Part 9

Nine months after entering the war not only are we giving our allies no effective military aid, but all our bustle and stir doesn’t hide the fact that, through incompetence and lack of organization and system, we are far behind in our preparations to supply rifles, ammunition, machine guns, airships, uniforms, clothing for the troops we shall some time have at the front. Our backwardness is naturally disquieting to our allies. If one million American soldiers, or half that number, fully equipped, had stood on the soil of France, Lloyd George would have made no speech to British working-men restating after a fashion the war aims of the Allies. There would have been no occasion, nor demand for a speech telling the labor unions what the troops of Britain are fighting for.

The pacifists and the agencies of German intrigue would not be working for a peace in the interests of the capitalistic and militaristic autonomy of Germany. As the Times well says, the man who now works for such a peace while Germany is unconquered “is the most heartless of militarists or enemy of the world’s peace and freedom.”

THE FRUITS OF WATCHFUL WAITING

JANUARY 18, 1918

We have been at war nearly one year. We have failed to do any damage to Germany, but we have done a great deal of damage to ourselves. Recently the President’s Secretary of War announced that the war was three thousand miles away and so he had not prepared to meet it. Incidentally the feats of the German submarine off Newport in the fall of 1916 showed that if it had not been for the Allied fleets and armies the war would then have been on our own shores. But at the moment it is three thousand miles away, and yet this Nation is suffering the kind of grave economic derangement that we would suffer if a hostile army was on our own shores. We have accomplished very little. We have suffered very much. Both the failure in accomplishment and the amount of avoidable suffering are due to the resolute refusal of our Government to prepare in advance and to its fatuous persistence in the policy of watchful waiting.

Doubtless part of the present trouble in connection with coal is due to unwisdom in the price-fixing of bituminous coal. Doubtless part of it is due to the railway congestion, which in its turn is due to the complete lack of system and consequent chaos due to suddenly imposing on well-meaning, stodgy government officials of average capacity the duty of dealing in a tremendous hurry with a situation of unprecedented size, complexity, and importance, but the temporary causes are all secondary to the great cause of complete failure to prepare in advance.

Our economic unpreparedness is just as complete as our military unpreparedness and is one of the chief factors therein. We are now paying bitterly for the fact that two and three years ago it was deemed politically wise to shape our governmental policy along the lines of “Watchful waiting” and “He kept us out of war.”

If three years ago we had begun in good faith and earnestly to prepare, and if, when the Lusitania was sunk, we had acted as precisely as we did act with no more provocation in February, last, this war would now have been over. An immense amount of bloodshed would have been spared and the danger of German militarism would have been forever averted. In such case we would have greatly developed the trained administrators and the coherent system necessary to deal wisely with the economic no less than the military features of a great war. Our refusal to prepare in advance and our fatuous acceptance of rhetorical platitudes as a substitute for preparations have resulted in our present military impotence and profound and far-reaching economic derangement. The profound business distrust, the unrest of labor, the coal famine, the congestion of traffic, and the shutting down of industries at the time when it is most important that production should be speeded to the highest point, all are due primarily to the refusal to face facts during the first two years and a half of the World War and the seething welter of inefficiency and confusion in which the policy of watchful waiting finally plunged us. Nine tenths of wisdom is being wise in time. All far-sighted patriots most earnestly hope that this Nation will learn the bitter lesson and that never again will we be caught so shamefully unprepared, spiritually, economically, and from the military standpoint as has been the case in the year that is now passing.

TELL THE TRUTH

JANUARY 21, 1918

Nearly a year has passed since, on February 3, by formally breaking relations with Germany, we reluctantly admitted that she had gone to war with us. During that year it has been incessantly insisted that it was unpatriotic under any consideration to tell an unpleasant truth or to point out a governmental shortcoming. The result has not been happy.

The famous war correspondent, Mr. Caspar Whitney, has returned from the front so that he might avoid our fatuous and sinister censorship, and tell our people the truth about our army in France. He shows that this army, which, Secretary Baker had just assured our people, was admirably equipped, in reality had no cannon or machine guns except those it had borrowed from the hard-pressed French; that there was a lamentable shortage of shoes; that the motor cars were poor; that we had no airplanes. From another source it appeared that many thousand coffins had been sent over. Our troops had no shoes, but they had plenty of coffins. Their ammunition was defective, and they had neither cannon nor auto rifles; but they had plenty of coffins.

At the same time the death of gallant Major Gardner from pneumonia called sharp attention to the evil health conditions in most of our home training camps, and the Senate investigating committee showed a really appalling slackness and inefficiency in the management of the War Department under Mr. Baker. There is no particular reason to blame Mr. Baker; he did not appoint himself; he did not seek the office. Logwood cannon and wooden auto rifles are mostly incidental features of the inevitable outcome.

All this was done in the face of repeated and explicit warnings from the best authority. Major-General Leonard Wood told the military committee of the Senate and of the House in detail about our shortcomings two years ago, and again one year ago. The Administration not only refused to remedy these shortcomings, but has spitefully punished General Wood ever since.

Criticism should be both truthful and constructive. I have told not the whole truth, but the minimum truth absolutely necessary in order that we may, before it is too late, speed up the war, and in order that we may insist on the passage of the Chamberlain Bill, so that never again may we be caught utterly and shamefully unprepared. Let us insist that the truth be told. The truth only harms weaklings. The American people wish the truth, and can stand the truth.

JUSTIFICATION OF CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM

JANUARY 28, 1918

Senator Chamberlain and his excellent committee have already seen the justification of their investigation. They have forced the appointment of Mr. Stettinius, a trained and capable expert, as head of the war supplies purchasing department. The fact that the appointment is made in order to obviate the need of following Senator Chamberlain’s more thoroughgoing programme does not alter the fact that it represents a certain advance and that this advance is primarily due to the investigation by Senator Chamberlain’s committee. It is a striking tribute to the necessity for and the good results of that investigation.

The investigation has been wholly non-partisan. It has been conducted with an eye single to the needs of the army and of our country. Senator Chamberlain is a Democrat, just as Secretary Baker is a Democrat. The committee has fearlessly exposed very grave abuses and shortcomings and has taken constructive action to remedy them. Secretary Baker’s testimony shows that, to use the language of Senator Chamberlain, the President has been misled as to the facts. His statements as to the satisfactory condition of things in the camps are not in accord with the facts. It is, of course, exceedingly difficult to get testimony from army officers because they have vividly before their eyes the signal punishment inflicted by the Administration on General Wood for fearlessly telling the truth, and those of us who have examined conditions and know how bad they are cannot give our authorities in many cases because we will not expose good officers to punishment in order to save ourselves from contradiction.

But certain vitally important facts are easily attainable. At the very time that Secretary Baker was testifying that the army had enough rifles, the governor of Mississippi in the public press on January 17 stated that he had been helpless to prevent the burning alive of a negro because the home guards had no rifles and because “there are over five hundred national guardsmen at Camp Jackson, but they are equally helpless because they have no rifles.” Many deficiencies can be covered up or their existence denied, but some cannot thus be concealed. Any one can see the wooden cannon and wooden machine guns in the training camps, every one knows that our army at the front has French cannon and French machine guns. Will not Secretary Baker state frankly when our own cannon and machine guns will be ready? After one year of war we have none. Must we wait another year before getting them? Caspar Whitney, a responsible man, has stated lamentable shortcomings of our army at the front. Will not the Secretary advise us what steps he has taken to investigate this statement and remedy the shortcomings?

The appointment of Mr. Stettinius is a good thing, but it does not represent even a half step toward bringing order out of the administrative chaos at Washington. Drastic action is needed to secure a plan providing for coördination, responsibility and efficiency, and above all, for securing the right men to administer the plan.

SECRETARY BAKER’S GENERAL DENIAL

FEBRUARY 2, 1918

Secretary Baker’s denial of any serious shortcomings in the administration of the War Department comes under several heads. Part of it is prophecy, which we all hope will turn out to be justified. Part of it is explanation or denials of facts, as to which it is easy to get first-hand information. With this part I shall deal in my next editorial. Part of it relates to allegations as to which it is almost impossible to get first-hand information except from officers whose names cannot be quoted, because this would probably entail punishment upon them. It is with this part that I now deal.

General Wood two years ago, before the congressional committee, and again one year ago, before the congressional committee, set forth in detail our unpreparedness. Every fact he stated has proved to be true and to be but a small part of the truth. Yet he has been singled out for punishment because of thus having told Congress the truth, and this although we and our allies are now paying dearly for our failure to act on the truth which he thus told. Under such conditions it is impossible to make public the names of the officers and enlisted men through whom we occasionally learn of abuses. Nevertheless, it is imperative to try to correct the abuses. If the Administration had not punished General Wood for telling the truth, the complaints would be at once laid before the department and the wrongs remedied. Under existing conditions it is imperative to call public attention to them.

A major-general informed me in October that he had one hundred rifles for twenty thousand men, and most strongly felt that these men should not have been brought to the camp until the hospitals, barracks, heating arrangements, clothes, and arms were ready for them. Another major-general told me, in explanation of the shortage of supplies abroad, that one shipload of big coast defense guns had to be returned because when they reached France it was discovered that there were no carriages for them. Hundreds of officers and non-commissioned officers have told me of lack of overcoats, of winter under-clothing, of heavy socks. One quartermaster, being unable otherwise to get woolen gloves for the men in cold weather, finally got them from the Red Cross and was officially reprimanded for so doing. Two officers informed me that when in France there was a shortage of shoes. They were told it was due to a shipment of coffins, one being told that they were not regular coffins, but boxes containing grave-clothes. The newspaper correspondents repeatedly have told of the shortage of shoes, one recent statement being that a shipment of clay pigeons, not coffins, was sent over, while Mr. Caspar Whitney recites that the surplusage was a large shipment of hospital cots. At any rate, the shortage of shoes is unquestioned, whether their places were taken by coffins, clay pigeons, or hospital cots. A leading New York business man has just written me of the complete lack of hospital and medical facilities in one camp. The superintendent of a Bible teachers’ training school writes that his son volunteered, leaving a wife and two little children; that his pay was over a month in arrears, and that at Christmas time he wrote as follows:

We have not yet received our November pay. At this time of the year the boys don’t want it for themselves; they want to send some little thing home to their mothers or wives or sweethearts, and in lots of cases to their children, to whom just a little something from daddy means so much. Yet even that little pleasure is denied us. Can you not bring this to the attention of the people who are supporting this Government?

I have received many hundreds such appeals. To give the names of the writers would insure their punishment. To pay no heed to their appeals means that the abuses go unremedied. Doubtless an occasional informant is in error in his statement. But Senator Chamberlain’s speech and the testimony taken before his committee prove that the important statements I have made during the last few months as to the shortcomings in our army have been more than warranted by the facts.

LET GEORGE SPEED UP THE WAR

FEBRUARY 3, 1918

In my last editorial I spoke of the things of which Secretary Baker explicitly or implicitly denies the existence, in justifying the Administration for the military delay and shortcomings that have marked our entry into war. But as to the major facts there is no room for denial. As to these Secretary Baker falls back on the comfortable doctrine that all our shortcomings are of no consequence because they are made good anyhow by the efforts of our allies--who, by the way, with preposterous silliness, are in official circles merely termed our associates. Secretary Baker explains that, although our forces in France have no field artillery or auto rifles, this is of no consequence because the French love to give us artillery and auto rifles. He explains that the greatest German offensive movement of the war is about to take place, an offensive movement which, if successful, means that we have lost the war, and he adds that we can trust England and France to repel this offensive. This is a naked statement that we are to let George do it. We are to announce that after being at war just a year our delays have been so great that we are almost negligible in the military sense and that we must trust to our allies to speed up the war.

This verifies the prediction of von Hindenburg and von Tirpitz that it would take us eighteen months to become a real factor in the war. Americans laughed at this statement, but the ruthless and brutal and intelligent Germans were right and our own soft sentimentalities were their efficient allies. We are in the position of letting George speed up the war. Are the citizens of a proud and high-spirited Nation to be content with such a position?

Our major shortcomings can neither be concealed nor denied. In October I personally saw thousands of infantrymen drilling with sticks. In December, I still saw artillerymen with sticks instead of rifles. A month ago most of the cannon in the national army camps, which I saw, were made of logs or of sections of telegraph poles and all the machine guns I saw were wooden dummies. The daily press has repeatedly published photos of these wooden rifles, cannon, and machine guns. Secretary Baker cannot deny this nor can he deny that in modern war an army without artillery is helpless. We are now getting a small number of machine guns. We are turning some heavy coast guns into field artillery, but as yet gallant General Pershing and his gallant men in France have to trust to the French for artillery and machine guns and war planes, and, thanks to our dawdling and indecision, we have an utterly insufficient number of cargo ships.

We have been at war for a year. In April Congress stated that Germany had already committed repeated acts of war against us and that our own declaration of war was formal. It was then too late to undo the criminal mischief caused by our refusal to prepare during the preceding two and a half years, but we aggravated the damage immensely by our delays and follies. If we had exercised reasonable energy we would in six months have achieved more than we have actually achieved in a year. The least we can do now is to speed up the war ourselves. Let us insist that this be the end toward which with all our energy we now strive.

LET UNCLE SAM GET INTO THE GAME

FEBRUARY 5, 1918

No one can tell how long this war will last. It may last three years more, and we should prepare accordingly. But it may close this year, and it is unpardonable of us not to act with such speed as to make our help available in substantial form at once. Uncle Sam must not be put in the position of the sub, who only gets into the game just before the whistle blows. Above all, he must not so act as to rouse suspicion that this attitude is due to deliberate shirking on his part.

The prime aid in getting Uncle Sam into the game has come from the men who, in order to achieve this object, have truthfully set forth the unpleasant facts about our delay, military inefficiency, and total unpreparedness. The critics of these men have been either unwise or insincere. The most fatuous form of objection to such truth-telling is the assertion that it tends to prolong the war. It is the only thing that will shorten the war. Suppression of the truth as the habitual governmental policy has been successful in preventing our people from realizing our mistakes and even more successful in preventing their remedy.

An excellent example of this policy of falsehood is furnished in a letter from a news agency offering to various newspapers cartoons assailing me because I had “criticized our unpreparedness and urged an immediate movement toward universal obligatory military training,” the cartoonist saying that I had said that I had seen artillerymen drilling with “wooden guns made from pieces of telegraph poles.” The writer admitted this, but stated that “these wooden imitations were as efficient for the purposes of learning as the real guns.” I suppose that this particular Champion of military inefficiency would believe that a rifle team could train for a championship match with dummy rifles of wood.

Every important criticism made of our military unpreparedness and inefficiency during the past six months, and indeed during the preceding three years, has been proved true and in no case has there been correction of the abuse until it was exposed. General Pershing has just written home a scathing indictment of the military shortcomings of our higher officers abroad. This is after we have been at war a year, and it is directly due to the character of both the civilian and the military control that has been exercised from the swivel chairs of the War Department during this year.

Our duty is solely to the country and to every official high or low precisely to the extent to which he loyally, disinterestedly, and efficiently serves the country. Let us get behind the United States. Let us think only of our patriotic duty. I care not a rap for politics at such a time as this. I supported Senator Chamberlain, my political and to some extent my personal opponent in the past, because on the great issue now up he served the country. I supported General Crowder, of whose politics I know nothing and care less, because he served the country. Stand behind America.

CONSERVATION IS IMPORTANT AND PRODUCTION IS MORE IMPORTANT

FEBRUARY 15, 1918

It is very important that we should conserve many things, but especially food. It is, however, very much more important that we shall produce the food in order to conserve it. The governmental attitude toward production during the past year has been, at points, very unwise. There has not only been failure to encourage producing the one thing vitally necessary to this Nation at this time, but there has been at times, by unwise price-fixing, a direct discouragement of producing.

We have suffered severely during this winter because of this attitude in the matter of coal production. One of the factors in producing the misery and discomfort, especially among people of limited means during the severe weather of the last few months, was the improperly low price rate established last summer, and the uncertain and contradictory attitude of the Government on the question of coal production.

But important though all production is, the production of food, the production which we owe to the farmer, is the most important of all. This country needs more food. Its allies need more food. Only the farmer can give the food. It is nonsense to expect him to produce it unless he can make his livelihood by so doing. The farmer is thoroughly patriotic; he stands ready now as he has stood ready in every crisis of the Nation, pledged to do his full duty, and a little more than his duty. But he makes his livelihood by producing what is essential to the livelihood of the rest of us. He cannot produce unless he makes his livelihood. Not a step should be taken that interferes with his welfare, save after such wise and cautious inquiry as to make us certain that the step is necessary.

We should do whatever is necessary to help the farmer produce the maximum of food at this time. Moreover, every step we take should be conditioned upon securing the farmer’s permanent well-being. The city man is often utterly ignorant of the work and of the needs of the man who lives in the open country. The working-man and the business man who growl about one another are a little apt to join in growling about the farmer. The city Socialist is more utterly ignorant of the farmer than any other human being. Last fall the Socialist campaign in New York had for one of its battle cries the announcement that they intended to make the farmer give them five-cent milk. Apparently the detail that the farmer had to feed the cows and take care of them struck them as unworthy of notice.