"To the fearless patriotism of Hudson Maxim and the plain, practical, straightforward truths in his book, 'Defenseless America,' I owe the inspiration and impetus which caused me to conceive and write the scenario of 'The Battle Cry of Peace.'
"The object of both book and picture is to arouse in the heart of every American citizen a sense of his strict accountability to his government in time of need, and to bring to the notice of the greatest number of people in the shortest possible time the fact that there is a way to insure that peace for which we all so earnestly pray."
Commodore Blackton, being a staunch patriot and a man with phenomenal vision and breadth of understanding, and being one of the largest producers of motion pictures in the world, saw at once, as soon as he read Defenseless America, that the best way to impress the American people with the message of the book, as he had himself been impressed by reading it, was to visualize that message in a great motion picture. Then the people would be able to see, with their own eyes, those terrible things happening in our country and in our very homes, which are happening abroad and which are surely going to happen to us if we do not prepare, and immediately and adequately prepare to save the country.
Faithfully yours,
HUDSON MAXIM.
MAXIM PARK,
Landing P.O.,
NEW JERSEY,
1916
PREFACE
The main object of this book is to present a phalanx of facts upon the subject of the defenseless condition of this country, and to show what must be done, and done quickly, in order to avert the most dire calamity that can fall upon a people—that of merciless invasion by a foreign foe, with the horrors of which no pestilence can be compared.
We should bring a lesser calamity upon ourselves by abolishing our quarantine system against the importation of deadly disease and inviting a visitation like the great London Plague, or by letting in the Black Death to sweep our country as it swept Europe in the Middle Ages, than by neglecting our quarantine against war, as we are neglecting it, thereby inviting the pestilence of invasion.
Self-preservation is the first law of Nature, and this law applies to nations exactly as it applies to individuals. Our American Republic cannot survive unless it obeys the law of survival, which all individuals must obey, which all nations must obey, and which all other nations are obeying. No individual, and no nation, has ever disobeyed that law for long and lived; and it is too big a task for the United States of America.
It is the aim of this work to discover truth to the reader, unvarnished and unembellished, and, at the same time, as far as possible, to avoid personalities. Wherever practicable, philosophic generalizations have been tied down to actualities, based upon experiential knowledge and innate common-sense of the eternal fitness of things.
The strong appeal of Lord Roberts for the British nation to prepare for the Armageddon that is now on, which he knew was coming, did not awaken England, but served rather to rouse Germany.