Our National Defense: The Patriotism of PeaceMaxwell, George Hebard
History
Our National Defense: The Patriotism of Peace
Maxwell, George Hebard
United States -- Defenses
It is far better that capital should be idle and labor unemployed than that
either should be used to promote death and devastation in return for
dividends or wages. All available capital and labor can find occupation in
doing things that will promote human welfare. To the extent that the
machinery of war may be needed by any government, it should be manufactured
for its own use by that government, and never by any private concern or
corporation for profit. A world movement to that end is being organized and
every patriotic citizen should bear a hand to promote its success. The
United States has the opportunity to be the first nation to adopt this
advanced and peace-promoting national policy.
Whenever we have put an end to the making of private profit from the
manufacture of battleships and machinery of war for our government, we will
be relieved of much of the persistent pressure to make our navy top heavy
with dreadnoughts, and to steadily increase our naval and military
expenditures. More than that, we will then be able to get full, fair, and
unprejudiced consideration, by the people at large, of every question
relating to war or peace, or to our own preparedness for war, or the extent
of the necessity for such preparedness.
Now the people know only a part of the facts on which a comprehensive
judgment should be based. They have been urged to do the things which, if
done, would result in profit to the manufacturers of battleships or
machinery of war. Knowing this, many people go to the other extreme and
oppose everything in the way of an adequate military or naval system. This
tends to endanger the nation by unpreparedness, just as the Militarists
would endanger it by over-preparedness, or a one-sided and unbalanced
preparedness, like having battleships without other things even more
necessary for naval defense.
The government should manufacture for itself all the machinery needed by it
for war on land or sea. Its manufacture by anyone else should be prohibited
by law. But it does not by any means follow that the government itself
should refrain from manufacturing it, under the conditions that now prevail
in the world. Neither does it follow that there will be no more wars. Nor
again does it follow that the government should fail to be at all times
adequately prepared for war. On the contrary, the possibility of war should
be fully recognized and national defense should not be neglected.
Under the conditions that surround this country to-day, no nation should
more carefully than ours safeguard against the danger of unpreparedness.
The United States should be, not unprepared, but fully prepared, and that
can only be accomplished by carrying out the plan advocated in this book,
for both immediate and ultimate national defense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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