SOFTENING OF THE BRAIN

Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, said in his recent speech at the Union, "There are two kinds of Americans--the soft-headed pacifists and the hard-headed peace lovers." The soft-headed pacifists cost us many a groan and not a few groats in the last war. If we had been a little better prepared, we could have saved millions in men and money by ending the war a year sooner than we did.

Soft heads are much commoner than hard ones, even today. They seem to have learned nothing from the war. They are now proclaiming that the way to prevent war is for us to disarm--not necessarily concurrently with the other nations, but alone, as an example for the other nations to follow. Since this chimerical statement by itself is not enough to soften the skulls of most Americans, its advocates resort to another more potent argument. They say that disarmament will reduce taxes, will put money into the pockets of us all; and under the melting influence of this argument, American skulls are softened by the million, and we plunge blindly into measures to reduce our taxes, fooling ourselves all the time with the high-sounding generality that we are forwarding the cause of peace among mankind.

The excellent army program, adopted as a result of the war's experience, has been reduced to uselessness by the entirly inadequate appropriations of Congress. Even the National Guard and the Reserve Corps have been greatly impaired by this so-called economy. The navy is in much the same plight. Its personnel has been so reduced that it has to send its ships to the "graveyard" for de-commissioned vessels. On October 21, twelve destroyers, representing the 12th and 37th divisions, just returned from two years of patrol duty on the China coast, were added to the twenty-two vessels already in the "graveyard" at San Diego bay, representing in all a total cost of construction of $126,000,000.

Unforeseen contingencies are continually arising at present, in which the American public expects firm action on the part of its government; witness the recent Turkish crisis. However, the government is in no position to make any demands if it has neither men nor ships to give them weight. It cannot even go very far in the protection of American lives and property.

Today, the birthday of the late Theodore Roosevelt, has been set apart for the celebration of Navy Day--a day consecrated to the memory of those who have served the navy since the days of John Paul Jones, of the men who served at sea during the last war, a day devoted to furthering the work of those "hard-headed peace lovers", who alone see clearly that unreasoning disarmament pushed too far is worse than no disarmament at all. Penny-saving economy in army and navy affairs will only be possible when the fever which still holds the world after its recent illness has cooled down once and for all.