Getting Together | Page 3

at last ready to hit back, and hit back, until you had rendered your opponent incapable of further outrage, and were in a fair way to fix this war so that it never could happen again--would you welcome Mediation, or offers of Mediation? I think not.
"Submarines? We aren't attaching too much importance to submarine frightfulness. It is true we have lost a number of merchant ships, and that a number of innocent lives have been sacrificed. But let us put our hearts in the background for the present and look at the matter from the economic and military point of view. We have lost, in twenty-seven months, about one tenth of our original merchant fleet. Against that you have to set the fact that we have been steadily building new merchant ships during the same period. The dead loss of merchandise involved amounts to about one half per cent. of the total value--ten shillings in every hundred pounds; or fifty cents per hundred dollars. That won't starve us into submission.
"But the Germans will build more and more submarines? Very probably. Still, I think we can leave it to the British and French navies to prevent undue exuberance in that direction. Our sailors have not been exactly garrulous during this war, but I think we may take it that they have not been entirely idle. Has it ever occurred to you that although there are hundreds of Allied warships patrolling the ocean to-day, you hardly ever hear of one being torpedoed by a submarine? Passenger ships and freight ships suffer to the extent I have quoted, but not the warships. Why is that? Don't ask me: ask Jellicoe! But it rather looks as if the submarine, as an instrument of naval warfare--as opposed to a baby-killing machine--had rather failed to deliver the goods.
"The Deutschland? I take off my hat to Captain Koenig: he is a plucky fellow. The U 53? I have no remarks to offer, except to repeat my previous reference to baby-killing machines. As for the presence of these two vessels in American waters--in American ports--I won't presume to offer an opinion. Still, not long ago the U 53 sank six British or neutral vessels off the American coast, just outside territorial waters. Fortunately for the passengers, an American cruiser was in the neighbourhood, to guard against violation of American waters, and picked them up. But the whole incident looks to me like a deliberate German plan to jockey an American cruiser into becoming a German submarine tender.
"Let me see--what else? Too proud to fight? Not much! We know the American people too well. Besides, we suffer from politicians ourselves, and know what political catch-phrases are. So don't let that worry you.
"National Training for America? There I am neither qualified nor entitled to offer advice. I know the difficulties with which the true American has to contend in this matter. I know that this vast country of yours is more of a continent than a country, and that so long as your enormous tide of immigration continues, it will be a matter of immense difficulty developing a national sense of personal responsibility. I also know that your Middle West is inhabited by people, many of whom have never even seen the sea, who are rendered incapable, by their very environment, of realizing the immensity of the external dangers which threaten their country. These must see things differently from the more exposed section of the community, and I see how dangerous it would be to enforce upon them a measure which they regard as ridiculous. But on this great subject of Preparedness, I can refer you to the case of my own country--not as an example, but as a warning. We were caught unprepared. In consequence, we had to sacrifice our best, our very best, the kind that can never be replaced in any country, just because they hurried to the rescue and allowed themselves to be wiped out, while the country behind them was being aroused and prepared. That is the price that we have paid, and no ultimate victory, however glorious, can recompense us for that criminal waste of the flower and pride of our youth and manhood at the outset.
"Do we expect to win the war outright? Yes, we do."
It is true that the Central Powers have recently succeeded in devastating another little country, though they have not destroyed its army. On the other hand, during the past few months the Allied gains on the Somme have included, among other items, a chain of fortresses hitherto considered impregnable, four or five hundred pieces of artillery, fourteen hundred machine-guns, and about ninety-five thousand unwounded German prisoners. Moreover, the French at Verdun have regained in a few weeks all the ground that the Crown Prince wrested from them, at