Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1913-01-10

~~aC W ottoNh No. VhNH uoono,
presume. that we should have
standing army and navy at leas
equal in size to the standing arm.
and navy Of any other nation Of
earth. But as there is always
liability of a coalition Of two or thre
other big nations, IL the colonel il
right, 1t would be necessary to have
an army and navy big enough to WIFI
any two Of them.
Every once in a while the colone
makes me weary as do Captain Hob
son and a. number Of these other mil
itary mad statesmen who argue tn,
same way. Their argument is baset
on the theory that fear is the on
ly thing that keeps other notions
from climbing on to US, bombardint
our coast and raising thunder with u
generally.
Yet this nation has been going OIL
now for considerably more than {
century. It has never, except il
time Of actual war, mustered an arm
as large as the armies Of any Of the
third rate powers Of Europe. Ger
tainlv it has not been the fear o.
our standing army or navy that has
prevented foreign nations from at
lacking us, yet We have never beer
attacked.
We have had occasion once oil
twice to make demands of other ma
tons vastly better prepared for wal
than We were. According to the ar
gument of Colonel Roosevelt these ns
tons should not have paid any atten.
ton whatever to our demands, but
just the same they did.
When Cleveland called Great Bri
tain down In the Venezuela matter
we had a dinky little navy not more
than a quarter as big as the one we
have now and a standing army oil
about $4,000 or 10000 men all told.
Great Britain had then as now the
largest navy in the world. II the
fight had come it would have been a
sea fight and Great Britain could
have mustered at least three war
ships to our one. The men who were
running things in England knew that
perfectly well. Yet they needed what
Mr.. Cleveland had to say.
Great Britain could have cleaned
up our little navy and, within three
weeks after hostilities were declared
could have landed an army Of 3OO.-
900 men on our northern border. Still
the English statesmen understood that
they could not afford 20 get Into Q
war with the United States.
| am weary Of the theory that in
order to preserve peace II is neces-
sary to go around loaded down with
guns like a wild west bad man from
Bitten creek. ! am willing to agree
that our military policy is extrava-
giant and without sense. AS it is nov
We are neither prepared for peace
nor war. On the theory that other
nations like Germany, Great Britain
or France are just waiting for a
chance to attack US, our present prep
arations for war are simply an ag-
gravation.
Our standing army is no match for
the standign army of Germany, or
France, or Japan, or even of one Of
the inferior powers that have been
battling with Turkey. II attacked we
would have to depend on a volun-
teer army. Our navy is surpassed in
size by the navies of both Great Bri-
tain and Germany. No other nation
has such an extent of coast to de-
fend, and IL our only safety lies in
being prepared to meet any foe that
might possibly attack us, then we
should build and maintain a navy
twice as large as that of any other
nation on the face of the earth. In
other words, we would have to go
to the point where 1t would be as ex-
pensive to maintain peace as to go
to war.
No congressman in the North, at
any rate, would ever dare to vote
for the establishment of such a mill
tary organization as men Of the
Roosevelt-Hobson school argue is ne
cessary to preserve peace. As we
are not going to adopt the European
armed camp idea, the other logi-
cal horn of the dilemma is disarma-
ment. The man who would go into
a crowd Of gun men flourishing a toy
pistol and threatening to shoot would
be considered a fool. He might a
good deal better have nothing about
him that even looked like a deadly
weapon.
| am not opposed to a reasonable
amount Of military training and dis
cipline for the youth Of this country.