GIRD UP OUR LOINS
March 16, 1918
The Bible warns us to gird up our loins if we wish to win a race. Most certainly we cannot expect to do well in the present struggle unless we bend everyenergy to the task and exercise all our forethought in instant preparation.
Russia’s betrayal of the Allied cause under the foolish and iniquitous lead of the Bolsheviki has been a betrayal of the United States and of the cause of liberty and democracy and justice throughout the world. Above all, it has been a betrayal of Russia herself, and it has, of course, absolved us of every obligation to her. Our duty is to stand by England and France and Belgium and Serbia, who have stood by us. Russia has ruined herself in Germany’s interest, and has immensely increased the peril for the rest of us. This simply means that we ought to re-double our effort. We should be building the cargo ships in three eight-hour shift days and should treat work on them as being equivalent to work in the army. We should speed to the utmost the work on the cannon and flying machines so that our army may cease having to rely on the French for artillery and airplanes. The army should copy the wisdom of the navy in regard to the Lewis auto rifle and should use this weapon to the utmost limit now, even although it prove wise later to supersede it with the Browning weapon.
We ought at once to introduce obligatory universal military training for our young men between nineteen and twenty-one. They would not be sent to war until they were twenty-one. This would be the most effective step in preparing to get ready an army of five million men. Such an army would be relatively no larger than the four hundred thousandmen which gallant Canada, to her eternal honor, has already raised. Let us begin now to prepare ourselves for a three years’ war.
If we had prepared as we ought to have done during the two and a half years before we at last reluctantly faced our duty and went to war, we would have put a couple of million of fighting men into Europe last June. Russia would never have broken, and in all probability the war would have ended at once with almost no fighting. There is no use in crying over the enormous quantities of milk we have already spilled, unless it becomes necessary in order to prevent us from continuing to spill it in the present and future. Failure to prepare as above outlined may cause us as much trouble in the future as our past failure to prepare has already caused us. General Pershing’s gallant little army has already made the entire United States its debtor. But it is not as yet as important a military factor as the army of Belgium or of Portugal or of Serbia. Let us back it up and equip it and reënforce it to the utmost of our strength. Let us quit talking peace and bend all our energies to winning the war, and thereby winning the only kind of peace that will be safe, honorable, and lasting.