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Why Preparedness is an Insurance Againg
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By Mr. Hudson Maxim
Military Expert and lnventor of the Famous Maxim Guns and
High Explosives
E world is aflame and the conflagration that is consuming
I Europe is & menace to us, and we should not lose a mo
' ment in taking adequate meashres of insurance.
We have already delayed too long. It will take us at least
Bve years to raise, traln, equip and officer an army of a million
men, and it will take longer for us to build, man and officer an
adequate navy
Some time ago a woman in New Jersey rushed into an insur
ance office and called for an insurance policy in a hurry, stating
that her house was on fire and she wanted to get insured as
Qitlckly as possible,
It 18 no time to seek Insurance after a conflagration has
broken out.
When | was a young man teaching school in Maine, a large
village in the township where | was engaged took fire one day
and burned down. The town had made no preparation at all to
safeguard against fire. The inhabitants were a close-fisted and
economical lot, and believed that a fire engine would be a useless
extravagance One day, however, a house caught fire on the north
west edge of the town, and as there was a strong northwest wind
nothing could be done to save the village. The only building left
was a Methodist Church,
The first thing that the people did after the fire was to meet
in the church and vote for an equipment for fighting fire.
When the conflagration of war comes, however, not only the
people’s houses are destroyed, but the people also.
That New England village of wooden houses, inflammable as
tinder, had stood for many years. Some of the houses were bullt
in Washington's time, and were as old as the nation. Consequently,
the fire haters did not belleve in conflagrations, and, believing
that conflagrations were a bad thing, did not want to incite them
with any fire-extinguishing equipment, and argued that whereas
the village had stood so long, and all fires that had occurred had
been put out with buckets and stepladders, there was no need of
any fire engine.
Thelr argument was exactly the same as that of the pacifists
who to-day argue against preparedness on the ground that war is
s bad thing, and should not be encouraged by preparations to ex
tinguish it—that we have heretofore extinguished our wars witha
ducket brigade, and that a bucket brigade Is good enough to de
pend upon in future.
‘What is likely to happen to ns is exactly what happened to
Tat village. We.shall be destroyed by the conflagration of war,
#nd’ then we shall acquire the wisdom that we ought to have now
%o take immediate action to prepare the country against any war
after that.
1 said 4n my book “Defenceless America” that pacifism has
¥mged the nose of the American people and is leading them blind
and unknowing to slaughter, and that nothing can now rouse
them sufficiently to take the necessary measures for thelr de-
Sense—that they oould not now de roused by a call that would
pift the sky end shake down the stars from heaven.
It would be folly to insure against war if there is no danger
«f war, but if there is danger of war then our need for insurance
$s as great as is the danger.
This country. as a matter of fact, is in great peril, and our
wperil {8 as actual .as is our weakness, in comparison with the
strength of other natiops. We are the wealthiest of the great
pations of the world and the weakest.
There is no other lesson that history has taught us as surely
s that a nation that is both wealthy and weak Is an enticement
to predatory nations, exactly in proportion to ‘its wealth and de
senselessness, and that predatory nations have never had any
scruples about ylelding to the enticement.
Recently, when I was in the Middle West, talking on our needs
for preparedness, an eminent judge in Kansas City said that Uncle
Sam is exactly in the position of a man who has made a iarge for
tune for the enjoyment of his family, and who has no strong box
to keep his money in; and who, notwitbstanding he lives .n a
burglar-infested district, has no locks on his doors.
Another gentleman out there gave me this simile: The wealth
of America is like a big, ripe, luscious pear hanging over the gar
den wall, with a lot of hungry boys with stepladders on the out
side.
When the present European war is over the wealth of the
United States will look Juscious to the belligerent nations.
New York, the metropolis of the Western world, located as it
4s on the seaboard and entirely without adequate defenses, is of
jtself enticement enough to bring war upon us.
We may put all international ethics out of our mind as belng
any safeguard. There is only one condition worth considering,
and it 18 whether or not what we have is worth the taking. After
the European war is over, if it shall appear that the plunder will
greatly exceed the cost of plundering, then we are absolutely cer
tain of being plundered.
We should have been plundered long ago by one of the Euvo
pean nations if they had not been so busy watching one another;
but after this war is over, if it should happen that the balance of
power in Europe be broken, then one of the great powers will
come after us.
We shall be whipped, and shall be obliged to ransom our
selves at a cost so stupendous as to make tha cost of adequate
preparedness as a measure of insurance look. very small.
The question is often raised by the pacifists, where does
adequate preparedness end? If we arm, then other nations will
arm-all the wore, and then we shall be reguired (0 (ake-on & still
Mr. Maxim umnmfhoraa Hostile Invasion
Which Would Sacrifice His Wife to the Mercies of the
Invaders. At This Moment the United States Mas
Neither the Ships nor the Artillery nor the
Wen to Save Itself from Precisely
What Happened in Belgium
larger burden to hold our position with respect to the other
nations, and there will never be an end to it
When we look at this sophistry of the pacifists, we are in
clined to think that there is some reason in thelr argument, but
on second thought we see that their contention is very {llogical.
There is a definite limit to the amount any nation should pre
pare In order to make itself perfectly safe. Nations do not go into
m a 8
-‘.llm';_ 1,500 45
VR 'Qs./
Japae, 1,250
England, 1,000
France, 4,000
. SO
RS United Srates, 634
Mr. Maxim's Striking Diagram Showing the Compara
tive Artillery Strength of the United
States and Other Nations
the business of war except for profit, any more than business men
enter business without prospective profit. No man will go into &
business knowing beforehand that he is going to lose money in the
enterprise. Similarly, no nation will go to war with another
nation unless the prospective plunder is likely greatly to exceed
the cost of plundering.
1n anclent times, before the invention of firearms, all na
tions were bandits. The only honorable business was war. Al
industries were beneath the dignity of soldiers, and were oon
ducted by slaves and women.
Women at that time were looked upon as chattels. War in
demnities were frequently pald, at least in part, with pretty
women. When it was desirable to make a very pleasing present
to some dangerous potentate the gift was generally a pretty
woman. A very large amount of the plunder of war in those days
was pretty women. It was then very easy to pre-judge whether
or not a marauding expedition were likely to be successful. Sue
cess then mainly depended upon power of numbers, military train
ing and personal courage. Fighting them was mainly done by
band, and it was a very simple proposition.
When & country was threatened with invasion the entire male
population was called upon to defend it, and if the army fell, the
nation fell. The entire population was either slaughtered or re
duced to a candition of slavery,
The industries of a country then played but a small part in
warfare. To-day, however, the industries are the main thing. It
{s much more important now to mobilize the industries of a coun
try than it is to mobilize its armies, for the reason that to-day most
of the fighting is done by machinery, and to furnish and feed this
fighting machinery it is necessary that nine-tenths of the male
population should remain at home engaged in peaceful pursuits.
Consequenty, the cost of conducting war to-day is enormously
greater than it used to be. In old days armies used to get to
gether in some convenient fleld and hew each other to pleces. The
slaughter was frightful, but they got action, and decisive results.
There was not much watchful waiting about it. One side or the
other was Immediately exterminated. Any surviving remnants
were part of the plunder and were sold as slaves.
It costs a lot less to kill a man with a spear or a sword than
it does to shoot him, especially now-a-days, when armies fight so
far apart and so many shots are wasted for every man killed. It
bas been estimated that thousands of rifie-balls are fired for
every man killed, to say nothing of the enormous quantity of large
projectiles thrown from the cannon.
I, S. Bloch, the great economic writer, whose book, “The
Future of War,” caused the Czar of Russia to call upon the na
tions of the world to consider the subject of disarming, claimed
that the economic value of the average soldier is about SI,OOO. It
has been estimated that it costs SIO,OOO apiece to kill soldiers in
modern battle.
Assuming that the cost of conducting the European war was
$10,000,000,000 during the period in which the first million men
were killed, which does not seem far out of the way, then it ac
tually cost SIO,OOO apiece to kill the first millfon men,
In olden times I presume that they were able to kill men for
fifty cents aplece. I do not presume it cost more than fifty
cents apiece for the Romans to slay the Teutons and Cimbri who
invaded Rome and were exterminated by Marius.
1t costs from $2,000 to $3,000 per shot to fire some of the big
cannon used in the present wan when the cost of>wegr and tear
Myr. Hudson Maxim, the Military Expert and Distinguished
Out That War Is a Business Proposition---That Ameri
Defenceless, Will Be the Probable Prey of One of th
Now Busy in the European Conflict---And Shows
Small Expense of Hostile Men and Ships, an Enemy
| Quickly Wring Billions of Tribute %" United St
Mr. Hudson
Maxim,
the Military
Strategist,
Working Out
Problems of Chess
With His Wife
of the gun and equipment is taken into consideration, in addition
to the cost of the ammunition.
“The cost to-day to either side in dislodging the soldiers from
the trenches of the other side or in killing them is perfectly
astounding. It is sald that the Germans in one battle fired upon
the Russian positions 250,000 shells in a little over an hour. Some
of the big high expiosive shells, at the present price of the ex
plosive, must cost SSOO each, while the three-inch shrapme! cost
sls to S2O each.
The ost of conducting present warfare is so frightful that
many economists have, during the past twenty-five years, declared
that wars would no longer be possible. 1. S. Bloch said there would
never be another great war, because of the stupendoug cost of
conducting it, but he made a mistake, because he greatly exagger
ated that cost. His estimate was at least ten times too much,
while his estimate for the loss of life was also ten times too great.
If the financial cost from the loss of life had been actually as
great as 1. 8. Bloch thought it would be, the present European
war would not have occurred, and his prophecy would have come
true. The game would not have been worth the candle.
One of the best {llustrations of the truth that adequacy of
preparedness means preparedness up to the point where the
plunder does ot warrant the expense of plundering, is afforded
by the experience of the Swiss just after the Franco-Prussian war,
Bismarck, after that war, looked with covetous eyes upon the
Swiss fastnesses, and he straightway planned to take possession
of Switzerland and bring it into the German empire. But the
Swiss at that time had a hundred thousand of the best-armed,
best-trained soldiers in the world, and a goodly number besides
not quite up to their standard. They marched this hundred thou
sand men down to the frontier, and Bismarck was convinced that
:b:“c;‘ouolutm Sflmrlnd!mldho-onanu would be
w o
We have a long coast-line, and there are a large number of
Russia, 1,200,000
D ). 0,00 \ .
England —Dreadnoughts, 46
2 Germany— Dreadnoughts, 28
‘wited States, 93,016 i :
- Gog S " Unitea States— Dreadnoughts, 15
Relative Strength of Regular Armies
on Peace Footing
big cities right on the water. These
cities today are practically defence
less should our navy be destroyed.
It would not be a costly affair at all
for an enemy with a more powerful
navy than ours to come overseas and
capture not only New York and Bos
ton, but also the entire Atlantic sea
board east of the Alleghanies.
Never was there such a rich
prize so unprotected. Never was
;fiere such ;n inducement to inva
sion ‘and plunder as we are offering at the present time. Our
coast fortifications are merely harbor defences, and they are
very inadequate.
As I polnted out in my book, “Defenseless America,” the guns
in the fortifications of New York harbor have a much shorter
range than some of the big guns in European navies. For ex
ample, the guns of the Queen Elizabeth have a range four miles
greater. A battleship of the Queen Elizabeth type could lie off
Sandy Hook, beyond the range of the guns of Forts Hamilton and
Wadsworth, and destroy both those forts, and it could bombard
New York City as high up as Twenty-third street.
But that 1s not what the enemy would do. If we had a very
large army and a very small fleet he might do that, but as it is,
if our fleet were to be destroyed by an enemy the enemy would not
need to fear our army at all. We should not be able to oppose
more than a tenth as many men to the enemy as the enemy would
be able to bring against us within a period of from three weeks
to a month. Our insignificant army would not make a ripple in
the enemy's advance.
We have about forty-six thousand regular troops available.
Sixteen thousand of these would be required for the coast fortl
fications, leaving a balance of about thirty thousand men to op
pose the enemy. We might add a sufficient number of our militia
to bring it up to-one hundred thousand, but it we were as slow
about our mobilization as we were during the Spanish war the
enemy would capture the Atlantic seaboard months before we
would have our army ready.
Assuming, however, that we could get together an army’ of
one hundred thousand men in time to face the enemy, the enemy
would be able to land a mfillion men on our shores by the time we
got the one hundred thousand ready to face them.
‘But the enemy would not need any million men for the en
terprise. He would need only a comparatively small number, for
the reason that the troops of the enemy would be 30 much better
equipped. Their fleld guns would outrange us at every point,-and
we should be entirely unable to get near enough to them to inflict
any injury, while they could blow us out of our trenches without
the loss of & man.
o
We have just one 16-inch gun and no 18inch howitzers L
throwing high explosive projectiles. The biggest we have are &
inch. And even though we did have guns of range and size equal
to those of the enemy we have no ammunition to feed them, and &
would take many months to make it. -
We have, perhaps, 500 machine guns. I doubt if we have
many as that In working shape; but, assuming that we had
many as one thousand, or that we might get that number ready i
time to face the enemy, the enemy certalnly would como at ws
with ten times as many. Germany had a hundred times as -&y
when the European war broke out.
These guns fire 600 shots a minute Ten thousand of them
would be able to fire 6,000,000 shots a minute. What could our
poor hundred thousand troops do, facing such a sterm of fire as
that? As I have sald before, our army would pot make even one
good day's killing. ‘
Well, what would the result be® It is easy to foresee. Our
troops would be driven back. The entire Atlantic seaboard wou'd
be captured, and our coast cities would be placed under the m
den of an enormous ransom. They would be forced to pay
last dollar that could be wrung out of them mude
” Alarie said to the Romans when he surrounded the Eternal
City that they must give up a!l except their lives, and that If e
spared their lives they should be thankful. When the negotiaton
suggested that there were still a large number of Romans under
am-‘ be sald, “Very good, the thicker the grass the quicker the
mowing.”
lr"wo were to raise a million, two million, five million troops
to face the enemy he would be able to say, like Alarie, “The
thicker the grass the quicker the mowing,” for our troops would
be practically defenseless, and to lead them- against the enegny
would be downright murder, and we should be the gullty parties.
It would surely cost us at least ten billions of dollars to ras
som ourselves, and it would not cost the enemy a billion dollars to
get that ten billions, consequently, the enemy would be able 1o
)
France—Dreadnoughts, 12 Russia—Dreadnoughts, 11
Japan—Dreadnoughts, 10— Battle Cruisers, 2 Italy—Dreadnoughts, 10 1
|
Battleship Strength of the Nations |
(These diagrams are from Hudson Maxim’s new book, “Defenceless ]
America,” published by Hearst's International Library (‘.orfipany) ‘
;
more than ten billions of dollars to do it, while the damage 10
American property in the war zone would be another ten billion
dollars, and it would cost at least the lives of a million of the
young men of America, the flower of the country. Ninety per
cent of our works for the manufacture of war munitions wow
be within the area captured by the enemy. It would be uph
work for us to make enough munitions to dislodge the enem;.
The enemy would immediately set all our American arti
the captured area to work making guns and ammunition
in killing American citizens farther West who should try (o
recapture the conquered area. )
There have been many predictions published about the ter
rible devastation which would be wrought by Zeppelins and
aeroplanes should this country be invaded.
It is true that the country would suffer from the depredations
of aerial raiders, but those raids would not be made upon Nev
York or upon any of the Atlantic coast cities, The enemy would
not waste ammunition for nothing. There would be absolutely n
need of such attacks, for all of the cities on the Atlantic seaboard
could be taken almost without a struggle. The enemy would be
able to make a landing anywhere along our shore that it might
choose, and merely march right into our big cities.
After the entire country had been captured east of the A!le
ghanies then the enemy would probably make aerial raid§ o!
places further inland.
Look at it any way we will, if war should come upon us in ov
present condition of defenselessness it would be a national calam
ity, and one which would not only cause us infinite humiliations
mdl distress, but also would cost us more than twenty billions 0
dollars. . i
Now, how much would it cost us to insure against all this
trouble? It is my opinion that the expenditure of a billion dol
lars would do it, if wisely expended and with good speed. I mea
to say, a billion dollars more than we are now spending. If W
were to add a billion dollars to our appropriations for the army
and navy during the next two years—five hundred millions a #ar
—we would get a pretty good start. I do not.know that thagh
would be enough. ;
But the question of cost should not enter into our considers
tions for one moment. Whether it should cost one billion or ten
billions does not matter in the least. It is our supreme duty to get
ready to defend ourselyes, and adequately ready, and nothins
make a profit of nine billions with
the investment of onme billlon. Nt
would be good business.
But let us assume that the coun
try would be aroused after invasion
—that the people would rise up &
one man, and with but one vol
that of “Woe to the enemy;” and
us assume that we should in
be able to ralse an army and
equlp it with arms and ammuni
as to be able to drive the ene
from our shores. It would cost
Battle Cruisers, 9 '
"'B/z“lflir Cruisers, 5 l