The Calhoun Chronicle

What Makes Peace.

A recent issue of the Kansas City World contained a strong editorial in reply to President Roosevelt's assertion that a large army and navy are guarantees of peace. It is worthy of perusal:

President Roosevelt agrees with his brother, William of Germany, that the best way to be insured against war is to be prepared for it. In his speech at the New York Chamber of Commerce banquet he put this plainly:

The voice of the weakling or the craven counts for nothing when he clamors for peace, but the voice of the just man armed is potent. We need to keep in a condition of preparedness, especially as regards our navy not because we want war, but because we desire to stand with those whose plea for peace is listened to with respectful attention.

This is a specious theory that did not originate with Roosevelt or with out question.

If it is true that the nations that have kept the largest armies ought to have the best records for undisputed peace. But history tells a widely different tale. The great armies of the world in all time which have been kept ready for war have seldom failed to find it.

It is the nations that have kept their people in industrial pursuits and have quietly gone on about their own business which have found most peace.

Nations, being made up of individuals and controlled by the human nature of individuals, are very much like individuals in this as in many other respects.

Who is the more likely to be found brawling - the big bully who goes about with a revolver in his pocket and a chip on his shoulder, or the quiet, unarmed man who inoffensively proceeds about his own affairs?

Which one does the policeman keep his eye on, expecting trouble?

Which one does the man or woman or child, desiring peace, look upon with distrust and fear?

"The strong man armed" has his proper place, but it is not in a peaceful community. He is not conducive to a peaceful atmosphere. He is a constant menace and challenge.

There may be nations where military power, and security of government even, lie in a great military force.

But this nation of ours is not among these. The military power of the United States lies, not in a great army and great navy, but in a great people.

Prosperity and patriotism, called suddenly to arms from the fields, the shops and the loved ones at home, in defence of country, makes a better moral than can be drilled into an army through a thousand years of discipline.

What makes the power of the nation, respected the world over and would make it invincible in war, is not our file of soldiers, or our fleets of battle ships, fine as they are, but the enthuse loyalty and the infinite capacity of the men of America in the fields and factories and offices and marts, who at a moment's call may be turned into an army as irresistible in war as it is in industry.