Arizona republican., 1915-07-22
Scorn And Ridicule For Our Unpreparedness

Day; a song, the singing of which seems incredible to every man and
 woman capable of being stirred to
 lofty and generous enthusiasm by the
 tremendous surge of Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic; China has steadily refused to prepare
 for war. Accordingly China has had
 province after province topped off
 her, until one-half of her territory ia
 now under Japanese. Russian, En- l glsh and French control.
 The professional pacifists, the
 peace-at any price, non resistance. universal arbitration people are now seeking to Chinafy. this. country. | While the best people in China are 1 painfully endeavoring to raise the
 new China to a position of inter national aspect and of national self
 respect, we'll meaing people here are ] doing their best to reduce this coun- | try to the level of impotence to which i the old China has sunk-to which she has sunk primarily because for
 generations the moral fibre of the , Chinese people has been closly eaten l into by the doctrines of the profes- siOnal pacifists. that she has shown herself incapable during the last thir-
 ty years of preparing herself against war and for self defense.
 Probably the worst feature of our national life is the habit of using words with no relation to facts, of
 making promises which are not to be kept; as l have said above of treating elocution as an adequate | substitution for action. This habit
 has worked particular damage to us in international relations, and most
 of all in connection with the arbitra-
 tion treaties, peace conventions and
 the like into which we have entered
 We can accomplish nothing real for
 international peace until we under
 stand that it is disgraceful not to
 make our deeds square with our
 words, and therefore disgraceful to make a promise which we either ought not to or cannot keep.
 During the past two years or so this natIon has negotiated some thir- ty all-inclusive peace treaties by which it is agreed that if any issue arises, no matter of what kind, be- tween itself and any other nation, 1t would take no final steps about II until a commission had discussed the matter for q year. This was an explicit promise in each case that if American women were raped and American men murdered as has ac- tually occurred in Mexico, or Ameri- | can men, women and children drown | ed on the high seas, as in the case l of the Gulflight and Lusitania, or if | foreign power secured and forti fled Magdalena Bay or the Island of St. Thomas, we would appoint a com mission and listen to a years con versation on the subject before talk ing action.
 England and France entered into | these treaties with us and we beg ged Germany to enter into one; and 1 although Germany refused. yet if we i were right in entering into them with England and France. we de- prived ourselves of moral justification in refusing to fulfil their spirit as regards Germany. Personally, I be- lieve that it was absolutely necessary when the concrete case arose to re- pudlate the principle to which we had thus committed ourselves. But it was a shameful thing to have put ourselves in such a position that it had to be repudiated and it was in excusable of us to decline to follow the principle in the case of the Lu sitania without at the same time making frank confession of our error and misconduct by notifying all the powers with whom we had already made treaties that they were with drawn, because in practice we had found it impossible and improper to follow out the principle to which they us.
 "In the same way. let the individ Ials who advocate disarmament say clearly just what they mean. If this nation is to disarm, that is, if it is o take the old Chinese attitude about for war. then it must be prepared to adopt the Chinese atti- ude of helpless submission to any { conditions which foreign powers ,hoose to impose. Let it be under . ;tood that under such conditions if e disorder continues in Mexico we shall lot object to some European or Asiatic power taking possession of I iexico or any part of it and then do- ng what it chooses there. Let it be understood that if in such case. V ome power wishes to take posses | ion of the Panama Canal, we shall f OJ, because we are not aDle 10, raise e ny effective protest. These are the d hings that disarmamnt means for { isarmament would represent merely t he Chinafication of this country.
 q advocate preparedness against il var as the best type of peace in a urance Preparedness for war may t e not only the best but the only t for the spirit of militarism. u nd ha d i1 \ f republics. and the least militaris- b c; and yet relatively to it's size f.
 is the one best prepared against s Iar. ft
 Preparedness is not the affair of b
 day. If we begin at once, a year u r two must elapse before we shall a ave accomplished even beginning. n