The Washington herald., 1918-05-26
The Coming Army.

to civilize a military man." said Talleyrand. This
distrust of the military mind thus cyncally ex'
pressed by one of the diplomatic puppet-manipu'
lators of the Napoleonic court had become con-
yention in the liberal world previous to August
1914. Since that time, reasonably enough very
considerable concessions have been made to the
military point OF view.
In America approaching the dangerou.
but necessary period when our mighty army
shortly to be assembled in numbers undreamed
of year ago, is to become the spear-head of ouI
whole national life-and more than that, the sponge
which will suck and drain the country of its mos
vital energies The United States is to be mill.
tarized. 1t is necessary-or at least it probably
will be necessary-to employ the whole force oi
the nation "to check and nullify the pretensions
and the power of the enemy That much we
grasp thoroughly. There is no longer any ques
ton of limited liability" war. We are in it tc
the last ounce OF our strength.
Just what does this mean? The answer can be
sought by glimpsng American history as it has
been moulded by the four previous wars on which
the nation has embarked. Our country has al.
ways responded swiftly and tumultuously to the
military spark We have always been proud in.
ordinately proud, of our fighting heroes. We have
had comparatively few resources of resistance
against the normal, conventional infection of mill
tarism-it has struck. the country like an cpl
tire succeeding generation to purify the national
blood Washington first of all a great mill
tary mind Providence made him also statesman
and nation builder. But his supreme hold or
the people Of his own generation was that he had
won the for the colonies. He could have
made himself king had he desired Andrew
Jackson was without status in politics when he
was raised to the Presidency because he was
sensationally successful leader in the war of 1872
he - of Tar rhar, =.
ton OF the Mexican Grant became the
dominant figure of his tme-served two terms
in the Presidency and tried for a third-becauss
he broke the Confederacy. The unsophisticatior
of American political thought during the three con-
cluding decades Of the nineteenth century was due
almost entirely to the impress of the civil war and
the leaders which it imposed our political evo-
luton.
Again we are approaching the time when the
American imagination and the American spirit are
to be harnesscd to war. Out of this war we may
raise idol and idols. Our blood will stir
with the might OF the sword. When peace comes
the beating OF the sword into the ploughshare i.
going to be an immensely difficult task. There
may perhaps be man on horseback" who will
ride away with the imagination of the nation
some one who will sweep into the political arena
and play ducks and brakes with the best-laid plans
OF craftsmanship and domestic policy. The whole
ton may be upset. 1t is even possible that our
homecoming army will exercise such an influence
on our thought that disarmament and the League
OF nations" internatonalism may be powcrless to
hold the country if those millions of youths just
returned from the battlefield are educated in and
committed to military philosophy and the typical
military point-of-view.
Many OF our jngoes and hre-eaters have protest
ed furousy that there is something askcw with OUT
rhaia tb,Na aI,a
ing side by side with making To certain
extent that is true. The administration is taking
pains not to let any "man horseback" assume the
lmelght; not to let the public eye focus on any
incipient or potential American Jofre or Foch or
Kitchener. Until the present German drive opened
official wet blanket covered the strictly military
side of the war in the United States. Since then
there has been necessarily a certain change; but
still skillful manipulation to it that emphasis
is placed upon the American army-whch includes
the vast industrial army at home we'll as fight
ing army in the feld-rather than upon any single
figure in it. In fact, the United States may 90
through the war without a single military leader
getting more than pale shadow of the spot
light which under less canny and sophisticated
administration would be thrown upon him.
We are being so shrewdly educated in the new
war-msking that perhaps the great American hero
is to be quantity production" or industrial CO.
ordination" or something of that sort
The country is being miIitarized, but unques-
tionably not in the way the professional mill.
tarists would have. 1t may seem a bit selfish
OF the White House to put the damper on mill
tarism at hour when all the dope" points
to militarism rampant and uncurbed but it is
after all the safest course for the country The
folks who have the best interests Of the future
America at heart not those who want to see
our war makers come into control of it after peace
cones-not unless We fail to extrpate Prussianism,
which calamity is unthinkable.