The peace sophists often refer to the unfortified border-line between the United States and Canada as an argument in favor of the abolition of armaments throughout the world. They fail to perceive that the same unarmed condition would not work between European countries, as, for example, between France and Germany. If the people of Canada and the United States were as different in race, language, ideals, and ambitions as are the French and Germans; and if, also, the two countries were as thickly settled and the inhabitants as land-hungry; and if each had a history as antagonistic as the French and Germans; then fortifications would be needed on the Canadian border. But the Canadians and ourselves are of the same race, we speak the same tongue, we have similar ideals and ambitions, and our history is not antagonistic; on the contrary, it has been largely a common history—the history of England, the mother country.
England and France were obligated to defend Belgium against Germany. Their defenses consisted mainly in bluff, but they were, nevertheless, far better prepared to support Belgium than we would be to support any South American country against German aggression.
The navy of England is so far superior to ours that should she at any time care to ignore the Monroe Doctrine and colonize in South America we should be absolutely unable to prevent her. She would be able to isolate us from South America and from the rest of the world, within the continental territory of the forty-eight states. An impenetrable barrier of British warships would lie between us and the Panama Canal. Therefore, it will be seen that our Monroe Doctrine is an Anglo-American compact, an entente, which we are obliged to defend if it should be in the interest of Great Britain, and which Great Britain would not be obliged to observe in case she might want to ignore it:
Let us invite Admiral Mahan to conclude this chapter:
"In the Monroe Doctrine, as now understood, and viewed in the light of the Venezuela incident, with the utterances then made by our statesmen of all parties, we have on hand one of the biggest contracts any modern state has undertaken."
CHAPTER IV
MODERN METHODS AND MACHINERY OF WAR
"In the course of time, no one knows when or how soon, the family of nations may get to playing at cards, and beyond the sea, perhaps, will be found a 'full hand' against our three 'aces'—the Navy, Coast Fortifications, and the Militia."
Lieut. Gen. Adna R. Chaffee, U.S.A.
"Whenever a nation's attitude toward war is evasive, its conduct indecisive, and its preparation an indifferent, orderless assembling of forces, it prepares for defeat."
Homer Lea.