A SQUARE DEAL FOR THE MEN AT THE FRONT
December 25, 1918
We should show our respect for the men at the front by more than mere adulation. They are the Americans who have done most and suffered most for this country. It was announced in the press that in many cases they and the families they have left behind have not for months received their full pay. This is an outrage. All civil officials are paid. The Secretary of War is paid, and he ought not to touch a dollar of his salary and no high official should touch a dollar of his salary until the enlisted men and junior officers are paid every cent that is owing to them, and this payment should be prompt. There is literally no excuse for even so much as three days’ delay in the payment.
Moreover, these men, at great cost to themselves in paying everything including, in fifty or sixty thousand cases, their lives, have gone to the front at a wage from one half to one fifth as great as that their companions who stayed behind have received during the same period. They enlisted to do a specific job. They made the sacrifice in order to do that job. We on our side should see that just as soon as the job is done the men are taken home, allowed to leave the army, and begin earning their livelihood and take care of the wives and children that the married ones among them have left behind.
Recently in the public press there have appeared various artless and chatty statements from the State, War, and Navy departments that our men might be kept in Europe to do general police work and might not be brought back here until the summer of 1920. There are three types of soldiers on the other side. There are the Regular Army men, who have entered the Regular Army as a profession, and to whom it is a matter of indifference whether they stay in Europe, come back here, go to the Philippines, or do anything else. That is a small proportion of our force on the other side. The bulk are divided between volunteers, who enlisted in the National Guard or sometimes in the regular regiments to fight this war through, and the drafted men who were put into the army under a law designed to meet this war and this war only. Not one in ten of the volunteers would have dreamed of volunteering to do police work in European squabbles. Not ten Congressmen would have voted for the Draft Law if it was to force selective men to do police duty after the war was over. All these men went in to fight this war through to a finish and then to come home. It is not a square deal to follow any other course as regards them. The minute that peace comes every American soldier on the other side should be brought home as speedily as possible save, of course, the regulars who make the Regular Army their life profession, and any other man who chose to volunteer to go over, or who can with entire propriety be used for gathering up the loose ends. The American fighting man at the front has given this country a square deal during the war. Now let the country give him a square deal by letting him get out of the army and go to his home as soon as the war is finished. The Red Cross has done wonderful work in taking care of the dependents of these men pending settlement by the Government, but the Government should not be content to rely on any outside organization to make up its own shortcomings.
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS[2]
January 13, 1919
It is, of course, a serious misfortune that our people are not getting a clear idea of what is happening on the other side. For the moment the point as to which we are foggy is the League of Nations. We all of us earnestly desire such a league, only we wish to be sure that it will help and not hinder the cause of world peace and justice. There is not a young man in this country who has fought, or an old man who has seen those dear to him fight, who does not wish to minimize the chance of future war. But there is not a man of sense who does not know that in any such movement if too much is attempted the result is either failure or worse than failure.
The trouble with Mr. Wilson’s utterances, so far as they are reported, and the utterances of acquiescence in them by European statesmen, is that they are still absolutely in the stage of rhetoric precisely like the “fourteen points.” Some of the fourteen points will probably have to be construed as having a mischievous significance, a smaller number might be construed as being harmless, and one or two even as beneficial, but nobody knows what Mr. Wilson really means by them, and so all talk of adopting them as basis for a peace or a league is nonsense and, if the talker is intelligent, it is insincere nonsense to boot. So Mr. Wilson’s recent utterances give us absolutely no clue as to whether he really intends that at this moment we shall admit Germany, Russia,—with which, incidentally, we are still waging war,—Turkey, China, and Mexico into the League on full equality with ourselves. Mr. Taft has recently defined the purposes of the League and the limitations under which it would act, in a way that enables most of us to say we very heartily agree in principle with his theory and can, without doubt, come to an agreement on specific details.
Would it not be well to begin with the League which we actually have in existence, the League of the Allies who have fought through this great war? Let us at the peace table see that real justice is done as among these Allies, and that while the sternest reparation is demanded from our foes for such horrors as those committed in Belgium, Northern France, Armenia, and the sinking of the Lusitania, nothing should be done in the spirit of mere vengeance. Then let us agree to extend the privileges of the League, as rapidly as their conduct warrants it, to other nations, doubtless discriminating between those who would have a guiding part in the League and the weak nations who would be entitled to the privileges of membership, but who would not be entitled to a guiding voice in the councils. Let each nation reserve to itself and for its own decision, and let it clearly set forth questions which are non-justiciable. Let nothing be done that will interfere with our preparing for our own defense by introducing a system of universal obligatory military training modeled on the Swiss plan.
Finally make it perfectly clear that we do not intend to take a position of international Meddlesome Matty. The American people do not wish to go into an overseas war unless for a very great cause and where the issue is absolutely plain. Therefore, we do not wish to undertake the responsibility of sending our gallant young men to die in obscure fights in the Balkans or in Central Europe, or in a war we do not approve of. Moreover, the American people do not intend to give up the Monroe Doctrine. Let civilized Europe and Asia introduce some kind of police system in the weak and disorderly countries at their thresholds. But let the United States treat Mexico as our Balkan Peninsula and refuse to allow European or Asiatic powers to interfere on this continent in any way that implies permanent or semi-permanent possession. Every one of our allies will with delight grant this request if President Wilson chooses to make it, and it will be a great misfortune if it is not made.
I believe that such an effort made moderately and sanely, but sincerely and with utter scorn for words that are not made good by deeds, will be productive of real and lasting international good.
THE END