The Germs of War/Chapter 1
The Germs of War
A Study in Preparedness
By SCOTT NEARING
1. Peace Game or War Game.
The American people are being urged to "prepare." Is it preparation for peace or preparation for war?
If the preparedness agitation looks toward peace, it must meet with the approval of the people of the United States, because as a people they are for peace. Their ideals are peaceful; their traditions are not warlike. Both in theory and in practice the American Democracy has set its face toward liberty, justice, and righteousness—ideals that are most easily reached by travelers who take the paths of peace.
The point was well stated by the President in his Speech at Pittsburgh (January 29, 1916): "America is nothing if it consists merely of each of us; it is something only if it consists of all of us, and it can not consist of all of us unless our spirits are banded together in a common enterprise. That common enterprise is the enterprise of liberty and justice and right." Two days before, in New York, the President had said: "In all the belligerent countries men without distinction of party have drawn together to accomplish a successful prosecution of the war. Is it not a more difficult and a more desirable thing that all Americans should put partisan prepossessions aside and draw together for the successful prosecution of peace? I covet that distinction for America; and I believe that America is going to enjoy that distinction."
Liberty and justice and right are to be made the cornerstone of peace, and America is to be the builder of an enduring temple in her honor. This democracy, founded on the proposition that all men are created free and equal, stands first for those things that lead toward the equalizing of opportunity. With equal fervor the democracy stands against all things that point toward tyranny, depotism, and vested might.
Militarism has an unsavory reputation. Wherever it has fastened itself on a nation, oppression, tyranny and injustice have grown as the flower grows from the seed. Militarism holds in her hand the sword of vested might that deals the death-blow to democracy. Liberty, equality and fraternity, therefore, are ill at ease in her presence.
The conflict between militarism and democracy is a conflict to the death. Neither can abide the presence of the other. If militarism is to stay, democracy must go.
Stop for a moment in your rush for preparedness—and while the navy is being increased and the army recruited up to a half million; while the papers are filled with warnings, and the militarists make their outcry from the housetops; while the high school boys are drilling and the society women are rolling bandages,—repeat the question,—"Is it preparation for peace, or is it preparation for war?"
America cannot be true to herself, and prepare for war. She cannot live up to the ideals of her democracy on any other than a peace basis. She dare not take the hand of militarism, even for a moment, for in that moment democracy flies from her. Militarism and military aggression are alike as far from the hearts of the common people of the United States as the East is far from the West.
The man who urges the United States to prepare for war is false to all that is highest and finest in American life. Only he who desires to prepare for peace is a true American.
From the Navy League, The Defense League, the Associations of Women who are buying blankets and rolling bandages, and the military and naval authorities who are urging "preparedness," there comes a storm of indignant protest, "We are the champions of the nation's honor! We would guard her fair name! We are patriots, worthy of the greatest traditions of a great country. Our program is a program of defense. America must be protected against foreign foes, while she works out her ideals and her destiny. We are preparing, not for war, but for peace."