The Commoner
FEBRUARY, 191C
11
beginning. Once fairly started on this road,
there will be no stopping. Militarism never was
satisfied; it never will be satisfied. It is always
reaching out for more, always sighing, with an
Alexander, for new worlds to conquer, always
lamenting, with a Roosevelt, that there is not
war enough to go around. If we yield now to
thoso who would commit us to a policy strange
to our ideals and incompatible with our liber
ties, does anyone lay the flattering unction to
his soul that these ideals and these liberties
will survive a contact so baneful?
There is a subtle poison in this preparedness
'which is breaking down the fabric of our
thought and eating out the very vitals of our
national spirit. In what terms are wo thinking
today? Not in terms of peace, not in terms of
brotherhood, npt in terms of international
amity, not in terms of good will and justice, not
in terms of charity and forbearance, not in
terms of patience and generous allowance. Nay.
It is in quite other terms in terms of force, in
terms of suspicion, in terms of jealousy, in
terms of rancor and prejudice and ill will, in
terms that make for misunderstandings and bit
terness, in terms rankling with the acrid venom
of hatred and shot through with the deadly
distillations of unreasoning passion. This may
sound like empty rhetoric. But is it? Read the
daily press. Listen to the fulminations from
pulpit and platform where jingoism finds voice.
Dip into the literature of the hour. Mingle
with those who catch their inspiration from the
patriots for profit. If you do not in all these
find proof of what is here said, then you are
capable of making interpretations which are
clearly denied to me.
IN DANGER FROM NO QUARTER
Mr. Chairman, of whom are we afraid? Who
is offering us any affront? Who is coveting our
territory? Who is threatening our institutions?
I do not forget, nor have you forgotten, that the
President of the United States himself has de
clared that we are in danger from no quarter.
Yet we are asked to prepare and very adequate
ly prepare. For what? Against whom? On
what acpount? Who has answered or even at
tempted to answer these very pertinent ques
tions ?' t Whb 'indeed. There is no answer to
tli'ein.' 'To attempt "to answer them is to render
absurd all the hysterical talk with which the
country has been deluged during recent months.
We are to be attacked and overwhelmed by
some unnamed power when the European war
is brought to an end. That is one of the an
swers. But every power in Europe will be 'ex
hausted when the war is over. All Europe even
now is on the verge of exhaustion. Both in men,
and in resources the nations now at death grips
ore nearing the point of coljapse. Yet we are '
asked to believe that when this tremendous
struggle is brought to a close through exhaus
tion and it will scarcely close short of that
one of the nations, or perhaps a combination of
them, will turn at onde upon us to recoup the
losses that war has entailed. Could absurdity
go further? Could rational minds be more
grossly insulted than they are when talk of this
sort is addressed to them in support of a policy
otherwise without support? For there is no
support for the policy except this irrational and
fantastic conjuring with the possible.
Of course it is possible for Germany and Rus
sia to combine against us when this war is over.
Equally, of course, it is possible for Britain and
Austria to do so. It were even possible for all
the nations now at war to forget their hatreds
and their jealousies and their mutual scars and
to make common cause against the United
States. But we are not dealing with possibil
ities in this world of cause and effect. We are
dealing, rather, with probabilities, with reason
able sequences and consequences, with logic
rather than with dreams, with facts rather than
with unbridled fancies. While it may be granted
that there are many possible contingencies grow
ing out of or merely following the great war,
where is the human probability that any ex
hausted nation or any conceivable combination
of exhausted nations will thirst for more blood
and seek to slake their thirst at an American
fountain?
Some of us in this crisis of the republic find
ourselves most unhappily out of touch with lead
ers we have hitherto followed unfalteringly and
with glad steps. It is a grief to us that a dif
ference of opinion has resulted in a momentary
divergence of our paths. But here I am re
minded of something written by Thomas Jef
ferson a long time ago. It seems to fit a situa
tion which faces us today as it fitted the situa
tion which he had in mind.
"During the throes and convulsions of . the
ancient world," he wrote, "during tho agonizing
spasms of infuriated man, seeking through
blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was
not wonderful that the agitation of the billows
should reach even this distant shore; that this
should be more felt and feared by some and less
by others; and should divido opinion as to meas
ures of safety. But every difference of opinion
Is not a difference of principle. Wo have called
by different names brethren of the same prin
ciple. Error of opinion may be tolerated whoro
reason is left to combat it."
And it is to reason that wo who stand for
peace are appealing today. Wo aro not ques
tioning the patriotism of most of thoso who dif
fer with us in this hour of stress. We believe
them, or most of them, actuated by motives as
high and as unselfish as our own; but we hon
estly and most sincerely question the wisdom
of the method they havo chosen In dealing with
a great and momentous occasion. The United
States has been mightily stirred by the awful
conflict raging across the Atlantic. Nearly all
of us have kin over there. No home Is bereft
there without a shadow falling across tho thres
hold of a home in this haven of the oppressed.
The agitation of the billows of the Baltic and
the North Sea has reached even this distant and
peaceful shore and many emotions in American
breasts have been tho response emotions of
fear, emotions' of sympathy, emotions of hatred,
emotions of suspicion, emotions of sheer selfish
ness and greed. And out of these emotions have
come many and varied differences of opinion.
Some of us have been concerned with respect to
our own safety. These have feared that out of
the blood and fury of the mighty conflict in
which Europe is weltering may come a fearful
danger to our own land and our own institu
tions. And this fear has been played upon mag
ically by some who nurse ambitions and by oth
ers who harbor sordid desires, and by still
others who cherish race prejudices or national
bigotries all together conspiring, perhaps un
consciously, to bring about a state of the public
mind which tends to find expression in terms of
force, in battleships and air craft, in submarines
and long-range guns, in shrapnel and men in
khaki.
But happily reason is left to combat errors of
opinion which may have obtained in connection
with the great conflagration which has touched
us with its searing tongues. We are not bound
to accept the word of authority. Each of us is
free to exercise his own judgment, to follow his
own conscience, to consult his own convictions.
Are we in danger? If so,. there is no American
unready to meet it, none who would pause to
count the cost Involved in' meeting it. We have
been told and repeatedly told, that we are not
threatened from without. But are we threat
ened from within? If so, will continentals and
warships avert the danger? May they not in
deed enhance it? Revolutions are not stopped
by armed men. But a thousand revolutions
might have been averted by turning swords Into
plowshares and soldiers into husbandmen. If
we are endangered from within, the situation is
to be met, not by building battle fleets and
planting our harbors with mines; It is not to be
averted by turning the republic into a military
camp; it is not to be disposed of by levying
fresh taxes on the toilers of the land; it is to
be dealt with successfully only by removing the
causes which produce unrest and uprooting the
injustices which provoke resentment and incite
bitterness of class feeling.
AN EXAMPLE OF NOBLE MORALITY
May I not, in conclusion, appeal to reason and
to common sense In the consideration of this
vital issue? The poison of preparedness has un
deniably crept subtly through our whole system
of thought and national effort. It has brought
a sort of madness upon many minds. It has
obsessed thousands with the dread of some aw
ful consequence to ourselves of the European
struggle. Yet what I contend,, to paraphrase
the language of the great Richard Cobden, is
that America is today so situated in every par
ticular of her domestic and foreign circum
stances that by leaving other governments to
settle their own business and fight out their own
quarrels and by attending to the vast and diffi
cult affairs of her own enormous realm and tho
condition of her own people she will not only be
setting the world an example of noble morality
which no other nation is so happily free to
set but she will be following the very course
which the maintenance of her own greatness
most Imperatively demands. It is" precisely be
cause America is so strong in resources, in cour
age, in institutions, in geographical position,
that, she can, before all other powers, afford to
bo moral and to set the example of a mighty
nation walking the paths of justice and of
peace. (Applause.)
I ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, to
extend my remarks in tho Record,
A Voice from the Past
John Bright, one the great British statesmen
of the last century, was a democrat and an anti
mllltarist. His speeches are worth reading In
connection with the discussion of preparedness.
He was also a friend of the United States and
frequently cited this nation as worthy of emula
tion. On October 10, 1860, for instance, In
complaining of the expenditure of England and
Franco on preparedness, ho said:
"I seo no end to it. Tho greatest mechanlcat
Intellects of our time aro absorbed in the ques
tion how to complete Instruments of defence and
destruction, and there seems to be no limit to
their discoveries and projocts, so long as Franco
and England shall lead in great armaments and
in tho attempt to dominate over the world.
What a glorious isolation is that of the United
States. Until we adopt their principle, I see no
security for peace for us or for Europe for un
til then, every disturbance n, Europe ig made
the pretext for a greater expenditure here, and
wo aro constantly in a state of preparation to
plunge into the chaos of any continental en
tanglement." In January, 18G1, Bright wrote Gladstone urg
ing that Great Britain and Franco enter into an
agreement regulating navy armaments. He
calculated that "at least fifteen millions a year
might be saved to the two countries at once by
such an arrangement as I speak of, besides tho
increasing peril of war from these frightful
preparations, and this incessant military excite
ment." Sixty-five years ago Bright saw that tho
"frightful preparation" and tho "Incessant mil
itary excitement" necessarily involved in tlfo
program of tho militarists would make war
moro probable.
Disraeli at that time advocated a reduction of
naval expenditures by an understanding with
France as to the relative size of the two navies.
As early as 1849 France had offered to jdin
Great Britain in a movement to reduce arma
ments, but Lord Palmerston, the most outspoken
jingo of that day, declined the offer.
W. J. BRYAN. .
AS TO MANUSCRIPTS
1. Never send a manuscript to a busy man
without first asking whether he is in position
to examine it.
2. Never send a manuscript to any one unless
It is TYPEWRITTEN.
3. Never send a manuscript to any one with
out keeping a copy there is always danger of
Its being lost.
Secrecy of plans has been thrown to the winds
and Mr. Roosevelt Is avowedly In full cry after
the republican nomination. The remarkable sit
uation of tho republican party is no better illus
trated than in tho fact that the tariff barons, in
their extremity, are turning, to save the party
from continued defeat, to the man who dyna
mited it but four years ago.
PATRIOTISM
Patriotism Is unselfishness measured in terms V
of national service; it is love of country mani
fested by action. Ab one feels it his duty to
render assistance to those related to him by ties
of friendship or neighborhood, so he feels it his
duty to serve not only those joined to him by the
ties which bind together the citizens of a nation,
but future generations.
The sentiment is unselfish in that tho citizen
does not, when called upon for service, stop to
calculate how or when the aid which he renders
others will bring benefit to himself. And yet,
' the intelligent citizen knows that God has so
linked us to others that any legitimate advance
ment made by one contributes indirectly, if not
directly, to the welfare of all, and that all, there
fore, are concerned in any injury that comes to
one of tho number.
It is hardly necessary to add that patriotism
is a virtue which manifests itself in time of
peace ag well as in time of war it is a flower
that blooms not merely on the battlefield but
whenever and wherever sacrifice for country is
required. W. J. BRYAN
. IM -'a n .. itOfamMiKt 1.1 , I