Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Dec 1916)

CLASSIC of their victorious navy returning, but Roman banners flaunting at the mastheads of a countless fleet of invading ships. Even then fear entered not into their hearts, for on their lips was the stock phrase, the modern shibboleth of Peace without Preparedness: “Have we not legions of brave citizens, tenfold the number of the invaders, to take up the sword and drive them from our shores ? ’ ’ And it is written that a bearded sage answered them, saying, “Of what utility is an untrained mob of brave men before even a small army of armed and trained brave men?” And how truly he spoke is shown by that same relentless history which tells us that the people of Carthage were put to the sword, that the fair city was destroyed, that plows were run over the place where Carthage once stood, and that salt was spread upon the blood-sodden, upturned earth as a sign that the city should never be rebuilt. Has this not a familiar ring? — “The broad seas are between us and our enemies, therefore we fear them not” — “Can we not raise an army of a million citizens at the wave of a hand to drive our enemies from our shores?” This weak-kneed, milksop twaddle no doubt disgusted the bearded sage of Carthage as much as it nauseates the few red-blooded American citizens of today who really know the needs of our country and its dangers. Four hundred and sixty-five years before Christ, down to Anno Domini 1915, and yet we have not learnt the lesson of the ages; have not learnt that the weak and helpless will always be oppressed ; have not learnt that might is right ; have not learnt how to protect our rights and the rights of our children ! There is the crux of the whole indefensible situation — our duty to our children — for the children are the strength of the nation. In the words of the bearded sage of today, one of our most respected and most venerable citizens, Reverend Doctor Lyman Abbott : “The father and mother may surrender their own rights, but they have no right to surrender the rights of their children.” Chapter XXII. “To neglect one’s liberty is to lose it; to neglect one’s country is to perish with it.” Some of the heavy-hearted thousands, who filled the sidewalks and clustered in the windows of those buildings still standing in the vicinity ( Thirty-seven ) of Broadway and Forty-second street, may have remembered those epic words, spoken by a senator from the West at the recent launching of the battleship Arizona. The work on that splendid vessel was being rapidly pushed to completion, but, alas ! no Stars and Stripes would fly proudly from her masthead. When finished by forced American labor, she was going to be joined to the powerful fleet of the enemy. Another ironical rebuke to those whose policy was responsible for the deplorable sight now being witnessed in the heart of that erstwhile “Great White Way” — now a “Way of Black Desolation.” On either side of Broadway, as far as the eye could reach, stretched lines of the hostiles, standing rigid and immovable as stone figures. Down between them came a straggling band of American troops, weary and broken in body and spirit, sullen resentment smouldering in their eyes, hopelessness written on their haggard, warworn countenances. Sad and pathetic figures they were in their tattered uniforms. The “Army of the East,” all that was left of them — the weakest and most grievously wounded staggering along, supported by their stronger comrades. In the widest part of the street a great pile of rifles was being constantly added to as each man deposited there his arms of offense and defense. “Lay down your arms,” had been one of the slogans of the pacifists, and here it was of a verity coming to pass, but not quite in the manner hoped for by the gentle advocates. This was the way chosen by the victors as a sort of Roman holiday. Another and a final object-lesson to those who had crept back, or been driven back, or had never been able to get away in that Dante’s Inferno a month ago, when the population fled wildly from the rain of death. Give up your swords, ye officers ! Relinquish your torn shreds of flags, ye color-bearers ! Lay down your arms and pass on in ignominy and defeat, ye poor victims of shortsightedness, ignorance and criminal neglect ! Your capitol at Washington is in ruins — its fair, white dome rent and blackened. Columbia is on her knees, despoiled and violated, with fettered, supplicating hands raised to Heaven, and there is none to aid her. People of America ! Do you want this? Or will the spirit of ’76, the spirits of Washington, of Lincoln, of Grant and of McKinley, kindle now in the breasts of our citizens the realization that Power spells Peace, that the Navy is our first line of defense, and that behind it must stand an Army worthy of the name? Will we learn that “if we really wish for peace at all hazards we must ever strengthen our Navy and train every youth in the Republic to such an extent as shall qualify him to be converted into an efficient soldier at the shortest notice”? Can we be taught “self-preservation is the first law of a nation ; neither wars, fires nor disasters are caused by precaution, but precaution and preparedness prevent them”? That “adequacy is not reached until our Navjr is strong enough to meet on equal terms the navy of the strongest possible adversary.” Will the truth come home to us that ‘ ‘ our coast-defenses protect the people of the inland States and their interests just as surely as those of the States on the coast”? Have you stopped to consider that “when your Congressmen fight only for the interests of their native States they are being untrue to the best interests of their native country,” and that “the right to vote implies an equal right and obligation to bear arms for that voter’s country”? Let us look for a moment on the brighter side. No enemy has yet violated our shores. Our hero and his beloved mother, his sweet sister and brave, enthusiastic young brother, are still alive. The familiar living-room of that typical American home has no gaping, ragged hole in its sheltering wall. Mother sits in the lamplight, her Bible on her knees, and Alice is arranging the flowers for the table. Two familiar figures enter at the door. They are John and Charlie — familiar in face, yet habited in a new and startling manner. Alice’s gasp of astonishment is hushed by a warning finger on the lips of the elder son. They are in the full khaki uniform of the National Guai’d. “How are my dear boys this evening?” Mother half-turns and smiles, but does not look back in their direction. Sheltering behind mother’s chair, they bend over and kiss her faded cheek. “Mother,” they tell her in fullhearted chorus, “we have been watching our bluejackets parading on Fifth Avenue — everywhere the crowds went wild with enthusiasm — and we saw the President, on the Mayflower, reviewing the fleet — and we have been planning a surprise for you, mother.”