The Conquest of America | Page 6

townships, but to nations, to empires, to continents.
Continents will be the last to join hands across the seas (having first
waged vast inter-continental wars) and then, after the rise and fall of
many sovereignties, there will be established on the earth the last great
government, the United States of the World!
That is the logical limit of human activities. Are we not all citizens of
the earth, descended from the same parents, born with the same needs
and capacities? Why should there be fifty-three barriers dividing men
into fifty-three nations? Why should there be any other patriotism than
world patriotism? Or any other government than one world
government?
When this splendid ultimate consummation has been achieved, after
ages of painful evolution (we must remember that the human race is
still in its infancy) our remote descendants, united in language, religion
and customs, with a great world representative government finally
established and the law of love prevailing, may begin preparations for a
grand world celebration of the last war. Say, in the year A.D. 2921!
But not until then!
If this reasoning is sound, if war must be regarded, for centuries to
come, as an inevitable part of human existence, then let us, as loyal
Americans, realise that, hate war as we may, there is only way in which
the United States can be insured against the horrors of armed invasion,
with the shame of disastrous defeat and possible dismemberment, and
that is by developing the strength and valiance to meet all probable
assailants on land or sea.
Whether we like it or not we are a great world power, fated to become
far greater, unless we throw away our advantages; we must either
accept the average world standards, which call for military
preparedness, or impose new standards upon a world which concedes

no rights to nations that have not the might to guard and enforce those
rights.
Why should we Americans hesitate to pay the trifling cost of insurance
against war? Trifling? Yes. The annual cost of providing and
maintaining an adequate army and navy would be far less than we
spend every year on tobacco and alcohol. Less than fifty cents a month
from every citizen would be sufficient. That amount, wisely expended,
would enormously lessen the probability of war and would allow the
United States, if war came, to face its enemies with absolute serenity.
The Germans are willing to pay the cost of preparedness. So are the
French, the Italians, the Japanese, the Swiss, the Balkan peoples, the
Turks. Do we love our country less than they do? Do we think our
institutions, our freedom less worthy than theirs of being guarded for
posterity?
Why should we not adopt a system of military training something like
the one that has given such excellent results in Switzerland? Why not
cease to depend upon our absurd little standing army which, for its
strength and organisation, is frightfully expensive and absolutely
inadequate, and depend instead upon a citizenry trained and
accustomed to arms, with a permanent body of competent officers, at
least 50,000, whose lives would be spent in giving one year military
training to the young men of this nation, all of them, say between the
ages of eighteen and twenty-three, so that these young men could serve
their country efficiently, if the need arose? Why not accept the fact that
it is neither courageous nor democratic for us to depend upon hired
soldiers to defend our country?
Does any one doubt that a year of such military training would be of
lasting benefit to the men of America? Would it not school them in
much-needed habits of discipline and self-control, habits which must be
learned sooner or later if a man is to succeed? Would not the open air
life, the physical exercise, the regularity of hours tend to improve their
health and make them better citizens?
Suppose that once every five years all American men up to fifty were
required to go into military camp and freshen up on their defence duties

for twenty or thirty days. Would that do them any harm? On the
contrary, it would do them immense good.
And even if war never came, is it not evident that America would
benefit in numberless ways by such a development of the general
manhood spirit? Who can say how much of Germany's greatness in
business and commerce, in the arts and sciences, is due to the fact that
all her men, through military schooling, have learned precious lessons
in self-control and obedience?
The pacifists tell us that after the present European war, we shall have
nothing to fear for many years from exhausted Europe, but let us not be
too sure of that. History teaches that long and costly wars do not
necessarily exhaust a