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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1916)
: t r 6i The Commoner VOL. 16, NO. 6 18 h K What Armed Peace Leads To TA aolcctlon from Dr. Charles B. Jefferson's recent volume, WHAT THE WAR IS TEACHING, copyrighted 1916, and roprlnted by permission of tho publishers, Fleming II. Itovoll Company. By armed peace Is meant that policy of In ternational life In vogue la Europo during tho last hundred yoars, and more especially during tho last half century. It Is tho policy by which each nation safeguards Its honor and Its vital intorosts by huge military and naval establish ments. By this policy a nation becomes an army, and a country an armed camp. Its motto Is "Preparedness," its creed Is "In time of peace prepare for war," and its ruling ambition is to mako and koop for itself a place in the sun by an imposing display of guns. Never have tho stars looked down upon a spoctaclo moro pathetic than that which Europo has presented during tho Inst fifty years. Eu rope has boon professedly Christian. Tho contin ent is dotted with cathedrals, erected to the glory of tho world's supremo, teacher of good will. But around every cathedral have flashed glittering lines of bayonets. Within tho cathedrals, wor ship baptized into tho name of Jesus of Nazar .eth, hag been carried on, while outsido their doors another ritual, still moro elaborate and magniflcont, has boon conducted, baptized Into the spirit of Mars. Tho anthems sung in tho cathedrals have boon punctuated by tho boom of guns engaged in target practice Two forms of worship have boon faithfully and enthusi astically supportod tho worship of love and the worship of force. Two vast institutions havo boon standing side by side tho Christian church and tho national army. For fifty years tho groat nations of Europo havo beon spend ing a largo part of their enormous revenues in preparedness for human slaughter. It is intl matod that in this period forty billion dollars woro thus oxponded. Everything In sight was taxed to moot tho increasing military and naval budgets. Certain nations unable to pay for ar mor by tho taxation of tho present, havo mort gaged the property and labor of generations yet unborn. Govornmonts havo reluctantly taken clothing off tho peasant's back, and food off his tablo, and doprivod his children of an education, all in tho interest of military proparedness. Tho time of millions of men has beon spent In march ing and counter-marching, drilling and fighting sham battles, somo of tho best years of their life dovotod to this task of perfecting them eelYos In tho art of human slaughter. Tho en ergy of thousands of brains has been poured into tho work of equipping nations for tho field of battle, some havo worked upon ships, others on guns, others on explosivos, others on aero planes, others on maps, others on schemes of espionage, others on fortifications, a great Army of inventors and designers and engineers and chomlsts and machinists havo consecrated their genius to tho construction of a war machine moro efficient and wonderful than tho world had over known. HOPED TO SAFEGUARD PEACE OF EUROPE And all this was done for the safeguarding of tho poaco of Europe. Every battleship was launched In tho intorosts of poaco, every bat talion was drilled to mako peace moro certain Burdens, heavy and grievous to boar, were rolled on the nations that they might be saved Irom the horrors of war. The people submitted to numberless sacrifices all for the sake of peace. All tho rulers of Europe have been de fenders of military proparedness because they believed that only by this policy could tho peace of Europo be secured. They were, no doubt honest in this belief. All the diplomats and statesmon have askod for army and naval ap propriations on the ground that these were necessary for peace. It is incredible that all these men woro deceivers. Tho military and naval loaders in all the countries havo advo cated colossal armies and navies because only by these could peace be certainly secured. We are bound to believe that they wore honest men It is Unthinkable that all tho rulers and diplo mats and prime ministers and army and naval officials of Europe have been liars and hypo crites, secretly desiring, war, while all the time professing devotion to peace. Tho leaders of Europe hbnestly believed that armed peace is tho best posslblo policy for the world in its present stage of development, and so, for more itan forty years they toiled, in season and out oj season, to prepare themselves ngainst war That is one fact which must not be blinked Eu rope for a half century prepared for war. The second fact, equally vivid and indisputable, is that Europo got what sho prepared for. That Is a fact which every rational human being must face. No one should be allowed to juggle ' with it, or to cover It up, or to explain it away. Europo prepared for war and she got what slid' prepared for. The first is plowed into European history, tho second is written in characters of fire across the sky, and in lines of graves across tho land. Europe wanted peace. Europe paid for peace. Europo got war. She made gigantic preparedness for war. Sho got tho most gigantic war of history. Military preparedness does not, then, lead to peace. Armed peace leads to .war. This is the crowning lesson of tho European tragedy. Men who are blear-eyed talk about the failure of Christianity. Why do they not rather talk about the failure of militarism? Men who hate socialism sneer at tho failure of socialism. Why do they not rather sneer at tho failure of mil itarism? It is militarism which is the colossal booby and blunderbus of the world. What has this war shot to pieces? This adage: "In time of peace prepare for war." What has the war torn into a thousand tattors? This delusion: "Armaments aro a guarantee of peace." What has tho war ground to powder? This silly soph ism: "Armaments are a form of national insur ance." What has the war demonstrated? Tho impotency of expending armaments to keep the peace. Armed peace as a philosophy is false, and as a policy it is costly and ruinous. Armed peace is a delusion, a scourge, and a proved failure. This is tho supreme lesson which the great war is teaching. Every moral teacher In America ought to do what he can to rub that lesson into the minds of men. CLAIMS OF THE MILITARISTS That the war teaches the futility of military preparedness is vehemently denied of course by all who idolize force. Tho one lesson, they say which the war is teaching America, is that preparedness is our only salvation, and that the now world must now adopt the policy which has overwhelmed tho old Many men aro- saying this: Military preparedness worked well, for it held Europe back from a great war for forty three years. Without her huge armaments the great powers of Europe would havo fought long ago. It was her guns and battle ships which gave Europe tranquility through moro than forty years. And in order to bolster up this con tention, the militarist turns back to preceding centuries and points out the fact that never be- !.- T?S'ope en,3oy B0 Prolonsed a season of peace. If Europe for nearly a half century was saved from the desolating scourge of a great iffiI5e Jnfe?nce Is that this was due to the potency of military preparedness. The answer to this is that there was peace through forty years not because of the arma ments, but in spite of them. In the nineteenth century the world passed into a new era a hunianitarian spirit took possession of the hearts or men. All the peoples of Europe became peace-loving. There are no bellicose peopled Europe. The masses of the people in e?ery land are amiable, and affable, and haters of ca?nage They desire nothing so much as to live the lives in quietness and do their work in peace France, which at the beginning of the nineteenth century was wild with amVtion for mHtarv glory, closed the century by writinr the n of Pasteur above that of Napoleon5 e F?rTt VMA" the ler of Europe within the last fifty years have been peace lovers. Not one of them has had the warrior spirit of earlier time Commerce has bound the continents together ofTtee'f and' o&FZZ 1 "SSSS-to onnaei0anS ?L thaf r has become more and more in the thought of sane-minded' men, a nuisance and nnXTaible ?lunder And then the peace pron aganda has been doing a mighty work Th ? terparliamentary Union is onlyone of thl manv" organizations at work in these recent yea to bind the nations closer together Thfl L? gramme of friendly visits, by which ropresente" tivo men of one country were 'entertained St i" resentative men of another county was cat 2d sces0 wt && time 'into, eNach 2l&'" with a more earnest desire to SelLrd Kd peace. There were two conferences at The Hague. A Palace of Peace was erected. Great foundatibns were established to carry on in all lands tho work o fostering the spirit of inter national goodwill. Thousands of men and wo men havo been at work through the last forty years to bring the governments of Europe into a moro friendly temper, and nothing but a most tremendous force could have swept away all the barriers against war which have been piled up and snapped all the bonds of friendship which have been woven, and overcome all the devices which havo been created for conserving the peace, and that force was generated in the huge military and naval establishments of tho great powers. Armed peace did not hold back this war. It was held back for more than forty years by tho men who love peace and work for it. But the peace workers were finally over come by the vast engines of war. Military pre paredness kills peace at last! Unless the world stops preparing for war, mankind is doomed. But militarists are always prolific in ingen uities, and so somo of them do not hesitate to contend that Europe was not prepared. "Had the nations all been prepared thtm tho war would never have been. Adequate preparedness would have prevented this holocaust." So runs the argument, and one would laugh outright at it, were it not presented with a sober face by honorable men. It is true that Europe had not yet procured everything which was conceivable, but sho had provided everything which she could afford. She had not laid in a stock of material sufficient to carry her through an extended war, but she had laid in all she could pay for. Just before the war opened, the high officials of Great Britain reveiwed the British fleet. There were twenty eight miles of fighting ships, the greatest dis play of sea power since history began, and the British papers were aglow with the conviction that the British Empire was prepared. France had expended hundreds of millions of dollars on her forts, and had increased the period of military service from two years to three. Her military budget had been, made as heavy as her people would endure. Russia within a few years had borrowed a hundred million, dollars from France, most of it going into forts and guns. When one lays before him the expendi tures of Great Britain and France and Russia for preparednta during the twenty years pre ceding the waf, he is convinced, that if, after so vast an expenditure, the preparedness was in adequate, then anything like adequate prepared ness in a world like this is clearly impossible If these three nations were not prepared, then neither was Germany. For Germany, made a desperate effort to reach Paris by way of Bel gium and failed. If Great Britain and France were unprepared at the opening of the war thev so also was Germany, for Germany did not pos sess the men or the equipment to enable her to drive her way through to Paris, To say that iurope was not prepared is consummate .fool ishness. European governments had spent on preparedness every dollar they could get Lhe'r Sa ? and some of them had gone doeply in debt. After Germany had driven one-third of her people into socialism and had screwed the last possible mark out of the pockets of the complaining taxpayer, she had gone into the purses of her aristocracy and taken out three ? !? r i0n dollars a" that she might have the satisfaction of being "ready." Great Britain ? i?118?6 up her Preparedness budget from ?,L U!Jdred, lnd fifteen miUion dollars to three hundred and fifty-five millions in 1913. All the . were-prepared. They had provided nhfJffJ31768;,11?.10 thG Ievel of their financial J?r 7 h, tiie latest an most expensive in j2nt?o? destruction, and in the month of 5 U8t' 914J ftey a said with one accord nS?iJKf r?ayI U was tlieir readiness that SSSSSAf4 thexar- Sir Edward Grey at the Si Jiil iUf attemPted to improvise a tribunal J M: J",' lfc was t0 lat- The engine of trtm,. I ly Perfeted through forty, indus nT years' was ready. and because it was ready a breath of passion set it in motion. COMMERCIAL GREED BLAMED FOR WAR wiSUwSiwrl8,m !as stI11 anther argument tbii NY t0 deceive the unwary. It says that ll a, nwrclal war. The cause of it is ta?to flialfee?-, Gat armaments had noth navai ni lt?"1)r,?Blns lt on- Military and th nrod, li8ohfme?tLaresuperficIallien0mena' ceal r L0t mi?hty forces which 1Ie con" fwertah LfrWa,r i8 rooted' wo are toJd' in a mlnv wnn?ir! f0r 1markets. Hussia and Ger hence Tw t0 f??11 the Balka nations, and wanton nLar flAUtIng' Germany and Franco wanted spheres of influence in North Africa, and 'A : : ; '