The Conquest of America: Dystopian Classic. Moffett Cleveland
convincing, sir, and yet—” I hesitated.
“Well?”
“You speak as if these things were going to happen right now, but there are no signs of war, no clouds on the horizon.”
The Admiral waved this aside with an impatient gesture.
“I tell you the blow will come suddenly. Were there any clouds on the European horizon in July, 1914? Yet a few persons knew, just as I have known for months, that war was inevitable.”
“Known?” I repeated.
Very deliberately the grizzled sea fighter lighted a fresh cigar before replying.
“Mr. Langston, I’ll tell you a little story that explains why I am posing as a prophet. You can put it in your memoirs some day—if my prophecy comes true. It’s the story of an American naval officer, a young lieutenant, who—well, he went wrong about a year ago. He got into the clutches of a woman spy in the employ of a foreign government. He met this woman in Marseilles on our last Mediterranean cruise and fell in love with her—hopelessly. She’s one of those devilish sirens that no full-blooded man can resist and, the extraordinary part of it is, she fell in love with him—genuinely in love.
“Well—it was a bad business. This officer gave the woman all he had, told her all he knew, and finally he asked her to marry him. Yes. He didn’t care what she was. He just wanted her. And she was so happy, so crazy about him, that she almost yielded; she was ready to turn over a new leaf, to settle down as his wife, but—”
“But she didn’t do it?” I smiled.
The Admiral shook his head.
“He was a poor man—just a lieutenant’s pay and she couldn’t give up her grand life. But she loved him enough to try to save him, enough to leave him. She wrote him a wonderful letter, poured her soul out to him, gave him certain military secrets of the government she was working for—they would have shot her in a minute, you understand, if they had known it—and she told him to take this information as a proof of her love and use it to save the United States.”
I was listening now with absorbed interest.
“What government was she working for?”
The Admiral paused to relight his cigar.
“Wait! The next thing was that this lieutenant came to me, as a friend of his father and an admiral of the American fleet, and made a clean breast of everything. He made his confession in confidence, but asked me to use the knowledge as I saw fit without mentioning his name. I did use it and”—the Admiral’s frown deepened—“the consequence was no one believed me. They said the warning was too vague. You know the attitude of recent administrations towards all questions of national defence. It’s always politics before patriotism, always the fear of losing middle west pacifist votes. It’s disgusting—horrible!”
“Was the warning really vague?”
“Vague. My God!” The old sea dog bounded from his chair. “I’ll tell you how vague it was. A statement was definitely made that before May 1, 1921, a great foreign power would make war upon the United States and would begin by destroying the Panama Canal. To-day is April 27, 1921. I don’t say these things are going to happen within three days but, Mr. Langston, as purely as the sun shines on that ocean, we Americans are living in a fool’s paradise. We are drunk with prosperity. We are deaf and blind to the truth which is known to other nations, known to our enemies, known to the ablest officers in our army and navy.
“The truth is that, as a nation, we have learned nothing from our past wars because we have never had to fight a first-class power that was prepared. But the next war, and it is surely coming, will find us held in the grip of an inexorable law which provides that nations imitating the military policy of China must suffer the fate of China.”
The Admiral now explained why he had sent for me. It was to suggest that I cable the London Times, urging my paper to use its influence, through British diplomatic channels, to avert another great war. I pointed out that the chances of such intervention were slight. Great Britain was still smarting under the memory of Americans’ alleged indifference to everything but money in 1918 when the United States stood by, unprotesting, and saw England stripped of her mastery of the sea after the loss of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal.
“There are two sides to that,” frowned the Admiral, “but one thing is certain—it’s England or no one. We have nothing to hope for from Russia; she has what she wants—Constantinople. Nothing to hope for from France; she has her lost provinces back. And as for Germany—Germany is waiting, recuperating, watching her chance for a place in the South American sun.”
“Germany managed well in the Geneva Peace Congress of 1919,” I said.
The veteran of Manila threw down his cigarette impatiently.
“Bismarck could have done no better. They bought off Europe, they crippled England and—they isolated America.”
“By the way,” continued the Admiral, “I must show you some things in my scrap book. You will be astonished. Wait a minute. I’ll get it.”
The old fellow hurried off and presently returned with a heavy volume bound in red leather.
“Take it up to your room to-night and look it over. You will find the most overwhelming mass of testimony to the effect that to-day, in spite of all that has been said and written and all the money spent, the United States is totally unprepared to defend its coasts or uphold its national honour. Just open the book anywhere—you’ll see.”
I obeyed and came upon this statement by Theodore Roosevelt:
What befell Antwerp and Brussels will surely some day befall New York or San Francisco, and may happen to many an inland city also, if we do not shake off our supine folly, if we trust for safety to peace treaties unbacked by force.
“Pretty strong words for an ex-President of the United States to be using,” nodded the Admiral. “And true! Try another place.”
I did so and came upon this from the pen of Gerhard von Schulze-Gaevernitz, professor of political economy at the University of Freiburg and a member of the Reichstag:
Flattered and deftly lulled to sleep by British influence, public opinion in the United States will not wake up until the ‘yellow New England’ of the Orient, nurtured and deflected from Australia by England herself, knocks at the gates of the new world. Not a patient and meek China, but a warlike and conquest-bound Japan will be the aggressor when that day comes. Then America will be forced to fight under unfavourable conditions.
The famous campaigner’s eyes flashed towards the Pacific.
“When that day comes! Ah! Speaking of Japan,” he turned over the pages in nervous haste. “Here we are! You can see how much the Japanese love us! Listen! This is an extract from the most popular book in Japan to-day. It is issued by Japan’s powerful and official National Defence Association with a view to inflaming the Japanese people against the United States and preparing them for a war of invasion against this country. Listen to this:
“Let America beware! For our cry, ‘On to California! On to Hawaii! On to the Philippines!’ is becoming only secondary to our imperial anthem!... To arms! We must seize our standards, unfurl them to the winds and advance without the least fear, as America has no army worthy the name, and with the Panama Canal destroyed, its few battleships will be of no use until too late.
“I tell you, Mr. Langston,” pursued the Admiral, “we Americans are to-day the most hated nation on earth. The richest, the most arrogant, the most hated nation on earth! And helpless! Defenceless! Believe me, that’s a bad combination. Look at this! Read this! It’s a cablegram to the New York Tribune, published on May 21, 1915, from Miss Constance Drexel, an American delegate to the Woman’s Peace Conference at The Hague:
“I have just come out of Germany and perhaps the predominating impression I bring with me is Germany’s hatred of America. Germany feels that war with America is only