“And the war of 1812? Was that great and glorious? Why did we win? Because we were isolated by the Atlantic Ocean (which in these days of steam no longer isolates us) and because England was occupied in a death struggle with Napoleon.
“In our Civil War both North and South were totally unprepared. If either side at the start had had an efficient army of 100,000 men that side would have won overwhelmingly in the first six months.
“Our war with Spain in 1898 was a joke, a pitiful exhibition of incompetency and unreadiness in every department. We only won because Spain was more unprepared than we were. And as to our great naval victory, the truth is that the Spanish fleet destroyed itself.
“Gentlemen, we have never had a real war in America. This invasion by Germany was the beginning of a real war, but that has now been marvellously averted. Through extraordinary good fortune we have been delivered from this peril, just as, by extraordinary good fortune, we gained some successes over the Germans, like the battle of the Susquehanna and our recent seaplane victory, successes that were largely accidental and could never be repeated.
“I assure you, gentlemen, it is madness for us to count upon continued deliverance from the war peril because in the past we have been lucky, because in the past wide seas have guarded us, because in the past our enemies have quarrelled among themselves, or because American resourcefulness and ingenuity have been equal to sudden emergencies. To permanently base our hopes of national safety and integrity upon such grounds is to choose the course adopted by China and to invite for our descendants the humiliating fate that finally overwhelmed China, which nation has now had a practical suzerainty forced upon her by a much smaller power.
“There is only one way for America to be safe from invasion and that is for America to be ready for it. We are not ready today, we never have been ready, yet war may smite us at any time with all its hideous slaughter and devastation. Our vast possessions constitute the richest, the most tempting prize on earth, and no words can measure the envy and hatred that less rich and less favoured nations feel against us.”
“Gentlemen, our duty is plain and urgent. We must be prepared against aggression. We must save from danger this land that we love, this great nation built by our fathers. We must have, what we now notoriously lack, a sufficient army, a satisfactory system of military training, battleships, aeroplanes, submarines, munition plants, all that is necessary to uphold the national honour so that when an unscrupulous enemy strikes at us and our children he will find us ready. If we are strong we shall, in all probability, avoid war, since the choice between war and arbitration will then be ours.”
Scenes of wild enthusiasm followed this appeal of the veteran commander, not only at the Capitol, but all over the land when his words were made public. At last America had learned her bitter lesson touching the folly of unpreparedness, the iron had entered her soul and now, in 1922, the people’s representatives were quick to perform a sacred duty that had been vainly urged upon them in 1916. Almost unanimously (even Senators William Jennings Bryan and Henry Ford refused to vote against preparedness) both houses of Congress declared for the fullest measure of national defence. It was voted that we have a strong and fully manned navy with 48 dreadnoughts and battle cruisers in proportion. It was voted that we have scout destroyers and sea-going submarines in numbers sufficient to balance the capital fleet. It was voted that we have an aerial fleet second to none in the world. It was voted that we have a standing army of 200,000 men with 45,000 officers, backed by a national force of citizens trained in arms under a universal and obligatory one-year military system. It was voted, finally, that we have adequate munition plants in various parts of the country, all under government control and partly subsidised under conditions assuring ample munitions at any time, but absolutely preventing private monopolies or excessive profits in the munition manufacturing business.
This was declared to be—and God grant it prove to be—America’s insurance against future wars of invasion, against alien arrogance and injustice, against a foreign flag over this land.