This outgiving shows the folly of sending an hysterical and credulous woman to the front to get reliable information of war conditions. It is quite probable that the story was told to Miss Addams as she relates it, but that a woman of her intelligence should accept it as true and retail it on her own authority is to be regretted. It gives a misleading picture of war conditions and is an insult to the best manhood of all the nations engaged in the war. Denials have come from all the nations and friends of all the nations, but these denials are hardly needed by those who know about war.
Whatever may be thought of the war, and much as we may deplore its horrors nobody can truthfully deny the courage and hardihood of the men engaged in it, whether they are Germans, English, French or other nationals. It requires just as much courage to endure the wearing danger of the trenches as it does to participate in a bayonet charge. In fact, most soldiers would feel it as a relief to substitute the excitement and activity of an attack for the grinding peril of lying still under fire. If the men would need to be doped to get them to charge, they would need to be constantly doped to endure the sodden and bloody carnage of the trenches.
The work of war requires, more than any other, physical and mental fitness as well as resolution of soul. Every military commander knows that strong liquor would impair the physical strength and endurance of men for the time being, if not permanently. When a line of men start upon a bayonet charge they need every ounce of strength and endurance they possess to give them any chance of success. To send a line of doped men upon a bayonet charge would be to invite their almost certain destruction and the failure of the movement. Even if commanders were brutal enough to adopt the dope tactics specified by Miss Addams they would not be such fools.
Richard Harding Davis, in commenting on Miss Addams’s amazing “revelation,” says: “I have seen more of this war and other wars than Miss Addams, and against this insult, flung by a complacent and self-satisfied woman at men who gave their lives for men, I protest.”
There is enough material for genuine and truthful indictment of war without resorting to silly falsehood. How would the descendents of the men who gave up their lives in our civil war from a sense of imperious duty and patriotism like to have the slander placed upon their graves that the only way they could be induced to go into battle was to stupify them with intoxicants? Our war was a small one as compared with this twentieth century war, but it was just as perilous to the men engaged in it as this is to the soldiers of the present. An eminent military authority recently published a statement to the effect that in our civil war the casualties, in proportion to the number of men engaged, was ten times greater than the proportional casualties now. We do not know that this estimate is accurate, but we do know that our casualties were proportionately greater, in spite of the superior effectiveness of the modern machinery of war. The science of defense has kept pace with the science of destruction. Our war required just as much courage and hardihood and endurance on the part of the men engaged in it as this war does, and we know that it was not necessary to dope our men with strong liquor, on either side, to get them to fight.
THOMAS A. EDISON DRAFTED
The acceptance by Thomas A. Edison of a position as the head of an advisory defense board of civilian inventors and engineers for a bureau of invention and development which the Navy Department is to create, is an important step in the adoption of a rational national policy. The submarine, the airship and many other of the appliances which have made modern war so terrible and effective are of American origin. American invention and ingenuity have given the world the locomotive engine, the steam boat, the magnetic telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, the sewing machine, the reaper, the harvester, the steam traction plow, the automobile, and other appliances which have changed the face of modern civilization. American ingenuity has reigned supreme alike in inventions of peace and of war, but our country has not profited to the full from the genius of our inventors. Men of other nations have seized upon American ideas and perfected them to their own profit. This is notably the case with the warlike appliances. The European nations now at war have developed the submarine and the aircraft to the point of astonishing efficiency, while the United States has lagged behind. In case of war, our submarine and aircraft service would, in its present condition of development, be vastly inferior to that of either Germany, England, or France.
The United States either wants to be prepared for war, or it does not. If it does, it wants the best preparation. Mr. Edison has been invited to head the advisory board because of some views in regard to national defenses expressed by him several months ago. He stated at that time that he would establish vast reserve stores of arms and ammunition, and would count rather upon automobiles than upon the railroads for quick transportation. He would also build many aeroplanes and submarines, and would keep our battleships and battle cruisers in dry-dock—practically in storage—but maintained in perfect efficiency, ready for use in case they should be needed for defense. He said he thought an army of 100,000 men, well trained men, backed by an efficient militia, and ample stores of munitions and weapons and other equipment, would be sufficient, but he would also have 40,000 drill sergeants selected and trained to instruct quickly a vast number of soldiers.
This, it will be seen, is a purely defensive military policy. Mr. Edison’s ideas may be more or less valuable, but his inventive genius and practical skill are undoubted, and his presence on a board composed of mechanical and scientific experts will furnish an assurance that the best methods to insure the nation’s safety from hostile attack will be adopted.