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If any other government is not able so to manage as to make it more desirable for its subjects to remain in the land of their birth, rather than to seek homes in the land with institutions more to their liking, or with advantages more conducive to their welfare, that government then should not expect to retain, even in the slightest degree, the allegiance of such former subjects. A hyphenated citizenship may become as dangerous to a republic as a cancer is in the human body. A country with over a hundred hyphens cannot fulfil its highest destiny.

We, as a nation, have been rudely shaken from our long dream of almost inevitable national security. We have been brought finally, and although as a nation we have no desire for conquest or empire, and no desire for military glory, and therefore no need of any great army or navy for offensive purposes, we have been brought finally to realise that we do, nevertheless, stand in need of a[Pg 196] national strengthening of our arm of defence. A land of a hundred million people, where one could travel many times for a sixmonth and never see the sign of a soldier, is brought, though reluctantly, to face a new state of affairs; but one, nevertheless, that must be faced—calmly faced and wisely acted upon. And while it is true that as a nation we have always had the tradition of non-militarism, it is not true that we have had the tradition of military or of naval impotence or weakness.

Preparedness, therefore, has assumed a position of tremendous importance, in individual thought, in public discussion, and almost universally in the columns of the public press. One of the most vital questions among us then is, not so much as to how we shall prepare, but how shall we prepare adequately for defensive purposes, in case of any emergency arising, without being thrown too far along the road of militarism, and without an inordinate preparation that has been the scourge and the bane of many old-world countries for so many years, and that quite as much as anything has been provocative of the horrible conflict that has literally been devastating so many European countries.

It is clearly apparent that the best thought in America today calls for an adequate preparation[Pg 197] for purposes of defence, and calls for a recognition of facts as they are. It also clearly sees the danger of certain types of mind and certain interests combining to carry the matter much farther than is at all called for. The question is—How shall we then strike that happy balance that is the secret of all successful living in the lives of either individuals or in the lives of nations?

All clear-seeing people realise that, as things are in the world today, there is a certain amount of preparedness that is necessary for influence and for insurance. As within the nation a police force is necessary for the enforcement of law, for the preservation of law and order, although it is not at all necessary that every second or third man be a policeman, so in the council of nations the individual nation must have a certain element of force that it can fall back upon if all other available agencies fail. In diplomacy the strong nations win out, the weaker lose out. Military and naval power, unless carried to a ridiculous excess does not, therefore, lie idle, even when not in actual use.

Our power and influence as a nation will certainly not be in proportion to our weakness. Although righteousness exalteth a nation, it is nevertheless true that righteousness alone will not protect a nation—while[Pg 198] other nations are fully armed. National weakness does not make for peace.

Righteousness, combined with a spirit of forbearance, combined with a keen desire to give justice as well as to demand justice, if combined with the power to strike powerfully and sustainedly in defence of justice, and in defence of national integrity, is what protects a nation, and this it is that in the long run exalteth a nation—while things are as they are.

While conditions have therefore brought prominently to the forefront in America the matter of military training and military service—an adequate military preparation for purposes of defence, for full and adequate defence, the best thought of the nation is almost a unit in the belief that, for us as a nation, an immense standing army is unnecessary as well as inadvisable.

No amount of military preparation that is not combined definitely and completely with an enhanced citizenship, and therefore with an advance in real democracy, is at all worthy of consideration on the part of the American people, or indeed on the part of the people of any nation. Pre-eminently is this true in this day and age.

Observing this principle we could then, while a certain degree of universal training[Pg 199] under some system similar to the Swiss or Australian system is being carried on, and to serve our immediate needs, have an army of even a quarter of a million men without danger of militarism and without heavy financial burdens, and without subverting our American ideas—providing it is an industrial arm. There are great engineering projects that could be carried on, thereby developing many of our now latent resources; there is an immense amount of road-building that could be projected in many parts of, if not throughout the entire country; there are great irrigation projects that could be carried on in the far West and Southwest, reclaiming millions upon millions of acres of what are now unproductive desert lands; all these could be carried on and made even to pay, keeping busy a large number of men for half a dozen years to come.

This army of this number of men could be recruited, trained to an adequate degree of military service, and at the same time could be engaged in profitable employment on these much-needed works. They could then be paid an adequate wage, ample to support a family, or ample to lay up savings if without family. Such men leaving the army service, would then have a degree of training and skill whereby they would be able to get positions[Pg 200] or employment, all more remunerative than the bulk of them, perhaps, would ever be able to get without such training and experience.

An army of this number of trained men, somewhat equally divided between the Atlantic and the Pacific seaboards, the bulk of them engaged in regular constructive work, work that needs to be done and that, therefore, could be profitably done, and ready to be called into service at a moment's notice, would constitute a tremendous insurance against any aggression from without, and would also give a tremendous sense of security for half a dozen years at least. This number could then be reduced, for by that time several million young men from eighteen years up would be partially trained and in first-class physical shape to be summoned to service should the emergency arise.

In addition to the vast amount of good roads building, whose cost could be borne in equal proportions by nation, state and county—a most important factor in connection with military necessity as well as a great economic factor in the successful development and advancement of any community—the millions of acres of now arid lands in the West, awaiting only water to make them among the most valuable and productive in all the world,[Pg 201] could be used as a great solution of our immigration problem.

Up to the year when the war began, there came to our shores upwards of one million immigrants every twelve months, seeking work, and most of them homes in this country. The great bulk of them got no farther than our cities, increasing congestion, already in many cases acute, and many of them becoming in time, from one cause or another, dependents, the annual cost of their maintenance aggregating many millions every year.