HOW WE WENT TO WAR

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION 、

HERE is nothing finer in American history

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than the way in which the American people, as a whole, responded to the call for war with Germany. This statement might seem too broad. Some critics might take issue with it. They might point to the peace-at-any-price campaign which was wide-spread over the country from the beginning of the World War in 1914 to the very hour when America was forced to take up arms. They might point to sporadic outbursts of disloyalty by certain foreign-born elements of our population, who placed the cause of the lands of their birth above the welfare of their adopted country. They might point to certain members of Congress, even, who by their obstructionist tactics gave evidence of lukewarmness for the war, and even of outright lack of patriotism. Every com nunity has

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had its pacifists, its pacifists with honest hearts and weak heads, its dishonest pacifists working in the interest of the country's enemy, its slackers, its malcontents. This has been true of every nation in every past war. But certain it is that when on April 6, 1917, our government accepted the German challenge to our rights and liberties, the American people ranged themselves behind their leaders with a steadfast purpose to meet their heavy task, to make every sacrifice that the world might be freed from the horror of German militarism and Kultur.

Look at their record.

In the first eighteen months of the war by the volunteer system and the selective draft they raised their armies from hardly 250,000 men to 3,000,000, of whom more than one-half were moved to the battle-front in France.

Their navy was increased by volunteers from 65,000 men to over 500,000, and ships by the hundred were added to their sea force.

Starting with an almost negligible number of merchant vessels, they had laid the foundation of the gre test merchant marine in the world.

During the same period they had paid to

their government more than $4,000,000,000 in taxes, and had advanced to it in loans by the purchase of Liberty Bonds and War Savings Stamps more than $9,000,000,000.

To make easier the lives of their fighting men and to heal the wounds inflicted on the world by German Kultur, they had given, through the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., the Knights of Columbus, and other philanthropic agencies, full a half-billion dollars. But, above all, they had offered the lives of their men and their women and stood ready to bear increasing sorrows and heavier burdens.

These figures are not to be read in a spirit of boastfulness. America has not yet had to drain the very dregs of the cup of sorrow, as have France and Great Britain, Belgium, Serbia, and Italy. America has not had to stand with her back to the wall to meet the onslaught of hordes of modern savages, the product of years of a system of perverted education, based on a perverted system of morality. These figures are given because they answer the charges of the Germans abroad and the Germans at home, that the American people were not whole

heartedly in the war. They answer the old argument of the pacifists that the American people would not suffer themselves to be dragged into a conflict 3,000 miles away, and would endure dishonor and outrage rather than fight in defense of their own and the world's liberty. The things that the Germans and pacifists said the Americans would not do they have done, and they have done it in full measure.

It is true that following the outbreak of the European War we had two and a half years of divided opinion and hesitation, but those were years of education and they brought us to a common opinion and a common purpose. Had the heads of our government been less idealistic, of less pacific minds, that period might have been briefer and we might have faced the conflict better prepared for it. They did not lead the people to war. They did not even teach the people to prepare for war. Their every effort was to keep the country at peace. But they, too, were learning. Few people in the United States at the beginning of the World War realized the peril that lay in Germany's aggression. Few had ever heard of the Pan

German movement. Few believed that Germany was really carrying out a well-laid scheme to secure the rule of the world by force. The full depth of Germany's guilt was not known. When the neutrality of Belgium was violated and there followed a series of excesses that shocked civilization, some public men and writers did proclaim our danger and warn us to make ready to meet it. But the lesson was learned slowly. The rape of Belgium shocked all decent people, but Belgium was three thousand miles away, and we did not see those horrors close at hand. It took time to reveal them to us. Military necessity was the excuse of Germany's apologists, and with some it found credence. We did not realize that the Belgium horror was but a part of a long-laid plan to bring the world to its knees under the lash of frightfulness. That a nation supposed to be civilized could commit such crimes seemed incredible.

In 1915 blinking eyes began to open wide. Clouds of poison-gas were rolled across the British front, dealing a hideous death to gallant soldiers who were fighting fairly, and Germany