ARMAMENTS ARMY
great powers of the world should find no
insurmountable difficulty in reaching an agreement
which would put an end to the present costly and
growing extravagance of expenditure on naval
armaments. An agreement merely to limit the size of
ships would have been very useful a few years ago, and
would still be of use; but the agreement should go much
further. (Before Nobel Prize Committee, Christiania,
Norway; May 5, 1910.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 414; Nat. Ed.
XVI, 308.
ARMAMENTS—NEED FOR. There is every reason
why we should try to limit the cost of armaments, as
these tend to grow excessive, but there is also every
reason to remember that in the present stage of
civilization a proper armament is the surest guarantee of
peace—and is the only guarantee that war, if it does
come, will not mean irreparable and overwhelming
disaster. (1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 245; Nat. Ed. XX,
210.
continuance of the Armenian butcheries. (Address as
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Naval War College;
June, 1897.) Mem. Ed. XV, 242; Nat. Ed. XIII, 184.
ARMY—EFFICIENCY OF THE. As a nation we
have always been short-sighted in providing for the
efficiency of the army in time of peace. (Seventh
Annual Message, Washington, December 3, 1907.)
Mem. Ed. XVII, 547; Nat. Ed. XV, 466.
____________. In no country with an army worth
calling such is there a chance for a man physically unfit
to stay in the service. Our countrymen should
understand that every army officer—and every marine
officer—ought to be summarily removed from the
service unless he is able to undergo far severer tests
than those which, as a beginning, I imposed. To follow
any other course is to put a premium on slothful
incapacity, and to do the gravest wrong to the nation.
(1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 59; Nat. Ed. XX, 51.
ARMY—PROMOTIONS IN THE. General X. has
been in several times to see me, more often than any
other candidate for promotion. He has an excellent
record but seems unable to understand the utter
impropriety of doing what he asks, which is, not to
promote him to a vacancy but to punish some man now
in the service by forcing him to retire in order to do a
favor to General X. It is barely possible that some case
would arise of so extreme a character as to justify such
a proceeding, but I can hardly imagine it. There is no
warrant whatever for doing it in General X's case as an
exception, and it surely cannot be advocated as a
general policy. It is not a question of giving General X.
a promotion. It is a question of doing him a favor to
which he has no more claim than hundreds of other
officers, by doing a serious wrong and injustice to a
man now in office. (To a Congressman from Maine,
November 9, 1901.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 182; Bishop I,
ARMAMENTS. See also DISARMAMENT; MUNITIONS;
NAVAL ARMAMENTS; PREPAREDNESS.
ARMENIAN MASSACRES. The news of the terrible
fate that has befallen the Armenians must give a fresh
shock of sympathy and indignation. Let me
emphatically point out that the sympathy is useless
unless it is accompanied with indignation, and that the
indignation is useless if it exhausts itself in words
instead of taking shape in deeds. (To Samuel T. Dutton,
chairman, Committee on Armenian Outrages.
November 24, 1915.) Mem. Ed. XX, 445; Nat. Ed.
XVIII, 382.
ARMENIANS—SACRIFICE OF. Thanks largely to
the very unhealthy influence of the men whose business
it is to speculate in the money market, and who
approach every subject from the financial standpoint,
purely; and thanks quite as much to the cold-blooded
brutality and calculating timidity of many European
rulers and statesmen, the peace of Europe has been
preserved, while the Turk has been allowed to butcher
the Armenians with hideous and unmentionable
barbarity, and has actually been helped to keep Crete in
slavery. War has been averted at the cost of more
bloodshed and infinitely more suffering and
degradation to wretched women and children than have
occured in any European struggle since the days of
Waterloo. No war of recent years, no matter how
wanton, has been so productive of horrible misery as
the peace which the powers have maintained during the
156.
____________. When I uphold the hands of the
General Staff by taking their recommendations for
promotion as against those of any outsider, no matter
how influential, no matter how powerful, I am doing
my best to prevent our little army from being reduced to
a condition which would be only one degree above that
to which it would be reduced if I tolerated actual
corruption. In so acting, it seems to me that I am
entitled to the support of every good American who
feels that the Army is the prop-
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