Preparedness means something more than a larger army and navy. It means also having a united America back of that army and navy.
Shall we get nothing except the material standards of preparedness from the mighty struggle in Europe, where nations are contending for the preservation of the liberties and security we now enjoy?
What will it avail this nation to build battleships and a merchant marine, if we do not at the same time create a nation-wide loyalty that will prevent explosions wrecking their holds?
Shall we strengthen our coast defenses and leave our transportation lines, upon which they depend, to be manned by unskilled workmen whom Americans have not shown how to love America, and in whom dual allegiance still persists? Shall we conserve our resources in mines, quarries, and fields and build more factories and man them with discontented workmen who will see American defenses only in terms of profit and advantage?
Shall we have citizens’ training camps and train to higher efficiency only those already filled with patriotism, or shall we in these same camps bring new and old citizens together and bring up the ranks in discipline and efficiency for a better America?
Can we become a really strong nation if Americanization is for native-born men and women only, while we do nothing for the millions of foreign-born men and women who constitute our reserve strength?
These and many other similar questions must be included in any adequate program of defense, and yet in no council of government or of citizens have they been given the consideration their importance demands. The great immediate task before us is mobilization and Americanization, the welding of the many races and classes in this country into one enduring, steadfast, efficient nation.
The things that make for preparedness in peace or war, that make France and Germany the two leading contestants in the present war, are as much social and economic, as military preparedness. We shall not attain this until we have Americanized our foreign-born residents and many of our American-born as well. We cannot do this by legislation or proclamation, but only by the patriotic action of each and every resident in America disciplined for national service.
Some one has brought to America a remarkable series of moving pictures called “Britain Prepared.” The conspicuous thing about them is that the emphasis is put upon the training of men, the kind of training we find in the gymnasium and in sports and among boy scouts. Guns and battleships and horses are there, to be sure, but they are always being mastered by men. Somehow in our defense propaganda during the past year we have missed this dominant note. We talk about an increased army and navy and aëroplanes and coast defenses, but we always get the sense of guns and machines and mechanics and never the sense of their mastery.
The defense bills in Congress this winter are marked by the same fatal presumption—that defense is entirely a matter of physical preparedness and that it is to be brought about chiefly by legislation and appropriations. We are apparently looking only to the immediate and obvious and popular kind of preparedness and have not yet begun upon the real problem of preparedness which involves long, slow, patient consideration of many intricate matters vital to any adequate national defense of America.