The Conquest of America Part 1

The Conquest of America.

by Cleveland Moffett.

TO MY FELLOW AMERICANS

The purpose of this story is to give an idea of what might happen to America, being defenceless as at present, if she should be attacked, say at the close of the great European war, by a mighty and victorious power like Germany. It is a plea for military preparedness in the United States.

As justifying this plea let us consider briefly and in a fair-minded spirit the arguments of our pacifist friends who, being sincerely opposed to military preparedness, would bring us to their way of thinking.

On June 10, 1915, in a statement to the American people, following his resignation as Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan said:

Some nation must lead the world out of the black night of war into the light of that day when "swords shall be beaten into plow-shares." Why not make that honour ours? Some day--why not now?--the nations will learn that enduring peace cannot be built upon fear--that good-will does not grow upon the stalk of violence. Some day the nations will place their trust in love, the weapon for which there is no s.h.i.+eld; in love, that suffereth long and is kind; in love, that is not easily provoked, that beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things; in love, which, though despised as weakness by the wors.h.i.+ppers of Mars, abideth when all else fails.

These are n.o.ble words. They thrill and inspire us as they have thrilled and inspired millions before us, yet how little the world has seen of the actual carrying out of their beautiful message! The average individual in America still clings to whatever he has of material possessions with all the strength that law and custom give him. He keeps what he has and takes what he can honourably get, unconcerned by the fact that millions of his fellow men are in distress or by the knowledge that many of the rich whom he envies or honours may have gained their fortunes, privilege or power by unfair or dishonest means.

In every land there are similar extremes of poverty and riches, but these could not exist in a world governed by the law of love or ready to be so governed, since love would destroy the ugly train of hatreds, arrogances, miseries, injustices and crimes that spread before us everywhere in the existing social order and that only fail to shock us because we are accustomed to a regime in which self-interest rather than love or justice is paramount.

My point is that if individuals are thus universally, or almost universally, selfish, nations must also be selfish, since nations are only aggregations of individuals. If individuals all over the world to-day place the laws of possession and privilege and power above the law of love, then nations will inevitably do the same. If there is constant jealousy and rivalry and disagreement among individuals there will surely be the same among nations, and it is idle for Mr. Bryan to talk about putting our trust in love collectively when we do nothing of the sort individually. Would Mr. Bryan put his trust in love if he felt himself the victim of injustice or dishonesty?

Once in a century some Tolstoy tries to practise literally the law of love and non-resistance with results that are distressing to his family and friends, and that are of doubtful value to the community. We may be sure the nations of the world will never practise this beautiful law of love until average citizens of the world practise it, and that time has not come.

Of course, Mr. Bryan's peace plan recognises the inevitability of quarrels or disagreements among nations, but proposes to have these settled by arbitration or by the decisions of an international tribunal, which tribunal may be given adequate police power in the form of an international army and navy.

It goes without saying that such a plan of world federation and world arbitration involves universal disarmament, all armies and all navies must be reduced to a merely nominal strength, to a force sufficient for police protection, but does any one believe that this plan can really be carried out? Is there the slightest chance that Russia or Germany will disarm? Is there the slightest chance that England will send her fleet to the sc.r.a.p heap and leave her empire defenceless in order to join this world federation? Is there the slightest chance that j.a.pan, with her dreams of Asiatic sovereignty, will disarm?

And if the thing were conceivable, what a grim federation this would be of jealousies, grievances, treacheries, hatreds, conflicting patriotisms and ambitions--Russia wanting Constantinople, France Alsace-Lorraine, Germany Calais, Spain Gibraltar, Denmark her ravished provinces, Poland her national integrity and so on. Who would keep order among the international delegates? Who would decide when the international judges disagreed? Who would force the international policemen to act against their convictions? Could any world tribunal induce the United States to limit her forces for the prevention of a yellow immigration from Asia?

General Homer Lea in "The Valour of Ignorance" says:

Only when arbitration is able to unravel the tangled skein of crime and hypocrisy among individuals can it be extended to communities and nations, as nations are only man in the aggregate, they are the aggregate of his crimes and deception and depravity, and so long as these const.i.tute the basis of individual impulse, so long will they control the acts of nations.

Dr. Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University and trustee of the Carnegie Peace Foundation, makes this admission in _The Army and Navy Journal:_

I regret to say that international or national disarmament is not taken seriously by the leaders and thinking men of the more important peoples, and I fear that for one reason or another neither the cla.s.ses nor the ma.s.ses have much admiration for the idea or would be willing to do their share to bring it about.

Here is the crux of the question, the earth has so much surface and to-day this is divided up in a certain way by international frontiers.

Yesterday it was divided up in a different way. To-morrow it will again be divided up in a new way, unless some world federation steps in and says: "Stop! There are to be no more wars. The present frontiers of the existing fifty-three nations are to be considered as righteously and permanently established. After this no act of violence shall change them."

Think what that would mean! It would mean that nations like Russia, Great Britain and the United States, which happened to possess vast dominions when this world federation peace plan was adopted would continue to possess vast dominions, while other nations like Italy, Greece, Turkey, Holland, Sweden, France, Spain (all great empires once), Germany and j.a.pan, whose present share of the earth's surface might be only one-tenth or one-fiftieth or one-five-hundredth as great as Russia's share or Great Britain's share, would be expected to remain content with that small portion.

Impossible! These less fortunate, but not less aspiring nations would never agree to such a policy of national stagnation, to such a stifling of their legitimate longings for a "greater place in the sun." They would point to the pages of history and show how small nations have become great and how empires have fallen. What was the mighty United States of America but yesterday? A handful of feeble colonies far weaker than the Balkan States to-day.

"Why should this particular moment be chosen," they would protest, "to render immovable international frontiers that have always been s.h.i.+fting?

Why should the maps of the world be now finally crystallised so as to give England millions of square miles in every quarter of the globe, Canada, Australia, India, Egypt, while we possess so little? Did G.o.d make England so much better than he made us? Why should the Russian Empire sweep across two continents while our territory is crowded into a corner of one? Is Russia so supremely deserving? And why should the United States possess as much of the earth's surface as Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Roumania, Spain, Norway, Sweden and j.a.pan all together and, besides that, claim authority to say, through the Monroe Doctrine, what shall happen or shall not happen in South America, Mexico, the West Indies and the Pacific? How did the United States get this authority and this vast territory? How did Russia get her vast territory? How did England get her vast territory?"

The late Professor J. A. Cramb, an Englishman himself, gives us one answer in his powerful and illuminating book, "Germany and England," and shows us how England, in the view of many, got _her_ possessions:

England! The successful burglar, who, an immense fortune ama.s.sed, has retired from business, and having broken every law, human and divine, violated every instinct of honour and fidelity on every sea and on every continent, desires now the protection of the police!... So long as England, the great robber-state, retains her booty, the spoils of a world, what right has she to expect peace from the nations?

In reply to Mr. Bryan's peace exhortations, some of the smaller but more efficient world powers, certainly Germany and j.a.pan, would recall similar cynical teachings of history and would smilingly answer: "We approve of your beautiful international peace plan, of your admirable world police plan, but before putting it into execution, we prefer to wait a few hundred years and see if we also, in the ups and downs of nations, cannot win for ourselves, by conquest or cunning or other means not provided for in the law of love, a great empire covering a vast portion of the earth's surface."

The force and justice of this argument will be appreciated, to use a homely comparison, by those who have studied the psychology of poker games and observed the unvarying willingness of heavy winners to end the struggle after a certain time, while the losers insist upon playing longer.

It will be the same in this international struggle for world supremacy, the only nations willing to stop fighting will be the ones that are far ahead of the game, like Great Britain, Russia and the United States.

We may be sure that wars will continue on the earth. War may be a biological necessity in the development of the human race--G.o.d's housecleaning, as Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x calls it. War may be a great soul stimulant meant to purge mankind of evils greater than itself, evils of baseness and world degeneration. We know there are blighted forests that must be swept clean by fire. Let us not scoff at such a theory until we understand the immeasurable mysteries of life and death. We know that, through the ages, two terrific and devastating racial impulses have made themselves felt among men and have never been restrained, s.e.x attraction and war. Perhaps they were not meant to be restrained.

Listen to John Ruskin, apostle of art and spirituality:

All the pure and n.o.ble arts of peace are founded on war. No great art ever rose on earth but among a nation of soldiers. There is no great art possible to a nation but that which is based on battle. When I tell you that war is the foundation of all the arts, I mean also that it is the foundation of all the high virtues and faculties of men. It was very strange for me to discover this, and very dreadful, but I saw it to be quite an undeniable fact. The common notion that peace and the virtues of civil life flourished together I found to be utterly untenable. We talk of peace and learning, of peace and plenty, of peace and civilisation; but I found that these are not the words that the Muse of History coupled together; that on her lips the words were peace and sensuality, peace and selfishness, peace and death. I found in brief that all great nations learned their truth of word and strength of thought in war; that they were nourished in war and wasted in peace; taught by war and deceived by peace; trained by war and betrayed by peace; in a word, that they were born in war and expired in peace.

We know Bernhardi's remorseless views taken from Treitschke and adopted by the whole German nation:

"War is a fiery crucible, a terrible training school through which the world has grown better."

In his impressive work, "The Game of Empires," Edward S. Van Zile quotes Major General von Disfurth, a distinguished retired officer of the German army, who chants so fierce a glorification of war for the German idea, war for German Kultur, war at all costs and with any consequences that one reads with a shudder of amazement:

Germany stands as the supreme arbiter of her own methods. It is of no consequence whatever if all the monuments ever created, all the pictures ever painted, and all the buildings ever erected by the great architects of the world be destroyed, if by their destruction we promote Germany's victory over her enemies. The commonest, ugliest stone that marks the burial place of a German grenadier is a more glorious and venerable monument than all the cathedrals of Europe put together. They call us barbarians. What of it? We scorn them and their abuse. For my part, I hope that in this war we have merited the t.i.tle of barbarians. Let neutral peoples and our enemies cease their empty chatter, which may well be compared to the twitter of birds. Let them cease to talk of the cathedral of Rheims and of all the churches and all the castles in France which have shared its fate. These things do not interest us. Our troops must achieve victory. What else matters?

Obviously there are cases where every n.o.ble sentiment would impel a nation to go to war. A solemn promise broken, a deliberate insult to the flag, an act of intolerable bullying, some wicked purpose of self-aggrandis.e.m.e.nt at the expense of weaker nations, anything, in short, that flaunted the national honour or imperilled the national integrity would be a call to war that must be heeded by valiant and high-souled citizens, in all lands. Nor can we have any surety against such wanton international acts, so long as the fate of nations is left in the hands of small autocracies or military and diplomatic cliques empowered to act without either the knowledge or approval of the people. Wars will never be abolished until the war-making power is taken from the few and jealously guarded by the whole people, and only exercised after public discussion of the matters at issue and a public understanding of inevitable consequences. At present it is evident that the pride, greed, madness of one irresponsible King, Emperor, Czar, Mikado or President may plunge the whole world into war-misery that will last for generations.

There are other cases where war is not only inevitable, but actually desirable from a standpoint of world advantage. Imagine a highly civilised and progressive nation, a strong prosperous nation, wisely and efficiently governed, as may be true, some day, of the United States of America. Let us suppose this nation to be surrounded by a number of weak and unenlightened states, always quarrelling, badly and corruptly managed, like Mexico and some of the Central American republics. Would it not be better for the world if this strong, enlightened nation took possession of its backward neighbours, even by force of arms, and taught them how to live and how to make the best of their neglected resources and possibilities? Would not these weak nations be more prosperous and happier after incorporation with the strong nation? Is not Egypt better off and happier since the British occupation? Were not the wars that created united Italy and united Germany justified? Does any one regret our civil war? It was necessary, was it not?

Similarly it is better for the world that we fought and conquered the American Indians and took their land to use it, in accordance with our higher destiny, for greater and n.o.bler purposes than they could either conceive of or execute. It is better for the world that by a revolution (even a disingenuous one) we took Panama from incompetent Colombians and, by our intelligence, our courage and our vast resources, changed a fever-ridden strip of jungle into a waterway that now joins two oceans and will save untold billions for the commerce of the earth.

Carrying a step farther this idea of world efficiency through war, it is probable that future generations will be grateful to some South American nation, perhaps Brazil, or Chile or the Argentine Republic, that shall one day be wise and strong enough to lay the foundations on the field of battle (Mr. Bryan may think this could be accomplished by peaceful negotiations, but he is mistaken) for the United States of South America.

And why not ultimately the United States of Europe, the United States of Asia, the United States of Africa, all created by useful and progressive wars? Consider the increased efficiency, prosperity and happiness that must come through such unions of small nations now trying separately and ineffectively to carry on multiple activities that could be far better carried on collectively. Our American Union, born of war, proves this, does it not?

"United we stand, divided we fall," applies not merely to states, counties and towns.h.i.+ps, but to nations, to empires, to continents.

Continents will be the last to join hands across the seas (having first waged vast inter-continental wars) and then, after the rise and fall of many sovereignties, there will be established on the earth the last great government, the United States of the World!

That is the logical limit of human activities. Are we not all citizens of the earth, descended from the same parents, born with the same needs and capacities? Why should there be fifty-three barriers dividing men into fifty-three nations? Why should there be any other patriotism than world patriotism? Or any other government than one world government?

When this splendid ultimate consummation has been achieved, after ages of painful evolution (we must remember that the human race is still in its infancy) our remote descendants, united in language, religion and customs, with a great world representative government finally established and the law of love prevailing, may begin preparations for a grand world celebration of the last war. Say, in the year A.D. 2921!

But not until then!

If this reasoning is sound, if war must be regarded, for centuries to come, as an inevitable part of human existence, then let us, as loyal Americans, realise that, hate war as we may, there is only way in which the United States can be insured against the horrors of armed invasion, with the shame of disastrous defeat and possible dismemberment, and that is by developing the strength and valiance to meet all probable a.s.sailants on land or sea.

Whether we like it or not we are a great world power, fated to become far greater, unless we throw away our advantages; we must either accept the average world standards, which call for military preparedness, or impose new standards upon a world which concedes no rights to nations that have not the might to guard and enforce those rights.

Why should we Americans hesitate to pay the trifling cost of insurance against war? Trifling? Yes. The annual cost of providing and maintaining an adequate army and navy would be far less than we spend every year on tobacco and alcohol. Less than fifty cents a month from every citizen would be sufficient. That amount, wisely expended, would enormously lessen the probability of war and would allow the United States, if war came, to face its enemies with absolute serenity. The Germans are willing to pay the cost of preparedness. So are the French, the Italians, the j.a.panese, the Swiss, the Balkan peoples, the Turks. Do we love our country less than they do? Do we think our inst.i.tutions, our freedom less worthy than theirs of being guarded for posterity?

Why should we not adopt a system of military training something like the one that has given such excellent results in Switzerland? Why not cease to depend upon our absurd little standing army which, for its strength and organisation, is frightfully expensive and absolutely inadequate, and depend instead upon a citizenry trained and accustomed to arms, with a permanent body of competent officers, at least 50,000, whose lives would be spent in giving one year military training to the young men of this nation, all of them, say between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three, so that these young men could serve their country efficiently, if the need arose? Why not accept the fact that it is neither courageous nor democratic for us to depend upon hired soldiers to defend our country?

Does any one doubt that a year of such military training would be of lasting benefit to the men of America? Would it not school them in much-needed habits of discipline and self-control, habits which must be learned sooner or later if a man is to succeed? Would not the open air life, the physical exercise, the regularity of hours tend to improve their health and make them better citizens?