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Page 32
That the United States does not now share this tendency is entirely
evident. Neither her government nor her people are affected by it to
any great extent. But the force of circumstances has imposed upon her
the necessity, recognized with practical unanimity by her people, of
insuring to the weaker states of America, although of racial and
political antecedents different from her own, freedom to develop
politically along their own lines and according to their own
capacities, without interference in that respect from governments
foreign to these continents. The duty is self-assumed; and resting, as
it does, not upon political philanthropy, but simply upon our own
proximate interests as affected by such foreign interference, has
towards others rather the nature of a right than a duty. But, from
either point of view, the facility with which the claim has been
allowed heretofore by the great powers has been due partly to the lack
of pressing importance in the questions that have arisen, and partly
to the great latent strength of our nation, which was an argument more
than adequate to support contentions involving matters of no greater
immediate moment, for example, than that of the Honduras Bay Islands
or of the Mosquito Coast. Great Britain there yielded, it is true,
though reluctantly and slowly; and it is also true that, so far as
organized force is concerned, she could have destroyed our navy then
existing and otherwise have injured us greatly; but the substantial
importance of the question, though real, was remote in the future,
and, as it was, she made a political bargain which was more to her
advantage than ours. But while our claim thus far has received a tacit
acquiescence, it remains to be seen whether it will continue to
command the same if the states whose political freedom of action we
assert make no more decided advance towards political stability than
several of them have done yet, and if our own organized naval force
remains as slender, comparatively, as it once was, and even yet is. It
is probably safe to say that an undertaking like that of Great Britain
in Egypt, if attempted in this hemisphere by a non-American state,
would not be tolerated by us if able to prevent it; but it is
conceivable that the moral force of our contention might be weakened,
in the view of an opponent, by attendant circumstances, in which case
our physical power to support it should be open to no doubt.
That we shall seek to secure the peaceable solution of each difficulty
as it arises is attested by our whole history, and by the disposition
of our people; but to do so, whatever the steps taken in any
particular case, will bring us into new political relations and may
entail serious disputes with other states. In maintaining the justest
policy, the most reasonable influence, one of the political elements,
long dominant, and still one of the most essential, is military
strength--in the broad sense of the word "military," which includes
naval as well--not merely potential, which our own is, but organized
and developed, which our own as yet is not. We wisely quote
Washington's warning against entangling alliances, but too readily
forget his teaching about preparation for war. The progress of the
world from age to age, in its ever-changing manifestations, is a great
political drama, possessing a unity, doubtless, in its general
development, but in which, as act follows act, one situation alone can
engage, at one time, the attention of the actors. Of this drama war is
simply a violent and tumultuous political incident. A navy, therefore,
whose primary sphere of action is war, is, in the last analysis and
from the least misleading point of view, a political factor of the
utmost importance in international affairs, one more often deterrent
than irritant. It is in that light, according to the conditions of the
age and of the nation, that it asks and deserves the appreciation of
the state, and that it should be developed in proportion to the
reasonable possibilities of the political future.
PREPAREDNESS FOR NAVAL WAR.
_December, 1896._
The problem of preparation for war in modern times is both extensive
and complicated. As in the construction of the individual ship, where
the attempt to reconcile conflicting requirements has resulted,
according to a common expression, in a compromise, the most dubious of
all military solutions,--giving something to all, and all to none,--so
preparation for war involves many conditions, often contradictory one
to another, at times almost irreconcilable. To satisfy all of these
passes the ingenuity of the national Treasury, powerless to give the
whole of what is demanded by the representatives of the different
elements, which, in duly ordered proportion, constitute a complete
scheme of national military policy, whether for offence or defence.
Unable to satisfy all, and too often equally unable to say, frankly,
"This one is chief; to it you others must yield, except so far as you
contribute to its greatest efficiency," either the pendulum of the
government's will swings from one extreme to the other, or, in the
attempt to be fair all round, all alike receive less than they ask,
and for their theoretical completeness require. In other words, the
contents of the national purse are distributed, instead of being
concentrated upon a leading conception, adopted after due
deliberation, and maintained with conviction.
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