Speech or Document 18

WAKE UP, AMERICA!

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT PITTSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA, ON JULY 27, 1917

THE world is at this moment passing through one of those terrible periods of convulsion when the souls of men and of nations are tried as by fire.  Woe to the man or to the nation that at such a time stands as once Laodicea stood; as the people of ancient Meroz stood, when they dared not come to the help of the Lord against the mighty! In such a crisis the moral weakling is the enemy of the right; and the pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.

At the outbreak of the war our people were stunned, blinded, terrified by the extent of the world disaster.  Those among our leaders who were greedy, those who were selfish and ease-loving, those who were timid, and those who were merely shortsighted, all joined to blindfold the eyes and dull the conscience of the people so that it might neither see iniquity nor gird its loins for the inevitable struggle.  But at last we stand with our faces to the light.  At last we have faced our duty.  Now it behooves us to do this duty with masterful efficiency.

We are in the war.  But we are not yet awake.  We are passing through, in exaggerated form, the phase through which England passed during the first year of the war.  A very large number of Englishmen fooled themselves with the idea that they lived on an island and were safe anyhow, that the war would soon be over, and that if they went on with their business as usual, and waved flags and applauded patriotic speeches, somebody else would do the fighting for them.  England has seen the error of her ways; she has paid in blood and agony for her shortsightedness; she is now doing her duty with stern resolution.  We are repeating her early errors on a larger scale; and assuredly we shall pay heavily if we do not in time wake from our shortsighted apathy and foolish, self-sufficient optimism.

We live on a continent; we have trusted to that fact for safety in the past; we do not understand that world conditions have changed and that the oceans and even the air have become highways for military aggression.  The exploits of the German U-boat off Nantucket last summer — exploits which nothing but feebleness, considerations of political expediency and downright lack of courage on our part permitted — showed that if Germany, or any other possible opponent of ours were free to deal with us the security that an ocean barrier once offered was annihilated.  In other words, the battle front of Europe is slowly spreading over the whole world.  Unless we beat Germany in Europe, we shall have to fight her deadly ambition on our own coasts and in our own continent.  A great American army in Europe now is the best possible insurance against a great European or Asiatic army in our own country a couple of years, or a couple of decades hence.

Make no mistake.  We are fighting for humanity; but we are also, and primarily, fighting for our own vital interests.  Our army in France will fight for France and Belgium; but most of all it will be fighting for America.  Until we make the world safe for America (and incidentally until we make democracy safe in America), it is empty rhetoric to talk of making the world safe for democracy; and no one of these objects can be obtained merely by high-sounding words, or by anything else save by the exercise of hard, grim, commonsense in advance preparation, and then by unflinching courage in the use of the hardened strength which has thus been prepared.

The only really effective preparation is preparation in advance.  Only our vanity can blind us to the painful and humiliating proof of this elementary fact which our experience in the world war is at this very moment furnishing.  There was some excuse, although no real justification, for our unpreparedness prior to the breaking out of the world war three years ago.  But when once the giant letters of warning were written in flame and blood across the whole horizon, it seems literally incredible that we should have behaved with such utter fatuity as to say that there was no need of preparedness, and that the war did not concern us, and that no issue affecting our interest or our conscience was at stake.  When the Lusitania was sunk it was evident not merely that we ought to prepare for war, but that we were actually at war (although only at the receiving end — the position we have ever since occupied).  However, we did not prepare.  For two years and a half we followed the clamor of the professional pacifists who shrieked that unpreparedness would “keep us out of war." They insisted that our tame submission to insult and injury, our timid refusal to protest against international wrong, and our supine failure to prepare for our own defense had “kept us out of war " and would do so in the future.

Well, you see the result.  We did not prepare.  Neither did we keep out of war.  Germany's note of January 31 was in effect a downright declaration of war, and congress by its action showed this to be the fact, for it did not declare war, but stated that Germany was already at war with us — which was the truth.  Our helpless refusal either to resent insult or injury or to prepare for self-defense did not win Germany's good will, and did not avert the war.  It merely earned Germany's contempt, and rendered us impotent to make our strength effective when at last we drifted stern foremost into war.  Among nations, as among individuals, we gain the good will of others only by inspiring respect, not contempt, and the bully has less respect for those whom he can wrong with impunity than he has for any other living creatures.

Preparedness does not always avert war.  But unpreparedness never averts war, and always renders war lengthy, and possibly humiliating, if the enemy is formidable.  If after the outbreak of the world war, or even after the sinking of the Lusitania, we had begun energetically and thoroughly to prepare, we would now have had thousands of aircraft, submarine chasers, cargo ships and great guns; three months ago we would have put a couple of million men in France, and the war would have been over at this moment — indeed, if we had thoroughly prepared we would probably not have had to go to war at all.

In contrast to what we thus ought to have done, and could readily have done, look at the actual facts as they are.  Six months have elapsed since Germany went to war with us; nearly four months since we reluctantly admitted that we were at war.  We have not at this time a single airplane fit to send across the German lines; and months must pass before we can manufacture such an airplane.  We have no heavy artillery to put in the battle line, none that can be pitted against the Germans, and in any serious engagement gallant Pershing and his gallant little force will have to trust to French and English guns.  Sims will do everything that can be done with his submarine chasers, but they are so few that they represent a mere tiny fraction of the English force.  It will be a year after the declaration of war before we begin to get a fair number of big cargo ships.  We have not enough rifles for our men.  We are painfully short in equipment.  We have not yet begun to assemble the draft army; the first elementary, or primary, officers' training camps have not finished; the National Guard has only just begun to mobilize.  We have put a fragment of our fine little regular army into France; we can rest assured that everything possible will be done by Gen.  Pershing and the officers and men under him; but even this little army is still fitting itself to go to the front; and as it is composed almost exclusively of infantry without artillery, it would be helpless against any well-equipped enemy were it not aided by our allies.  Numerically, it is much smaller than the army which Belgium, or Servia or Rumania has in the field; it probably represents about one-half of 1 per cent, of the allied forces now arrayed against the central powers.

This is the sum total of the activities of a nation of 100,000,000 people, and in possession of incalculable wealth and boundless resources, during the six months following its entry (after two and one-half years' warning) into the greatest war in history; a war in which every other great nation has been forced to exert the fullest power, and strike with the utmost efficiency, within a week or a fortnight after it entered the conflict.  Look at what Germany did to Belgium in the first 30 days of the war.  We would now be in exactly the position of Belgium, were it not that we owe our safety — our ignoble safety — to the British fleet and the French and British armies.

The simple truth is that, relatively to the other great nations of the world, we have in this war exhibited ourselves a miracle of inefficiency; and we shall always be inefficient during the first vital months of any war until we learn to prepare in advance.  Flag-waving, and! uttering and applauding speeches, and singing patriotic songs, are excellent in so far as they are turned into cool foresight and preparation and grim resolution to spend and be spent when once the day of trial has come; but they are merely mischievous if they are treated as substitutes for preparedness in advance and for hard, efficient work and readiness for self-sacrifice during the crisis itself.

We announced that we were coming to the help of the allies.  As a matter of fact, after six months we owe our safety solely to the fact that these hard-pressed and war-worn allies protect us with their lives, with their trained bodies and perfected machines, while we fuss and talk and with confused hurry endeavor to get ready to do something.  This fussy inefficiency is partly, but not chiefly, due to our shortcomings during these last six months.  Primarily it is due to our failure to prepare during the preceding two years and a half — the period during which such failure to prepare was wholly inexcusable.

It is this utter unpreparedness which should convey the real lesson to us of this war.  And remember that as yet we as a people, acting.  through our governmental authorities, have not taken one step to avert disaster in the future by introducing a permanent policy of preparedness.  By actual test the system, or rather no-system, upon which during the last three years we have been told we could rely has proved entirely worthless.  The measures under which we are now acting are temporary makeshifts, announced to be such.  We have been caught utterly unprepared in a terrible emergency because we did nothing until the emergency actually arose, and now our government announces that what we are doing is purely temporary; that we shall stop doing it as soon as the emergency is over, and will then remain equally unprepared for the next emergency.

It is this blind refusal — from the nation's standpoint I can only call it the criminal refusal — to provide for the future that forces every honest and farsighted lover of America to speak.  I would far rather speak words of boastful flattery to you; it is not pleasant to tell unpleasant truths.  Probably it is personally more advantageous to utter high-sounding platitudes; but platitudes are not what this nation needs at this time.  I would gladly refrain from pointing out shortcomings of the present and the immediate past were there any indication that we intended to provide for the future.  But there is no such indication.  And yet now is the time to formulate our permanent policy; now, when the lessons of the war are vivid before our eyes, when for the moment the silliness of the professional pacifists has less influence than in time of peace.

The prime fact to remember is our utter help-lessness at this moment, six months after we really, four months after we nominally, went to war.  The actual event has shown that if we had not been shielded by our allies, a single small German army of a couple of corps — or a similar small army of any old world military power — would have conquered us out of hand.  When I say conquered, I mean conquered.  Such an army could have been ferried across the ocean in 30 days.  In that time we could not have assembled, out of this whole country, an army force of trained soldiers to meet it; and we had not even a single aeroplane or a single battery of artillery which to meet the hostile flying squadron and artillery.  We would have been as easy a prey as Belgium, and we would have been as completely conquered.

We have been saved because, and only because, for their own purposes, our allies, the British and French had to protect us.  But next time we may have no allies! Next time, if it happens that it is the United States which is assailed, England and France may remain neutral in thought and deed — and if they so remained neutral for even a fraction of the two years and a half during which we were neutral and if we were as unprepared as at present, we would be trampled into the dust.  We can not afford to count for our safety on anything but our own armed strength; the only way to make our strength effective is to make it ready in advance; and the only way really to make ready in advance is to introduce the principle of obligatory universal military training in time of peace for our young men, and universal service in time of war for every man and woman in the country, in whatever position that man or woman can do most effective work.  This is the only democratic system.  The enjoyment of rights should rest on the performance of duties.  Every privilege enjoyed, including the suffrage, should rest on an obligation met.  Universal suffrage can only be justified by universal service.  If a man is too conscientious to fight then we ought to be too conscientious to let him vote as to the destiny of a commonwealth for which brave men are willing to shed their blood.  To make military service a matter of individual choice is as unjustifiable as to make payment of taxes or obedience to the law an individual choice.  Volunteering and the selective draft are makeshifts by which we impose on a few individuals the burden of sacrificing themselves for others who stay at home.

At present we must do the best we can with these makeshifts, because we did not have the wisdom to prepare in advance.  But these make-shifts are not satisfactory.  The training camps for officers have necessarily been open only to men of some means, and of a college education, or its equivalent.  The draft is selective, which means that certain men will be chosen out to bear the burdens that ought by rights to fall on all alike.  All we can do at the present moment is to work under these conditions, accepting them heartily and cheerfully.  But for the future let us prepare better things, under the system of universal training.  That every man will bear his just share of the common burden, and no one will have to bear the share of some one else.  Under the system of universal training every young man will serve in the actual field, on an exact equality with every other young man; so that the son of the rich man and the poor man, of the lawyer, banker, railroad president, baker, carpenter, big farmer, or small farmer, will do the same work as every one else, eat the same fare, go on the same hikes, and then, at the end, among those willing to undergo the training for officers, every man will be chosen strictly on his merits, as actually shown in the field, without any regard to his money, or to the accident of his position.  This is the only proper way — the only democratic way.

So much for our future policy.  At this moment our policy should consist in whole-heartedly bending our every effort to win an overwhelming triumph in the war.  We are for the time being safe behind the rampart of the British fleet, and of the French and British armies.  It is galling thus to owe our safety to others; but let us at least bend all our energies to developing our might so that in our turn we may be able to guarantee safety to ourselves and triumph to our allies.  We would not have time to develop our strength were it not for the protection the allies give us.  But they do give it.  Therefore we have the opportunity to make use of our gigantic resources.  We can within a year, if only we choose, develop our strength so that we shall be the deciding factor in the war.  If we do this we shall restore our self-respect, we shall incalculably benefit our children, we shall win a commanding position, and we shall be able to render untold service to ourselves and to our allies.  If we do not do this, if we fail to develop and exert our strength to the utmost, if we partly adopt the attitude of the onlooker, if we let others do the hard, rough, dangerous fighting work, then we shall have betrayed a sacred trust, from the standpoint of America, of heroic and bleeding France, of gallant and suffering Belgium, and of the world at large.  In such case we must, when peace comes, stand humbly in the presence of the nations who have really fought.  In such case the world will have been saved, but it will have been saved by England, and not by us.  In such case all that we can do will be to thank England for having saved the world — and the peace will be England's peace.  Only those who do the job will have a right to the reward in honor and in power.  Only if we do play a leading part in bringing the war to a close can we expect to make the peace in part our peace.  I honor England for all that she is doing; but I wish us to do as well, for otherwise we shall have no right to be more than a looker-on at England's peace, at the allies' peace.  Only if we do our full duty can we make it a joint peace, a peace in which we rightfully have our full say, on an equality with England, France, Russia, Italy.  If we aren't going to do the job, then I shall be glad to see it done by England and the rest of the allies.  But I am a good American and therefore I wish to see us do the job ourselves.  Rhetoric and boasting won't give us our place in the world.  This is the hour of the fighting men and of the other men and the women who stand back of the fighting men, and enable them to fight.

In order to fight effectively abroad we must deal with certain troubles here at home, within our own household.

The first essential is an absolutely undivided Americanism.  The events of the last three years have opened the eyes of all true patriots to the fact that any man who attempts to combine loyalty to this country with loyalty to any other inevitably when the strain arises, becomes disloyal to this country.  There can be no 50-50 allegiance.  He who is not with us is against us.  We must have but one flag; and we must have but one language — the language of the Declaration of Independence, of Washington's farewell address, and of Lincoln's Gettysburg speech.  We must all be Americans, and nothing else.  In this war, either a man is a good American, and therefore is against Germany, and in favor of the allies of America, or he is not an American at all, and should be sent back to Germany where he belongs.

There are no stancher Americans in the country than the average Americans who are in whole or in part of German descent; and all these are as stanchly against Germany now, as the Americans of English descent were against Great Britain in 1776.  These men stand on a full and exact equality with all other Americans.  They are fit to lead or serve in our armies and to fill every civil position from President down.  I speak of them with knowledge; for German blood runs in my own veins.

But the American of German descent who remains a German or a half-German is not an American at all; and a large number of the men of this type are dangerous traitors who ought instantly to be sent out of the country.  These men work steadily against America in the company of the native-American, professional pacifists, and the pro-German Socialists, and all the anti-English foreigners.  Often they dare not openly assail this country, and so they assail our allies, especially England.  To assail England or any other of our allies at this time is to give aid and comfort to the public enemy and is therefore morally treasonable to the United States.  Some of these pro-German and anti-American leaders have been advocating that men of German descent should not be required to serve in our armies against Germany.  This is precisely as if in the Revolutionary War it had been proposed that men of English descent should not serve against England.  Such a proposal should be regarded as treasonable, and all men making it should be treated accordingly.

The Cologne Gazette of June 10 brazenly declares that the “German-Americans of the United State are the ' best allies' of Germany against the United States," and rejoices in the fact that these German-Americans “embarrass and restrain “us in the war.  The most prominent German newspapers in New York and Chicago have thusly deserved during the last three years this ominous and sinister praise.  They have served Germany against the United States.  They seek to embarrass and restrain our government so as to bring victory for Germany over the United States.  They may have kept within the law, but they have been guilty of moral treason against the Republic.  There are papers published in English which are just as guilty; but in these the treason is at least not hid in a foreign language.  Every German paper in the United States should be obliged hereafter to publish in English, column for column, a complete and accurate translation of everything written in German.

We can tolerate no class jealousies in this country.  I believe in organized labor, as I believe in organized capital, but no man is fit to take part in either organization unless his first loyalty is due to the organization which includes all of us to the union of all these states, to the American nation as a whole.  Washington and Lincoln are our heroes.  Washington was, for his day, a very rich man, and Lincoln a poor man; but no American worth calling such holds either to the poverty of one or the riches of the other, as being either in his favor or against him.  Each was moved by the spirit of service; each risked everything and was willing to give everything to render service to the country; and this is the spirit which we must demand of every man, rich or poor, in this country.

No man is a good American who does not at this time render to the commonwealth the best service of which he is capable, whether as a farmer, a business man, or a wageworker.  The government should exact from each the fullest performance of duty and in return guarantee to each, so far as is possible an ample reward if the duty is well performed.  By all means fix prices where necessary; but let it be clearly understood that it would be as great an evil to fix them too low as to permit them to rise too high.  Guarantee to every business that does first-class work of any kind for the government an ample profit; beyond that impose a heavy progressive tax on excess profits; demand that an ample wage be given the working men, and that in return he do first-class work for the first-class wage.

Friends, fellow Americans, I preach to you the sword of the Lord and Gideon.  In this great war for righteousness, we Americans have a tremendous task ahead of us.  I believe the American people are entirely willing to make any sacrifice, and to render any service, and I believe that they should be explicitly shown how great the service is they are called upon to render, how great the need is that they should unflinchingly face any sacrifice that is made.  I ask of you, and I ask of those who govern you — who govern this great mass of people — that we may be given direct practical lines of effort.  With all my heart I believe that our people have in them the same patriotism, the same nobility of soul to which Washington and Lincoln were able to appeal.  I ask that the appeal be made, the appeal for effort, and with it the guarantee by actual governmental performance that the effort shall not be wasted.

It is through the government that we must do the chief work of course; but let us also ourselves do individually each his or her own part.  Let us help the Red Cross; let us cheerfully accept the draft, and gladly volunteer, if we meet the requirements, and if we are allowed to volunteer.  Then in addition let each of us make up his mind willingly and cheerfully to accept any personal hardships that may come, in high taxes, in repeated loans and reduced income.  Let us fare more simply, and cut out alcohol; let us show our eager and resolute purpose to key up the industrial and social life of the country to the highest scale of efficiency and accomplishment.  We must raise food in abundance.  We must speed up our industries.  We shall need an enormous provision of supplies; we shall need much concentration and control of the means of production.

If we are to hold our proper place as a great nation, there must be prodigious exertions on the part of this republic.  We are in this war, and we must not make it a half war.  The only proper rule is never to fight at all if you can honorably avoid it, but never under any circumstances to fight in a half hearted way.  When peace comes it must be the peace of complete victory.  In winning this victory we must have played a full part — the part of deeds — the deeds of fighting men.  We should instantly strain every nerve to make ready millions of men, and an abundance of all the huge and delicate and formidable and infinitely varied instruments of modern warfare.

We can't achieve our ends by talk — they have got to be achieved by effort.  We can't achieve them unless we act together loyally, and with all our hearts; as Americans and nothing else.  We are fighting for humanity, for the right of each well-behaved nation to independence and to whatever form of government it desires; and we are fighting for our own hearth stones and for the honor and the welfare of our children and our children's children.  We are fighting against a very efficient and powerful, and an utterly brutal and unscrupulous enemy.  Let us give every man in this country his rights without regard to creed or birthplace, or national origin, or color.  Let us in return exact from every man the fullest performance of duty, the fullest loyalty to our flag, and the most resolute effort to serve it.  Let us face this crisis in the spirit of the men who followed Washington; the men whose service and self-sacrifice culminated in the winter at Valley Forge.  Valley Forge was the test of the democracy of the country, the test of democracy under arms, the trying out of American manhood 140 years ago.  In that winter camp of misery and starvation our forefathers decided by their own steadfast valor that they were worthy to win the great prize of freedom.  Now it is for us to decide, in the spirit of Washington and his followers, in the spirit of Lincoln and Grant, and Lee, that we in our turn are worthy to keep and to enjoy the priceless heritage which our forefathers thus won.