THE BALANCE SHEET OF MILITARISM
Scheler, Michael B.
THE BALANCE SHEET OF MILITARISM Land and Sea Armaments Soar to New Heights Desbite the "War To End War". By Michael B. Scheler nraB yean aco the Albed Powers * started a war against what...
...These Socialists declare that the condition is alarming...
...S43.S00 1,55 • • « In the face of the above figures tot is tempted to ask the following pi i Iliad questions: Was the last World war worthwhile...
...As the party press grows or languishes, so will the party organization survive or perish...
...Even the Tory press was emphatic in ha condemnation of the English Government's policy...
...Trite is the saying that nothing succeeds like success, but it is true...
...Nevertheless, the action of the British Government trying to sneak such an advantage in naval armaments showed bad faith and also proved that Great Britain can not be trusted...
...The principal charges against Germany were: that it had the most numerous standing army in the world...
...Such a program and policy, of course, required of the writers an audacity that frequently took one's breath and of the owner and editor the taking of a gambler's chance...
...The potential value to society of this loss of 26,000,000 human lives is placed at, in money terms, $67,000,000,000...
...why not try the American plan...
...The Appeal to Reason in the heyday of its triumph went over big because it presented its message in an American way...
...Our Government, without writing for the pubiicaticr...
...The Italian press denounced that the British had arranged for the transfer of the submarines and airplanes to the Mediterranean...
...in his chosen and peculiar field Cahan has made good, and he knows whereof he writes...
...Some Ban Faith The failure of the Geneva conference— 1927—to extend parity for battleships and cruisers was really due to the British Tory government trying to get around this by retaining the command of the sea through cruisers—since the battleships are obsolete anyhow...
...The subscription price of The Appeal to Reason was fifty cents a year, and its four pages were printed on the cheapest white paper obtainable...
...If America really wants to challenge British supremacy on the sea, 15 cruisers are not enough, of course...
...TJB7HAT is the expenditure of the «afcRj used" nations on militarism, en BBaia arations for new wars...
...They died' as a result of diseases contracted in our training and concentration camps...
...He analysed BritishAmerican relations and Traced the forces that he believed are making for war...
...Consequently, legends were created to the effect that the world is engaged In a battle against militarism, that it is enraged in a determined war to end all vara...
...that the entire nation was an armed camp...
...Nor is this all...
...Japan ............., 536.000 United States...
...And not less striking nor less alarming is the fact that Mr...
...Fortunately, the British public also got alarmed...
...I doubt it...
...England can not outbuild us...
...To thii r< jet ion, however, was tendered the suggestion that an agreement might be uousht along the line of making the catego-ies flexible, so that a power might inc...
...It created a demand for its being, and supplied the demand...
...THE SOCIALIST PRESS—A CRITICISM More Popular Journalism Needed, Is Contention "Appeal to Reason" Cited As Example By George H. Shoal ABRAHAM CARAN'S contributions to The New Leader are timely and to the point...
...date...
...Hardly has the fight started...
...The crisis of capitalism is nearer, but the workers are just as ignorant, just as impressionable, just as unorganized, and the need for agitation and education and organization is just as great...
...The youth of the world, always ready to be aspired by great ideals and causes, eras mce more determined to pay the supreme price on the altar of an Ideal, this time in behalf of everlasting peace ind brotherhood of man...
...It is estimated by the Carnegie Endowment as 13,000,000...
...No wonder that the French press openly boasted of a rearmed alliance with Great Britain against Germany on land and America at sea...
...President Coolidge stated last year that the World War had cost the United States to 192$ the sum of $36,500,000,000...
...And having failed to do so, it is not surprising for anybody familiar with the necessity of foreign trade under our system, that America now intends to get freedom of the^sea if necessary by building a fleet that will take command of the sea...
...They ware killed outright or (had as a result of wounds in action...
...What- was the cost of the World War to our country in the short period of its participation...
...It Is time to speak plainly, and I think self-preservation and common sense dictate not only an Anglo-French naval understanding but a European pact of peace—yes...
...T.ooo.eoo The total soldier-dead is put at 13,000,000...
...tut .be was promptly repudiated by his Government...
...but both paper and party for more than a quarter century have stood static and forlorn...
...The Armistice agreement was igned...
...Others, great in number, contracted constitutional diseases, the effects of which >kJy 'suffer to this very day...
...Possibly the day of .'.ppeal to Reason methods has gone forever...
...But there is more than one means of approach, more than one way of presenting problems, and when old Trays and means have failed it would appear that sound judgment would consider something else...
...The final cost of the war will probably reach the amazing sum of $100,000,000,000—a figure equal to half of the entire wealth of cur country when we entered the World War...
...For Great Britain, Japan, and America, if necessity required, could impose disarmament procedure upon France, but Great Britain, Japan and France can not possibly impose either armament or disarmament on America...
...But the Hearst press in America got a copy of the circular of the French Government sent to Its representatives everywhere— that contained the terms of the agreement...
...The Japanese accepted...
...No sensible person will question the statement that the individual whose advice should be sought or riven is the one whose activities have been successful...
...Paul's Cathedral in London—Mr...
...Approximately S150.000.000 to being, .-paid yearly now in disability compensation, and $31,000,000 is being paid 'yearly to 90,000 mothers, fathers, widows, and children of dead soldiers...
...While mankind is still oppressed by S' ccmequences of the last war and • -11 In all probability bear its burdens r another century, it nevertheless itows no signs of litigating its worship f God Mars, and, to the contrary, is still feverishly encaged, materially, physically, and spiritually, hi preparation for future wars...
...1.030.000 jj 11M.M ftsftjS Italy...
...Was the last World War eally instrumental in putting an end o all wars or was- it the forerunner of uture wars...
...117.000 returned, stek or wounded, some dying subsequently as a result of their wounds...
...The French Overlord The French let it be known jubilantly that one of their conditions, and one of the British concessions, was the British acceptance of the French demand that the trained reserves of their army, numbering many hundred thousands, must not be taken into account in military disarmament...
...The British Foreign Office at first bluntly and officially denied any immediate intention to communicate -with the United States in the matter of naval disarmament...
...Ably edited, with writers who understand brilliantly the art of using the English language, with make-up and appearance unrivaled, yet, while interesting and informative to the seasoned Socialist, It does not completely fill the bill, if the wants and needs of the American working classes are met...
...The Veterans' Bureau is paying about $500,000,000 yearly as compensation to injured veterans and their dependents...
...The Issue of the "Freedom of the Seas" In the closing days of the last session of Congress, Victor L. Bcrgcr, the Socialist representative from Wisconsin, delivered his parting address...
...This, therefore, brings it to a total of 26,000,000 human lives...
...57.400.000 . 11.SOS.000 XUIled in Action and Died . 7J00.0OO Reported "i-'"a or la Prison...
...Even more alarming as a feature of foreign relations today 'Is the British tendency to treat the American challenge to English sea power and commercial supremacy as England treated that of Germany...
...It attacked men as well as conditions, and while it espoused principles of constructive policy, it did not hesitate to direct a withering fire of destructive criticism against institutions of social wrong...
...Do the results justify to) amazing human sacrifice...
...Of course, this is not spiritual or intrinsic value...
...N4 The Treasury Department announced in 1920 that the war had cost the United States S24.0O0.000.0O0...
...The cannibalistic feast finally came to in end...
...What were the costs of the World War: in cold cash, in property, in human lives, in potential possibilities to civilization's onward march of progress...
...England can not stop us...
...More than 26,000 men and women who served with the American forces -en the war, are now being treated in hospitals supervised or operated by the Government, i To date a total of $2.000 000.000...
...Cold facts rill supply the answer, to the analysis •I which we shall now turn our attenisu...
...Before the world war the Socialist Party polled nearly a million votes, and the circulation of The Appeal to Reason exceeded half a million weekly, with special editions running as high as three million copies...
...But to allow France to have all the military reserves she wants, without counting them at all—and yet to forbid ccnseriptlon to Germany—simply meant to make permanent the French overlordship of Europe...
...Other expenditures were: The loss of life is a disputed subject...
...In addition to the slogans of the Ulles be added his following original isttle cries: "Victory without spoils," 'league of Nations," "Independence to ill lepreased nationalities," etc...
...It means filling her coffers with European gold, and the ereAon of an ever -Increasing army or bloated millionaires — increasing, by the way, at the rate of 50 a year...
...But bow did they remove this deadlock...
...Berger's address in three installments, the first of which appeared last week...
...Later, however, the British Foreign Office signified its willingness to prohibition of exportation of arms, war equipment, and food supplies for war purposes from one country to another...
...Englishmen remembered how the liaisons had, as an "obligation of honor," carried Tpngi«-"ri to war in 1914— although the very existence of these agreements had been denied in Parliament by the premier and foreign secretary at that time...
...And the publication of the pact (on October 23, 1928) finished it—at least the world so believes...
...What I shall say here is born out of an experience of nearly thirty years' membership in the Socialist Party, many of which were spent as "war correspondent'' for The Appeal to Reason, the famous radical weekly of Girard Kansas, whose tremendous circulation was exceeded only by its influence upon American public life...
...Suggestive as the above article is we (Coaliaaed m Page IS) ANGLO-AMERICAN IRRITANTS Jingoism and Secret Alliances Abroad Again...
...A more conservative estimate, which was arrived at by Investigators of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, places the dead and wounded at the following figures: Men SioBlll—it...
...Now, I believe that cruisers are also of doubtful value, with airplanes and submarines coming into play...
...Every person editorially associated with the paper was on the job to oppose capitalism and, champion Socialism...
...What irospects does the future hold for the luman race...
...Not in the United States, to my knowledge, is there a Socialist paper producing the propaganda that will adequately arouse and educate the sleeping giant of labor, whose active and intelligent aid Socialist leaders must have, if they play their next in the last act of the final change/irom capitalism to Socialism...
...The wertf spending now, according to aaSB five estimates, the following awjtoM the maintenance and upkeep of its aflto its and navies: The number of men serving aada> arms, is placed at 5,500,000 or » top* more than one soldier to every toj civilians...
...Around and about The Appeal to Reason plant the atmosphere was always tense and electric...
...with Germany included—against that icedwater drinking continent whose hypocritical prohibition farce our own fanatical teetotalers are threatening to make a cry at the greatest election...
...Press and Organization...
...English Socialists call attention to the striking similarity of these expressions with those made public for a few years before the outbreak of the World War— then pertaining to Great Britain and Germany...
...There was also a considerable number of dead among the civilian populations of all belligerent nations as a direct consequence of the war but its exact computation is impossible...
...Out of this number 80.000 never returned...
...Now tot us turn the spotlight of analysis on our own United States...
...Some compute it at 37,000,000...
...1(1S Germany...
...The nations of the eafflki once more engaged in a race far ag4kl meats, in a competition tor aajajm military supremacy that is boangsEH li"m-fT into another esteJtogjgSE effects of Which are too ghastly tataS...
...No invidious reflection against alien races is meant or intended here...
...Was not the naval eastsxsstoi a chafe cession a menace to Germany—which only an armed alliance could risk...
...Speaker and gentlemen, that Shy lock is the pet name by which Uncle Sam is affectionately known in France and England...
...Certainly the current Socialist press is not living up to its opportunity, and party organization is standing still...
...Is the wall rid of future wars...
...From this predicament the British Government was saved, by Washington...
...Thus Mr...
...What win be its price to future generations...
...The interest alone on our puijUc debt will run up to a figure of $7,000,000,000...
...Party rises no higher than that of remaining a mutual admiration society of futile protest, these privileges, I am sure, will not be withdrawn or -denied by legally constituted authority...
...The large cruisers required by America—partry for strategic reasons and partly as a "club" to force disarmament upon the others were to be limited...
...By the Washington treaty of 1922, England accepted—as everybody supposed— the principle of parity with America in building warships...
...And Coolidge and Kellogg deserve credit for expressing this sentiment...
...This example was followed by the Italians, whose reply was also a refusal...
...Nevertheless, the far-famed Dean of St...
...All fair-minded Englishmen admit this...
...5,000,000 tons of world's shippteg aa) devoted to naval or military putpaaa...
...This gives the following ratio: one asafe ary ton to 13 tons of mercantile stojfl Prior to the war Europe preeeatottogf following military physiognomy: Jill H us ¦ ¦ - T5S35 '. This is the present military ptoigjaB Europe: 14MH ni.eee sat ms.et* to isajse «a / lt.ees * .1 - ni si to ji: ': (Mai 2&0.0m "S3 SOaj* «« % mm :*f }; 30*10 •» ijj atouB * Approximately...
...It varies in the estimates of several authorities...
...Was not the French air power twice as large as the English...
...Thousands of young men died before they landed on the fields of battle, before they wen even transported to France...
...It may be that the old tactics of party propaganda will no longer apply...
...However, some attempt a conservative estimate of $1,000.000,000,000—one, thousand billion dollars—as the possible value of the mechanical and material progress, of the industrial and technical Mhh'fwnento lost through the dead Of the World War...
...Was It the ushering of demo:racy, the realisation of the Golden Rule, he fulfillment of Wilson's famous 14 joints that lifted mankind to a bedlam a happiness or was it simply the termnation of an unequalled and "useless mman carnage...
...Bottomley...
...The United States transported in 1917 and 1918, 2,000.000 Americans to the fronts in Prance...
...After all the nations have paid in material value, in human sacrifice, and obligations and burdens incurred for future generations—have they, at least, learned a memorable and effective lesson...
...There is also this: If America should make up her mind to do so, it will be done...
...Bottomley, developed this spirit turner by writing: ; The truth is, America has no genuine sympathy with Europe and is jealous of and antagonistic to Britain America does not care a damn either for an American-Anglo union or for the prosperity of the Anglo-Saxon race, or, for that matter, for the peace of the world...
...Without doubt The New Leader is the best Socialist paper ever published in the United States—for Socialists...
...Was not the French submarine fleet a menace to British commerce compared with which the German submarines in the World War were insignificant...
...each was a fighting American, loving his country but hating his country's enemies, and these enemies he visualized not as foreigners without the gates but as plutocracy enthroned and ruling with an iron hand...
...last fall came the so-called Franco-British pact...
...Instead of feverishly working toward the averting of new wars, it is engaged intensively and unremittingly in just such activities which precipitated the last war and which are bound to precipitate wars more extensive in scope and more disastrous than all preceding wars...
...The world war arbitrarily divided in two camps: Democracy and Pacifism versus Autocracy and Militarism...
...And generation after generation wffl pay their debts in millions and bOUons of dollars to a war for which they were not responsible...
...He then quoted from the opinions of influential public figures in the United States and England to show how far the war psychology is progressing...
...It recognized the mercurial temperament of the people, appreciated their disposition to enjoy a fight, acknowledged their emotional response to idealistic appeal, and it aimed at the heart as well as the bead...
...nor shall it be construed that the gospel according to Marx must be diluted or ignored The need of union among the workers of the world, and the facts of economic determinism, surplus value and the class struggle are just as evident in the United States as anywhere) and must be declared...
...It is value expressed in the producer-consumer sense...
...Inge, called the gloomy dean—recently also said that in a certain contingency: It is more than passible that the nations of Europe, enraged by the bloated prosperity and airs of superiority of "the man who won the war" would combine to draw Shylock's teeth...
...The figures fSto ented in this article and the psteajk evidences of Intrigues and Jealoray all diplomatic and military dress of the world invalidate all our hopes eta form.a sad commentary on the basal intellect...
...Decrease la Tom...
...Nevertheless, it is a gesture, a hint with a club, since Great Britain knows that America could not only build 71 but 150 vessels if she made up her mind to de so...
...The publication of that pact aroused public opinion everywhere, however...
...The crushis* criticism put the French Government into a serious situation, especially since all of this* happened shortly before the opening of Parliament...
...The Cruiser Episode The American congress has passed a bill to build 15 cruisers within the next three years, and the President has signed the bill...
...And in American jargon I declare "here and now" that America has her eye on Canada, whom she is gradually getting into her power by the peaceful penetration of loans and financial control...
...It was thereby established that the naval compromise was not a compromise at all but was, in fact, a combination of British and French requirements as to naval armament—surely not of disarmament...
...Issue of Sea Power You know, Mr...
...The general tone was rather r':T...
...After all, freedom of the sea is the only valuable achievement America could get out of the World War in return for her entry...
...So much for America, But the smaller cruisers wanted by the British for their far-flung domains and the submarines wanted by the French for commerce destruction were to remain unUmUed, And thh, aithough the pajfey, of America and the antiwar sentiment of the whole world demanded the limitation of all warships...
...In the first part of his address, the Socialist leader dxvelt on the nature of imperialism'and economic conflicts as the basic causes of war...
...Last week's installment closed with some reference to President Coolidgc's belligerent Armistice Day address of last year...
...The capitals of the continents et loose a pandemonium of joy that urned them almost into veritable madlouses...
...Editor Warren was arrested and tried for sending objectionable matter through the mails, and the staff writers were repeatedly threatened by government agents with prosecution...
...Unbelievable though it may be, despite the carnage of the last World War humanity has learned nothing...
...The American press almost unanimously denounced an Anglo-French naval alliance that destroyed the principle of parity, and made "a scrap of paper" of the treaty of Washington of 1922...
...The British Government therefore admitted from the start that ant American rejection would be fatal...
...What the lost lives were worth in spiritual value is unknown and Inestimable...
...Political and economic conditions then, admittedly, were not what they are now...
...What now...
...each knew he was in the midst of a class struggle wherein he dared not flinch...
...In this connection I desire to supplement and expand some of the suggestions offered by the noted editor of the Jewish Daily Forward...
...Its mode of defense always was attack...
...With all this, and on top of it...
...that it was trying to militarize and enslave the entire world under its autocratic heel...
...The world reverberated with Intense ¦nthusiasm for the cause of the Allies, tor which millions of young men had Uready died on the battle-fields and many more were dying daily...
...temptation...
...If The New Leader is content to confine Its circulation to a classic clientele, and if the ambition of the Socialist...
...And England can not bluff us...
...Its phraseology may have been crude, its economics not meticulously Marxian, and its method of procedure probably was coarse and ruffianly, but the vicious and valiant little sheet kept capitalist officialdom on the jump and it advertised Socialism throughout darkest America...
...When the fight waxed hottest, interest by the readers grew most intense, and they never failed to respond promptly and liberally with subscriptions when thus aroused...
...On July 1, 1928—10 years after the war —250,000 veterans were receiving disability compensation, the payments ranging from $8 to $250 monthly, depending upon the disability of the recipient...
...M. Aristide Briand and Sir Austin Chamberlain were supposed to have removed the deadlock between England and France as to naval disarmament—the English having always opposed the unlimited building of submarines by France...
...that it was spending more money for armaments than for education...
...Did Mankind, at least, learn a lesson...
...After ten years of so-called peace, that peace does the world enjoy...
...And our big-navy men really asked for 71 warships...
...More than half a million claims have been filed with our Veterans Bureau...
...I have a nasty knack of saying things which others only think...
...But that mattered little...
...The Berlin press declared that Locarno was dead...
...The English Government ignores the fact that Americans are only aiming at freedom of the sea—at least at present...
...By Victor L. Berger the well-known English jingo, Mr...
...So much from these quarters...
...But, it was burning with fire and eager to fight...
...The New Entente But there were the facts...
...The gullible world fell for it...
...By Michael B. Scheler nraB yean aco the Albed Powers * started a war against what was then regarded as the most autocratic, despotic sod militaristic nation in Europe: Imperial Germany...
...This was at first a secret...
...has been paid to disabled veterans and their Ckpendtlim...
...The military ratio for the entire vaal is 1 soldier to every 300 civilians, *M The League of Nations recently pto> llshed the following figures showing (to present strength of the world's narto and its contrast to the composition at the world's navies in 1913...
...This sum covers the actual expenditures on materials and equipments necessary to the upkeep of warfare...
...Classic and European methods have proven Inadequate...
...Was not the principle of the new entente—the exclusion of trained reserves from disarmament, and the coupling of Rbmeland evacuation with reparations and revision—a departure from the approved principles of British policy...
...This would in time establish a new international sea law on the basis of Wilson's 14 points, "Freedom of navigation on the seas, alike in peace and in war, except as they may be closed by international action...
...This field already has been pre-empted by The Weekly People and the Socialist Labor Party...
...The British ambassador seemed to understand that, and he hastened to declare in the press that England is ready for another conference...
...highprincipled and class-conscious Socialists now are preparing to wage more fiercely than ever the war which must be won...
...The government tried to explain and deny...
...Regarding the wisdom and science of its methods, it is enough to say the methods got results—an unanswerable argument...
...The genuine need of the hour, if Socialist principles are put across and made attractive to the American people, is a paper and a party whose editor "Snd organizers understand the prejudices and mental limitations as well as psychology of the American people, and are wise enough and big enough to meet tfie situation with sympathy and practical opportunism...
...end the conclusion was a short rejection of the Franco-British pact...
...The belligerent nations have spent approximately $200,000,000,000 on operation of the war—a sum equal to the entire wealth of the United States in the year 191...
...And if the Anglo-French pact was, therefore, bad enough in respect to its naval provisions—the rest was much worse...
...President iVllson for a while became the inspiring Jght of the civilized world, the guiding tpirit of all youth, the demigod of naJons...
...But to win the war why not forge weapons that will count...
...There is no occasion to weaken in the fight, much less is there excuse for the tired radical, socalled, to give up disconsolately and quit...
...The New Leader is publishing Mr...
...We hate peace, but it Is a Saaar* filled with powder, with firehrasawS are bound to explode sooner or toast...
...Here ultra-scientific economics and radical political orthodoxy find noble and classic expression...
...337.000 Iacraaae la Teas...
...Did Wilson's principles and renditions become a reality...
...And this is bow the matter stands up to...
...Had not "conversations" taken place between British admirals and air marshals and their French opposite numbers, and were not their names and the nature of their arrangements known...
...In 1917 President Wilson joined the ipostles of democracy, the so-called Tusaders for a war-leas world, and by lis tmpassionate appeals succeeded in -mb rolling this nation in the World War...
...i Thank Tea...
...The Old Appeal...
...ease construction on the one by reducing on the other...
...Bottomley—who but a year or two ago was clamoring lor the destruction of all "Germhuns, like so much vermin"—now urges an alliance with those vermin against Englishspeaking America...
...It was a powerful plea for international peace...
...All the Idealism released during the last war, all the beautiful slogans and promises, all the noble efforts of the late President Wilson, all the sacrifice of human blood and ttfe ham haakS it seems...
...War is the breath of her nostrils...
...His words deserve to be read, not only, but they should be heeded by Socialist leaders, if those leaders expect successfully to put the Socialist movement on' the American map and make it consequential...
...This stricture, with equal emphasis and similar interpretation, applies to the management and methods of propaganda 'sanctioned by the Socialist party...
...But what's the use...
...of tlee cri~;-rr.I netc i:riei its own reply to the press...
...It was not even mentioned a few weeks later in the King's speech at the opening of the Parliament...
Vol. 8 • March 1929 • No. 10
