HEODORE ROOSEVEUTI 
 
 
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 Book- 
 
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 Copyright N^. 
 
 CDEffilGHT DKPOSrr. 
 
NATIONAL STRENGTH AND 
 INTERNATIONAL DUTY 
 
 THE STAFFORD LITTLE LECTURES 
 FOR 1917 
 
The Independence of the Executive 
 By Grover Cleveland 
 
 The Government in the Chicago Strike 
 By Grover Cleveland 
 
 The Venezuelan Boundary Controversy 
 By Grover Cleveland 
 
 Government of the Canal Zone 
 By George W. Goethals 
 
 The Two Hague Conferences 
 By Joseph H. Choate 
 
 Experiments in Government and the Essentials 
 
 of the Constitution 
 
 By Elihu Root 
 
 The Balkan Wars 
 By Jacob Gould Schurman 
 
 National Strength and International Duty 
 By Theodore Roosevelt 
 
 Each $1.00 net, by mail $1.06 
 
NATIONAL STRENGTH AND 
 INTERNATIONAL DUTY 
 
 BY 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 PRINCETON 
 
 LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1917 
 
216 13 
 
 Copyright, 1917, by 
 Princeton University Press 
 
 Published December, 1917 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 DEC 17 1917 
 
 ©C!.A47n570 
 
 --' V.Jt • 1 
 
NATIONAL STRENGTH AND 
 INTERNATIONAL DUTY 
 
 Before dealing with the proper subject 
 matter of the lecture, I wish to take up 
 — and brush aside — the objection to truth- 
 telling glibly urged by some extremely 
 partisan papers, and by some very silly 
 persons, who condemn all criticism of our 
 shortcomings on the pretence that "criti- 
 cism tends to weaken the Government and 
 is therefore disloyal." The well meaning 
 persons who are misled by this shallow 
 pretence would do well to ponder the fact 
 that this is the position which, in reference 
 to me, has been heatedly upheld by the 
 Hearst papers, and by German- American 
 papers like the Staats Zeitung, which in 
 this war have served Germany by justify- 
 
2 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 ing her actions, by enthusiastically hailing 
 all peace proposals which would leave her 
 mistress of the international situation, and 
 by assailing our Allies, especially Eng- 
 land. The pro-Germans clamor for an 
 indecisive peace, covertly back Germany 
 or oppose our Allies, or seek to interfere 
 with all proposals to make us genuinely 
 efficient in the war, and by their utterances 
 to rouse and increase discontent with the 
 war; and then they curry favor with the 
 foolish, at the same time that they con- 
 tinue to serve their real purposes, by de- 
 nouncing those who seek to make us more 
 effective in the war by honestly endeavor- 
 ing to eliminate the things that make us 
 ineffective. The fact that the pro- Ger- 
 mans, with ostentatious sham loyalty, de- 
 nounce honest criticism of our faults 
 ought to convince all honest persons who 
 are also intelligent that such criticism at 
 this time is vitally necessary. Such criti- 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 3 
 
 cism, to be of use, must be made in the 
 living present, and not after the event, 
 and only of the dead past. Let these per- 
 sons read Washington's unsparing criti- 
 cisms of, and to, the Continental Con- 
 gress; let them read Lincohi's merciless 
 criticisms of Pierce and Buchanan; and 
 they will understand that honest and 
 truthful and fearless criticism of grave 
 shortcomings may be absolutely indis- 
 pensable in order to secure triumph in a 
 grave crisis. 
 
 Any man who preaches to others should 
 rightly be required to show that he has 
 himself, according to his power, acted 
 upon the doctrines he preaches and that 
 he has not lightly changed them or lightly 
 adopted them. Moreover, any public man 
 who criticizes shortcomings in the present 
 should rightly be required to show that 
 he has criticized similar shortcomings in 
 the past, and that he has himself when in 
 
4 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 power endeavored to do that which he 
 now holds that others ought to do or to 
 have done. For this reason I make the 
 following quotations from my writings in 
 the past. 
 
 In the life of Thomas Hart Benton, 
 written thirty-one years ago, I put my 
 position as follows: 
 
 "After all this ruffianism was really not 
 a whit worse in its effect upon the national 
 character than was the case with certain of 
 the Universal Peace and Non-Resistance 
 developments in the Northeastern States ; 
 in fact, it was more healthy. A class of 
 professional non-combatants is as hurtful 
 to the real healthy growth of a nation as 
 is a class of fire-eaters ; for a weakness or 
 folly is nationally as bad as a vice or worse 
 and in the long run a [professional paci- 
 fist] may be quite as undesirable a citizen 
 as is a duelist. No man who is not willing 
 to bear arms and to fight for his rights can 
 give a good reason why he should be en- 
 titled to the privilege of living in a free 
 community." 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 5 
 
 What I thus said thirty-one years ago 
 I am saying now, and it is the doctrine 
 which I have preached ever since. It has 
 been the burden of my talk for prepared- 
 ness during the last three years and a 
 quarter. In the concluding sentence I 
 foreshadowed the doctrine that Universal 
 Service and Universal Suffrage should go 
 hand in hand, because no man is fit to vote 
 in a country if he is not willing to fight 
 for it. 
 
 Foolish creatures object to my calling 
 attention to our gross shortcomings and 
 failures at this time — our failure to pre- 
 pare in advance, our failure to provide 
 airplanes, our failure to provide proper 
 rifles and cannon, proper equipment, 
 proper gas masks, warm clothing for our 
 troops in the training camps. The follow- 
 ing extracts, written about the Adminis- 
 tration of which I was a part, at the time 
 when I was Assistant Secretary of the 
 
6 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 Navy, and Colonel in the Army; and 
 written in reference to my own party, and 
 to the Administration which I was shortly 
 to join, when I was Governor of the 
 State of New York: will show that I then 
 took precisely the position that I take 
 now. According to my belief it is the 
 only wise and patriotic position, the only 
 position that a self-respecting American, 
 who knows the facts, has any business to 
 take. 
 
 Before the Naval War College, in 
 June 1897, when I was Assistant Secre- 
 tary of the Navy, I made an address in 
 which I spoke, in part, as follows: 
 
 "Arbitration is an excellent thing. But 
 ultimately those who wish to see this coun- 
 try at peace with foreign nations will be 
 wise if they place reliance upon a first 
 class fleet of first class battleships rather 
 than on any arbitration treaty which the 
 wit of man can devise. Cowardice in a 
 race, as in an individual, is the unpardon- 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 7 
 
 able sin, and a wilful failure to prepare 
 for danger may, in its effects^ be as bad 
 a^ cowardice. The timid man who cannot 
 fights and the selfish, shortsighted or fool- 
 ish man who will not take the steps that 
 will enable him to fight, stand on almost 
 the same plane. The nation must have 
 physical, no less than moral courage; the 
 capacity to do and dare and die at need, 
 and that grim and steadfast resolution 
 which alone will carry a great people 
 through a great peril. Unreadiness for 
 war is merely rendered more disastrous 
 by readiness to bluster. It has always 
 been true, and in this age it is more than 
 ever true that it is too late to prepare for 
 war when the time for peace has passed. 
 It is too late to make ready for war when 
 the fight has once begun. The preparation 
 must come before that. Diplomacy is ut- 
 terly useless when there is no force behind 
 it; the diplomat is the servant, not the 
 master, of the soldier. If, in the future, 
 we have war, it will almost certainly come 
 because of some action, or lack of action, 
 on our part in the way of refusing to ac- 
 cept responsibilities at the proper time, or 
 
8 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 failing to prepare for war when war does 
 not threaten. An ignoble peace is even 
 worse than an unsuccessful war. We ask 
 for an armament fit for the nation's needs, 
 not primarily to fight but to avoid fight- 
 ing. Peace, like freedom, is not a gift 
 that tarries long in the hands of cowards 
 or of those too feeble or too short-sighted 
 to deserve it, and we ask to be given the 
 means to insure that honorable peace 
 which alone is worth having." 
 
 In this and in the subsequent quota- 
 tions I condense, for the sake of space, 
 by omitting sentences and parts of sen- 
 tences, but without changing a word which 
 would change the sense. I call especial 
 attention to the sentences I have italicised 
 in this address made over twenty-one 
 years ago. At the same time, in a. book 
 entitled "Naval Operations" of the War 
 of 1812, I said: 
 
 "Each [of the two main combatants in 
 the war] inclined to view with suspicion 
 the neutral who made a cold blooded profit 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 9 
 
 out of the sufferings of both, . . . there 
 was but one possible way to gain or keep 
 the respect of either, and that was by the 
 possession of power and the readiness to 
 use it if necessary. There never was a bet- 
 ter example of the ultimate evil caused by 
 a timid effort to secure peace through the 
 sacrifice of honor and the refusal to make 
 preparations for war . . . [and to] find 
 some patent substitute for war. Con- 
 tempt is the emotion of all others which 
 a nation should be least willing to arouse. 
 . . . lack of preparation, laxness of or- 
 ganization, invite disasters which can be 
 but partially repaired. [Other things be- 
 ing equal] victory in any contest will go 
 to the man or the nation that has earned 
 it by thorough preparation." 
 
 As Colonel of the First Volunteer Cav- 
 alry, September 10, 1898, I notified the 
 Secretary of War, my official superior, as 
 to conditions during the campaign, doing 
 this in answer to a circular issued by Com- 
 mander Major General Shafter. I set 
 down the exact facts, good and bad; I 
 
10 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 described the confusion and the good 
 jSghting both ahke. The rifles and am- 
 munition were excellent and were well 
 handled; items in the food supply, such 
 as the corn beef, were excellent. I re- 
 ported "the canned roast beef as worse 
 than a failure as part of the rations, and 
 the effort to eat it made some of the men 
 sick." I further reported that: 
 
 "On the return trip the rations were 
 short, the water very bad and the lack of 
 ice for the weak and sickly men was very 
 much felt. During the month following 
 the landing of the Army in Cuba the food 
 supplies were generally short in quantity. 
 The hardtack was often moldy, the bacon 
 was usually good. Members of the Illi- 
 nois Regiment at one time offered our 
 men a dollar apiece for hardtacks. I 
 wish to bear testimony to the energy and 
 capacity of Colonel Weston, the Com- 
 missary General with the Expedition: 
 As regards the clothing, the blue shirts 
 were excellent, the leggings were good, 
 the shoes were very good, the undershirts 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 11 
 
 not very good, the drawers bad and the 
 trousers poor. Just before leaving Cuba 
 most of the men were in tatters, some be- 
 ing actually bare-footed while others were 
 in rags or partly dressed in clothes cap- 
 tured from the Spaniards. The condi- 
 tions in the big hospitals in the rear were 
 frightful, beyond description, from lack 
 of supplies, lack of medicine, lack of 
 doctors, nurses and attendants, and espe- 
 cially from lack of transportation. The 
 wounded and sick who were sent back suf- 
 fered so much that finally we never sent 
 any to the rear save in the direst need." 
 
 These conmients were made to my su- 
 perior officers when I was in the Army 
 and just prior to my being nominated as 
 Governor of New York. I pointed out 
 the grave faults in our Administration 
 then, not to embarrass the Government, 
 of which I was a hearty supporter, but 
 because it was a plain duty to the country 
 to act precisely as I acted. Exactly the 
 same reasons influence me now, when I 
 
12 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 point out that broom sticks are insufficient 
 substitutes for rifles, or that eight men 
 drilled with one rifle, without any ammu- 
 nition, will not learn the work of soldier- 
 ing as rapidly as if each had his own mod- 
 ern rifle, or when I say that in bitter 
 November weather a soldier without an 
 overcoat and in a cotton uniform and 
 summer underclothing and socks is not 
 sufficiently clad. Unless our people thor- 
 oughly and vividly understand the evil re- 
 sults of failure to prepare in advance, it 
 may be set down as certain that they never 
 will prepare in advance. 
 
 While Governor of New York, in No- 
 vember 1899, the year before I myself ran 
 as candidate for Vice-President, I made 
 an earnest plea for preparedness in ad- 
 vance and set forth absolutely without 
 equivocation the shortcomings of the 
 Army at the time of the Santiago Cam- 
 paign. I said in part (again I condense, 
 as in most of these quotations) : 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 13 
 
 "The Artillery had for thirty-five years 
 had no field practice that was in the slight- 
 est degree adequate to its needs. The 
 bureaus in Washington were absolutely 
 enmeshed in red tape and were held, for 
 the most part, by elderly men of fine rec- 
 ords in the past who were no longer fit 
 to break through routine and to show the 
 extraordinary energy, business capacity, 
 initiative and willingness to accept re- 
 sponsibility which were needed. The 
 Santiago campaign was a welter of con- 
 fusion with utter lack of organization and 
 of that skilled leadership which can come 
 only through practice. The Army was 
 more than once uncomfortably near dis- 
 aster, from which it was saved by the 
 remarkable fighting qualities of its indi- 
 vidual fractions, and above all by the in- 
 competency of its foes. To go against a 
 well organized, well handled, well led for- 
 eign foe under such conditions would in- 
 evitably have meant failure and humilia- 
 tion. It will be impossible to get good 
 results in war if the nation, through its 
 representatives, has failed to make ade- 
 quate provision for a proper Army and 
 
14 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 to provide for the reorganization of the 
 Army and for its practice in time of 
 peace.'* 
 
 I was writing of my own party, and of 
 what occurred under the Administration 
 of which I was part. I then dechned to 
 suppress or alter the truth; and those 
 critics of mine are indeed foohsh who be- 
 lieve that I can be frightened into at this 
 time refusing to speak that minimum por- 
 tion of the truth which it is imperative on 
 behalf of the nation now to set forth. 
 
 In my Autobiography I christened my 
 chapter on the Spanish war, "The War 
 of America The Unready." Writing in 
 1913, I said: 
 
 "There is no more utterly useless and 
 even utterly mischievous citizen, than the 
 peace-at-any-price, universal arbitration 
 type of being, who is always complaining, 
 either about war or else about the cost of 
 the armaments which act as the insurance 
 against war. In the present stage of civ- 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 15 
 
 ilization a proper armament is the surest 
 guarantee of peace and is the only guar- 
 antee that war, if it does come, will not 
 mean irreparable and overwhelming dis- 
 aster. The huckster or pawn-broker type 
 is usually physically timid and likes to 
 cover an unworthy fear of the most just 
 war under high sounding names. The 
 large mollycoddle vote . . . consists of the 
 people who are soft physically and mor- 
 ally or who have a twist in them which 
 makes them cantankerous and unpleasant 
 as long as they can be so with safety to 
 their bodies. In addition there are the 
 good people with no imagination and no 
 foresight who think war will not come, but 
 that if it does come. Armies and Navies 
 can be improvised. I abhor unjust war; 
 I believe that war should never be resorted 
 to when or so long as it is honorably pos- 
 sible to avoid it. I advocate preparation 
 for war in order to avert war, and I 
 should never advocate war unless it were 
 the only alternative to dishonor. I de- 
 scribe the folly of which so many of our 
 people were formerly guilty, in order that 
 we may in our own day be on our guard 
 against similar folly." 
 
16 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 I call especial attention to the last sen- 
 tence. I was speaking of the Administra- 
 tion and of the party organization in which 
 I had held a position of some prominence. 
 My motives in so speaking were precisely 
 the same as my motives in describing the 
 folly of which we have been guilty during 
 the last three years and a quarter. I wish 
 that any persons who believe that I have 
 in any fundamental way changed my atti- 
 tude would read the final chapter in my 
 Autobiography, "The Peace of Right- 
 eousness." Every position I have taken 
 during the past three and one quarter 
 years is foreshadowed, often in absolute 
 detail, by what I said in that chapter. 
 
 As President I, many scores of times, 
 took precisely the position I now take. 
 I quote almost at random. In 1901, in 
 my message to Congress, I said: 
 
 "We desire the peace which comes as 
 of right to the just man armed, not the 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 17 
 
 peace granted on terms of ignominy, to 
 the craven and the weakling. It is not 
 possible to improvise [military force] 
 after v^ar breaks out. If wt fail to show 
 forethought and preparation now, there 
 may come a time when disaster will befall 
 us instead of triumph. There is no surer 
 way of courting national disaster than to 
 be opulent, aggressive and unarmed. 
 Only by actual handling and providing 
 for men in masses while they are march- 
 ing, camping, embarking and disembark- 
 ing will it be possible to train the higher 
 officers to perform their duties well and 
 smoothly. It is utterly impossible in the 
 excitement and haste of impending war 
 [to work] satisfactorily if the arrange- 
 ments have not been made long before- 
 hand." 
 
 In December 1905, in my message to 
 Congress, I said: 
 
 "We can do nothing of permanent 
 value for peace unless we keep ever clearly 
 in mind the ethical element which lies at 
 the root of the problem. Our aim is right- 
 eousness. When peace and righteousness 
 
18 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 conflict then a great and upright people 
 can never for a moment hesitate to follow 
 the path which leads toward righteous- 
 ness, even though that path also leads 
 toward war. We have scant sympathy 
 with the sentimentalist who dreads oppres- 
 sion less than physical suffering, and who 
 would prefer a shameful peace to the pain 
 and toil sometimes lamentably necessary 
 in order to secure a righteous peace. As 
 the world is now, only that nation is 
 equipped for peace that knows how to 
 fight and that will not shrink from fight- 
 ing if ever the conditions become such that 
 war is demanded in the name of the high- 
 est morality. We cannot consider the 
 question of our foreign policy without at 
 the same time treating of the Army and 
 Navy. Only by training in advance can 
 we be sure that in actual war, field opera- 
 tions and those at sea will be carried on 
 successfully." 
 
 I dwelt upon our duties about peace 
 and war and the duty of preparedness 
 again and again, in message after mes- 
 sage. In my message to Congress in De- 
 cember 1906, for example, I said: 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 19 
 
 "A just war is in the long run far bet- 
 ter for a nation's soul than the most pros- 
 perous peace obtained by acquiescence in 
 wrong or in injustice.'' 
 
 Then in advocating preparedness I 
 said: 
 
 "It is earnestly to be wished that we 
 would profit by the teaching of history in 
 this matter. A strong and wise people 
 will study its own failures no less than 
 its triumphs, for there is wisdom to be 
 learned from the study of both, of the 
 mistake as well as of the success. For 
 this purpose nothing can be more instruc- 
 tive than a rational study of the War of 
 1812. During the preceding twelve years 
 our people refused to make any prep- 
 arations whatever regarding the Army 
 or the Navy. They saved a milUon or 
 two of dollars by so doing, and in mere 
 money paid a hundredfold for each mil- 
 lion they thus saved during a war which 
 brought untold suffering and which re- 
 sulted merely in what was, in effect, a 
 drawn battle. The little Republic of 
 Switzerland sets us an excellent example 
 
20 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 in all matters connected with building up 
 an efficient citizen soldiery." 
 
 I was not then acquainted with the term 
 "universal obligatory military training"; 
 hardly any American was ; but I knew of 
 the thing, although not the term; and I 
 held up Switzerland as a model to us, in 
 pursuance of the doctrine I was preach- 
 ing, that no freeman had a right to live in 
 a free nation if he would not bear arms, 
 and therefore train himself to bear arms 
 efficiently, in the nation's service. 
 
 In my message to Congress of Decem- 
 ber 1907, I said: 
 
 "Again and again we have suffered be- 
 cause there has not been sufficient prep- 
 aration in advance for possible war. As 
 a nation we have always been short- 
 sighted in providing for the efficiency of 
 the Army in time of peace. Declamation 
 against militarism has no more serious 
 place in an earnest and intelligent move- 
 ment for righteousness in this country 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 21 
 
 than declamation against the worship of 
 Baal or Ashteroth. The result of war if 
 the combatants are otherwsie equally- 
 matched will depend chiefly upon which 
 Power has prepared best in time of peace. 
 It is folly for this nation to base any hope 
 of securing peace on any international 
 agreement as to the limitation of arma- 
 ments. We should this year provide for 
 four battleships. Moreover, the only way 
 to find out our actual needs is to perform 
 in time of peace the maneuvers necessary 
 in time of war. After war is declared 
 it is too late to find out the needs. [Such 
 delay] means to invite disaster." 
 
 In a special message to Congress the 
 following April I, again, urged the build- 
 ing of four battleships a year. I con- 
 tinued: 
 
 "It is mischievous folly for any states- 
 man to assume that this world has yet 
 reached the stage when a proud nation, 
 jealous of its honor, can be content to rely 
 for peace upon the forbearance of other 
 Powers. Events still fresh in the mind 
 
22 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 of every thinking man show that neither 
 arbitration, nor any other device, can as 
 yet be invoked to prevent the gravest and 
 most terrible wrongdoing to peoples who 
 are either few in numbers or who, if nu- 
 merous, have lost the first and most im- 
 portant of national virtues, the capacity 
 for self defence." 
 
 Witness Belgium and China today! 
 
 In another message I stated that it 
 would "be criminal to fail to prepare," 
 and in yet another I said: 
 
 "The conduct of the Spanish War 
 showed the lamentable loss of life, the 
 useless extravagance and the inefficiency 
 certain to result if during peace the high 
 officers of the War and Navy Depart- 
 ments are praised and rewarded only [for 
 matters against the efficiency of the serv- 
 ice]. Money should be appropriated to 
 permit troops to be massed in bodies and 
 exercised in maneuvers, particularly in 
 marching. [I then recommended in- 
 creases and other measures.] Neglect to 
 provide for all of this means to incur the 
 risk of future disaster and disgrace." 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 23 
 
 In all these matters I went much fur- 
 ther than I could get the Congress to 
 back me up. What I asked for as regards 
 the Navy was proper. As regards the 
 Army, I did not ask for nearly enough, 
 although I went much further than either 
 Congress, or the people behind Congress, 
 were then willing to go. I asked for much 
 more than I got! And it is only just to 
 say that I did get a large response both 
 from Congress and the people, so that by 
 the end of my term the Army had much 
 improved in efficiency, and the Navy had 
 been doubled in size and at least quad- 
 rupled in efficiency — at the time when the 
 battle fleet steamed around the world we 
 were easily the second naval power of the 
 world. I felt that I was by my office a 
 leader, that it was the duty of a leader to 
 lead, and that above all it was his duty to 
 lead in the right direction. 
 
 If you doubt the need of calling at- 
 
M NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 tention to grave shortcomings, let me 
 ask your attention to what, on this very 
 day when I am addressing you, has been 
 said by the Secretaries of War and the 
 Navy, the President's mouthpieces and 
 ofBcial representatives in dealing with the 
 entire military policy of the nation, the 
 most vitally important of all our activities 
 at this time. The two secretaries, as re- 
 ported in the New York Tribune, and in 
 an editorial in the New York Times, have 
 just denied that there is any shortage in 
 warm clothing among our troops and sail- 
 ors, and Mr. Daniels has deprecated 
 the action of the private individuals who, 
 separately or associated together, in this 
 essential matter are endeavoring to make 
 good the Government's shortcomings by 
 providing for our troops and sailors the 
 warm clothing necessary not only to their 
 comfort but to their health and efficiency 
 as fighting men. Such denials represent 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 25 
 
 ignorance pushed to the point of fatuity. 
 They come perilously near representing a 
 wilful and most culpable failure in the 
 performance of one of the most important 
 governmental duties at the present mo- 
 ment. 
 
 At the very time that this statement 
 appeared in the press, there also appeared 
 in the press an appeal from our official 
 Red Cross representatives in Paris for a 
 million and a half more sweaters. At that 
 very time all of us who were acquainted 
 with what was happening in at least cer- 
 tain of the training camps knew of wide- 
 spread discomfort, often rising to suffer- 
 ing, and sometimes to disease and death, 
 due to the failure to provide the raw re- 
 cruits with the warm clothing essential to 
 health when bitter weather has begun. 
 Scores of officers have written me, or 
 spoken to me, requesting aid in getting 
 overcoats, blankets, jerseys, warm under- 
 
26 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 clothes or heavy socks for their men. 
 Scores of men, or relatives of men, have 
 written me asking if I could not do some- 
 thing to remedy the conditions — which I 
 was helpless to remedy. On the morning 
 of the day of my speech I received one 
 letter reading as follows: 
 
 "I am in trouble and appeal to you. 
 Enclosed are extracts from my son's let- 
 ter. He is not a weakling. When only 
 15 years of age he was driving a six-horse 
 team over some of the worst mountain 
 roads in Idaho. He is a manly man. This 
 letter shows him more concerned for his 
 fellows than himself." 
 
 The extract from the letter read: 
 
 "Camp So-and-So, Nov. 8, 1917.— The 
 weather has moderated some and we do 
 not suffer so .much from the cold. We 
 have no heat in the barracks yet and very 
 few clothes. But for myself I am getting 
 along OK. It is hard on some of the fel- 
 lows who are sick. The worst of it is we 
 cannot get medical treatment. They have 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 27 
 
 nothing but salts, camly [sic] pills and 
 iodine at the infirmary. So if a man gets 
 sick he is up against it. They are having 
 quite a bit of trouble with contagious dis- 
 eases such as scarlet fever, measles and 
 spinal meningitis." 
 
 A captain from this same camp has just 
 told me that he had one fifth as many over- 
 coats as he had men, and had to use them 
 turn and turn about for the men on guard 
 duty; that he had been able to get thick 
 drawers for the men, but only summer 
 undershirts. A Major-Quartermaster 
 from another camp has just told me that 
 he has at last got plenty of overcoats, but 
 that most of the men still have only cotton 
 uniforms, summer underclothing and light 
 socks. I could multiply these instances 
 indefinitely; they are not exceptional; 
 they stand for the average conditions in 
 at least certain camps. They have been 
 the conditions for nearly three months. 
 
28 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 The able officers in the camps are now 
 correcting them; and they would have 
 been corrected far more quickly if there 
 had been outspoken criticism of them/ 
 
 Now, if those responsible for these con- 
 ditions had the manliness frankly to ac- 
 knowledge them, to admit that they, our 
 governmental leaders, had made a capital 
 mistake in the failure to prepare in ad- 
 vance which is chiefly responsible for such 
 conditions, and if with entire disregard of 
 both partisanship and spite our leaders had 
 endeavored to remedy such conditions, I 
 should say not one word about them. I 
 should confine myself to helping remedy 
 
 1 A striking example of the good effects of criticism 
 has just been given by the announcements of the Secre- 
 taries of War and the Navy in the papers of day before 
 yesterday to the effect that they now welcome the giving 
 to our soldiers and sailors of warm clothing. Ten days 
 ago, as above recited, they by their public announce- 
 ments endeavored to discourage all persons from giving 
 such needed clothing to our men (and the Secretary of 
 the Navy, because of a personal quarrel with the Navy 
 League, has refused to let that organization help our 
 sailors in this fashion). The criticism of this action 
 has borne healthy fruit. — Thanksgiving Day 1917. 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 29 
 
 them. But when the conditions are de- 
 nied, when those responsible for them 
 punish General Wood for having done his 
 high duty in exposing and trying to rem- 
 edy them, and when these same responsi- 
 ble officials refuse to introduce as our per- 
 manent governmental policy the only pol- 
 icy which will prevent the recurrence of 
 these conditions on some occasion when 
 they may bring national ruin, it is un- 
 worthy of a patriotic man to keep silent. 
 I believe that we have the finest kind of 
 material in the men, the officers and en- 
 listed men, regulars, volunteers and 
 drafted men alike, who are now gathered 
 in the various training camps. No man 
 can visit these camps, and see these men, 
 without feeling his heart swell with pride 
 as an American. I believe that within a 
 year or so of our entry into the war these 
 men will in spite of all the handicaps have 
 developed into an admirable and f ormida- 
 
30 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 ble army of fighting soldiers. What I 
 wish with all my might to emphasize is 
 that our present experience proves that, 
 in spite of having such excellent natural 
 material, our unpreparedness when we en- 
 tered the war was so shamefully complete 
 that for a year thereafter we would have 
 been absolutely at the mercy of any for- 
 midable opponent, if our Allies had not 
 protected us. I recite the facts in the case 
 only with the hope, the eager hope, that 
 we may take the lesson to heart and so 
 prepare ourselves that never again shall 
 we repeat our folly. 
 
 So much for what is really only pre- 
 hminary to my lecture itself. Now for 
 what I have to say to you students, and 
 therefore to all the other men like you in 
 our nation. 
 
 If we cannot look to our college trained 
 men for leadership in our national life, 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 31 
 
 then there is something radically wrong 
 either in the colleges or in the national 
 life. I am not willing to admit that either 
 is the case. Therefore, I confidently ap- 
 peal to the college men of the United 
 States for practical translation into pol- 
 icy of what in books of advanced theology 
 would be called a proper national ethic 
 and a proper world-ethic. In other words, 
 I ask the men to whom special cultural 
 opportunities have been granted both to 
 teach our people that no nation can help 
 others imless it can defend itself by its 
 own prepared strength, and also to teach 
 them that this strength, the only safe 
 foundation for national greatness, must 
 in international matters be used with high 
 regard for the rights of others. 
 
 This is only applying to the nation, in 
 its relation to the world at large, the rule 
 of conduct applicable to the individual 
 within the nation in his relations to other 
 
32 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 individuals. The man who does not so 
 consult his own interest and the interest 
 of those closest to him as to strive for per- 
 sonal success and achievement is but a 
 poor creature; but if he considers only 
 personal achievement and success, with- 
 out regard to honesty and to respect for 
 the rights of others, he becomes a noxious 
 jungle beast in the body politic. So it 
 is with nations. China became a source 
 of danger to the peace of the world be- 
 cause it let military inefficiency degen- 
 erate into utter military ineptitude. Ger- 
 many became a worse danger to the peace 
 of the world because it developed the wor- 
 ship of efficiency unbalanced by morality 
 into a monstrous latter-day Moloch-cult. 
 Moreover, Germany, at the same time 
 that she reverted to a world-ethic sub- 
 stantially similar to that of Attila, Gen- 
 ghis Khan and Tamerlane, also made 
 every advance in modern material civiliza- 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 33 
 
 tion an efficient aid in the application of 
 this hideous world-ethic. 
 
 Of course, the vital thing for the nation 
 no less than the individual to remember 
 is that, while dreaming and talking both 
 have their uses, these uses must chiefly 
 exist in seeing the dream realized and the 
 talk turned into action. It is well that 
 there should be some ideals so high as 
 never to be wholly possible of realization; 
 but unless there is a sincere effort meas- 
 ureably to realize them, ghttering talk 
 about them represents merely a kind of 
 self-indulgence which ultimately means 
 atrophy of will power. Ideals that are so 
 lofty as always to be unrealizeable, have 
 a place, sometimes an exceedingly impor- 
 tant place, in the history of mankind, if 
 the attempt partially to reahze them is 
 made ; but in the long run what most helps 
 forward the common run of himianity in 
 this workaday world is the possession of 
 
34 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 realizeable ideals and the sincere attempt 
 to realize them. 
 
 For similar reasons mere closet theoriz- 
 ing about the work of governing or better- 
 ing men is only rarely of any use, and is 
 never of as much use as a working hy- 
 pothesis that is being translated into prac- 
 tice. It is not mere documentation, mere 
 historical or philosophical research, but 
 experimentation, the service test, the test 
 by trial and error, which counts most in 
 the ceaseless struggle for the slow, partial, 
 never very satisfactory, but never-to-be- 
 abandoned uplift of our brother man and 
 sister woman. Robespierre and the other 
 leaders who turned the French revolution 
 from a beneficent movement against one 
 kind of tyrannous injustice into a horrible 
 crusade on behalf of another and even 
 bloodier type of tyrannous injustice, ut- 
 tered far loftier sentiments, and an- 
 nounced their devotion to far more glit- 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 35 
 
 tering ideals for all mankind, than Wash- 
 ington and Lincoln ever uttered or an- 
 nounced. But Washington and Lincoln 
 never used lofty words to cloak base ac- 
 tions, never used spangled rhetoric with- 
 out serious intention to turn it into deeds, 
 never with oratorical insincerity promised 
 what could not be performed, never de- 
 liberately pledged themselves to one course 
 of policy and then cynically reversed 
 themselves when it suited their self-inter- 
 est ; and with steady sincerity they carried 
 one consistent purpose to realization in 
 the actual facts of life. Therefore Wash- 
 ington and Lincoln stand at the opposite 
 pole from Robespierre, Danton, Hebert, 
 Marat and their fellow malefactors. 
 
 Now, all of these general statements 
 and historical illustrations will probably 
 command the assent of most men of aver- 
 age common sense. I do not expect them 
 to be approved by the persons whose com- 
 
36 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 plete refusal to profit by experience, or 
 whose slightly erratic brain development, 
 or whose timidity, make them prefer per- 
 manently to dwell in a world of shadows 
 rather than of realities. But most men 
 and women of common sense will not 
 merely agree with them; they will think 
 them too obvious to need elaboration. So 
 they are. But they are by no means too 
 obvious at this moment in so far as re- 
 ducing them to action is concerned! What 
 we now need — probably what we genera- 
 ally need — in our national life is the re- 
 duction to concrete action of that which 
 in the abstract we accept as obvious. The 
 difficulty lies not in securing assent to 
 wisdom as an abstract proposition, but in 
 making men go through the hard, stum- 
 bling, painful effort to reduce it to prac- 
 tice. 
 
 Therefore, I ask our people, and espe- 
 cially I ask our yoimg men who have been 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 37 
 
 given the boon of university training, to 
 apply these statements to our national 
 conduct during the last three and a half 
 years; to judge our conduct at the pres- 
 ent time by the general principles to which 
 we cordially assent as abstract proposi- 
 tions; and then, what is the really impor- 
 tant thing, to take steps now, at once, in 
 order that for the future our conduct shall 
 square with the principles which we now 
 see should have been applied in the past. 
 In putting before ourselves what we, 
 through our Governmental representa- 
 tives, have done in the past our thought 
 should be only for the future. We recall 
 what is evil in the past, not in order to 
 reproach anyone, but to make sure that 
 it does not recur in the future. After his 
 second election as President, Abraham 
 Lincoln said to a body of men who had 
 come to congratulate him: "Human na- 
 ture will not change. In any future great 
 
38 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 national trial, compared with the men of 
 this, we shall have as weak and as strong, 
 as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. 
 Let us therefore study the incidents of 
 this as philosophy to learn wisdom from 
 and none of them as wrongs to be 
 avenged," This is the attitude for us to 
 take now. Whether the acts which have 
 caused the harm were due to silliness or 
 to some even more evil quality, is of no 
 consequence; we do not wish to consider 
 them as anything to be avenged. But we 
 shall ourselves show both silliness and lack 
 of patriotism if we do not learn wisdom 
 from our own shortcomings in the past; 
 and we cannot learn wisdom imless we 
 clearly understand just what these short- 
 comings were, and just what our present 
 position is. It is, of course, entirely true 
 that the faults which are past cannot be 
 repaired, and therefore, so far as this ob- 
 ject is concerned, need not be discussed; 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 39 
 
 but when there is imminent danger of our 
 repeating in the future, when as a matter 
 of fact we are now repeating in the pres- 
 ent, these identical faults, it is imperative 
 clearly to realize them, in order to avoid 
 continuance in their conmiission. We do 
 not wish to cry over spilt milk. But most 
 emphatically we need clearly to under- 
 stand that it was spilt, and why it was 
 spilt, so as in the future to avoid spilling 
 it when the spilling will be utterly disas- 
 trous. As a matter of fact we are still 
 spilling it; and this primarily because we 
 refuse to admit how much we have spilt 
 in the past. 
 
 Do you say that there is no need of 
 learning the lesson? If this is your 
 thought, read the daily papers, and study 
 the utterances of our governmental lead- 
 ers. We have boasted intolerably; we 
 have boasted so much over what we are 
 doing, and over what we intend to do. 
 
40 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 that we actually tend to forget the one 
 outstanding fact, which is that as yet we 
 have actually done almost nothing. 
 
 Remember clearly that the war began 
 just as soon as the Germans sent their 
 submarine note of January 31st last, 
 which we answered by breaking off diplo- 
 matic relations on February 3rd. Con- 
 gress did not declare war in April; it an- 
 nounced that war already existed. And 
 Congress was right. We were exactly as 
 much at war during the two months pre- 
 ceding the action of Congress as during 
 the two months succeeding thereto. If it 
 was inexcusable not to prepare with all 
 possible speed and efficiency after the 
 action in April, it was equally inexcusable 
 not so to prepare immediately after Jan- 
 uary 31st. The situation had not changed 
 in the smallest degree during the interval. 
 It is now mid November. We are getting 
 towards the close of the tenth month since 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 41 
 
 Germany has been at war with us (I am 
 using the language of Congress). What 
 have we done during these ten months and 
 how far have our words concealed from 
 ourselves — but from no one else — ^how lit- 
 tle we have done? 
 
 Let us consider the last question first. 
 Early in October the Secretary of War 
 issued a couple of statements about the 
 work of the War Department. In one 
 statement he said, as authoritatively 
 quoted in the press: "We are well on 
 the way to the battle front. At the end 
 of another six months^ it is safe to pre- 
 dict, the United States will show a record 
 of preparedness and achievement that will 
 challenge the world's admiration." The 
 friendly newspaper giving this statement 
 put in as a headline — "U. S. Will Startle 
 World with Work for War, Says Baker" ; 
 and followed the Secretary's statement 
 with this comment, "From a nation of 
 
42 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 peace and unpreparedness the country in 
 six [by rights eight] months has devel- 
 oped into a powerful fighting machine — 
 the greatest factor in the war. Congress 
 has completed a program which for mag- 
 nitude and money has no equal in the his- 
 tory of the world's parliaments. . . . On 
 April 6th, the day President Wilson 
 signed the declaration of war, the Amer- 
 ican army was small and unsupplied. The 
 Navy was not fully manned. America's 
 merchant marine was a joke among na- 
 tions. The army had less than a dozen 
 aeroplanes." On the previous day the 
 Secretary of War had authorized the 
 statement that "20,000 airplanes are be- 
 ing built for the army," that the country 
 has an "unlimited supply of young men 
 who are being trained for aviators," and 
 that "within a reasonable time, consider- 
 ing the period for preparation, this coun- 
 try will send its first airplane to Europe." 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 43 
 
 The newspaper in which I saw this state- 
 ment summarized it by saying that the 
 Secretary had annomiced that "all these 
 20,000 airplanes will be completed, with 
 thousands of trained aviators at hand, 
 when Pershing moves to the front." 
 About the same time the oriental investi- 
 gator and expert of one great paper an- 
 nounced that in view of our having now 
 become a great military nation Japan was 
 hereafter a negligible factor in military 
 affairs and we should forthwith insist on 
 the open door in Manchuria! 
 
 These utterances are not exceptional. 
 They are typical. Those which are official 
 are the statements made during a space 
 of two or three days by the gentleman who 
 in war matters speaks for and represents 
 and is responsible for the Administration. 
 The others are the statements of influen- 
 tial newspapers which in good faith ac- 
 cepted what was thus said and built their 
 
44 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 theories upon it. In their turn the read- 
 ers of the newspapers accept both sets of 
 statements; and relatively well-informed 
 men hesitate to tell the truth because good 
 foolish people feel now, as good foolish 
 people have always felt, that an agreeable 
 lie is better than a disagreeable truth. 
 
 Nothing works graver damage to a na- 
 tion, especially in war time, than either 
 dishonest readiness imtruthfuUy to criti- 
 cise what is right or timid reluctance 
 truthfully to criticise what is wrong. In 
 this war the worst and most unpatriotic 
 action has been that of the men who have 
 said that we had no special grievance 
 against Germany and therefore no cause 
 of war with Germany (if the sinking of 
 the Lusitania was no special grievance to 
 this nation then the rape of a woman is 
 no special grievance to the men who are 
 her close kin) ; the persons who have op- 
 posed efficient methods of carrying on the 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 45 
 
 war; the men who try to escape or help 
 others to escape from rendering military- 
 service ; and the men who clamor for peace 
 without victory — for an inconclusive 
 peace, which would leave Germany un- 
 punished for her hideous wrongdoing and 
 her vassal states, Austria, Bulgaria and 
 Turkey, still able to oppress the national- 
 ities over which they tyrannize. But sec- 
 ond only to these men in the damage they 
 cause, come those other men who deny or 
 seek to cover up the fact that we have been 
 guilty not merely of folly, but of the grav- 
 est moral dereliction, in failing to begin 
 to prepare as soon as the great war broke 
 out, that this failure on our part has 
 caused irreparable loss and damage, and 
 that since we entered the war, while we 
 have done some things well, we have done 
 some things very badly. 
 
 In the statements above quoted con- 
 sider first those made officially by the 
 
46 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 Secretary of War on behalf of the Ad- 
 ministration. They deal in part with 
 what has been done, and in part with 
 prophecy as to what we are going to do. 
 Speaking of what has been done the Sec- 
 retary of War says "we are well on the 
 way to the battle front." The accuracy 
 of this statement depends upon the stand- 
 ard of speed and accomplishment which 
 we employ in judging such a phrase as 
 "well on the way." After ten months we 
 have failed to reach the battle front, ex- 
 cept with one division, which we are in- 
 formed is in the trenches chiefly for the 
 purpose of instruction; and this means 
 that we have gone towards the front at 
 a snail's pace compared to what every 
 other big nation in the world except China 
 has done and is doing. 
 
 We can, if it is any satisfaction, com- 
 pare ourselves with China. But no other 
 big modem nation for over a hundred 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 47 
 
 years has been forced after ten months 
 of war to say only that it was "well on 
 the way to the front." For comparison 
 with this kind of military activity we must 
 go back to the days of Tiglath Pileser, 
 Nebuchhadnezzar, and Pharaoh Necho. 
 For the Assyrians and Egyptians of that 
 period ten months was perhaps not an ex- 
 cessive time in which to begin to prepare 
 to get "well on the way to the front." But 
 it is excessive, and more than excessive, 
 for any nation that realizes that we are 
 living in the days of the successors of 
 Moltke. The United States should adopt 
 the standards of speed in war which be- 
 long to the 20th Century A. D. ; we should 
 not be content with, still less boast about, 
 standards which were obsolete in the Sev- 
 enth Century B. C. 
 
 The prophecy following this statement 
 of achievement is : "At the end of another 
 six months, it is safe to predict, the United 
 
48 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 States will show a record of preparedness 
 and achievement that will challenge the 
 world's admiration." 
 
 Perhaps! It depends somewhat upon 
 what the world feels like admiring. But 
 instead of an uneasy hungering to secure 
 the world's admiration without earning it, 
 would it not be well first, without boasting 
 as to what we will do in the future, so to 
 act in the present as to make safe our own 
 self-respect and develop our own assured 
 power of self-reliance, and let the world's 
 admiration take care of itself? It may 
 possibly be true — although I doubt it — 
 that Brag is a good dog; but Holdfast is 
 a better. 
 
 As regards airplanes, the Secretary of 
 War announces that we are now prepar- 
 ing 20,000 airplanes and an unhmited 
 supply of aviators. But as regards im- 
 mediate action he makes only the cautious 
 statement that "within a reasonable time. 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 49 
 
 considering the period of preparation, this 
 country will send its first airplane to 
 Europe.'* In other words, the 20,000 air- 
 planes with their skilled aviators, trained 
 in shooting and bomb throwing, are still 
 in the distance; but our concrete hope is 
 only that reasonably soon we shall get 
 one airplane to Europe. I gladly admit 
 that this is pretty good "considering the 
 period for preparation." This last is the 
 essence of the matter. General Squier 
 and his military and civiHan associates, 
 backed by the big business men engaged 
 in motor construction and the hke, have 
 done admirably ; we have as a nation every 
 reason to be proud of their energy, ad- 
 ministrative skill and inventive capacity. 
 What has been done in the difficult work 
 of airplane construction has been capital. 
 But the praise must be limited by the 
 phrase "considering the period for prep- 
 aration." The men who have done the 
 
50 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 job are not responsible for having been 
 forced to begin two years and three quar- 
 ters after they ought to have begun. But 
 we as a people, through om* high govern- 
 mental authorities, have no right to excuse 
 ourselves for the almost inconceivable de- 
 lay in beginning by apologetically "con- 
 sidering the period for preparation." It 
 is purely our fault that the men who are 
 doing the job have had to take into ac- 
 count such a "consideration." 
 
 We must also remember that while we 
 are still only beginning to build the 
 twenty thousand airplanes, and beginning 
 to train the future twenty thousand avia- 
 tors to fly, we have not yet even begun to 
 train the few hundred aviators we already 
 have, to fight. After the best type of air- 
 plane has been produced in vast numbers, 
 and after the tens of thousands of men 
 necessary have been trained to handle 
 them in the air, it will still be necessary 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 51 
 
 to train them how to do the actual shoot- 
 ing against the war-hawks on the other 
 side, and the actual bombing at the same 
 time that they dodge the anti-aircraft 
 guns of the enemy. We have waited to 
 learn all this and to do all this until war 
 actually came, although for over two 
 years and a half we were vouchsafed such 
 warning as no other nation in recent times 
 has had in advance of war. We are now 
 able to do all this, we now have the neces- 
 sary year or eighteen months in which to 
 build machines and train men, only be- 
 cause the weary and war worn allies, to 
 whose help we have nominally come, deem 
 it worth while, for their own sakes, to pro- 
 tect us with their fleets and armies, with 
 the bodies of their bravest and the brains 
 of their wisest, while we at last do what 
 it was unpardonable for us not to have 
 done long in advance. 
 
 Why cry over spilt milk you say? Be- 
 
52 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 cause now is the time to provide that it 
 shall not be spilt in the future; and we 
 never shall so provide if we complacently 
 ignore the fact that it has been spilt in 
 the past. Remember that we have not 
 yet taken one step to make preparedness 
 our permanent pohcy. On the contrary, 
 our leaders vaguely hold out the hope that 
 we can avoid such a policy by devising 
 some patent fake pohcy of permanent 
 pacifism after the war. To rely on any 
 policy of pacifism as a substitute for (in- 
 stead of, as I would gladly admit it to 
 be, an addition and supplement to) the 
 policy of training and preparing in ad- 
 vance our national strength, would be 
 criminal. And the only sure way of avert- 
 ing the introduction of a foolish pacifist 
 policy is by profiting by the humihating 
 experience through which we are now go- 
 ing, and introducing now, immediately, 
 the policy of real preparedness as a per- 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 53 
 
 manent feature of our governmental ac- 
 tion. 
 
 So much for the governmental an- 
 nouncements. Now for the newspaper 
 statements based on these governmental 
 announcements. Remember that these 
 newspaper statements come from high 
 grade, reputable papers, sincerely bent 
 on telling the truth; but apparently 
 completely misled as to the real facts, 
 and apparently not in a position to 
 understand what time means in prepara- 
 tion for modern warfare. One state- 
 ment is that "the coimtry has developed 
 into a powerful fighting machine — ^the 
 greatest factor in the war." This is a 
 translation of rose-tinted prophecy into 
 exactly what it is not — the sobriety of ac- 
 complished fact. We have not developed 
 into a "powerful fighting machine." On 
 the contrary, after nearly ten months we 
 are such a weak fighting machine that we 
 
54 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 have not yet put men, guns or airplanes 
 on the permanent fighting line. To speak 
 of a "powerful fighting machine" which 
 after ten months isn't ready to do any 
 fighting, is a ludicrous contradiction in 
 terms. 
 
 It is even more ludicrous — and humili- 
 ating — ^to speak of our being "the greatest 
 factor in the war." Why, the German 
 authorities regarded us, and still regard 
 us, with such contempt that they counted 
 our entire warlike might as of less conse- 
 quence than the liberty to go on with their 
 U-boat warfare. As yet, either France 
 or England is a tenfold — a hundredfold — 
 greater factor in the war than the United 
 States. Von Tirpitz has just said that 
 "from a mihtary standpoint America's 
 entrance into the war is of little signifi- 
 cance." And boasts do not aid us. They 
 are hurtful to our self-respect. They tend 
 to do positive damage by encouraging a 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 55 
 
 silly complacency. Consider the headline 
 above quoted: "The United States will 
 startle world with work for war." This 
 may, or may not, prove true in the future ; 
 at present so much of the world as 
 is represented by Von Tirpitz and 
 Von Hindenburg has certainly not been 
 startled to edification or admiration by 
 our leisurely "work for war." And it is 
 on the basis of this imaginary achievement 
 that one facile adviser proposes that we 
 shall embark on a career of pointless inter- 
 ference in Manchuria — as an addition to 
 the war in which we are already engaged, 
 and to the simmering trouble in Mexico, 
 so full of future menace. 
 
 But there were certain of these news- 
 paper statements which were absolutely 
 true, although the full significance of their 
 truth had escaped the writers. It is abso- 
 lutely true that Congress, with wise gen- 
 erosity in endeavoring to help the Admin- 
 
56 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 istration atone for our appalling blunder 
 in failing to prepare in advance, has ap- 
 propriated money in huge sums, vaster 
 than ever before appropriated by any 
 legislature in the world. It is also lament- 
 ably true that on April 6th, when we at 
 last formally admitted the obvious truth 
 that we were already at war (and when 
 we had been for two years and eight 
 months constantly warned as hardly an- 
 other nation in history has ever been 
 warned), the navy was not fully manned, 
 the army was small and unsupplied, there 
 were less than a dozen military airplanes 
 (which incidentally were worthless for 
 military purposes) and the American 
 merchant marine was a joke among na- 
 tions. 
 
 All this is absolutely true. But is it a 
 subject of congratulation? The money 
 appropriated represents at least twice — 
 it is alleged to be three times — what Eng- 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 67 
 
 land has spent in any year of the war. It 
 is certainly twice what would have been 
 necessary to spend if we had started to 
 get ready in time. In such case there 
 would have been no need for the frantic 
 hurry and reckless prodigahty which our 
 culpable refusal to exercise forethought 
 has rendered necessary. From the mere 
 standpoint of economy, even aside from 
 the more important standpoint of trained 
 efficiency, we have already paid an over- 
 whelming money price for our almost in- 
 conceivable blindness in the face of the 
 lesson which for over three years has been 
 written in letters of blood and flame across 
 the whole world-horizon. 
 
 We have not yet paid that price in 
 blood; and the reason is that our allies 
 have paid it for us. For their own sakes 
 our people should clearly understand how 
 great our failure in duty has been, how 
 completely we owe our salvation to others, 
 
58 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 and how little we have a right to hope 
 ever again to escape scatheless unless we 
 learn wisdom and prepare so that never 
 again shall there be such failure. It is a 
 continuing failure. We are not yet doing 
 our duty. This is of course largely due to 
 the fact that it is impossible after three 
 years indulgence in folly not to continue 
 to pay for that folly. But it is in part 
 also due to the fact that our refusal fear- 
 lessly to admit and condemn the folly of 
 the past has fearfully handicapped us in 
 the effort to avoid the commission of folly 
 in the present. 
 
 The men who clamored against pre- 
 paredness before the war played Ger- 
 many's game, and wrought irreparable 
 evil to this country and to mankind; for 
 if we had prepared our strength in ad- 
 vance, and had acted with instant effi- 
 ciency when our own wrongs became in- 
 tolerable, Russia would not have broken. 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 69 
 
 nor Italy have met disaster, and the peace 
 of victory would have come to us long ago 
 — perhaps even without our having had 
 to fight at all. The heads of organiza- 
 tions such as the German- American Alli- 
 ances which acted frankly in the inter- 
 est of Germany were no worse foes 
 than the various organizations of pro- 
 fessional pacifists and the like, so far as 
 preparedness was concerned. The agents 
 of the German Government used all 
 these bodies of people, just as they 
 used the socialists and the I. W. W. 
 These allies and agents of Germany now 
 oppose sending our troops abroad, oppose 
 the Liberty loans, and denoimce every ac- 
 tion taken by the Government against our 
 domestic traitors. These men are against 
 the government when it does right. They 
 are worse, but they are only one degree 
 worse, than the sheep-like creatures — 
 often misled by very sinister creatures — 
 
60 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 who bleat the ignoble doctrine that we 
 must "stand behind" the government, with 
 blinded eyes, even when it does wrong. 
 The men who take the latter attitude, 
 however feebly good their intentions, are 
 as a matter of fact largely responsible for 
 what we as a people have done that was 
 bad ; for by their tame acquiescence in evil 
 actions and evil policies and by their an- 
 tagonism to their more fearless fellow citi- 
 zens who honestly tell the truth, they have 
 put a premium on inefficiency, and on even 
 gra,ver shortcomings. Every American 
 worth his salt should in every way aid the 
 Government in every measure to wage the 
 war efficiently, and to get our whole 
 weight into the war with the utmost speed ; 
 and he should also make it clear that he 
 will not tolerate or condone delay, ineffi- 
 ciency, irresolution or failure in single- 
 minded patriotism. 
 
 For two years and a half we failed in 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 61 
 
 any way to prepare for the tremendous 
 war which — as should have been obvious 
 to even the most frivolous and timid — 
 might at any moment suck us into the 
 maelstrom. We made no effort even to 
 do such an elementary thing as to run the 
 Government rifle factories full speed. We 
 passed a vicious law which impaired the 
 efficiency of the national guard — a volun- 
 teer organization — and interfered with the 
 development of other efficient volunteer 
 organizations. We treated the proper or- 
 ganization of the War and Navy Depart- 
 ments, from the heads down, as a matter 
 not merely for indifference but for levity. 
 We turned not merely the other cheek but 
 our whole person to the bi*utal German 
 aggressor, and showed such fear of stand- 
 ing up either for our own rights or for 
 the rights of small well-behaved nations, 
 that we put a premium on increasing bru- 
 tality of aggression. 
 
62 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 Then on January 31st last Germany 
 notified us that she would conduct her sub- 
 marine warfare with absolute ruthlessness 
 — in other words, that she spumed our 
 warning because she felt utter contempt 
 for our soft and unready strength, that 
 she was convinced of the efficacy of the 
 policy of schrechlichkeit, that she re- 
 garded the damage she could do her en- 
 emies by U-boat warfare as outweighing 
 any possible effect of the hostility of the 
 United States. 
 
 When we went into the war General 
 Von Hindenburg was reported in the 
 public press as saying that he saw no need 
 for Germany to fear anything America 
 might do for eighteen months. We 
 scoffed at the statement. But nearly ten 
 months have gone by, and most certainly 
 we have as yet given Germany scant cause 
 for fear. The country was utterly unpre- 
 pared for war; the War Department was 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 63 
 
 utterly unprepared for war; and the 
 army, taken as a whole, was badly pre- 
 pared for war. Perhaps in no way was 
 our spiritual unpreparedness more clearly 
 shown than in our failure to comprehend 
 the tremendous importance of time; and 
 this although the last three years had 
 shown again and again that time in mod- 
 em war is a vital factor. Germany has 
 counted on our delays. Germany was 
 justified. We have certainly so far failed 
 to show any appreciation of the fact that 
 in modern war, and in preparation for 
 modern war, time is more valuable than 
 ever it was or is in business. 
 
 Nearly ten months have passed. We 
 have but one division fit to go into the 
 trenches. During the century that elapsed 
 between Waterloo and the invasion of 
 Belgium the average war between great 
 military powers lasted much less than this 
 time. It is not a figurative or hyperbolic 
 
64 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 statement, it is the literal truth that dur- 
 ing these ten months any one of the great 
 military powers could have conquered us 
 with but little more difficulty than was 
 experienced in the conquest of Belgium, 
 Servia or Roumania. We have owed our 
 safety solely to the fact that for their own 
 purposes it suited England and France 
 to protect us behind the rampart of their 
 gallant dead. Are the descendants of the 
 Americans of the Revolution and the Civil 
 War to be permanently content with such 
 precarious and ignoble safety? 
 
 Above all, are they much longer to sub- 
 mit to the treacherous wrong done this 
 Republic by the Hearsts and La Follettes 
 who have directly or indirectly preached 
 an evil hatred of those very Allies to 
 whom we owe our safety? There is even 
 a lower depth than that plumbed by 
 the men who would sacrifice this country 
 to their love of Germany; and this depth 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 65 
 
 is plumbed by those who whether from 
 sheer sinister maHce or from demagogic 
 desire to pander to that maHce would sac- 
 rifice this coimtry to their hatred of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Late in the tenth month since Germany 
 went to war with us we have near the 
 front one division of infantry, entirely fit 
 to fight. There are some regiments of 
 engineers also fit for work on the fighting 
 front. There are some regiments of ar- 
 tillery which have learned their business 
 with French guns, and which are doubt- 
 less fit. We have some other divisions 
 which are rapidly becoming fit. We have 
 as yet no battle planes, and no airmen fit 
 for battle work in the sense that the Ger- 
 man, French and English war-hawks (in- 
 cluding the Americans in the French air 
 squadrons) are fit. After so many months 
 of immense money expenditure and great, 
 although often misdirected, effort, this 
 
66 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 nation of a hundred million people, the 
 wealthiest in the world, which prides itself 
 on its energy, has not yet produced an 
 army, fit to meet the enemy, which is as 
 large or as efficient as the small armies 
 which the wrecked remnant of either 
 Servia, Roumania or Belgium has in the 
 field. Is this a satisfactory showing? 
 
 When such is the actual lesson of the 
 results of unpreparedness, are we still to 
 admit that there is any patriotism, any 
 genuine love of country, among the paci- 
 fist creatures who now clamor against the 
 war, or among the politicians who still re- 
 fuse to introduce preparedness as our 
 permanent military policy, and who still 
 talk vaguely about future international 
 agreements, which they assert will here- 
 after save us from war by scraps of paper 
 instead of by our own trained strength? 
 Keep clearly in mind what our purpose is. 
 I am not primarily concerned with the 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 67 
 
 mistakes and shortcomings actually com- 
 mitted by us during these ten months; I 
 comment on these only when the effort is 
 made to deny their existence. But I am 
 vitally concerned with seeing us as a peo- 
 ple learn aright the lesson of the far 
 reaching evil caused by our complete 
 failure to prepare during the two years 
 and three quarters preceding April last. 
 Every shortcoming of which we have been 
 guilty, every avoidable disaster that has 
 befallen or will befall us or our allies, is 
 or will be due primarily to our failure to 
 prepare in advance. Unless we clearly 
 see and manfully acknowledge this fact 
 we shall not learn a correct policy, and 
 unless we alter our present policy, ruin 
 will in the end surely be our children's 
 portion. 
 
 At home our army has been gathered 
 together in great camps, which have for 
 the most part been admirably constructed. 
 
68 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 The regulars and the volunteer regiments, 
 consist three fourths — in many eases al- 
 most entirely — of raw recruits. The 
 drafted men, excellent material, whose 
 spirit of fine patriotism is beyond praise, 
 have been or are being gathered together; 
 for weeks most of them either had no 
 arms or only broomsticks; and now they 
 have rifles, mostly obsolete Spanish- war 
 rifles, in the proportion of about one 
 rifle for every six or eight men finally 
 to be gathered in each camp. There has 
 been no target practice. Most of the guns 
 in the artillery regiments are of wood. 
 Many thousands — I am informed that in 
 certain camps nearly all — of the men, in 
 this cold weather, still have cotton uni- 
 forms, or thin summer underclothes, or 
 an insufficient number of overcoats. It 
 is only by chance that we hear of what 
 has gone wrong (the Germans are fully 
 advised — it is only our people who are 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 69 
 
 ignorant — and the men who shiver in thin 
 cotton or drill with cordwood cannon are 
 not ignorant). But the press has from 
 time to time mentioned the fact that many 
 of the cartridges turned out are defective ; 
 that scores of millions of the primers have 
 turned out to be worthless. 
 
 It has been jauntily said that the short- 
 age of rifles among the troops who are in 
 training is of no consequence, that men 
 can at first learn with broomsticks, and 
 that the eight men allotted to each anti- 
 quated rifle can drill, turn and turn about, 
 with it. These statements are not in ac- 
 cordance with the facts. Competent offi- 
 cers, engaged in training troops of good 
 capacity, know that each man should be 
 given his rifle, and should be learning to 
 keep it clean and to take pride in it, within 
 a week. If the officer is very good, and 
 the man also good, the rifle ought to be 
 given the latter on the second or third 
 
70 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 day — or even on the first. The Platts- 
 burg men were given their rifles after a 
 couple of days. In 1898 the men of my 
 regiment were given their rifles as soon 
 as they arrived at camp. Colonel Leon- 
 ard, Wood, now Major General Wood, 
 who was in command of the regiment, pro- 
 ceeded on the theory that every single 
 thing should be done at the earliest possi- 
 ble moment ; and that if anything whatever 
 could be done at three o'clock and wasn't 
 done until four o'clock, somebody was to 
 be blamed and should be called to account. 
 In consequence that regiment was armed, 
 equipped, drilled, kept two weeks on 
 transports and put through two victorious 
 aggressive fights, in which it lost a third 
 of its officers and a fifth of its men, within 
 ninety days of the time the Colonel and 
 Lieutenant Colonel received their com- 
 missions. English and Canadian officers 
 of high rank have told me that under in- 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 71 
 
 tensive training they have been able to 
 put thousands of men in the field within 
 sixteen weeks. 
 
 Probably our gravest shortcoming after 
 Germany in effect declared war on us on 
 January 3 1st last was our failure in- 
 stantly and with all possible speed to be- 
 gin the preparation of a giant fleet of 
 cargo ships, at the same moment that we 
 undertook the investigation of the U- 
 boat problem. The German government 
 accepted war with us rather than give 
 up the indiscriminate submarine cam- 
 paign of murder and destruction. In 
 other words, it announced that in its view 
 the vital feature of the war was the effort 
 to destroy so much of the shipping of the 
 world as would hamper the transport of 
 men, food and munitions until England 
 was brought to her knees. Germany knew 
 the value of time. She began her cam- 
 paign without one hour's delay. She 
 
n NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 counted on our indecision, folly and timid- 
 ity to make us delay. And she was right. 
 It seems literally incredible that we should 
 have let one hour pass after the receipt of 
 Germany's challenge before bending our 
 every effort towards the immediate large- 
 scale production of swift cargo ships. Yet 
 for three months nothing was done, and 
 then three months were wasted by permit- 
 ting a squabble in the interest of worthless 
 wooden shipping — and of Germany! — to 
 block all preparation. Six months were 
 wasted in utter futility before any serious 
 attempt was made to grapple with the 
 gravest feature of the war situation; and 
 this although for two years we had been 
 intermittently threatening and blustering 
 (and backing down) about this very mat- 
 ter, and had finally gone to war about it ; 
 so that by no human possibility could we 
 have had clearer and more emphatic and 
 more often reiterated warning. 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 73 
 
 In a war in which it has been shown 
 again and again that a difference of a 
 week or two — ahnost of a day or two — in 
 readiness may mark the difference be- 
 tween overwhehning victory and measure- 
 less disaster, we have acted as if months 
 of hesitation and leism-ely discussion were 
 of neghgible consequence. In some par- 
 ticular bureaus there has been full realiza- 
 tion of the vital importance of speed. But 
 as a rule we have in practice adopted the 
 view of a high official who recently spoke 
 of a delay of two or three months, as a 
 "perfectly endurable delay." Why, a sin- 
 gle day's delay ought to be treated as un- 
 endurable if we really mean to do our 
 utmost. 
 
 Our Allies get money from us and need 
 more; they sadly need our aid; and they 
 are bound to speak with the utmost polite- 
 ness of all our shortcomings and failures. 
 But let us make no mistake. It is only 
 
74 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 by so acting as to win our own self-respect 
 that we can permanently win the respect 
 of others, whether friends or foes ; and we 
 jeopardize everything by inefficiency and 
 procrastination, and by foolish reluctance 
 to face the fact that there has been in- 
 efficiency and procrastination. Fine words 
 will not permanently cloak either ugly! 
 deeds or the absence of deeds. Prodigal 
 expenditure of money and large ship- 
 ments of food will not atone for the fail- 
 ure speedily to put great masses of trained 
 fighting men on the battle front. Uncle 
 Sam must show that he is a soldier and 
 not a sutler. To do a thing six months 
 after it should have been done may repre- 
 sent complete failure, and cannot repre- 
 sent complete success. Nine tenths of wis- 
 dom is being wise in time. 
 
 We have been able to prepare at all, 
 we have been able to waste time in dis- 
 cussion and hesitating and blundering. 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 75 
 
 only because it was worth while for our 
 allies to protect our unhardened, unready 
 softness of bulk with their own hardened 
 strength. But let us not prattle about 
 "perfectly endurable delay" ! If our allies 
 had not, for their own purposes, shielded 
 us, our frightened citizens would now be 
 doing the bidding of stern and brutal men 
 in pickel-haubes. Our allies have pro- 
 tected us; we have not paid in blood for 
 our protection ; but the blood of our allies 
 has paid for our safety. Every month of 
 what was to us "perfectly endurable de- 
 lay," has been paid for by them in the 
 blood of a hundred thousand men. No 
 man can tell how much our delay has cost. 
 By beginning to act with energy on Feb- 
 ruary 1st, the day after the German note 
 arrived, we could have had hundreds of 
 thousands of efficient fighting men at the 
 front in August ; and in such event it may 
 well be that Russia would have taken 
 
76 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 heart and would now be organized for 
 self-respecting, orderly liberty and for 
 victoiy, and that Italy (especially if we 
 had done our clear duty by declaring war 
 on Austria) would not have met with dis- 
 aster. Of course, if we had obeyed the 
 dictates of ordinary common sense, fore- 
 sight and patriotism and had begun to 
 prepare three years ago — in men, ma- 
 chines and ships — we could have put a 
 couple of milhon men into the field last 
 April and the war would be over now; 
 or rather it would in all probability have 
 come to an end without further bloodshed 
 the instant we decided to interfere, so that 
 we would not actually have had to fight. 
 
 The lesson of the vital need of pre- 
 paredness in advance is the vital lesson 
 for us to learn. I ask you to remember 
 that I am trying to make us, the people 
 as a whole, learn this lesson ; I wish us to 
 learn from our own shortcomings ; I wish 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 77 
 
 US to take home the lesson to ourselves, 
 to the American people, and not to make 
 believe that it should only be learned by 
 our officials or by somebody else. I care 
 not a rap for the politics of those who 
 need to learn the lesson. The extracts 
 from my speeches and writings above 
 given show that I have preached this les- 
 son just as freely when the individuals 
 affected belonged to my own party as 
 when they belonged to another party. 
 
 Let our people learn aright the lesson 
 taught by the last three years. We re- 
 fused to prepare. We followed the fool- 
 ish prophets of pacifism when with quaver- 
 ing voices they told us that if we were 
 only harmless enough nobody would hurt 
 us, and that preparedness brought on war. 
 We tried the experiment. We did not 
 prepare. And we have the war. Unpre- 
 paredness did not avert war. It merely 
 rendered us helpless to do our part worth- 
 
78 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 ily during a period so long that if it had 
 not been for our alhes we would have 
 been conquered twice over. Preparedness 
 generally, although not always, averts 
 war. Unpreparedness always invites it, 
 and usually ensures disaster. 
 
 The other day the public press carried 
 this statement: 
 
 "Washington, October 5th. — Frank ad- 
 mission by Senator James Hamilton 
 Lewis that the United States was not 
 prepared to meet the exigency of war 
 when five months ago it found itself con- 
 fronted with an actual state of hostilities 
 was made on the floor of the Senate today 
 in a speech in which the Illinoisan en- 
 deavored to answer the recent Roosevelt 
 charge that our preparedness was *broom- 
 stick preparedness.' The Senator said: 
 
 " * There may be something to be said 
 in justification of the fact that we were 
 not prepared to the extent that we should 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 79 
 
 have been. It was because we were a 
 people dedicated to peace. It was because 
 the mothers of the land prayed that the 
 nation should ever be consecrated to 
 peace.' " 
 
 This puts the case for unpreparedness 
 in a nutshell ; and the commentary on this 
 theory, upon which for two years and a 
 half we acted, is furnished by what befell 
 us at the end of those two and a half years. 
 If our people cannot learn the lesson thus 
 taught, and if we ever again incHne to the 
 teachings of the pacifists, then indeed we 
 shall surely be brayed in a mortar before 
 our folly depart from us. Undoubtedly 
 before we went into this war there were 
 plenty of women, and just about the same 
 number of men, of the ostrich type who 
 believed that if they hid their heads so 
 that they could not see war it would not 
 come. Many of them were good, intelli- 
 gent people who had never been taught 
 
80 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 unpleasant international truths and who 
 were cruelly wronged by astute and un- 
 conscientious leadership in high places. 
 Many were simply fatuous. They "prayed 
 that the nation might ever be dedicated 
 to peace" and did not realize that the 
 prayer could be made effective only if they 
 at the same time made ready against war. 
 They had forgotten one half of the old 
 Cromwellian adage: "Trust in the Lord 
 and keep your powder dry!" They bleated 
 a make-believe trust; and they let the 
 powder grow wet. Those "mothers of the 
 land" who were fit to be the spiritual heirs 
 of the women of the Revolution and the 
 Civil War, had raised their sons to be sol- 
 diers for the right, to put justice before 
 peace, and to be proudly ready to give 
 everything, life itself, when the nation 
 needed the sacrifice. The other poor 
 mothers, less farsighted or less wise, who 
 took the attitude Senator Lewis describes, 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 81 
 
 and the men who were their fitting mates, 
 with quavering timidity refused to do the 
 only thing that might avert war ; and now 
 the war has come anyhow, and their boys, 
 untrained in soul and body, are in the 
 draft army — ^where, thank Heaven, they 
 will be trained, where they will stand be- 
 side the other boys who were raised to be 
 soldiers for the right, and out of which 
 they will be turned as up-standing, self- 
 respecting American citizens, with neither 
 a spiritual nor a physical stoop in the 
 shoulders, and able to look the whole 
 world straight in the eyes without flinch- 
 ing. 
 
 We are a nation of tremendous poten- 
 tial strength. We cannot now by any 
 possible exertion utilize more than a small 
 fraction of that strength until after over 
 a year from the time when we were 
 dragged into the war. And even in 
 this belated fashion we cannot use that 
 
82 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 strength with full efficiency unless we 
 clearly understand the lamentable harm 
 we have done by refusing to harden 
 it or make it useful during these fate- 
 ful years. Our shortcomings and needs 
 leap to the eye when we compare ourselves 
 with certain small commonwealths. Por- 
 tugal, one year after going to war, put 
 (by transport over the ocean) 75,000 
 trained soldiers at the front. This is as 
 if in February we put a million and a half 
 fighting men into the firing line. To do 
 relatively as much as Canada and Aus- 
 tralia have done we ought to put five mil- 
 lion men under arms. Some of our advo- 
 cates — and exponents — of delay have 
 stated that the English took two years 
 and a half before making their land forces 
 efficient in this war. In the first place the 
 statement is untrue; after a year and a 
 half the British Army became a formid- 
 able fighting machine. In the next place. 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 83 
 
 the argument amounts to saying that we 
 should refuse to profit by the mistakes of 
 the British, and should repeat them all 
 over — and amplify them — on our own ac- 
 count. Finally, these soft apologists of 
 inefficiency forget that the British during 
 the year and a half before their army be- 
 came relatively as efficient as the armies 
 of the Germans and the French, never- 
 theless bore a constantly increasing share 
 of the burden. Within the first three 
 months of the war they had placed over 
 two himdred thousand men in the thick 
 of the hardest fighting; steadily they in- 
 creased the numbers, more than making 
 good the awful losses; steadily they im- 
 proved guns and men, using at first (be- 
 cause of lack of shells — and of training) 
 double the number of men for a given 
 frontage that the French used; but using 
 them, and constantly extending their 
 share of the line, and thus relieving the 
 
84 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 hard-pressed French. If during the first 
 ten months of the war England had done 
 as little as we have done in the past ten 
 months, gallant France would surely have 
 broken. If she had prepared her strength 
 after war broke out in as leisurely a man- 
 ner as we have done, the war would now 
 be over and Germany enthroned as world- 
 victor. 
 
 Our business is to exert the largest pos- 
 sible fraction of our strength at the earli- 
 est possible moment, and then to exert our 
 constantly growing strength as fast as 
 with the utmost energy and efficiency we 
 can develop it, until we win the peace of 
 overwhelming victory. This war, as far 
 as we are concerned, was brought on by 
 German militarism and American pacifism 
 working together. To let either or both 
 of them dictate the peace that is to end it 
 would be an immeasureable disaster. We 
 should not have any negotiations with 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 85 
 
 those who committed and who glory in 
 the Lusitania infamy, the rape of Bel- 
 gium, and the hideous devastation and 
 wholesale murders and slavery in the con- 
 quered countries; and the Hearsts and 
 La Follettes and Germanized Socialists 
 and I. W. W. and Pacifist leaders who 
 advocate such negotiations are the ene- 
 mies of this nation and of all mankind. 
 We are fighting for the fundamental 
 sanctities of life and decencies of civiliza- 
 tion. We are fighting for the liberty of 
 every well behaved nation, great or small, 
 to have whatever government it desires 
 and to live unharming others and un- 
 harmed by others. We are sending our 
 troops to fight abroad so that they may 
 not have to fight at home. Germany must 
 be beaten, and the Prussianized militaris- 
 tic autocracy of the HohenzoUems hum- 
 bled or the world will not be safe for lib- 
 erty-loving peoples. We must fight this 
 
86 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 war through to victory no matter what 
 the cost in time or money or in the blood 
 of our bravest and dearest. 
 
 And on this point again let us always 
 insist that our rulers do not shame us and 
 weaken our moral fibre by loose rhetoric, 
 but speak only when they have pondered 
 their words, and make good the words 
 when once spoken. In actual fact we en- 
 tered the war only because we had a spe- 
 cial grievance against Germany, a griev- 
 ance of so grave a character that we ex- 
 posed ourselves to humiliation, we were 
 guilty of a tame lack of self-respect, when 
 we did not go to war two years earlier; 
 for when the Lusitania was sunk we 
 should have acted as we did finally act 
 last February; in the intervening two 
 years there had been no change in the sit- 
 uation; indeed our condonation of the 
 Lusitania's sinking had put us in a slightly 
 worse position — and unquestionably our 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 87 
 
 people would have been more united, and 
 more heartily ready to back the war, if 
 we had acted with instant and resolute 
 courage at the time of the great tragedy. 
 When once we did act, and entered the 
 war, we became committed to our Allies, 
 and any man who has since assailed any 
 one of them, or defended Germany, or 
 sought an inconclusive peace is a traitor 
 to this country. Our grievance against 
 Germany was not merely special but 
 ample and intolerable. A few weeks 
 later, however, we announced that our 
 purpose was to make the world safe for 
 democracy. Unless this statement was a 
 piece of mere empty magniloquence, of 
 highfalutin' rhetoric, it pledged us to im- 
 mense sacrifice in a hard, dangerous cru- 
 sade, eminently righteous but for an ob- 
 ject in which our own concern was slight. 
 Personally, I was and am eagerly ready 
 to enter into such a crusade, if our people 
 
88 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 seriously intend to put it through; but our 
 people ought thoroughly to understand 
 what it means. We were not bound to 
 enter on it. Our grievance was against 
 Germany, and we could with honor have 
 joined with our allies to war against her 
 until she was overthrown, and then make 
 peace in such fashion as to guarantee jus- 
 tice to them and to us, and to make the 
 world a little safer for all of us in conse- 
 quence. But a pledge to "make the world 
 safe for democracy" is a solemn engage- 
 ment to smash the two nations which most 
 conspicuously make democracy unsafe 
 within their own borders — Austria and 
 Turkey (and to punish Bulgaria is a neces- 
 sary incident thereto). Any peace which 
 leaves Turkey in Europe, and which 
 leaves the Armenians, the Syrian Chris- 
 tians, the Jews and the Arabs under 
 Turkish rule, conspicuously fails to make 
 the world safe for democracy — or, for 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 89 
 
 liberty and decency; Germany is a dan- 
 ger to her neighbors; but the Poles, 
 Danes and Frenchmen or men with 
 French hearts over whom she tyrannizes 
 are numerically only a fraction as nu- 
 merous as the mass of men of differ- 
 ent races to whom liberty is denied by the 
 dual tyranny of the Germans and Mag- 
 yars of Austria-Hungary. I speak with 
 no bitterness towards either the Austrian 
 Germans or the Hungarian Magyars; I 
 would protest against seeing any other 
 race tyrannize over them; I merely wish 
 that they shall tyrannize over no one else. 
 Until within a very few years of the out- 
 break of this war, I had hoped for Austria 
 a great future — especially during the long 
 period when the internal condition of 
 Servia made it seem hopeless to look to 
 her as a regenerative influence in the Bal- 
 kan Peninsula. I had hoped that Austria 
 would solve the exceedingly complex and 
 
90 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 difficult situation of southwestern Europe 
 by developing into a great federal com- 
 monwealth, in which the German, the 
 Magyar, the Pole, the Czech- Slovak, the 
 Rouman, the Jugo-Slav, and perhaps 
 others, might join; each sovereign within 
 his own linguistically and ethnically 
 rounded out and self-governing state; 
 but all united under one rule which should 
 keep the peace among these different 
 states, and should use their common 
 strength to forbid aggression against 
 them from without. I had hoped this 
 when Bosnia and Herzegovina were taken 
 by Austria; it seemed as if such a policy 
 of federation on a footing of just equality 
 opened the way for a great and unique 
 career to Austria ; the heir apparent whose 
 assassination was the occasion (not the 
 cause) of this war was reputed to hold 
 such views; and I gave them up with un- 
 feigned reluctance, and only when it was 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 91 
 
 evident that they were no longer tenable. 
 This war has shown that Austria has be- 
 come a subject-ally of Germany and an 
 enemy of freedom and civilization. Un- 
 less we resolutely intend to break up both 
 Austria and Turkey, and insist on liberty 
 for the subject races in the two countries, 
 our talk about "making the world safe 
 for democracy" is a sham. 
 
 People forget very easily, and it is hard 
 for them to learn even the plainest lessons 
 from history. There have been of recent 
 years, and still are, certain forces at work 
 among us which ominously resemble cer- 
 tain of the forces which worked to ruin 
 France at the end of the Empire of Napo- 
 leon the Third. In De La Gorce's ex- 
 ceedingly able, delightfully written, and 
 sombre History of the Second Empire, 
 there is a very vivid account of the French 
 mental attitude at the time of the Exposi- 
 tion of 1867. This Exposition was loudly 
 
92 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 heralded as ushering in an era of perma- 
 nent international peace; and the materi- 
 alists, the pacifists, the sordid profiteers, 
 and the wild demagogues and doctrinaire 
 reformers all joined in saying that there 
 was to be thereafter no danger of inter- 
 national wars, and that everybody need 
 think only of money, and enjoyment, and 
 of two kinds of indulgence — indulgence 
 in more or less gross bodily pleasure, and, 
 as an antidote, indulgence in a more or 
 less unhealthy sentimentality. Then, just 
 as the hard money getters, and the gay 
 pleasure lovers, and the foolish senti- 
 mentalists had all determined to live on 
 the theory that serious war was a danger 
 of the past, came the notice, from those 
 best competent to judge, that the country 
 must prepare to defend itself against the 
 military power of others. Says La Gorce: 
 (I condense and translate freely) — "The 
 shock was equally great to the lovers of 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 93 
 
 material pleasure, to the dreamers of uni- 
 versal peace [this was just fifty years ago 
 — how often war has come since!] and to 
 the credulous optimists who with easy 
 faith had accepted the theories of the Gov- 
 ernment. . . . The statement that *the in- 
 fluence of a nation depends upon the num- 
 ber of men it can put under arms' sounded 
 repulsively material to an intelligent peo- 
 ple dreaming of the fraternity of nations 
 and of perpetual peace. The sentimental 
 humanitarianism preached by the Govern- 
 ment had been accepted by the rank and 
 file of the people ; and now, when the Gov- 
 ernment had turned round, the people had 
 only to recall its former teachings in order 
 to justify resistance of its new precepts. 
 The love of easy living, the weakening of 
 the sense of collective duty, had made the 
 idea of self-sacrifice very unpleasant. The 
 old martinets of the regular army refused 
 to believe that there was anything wrong 
 
94 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 with that army. Critics of what had been 
 done were told that it was unbecoming 
 pubhcly to expose the shortcomings of the 
 Government, lest the enemies of the coun- 
 try be encouraged, and the faith of the 
 people disturbed. Congressmen who were 
 desirous to placate their constituents made 
 much of the National Guard; [only a very 
 few leaders] spoke with sincerity and 
 foresight, warning their fellow country- 
 men that great wars in the future were 
 inevitable, and that it was well to be wise 
 and ready before the event and not after 
 it. The Legislators and their constituents 
 were to blame for refusing to take account 
 of future perils ; but the principal respon- 
 sibihty rested on the [Executive] Govern- 
 ment, to which the people had submitted 
 in a spasm of servile obedience while it led 
 them wrong but which they followed par- 
 tially and doubtfully when late in the day 
 it turned to the path of wisdom." 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 95 
 
 Surely there are unpleasant analogies 
 between what is thus described, and what 
 we have of recent years seen in our own 
 country. Surely, the same overwhelming 
 disaster would have befallen us this year 
 that overwhelmed France nearly half a 
 century ago, had not we, more fortunate 
 than the France of 1870, found our folly 
 and weakness at least temporarily pro- 
 tected by the fleets and armies of other 
 nations. Let us profit by the lesson; and 
 while we thankfully accept the fact that 
 others have saved us from the pimish- 
 ment for imwisdom, let us beware of mis- 
 reading the lesson; and the only way by 
 which to show that we have read it aright, 
 is to show by our actions that never again 
 will we be caught in such a condition of 
 complete unpreparedness, of unreadiness 
 and inability to do our duty by ourselves 
 and by others. 
 
 The young Americans like those I am 
 
96 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 addressing owe to their country the duty 
 of leadership; and this leadership is 
 needed both for our immediate task and 
 our ultimate task. The immediate task 
 is to win this war. All our immediate 
 energies ought now to be bent towards 
 this end. We must accept no peace ex- 
 cept the peace of overwhelming triumph. 
 The energy and business efficiency and 
 individual courage and self-reliance which 
 are among our national traits are slowly 
 enabling us to overcome the frightful 
 handicap created by our refusal to pre- 
 pare during the two and a half years be- 
 fore we drifted into the war. During the 
 last ten months we have not done a half 
 or a quarter of what we could have done. 
 But even the exertion of a half or a quar- 
 ter of our giant strength will by the end 
 of a year produce good results. There is 
 now reason to hope that within a year or 
 so of the time when we entered the war— 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 97 
 
 that is, by the end of the winter, or in the 
 early spring of 1918 — we shall be able to 
 begin seriously to fight instead of merely 
 paying others to fight for us, and that we 
 shall become a ponderable element in the 
 war. Six months later we ought to have 
 begun to be one of the great factors in the 
 war. We can be sure that our armies at 
 the front and that our fleets and squad- 
 rons will do well and bravely, and that we 
 shall hold our heads high because of their 
 valor. Theirs is the great task, theirs will 
 be the great glory. Let us who stay be- 
 hind back them in every way! 
 
 The ultimate task of the young men of 
 today of the type of those whom I ad- 
 dress, is so to lead the generation now 
 coming on the stage that this nation shall 
 assure its international safety by grasping 
 and acting on the fundamentals of duty. 
 Most certainly the nation can be redeemed 
 from mere gross, self-indulgent material- 
 
98 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 ism and from the silly, sham-sentimental- 
 ity which so often goes hand in hand with 
 materialism. I sincerely believe that on 
 the whole we of this nation have a little 
 finer material on which to work than is 
 true of any other nation ; that in our land 
 there are on the whole better ideals than 
 elsewhere of the duty of man and woman 
 to one another, to their neighbors, to their 
 country, and to the world at large. I do 
 not see how any man can go through the 
 camps where our army is now being 
 trained without feeling a thrill of pride 
 in the manliness, energy and resourceful- 
 ness of the men who are there slowly ac- 
 quiring not only the bodies of soldiers but 
 the feelings of patriots. Those camps are 
 today the great universities of American 
 citizenship, and we ought to make them 
 permanent features of our national life. 
 There could be no finer material for citi- 
 zenship than that afforded by the men 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 99 
 
 and women of this nation; and all the 
 greater will be our reproach if we permit 
 it to be wasted or warped out of shape. 
 
 I am not here discussing those qualities 
 of personal and social morahty which 
 stand as basic in all healthy national life. 
 At the moment I am only asking you for 
 such leadership in our public affairs as 
 shall make this nation spiritually and 
 physically ready and eager both to do full 
 and generous justice to others and also 
 to secure justice from others, and espe- 
 cially from the strong. This nation must 
 be able to develop within itself such pow- 
 ers as will in turn make it able to defend 
 itself from all outside aggression, and also 
 make it able, with some modicum of suc- 
 cess, to work toward making things a 
 little better in the international world. 
 And there must be at least an approxima- 
 tion to strength and justice in our own 
 internal dealings or we shall assuredly. 
 
100 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 when the crisis comes, lack the power to 
 defend ourselves against any formidable 
 outside enemy. 
 
 If our people refuse to profit by the 
 teachings of histoiy, let them at any rate 
 learn by what is now happening in the 
 world, before their eyes. The case of 
 Russia is full of melancholy instruction 
 for us, if only we refuse to treat it as 
 having happened in another firmament. 
 Let us translate what has occurred into 
 the terms of reaction and of semi-revolu- 
 tionary folly which apply in our own coun- 
 try; and you men of University training 
 should throw your whole strength equally 
 against both the foolish or sinister repre- 
 sentatives of reaction who invite and jus- 
 tify revolution, and the foolish or sinister 
 apostles of revolution who invite and jus- 
 tify reaction. 
 
 With us the reactionaries are the men, 
 and above all the very wealthy men, who 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 101 
 
 permit the maxims of an outward indus- 
 trial creed to blind them to the need that 
 we shall be our brother's keepers to the 
 extent not only of securing him full jus- 
 tice but of training him aright, lest he lay 
 hands on the pillars of the temple of civ- 
 ilization and bring the whole structure 
 toppling down to bury both him and us. 
 The selfish reactionaries of business and 
 politics, whether great or small, if they 
 had their way unchecked would invite the 
 fate that the Tsar's bureaucracy brought 
 on Russia. 
 
 And in Russia, on the morrow after the 
 forces of despotism were overthrown, the 
 forces of anarchy and disorder, under the 
 leadership of demagogues and sinister or 
 impractical doctrinaires, became the worst 
 foes of liberty and democracy. So it is 
 here. The Hearsts and La Toilettes and 
 Stones and Bergers and Hillquits, the 
 agitators of the I. W. W. and the Ger- 
 
102 NATIONAL STRENGTH 
 
 manized- American socialists, are of pre- 
 cisely the same type as the men who seek 
 to tear free Russia to pieces, whose ex- 
 cesses and follies have thrown great tracts 
 of her territory mider the feet of the Ger- 
 man aggressor, and who continuously 
 threaten either to render her a byword 
 of failure or else to re-enthrone some form 
 of the old tyranny. Let us shun as we 
 would shun the plague, both the White 
 Terror of reaction and the Red Terror 
 of revolution. France was brought to dis- 
 aster by the tyranny of the Old Regime; 
 and then again by the Robespierres, Dan- 
 tons, Heberts and Marats, whose wick- 
 edness almost eclipsed that of the most 
 evil of their royal predecessors. The ex- 
 tremists of reaction and the extremists of 
 revolution play into one another's hands; 
 and all men of courage, patriotism and 
 foresight must war with equal energy 
 against both, under penalty of being false 
 
INTERNATIONAL DUTY 103 
 
 to the cause of orderly liberty, alike in 
 this Republic and in the world at large. 
 
 Justice at home must be the basis of our 
 strength. But justice is not enough. On 
 it we must build the strength, else the jus- 
 tice will vanish before alien aggression. A 
 nation of freemen can only remain free if 
 the freemen in time of peace train them- 
 selves to defend their freedom in war. 
 There is no title to the enjoyment of a 
 right which is not properly based upon the 
 performance of a duty, and the funda- 
 mental national duty is the duty of self- 
 defence just as the fundamental political 
 right is the suffrage. Universal suffrage 
 should be based on universal service. A 
 cardinal feature of the permanent policy 
 of this hberty-loving democratic Republic 
 should be the acceptance of the principle 
 of universal obhgatory military training 
 and military service for all our young men. 
 
The Stafford Little Lectures 
 
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