DEFENSE OR IMPERIALISM
Defense or Imperialism ON August 29, 1916, in the midst of war in Europe and a "preparedness" campaign in this country, Congress authorized the building of what Secretary Daniels has aptly...
...Harry S. Garfield, former Fuel Administrator, appearing February 4 as a witness before the committee...
...Finally, in dealing with this subject, any law passed by Congress must recognize the fundamental distinction that coal is a commodity of commerce and so subject to regulatory control, that it can have no application to the human labor employed in its production, which is in no sense a commodity of commerce...
...Submarines and aeroplanes have entirely revolutionized naval warfare...
...No fleet can hide itself from the aeroplane eye, and the submarine can deliver a deadly attack even in broad daylight...
...Garfield, who Is a son of forme* President James R. Garfield, and president of Williams College, some years ago organized a large mining company, now capitalized at $1,000,000, in which he still holds an interest...
...As to the relative cost of upkeep, a single battleship would require in peace-time about 120,000 pounds a year...
...It is to their advantage to have the "biggest navy...
...My idea is not at all that, but it is to fore-stall these difficulties...
...Confronted with actual hostilities, our naval experts stopped the construction of battleships and cruisers, and concentrated on antisubmarine craft as the type of vessel best adapted to the needs of modern warfare...
...Indeed, it may be said to be well-nigh inexhaustible...
...That is why labor unions were formed, and I think they are right...
...Appoint the secretary of the Interior as your representative...
...If lives are to be risked to protect their Mexican mines—their Central and South American concessions—let it be their own lives that take the hazard...
...Admiral Sir Percy Scott, referred to before the House Committee as "the best naval brains in England," startled the world on June 5, 1914, with this statement: "Now that submarines have come in, battleships are of no use either for defensive or offensive1 purposes, and consequently building any more in 1914 will be a misuse of money subscribed by the citizens for the defense of the Empire...
...General William Mitchell, Chief of Training and Operations of the Army Air Service, said that surface navies have been rendered "obsolete" by aerial developments...
...I myself was brought up in the Adam Smith school and in the belief that Government ought not to have anything to say about prices and about wages and about many things that Government has wisely, in its discretion, spoken of...
...After the war had amply justified his prediction, Admiral Scott in his book, "Fifty Years in the Royal Navy," published in 1919, pages 313 to 315, wrote: "I have seen the Royal Navy change from sails to steam, from fighting on the water to fighting under water and over the water...
...The aggregate amount of money spent for high grade steel armor and armaments on the 16 ships under construction is roughly $250,000,00...
...In other words, after spending hundreds of millions of dollars, and leading Great Britain and Japan in a race for armaments, we shall find ourselves in seven years relatively no stronger than we are today...
...But with untold billions of tons of coal accessible, it is established that the American people during the last three years have suffered for lack of fuel and been compelled to pay exorbitant prices for that which they were able to obtain...
...The Wealth of Nations THE estimated wealth of the United States today is three hundred billion dollars, a gain of fifty billion dollars since the outbreak of the Great War in 1914...
...Italy and Belgium are reported to have added one-third t*> their wealth and Japan about fifty per cent...
...have no foreign investments to protect, and no dividends, derived from armor, contracts, at stake...
...Whatever Congress may be able to do, if anything in the brief time remaining of this session, the hearings on the Calder bill have revealed conditions in the coal industry which will make far-reaching legislation inevitable in the near future...
...This gain is due to the wealth obtained through the acquisition of Mesopotamia toil fields, the African territory taken from Germany and the free field left to Britain for the time being as the result of Germany's elimination as a trade rival...
...In doing the work shown above, in completing 77 submarines, destroyers, and miscellaneous craft, and in starting the construction of 35 other vessels, the Navy Department has already received appropriations of $538,270,000 under the 1916 program...
...Admiral William T. Sims, head of the Naval War College, and commander of the American navies in European waters during the war, predicted that because of advances made in aviation, our surface craft will soon be useless...
...Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, former member of the General Board and inventor of the torpedo plane, told the committee that aeroplanes will be the capital ships of the future...
...What chance will the surface battleships, presenting a huge target, have against such a vessel ? We can not escape the logic of the arguments advanced by Admiral Scott and the admissions of our own admirals that the battleship is doomed as a modern vessel of war...
...As a result of this wise policy we have today 300 destroyers, constituting what Secretary Daniels ad-jmits is "an unexcelled fleet of antisubmarine craft...
...Let it not be thought that the cutting of the Army to 175,000 men is a step toward reduction of armaments, It is no guarantee for peace whatever to reduce the standing army to 175 or 150 thousand or even a much smaller number...
...Senator Gerry, a strong advocate of a "big navy," shows conclusively that at the end of 1927, if the present programs suggested by Great Britain, Japan, and the United States are carried out at enormous expense, we shall have exactly what we have today: a navy inferior to Great Britain's, and larger than Japan's...
...They...
...It should not be thought, however, that this country alone profited during the war, for the estimated wealth of Great Britain is placed at two hundred and thirty billion, an increase of one hundred billion" since 1914...
...But 1 see that the principle moves on from one subject to another, from the time when Benjamin Franklin advised Philadelphia to light and pave its streets instead of leaving it to private individuals, and to set up a fire comany to protect the public against re, through the time that we fought and finally consented to the inevit-ble truth that the railroads are charged with a public use' and that the trolleys are 'charged with a public use,' to the time, now, when we say 'coal is charged with a public use.' "If I, interested in coal, deny that proposition, I am simply flying in the face of my own honest judgment...
...Congress will pass upon the next step in this policy within the next three weeks...
...We have recognized capital and allowed it to unionize by means of incorporation, and .we have got to rec-ognize the right of labor also to get the same kind of an advantage...
...The war ended November 11, 1918...
...There Is a source of fact-finding to which the operators can turn and to which the mine workers can turn with some degree of satisfaction, and they will be satsified as they can not possibly be satisfied in any other way...
...I regarded the surface battleship as dead before the War, and I think her more dead now, if that is possible...
...Eight months after Congress yielded to the plea that "preparedness would insure peace," this country went to war with Germany...
...Garfield...
...Conceding the right of the owner of capital to invest his money where he pleases, the people must force Congress to declare against the policy of using the State Department and the military arm of the Government far collecting private claims for those seeking large profits in foreign lands...
...If money is to be spent to make their foreign risks secure, let it be their own money...
...Our navy today is vastly superior to any except Great Britain's...
...The most conservative leaders in Government and industry realize that the coal resources of the nation can not longer be entrusted to unrestrained exploitation for the profit of selfish interests...
...President, set up this advisory commission...
...To serve this purpose Congress is preparing to build a navy which we do not need for defense and which will be obsolete before our militarists of most sanguinary imagination could possibly frame us up another war...
...l "The future is with the aeroplane, which is going to develop rapidly in1 the next few years...
...Are the American people prepared to burden themselves with additional taxes in order to supply these concerns with contracts aggregating a quarter of a billion dollars...
...Coal mined for three or four dollars a ton has sold to the consumer for eighteen and twenty dollars a ton...
...Only three are more than 50 per cent completed...
...They are fact-finding agencie sand 2hey ought not to be clothed with any power to do anything about the facts they find...
...Congress can pass no law which will effectively remedy the evils of the present system of producing and selling coal until it recognizes: First, That coal is a basic necessity...
...Revised" estimates now place the total cost of the program at $972,-000,000, so that the minimum cost of completing these vessels will be in excess of $433,000,000...
...Speaking from his practical experience in the coal business and from insight gained while fuel administrator, Dr...
...The 1916 program was immediately abandoned...
...We have been fixing our minds, in other words, on the solution of difficulties after they have arisen...
...It is the navy, not the army, which is of use in a program of imperialism—the root of war—and if we are to disarm effectively, we must start with the navy...
...Garfield outlined to the committee his own plan for the adjustment of labor disputes and the minimizing of strikes in the coal industry...
...With a total estimated wealth equal to that of any two nations in the world, and larger than Great Britain and Japan's combined, this country must choose whether it will lead the movement to disarm or set the pace in a new competition which can only lead to war...
...One other "advantage"—and one only >—is possible from a powerful navy big enough to bully the rest of the world...
...The annual production of coal in the United States is about 650,000,000 tons...
...The navies of Germany, Austria, and Russia had been captured or destroyed, and the losses of Great Britain, France, and Italy in fighting ships had been enormous...
...The treaty reduced Germany to impotence and Austria was left without a mile of coastline...
...Of the six battle cruisers authorized in 1916, only one is more than 10 per cent completed and the rest are less than 8 per cent completed...
...Let the Secretary of the Interior receive from the Federal Trade Commission the unadorned facts as to the costs of production and receive from the Secretary of Labor the unadorned facts as to the cost of living, and from any other agencies that are set up, such as the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Geological Survey and the Bureau of mines the results of their surveys...
...And this is not the whole story...
...The contracts for the enormous amount of steel used in armor plate and the largest guns have gone in recent years to three great corporations : The Bethlehem Steel Company, the Midvale Steel Company, and the Car-negie Steel Company,—all controlled in Wall Street by the great financial interests...
...of high explosives...
...The people—who must pay the staggering price of a race in armaments— are opposed to such a program...
...Six are less than 25 per cent completed...
...Figures compiled by the Navy Department show the following facts as to the cost and progress in building on the 16 capital ships authorized in 1916: BATTLESHIPS (43,200 Tons) Name Total Esti- Per Cent mated Cost Completed Maryland_____ $38,427,000 93 Colorado______ 38,427,000 66 Washington______ 38,427,000 57 West Virginia______ 38,427,000 44 North Carolina______ 38,427,000 22 South Dakota______ 38,427,000 22 Indiana______ 38,427,000 18 Montana_____ 38,427,000 17 Iowa_________ 38,427,000 13 Massachusetts _ 38,427,000 1.2 Total cost —$384,270,000 BATTLE CRUISERS (43,500 Tons) Name Total Esti- Per Cent mated Cost Completed Saratoga_____$39,369,000 13.3 Lexington____ 39,369,000 7.7 Constellation 39,369,000 5.1 Constitution __ 39,369,000 2.5 United States— 39,369,000 2.5 Ranger_______ 39,369,000 1.0 Total cost —$236,214,000 The average completion of the 10 battleships is 35.3 per cent, and of the 6 battle cruisers 5.3 per cent...
...It is time for the people to call a halt...
...Although the General Board had recommended the building of more battleships and battle cruisers, individual admirals appearing before the House Naval Affairs Committee were compelled to admit that within a few years these vessels will be driven from the seas by air craft and submarines...
...she carries about 1000 shells containing about 100,000 lbs...
...Second, That however abundant the deposits may be, there exists somewhere between the mouth of the mine and the consumer a degree of manipulation and Control most harmful to the public...
...No falser argument was ever advanced than the contention that because we have already started building these ships, "economy" requires that we sho#d complete them...
...With a great peace-time navy ready to fly to the ends of the earth to "avenge insults" and to "pacify backward peoples," Wall Street will be assured that Its speculative investments are to be made good by the armed force of the United States...
...Dr...
...Much has been made of the "reduction in the Army...
...In the battleship we put all our eggs into one basket...
...The battleship waddles along at twenty miles an hour, and cannot waddle very far, and in comparison with an aeroplane has a very low rate of speed...
...One of the most significant statements of the trend of public opinion toward the coal industry, came from Dr...
...or 18-in...
...Every man and woman in the country should make senators and congressmen understand that they will be held responsible on every vote cast in support of this monstrous program...
...It means very little for real disarmament...
...Our underground supply is abundant...
...When this letter was published on the eve of the war, five British admirals denounced the prediction as "a mischievous Bcare," "a fantastic dream," and Admiral Scott's ideas were condemned in the press as an approach to midsummer madness...
...Real disarmament looking toward en-during peace must begin with the navy-We already have 4,000,000 men trained for war who will form a potential army for years to come...
...Likewise the wealth of France, estimated at one hundred billion, has increased thirty-five billion since 1914...
...According to Congressman Meade, of New York, who testified before the committee, householders in Buffalo during the present winter have been compelled to show a physician's certificate before they could obtain a ton of coal...
...of high explosives...
...Some officers say that the battleship is more alive than ever...
...and the ordinary automobile torpedo is still in process of development, and may, in the future, carry a ton of high explosives, which would probably sink any battleship...
...they would be earning money...
...The aeroplane-carrying ships and the aeroplanes would cost nothing...
...The same selfish interests which control the steel companies have speculative investments in Mexico, in South America, and in other foreign lands...
...A New Coal Policy FOR the "past month the Senate Com-mittee on Manufactures has been holding hearings on the Calder Bill, which proposes to place the coal industry under strict government regulation...
...The officers and men to form the crews of the' ships would belong to the Merchant Navy...
...Every belligerent nation except our own is today exhausted and bankrupt, and another war within the next fifteen or twenty years is admitted by the most eminent military and naval authorities to be remote...
...Garfield made it plain that he is unalterably opposed to such ill-advised anti-strike measures as the Kansas Industrial Relations Court...
...There will never be another time when it will be so easy to induce the nations of the earth to reduce armaments as the present...
...Defense or Imperialism ON August 29, 1916, in the midst of war in Europe and a "preparedness" campaign in this country, Congress authorized the building of what Secretary Daniels has aptly described as the largest fleet of war vessels "ever provided for at one time by any nation...
...For 8,000,000 pounds we could build many aeroplane-carrying.ships, equipped with aeroplanes carrying over 100,000 lbs...
...Under these circumstances I can see no use for battleships and very little chance of much employment for vast cruisers...
...The battleship of today costs roughly 8,000,000 pounds...
...What I would say is this," said Dr...
...Probably we shall also have submersible battleships of 10,000 tons...
...The testimony of these high authorities is exactly in line with the best military and naval opinion abroad...
...Every advance along the course proposed makes it more binding to continue the wasteful, ruinous business to the end...
...But in the face of these conditions, in a time of profound peace, Congress is about to resume the building of the capital ships authorized on the eve of war...
...It is but a sop to satisfy those who are hoping and working for disarma-ment...
...Garfield said to the committee that:— "The development of the corporation has introduced a new personality: the private corporation, into our industrial life that was not conceived of in the days when Adam Smith gave us an economic basis for the laws of competition, and it places you and me, as individuals, at a certain disadvantage that amounts to unfair competition if we run up against these great corporations...
...In peace-time the aeroplane-carrying ships could be used as passenger ships, and the aeroplane for carrying passengers instead of bombs...
...The only conceivable advantage from completing the 1916 program will accrue to interests which have grown fat during the war and are now looking for peacetime profits to maintain the level of their war dividends...
...The 1916 program—put forward as a sure preventive of war—called for the erection within three years of 156 vessels, including 16 capital ships...
...her effective range is, say, 15 miles, she is vulnerable to aircraft with bombs and aerial torpedoes, and to submarines, the latter possibly carrying a 15-in...
...Counting the men just released from service as a potential reserve, we have the largest army of trained soldiers on earth...
...If these aeroplanes carried fuel sufficient for five hours, their range would be about 150 miles out and 150 miles home...
...Aeroplane pilots will be as numerous as taxi drivers and get about the same pay...
...I do not believe In it...
...Let Congress say to the President of the United States: Mr...
...Extortionate prices, ranging in the Eastern section from four to five times the cost of production have been exacted and in many sections coal could scarcely be obtained at any price...
...Our coast defenses are declared on the highest authority to be "the best in the world...
...I believe in the least compulsion on our people...
...The war makers could put an army of five million in the field in six months' time...
...He suggested a commission, composed of an equal number of representatives of the miners' unions and the coal operators, to sit with the Secretary of the Interior, as a purely "fact-finding body" with the sole power of ascertaining facts regarding wages, cost of production and profits in the coal industry...
...Serve notice on these representatives at once that they will be held to account If under the dishonest plea of preparing for the national defense they rebuild the American navy to serve the wicked aims of conquest and imperialism...
...others declare that the battleship is dead...
...Third, That it is the duty of Government, to declare coal impressed with a public use and subject to such control as may be necessary to protect the public interest, to determine just where that control shall be applied, and- to apply it effectively...
...What is the future Navy to be...
...Suppose the Secretary of the Interior is seated in his office with a commission composed as I have indicated, and suppose the Federal Trade Commission has found facts currently day by day as to costs and so have these other commissions...
...Of the 10 battleships authorized in 1916, only one is more than 90 per cent completed...
...We have been fixing our minds for a long time on compulsory arbitration," he said...
...When our capitalists withdraw their money from this country to stake it on the turn of fortune's wheel in some foreign land, let them take the gambler's chance...
...To what end are we to undertake this enormous outlay of the people's money ? In its report of September 25,1920, the General Board of the Navy recommended another three-year program of 88 vessels...
...In my opinion, as the motor vehicle has driven the horse from the road so has the submarine driven the battleship from the sea...
Vol. 13 • February 1921 • No. 2
