Defenseless America

y get to playing at cards, and beyond the sea, perhaps, will be found a 'full h

Adna R. Ch

conduct indecisive, and its preparation an indifferent,

er

llenge the attention of all thinking people of our country who, in this trying time of war, are becoming aroused and are asking

Greeley-or was it Henry Ward Beecher?-once said that his views upon a very important subjec

ld has ever known, is certain to have great weight with a very large numb

r gratitude and our love beget our sympathetic attention whenever he speaks. Consequently, when Mr. Carnegie speaks upon the subject of our national defense, he is

t anything a well and favorably known man says may have a determining effect upon t

e through the wide publicity given to his opinions. If, on the other hand, he is in the wrong, he is doing this country a very great inj

e remarkable and also the more radica

States. We are a friend to all; an enemy of none. They could gain nothing by a war with us, nor

ry being able to successfully bring enough troops to accomplish anything worth while from a mi

g as easy as possible, point out to them the best possible roads, and allow them to go as far as they desired to go inland. Then warn them to l

to repel invasion or make it so hot for an enemy should h

d gist of the present anti-armament peace advocacy, backed by the ten-million-do

and radical measures for our national defense, then whenever the Carnegie advocacy prevents a battery of guns being built, the resultant injur

gree with him that we have nothing which they might want, for we are both very rich and very defenseless, and the history

o be settled between the victors and the neutral nations. Differences between the warring and the neutral powers-differences which, in time of peace, might produce very strained relations or precipit

e Allies, in the heat of passion that now dominates them, will be in a mood to forgive some of the things that we may feel compelled to do in the maintenance of our neutral

ducated at government expense, and who are supposed to know about such matters, tell us that it would be impossible for us to mobilize and bring to the front more than 30,000 of our standing Army during the fir

ing trim as to be able to resist the navy of any one of the leading Great Powers of the world. They tell us that we are so short of ammu

of fact, we rank much lower than that, because of the shortage of our ammunition supply. Just as a steam-en

uch smokeless powder on hand as we had. We have between forty and fifty million poun

t were smashed, an enemy could land a hundred thousand men, either on our Atlantic or on our Pacific seaboard, long before we could mobi

best roads to the interior, and then turning lose on them a million improvised citizen soldiers. Like Po

nd experience in the use of these weapons would be required; furthermore, the men would have to be imbued with the courage that veterans have, which can be acquired only after much experience on the

army of invaders, after it had received the Carnegie welcome and had taken possession of the coun

igerent nations, with its veteran fighting blood up,

army of only a hundred thousand men, equipped with all of the arms and paraphernalia of modern warfare, be landed on our coast, the invading ar

would seek safety in the interior. But immediately war is declared, all the railroads and all automobiles will be commandeered for military purposes. All

landed near New York. Should this army send out detachments to capture the plac

ze for a H

e smokeless powder and high explosives of the United States Army are stored, near Dover, New Jersey, about t

e Winchester Repeating Arms and Cartridge Company's Works and the Marlin Firearms Works. At Springfield, Massachusetts, they would find the Smith and Wesson Revolver Works and also the United States Arsenal, where ou

s made. The big Cramp Shipbuilding Works would be found at Philadelphia. They would find at Groton, Connecticut, the factory where all the interior parts o

art of

ogether with the E. W. Bliss Torpedo Works, in Brooklyn. The New York Arsenal they would find unprotected on Governor's Island. They would find the great duPont Smokeless

ded within that circle all of the above-mentioned ammunition and armament works, which constitute nearly all the smokeless powder works, cartridge works, torpedo-boat works, small-arms works, and big-gun and

few days, and the thing would be done before we had time to mobilize the available

ined men, landed on our Atlantic seaboard, would be able to capture this entire area an

illion men to make the Carnegie swoop,

r and force to work, just as the Germans have forced the Belgians to work for them, and Mr. Carnegie's army of citizen soldiers would find themse

ere doing, and they would send out a detachment and defeat our whole enterprise. They would probably levy on New York City for a billion dollar

rmany has annexed Belgium, and, as we should then automatically become citizens of the enemy's country, we should be conscripte

hem the option of joining his legions or of faring much worse. Attila took with him the entire male population of the countries through which he passed as additions to his military h

sumes. As guests they are just about as lovable and make just about as go

nts. What the people for whom there was no escape suffered in Belgium and Northern France, is beyond our powers of conception. No one who has

on, well and good; if not, then the people must starve. The invaders must have food and clothing and the bare necessaries of life; also, they must have luxuries. They must have cigars and cigarettes, wine, women, and song. If our countr

me military blackguard, who would immediately be avenged by the burning of the town and the corralling and shooting

aw or a stab in his ribs, unless-aye, there's the rub-unless this whole country awakens to its danger and rises up as one man and demands prompt and adequate defensive measures for national protection. As this saving thing is no

y all the men in the world could not do by hand all of the world's ploughing, sowing, reaping, and carrying of the world's food to market; all the women in the world could not, today, do the world's sewing wit

pick and shovel and wheelbarrow work of a thousand men. Everywhere, in everything we do, and in everyt

mous resources and to keep abreast of the world's industrial progress mainly by

the prowess of our unskilled citizen soldiers of industry unsupported by machinery, but all relian

aving machinery and labor skilled in its use are as applicable and as indispensable to successful warfare as to peaceful industry. Furthermore, labor-saving machinery in war is life-saving machinery. The quick-firing gun is the greatest life-saving instrument ever invented. These persons do not seem to appreci

to the War of the Revolution and the War of the Rebellion to prove how our volunteer soldiers can fight. They overlook the fact that fighting was then mostly done by hand; that now it is mostly done by machinery, and that it is just as foolish and absurd to think of taking unt

t by the efficiency and sufficiency of machinery and materials of destruction and the science and scientific experience of the

and weapons and mechanism of modern warfare is only a mob, as e

following opinion about the

necessary to resist a regular force ... the firmness requisite for the real business of fighting is only to be attained by a constant course of discipline and service. I have never yet been witness to a singl

ime of war, who can differ with him today, when not only bravery and discipl

h slings and bows and arrows, short-swords and spears, as was the army of Hannibal. Hannibal's famous Balearic slingers were able to hurl a slug of lead through a man. But ten riflemen would have time to ki

ithin range. These ten men would each be able to fire with ease a carefully aimed shot every two and a half seconds; the ten men could fire 250 aimed shots a minute. A thousand men, armed with the old muzzle-loaders, would surely have to advance at least a mile and a half after coming within range of the modern rifles before th

ange rapid-fire rifle before they could get near enough even to reach him with their short-range muskets. One man operating an automatic machine-gun would be more than a match for a thousand men, armed with the old Civil War musket in an open-view frontal attack, over a distance covered by t

hrowing shrapnel shell at the rate of from thirty to forty a minute, planted on Cemetery Hill, would have

war engines as a swarm of ants in the face of an anteater. It is obvious that, whereas fighting machinery is very expensive, modern warfare is a very costly business, and a business requiring an enormous investment; and also that, wherea

fighting equipment have served to give the great nations pause, and to make them consider well the awful risk before precipitating war. The progress in fighting machi

d, and expensive does it require longer time to prepare for war, bo

m, indicative of the sequence in a series of happenings or eventuations. If the univer

d, but upon what we should be able to put into action at once. Modern methods and machinery of war cause events to move many times as fast as

How Germany Makes War" is evidence of th

g successful if she is resolutely determined to break the superiority of her enemies by a victory over one or the other of them before their total strength can come into

de of the heaviest artillery." Also, he said, in effect, that the art of winning battles depends

lnerable point, and often quite irrespective of the sizes of the opposing armies taken as a whole. Everything depends upon the quickness in concentration of concerted action. The herculean physique of Goliath did not count for much after little

?sar, Charles Martel, Marlborough, Cromwell, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Grant, Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Sheridan-all great captains-appreciated and applied this winning principle: Be able to strike the enemy upon one given point with greater force than h

thousand-fold to the potentiality of the soldier in bat

n armed with the old smooth-bore guns of the Civil War. As a matter of fact they could kill all that surrounded them as fast as they approached from

d-guns of the enemy would be completely disabled before they could be brought within cannon-shot of the ten thousand. As soon as the enemy came within rifle range, the ten thousand would open on them with their thousand automatic machine-guns and magazine-rifles. As an automatic machine-gun fires at the rate of 600 shots a minute, a thousand would fire at the rate of 600,000 shots a minute. The magazine shoulder-rifles would fire aimed shots at the rate of tw

orresponding sacrifice of their lives. Not only this, but every automatic gun that we make and furnish our troops enables one man to do the work o

ndred lives from jeopardy. Every magazine-rifle saves ten lives,

if war cannot be prevented, and all history, and the present moment as well, prove that it cannot, then we shoul

may be placed upon them by sentiments of humanity, but only such values

ty dollars; at ten years of age, he is worth about five hundred dollars; at fifteen, he is worth almost a thousand dollars; and at twenty, he is worth a little

e of soldiers may, according to Mr.

d of the Allies, the loss to the Allies is the value of the thousand men, namely, a million dollars, and as it costs the Germans fifteen times as much to kill them as they are worth, the loss to the Germans is fifteen million

mbers engaged is correspondingly less than it used to be, while the cost is correspondingly greater. In modern wa

es now under arms against more than seven million Germans and Austrians. These numbers have not as yet all been brought face to face with one another on the line of battle, owing to modern methods of warfare; but under old-time methods with old-time arms, t

and enginery, they would, during the time they have been engaged, very likely have slain a third of their number-certainly ten times as many in

line of battle. Never have they been so scientifically armed, and, c

the present greater tactical distances, and throw out their men in long-extended battle-lines, and spread them over correspondingly wide areas, the fight becomes one largely of gun against gun, engine against engine, with t

ld be armed to the teeth, but it is vastly more expensive. Can we not

I. S. Bloch and Dr. David Starr Jordan, the money loss today is a concern fifteen

iderations of humanity, should advocate disarmament and the inevitable reversion to the old and more deadly arms and m

ons would be able, in a war like the present, to kill one another at very much less cost. They would then be ab

invented, and every peace advocate in the world and every lover of his kind should appreciate this fact and use his influe

the result? This war would have come just the same, and probably much sooner; and it would have been ten-fold more bloody, even had the nations flung themselves up

f of the multitude, that many socialists, members of brotherhoods of labor and other opponents of war, would refuse to fight, and if drafted would shoot down their officers from the rear. But nothing of this kind has happened. When this war broke out, socialist, labor unionist, and p

d in the following terms: The best preparation for the attainment of success in life is the acquisition of a thorough realization of the fact that no one deserves more from the world than he earns out

nd comfort, or to lessen his discomfort, may not be best for the general good, because

the individual to the nation. If a nation does not exercise due and reasonable diligence to safeguard its people against war and does not provide itself with the necessary trained men and machinery to forefend war, then the obligation of the individual

a country. But when a nation is armed with guns, and armed with the purpose to defend its citizens, wherever they may be, to the last man and last pinch of gunpowder, and is so adequately prepared wit

r heard any senseless prating about an unarmed peace, but the whole people would rise in their might and deman

ce to the assurance that we are so splendidly iso

gainst invasion, for modern means of transporta

Navy, and land on our unfortified shores a hundred thousand men in less than two weeks-half

, and she could land a quarter of a million men on the Pacific coast in less than a mo

tions. We are isolated only from ourselves, and we

and, as we have seen, this is an isolation of less than a month, while we are isolated by unpreparedness by at least fifty months, for it would take more than four years, if we should s

iew, Secretary of

iliating degree, if not actually make us sue for peace, before we could raise and train a volunteer army adequate to cope with the invaders. In other words, at present our navy is our only considerable bulwark against invasion. Even such part of our militia as we could depend on and the available re

y of only a hundred thousand men, trained, equipped, and supplied with the supreme adeq

ur thirty thousand to be as well equipped and as well supplied as the troops of the enemy. But we should be without the requisite field artillery, and the artillery that we should have would be without the requisite training. We should be without the needed cavalry, and our cavalry would be without prop

lies behind them, and no adequate arrangements for providing any. Every man of the thirty thousand would know that he was being sacrificed in

rance of

emy might have the advantage in the number of ships and in the size and range of guns, the advantage would be immaterial and one which might be balanced by the superiority of our personnel, and that, although

he advocates of better equipment for the American Army, ho

ound themselves at great disadvantage in face

ttle-front, spread terror in the ranks of the Allies, similar to the terror that the Romans felt when the fierce Gothic giants slid down the Alps into the vineyard

n Europe, but also we need guns of even longer range. We should have field-guns of a range sufficient to com

s as they actually are should

, which enables them to man?uvre and choose positions of advantage with respect to the enemy; while victory or de

teries of the enemy must be silenced by our own batteries before they, with their gun-fire, shall be able to silence ours. Other things being equal, therefore, it is the number of field batteries that, more than anything else, turns the tide of battle fo

cal Strength of

cture a l

on a convenient ridge; also that they have placed their big howitzers on an adjoining lowland under the concealment of a wood,

guns, while the enemy, being provided with guns of much longer range, is able to storm our position along our entire front, and to throw shrapnel shell into the trenches filled with our men, which s

of their trenches. We fire at them, and find that our shrapnel falls far short. The enem

positions. We return the fire, but without any effect; the range of our guns being too short to reach the enemy. Many of our guns are qui

vening space, still under cover of artillery fire. Field batter

their batteries on commanding positions to cover our retreat, but they are soon dislodged by the long-range guns of the e

ront on commanding positions just beyond the range of our guns, and again

normous. The enemy, on the contrary

uer the whole country without suffering very much discomfiture, unless we have guns of as long or

p the enemy without the support of field artillery. This is a grave error. An army of a million men, consisting entirely of infantry, armed with modern shoulder-arms, would be completely over-matched and easily defeated by an army of 25,000

resent defenseless condition, march through this country as Xenophon's ten thousand marched through ancient Persia. They could cut their way through all opposition that we could offer. We have neither

ndid young men of the country-husbands, fathers, sons, brothe

officered, then they will be able not only to hold their own against the invaders, with comparatively little loss

without training, and incompetently or incompletely officered, as the pacifist propagandists and other sent

miles long, with their dead bodies; and writhing, groaning, shrieking, agonized forms

ou most love, those to whom you most cling, and on whom you most depend; and you a

reckoning, aim a gun at the heart of him whom you love more than all the w

tim, and could foresee the tear-streaming eyes of those mourning for him, he would, unless brazened against every feeling of pity, stay his hand. If those who, through their ignorance, false belief, or hypocrisy and desire for publicity, are planning to sacrifice the unimaginable thousands of our best young men in

dequate national defense, you should at once change your belief, and use your voice and every r

arge. It is the only way. Those shells, bursting among them with such deadly effect, are shrapnel from the quick-firing guns of the enemy placed just over the crest of yonder distant ridge; and

ies of the enemy. At any rate, we should be able to engage them efficiently and cover the charge of our troops. We should also be able to storm that line of tren

g down; they are dead. But they are not all killed, a large number of them are wounded. They are torn in every inconceivable, horrible manner of mutilation. And look!-the

e of the crater when the explosion came, and he is now lying there, with both eyes blown out by the awful blast and hanging on his cheeks. Th

ughts and speak words which ma

in the philosophy of Longinus; but it is not my purpose here to be artistic. My very purpose is to visualize the horrible, because the on

The invaders who have murdered them are in the street outside. There comes a summons at the door. A certain number of the enemy have been billeted to your house, and you must play the genial hostess. Though they get dru