The Commoner
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VOL. 15, NO. n
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The Threatening Danger of a Military Autocracy
Opposition to the Organized Military Cabal to Bankrupt the National Treasury Are the People, the Brave
Patient People, Clamoring for a $500,000,000 Bond Issue in a Time of Peace with all the World? '
By GENERAL ISAAC R.. SHERWOOD
Speech of General Isaac It. Sherwood, October
22, 1915, bdfore the Kenilworth Club, Toledo.
All the news coming to us from. Washington
indicates that wo are now in the midst of an era
of "Military Hysteria." We have had several
eras of this kind lately, all resulting in lowering
our ethical standards of government and all
costly and reprehensible. We had oho in the
Winter of 1907-1908, when under the leadership
of jingoes of the Hobson type, we added several
additional millions to our naval and army budg
ets, on the theory that Japan was a"bout to at
tack us on the Pacific slope. In fact, I heard
Hobson, then congressman from Alabama, say
on the floor of congress that he had secret or
confidential information that Japan was contem
plating war against the United States. Of course,
tho armor plate trust and the powder trust and
the steel trust and their allies, through tho big
newspapers they own and the leading magazines
they control, worked up a powerful sentiment in
congress and the country for a bigger navy and"
a nioro formidable army to resist the imaginary
warlike attitude of Japan. In fact we had for
that session of congress an acute case of military
hysterics, and we wasted some seventy millions
of our hard earned tax money for;;,an increased
army and navy. All wasted money and wasted
nergy, as we all know now.
Then in 1912, we had a very aggravating at
t tack of political hysterics, largely fomented and
led by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who made
the campaign for the presidency on a more rad
ical socialist platform than Eugene Debs. He
not only advocated the recall of judges, but also
the recall of judicial decisions by tho roosters in
town election. This spasmodic system of hys
teria enabled' Roosevelt to carry 88 electoral
votes that year, while Taft had only eight. Today
there is not citizen of sanity arid sense, of or
diary patriotic inspiration, who would not pre
fer in the present awful European crisis, Taft
tor president rather than Roosevelt.
Today in the midst of this terrible war in Eu
rope, every patriotic man and woman In the
"United States realizes that had" Roosevelt been
vtlected president in 1912, we would, today be
involved in this most brutal and barbarous of all
wars. 'v
OUR WAR WITH SPAIN
Again in 1898, we had the m.OBt costly fit of
military hysteria since this republic was born. I
refer to our war against Spain. It is now known
to every intelligent student of American dip
lomacy that Cuba would have been freed without
war or without shedding one drop of American
blood. The correspondence in the state depart
ment at Washington shows that Spain had agreed
through Prime Minister Sagasta to withdraw the
army of Spain from the island of Cuba, before
congress declared war against Stfain. Not only
does this official correspondence prove this, but
ex-Senator ' and ex-Cabinet Minister John Sher
man, then .secretary of state, so stated in a public
.address at Mansfield, Ohio. Thatvjpasm of mil
itary hysterics has already cost lis the lives of
over 16,000 stalwart young soldiers, with a pen
sion list to date aggregating bvey ,forty millions
of dollars and over one thousand bullions all told
( worse.1 than wasted in the far away Philippine
' Island. And the end is not yet.4
TheSre is not a prominent public man today of
ither of the threo parties, who does "not know
that tho acquisition of the Philippine Islands was
tho greatest diplomatic blunder in our whole 130
years of national life, and yet that violent attack
of hysterics which precipitated the war with
Spain was largely caused by one too many of our
any useless battleships. Had iiot the battle
ihip ""Maine" entered the harbor of Havana,
there would hare been no war. tt was the wild
xcitement created throughout the country by
JP VJ "l : i. . ' s . J J
the blowing, up of the "Maine" with its precious
freight ;of human lives that raised the war spirit
to such a ferocity that President McKinley was
overwhelmed.
General Fitzhugh Lee of Virginia, an able dip
lomat, then United States 'consul at Havana, no
tified ther secrotary of war not to send any battle
ship to Havana during the excited condition- of
affairs on tho Island of Cuba. Hence, I give it
as a historical fact that the one battleship too
many 'JMaine"1 was responsible for our war with
Spain, aided, of course, and promoted by that
cruel propaganda of the Army and Navy league
and, the' jingoes in congress.
TRUSTS' PROFITS ON WAR MATERIALS
One of our leading citizens of Toledo has re
cently received instructions from Pino street,
New York, emanating, of course, from that gi
gantic organization of trusts that seek to dom
inate the legislation of congress, to organize the
city of Toledo for that tremendous expediture of
our resources for a big army and navy, under the
humbug pretense of national defense.
"There are millions in it," if it can be fully
exploited, for that powerful array known as the
Army and Navy league, backed by the armor
pjate trust, the powder trust, the steel trust, and
allied trusts. Their combined profits during the
past ten years, all off the taxpayers of the United
States for material furnished the government,
are estimated at not less than one hundred mil
oo n? f dollars; (scan these fieures, $100,000,-
a'-uA-8 Iiave already stated, there are millions in
this military propaganda for the big interests.
Since 1887 we have purchased 217,379 tons of
armor plate, at an average of $440 per ton.
The price above what they sold armor plate to
Russia was $190 per ton. A price over reason
able profit of $41,301,319.
In the meantime we have been paying the pow
der .trust as high as a dollar a pound, while we
are now manufacturing powder in the government-owned
plant at 36 cents per pound.
It is estimated that the armor plate trust and
the powder trust and the steel trust have real
ized over$l00,000,000 on our military estab
lishmentidnring the past ten yetrs.
MONEY, SPENT FOR' COAST DEFENSE
This dominating military cabal is claiming)we
have no coast defenses, in face of the fact that
7SivK fexpendedl dnringtthe past ten years $75,
llllAs$ T?fC!S?1 4defe8 I Sive the official
JS8S2nH h S ,S ?n$$ne "stration of the
conhnettlal lies now beirfg .exploited, as we have
spentsomo- SEVENTY-FIVE AND THRRP
QUARTER MILLIONS on big gunTfor c2
enA $lDUhe past ten years" Who's afraid
And&pw the contention of this powerful and
dominating cabal is thasome nation or power
not named, after the close of this barbarous e
ropean, war, is going to cross three thousand
m lestof ocean and attack the United States
Mind you,, after this wa is settled, and ev
Jfft17 ta bankrupt d utterly exhauSN
ed in men and war material, they, or ZTn
them, are going to make wir o'the hundred
million neople of the tinned States. Was tw
ever such an utterly idiotic proposition wJ?
Plotted, since civilized man w devolved 25 ?"
prehistoric caye man? And yet we aroVn1? the
aotfte stage of militaryXateriTs ove? 7 &n'
And we are told now. after hnHfH-i: s
Mt muy in the rid lit ftSufiM
toWfin, Including the nattoSd 2?.2i 5
u,iciijf unprepared.
t
historian, a nnHHa -TLrS?' au orator, a
mmpitih lions ind Afftc tigers' and?'
doves, Ingoing np and down the cothSSt UUe
we are utterly unprepar 7io?-wa ? ?' aylne
M . teUe same Theodore Roosevelt JE. See'
president" of the United States 4 w, Who' as
was only two-thirds a .strong as 7t w,?r navy
we had ten thousand less saflow an wfn?,
on;our bathips, sent fZSi
the world, and exhibited it in all the nnvta
the south .and west Pacific; sent it over to tL
and the Orient in order to conYtacX1m$
of South America and Asia that we had an in
vincible navy, ready to fight at the drop of the
hat, anybody and everybody. e
Now, this same Roosevelt, who exploited our
navy at an expense to the taxpayers of ihl
United States including repairs for that memor
able trip, of almost one hundred millions of doi
lars, now says we are utterly unprepared for war
We are now at peace with all the world, with no
threatening dangers anywhere, and still we am
asked to spend five hundred millions of our hard
earned tax money, to add five hundred millions
to our bonded debt, or to add five hundred mil
lions to the taxation of our people, in defense
against an impossible war, that not one of the
whole array is able to state or to name the en
emy we are to fight. Privately they are saying
it is the Kaiser. They think that the Kaiser af
er annihilating the armies of England, France
Russia, Servia, and Belgium, and killing more
than one-half of the men of his own country
able to bear arms, and exhausting all the re
sources of his empire, is going to cross the At
lantic ocean, three thousand miles, and attack
the people on this side, with whom he has no
quarrel and never had any. In my judgment this
is the most idiotic proposition that was ever pre
sented to the American people, by anyone out
Bide of a lunatic or idiotic asylum.
COSTS OF ONE BATTLESHIP
Quite recently also we consigned to the re
tired list another of our great battleships, the
North Dakota, which cost us over twelve mil
lions, and up to the time it was sent to the junk
neap had cost the taxpayers of the country $28.
000,000. These twenty-eight millions would
have been enough to build fourteen hundred
churches at $20,000 apiece. It would buy seven
thousand farms at $4,000 each. It would pro
vide a college education for 56,000 young men
at $500 per year. It would have given 280,000
worthy workers who produce all the wealth of
this country, OLD AGE PENSIONS at $100 a
year. Ajnd yet when I talked about old age pen
sions for deserving toilers on the floor of con
gress, it was remarkable what an array of politi
cal economists was developed. "O, you are wild
on pensions," they said. "You will bankrupt
the treasury." But when a proposition was up
in congress to retire the officers of the regular
army who had been educated at West Point at
the government's expense of $4,000 a year, who
had lived on the fat of the land, and never had
occasion to Berve at the front for fifty years, and
who at the age of 64 were to be retired on half
pay for life, the legislation went through with a
whirl, to retire them not only on half pay, hut
with threq-fourths pay above the grade at which
they were retired. That is a colonel would he
retired at 64 at three-fourths the pay of a brig
adier general. This gives our people an idea of
the influence, the Army and Navy league have
had on the congress of the United States.
ATTITUDE ON WAR QUESTION
There appears to be an, impression that
my attitude on the question of war is a new idea.
I have held the ideas that I hold today for
over half a century. On Sunday, May 12, 1912,
I was called upon to deliver a memorial address
on General George W. Gordon of Tennessee, a
Confederate soldier, who was, wounded and cap
tured athe terrible battle of Franklin, and who
at the time of his deajth was a member of con
gress. The battle of Franklin closed at midnight with
the greatest destruction of human life in propor
tion to the number engagecjcbf any Datte ever
fought on the American continent.. I quote from
my address on the above occasion, as printed in
the Congressional Record:
"Outside the breastworks in a wider and a
thicker line lay the Confederate dead, it was
midnight and still the dum smoke of battle ak
most hid tho stars. I stood upon the parapet in
the center of that battle line and saw all that
fitto