This Troubled World

by Eleanor Roosevelt

We ourselves have a long unfortified border on the north which has remained undefended for more than a hundred years, a shining example of what peace and understanding between two nations can accomplish. But we also have two long coast lines to defend and the Panama Canal, which in case of war must be kept open, therefore it behooves us to have adequate naval defense. Just what we mean by adequate defense is a point on which a great many people differ.

Innumerable civilians have ideas as to what constitutes adequate military preparedness and the people most concerned, our military forces, have even more definite ideas. Many people in the United States feel that we are still rendered practically safe by the expanse of water on our east and west coasts. Some people even feel, like Mr. William Jennings Bryan, that if our nation needed to be defended a million men would spring to arms over night. They forget that a million untrained, unarmed men would be a poor defense. We must concede that our military establishments have probably made a more careful, practical study of the situation than any one else, for they know they would have to be ready for action at once.

Whether we accept the civil or the military point of view on preparedness, we can still move forward. We can continue to try to come to an understanding with other nations on some of the points which lead to bad feeling. We can begin first, perhaps, with the Central and South American nations and continue later with other nations, to enter into agreements which may lead to the gradual reduction of armaments. If we only agree on one thing at a time, every little step is something to the good. Simply because we have so far not been able to arrive at any agreement is no reason for giving up the attempt to agree. No one has as yet discovered a way to make any of the methods of transportation by which we all travel around the world, absolutely safe, but nobody suggests that we should do away with ships and railroads and airplanes. I feel that the people of various nations can greatly influence their governments and representatives and encourage action along the lines of reduction in arms and munitions.

Every international group that meets must bear in mind that they have an opportunity to create better feeling, but to move forward along this particular front also requires the backing of public opinion at home. This opinion may be formed in many little groups all over the world and may be felt in an ever widening circle of nations until it becomes a formidable force in the world as a whole.

Then there is the matter of private interests involved in the manufacture of arms and munitions. I know there are many arguments advanced against government ownership of the factories making arms and munitions. When you know the story of the part played by certain families in Europe whose business it has been to manufacture arms and munitions, however, you wonder if the arguments advanced against this step are not inspired in large part by those whose interests lie in this particular business?

It is true that a government can lose its perspective for a number of reasons. The need for employment may push them to over-production, as well as fear of their neighbors, and they may manufacture so much that the temptation to use it may be great. Some governments today manufacture practically all they need for peace-time purposes and this is a safeguard, but for war-time use, all governments would have to fall back on private manufacturers who could convert their plants easily for the manufacturing of war materials. Some governments today encourage private manufacturers to produce arms and munitions needed in peace time by buying from them, but the great danger lies in the uncontrolled private production which is used for export. The element of private profit is a great incentive towards the increase of this business just as it is in any other business. Governments are not tempted in the same way, for they do not manufacture for export or for profit.

It seems to me that we must trust some one and I think perhaps it is wiser to trust a government than the more vulnerable and easily tempted individual. Besides which, a democracy has it within its power to control any government business and, therefore, the idea that our government should control the manufacture of arms and munitions fills me with no great trepidation.

This control of the manufacture of arms and munitions is a measure which could be undertaken by one government alone. It does not have to wait for all the other governments to concur, and so I believe either in complete government ownership or in the strictest kind of government supervision, allowing such manufacture as will supply our own country but which will not create a surplus for exportation, thus removing the incentive for constantly seeking and creating new markets.

The next step will be the mutual curtailment, very gradually I am sure, of the amount of armaments the world over. This is a difficult step, because it requires not only an agreement on the part of all the nations, but sufficient confidence in each other to believe that, having given their word, they will live up to the spirit of the agreement as well as to the letter of it, and not try cleverly to hide whatever they have done from possible inspectors.

They will not, for instance, destroy a battleship and add a half dozen airplanes, telling the other members to the agreement that they have carried out the promised reduction, but forgetting to mention the additions to some other arm of their military service.