Our National Defense: The Patriotism of Peace

by George Hebard Maxwell

When private profits for building battleships shall have been eliminated, Congress will no longer skimp appropriations to man the battleships we now have, or for other naval equipment, in order to build more dreadnoughts.

After this war, it ought to be possible to conduct to success a nation-wide, and possibly a world-wide propaganda to end forever the earning of dividends from human slaughter.

That is the issue, bluntly and plainly stated, and those who profit by manufacturing the machinery of war must face it squarely. The time will come,—it is to be hoped it is near at hand,—when they will be held in the same estimation as are nowadays the pirates who forced their victims to walk the plank.

Over-preparedness, as well as unpreparedness, may precipitate a war. The causes of the present European war were, however, more deeply rooted than that. It was inevitable that they would some day result in war. But the war would not have come at this time if Germany had not thought England unprepared. Nor would it have come if Germany had not been, as she supposed, invincible, because armed to the teeth by corporations like the Krupps that make war and the machinery for it the source of stupendous private profits and accumulated wealth.

The growing temptation to create similar conditions in this country must be forever strangled. After the close of this war, the fields of battle in Europe must be cleared of war's devastations, and in the United States of America the field of industry must be cleared of all temptation for our merchants and manufacturers to become slaughterers by wholesale of human beings—murderers and manglers of whole battalions of their fellowmen—slayers of the fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons of millions of women. That is what they become when for money they furnish the means whereby it is done, or is to be in future done, by this or any other country.

It is far better that capital should be idle and labor unemployed than that either should be used to promote death and devastation in return for dividends or wages. All available capital and labor can find occupation in doing things that will promote human welfare. To the extent that the machinery of war may be needed by any government, it should be manufactured for its own use by that government, and never by any private concern or corporation for profit. A world movement to that end is being organized and every patriotic citizen should bear a hand to promote its success. The United States has the opportunity to be the first nation to adopt this advanced and peace-promoting national policy.

Whenever we have put an end to the making of private profit from the manufacture of battleships and machinery of war for our government, we will be relieved of much of the persistent pressure to make our navy top heavy with dreadnoughts, and to steadily increase our naval and military expenditures. More than that, we will then be able to get full, fair, and unprejudiced consideration, by the people at large, of every question relating to war or peace, or to our own preparedness for war, or the extent of the necessity for such preparedness.

Now the people know only a part of the facts on which a comprehensive judgment should be based. They have been urged to do the things which, if done, would result in profit to the manufacturers of battleships or machinery of war. Knowing this, many people go to the other extreme and oppose everything in the way of an adequate military or naval system. This tends to endanger the nation by unpreparedness, just as the Militarists would endanger it by over-preparedness, or a one-sided and unbalanced preparedness, like having battleships without other things even more necessary for naval defense.

The government should manufacture for itself all the machinery needed by it for war on land or sea. Its manufacture by anyone else should be prohibited by law. But it does not by any means follow that the government itself should refrain from manufacturing it, under the conditions that now prevail in the world. Neither does it follow that there will be no more wars. Nor again does it follow that the government should fail to be at all times adequately prepared for war. On the contrary, the possibility of war should be fully recognized and national defense should not be neglected.

Under the conditions that surround this country to-day, no nation should more carefully than ours safeguard against the danger of unpreparedness. The United States should be, not unprepared, but fully prepared, and that can only be accomplished by carrying out the plan advocated in this book, for both immediate and ultimate national defense.