppies grow.”
And that isn’t all. Of those who would have come home; had bullets, bayonets, and bombs been used, instead of gas, an additional 3,161 would be totally or partially blinded, or crippled by stiff joints or missing hands, feet, or limbs. Thus, the mothers, sisters, sweethearts of 19,616 boys who served overseas can thank God that the Germans used gas.
While many people are misled and many are too thoughtless or too indifferent to try to learn the truth, the leaders in this disarmament movement know better, or are ignorant because they avoid the truth.
The whole Pacifist-Radical-Communist movement in America is foreign in its conception, if not actually under foreign influences, direction and control. For instance, according to the official history of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, that organization was started by two foreign women, Mrs. Pethwick Lawrence of England and Frau Rosika Schwimmer of Hungary, who came over here in the fall of 1914 and lectured widely in the United States. Immediately upon the completion of the lecture tour a conference was called in Washington. A larger conference was held February 27, 1915, followed in July of that year by a committee of forty-seven going to Europe and starting an international pacifist organization.
Early in 1921, several pacifist organizations started to develop propaganda for the Washington Arms Conference called November 12, 1921. Under date of August 26, 1921, the Women’s Committee for World Disarmament sent out a three page mimeographed bulletin in which this sentence is used:
We must insist on disarmament, not limitation of armaments as the main issue.
The irrationalism of many of these attacks on national defense is well illustrated by statements made in a congressional hearing of January 11, 1921, where near the bottom of-page 45 of the hearings, the following four remarkable statements are found:
If it is possible by international agreement, as we know it is possible, to reduce armaments fifty per cent, it is possible by agreements to reduce them 100 per cent.
The carrying of weapons by individuals is now quite generally regarded as a menace and in most communities is classed as a felony or crime. Gun toting” this is called in Chicago, where I come from, and drastic laws are enforced to prohibit it. Gun toting is just as dangerous and reckless for a nation as it is for an individual.
The above statements are what Abraham Lincoln so beautifully termed “counterfeit logic.” The idea conveyed there is that the United States Army and Navy is on a par with the crooks, villains, and murderers of Chicago who carry guns, and that they are the same menace to the nation that those crooks and murderers are to Chicago. Yet, precisely the reverse is true. The police of Chicago are fully armed. Nothing is said against the police. The police are there to protect the innocent from the murderers and gun toters. The Army and Navy of the United States is to protect the citizens of the United States from those criminals, communists, or others, who would overthrow the government through revolution within and set up a murderous Soviet, as well as to defend it from aggression from foreign foes. In ending the statement five didactic sentences were used. The fourth one reads: “Disarmament, like charity, must begin at home.” Here again we have the same proposition put forth by other members of the committee of seven women appearing before the military committee, that the United States should disarm as an example. China has been disarmed for 2,000 years and is a beautiful example. Would those seven women have us in condition to be overrun by other powers of the world as China is now overrun?
Such preaching is so dangerous that it is believed every American should be acquainted with the result if such preaching should prevail. To disarm, which means to disband all military forces, would be just as deadly to the national government as the disbanding of all police forces would be to our cities. In fact, it would be far worse, as our big cities would organize vigilance committees to take over and handle the police work. You can’t organize armies and navies over night as you can vigilance committees—it takes years.
What would take place in any great city if the police force became destroyed, was indicated in Boston during the policemen’s strike in 1920. The police had not been on strike more than a few hours until stores and buildings were being broken into, men and women were being assaulted, stores robbed, and general disorder and chaos getting under way. Any nation, if there were no military organizations, would be subject to the same terrors, only a hundred times worse, if a civil communist revolution were started and there were no military to take up the defense. It must never be forgotten that a civil communist revolution is what Russia is preaching today and what the American people must accordingly be prepared to prevent.
In a bulletin issued by the National Council for the Prevention of War January 7, 1922, there occur three exceedingly important sentences:
Human nature is not equal to the outlawry of war in one step, but it is equal to its outlawry piecemeal…If war came, it is conceivable that these efforts to limit its horrors might prove unavailing. A struggle in which existence is at stake admits of no rules that would prevent sure victory.
The patriot reading the above will ask himself why he should run the chance of giving any enemy an opportunity for sure victory. He will also ask himself why does the pacifist urge disarmament when he, himself, feels that in a struggle in which existence is at stake there will be “no rules that will prevent sure victory.” What would happen to our country if the advice of such people were taken?
Where do these pacifists link up with the communists? Let us see. The National Council for the Prevention of War and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom have urged the recognition of Soviet Russia, a government that is endeavoring to overthrow the government of the United States by force and violence. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom protested against the deportation and exile of “reds,” who advocate the overthrow of all existing civilized nations by force and violence. According to their own official history they believe that “free access shall be given to raw materials”; in other words, we should turn over our farmlands, our forests, our mines, to foreigners on the same terms that we work them ourselves.
Among resolutions adopted by the Women’s International League is this: “The initiation and support of laws looking to the abolition of property privileges.” Mothers and fathers and patriotic Americans everywhere! Do you know what that means? If you abolish property privileges, you abolish civilization. Man made no progress whatever in civilization until he was assured that in some measure at least the fruits of his labor would go to his widow and his orphans. Without that incentive there would be no civilization. Further, that idea is the end and aim of communism—-the communism of Soviet Russia—the communism of the Third Internationale that is plotting day and night to not only overthrow the government of the United States but other civilizations and countries of the world by force and violence and to impose on those civilizations the black, murderous page of history such as has been imposed on Russia.
And these are the people who are trying to write our laws, teach our children, and tell us to be as unprepared as China, knowing full well that if we are as unprepared to defend ourselves as China, we will be controlled as China is controlled.
References have been made to Russia. The various pacifist organizations discussed have nothing but kind words for Soviet Russia though frequently they bitterly arraign the United States. Soviet Russia is the one modern existing government that claims to be communist—a government where all property is owned by the state. There are of necessity a few recent exceptions. Moreover, it is common knowledge throughout the world that Soviet Russia has been, and is now, sending her agents and written propaganda to all of the civilized countries of the world. Those agents and that propaganda aim at the overthrow of all existing governments—(“capitalistic governments” they call them), and establishing in those countries, including the United States, Soviet Republics. They urge the abolition of the Army and the uprising of the workers. There are just two methods by which they hope to achieve the overthrow of the present governments.
The first method is to spread communism among the labor organizations and at the same time to get communist agitators as leaders in control of labor. The next step is to call a general strike, paralyze transportation, inaugurate an era of starvation in cities, then seize arsenals, banks, commercial houses, police forces, and set up Soviet republics with their radical leaders in command. The next step, of course, is the murder of every independent man and many of the independent women, who they feel are a danger to the institution of Soviet communism.
The second method by which they expect to overthrow governments is to spread treason in the military and naval services, so that in case of a foreign war, the Army and Navy can be induced to turn traitor, as was the case with Russia in the World War. The soldiers and sailors are expected to murder their officers, permitting the radical communists in the ranks to assume leadership. From that time on, the process would be as above mentioned,—that is, the seizure of arsenals and transportation, then murder, chaos, starvation. All of this sounds brutal. One might even think the writer was having a nightmare, if it were not that this is exactly what transpired in Russia and Hungary.