A corresponding inefficiency was displayed elsewhere by the great allied democracies. From the moment of the first blare of the German war trumpet in 1914 we saw them piteously struggling to free themselves from the burden of the political ineptitude which this pernicious system of universal suffrage and vote-getting politics had fastened upon each of them; striving to oust the democracy of ignorance and weakness, and to give the aristocracy of merit the place it must have before the fierce contest could be won. Some of the incompetents chosen for office by the much vaunted elective system were pushed to the rear out of sight; some were otherwise got rid of or superseded; and some were slowly trained up to the efficiency they should have already possessed before being put in places of trust and power. In the meantime, there was over there failure and again failure; failure in Serbia; failure in Greece; failure in Rumania; failure in Ireland; failure in Russia. And here in our own country as the war proceeded, want of foresight, want of preparation, inefficiency and waste; and though democracy conquered at last it was by sheer weight of numbers and resources, while its slowness to understand, to decide and to act brought us to the very verge of disaster and cost untold lives and money, which efficiency would have saved.
For the benefit of short memories, the writer presents here a few extracts from publications pointing out our criminal want of preparation for defense at all times prior to 1918. For this situation, each political party blames the other; the fact being, that the fault is chargeable, not to any party, group or individual, but to our political system and cheap traditions.
“And we are unprepared. We have neither gates nor bars. We are careless of the future, and the machinations of wicked men and the ambitions of royalty. We sit in fancied security, trusting to the potency of our riches and the divinations of our stargazers. We are fat, otiose, spineless, insolent and rich. Could the devil himself add anything to this catalogue to make us riper for plucking?” (Henry D. Estabrook—“Bewaredness,” the American Academy of Political and Social Science. The Annals, July, 1916.)
“The term, a ‘fool’s paradise,’ describes to perfection the dreamland in which Americans have slumbered for years in their complacent indifference to national defence.” (Huidenkoper’s Military Preparedness, p. 252.)
“We never want to face another (war) in such ridiculous helplessness as has crippled us in facing this one.” (New York Mail, Ed. July 26th, 1917.)
“More than thirty months after the outbreak of the European War, with all its terrible lessons, we have still to lay the statutory foundations of a proper system of land-defense.” (H. L. Stimson, Scribners’, April, 1917.)
“The United States of America is prepared for war neither commercially nor physically.... We have neither a merchant fleet to carry our commerce nor any army and navy to protect it.” (Chicago Evening Post, Feb. 14, 1917.)
“The crisis finds us unprepared.” (Chicago Tribune, Feb. 15th, 1917.)
A well-known authority on naval and military affairs, writing in the Outlook of April 11th, 1917, says, p. 651:
“The greatest fault in democracy is the lack of imagination of its administrators. Our press are held in the hollow of the hands of political men whose knowledge of the art of war is only of the primary school standard.”