Life — October 29, 1914 — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

OCTOBER %, 1916 ‘* While there is Life there's Hope"* Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY J. A. Mircnett, Pres’t. A. Mittee, Sec'y and Treas, 17 West Thirty-first Street, New York English Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs., London, E. C. E all saw the Ger- man army march to Paris. We saw Liége fall, and since then we have watched the capture of Antwerp, We have stood by attentive while German submarines have sunk five British cruisers. We have also seen the German attacking force driven back from the Marne to the Aisne by the French and British forces, and German commerce chased from the seas by the British navy. We have been duly attentive to all these spec- tacles, and unless we are very, very stupid, we must have acquired some new and definite realizations about modern war. Chief among them may well be the conviction that if we were to choose from the animal kingdom the creature that best exemplifies our relative condition among powerful na- tions, we would have to remove our good old eagle from our country’s seal and coins and substitute for him the soft-shell crab. Considering what we are and what we have got, we are, next to China, the most defenseless considerable peo- ple on the crust. Only our modest navy impairs our claim to be the Pie of the Nations, To be sure, we are too big to be conquered by any sudden dash, and have in us, besides, enor- mous potentialities of defense or aggression. To be sure, too, we are so pacific and so little ambitious to take anything from anybody and so isolated that we can safely go much lighter armed and less protected than any other great country. But we seem to have leaned too hard on isolation and our pacific reputation. This war that we have been watching has shown us that our coast defenses are probably out of date; that, in proportion to our responsibilities, our navy is smafl and insufficiently equipped, and that our little skeleton army needs more meat on its poor bones. Everyone who is interested in our equipment for war knows that it is conspicuously incomplete. No one knows it better than Europe and Japan. Mexico at our back door is a big bundle of disorders and anxieties. Our temporary tenure of Vera Cruz was threatened last week by some un- easy Mexican bandit, and may be threatened again to-morrow. What our duty to Mexico may come to be we do not know, but if our hopes should be disappointed and we should yet have to intervene, our whole mili- tary force in being would not be enough for the job. are pacific, but we undertake some duties which imply main- tenance of a moderately competent apparatus of force. The Monroe Doc- trine, that is part of our accepted for- eign policy, is maintained not so much by us as by the navy of England. We see Germany, her vast efficiency in military matters and the curious ob- sessions and aspirations to which the minds that control her are subject. We know that Germany has yearnings that conflict. with our continental policy, and that what chiefly stands be- tween them and us is England, now fighting for her life. We don’t think England will be conquered, but if she should be, what have we got to back up such an answer as we should wish to make.to a proposal from Germany that she should be allowed to improve the culture of Mexico or South Brazil? And there is Japan, whom we love considerably, and who, we doubt not, is fond of us, but who will think no less kindly of us for having due shot in our lockers, and being not only polite and considerate, but able-bodied. RE we not rather too short of munitions of war? Recent events have demonstrated that we are living on the same planet with nations whose supreme desire is to knock the heads off of one another, and who, just now, have subverted all their other business to the accomplishment of that purpose. What this world will be like, or who will be boss in it, when present activities terminate we cannot guess. What aims the con- querors will have or what means to accomplish them we cannot tell, but in a world so mad as this, plunging to conditions which cannot be foreseen, would it not be wise for us to add a little to our means of self-protec- tion? It takes three years to build a battle- ship. They say it takes a year to make a torpedo. It takes six months, at least, to make even an experimental soldier, and very much longer to make even an experimental sailor. We do not want to be a military nation, but we should not be too slack about mili- tary preparation. Had we not better take, quietly but promptly, our little dose of the medicine which is being passed out in such vast quantities to Europe? Our situation has changed violently in three months. We ought to do something about it, and do it at once. The time is at hand when we shall have to take care of ourselves and may be called upon to protect some of our neighbors. Should we not qualify ourselves betimes for these duties? We are having a tremendous lesson in human history, from which, comicbooks.com