Defenseless America

by Hudson Maxim

If they could speak, and tell you and me and all of us the truth and the naked truth, then very likely their lives could be saved, and the sacrifice of their ships and their crews avoided.

If the actual truth about our defenselessness were generally appreciated, our whole people, as Antony said of the stones of Rome, "would rise and mutiny" against the legislative and bureaucratic officialdom and the fanatical peace propaganda that are teaching the people ignorance and folly while muting the tongues of those who should speak.

A nation is but a composite individual. Just as the male head of the family, being the natural protector of the family, has, in all ages, needed strong arms for the defense of the family, so, in all ages, have nations needed strong arms for national defense. These are the army and the navy. When army and navy are weak, then the nation, regardless of other elements of prowess, is correspondingly weak, and, more than that, the nation that is not safeguarded by a strong army and a strong navy is a poor nation, regardless of its resources and visible wealth. For the value of wealth and resources is very largely dependent upon their security—upon the power of the army and navy to defend or guarantee the title to them.

That man is not a rich man, the title to whose property is questionable and likely at any time successfully to be disputed. The value of wealth depends entirely upon the ability of its possessor to control and utilize it, which includes the ability to defend his title to it.

The same thing holds true with a nation. The value of its wealth depends entirely upon its ability to control and utilize it, subject absolutely to ability to defend it.

You and I, reader, may count ourselves worth a certain sum. But if our property is not so safeguarded as to ensure our continued possession and benefit of it, and to ensure to our children and our children's children the possession and benefit of it, then we are by no means so rich as we should be were our title guaranteed by adequate national defenses.

We are at once the richest country in the world, and, in proportion to our wealth, the poorest; for, in proportion to our wealth, we are the most defenseless. By consequence, we are without guaranty of title to our property, and we may at any time be robbed of it.

An adequate army and an adequate navy are the only possible means by which American titles to property can be guaranteed.

Just as it is worth all it costs, and more, for owners of real estate to have the title to their property guaranteed by a title-guarantee company, and just as the property is by such guaranty enhanced in value more than the cost of the guaranty, so the guaranty of title to American property dependent upon an adequate army and navy is worth far more than the entire cost of them, by virtue of enhanced values.

When a nation, like the United States, has become a World Power, with outlying possessions in distant seas and within the spheres of influence of other powerful nations, it assumes obligations just in proportion to the hazards involved in the maintenance of title. Also, when a nation, like the United States, has a world-compassing commerce, its obligations are just as large as its commerce, and its need of a navy adequate to defend its commerce is, for that purpose alone, exactly as great as its need of the commerce. But, in addition to this great need, there is the still greater need of a navy of such magnitude and potentiality as effectually to safeguard the country against invasion.