Our National Defense: The Patriotism of Peace

by George Hebard Maxwell

"The conquest of these islands by Japan will be less of a military undertaking than was the seizure of Cuba by the United States; for while Santiago de Cuba did not fall until nearly three months after the declaration of war, Manila will be forced to surrender in less than three weeks. Otherwise the occupation of Cuba portrays with reasonable exactitude the manner in which the Philippines will be taken over by Japan."

Since this was written the events of the present war have still further strengthened the Japanese power in the Pacific. First China, then Russia, and now Germany have been eliminated. To complacently assume that Japan will never have occasion to cross swords with the United States, is surely a most mistaken attitude for the people of this country to delude themselves with. It is contrary to every dictate of common sense and reason, when the people of the Pacific Coast are forced for their own protection to enact legislation which Japan interprets as a violation of her treaty rights. The average run of people in other States give no thought to the matter. They say, "Yes, California has her problem with the Japs." It is not California's problem. It is the problem of the United States.

And in calling attention to the practical impossibility of defending the Pacific Coast against Japanese invasion and occupation in the event of war, the author heretofore quoted from calls attention to the following facts, among others, showing our unpreparedness and the complete inadequacy of our defenses:

"The short period of time within which Japan is able to transport her armies to this continent—200,000 men in four weeks, a half million in four months, and more than a million in ten months—necessitates in this Republic a corresponding degree of preparedness and rapidity of mobilization.

"Within one month after the declaration of war this Republic must place, in each of the three defensive spheres of the Pacific Coast, armies that are capable of giving battle to the maximum number of troops that Japan can transport in a single voyage. This is known to be in excess of 200,000 men.... We have called attention to the brevity of modern wars in general and naval movements in particular; how within a few weeks after war is declared, concurrent with the seizure of the Philippines, Hawaii, and Alaska, will the conquest of Washington and Oregon be consummated. In the same manner within three months after hostilities have been begun there, armies will land upon the seaboard of Southern California.... No force can be placed on the seaboard of Southern California either within three months or nine months that would delay the advance of the Japanese armies a single day.

"The maximum force that can be mobilized in the Republic immediately following a declaration of war is less than 100,000 men, of whom two-thirds are militia. This force, made up of more than forty miniature armies, is scattered, each under separate military and civil jurisdiction, over the entire nation. By the time these heterogeneous elements are gathered together, organized into proper military units, and made ready for transportation to the front, the States of Washington and Oregon will have been invaded and their conquest made complete by a vastly superior force.... So long as the existent military system continues in the Republic there can be no adequate defense of any single portion of the Pacific Coast within a year after a declaration of war, nor the three spheres within as many years."

Apparently neither the Militarists, nor the Passivists, nor the Pacificists, nor the Pacificators, ever give any thought or heed to the fact of danger from within as the result of a steadily growing alien population, permanently settled in the United States, and which would in the event of war constitute a force larger than any army we would have available for defense.

The chief danger of an armed conflict with Japan arises from the existence in our midst of this alien population, and the danger that the pressure of their competition may breed strife similar to that which preceded the Chinese Exclusion Act, a situation which can never be applied to Japan without creating a certainty of war immediately or in the future.

In this respect we are like a people living on the slopes below the crater of a volcano. We can never know when an eruption may take place or what its extent or consequences may be. All we do know is that the danger exists; and it is folly beyond the possibility of expression or description to ignore that fact, and perpetuate our national indifference and unpreparedness. It is this situation on the Pacific Coast, more than any other one thing, which makes the advocacy of disarmament for this nation so inconceivably dangerous unless Japan and China should also disarm, which we may rest assured they will never do. China is just entering upon a new era of militarism under a Military Dictator whose policy will be for arms and armament.

If the disarmament of the United States were to be agreed to and carried out because other nations agreed to disarm, and Japan and China were willing to disarm, then the disarmament of Asiatic nations would have to be coupled with the further safeguard of an agreement stopping emigration from Asia to America—not only to North America, but to South America as well. It is not proposed by any of the advocates of disarmament to stop such immigration, nor will it be stopped. The fact that it will continue indefinitely through the years of the future is a fact which must be recognized as fundamental in dealing with the question of national defense for the United States of America.