conquest of India. Imagine India
Prussianized by Germany, so that, with the marvelous efficiency in
military organization which she has shown, she is able to draw on an
Asiatic population of something approaching 400,000,000.

Whether the situation then created would really constitute a menace for
us or not, this much would be certain--that the more timid and timorous
among us would believe it to be a menace, and it would furnish an
irresistible plea for a very greatly enlarged naval and military
establishment. We too, in that case would probably be led to organize
our nation on the lines on which the European military nations have
organized theirs, with compulsory military service, and so forth.

Indeed, even if Germany is not victorious the future contains
possibilities of a like result; imagine, what is quite possible, that
Russia becomes the dominant factor in Europe after this war and places
herself at the head of a great Slav confederacy of 200,000,000, with her
power extending incidentally to the Pacific coast of Asia, and, it may
be the day after tomorrow, over 100,000,000 or 200,000,000 of Asiatics.
We should thus have a militarized power of 200,000,000 or 300,000,000 or
400,000,000 souls, autocratically governed, endowed with western
technical knowledge in the manipulation of the instruments of war,
occupying the Pacific coast line directly facing our Pacific coast line.
It is quite conceivable, therefore, that as the outcome of either of the
two possible results of this war we may find ourselves embarked upon a
great era of militarization.

Our impregnability does not protect us from militarism. It is quite true
that this country, like Russia, cannot be permanently invaded; it is
quite true that hostile navies need not necessarily be resisted by
navies of our own so far as the protection of our coasts is concerned.
But there is no such thing as absolute certainty in these matters. While
personally I believe that no country in the world will ever challenge
the United States, that the chances are a hundred to one against it, it
is on just that one chance that the militarist bases his plea for
armaments and secures them.

But, unfortunately, we are already committed to a good deal more than
just mere defense of American territory; problems arising out of the
Philippines and the Panama Canal and the Monroe Doctrine have already
committed us to a measure of intervention in the political affairs of
the outside