ARMAMENT, OR DISARMAMENT
Blymyer, William H.
Armament, or Disarmament Is There Not a More Rational Solution Than That of "Greater Preparedness"? By WILLIAM H. BLYMYER Member American Judicature Society, American Bar Association, former...
...of what it was before the war...
...We can hardly expect when our national honor is affected—and such occurrences are bound to happen—and we feel the prowess of possessing a great armament, that we shall always have a President who will be able to prevent precipitate action...
...and if a country is without fear, as it does not see in its neighbors its possible slayers, and the possible invaders of its territory, because they are not armed, and feels that it can have a fair trial in a court of arbitration and the award enforced, it needs no military establishment...
...It would mean the imprisonment of the offending nation on its own territory, at its own expense and without the need of guarding it, until it should comply...
...If that is so, have we enough safeguards to control popular feeling in the handling of a world-dreaded military establishment...
...or are they to feel that we are such a philosophic people that we can be trusted never to make use of such power, save for defense, and that other nations cannot hope to arrive at a position where they would be warranted in attacking us...
...Even the advocates of greater preparedness concede that there is danger in a great military class and the vaunting spirit that that superiority will arouse...
...Upon disarmament, nations would not be left without power to enforce their rights...
...Would not the susceptibilities of Canada and the other American States be affected...
...If, however, we are not to have the greatest, and make it so great that it will be a menace to all others to keep the peace, but are to content ourselves with a relative position about such as the one that we held before the war, would our object not be attained as well by securing a relative position in a world-wide disposition of less strength...
...or why not to a simple police force, based on its population...
...The fact that none of our States feels the need of arming as against its neighbors, or the States as against Canada, is good proof of this proposition...
...Any nation that declined to disarm could, by these means, be speedily forced to do so...
...The paramount endeavor of each group is to support the federation, as each is conscious of the fact that its own strength depends upon the effective operation of the whole...
...Trustee Vereinigung Alter Deutscher Studenten in Amerika, originator of the "isolation" idea (Report of International Peace Congress, Bern, 1892), now advocated by many as the most effective means of controlling nations...
...We shall probably not aim to have a greater navy than Great Britain or a greater army than that which Germany, France or Russia was maintaining before the war...
...THE QUESTION of armament is simply one of ratio among the Great Powers...
...and still better is that to be found in Switzerland, which for centuries has been composed of people of three races, each of which still retains its language and customs and its section of the country...
...So, again, the alternative should at least have fair consideration before we act...
...Such action need not be deferred until a belligerent calls for peace, but, on the contrary, would afford an opening for the discussion of it...
...Is it the expectation of the advocates of preparedness that other nations will observe this threatening departure upon our part and will not themselves arm pari passu...
...Can America not pause long enough in this headlong precipitation for so-called "greater-preparedness" to realize that to thus arm would be a backward step in civilization by which we would take the lead in perpetuating a system that again and again has removed the flower of the manhood of countries, and even of continents—a system of violence as against one of order—and that the alternative should at least receive fair consideration before we act...
...By WILLIAM H. BLYMYER Member American Judicature Society, American Bar Association, former Vice-President Alliance Fran-caise, New York City...
...It has often been said that this Republic is still on trial...
...The alternative is not, as its opponents would have it, the poltroon cry of "peace at any price," but the rational enforcement of rights...
...An international convention, whereby the nations would agree that the nation that should refuse to arbitrate (if it could not otherwise settle) its differences with another nation, or that should refuse to comply with a decree of arbitration would be isolated, should be sufficient...
...In recent years we have seen this country moved to an uncontrollable pitch, even by matters that are not to be compared with affronts to the nation...
...Should we not rather reverse the order and formulate a program for armed preparedness as the alternative, and with it approach the other nations with the proposition of general disarmament...
...Should we arm, would it not be also for one other reason—to maintain our rights...
...None of the European powers will emerge from the war with a financial status such as will justify it in the making of any considerable expenditure for this purpose and neither the present generation, nor any one now living, can expect to reach a time favorable for such action...
...The returning of a man to the Presidency when an economic crisis was threatening, who had a genius for smashing industrial enterprises, but none for shaping them for greater public utility, by the greatest majority ever recorded, is another example of the unreasoned action of the nation...
...WHAT argument is there that armed peace is to be more efficacious in our case than in that of Germany, on land, and Great Britain, on the seas...
...The present French Republic barely survived such an excitement in the Boulanger affair...
...Why, then, should we not now take advantage of our economic strength and induce every nation to reduce its armed force, say, to fifty per cent...
...INTERNATIONAL relationship is governed more than most men conceive by the attitude of mind...
...Have we not statesmen sufficient to initiate this rational adjustment upon a reduced scale of armament and give world-relief, or is all that ours can do to repeat the old and exploded plan, unlearned by them, of armed peace...
...It is only prudence not to overload it with responsibility...
...Should we start to arm now would it not be a direct declaration of distrust to Japan and Great Britain or to Germany...
...the same fact in regard to the colonies, upon the establishment of the United States, is better, as they differed much in origin...
...The taking of an obsolete fleet and the antiquated fortress at Manila, without the loss of a man, was exalted to such a feat of heroism that a welcome was given such as perhaps Caesar never had, by acclamation almost, a place equal to those of Farra-gut and Porter alone in our naval list was made, and a man who neither before nor since has rendered any conspicuous service set in it...
Vol. 7 • December 1915 • No. 12
