Full text of "World War issues and ideals : readings in contemporary history and literature"

See other formats

^ORLD-WAR

ISSUES-AND

IDEALS

SPEARE-AND-NORRI:

WORLD WAR ISSUES
AND IDEALS

READINGS IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY
AND LITERATURE

» EDITED BY

MORRIS EDMUND SPEARE

AND

WALTER BLAKE NORRIS

OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH IN THE UNITED STATES
NAVAL ACADEMY

GINN AND COMPANY

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON
ATLANTA • DALLAS • COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO

£4>31 3

AND WALTER BLAKE NORRIS

318.12

gfte fltftenKum ij)re«

GINN AND COMPANY • PRO-
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A.

INTRODUCTION

Every generation needs to be addressed in its own language. — Bosanquet

For youth whose education begins upon a momentous day in
history, when vast and cataclysmic political changes must needs influ-
ence educational methods as well, this book of essays, sketches,
addresses, and state papers has been framed. Time-worn ideals and
policies of every nation which had become permanent parts of their
people's character and established tenets of their constitutional life
have been lifted by a great historical crisis into the foreground.
They are being subjected to a searching examination by a majority
of humanity to prove that they are worth the millions of lives and the
billions of wealth that have been spent in their defense. It is espe-
cially necessary for American youth, the ideals of whose nation have
been suddenly proposed for framing the basic principles of a world
democracy, that they understand what is the best modern interpreta-
tion of those ideals, and what are the ideals of those nations whom
we are to-day influencing and with whom we have been allied. A
new program for a cosmopolitan education must be hereafter adopted.
We must henceforth cultivate — to use President Butler's admirable
phrase — the quality of " international-mindedness."

Experience of some years in instructing college youth, and at
present young men in the United States Naval Academy, where,
since the beginning of the World War, considerable attention has
been given to the study of the underlying causes and the issues of
that war, has bred confidence in the belief that in a book of the char-
acter here presented may be found the most expedient means and
the most effective method of furnishing, in a brief space of time and
without the need of elaborate study, a comprehensive and well-rounded
survey of those profound ideas whose significance now engages the
attention of the entire thinking world. A further result of that experi-
ence has bred the conviction that to latter-day youth, in these stirring

iv WORLD WAR ISSUES AND IDEALS

times, ideals and issues become living realities only in direct proportion
to the respect which is awakened in them for the influence and
the character of the writer or the speaker whose works they study.
If a man has proved in the present his ability to influence events,
if his discussions upon matters of national import show his ability to
rephrase old traditions in terms of contemporary life, that man —
rewarded with influence and recognized with leadership — is most
likely to quicken and invigorate his youthful reader; far more so,
indeed, than is the other writer or speaker who, while living a gen-
eration before and enunciating principles which have since become
classic examples of conduct, has not himself reached the fringe of
this vital present day when the whole world has been battling
for an Ideal.

In emphasizing the need of making ideas living realities to
American youth, the editors feel themselves in accord with certain
pedagogical principles which have, in recent years, exerted a con-
siderable influence upon introductory courses in our colleges and
universities. Not the least important example of this influence is to
be found in the program of the War Issues Course fashioned by the
Committee on Education and Special Training for the purposes of
the War Department. " The purpose of the War Issues Course,"
says that Committee, " is to enhance the morale of the members of
the Corps by giving them an understanding of what the war is about
and the supreme importance to civilization of the cause for which we
are fighting." It was intended to make this War of Ideas a living
reality to each man. The Committee therefore desired that, so far as
the limited time of the course allowed, opportunity should be made
for a discussion of the various points of view, the attitudes of life and
of society, the philosophy which we have been called upon to defend,
and the ideas against which we have fought. The student possessing a
knowledge of the issues and the ideals at stake in the international situ-
ation and giving some reflection to the various national characteristics
and to the conflicts in the points of view — as these are expressed in
the literature and the history of the various states — would then
realize the full purpose and the international character of the War
Issues Course. When one now considers the almost immeasurable

INTRODUCTION v

influence which the events of the last several years will have upon
our education hereafter, and recalls also the particular influence
which the Committee on Education and Special Training has had
upon the college and university life in more recent days, one may
well predict that however temporary may be the physical place of
this particular group of educators, its intellectual influence will be
obvious for many years to come.

Altogether in sympathy with this influence, and in order to present
the issues and the ideals which have been so significant in these
momentous historical times in a form that is compact as well as un-
qualifiedly authoritative, the editors have made this survey of national
and international motives. It has been a peculiar privilege to be able
to gather this collection of essays, speeches, and sketches from so
many distinguished sources and from the writings of so various a
group of statesmen and of men of letters. In spite of the variety
of material, it is hoped that the arrangement here will suggest some
sense of unity. The editors have sought, first, through the most
distinguished spokesmen of th'e major warring nations, to present the
conflicting issues of the war, the spirit which has guided their youth
and their citizenry, and the ideals underlying the philosophy and the
history of their respective governments. Then, the gains from the
war as these are now possible to approximate, the relation of force
to peace in a democracy, the conditions which may hereafter make
for a permanent peace, the vision of the new Europe which shall
henceforth arise — all these it has been thought desirable to reflect
not alone from President Wilson's state papers but also from the
writings of distinguished educators and scholars. To youthful readers,
furthermore, and to nonparticipants generally, no great crisis of a
political or social nature can be made a reality by an appeal to the
intellect alone. Some reflection of the atmosphere of the war, pre-
senting in its narrative and descriptive sketches a challenge to the
imagination and the senses of the reader, has, therefore, also been
thought worth including. Finally, since this book of selections is
intended primarily for American youth, a reflection more or less com-
prehensive is necessary to remind the student of certain permanent
aims and ideas underlying American character and American politics.

vi WORLD WAR ISSUES AND IDEALS

For that reason a handful of recent interpretations concerned with
American domestic matters and with American foreign policy has
been included. These, showing America from within and from with-
out, will lead the thoughtful person to gather for himself some conclu-
sions with respect to those tendencies in our life which have brought
the nation to its present consecration to the cause of democracy and
international justice.

In times like these, when all public matters are painted before
the national consciousness in huge brush-strokes, there is offered to
the college instructor and to the teacher generally a fortunate oppor-
tunity to combine the study of great ideals and momentous acts with
the work of composition. How significant the use of the vigorous
writing of these stirring days is for the service of English-composi-
tion courses may be seen not only in the adoption of the practice by
many schools and colleges but also from the recommendation of its
value by educators now directly serving the government. One need
scarcely reassert — what these educators have already so well empha-
sized— the supreme value of classroom discussions, arguments,
reports, speeches, and written exercises in which there is evi-
dence of the student's own reflection upon matters debated in the
classroom, and proof that he has grasped the intent of the various
ideals and ideas which this war of contrasts presents. It is for these
objects that any effective introductory course must be planned. It is
the hope of the editors that teachers of English may find within this
large variety of material — the vigorous writing of distinguished men
who almost invariably express themselves with force and with char-
acter— not only ideas but also those models of literary style and
facility of expression without which no course in English composition
can be taught constructively. Among the many models here of
undoubted literary excellence are speeches, essays, after-dinner
addresses, orations, persuasive expositions, sketches, personal narra-
tives, and magazine articles, written for different occasions and for a
large variety of objects, a very large number of which — in the opin-
ion of competent critics — must remain, both for the forcefulness of
their ideas and for their intrinsic literary excellence, permanent
models of prose composition.

INTRODUCTION vii

Bearing in mind the compressed character which introductory
courses must necessarily have, and the consequent need of selec-
tions that can be mastered in not more than one or two assignments,
the editors have purposely avoided abstruse ideas and the use of the
extended selections so frequently found in books of this nature. In
adapting, therefore, the various articles for present requirements,
they have found it necessary, much as they would have desired not
to do so, to omit parts of many articles. The larger gaps in these
articles have been indicated, but in every case the author's ideas and
his methods of presentation have been scrupulously preserved. To
indicate every omission of material would have made the selections
appear fragmentary, and lacking in that very unity which the editors
feel each article still possesses.

It is but a commonplace to observe that a book of selective read-
ings must serve, at best, as a mere introduction to that major study
of those historical backgrounds, philosophies, and literatures which
together constitute the true and permanent material for an under-
standing of the ideals and the national characteristics of peoples
represented. With the requirements of effective teaching in mind,
and the importance of opportunity for choice by the individual teacher
before them, the editors have tried to present, within the space of a
single volume, as large a variety of ideas and from as many points
of view as possible. Life in a national institution during a period
of great historical importance offers a unique opportunity for studying
the most expedient way to meet the needs and requirements of young
men who must be trained quickly but efficiently for public service.
The editors entertain the hope that this compendious reflection of
ideas affords at least one practical solution to the problem which
such an exigency presents. The purpose in gathering this group of
essays, sketches, and state papers will be completely fulfilled, how-
ever, only when the articles in this collection shall prove of such sig-
nificant value that the student, either of his own accord or through
the stimulus of his instructors, shall be led to investigate the larger
and more important works of the writers. When, by so doing,
the American youth becomes awakened into a reflective, vigorous,
and useful American citizen, may we then hope that the master

viii WORLD WAR ISSUES AND IDEALS

spirits of the present will furnish him with the inspiration for a study
of the master spirits of the past. The editors have, for this reason,
indicated in the biographical sketches the names of many of the better-
known works of the various writers. In the references for collateral
reading, to be found in the back of the book, are noted, further-
more, short but comprehensive articles by writers and speakers of
distinction, furnishing additional light upon the subjects discussed in
this volume. These articles, as well as the standard reference books
which quickly define terms not mentioned in the notes, can be found
in any fair library.

To the various authors and to the publishers, without whose
sympathy and interest in the purpose of this book its creation would
have been impossible, the editors desire to express their profound
gratitude. For generous information in regard to the War Issues
Course and the new conditions now existing in colleges and univer-
sities, the editors would express their indebtedness to Professor Frank
Aydelotte, the Director of the War Issues Course, and to those

cooperating with him.

M. E. S.
W. B. N.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTR*»UCTI»N . iii

I. THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

A WAR FOR DEMOCRACY (April 2, 1917). . Woodrovu Wilson 3

THE MENACE OF AUTOCRACY Elihu Root \ 2

THE CHALLENGE AND THE CONFLICT . . David Lloyd George 21

THE INVASION OF BELGIUM .... Von Bethmann-Hollweg 30

THE PRINCIPLES AT WAR H. G. Dwight 31

II. THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

THE ROLE OF THE INFANTRY IN MODERN WARFARE

General Malleterre 49

THE FRENCH ON THE SOMME " Odysseus " 59

DINANT LA MORTE Camille David 68

A FIGHT WITH GERMAN AIRPLANES Alan Bott 78

SIMS'S CIRCUS Herman Whitaker 90

THE PROMISE Frederic Boutet 100-

III. THE SPIRIT OF THE WARRING NATIONS

THE SPIRIT OF FRENCH YOUTH Maurice Barrh 107

DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN John Galsworthy 114

PRO PATRIA Maurice Maeterlinck 120

THE SOUL AND STONES OF VENICE . . Gabriele d' ' Annunzio 126

THE AMERICAN FLAG Rene" Viviani 132

AMERICA OFFERS HER TROOPS John J. Pershing 136

THE DECISION TO MAKE WAR . . . Friedrich von Bernhardi 137

x WORLD WAR ISSUES AND IDEALS

IV. DEMOCRATIC AND AUTOCRATIC IDEALS OF
GOVERNMENT

PAGE

THE ESSENTIALS OF THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION Elihu Root 143

THE STRENGTH OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY . . James Bryce 160
THE ATTITUDE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN A DEMOCRACY

Charles E. Hughes 1 70

THE PALE SHADE Gilbert Murray 182

THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS . . Jan C. Smuts 196

THE IDEA OF LIBERTY IN FRANCE .... Emile Boutroux 208

A CLUE TO RUSSIA Henry N. Brailsford 215

THE GERMAN IDEAL OF THE STATE . Heinrich von Treitschke 224

THE ARMY AND NATIONAL UNITY . Heinrich von Treitschke 228

V. THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

GAINS FROM THE WAR Charles W. Eliot 235

NATIONALITY AND THE NEW EUROPE . Archibald C. Coolidge 246

FORCE AND PEACE Henry Cabot Lodge 259

A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE . . . A. Lawrence Lowell 271

AMERICA'S TERMS OF PEACE (JANUARY 8, 1918) Woodrow Wilson 287
THE CONDITIONS OF PERMANENT PEACE (SEPTEMBER 27, 1918)

Woodrow Wilson 295

VI. FEATURES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS AS MOLDING PUBLIC OPINION

James Bryce 305
CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE WEST- TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Frederick J. Turner 314

THE SPIRIT OF THE PACIFIC COAST Josiah Royce 333

TRANS-NATIONAL AMERICA Randolph S. Bourne 343

DEMOCRACY IN INDUSTRY Lyman Abbott 352

THE AMERICAN NOVEL Robert Herrick 363

THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSITY George E. Vincent 379

MILITARY CHARACTER Yates Stirling 390

CONTENTS xi
VII. AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

PAGE

THE INTERNATIONAL MIND .... Nicholas Murray Butler 403
THE MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE EVOLUTION OF DEMOCRACY

Albert Shaw 408

OUR LATIN-AMERICAN POLICY Richard Olney 417

THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Bainbridge Colby 427

TUTORING THE PHILIPPINES Charles H. Brent 43 1

THE FAR-EASTERN PROBLEM /. O. P. Bland 441

NOTES AND REFERENCES FOR COLLATERAL READING 453

WORLD WAR ISSUES AND IDEALS

THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

A WAR FOR DEMOCRACY

(Message to Congress, April 2, 1917)

WOODROW WILSON

[Woodrow Wilson (1856- ), President of the United States since
1913, was educated at Princeton, the University of Virginia, and at
Johns Hopkins, and later taught history and political science at Bryn
Mawr, Wesleyan, and Princeton. From 1902 to 1910 he served as Presi-
dent of Princeton University. He was then elected Governor of New
Jersey. His most important writings are " Congressional Government "
(1885), "The State'.' (1889), "History of the American People" (1902),
and a life of Washington. The best examples of his essays are "Ideals of
America" (Atlantic Monthly for December, 1902) and "When a Man
Comes to Himself" (1915). The present selection is from his Message
to Congress on April 2, 1917, in which he recommended the declaration
of war against Germany. Its sentence, "The world must be made safe
for democracy," has become the rallying cry of all the nations fighting
Germany, and best expresses the causes and underlying aims of American
participation in the World War.]

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:

I have called the Congress into extraordinary session be-
cause there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be
made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor
constitutionally permissible that I should assume the re-
sponsibility of making.

On the third of February last I officially laid before you the
extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Gov-
ernment that on and after the first day of February it was
its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity
and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to
approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the
western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by

4 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. That had
seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare
earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial
Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its
undersea craft in conformity with its promise then given to
us that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due
warning would be given to all other vessels which its sub-
marines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered
or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were
given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open
boats. The precautions taken were meager and haphazard
enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance
in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a cer-
tain degree of restraint was observed. The new policy has
swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever
their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their
errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warn-
ing and without thought of help or mercy for those on board,
the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents.
Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely
bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter
were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed
areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished
by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the
same reckless lack of compassion or of principle.

I was for a little while unable to believe that such things
would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto
subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations.
International law had its origin in the attempt to set up
some law which would be respected and observed upon the
seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay
the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage
has that law been built up, with meager enough results, in-
deed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished,
but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and
conscience of mankind demanded. This minimum of right

A WAR FOR DEMOCRACY 5

the German Government has swept aside under the plea of
retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons
which it could use at sea except these, which it is impossible
to employ as it is employing them without throwing to the
winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the under-
standings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of
the world. I am not now thinking of the loss of property in-
volved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton
and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants,
men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have
always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been
deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for;
the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. The
present German submarine warfare against commerce is a
warfare against mankind.

It is a war against all nations. American ships have been
sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us
very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other
neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed
in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimina-
tion. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must
decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for
ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a
temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our
motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our
motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the
physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of
right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.

When I addressed the Congress on the twenty-sixth of
February last I thought that it would suffice to assert our
neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against
unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against
unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is
impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when
used as the German submarines have been used against mer-
chant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their

6 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen
would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible
craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is common prudence
in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavor to
destroy them before they have shown their own intention.
They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The
German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms
at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even
in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever
before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is
conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on
our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law
and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed
neutrality is ineffectual enough at best ; in such circumstances
and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual :
it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent ; it
is practically certain to draw us into the war without either
the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one
choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making : we will
not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred
rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated.
The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no com-
mon wrongs ; they cut to the very roots of human life.

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical
character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsi-
bilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to
what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Con-
gress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Gov-
ernment to be in fact nothing less than war against the gov-
ernment and people of the United States; that it formally
accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust
upon it; and that it take immediate steps not only to put
the country in a more thorough state of defense but also
to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring
the Government of the German Empire to terms and end
the war.

A WAR FOR DEMOCRACY 7

While we do these .things, these deeply momentous things,
let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world,
what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has
not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the
unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe
that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by
them. I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had
in mind when I addressed the Senate on the twenty-second of
January last ; the same that I had in mind when I addressed
the Congress on the third of February and on the twenty-sixth
of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the
principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against
selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really
free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of
purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance
of those principles. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desir-1- •
able where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom
of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies
in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized
force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will
of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such
circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it
will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of re-
sponsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations
and their governments that are observed among the individual
citizens of civilized states.

We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no
feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship.
It was not upon their impulse that their government acted
in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowl-
edge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars
used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when
peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars
were provoked ancl waged in the interest of dynasties or of
little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use
their fellow men as pawns and tools. Self -governed nations

8 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

do not fill their neighbor states with spies or set the course
of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs
which will give them an opportunity to strike and make con-
quest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only
under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions.
Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried,
it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out
and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or
behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and
privileged class. They are happily impossible where public
opinion commands and insists upon full information concern-
ing all the nation's affairs.

A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained ex-
cept by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic
government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe
its covenants. It must be a league of honor, a partnership of
opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away ; the plottings of
inner circles who could plan what they would and render ac-
count to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart.
Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor
steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind
to any narrow interest of their own.

One of the things that has served to convince us that the
Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is
that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our
unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government
with spies, and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against
our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without,
our industries and our commerce. Indeed it is now evident
that its spies were here even before the war began; and it
is unhappily not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved in
our courts of justice that the intrigues which have more than
once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dis-
locating the industries of the country have been carried on
at the instigation, with the support, and even under the per-
sonal direction of official agents of the Imperial Government

A WAR FOR DEMOCRACY 9

accredited to the Government of the United States. Even
in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we
have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible
upon them because we knew that their source lay, not in
any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people towards
us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant of them as we ourselves
were), but only in the selfish designs of a government that
did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But they
have played their part in serving to convince us at last that
that government entertains no real friendship for us and
means to act against our peace and security at its convenience.
That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors
the intercepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City
is eloquent evidence.

We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because
we know that in such a government, following such methods,
we can never have a friend ; and that in the presence of its
organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know
not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the
democratic governments of the world. We are now about to
accept gage of battle with this natural foe to liberty and
shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to
check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad,
now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about
them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and%
for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included ;
for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of
men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience.
The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must
be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.
We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no
dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material
compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are
but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall
be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as
the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.

io THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish
object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish
to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, con-
duct our operations as belligerents without passion and our-
selves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right
and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.

It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belliger-
ents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without
animus, not in 'enmity towards a people or with the desire to
bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in
armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has
thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and
is running amuck. We are, let me say again, the sincere
friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so
much as the early reestablishment of intimate relations of
mutual advantage between us, — however hard it may be
for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken
from our hearts. We have borne with their present govern-
ment through all these bitter months because of that friend-
ship, exercising a patience and forbearance which would
otherwise have been impossible. We shall, happily, still have
an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude
and actions towards the millions of men and women of German
birth and native sympathy who live amongst us and share our
life, and we shall be proud to prove it towards all who are in
fact loyal to their neighbors and to the Government in the
hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal
Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or
allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking
and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and
purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with
with a firm hand of stern repression ; but, if it lifts its head
at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance
except from a lawless and malignant few.

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, Gentlemen of the
Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you.

A WAR FOR DEMOCRACY n

There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice
ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful
people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all
wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the)
right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the'
things which we have always carried nearest our hearts, — for
democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to
have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and
liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right
-by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and
safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.
To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes,
everything that we are and everything that we have, with the
pride of those who know that the day has come when America
is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles
that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has
treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.

THE MENACE OF AUTOCRACY1
ELIHU ROOT

[Elihu Root (1845- ) was educated at Hamilton College, and is
one of the foremost American statesmen of to-day. His chief public serv-
ices have been as Secretary of War under Presidents McKinley and
Roosevelt, Secretary of State under President Roosevelt, and Senator
from New York from 1909 to 1915. He was a member of the Hague Tri-
bunal in 1910 and has rendered important services to the settlement of
international problems. In 1912 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The present selection is the larger part of his Presidential Address at the
Eleventh Meeting of the American Society of International Law in
Washington, April 26, 1917. As an exposition of the phrase "The world
must be made safe for democracy" and a justification of the entrance of
the United States into the World War it stands second only to the April
ad Message.]

The greatest change in the conditions of national life during
the past century has been in the advance and spread of demo-
cratic government, and the correlative decrease in the extent
and power of autocratic and dynastic governments. It is im-
possible to regard the advance of democracy as being merely
local or temporary. It has been the result of long-continued
and persistent progress, varying in different countries accord-
ing to the character of the people and the nature of the ob-
stacles to be overcome, but, hi its nature, essentially the same
in all countries.

England, in her steady-going, undemonstrative way, has
moved along from government by a king claiming divine
right to a Commons representing popular right through the
revolution of 1688, which established the nation's right to

1 From " The Effect of Democracy on International Law," International
Conciliation, August, 1917. Reprinted by permission.

THE MENACE OF AUTOCRACY 13

choose its king, through that civil war over the rights of
British subjects known as the American Revolution, through
chartism and Catholic emancipation, the Reform Bill of 1832,
the franchise extension of 1867, the abandonment of the king's
veto power, and the establishment of the Commons' right to
pass bills over the rejection of the House of Lords.

France, in her own different way, with much action and re-
action, traveled towards the same goal through the States
General and the Constituent Assembly, through the Reign of
Terror, and her amazing defense of the first Republic against
all Europe, through the heroic surgery of Napoleon's career,
the Bourbon restoration, the assertion of her right to choose
her own king in 1830, and the assertion of her right to dispense
with a king in 1848, the plebiscite and the second Empire, the
Commune and the third Republic, which has grown in stability
and capacity for popular government until the steadiness and
self-control and noble devotion of the French people under
suffering and sacrifice have come to be one of the amazing
revelations of these terrible years.

Italy, struggling out of the control of a multitude of petty
tyrants sustained by foreign influence, established her newly
won unity and independence upon the basis of representative
parliamentary government.

Spain has regained and strengthened the constitution of
which Ferdinand VII and the Holy Alliance deprived her.

Throughout the greater part of the world constitutions
have become the order of the day. Switzerland, Belgium,
Holland, Portugal, all Scandinavia, all Latin- America, have
established their governments upon constitutional bases.
Japan, emerging from her military feudalism, makes her entry
into the community of civilized nations under a constitutional
government. China, throwing off the domination of the
Manchu, is striving to accustom her long-suffering and sub-
missive millions to the idea of constitutional right. The great
self-governing British Dominions, bound to the Mother
Country only by ties of tradition and sentiment, have shown

14 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

that free democracies can respond to moral forces with a
splendid power of loyalty that no coercion could inspire.
And now, Russia, extirpating the government which has been
for modern times the typical illustration of autocracy, is en-
gaged in establishing the new self-control of that vast Empire
upon the basis of universal suffrage and republican institutions.

The political conception of control from above by monarchs
exercising divine right is not merely disputed by philosophers
and reformers ; it has faded and grown dim in the minds of
the millions of men in the civilized nations, and in its place
has spread throughout the world the political conception of
constitutional government exercising control by authority of
the peoples who are governed.

The persistence and extent of this change in the political
and social conditions of national life forbid the idea that it
is the child of individual minds or local provocations or tem-
porary causes, and distinguish it as one of those great and
fundamental movements of the human mind which no power
can control, and which run their course inevitably to the end
in an unknown future. The existence and assured continuance
of this process of development of democracy is the great fact
forecasting the future conditions under which the effort to
reinstate the law of nations is to be made.

What is to be the effect of this change in conditions upon
the possibility of making international law relatively perma-
nent? In considering this question, some facts can be clearly
perceived.

The substitution of a democratic for an autocratic regime
removes the chief force which in the past has led nations to
break over and destroy the limitations of law; that is, the
prosecution of dynastic policies. Such policies in general
have in view the increase of territory, of dominion, of power,
for the ruler and the military class or aristocracy which sur-
rounds the ruler and supports his throne. The benefit of the
people who are ruled is only incidentally — if at all-

THE MENACE OF AUTOCRACY 15

involved. If we turn back to the causes which destroyed the
peace of the world under the dispositions made by the Treaty
of Westphalia, the mind naturally rests on the War of the
Spanish Succession, which drenched Europe in blood through
the first decade of the eighteenth century, and ended in the
Treaty of Utrecht only when Louis XIV was reduced to
exhaustion. What was that about? Nothing more or less
than the question what royal house should have its power
increased by a marriage that would ultimately enable it to
control the territory and wield the power of Spain for its own
aggrandizement. The interests of the people of Spain or the
people of France or of any other country furnished no part of
the motive power.

Underlying the whole age-long struggle to maintain the
balance of power in Europe has been the assumption that
increased power would be used for aggression and to secure
further increase of power by the conquest of territory and
the subjection of its inhabitants ; and the common experience
of mankind under the autocratic system of government by
divine right has justified the assumption. It was a perfect
understanding of this characteristic of autocratic government
that inspired the words of President Monroe's famous declara-
tion : "We should consider any attempt on their part (the
European powers) to extend their system to any portion of
this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety."

Against the deep and settled purpose of a ruling family or a
ruling aristocratic class to enlarge its power, continuing from
generation to generation, usually concealed until the favorable
moment for action comes, always justified or excused by
specious pretexts, the advocates of peace, or justice, or hu-
manity, or law, are helpless. All other causes of war can be
reached. International misunderstandings can be explained
away. Dislikes and suspicions can be dissipated by inter-
course, and better knowledge, and courtesy, and kindness.
Considerate justice can prevent real causes of war. Rules
of action to prevent controversy may be agreed upon by

16 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

diplomacy and conferences and congresses. Honest differences
as to national rights and duties may be settled by arbitration,
or judicial decision ; but, against a deep and persistent pur-
pose by the rulers of a great nation to take away the territory
of others, or to reduce others to subjection for their own
aggrandizement, all these expedients are of no avail. The
Congresses of Westphalia, of Vienna, of Berlin, and a multitude
of others less conspicuous, have sought to curb the evil through
setting limits upon power by treaty. They have all failed.
Tin- I Van- ( 'onlViviurs at The Ila^ur have sought to diminish
the evil by universal agreement upon rules of action. The
rules and the treaties have become "scraps of paper."

The progress of democracy, however, is dealing with the
problem by destroying the type of government which has
shown itself incapable of maintaining respect for law and
justice and resisting the temptations of ambition; and by
substituting a new form of government, which in its nature
is incapable of proceeding by the same methods, and neces-
sarily responds to different motives and pursues different
objects from the old autocratic offenders. Only when that
task has been substantially accomplished will the advocates
of law among nations be free from the inheritance of former
failure. There will then be a new field open for a new trial,
doubtless full of difficulties of its own, but of fair hope and
possibilities of success.

Self-governing democracies are indeed liable to commit
great wrongs. The peoples who govern themselves frequently
misunderstand their international rights, and ignore their
international duties. They are often swayed by prejudice,
and blinded by passion. They are swift to decide in their
own favor the most difficult questions upon which they are
totally ignorant. They are apt to applaud the jingo politician
who courts popularity by public insult to a friendly people,
and to condemn the statesman who modifies extreme demands
through the concessions required by just consideration for the

THE MENACE OF AUTOCRACY 17

rights of others. All these faults, however, are open and
known to the whole world. The opinions and motives from
which they proceed, the real causes of error, can be reached
by reason, by appeal to better instincts, by public discussion,
by the ascertainment and dissemination of the true facts.

There are some necessary features of democratic self-
government which tend towards the progressive reduction
of tendencies to international wrong-doing. One is that de-
mocracies are absolutely dependent for their existence upon
the preservation of law. Autocracies can give commands and
enforce them. Rules of action are a convenience, not a neces-
sity for them. On the other hand, the only atmosphere in
which a democracy can live between the danger of autocracy
on one side and the danger of anarchy on the other is the
atmosphere of law. Respect for law is the essential condition
of its existence ; and, as in a democracy the law is an expres-
sion of the people's own will, self-respect and personal pride
and patriotism demand its observance. An essential distinc-
tion between democracy and autocracy is that while the
government of an autocracy is superior to the law, the govern-
ment of a democracy is subject to the law. The conception of
an international law binding upon the governments of the
world is, therefore, natural to the people of a democracy,
and any violation of that law which they themselves have
joined in prescribing is received with disapproval, if not with
resentment. This is well illustrated by the attitude of the
people of the separate states of the American Union toward
the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States pass-
ing upon the exercise of power by state governments. Physical
force has never been used to compel conformity to those de-
cisions. Yet, the democratic people of the United States have
answered Jefferson's contemptuous remark, "John Marshall
has made his decision; now let him enforce it." The answer
is that it is the will of self-governed democracy to obey the
law which it has itself established, and the decisions of the
Great Tribunal which declares the law controlling state action

i8 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

will be accepted and observed by common consent and en-
forced by the power of public opinion.

Another necessary feature of democratic government is that
the exercise of the power of popular self-government is a con-
tinual training of all citizens in the very qualities which are
necessary for the maintenance of law between nations. Demo-
cratic government cannot be carried on except by a people
who acquire the habit of seeking true information about facts,
of discussing questions of right and wrong, of interest, and
of possible consequences, who have kindly consideration for
opposing opinions, and a tolerant attitude towards those who
differ. The longer a democracy preserves itself through the
exercise of these qualities, the better adapted it is to apply the
same methods in the conduct of its international business, and
the result is a continually increasing certainty that international
law will be observed in a community of democratic nations.

The most important difference, however, between the two
forms of government is that democracies are incapable of
holding or executing those sinister policies of ambition which
are beyond the reach of argument and the control of law. A
democracy cannot hold such policies, because the open and
public avowal and discussion which must precede their adop-
tion by a democracy is destructive of them; and it cannot
execute such policies, because it uniformly lacks the kind of
disciplined efficiency necessary to diplomatic and military
affirmatives.

This characteristic of popular governments is well illus-
trated by the hundred years of peace which we are all rather
proud of preserving throughout the 3000 miles of boundary
between Canada and the United States without fortifications
or ships of war or armies. There have been many occasions
when the tempers of the men on either side of the line were
sorely tried. The disputes regarding the Northeastern Bound-
ary, the Oregon Boundary, the Alaska Boundary, were acute ;
the affair of the Caroline on the Niagara River, the Fenian
Raid upon Lake Champlain, the enforcement of the Fisheries

THE MENACE OF AUTOCRACY 19

regulations, were exasperating and serious, but upon neither
side of the boundary did democracy harbor those sinister
designs of aggrandizement and ambition which have char-
acterized the autocratic governments of the world. On neither
side was there suspicion of any such designs in the democracy
across the border. The purpose of each nation was merely
to stand up for its own rights, and so reason has always con-
trolled, and every question has been settled by fair agree-
ment, or by arbitral decision ; and, finally, for the past eight
years a permanent International Commission with judicial
powers has disposed of the controversies arising between the
citizens of the two countries along the border as unobtrusively
and naturally as if the questions arose between citizens of
Maryland and Virginia. Such has been the course of events,
not because of any great design or far-seeing plan, but because
it is the natural working of democratic government.

The incapacity of democracies to maintain policies of aggres-
sion may be fairly inferred from the extreme reluctance with
which they incur the expense and make the sacrifices necessary
for defense. Cherishing no secret designs of aggression them-
selves, they find it difficult to believe in the existence of such
designs on the part of other nations. Only imminent and
deadly peril awakens them to activity. It was this obstinate
confidence in the peaceable intentions of all mankind which
met Lord Roberts (honored, trusted, and beloved as he was)
when long before the present war he vainly sought to awaken
the people of England to the danger that he saw so plainly
in Germany's stupendous preparation for conquest. It is well
known that when the war came France was almost upon the
verge of diminishing her army by a reduction in the years of
service. In our own country a great people, virile, fearless,
and loyal, have remained indifferent to all the voices crying
in the wilderness for preparation, because the American people
could not be made to believe that anything was going to happen
inconsistent with the existence everywhere of those peaceful
purposes of which they themselves were conscious.

20 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

There is a radical incompatibility between popular self-
government and continuous military discipline, for military
control is in itself despotic. As compared with military
autocracies, the normal condition of democracies is a condi-
tion of inferior military efficiency. This invariable character-
istic of democracy leaves it no option in its treatment of
autocracy. The two kinds of government cannot live perma-
nently side by side. So long as military autocracy continues,
democracy is not safe from attacks, which are certain to come
sometime, and certain to find it unprepared. The conflict is
inevitable and universal ; and it is d Voutrance. To be safe,
democracy must kill its enemy when it can and where it can.
The world cannot be half democratic and half autocratic.
It must be all democratic or all Prussian. There can be no
compromise. If it is all Prussian, there can be no real inter-
national law. If it is all democratic, international law honored
and observed may well be expected as a natural development
of the principles which make democratic self-government
possible.

The democracies of the world are gathered about the last
stronghold of autocracy, and engaged in the conflict thrust
upon them by dynastic policy pursuing the ambition of rulers
under claim of divine right for their own aggrandizement,
their own glory, without regard to law, or justice, or faith.
The issue to-day and to-morrow may seem uncertain, but the
end is not uncertain. No one knows how soon the end will
come, or what dreadful suffering and sacrifice may stand
between ; but the progress of the great world movement that
has doomed autocracy cannot be turned back, or defeated.

That is the great peace movement.

There the millions who have learned under freedom to hope
and aspire for better things are paying the price that the
peaceful peoples of the earth may live in security under the
protection of law based upon all-embracing justice and supreme
in the community of nations.

THE CHALLENGE AND THE CONFLICT
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE

[David Lloyd George (1863- ) was born in Manchester, England,
but spent most of his early life in Wales, the country of his parents. In
1890 he entered Parliament and has been a Cabinet minister since 1905.
In 1909 as Chancellor of the Exchequer he introduced the budget which
with its income taxes and other measures bore so heavily upon the landed
and wealthy classes that it was rejected by the House of Lords — an act
which ultimately led to the abolition of the Lords' veto. He became
Prime Minister in 1916 with a cabinet formed of representatives of all
parties, and has reorganized the British cabinet system to simplify the
prosecution of the war. He is noted for his remarkable effectiveness as a
public speaker and for a truly Celtic power of emotional appeal. The
present selection is taken from a speech generally entitled "When the War
Will End," delivered at Glasgow on June 29, 1917, and is noteworthy for
its presentation of the underlying issues of the World War in terms that
appeal to the ordinary man.]

Never did men stand more in need of sympathy and sup-
port of cooperation than the men who are guiding the fate
of nations at this hour. In all lands we have been called
to the helm in a raging tornado, the most destructive that
has ever swept over the world on land or sea. Britain so
far has weathered the storm. The hurricane is not yet over,
and it will need all the efforts, all the skill, all the patience,
all the courage, all the endurance of all on board to steer
the country through without foundering in the angry deep.
But with the cooperation of everybody we will guide it through
once again. It is a satisfaction for Britain in these terrible
times that no share of the responsibility for these events
rests on her. She is not the Jonah in this storm. The part
taken by our country in this conflict, hi its origin, and in its
conduct, has been as honorable and chivalrous as any part

22 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

ever taken in any country in any operation. We might
imagine from declarations which were made by the Germans,
aye ! and even by a few people in this country, who are con-
stantly referring to our German comrades, that this terrible
war was wantonly and wickedly provoked by England —
never Scotland — never Wales — and never Ireland. Wan-
tonly provoked by England to increase her possessions, and
to destroy the influence, the power, and the prosperity of
a dangerous rival.

There never was a more foolish travesty of the actual
facts. It happened three years ago, or less, but there have
been so many bewildering events crowded into those inter-
vening years that some people might have forgotten, per-
haps, some of the essential facts, and it is essential that
we should now and again restate them, not merely to refute
the calumniators of our native land, but in order to sustain
the hearts of her people by the unswerving conviction that
no part of the guilt of this terrible bloodshed rests on the
conscience of their native land. What are the main facts?
There were six countries which entered the war at the begin-
ning. Britain was last, and not the first. Before she entered
the war Britain made every effort to avoid it; begged, sup-
plicated, and entreated that there should be no conflict.
I was a member of the Cabinet at the time, and I remember
the earnest endeavors we made to persuade Germany and
Austria not to precipitate Europe into this welter of blood.
We begged them to summon a European conference to con-
sider. Had that conference met, arguments against pro-
voking such a catastrophe were so overwhelming that there
would never have been a war. Germany knew that, so she
rejected the conference, although Austria was prepared to
accept it. She suddenly declared war, and yet we are the
people who wantonly provoked this war, in order to attack
Germany. We begged Germany not to attack Belgium, and
produced a treaty, signed by the King of Prussia, as well
as the King of England, pledging himself to protect Belgium

THE CHALLENGE AND THE CONFLICT 23

against an invader, and we said, "If you invade Belgium, we
shall have no alternative but to defend it." The enemy
invaded Belgium, and now they say, "Why, forsooth, you,
England, provoked this war." It is not quite the story of
the wolf and the lamb. I will tell you why — because Ger-
many expected to find a lamb and found a lion. So much for
our responsibility for war, and it is necessary that the facts
should be stated and restated, because I want us to carry
on this war with a pure, clear conscience to the end.

Revolution is a fever brought about by the constant
and reckless disregard of the laws of health in the govern-
ment of a country. Whilst it is on, the strength of a country
is diverted to the internal conflict which is raging in its blood,
and it is naturally not so effective for external use during the
period. The patient takes some time to recover his normal
temperature, but when he begins to recover, if his constitu-
tion is good — and the Russian nation has as fine a consti-
tution as any nation ever possessed in all the essence of fine
manhood — then he will regain strength at a bound, and
will be mightier and more formidable than ever.

That is the case in Russia: although this distraction has
had the effect of postponing complete victory, it has made
victory more sure than ever, more complete than ever. What
is more important, it has made surer than ever the quality
of the victory we will gain. What do I mean when I say it
has insured a better quality of victory, because that is im-
portant? I will tell you why. There were many of us whose
hearts were filled with gloomy anxiety when we contemplated
all the prospects of a great peace conference summoned to
settle the future of democracy with one of the most powerful
partners at that table the most reactionary autocracy in the
world. I remember very well discussing the very point with
one of the greatest of the French statesmen, and he had great
misgivings as to what would happen now that Russia is

24 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

unshackled. Russia is free, and the representatives of Russia
at the Peace Congress will be representatives of a free people,
fighting for freedom, arranging the future of democracy on
the lines of freedom. That is what I mean when I say that
not merely will the Russian revolution insure more complete
victory, it will insure victory of the highest and more exalted
than any one could have contemplated before.

I wanted to say something about the terms of peace.
When you get your victory, what use are you going to make
of it? There are people asking when are you going to bring
this war to an end, how are you going to bring it to an end,
and when you have brought it to an end, what end do you
want for it? All of them justifiable questions, and all of
them demanding reasonable answer, and I propose to make
my contribution to the solution of these direct and search-
ing questions. In my judgment this war will come to an end
when the Allied Powers have reached the aims which they
set out to attain when they accepted the challenge thrown
down by Germany to civilization.

These aims were set out recently by President Wilson with
his unrivaled gift of succinct and trenchant speech. As soon
as these objectives are reached, and guaranteed, this war
ought to come to an end. But if it comes to an end a single
hour before, it will be the greatest disaster that has ever
befallen mankind. I hear there are people going about the
country saying, "Germany is prepared to give you peace
now. An honorable peace, and a satisfactory peace."

Well, you can have peace at that price, but do you know
what it would be? The old policy of buying out the Goth,
who eventually destroyed the Roman Empire and threw
Europe into the ages of barbarous cruelties. Believe me,
that policy had its undoubted advantages. I can hear the
echoes of the pacifists of the day in the Roman forum
dwelling on the fact that if they only buy out the Goths at

THE CHALLENGE AND THE CONFLICT 25

a small price compared with the war, a little territory, and
a little cash, the Roman youth would be spared the terrors
of war and their parents the anxieties of war. People of
all ranks and classes would avoid the hardships of war, and
be able to continue their lives of comfort and luxury and
ease. The pacifists of the day, when they made their bar-
gain, thought that they avoided bloodshed. They had
only transmitted it to the children. You remember what
the Roman Senator said of one of these bargains, which
gave peace for the moment to the Roman Empire. He
said, "This is not peace; it is a pact of servitude." So it
was. If they had bravely and wisely faced their responsi-
bilities, what would have happened? Rome would have
thrown off its sloth, as Britain did in 1914. Its blood cleansed
by sacrifice, the old vitality and the old virility of the race
would have been restored. Rome would have been grander
and nobler than ever, its rule would have been more benefi-
cent, and the world would have been spared centuries of
cruelties and chaos. You can have peace to-day, but it would
be on a basis that history has demonstrated to be fatal to
the lives of any great Commonwealth that purchased tran-
quillity upon it.

I am told that if you are prepared to make peace now,
Germany, for instance, would restore the independence of
Belgium. But who says so? There are men in this country
who profess to know a good deal about the intentions of
German statesmen. No German statesman has ever said
they would restore the independence of Belgium. The Ger-
man Chancellor came very near it, but the Junkers forth-
with fell upon him, and he was boxed soundly on the ear
by the mailed fist, and he has never repeated the offense.
He said: "We will restore Belgium to its people, but it must
form part 'of the economic system of Germany, of the mili-
tary and naval defense of Germany. We must have some
control over its ports." That is the sort of independence
Edward I offered to Scotland, and after a good many years

26 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

Scotland gave its final answer at Bannockburn. That is
not independence ; that is vassalage.

Then there comes the doctrine of the status quo, no annexa-
tion, no indemnities. No German speeches are explicit on
that, but what does indemnity mean? A man breaks into
your house, turns you out for three years, murders some of
the inmates, and is guilty of every infamy that barbarism
can suggest, occupies your premises for three years, and turns
round and says when the law is beginning to go against him,
"Take your house, I am willing to give you the status quo,
I will not even charge you any indemnity." But, you say,
even a pacifist, if it were done in his house, would turn round
and say: "You have wronged me. You have occupied these
premises for three years. You have done me an injury. You
must pay compensation. There is not a law in the civilized
world that does not make it an essential part of justice that
you should do so." And he says, in a lofty way, "My prin-
ciple is no indemnity." It is not a question of being vindic-
tive, it is not a question of pursuing revenge. Indemnity is
an essential part of the mechanism of civilization in every
land and clime. Otherwise what guarantee have you against
a repetition, against the man remaining there for three years
more, and when it has got rather too hot for him, clearing
out and paying neither rent nor compensation? Why, every
man in this land would be at the mercy of every strong-
handed villain. There is no law, there is no civilization in
that. You could not keep the community together. We are
fighting for the essential principles of civilization, and unless
we insist upon it we shall not have vindicated what is the
basis of right in every land.

No one wishes to dictate to the German people the form
of government under which they choose to live. That is
a matter entirely for themselves, but it is right we should
say we could enter into negotiations with a free Government

THE CHALLENGE AND THE CONFLICT 27

in Germany with a different attitude of mind, a different
temper, a different spirit, with less suspicion, with more confi-
dence than we could with a Government whom we knew to
be dominated by the aggressive and arrogant spirit of Prus-
sian militarism. And the Allied Governments would, in my
judgment, be acting wisely if they drew that distinction in
their general attitude in a discussion of the terms of peace.
The fatal error committed by Prussia in 1870 — the error
which undoubtedly proves her bad faith at that time — was
that when she entered the war, she was fighting against a
restless military empire, dominated largely by military ideals,
with military traditions behind them. When that empire
fell, it would have been wisdom of Germany to recognize the
change immediately. Democratic France was a more sure
guarantee for the case of Germany than the fortress of Metz
or the walled ramparts of Strasburg. If Prussia had taken
that view, European history would have taken a different
course. It would have acted on the generous spirit of the
great people who dwell in France, it would have reacted
on the spirit and policy of Germany herself. Europe would
have, reaped a harvest of peace and goodwill amongst men
instead of garnering, as she does now, a whirlwind of hate,
rage, and human savagery. I trust that the Allied Govern-
ments will take that as an element in their whole discussion
of the terms and prospects of peace.

I have one thing to say in conclusion. In pursuing this
conflict we must think not merely of the present but of the
future of the world. We are settling questions which will
affect the lives of people not merely in this generation, but
for countless generations to come. In France last year I
went along the French front, and I met one of the finest
generals in the French Army, General Gouroud, and he
said: "One of my soldiers a few days ago did one of the most
gallant and daring things any soldier has ever done. It
was reckless, but he managed to come back alive, and some
one said to him, 'Why did you do that? You have got four

28 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

children, and you might have left it to one of the young
fellows in the army. What would have happened to your
children?' And his answer was, 'It was for them I
did it.'"

This war involves issues upon which will depend the lives
of our children and our children's children. Sometimes in
the course of human events challenges are hurled from the
unknown amongst the sons and daughters of men. Upon
the answer which is given to these challenges, and upon
the heroism with which the answer is sustained, depends the
question whether the world would be better or whether
the world would be worse for ages to come. These challenges
end in terrible conflicts which bring wretchedness, misery,
bloodshed, martyrdom in all its myriad forms to the world,
and if you look at the pages of history, these conflicts stand
out like great mountain ranges, such as you have in Scotland
— scenes of destruction, of vast conflicts, scarred by the vol-
canoes which threw them up and drawing blessings from the
heavens that fertilize the valleys and the plains perennially
far beyond the horizon of the highest peaks. You had such
a conflict in Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies of the great fight for the rights of men to worship God
according to their consciences. The Scottish Covenanters
might have given this answer to the challenge. They might
have said, "Let there be peace in our tune, O Lord." They
might have said: "Why should we suffer for privileges that
even our fathers never enjoyed? If we win, we may never
live to enjoy the fruits of it, but we have got to face priva-
tions, unspeakable torture, the destruction of our homes,
the scattering of our families, shameless death. Let there
be peace." Scotland would have been a thing of no account
among the nations. Its hills would have bowed their heads
in shame for the people they sheltered. But the answer of
the old Scottish Covenanter, the old dying Covenanter Cargill,
rings down the ages, even to us at this fateful hour, "Satisfy
your conscience, and go forward."

THE CHALLENGE AND THE CONFLICT 29

That was the answer. That conflict was fought in the val-
leys of Scotland and the rich plains and market-places of
England, where candles were lighted which will never be
put out, and on the plains, too, of Bohemia, and on the
fields and walled cities of Germany. There Europe suf-
fered unendurable agonies and miseries, but at the end of
it humanity took a great leap forward towards the dawn.
Then came a conflict of the eighteenth century, the great
fight for the right of men as men, and Europe again was
drenched with blood. But at the end of it the peasantry
were free, and democracy became a reality. Now we are
faced with the greatest and grimmest struggle of all — liberty,
equality, fraternity, not amongst men but amongst nations ;
great, yea small ; powerful, yea weak ; exalted, yea humblest ;
Germany, yea Belgium ; Austria, yea Serbia — equality,
fraternity, amongst peoples as well as amongst men. That
is the challenge which has been thrown to us.

Europe is again drenched with the blood of its bravest
and best, but do not forget these are the great successions
of hallowed causes. They are the stations of the cross on
the road to the emancipation of mankind. Let us endure
as our fathers did. Every birth is an agony, and the new
world is born out of the agony of the old world. My appeal
to the people of this country, and, if my appeal can reach,
beyond it is this — that we should continue to fight for the
great goal of international right and international justice, so
that never again shall brute force sit on the throne of justice,
nor barbaric strength wield the scepter of right.

THE INVASION OF BELGIUM
THEOBALD T. F. A. VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG

[Theobald Theodore Frederic Alfred von Bethmann-Hollweg (1856-
-), German Chancellor at the outbreak of the World War in 1914,

was born in the province of Brandenburg. After a university education
he entered the Prussian civil service and became from early manhood
the friend and adviser of William II. In 1909 he succeeded Prince von
Billow as German Chancellor, a position he held until 1917. His speech
in the Reichstag on August 4, 1914, from which the following selection
is an extract, is one of the frankest and clearest expressions of German
thought in regard to international obligations.]

Gentlemen, we are now in a state of necessity, and necessity
knows no law ! Our troops have occupied Luxemburg, and
perhaps are already on Belgian soil. Gentlemen, that is con-
trary to the dictates of international law. It is true that the
French Government has declared at Brussels that France is
willing to respect the neutrality of Belgium as long as her
opponent respects it. We know, however, that France stood
ready for the invasion. France could wait, but we could not
wait. A French movement upon our flank upon the Lower
Rhine might have been disastrous. So we were compelled to
override the just protests of the Luxemburg and Belgian
Governments. The wrong — I speak openly — that we are
committing we will endeavor to make good as soon as our
military goal has been reached. Anybody who is threatened,
as we are threatened, and is fighting for his highest possessions,
can have only one thought — how to hack his way through.

THE PRINCIPLES AT WAR1
H. G. DWIGHT

[Harrison G. Dwight (1875- ) is an American who has spent
much of his life in Turkey and Persia and belongs to a family which has
been engaged in missionary work in the Ottoman Empire for several gen-
erations. At the present time he is perhaps the best authority in the
United States on the life of the Near East. His best books are "Con-
stantinople, Old and New" (1915) and "Persian Miniatures" (1917)-
This article, from which a number of the later paragraphs have been
omitted, shows the natural reaction of the American mind intimately
acquainted with the oppressed nationalities of the Near East to the "old
imperialism of conquest."]

II n'y a rien de plus grand qu'une force deVastatrice qui se rfcgle.

ANDRE SUARES; "Sur La Vie"

To many of those for whom history is more than a stirring
of dry bones, who have — at least in a geographical sense —
seen something of the world, or whose destiny has given them
to live in countries other than their own, nothing can be more
incomprehensible than the pacifist movement in America.
The present writer by no means proposes to go on record as
standing for the continuance of hostile relations between
peoples, rather than that state of harmony out of which alone
can come the happiest fruits of civilization. But the doctrine
of peace at any price is one which he confesses himself unable
to understand. He cannot but marvel how that ideal of a
Sybaritic ease can prevail, even in the most timid mind,
above the sterner and loftier one implied by a war of national
defense. And least of all can he account for the fact that a
politician of the experience of Mr. Bryan, who may be all his
critics claim, but who nevertheless was permitted to make his

1 From Unpopular Review, April, 1916. Copyright, Henry Holt & Co.

32 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

way to one of the highest public posts in a great country,
that an educator such as Dr. David Starr Jordan, that a
successful and presumably not illiterate man of affairs like
Mr. Henry Ford, that a woman of the personality and intelli-
gence of Miss Jane Addams, who are four very conspicuous
representatives of a considerable public, can seriously believe,
as apparently they do, that there is no reason for the war
which is now shaking the world, and that its immediate dis-
continuance could only further the happiness of all concerned.
What, the pacifists ask, is the war about? What common
cause could unite such totally different civilizations as the
English, the Japanese, the Latin, and the Slav, and as the
Teuton and the Turkish, and array one group against the
other ? The question is an extremely pertinent one — and
extremely complex. So many personal sympathies are in-
volved in it, so many selfish interests, so many political
loyalties, so many inconsistencies of all kinds, that no one
can hope to dispose of them one by one and emerge triumphant
with a shining theory which pacifist and belligerent alike will
at once recognize as incontrovertible. Yet to more than one
witness of that terrific conflict it seems obvious that a cause
is at stake which is dearer than life. It also seems obvious
enough that the forces for and against that cause had grown
into an antagonism too acute for them to go on living at
peace on the same continent. And I venture to add that if
this war does not result in the victory of that cause, other
wars must inevitably follow until men finally acknowledge
the reasonableness and justice of the cause.

In a quarter of the globe where the modest locution " God's
country" is understood among friends to refer to certain terri-
tories between the Arctic Circle and the Tropic of Cancer,
separating the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the word empire
is one to be used with circumspection. And it is true that
certain ideas implied by that word flourish more luxuriantly
in other soils than ours. But so far as the word connotes a

THE PRINCIPLES AT WAR 33

general idea of preponderance, rather than a particular one of
hereditary monarchy, the most democratic American is often
at one with the most autocratic Asian or European. While the
American's opinion of imperial regalia is emphatic enough, he
is less decided when it comes to offering the benefits of mili-
tary protection to dark and distant peoples, or those of a
great commercial or political monopoly to his own; and he
speaks with perfect equanimity of capturing the trade of a
continent, or of subverting its religion. He willingly enter-
tains, furthermore, the possibility that his language may in
time supplant certain others. Nor have there lacked Ameri-
cans who looked forward to a day when their country should
so extend its sway as to rule the entire continent, if not the
entire hemisphere. If this notion be more freely uttered in
commercial, philological, or religious circles than in political
ones, it nevertheless underlies most popular discussion of in-
ternational affairs. In another domain Buddhism, Judaism,
Mohammedanism, and Christianity have been simplifying and
unifying forces of a remarkable kind. Then the revolutions
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries expressed an im-
pulse of much the same nature, in the new form of democracy.
And the statement of the Darwinian theory, with its corollary
of the survival of the fittest, had a profound effect in awaken-
ing a more general consciousness of the process, in investing
it with a new sanction, and in stimulating men's imaginations
with regard to the destiny of races. What more natural, then,
than that we should conceive of the process as continuing to
its logical conclusion?

It would, of course, be claiming too much to assert that
any such program has been definitely proposed. When it
comes to logical conclusions, we are of a saving vagueness.
Men are too divided as to which religion, which language,
which race, will enjoy the ultimate supremacy ; too unwilling
to consider a possible transformation of their own. Yet cer-
tain pacifists, on the one hand, and certain imperialists, on
the other, have evolved the thesis that the world, through the

34 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

triumph of some one idea, some one power, some one civiliza-
tion, is destined to resolve itself at last into a relative if not
an absolute political unity. Indeed not the most obscure of
the belligerents in the present war, both before the outbreak
of hostilities and during their course, has uttered very pointed
declarations with regard to the importance of its own voice in
the councils of mankind, and with regard to the destiny of its
own Kultur. And the course of the war has made this order
of speculation more and more pointed. We ask ourselves if
events are working for this larger unity, and if so, in favor of
which power they are working ; or whether, on the contrary,
the ruling powers of the world are to increase in num-
ber rather than to decrease ; and which alternative may be
more desirable.

In short, the whole question of the war may be said to re-
solve itself into a conflict between two views of government,
two ideals of national destiny. There is of course a great
danger in reducing so complicated a mass of phenomena to
so simple a formula. It is too simple. At the same time, the
only hope of clarifying a dark situation, at least for oneself,
is to make of it what analysis one may. And through the
smoke, the terror, the passions, the inconsistencies of this
greatest of wars, the fact seems to emerge that the Turco-
Teutonic powers, more characteristically than their enemies,
stand for a theory of empire that certainly has time and
precedent on its side. To hold the state exempt from the code
of the individual, to consider the honor and might of the state
as the only admissible might or honor, to enlarge the borders
of the state at the expense of weaker states, to bring into the
state and keep there, by force if need be, such alien elements
as the interests of the state might demand, to regard the state
as destined to lead or to survive all other states, was the prin-
ciple of all ancient empires, as of Napoleon's epic experiment,
and seems to be the principle animating the three empires
in question. Austria-Hungary, the beginner of the war, is

THE PRINCIPLES AT WAR 35

notoriously an empire of patchwork, made up of elements the
most diverse, speaking different languages, following different
religions, held together partly by force, partly by political
expediency. The Turks, who originated in a quarter of Asia
far to the east of their present habitat, rule an empire more
intricately diverse, because less divisible into distinct prov-
inces — an empire into which they broke their way by force,
and in a remnant of which they maintain themselves only by
force. Germany, the strongest of the trio, is strongest for
one reason because she is the most homogeneous ; and no one
disputes her secular right to the greater part of the territory
she occupies. Yet during the last generation or two we have\
seen her extend those territories at the expense of peaceable \
neighbors, paying no heed to consequent outcries. We have /
heard her emit medieval theories with regard to mailed fists, l^ (
scraps of paper, places in the sun. And we hear her asking /
to-day, in all seriousness, if the peace and happiness of man- I
kind do not require that she should annex Belgium, further \
portions of France, and I know not how many other alien y
territories.

The reader, for his part, may very well ask whether this
older imperialism be peculiar to the Turco-Teu tonic powers.
I make haste to assure him that I do not, because I truthfully
cannot, put forth any such argument. Not even with regard
to little Serbia, fans et origo of the war, does the argument
hold ; for at the outset of the war her frontiers included cer-
tain districts which were hers only by right of conquest. As
for Russia, who took up the sword in Serbia's behalf, Bess-
arabia, the Crimea, Finland, and Poland are portions of the
European continent which passed unwillingly under her sway.
Russia's French ally possesses in Africa and Asia a great em-
pire to which she has no right of blood. Italy has also planted
her foot in Africa, and has shown symptoms of desiring to
repeat the experiment in Asia Minor and the Balkan Peninsula.
Japan has within a few years advanced beyond her own borders
and proclaimed her preponderant interest in the affairs of a

36 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

neighboring empire; while Great Britain has grown in three
hundred years from a rainy island of the Atlantic to an empire
the vastest and most heterogeneous the world has ever seen.
She it was, in fact, who widened the field of European compe-
tition from one continent to six, whose policies of sea power
and colonization have had upon other countries an ascendancy
out of all proportion to their needs, and who has the most to
gain or to lose by the outcome of the war.

To these necessary admissions I will further add that neither
in one group nor in the other are motives and responsibilities
evenly distributed. We cannot say of one that it obviously
and unanimously stands for this, or of the other that it alone
represents that. But the fact that one is the attacking and the
other the defending group indicates at once a line of cleavage.
And if we follow the general example of our time, and counte-
nance one standard of international relations for Europe, and
one for those parts of the world which are outside the domi-
nant civilization of our time, the line of cleavage becomes still
more distinct. Germany, during the past year, has more than
once demanded with astonishment and indignation why she
receives so little outside sympathy. The answer is perfectly
simple. No other country of our day in Europe has so loudly
expressed its contempt of its neighbors, or has shown so little
scruple with regard to their rights. Among the inhabitants of
that continent the attacking powers are the ones that have to
be most closely watched and most continuously guarded
against by those about them. And if they should fail to win
their war, the smaller races of Europe would come into far
more of their own than if the defending powers came to grief.

I do not choose, however, to invoke a double standard of
civilization. And it is in the very matter of empires beyond
the seas that the line of cleavage between the attacking and
the defending powers becomes most distinct. The course of
the war has brought forward the British Empire as the prin-
cipal object of attack. Its adversaries fail to say, however, that
that empire is not one of conquest or cold-blooded calculation.

THE PRINCIPLES AT WAR 37

It is almost fantastically an empire of chance. The coloni-
zation of America, of Australia, of South Africa, however
debatable from our present point of view, was perfectly
in accordance with the public opinion of its time. It was the
work of born sailors and pioneers, in whose sea-wanderings
are bound up much that is most noble and chivalric of our
race. As for India and Egypt, their occupation was in the
beginning no less accidental. The foundations of the Indian
Empire were unwittingly laid by a company of traders. And
Great Britain would not have gone into Egypt if other Euro-
pean powers and the constituted suzerain of the country had
not refused to intervene in a dangerous situation. What there
is of calculation in the British Empire discovers itself in the
gradual acquisition of strategic outposts and naval bases, pro-
tecting trade routes and vested interests which long went
unquestioned. I perfectly agree with the attacking powers in
being unable to regard such vested interests as superior, in the
long run, to those of the alien subjects of Great Britain. Nor
can I regard, Great Britain herself can hardly regard, her
occupation of Egypt and India as permanent. But no one
can deny — and least of all the former suzerain of Egypt —
that Egypt and India, accustomed for centuries to the oppres-
sions of conquerors, have vastly benefited by the British occu-
pation, and that the day of their freedom has been hastened
rather than retarded by that occupation. Furthermore it is
the merest truism to repeat that Great Britain has always
been the champion of local self-government. She has by no
means an unbroken record in this regard, but her imperialism
is notoriously of the democratic type. If the Anglo-Saxon
race stands for anything, after all, it stands in the world for
the liberty of the individual, and his right to make his way
up if he be worthy of it. And then I have said nothing of
France, whose classic experiment in democracy has had so
profound an influence upon the modern world.

Of the attacking powers, on the other hand, it is no less a
truism to say that they stand in the world as the upholders

38 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

of aristocracy, of centralization, of the will of the few as com-
pared to the will of the many, of the empire of calculation
and conquest. I do not say that their opponents, and certain
of them more than others, are free from those tendencies, or
that those tendencies are necessarily evil Neither do I say
that the attacking powers are without justification for their
pretensions — though I must say that it is hardly for the
masters of Shantung or Armenia to cast the first stone at the
masters of Egypt. It is difficult to plead for the Turks that
they have ever benefited the peoples who fell under their
sway — save to quicken a dormant sense of nationality. But
one must admit that an element of accident entered into their
conquest of the Byzantine Empire, and that that conquest was
also in accordance with the public opinion of its time. The
Turks, therefore, like many another migrating race, have if
only by the mere force of time acquired certain definite
squatters' rights. And we can hardly criticize the instinct
that urges them to become masters in their own house, how-
ever we may deprecate their methods in attaining that end.
Of Austria-Hungary, again, one can say that that empire is
founded even more solidly in the old imperialism, and that
in modern times its diversity has partly been a willing one
on the part of its non-Teuton and non-Magyar elements. Of
Germany, furthermore, it is patent that she has had great
temptation. It must be humiliating to so intelligently or-
ganized a people to consider that they were split into an
infinity of petty princedoms long after the English and the
French had settled those questions of internal policy. It must
be bitter to a William II or to an Admiral von Tirpitz to re-
flect that as long ago as 1598 an obscure London schoolman
was able to begin publishing "The Principall Navigations,
Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation,"
and that the traders of Bremen, Hamburg, and Liibeck allowed
those of Havre and Southampton quietly to reach their hands
across the seas — with the result that the largest, the strong-
est, and certainly not the least enlightened people of Europe

THE PRINCIPLES AT WAR 39

proper now finds itself at a disadvantage as regards access to
the sea and colonies for its surplus population.

What is most curious in this situation, however, and most
disquieting, is that in this day and generation Germany should
carefully study the map, mark out in which directions it would
be advantageous to herself to expand, and seriously say to her-
self: "I am the strongest nation in Europe, the most active,
the most intelligent, and I have the least room in which to
stretch myself. Why should I not have the position which is
my due? Why should I hesitate to do now what in earlier
times no other nation ever hesitated to do? Why should I
not act on my belief that no good is higher than the good of
the state? Why should I not create intelligently such an
empire as one or two of my neighbors have blindly acquired
at random? And why should I not be acknowledged the
master of the world ? Why shall I allow myself to be thwarted
by a stupid and grasping race like the English, by a degenerate
race like the French, by insignificant races like the Belgian,
the Danish, the Dutch, the Serbian, perhaps even the Turkish,
when by a little effort and a little temporary unpleasantness
I can gain the place which my qualities deserve, and in the
end really increase the happiness and well-being of the world
at large?"

This question has the advantage of being both frank and
logical. And, as I have said, one cannot wonder, from a de-
tached point of view, that Germany should put it to herself.
But, from the same detached point of view, one cannot watch
without astonishment and uneasiness Germany's attempt to
answer that question. One cannot, in the first place, help
feeling a profound distrust of the merely verbal logic, the logic
not of the spirit but of the letter, which has brought Germany
to such conclusions as Louvain and Rheims and Ypres, as the
sinking of the Lusitania and the shooting of Miss Cavell. Then
the validity of the German premises is not beyond dispute.
Opinions differ, for one thing, as to the truth of Germany's

40 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

apparent persuasion that she is best qualified to become
the leader of the world and marked out by the Most High for
that destiny. Opinions even differ, if I may put forward a
suggestion of so little general credit, as to whether the good
of the state be really the supreme good. Or, to put it in
another way, some men are not convinced that the immediate
worldly welfare of the state is in the long run the real good
of the state. As yet, it is true, there exists no such inter-
national court of appeal as among individuals may protect
a man from a powerful and unscrupulous neighbor. Yet,
after all, there is a feeling abroad in the world that the
code of the citizen, of which Germany has been so successful
an upholder, the code according to which the thief, the bandit,
and the murderer are not allowed to indulge their private
inclinations with impunity, however gifted and competent
they may be, is also a good code for the state. There is a
feeling abroad in the world that the doctrine of democracy,
which does not claim the superiority of the poor and the weak
and the humble, but which claims -the right of the poor and
the weak and the humble to compete on equal terms with
the rich and the strong and the proud, is a doctrine good
for nations as for individuals. And there is a feeling abroad in
the world that the theory of evolution, and its corollary of the
survival of the fittest, are not quite so simple as the Germans
seem to believe. The world is perfectly willing to grant that
Germany is in certain ways the most fit. Her efficiency, both
on the battlefield and in the fields of public administration and
private enterprise, is beyond a doubt. Yet there are those who
ask themselves whether efficiency, whether physical or me-
chanical fitness, be the chief end of man. And there are those
who feel that the stupid and grasping Englishman, that the
degenerate Frenchman, that the insignificant Belgian, not to
mention the half-conscious Russian, have shown, even in
comparison with the competent German, qualities not only
quite as admirable as a clockwork efficiency but quite as
likely to reach the final proof of success.

THE PRINCIPLES AT WAR 41

But there is another aspect of this questionable thesis of
which Germany and her allies are the most open champions,
that argues even more positively against their policy of
"rectifying" frontiers. To the "logical" type of mind it may
seem a simple enough matter to study the map and mark how
by nudging back a neighbor here, fencing in a Naboth's vine-
yard there, or cutting off some one else's light, one may ar-
range oneself a comfortable place in the sun or haply make a
push to the East. If the enterprising map-maker, however,
has the courage to draw his paper frontier outside the real
frontier of his race, he discovers that the matter is not quite
so simple after all. In fact he only wills to his descendants
problems and enmities that poison their enjoyment of their
patrimony. For if history teaches us anything at all, it teaches
us that nothing is more difficult than to "rectify" a racial
frontier. In fact, after innumerable experiments in that
direction, men have discovered only one satisfactory way of
changing — at will — a racial frontier. That way is totally to
get rid of all persons of the race impinged upon — either by
the somewhat slow and expensive process of expelling them,
or by the quicker, cheaper, and decidedly more effective method
of massacring them.

There is, to be sure, another possible expedient of which
there has been much talk in the world ; namely, assimilation.
Of the success in modern times of this expedient the attacking
powers offer us evidence sufficiently striking. The Turks have
been so little able to digest the foreign elements of their empire
that six separate kingdoms — or seven, if we count Albania
— have been formed out of their European possessions. And
we have lately seen what steps they have taken to prevent a
similar shrinkage of their territories in Asia. Austria-Hungary
is racially an older empire, founded upon something more
nearly approaching a system of federation. But the racial
boundaries of that empire have scarcely shifted in a thousand
years. And Germany — has it been the Prussification of
Poland, of Schleswig-Holstein, of Alsace-Lorraine, that

42 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

encourages her to deliberate whether she shall not extend the
benefits of that process to Belgium, to northern France, to
western Russia, to I know not what other portions of the
earth? Primitive and discredited as are certain of her ideas
for this day of the world, I am not willing to suppose that she
sanctions, at least for herself, the methods of her Turkish
ally. But what ground can so intelligent a nation have for
hoping to assimilate alien populations against their will, or to
have peace without doing so ?

Our own history gives us reason, perhaps, to wonder whether
the period of the formation of races be entirely past. Yet it is
so far past that we have little light on the origin of the prin-
cipal races of the world. And although names and boundaries
have fluctuated constantly since men first began to record
such things, we should have learned by this time that nothing
in history is less permanent than conquest. The assimilation
on any scale of one race by another may perhaps have been
possible in prehistoric times, when means for recording the
identity of a people either did not exist or were confined to
the very few, when communications were difficult and danger-
ous, when one country could live in complete ignorance of
another, and when there was no such thing as an international
public opinion. But we have no record of any such assimila-
tion — by force. Such processes as the expansion of Rome
under the Republic, as the unification of modern Italy and
Germany, are one thing. Expansion among alien races is and
always has been quite another. Did Rome really absorb the
Briton, the Gaul, the Iberian, the Teuton? Has the Jew dis-
appeared, two thousand years after the disappearance of his
country? How lasting a mark did the great Latin, Greek, or
Turkish empires, did the republics of Athens, Genoa, or Venice,
leave upon the humble tribes of the Balkan Peninsula? No
conqueror has ever been able to swallow an alien race. The
nearest approach to that feat yet accomplished has sometimes
been performed by an alien race in swallowing a conqueror —
as happened to the Goths in Italy, the Normans in England

THE PRINCIPLES AT WAR 43

and Sicily. For the sole type of assimilation possible is by
choice, not by force. And how slowly even an elective assimi-
lation operates, we have lately had occasion to note on our
own continent, where the United States receives all who come
to her — on condition that they adopt her ways.

Thus we begin to arrive at the heart of our question. Na-
tions have come, it is true, to deal in vaster terms than ever
before. Modern means of communication have given govern-
ment a scope and a centralization impossible to the empires of
old. And the ancient imperialism has found flattering sanction
in a new philosophy. It is small wonder that men find it easy
to think of a paramount power. But side by side with this
work of simplification and unification has silently gone on
another process. Or, rather, the process of simplification and
unification has reached a point where we begin to suspect that
it has limits. The mainspring of the process has always been
the human impulse that magnifies for a man his own house,
his own district, his own race. From century to century that
impulse has grown in consciousness, has drawn into closer and
closer relations men of one tongue, has, as the sentiment of
nationality, thrown up stronger and stronger barriers against
the old imperialism. And it compels us to ask at last whether
that imperialism can permanently operate outside the bounds
of its own race. The answer of evolution, of the survival of
the fit, is the most debatable of answers, since none agree who
are the fit and who the unfit. Moreover, evolution tells us
of another process, no less inevitable than that of integration ;
namely, the process of differentiation. As a matter of fact we
have no reason whatever to suppose that nature cultivates a
type. She cultivates types. It is only man that must have
unities, hierarchies, hegemonies. There is room in the world
for countries big and little, for languages and habits of many
kinds, for that wide play of individuality which is shadowed
in plant and animal life. A world containing such different
civilizations as the Anglo-Saxon, the French, the German, the

44 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

Italian, the Japanese, the Russian, is infinitely richer than any
world containing only one of them. And as among individuals
civilization has made possible the survival of the physically
unfit, and the discovery in some of them of rarer fitnesses, so,
against our will, as it were, and almost without our knowledge,
does it come to be among peoples. Force and size and numbers,
which have always claimed the right for their side, are of less
and less avail against something else of which we are but
vaguely aware. At the very moment when the dream of world
empire has more resources at its command than ever before,
the attainment of its end retires to a greater distance. Nor is
there any real menace to the harmony and progress of the
world in the view that the world is to belong to many coun-
tries, not to one. And unjust as may seem the chain of acci-
dent that has done more for one nation than for another, it is
surely time for nations to be aware that no standard of com-
parison is more unreliable or more dangerous. In the perspec-
tive of history the greatness of nations is seen to be not unlike
the greatness of states in our own senate, where Delaware and
Rhode Island have as many voices as New York and Cali-
fornia, and where the intelligence of the voice has been known
to count for more than the voting power of the state behind
it. It is even within the bounds of possibility that King Albert
of Belgium, who rules a shot-riddled acre of swamp and sand-
dune, will in generations to come be remembered quite as long
and quite as honorably as his great and good friend Kaiser
Wilhelm II.

It is not without reason that, contrary to the unifying tend-
ency of our time, we see the persistence of small countries like
Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Portugal, Switzerland. They are
not without affinity for neighboring countries. They could be
subdued in an hour by those countries. But, strangely enough,
they yet preserve their individuality. More striking still,
we see fragments of populations, like the Irish, the Scotch,
and the Welsh in Great Britain, the Finns in Russia, the
Bohemians and southern Slavs in Austria-Hungary, the

THE PRINCIPLES AT WAR 45

Armenians, the Greeks, the Kurds, the Laz, and the Syrians in
Turkey, and the dismembered Poles, maintaining to a greater
or lesser extent their own language and identity. It would, of
course, be no occasion for surprise if these smaller elements of
society should ultimately be lost in the larger combinations.
But neither, on the other hand, can any one marvel if they
continue to remain distinct, if some of them even regain a
complete independence.

The fundamental question of the war, then, is a conflict
between the old imperialism of conquest and the principle of
nationalities — the principle that a people, great or small, has
the right to choose its own destiny. That question, between
Austria-Hungary and Serbia, precipitated the war. And with-
out a just settlement of that question there can be, there
should be, no hope of permanent peace. For as long as the
society of nations countenances the code of the outlaw, as
long as a single member of that society holds that might makes
right or claims his freedom to attack and pillage a neighbor,
so long will it be necessary for other members of the society
to carry arms. Peace is more desirable than war, but liberty
and honor are more desirable than peace. I hold no brief for
political assassinations. Neither do I put forward any special
pleading on behalf of Serbia or her allies. What I put forward
is the case of the Serbs — as contrary to that natural, human,
just, and irresistible tendency of our time which created
modern Italy and the German Empire, which freed Hungary
and the Balkan States from an Asiatic conqueror, which in
Asia itself has set alight a new unrest. The people of Serbia
and Montenegro, of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of Croatia,
Dalmatia, and Istria, are racially one and the same. They
speak the same language, they share the same legends, tradi-
tions, and literature. It is the manifest destiny of that people,
scattered from the Rhodope Mountains to the Danube, from
the Danube to the Adriatic Sea, to reach, sooner or later,
some form of political unity corresponding to their racial
unity. And it is only righting the stars in their courses to

46 THE ISSUES OF THE WORLD WAR

attempt to thwart that destiny. The three empires who have
set out to do so may for a moment succeed — by exterminating
the Serbians. The leading paper of Constantinople recently
remarked, apropos of the junction of the German and Turkish
forces : "And if, in the realization of this plan, the annihilation
of Serbia is essential, what is the objection?" Such an im-
perialism is none the less artificial, medieval, marked for
ultimate disaster. There is of course, for the attacking powers,
an element of tragedy in the situation. For Austria and Tur-
key in particular, whose imperial robes contain least purple of
their own, the way of justice is all but the way of doom. But
the situation will never be solved except on the principle of
nationalities.

At all events, if the nations of the two Americas can com-
bine to intervene in the affairs of a turbulent neighbor, how
much more can the non-combatant nations of the world,
who also have suffered by the war, who also share in the
destiny of the world, assert their claim to insist that the
treaty of peace be drawn up neither in satisfaction of in-
dividual vengeances nor in support of an artificial balance of
power, but in accordance with the principle of nationalities.
Its acceptance, it is true, will necessarily entail problems the
most harassing. But that most elementary principle of
reason and justice is worth more to the world than peace or
pride or wealth or happiness or the lives of its defenders.
And if this war could establish it among men, Europe would
not have thrown away her chosen youth in vain.

THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

GENERAL MALLETERRE

[General J. M. G. Malleterre is an officer of the French Army who
was wounded at the first Battle of the Marne and is now Governor of
the Invalides, Paris. He has also served as military critic of the Paris
Temps. The article of which the present selection is only one part was
put into English by Herbert Adams Gibbons, and is an admirable ex-
ample of the simple exposition of a technical subject.]

In spite of the revolution that has been wrought by modern
science, the chief role in everything that is done in this world
is played by men working together. The forces that we have
created by our brains are not a substitute for our own efforts,
individually and collectively. They enable us only to do
more than we would otherwise have done. They are not
substitutes; they are accessories. They would be substitutes
in warfare only if one side alone employed them. Employed
by both sides, they neutralize each other, and we fall back
upon man power as the final and decisive element.

Those who are not actually engaged in the new warfare
think that it consists in long periods of stagnation, with
an occasional local action here and there, and a rare offensive
movement on a large scale. The daily bulletins issued by
the armies lend color to this impression. It is, however,
wholly wrong. Trench warfare is a continuous battle that
will not end until the armistice is signed. On the front there
is always firing, there is always fighting. The artillery has
no rest night or day; the infantry, never ceasing its vigil,
exposed all the tune to shell fire and sniping, plies the shovel

1 From " How Battles Are Fought To-Day," Harper's Magazine, October,
1917. Copyright, 1917, by Harper & Brothers. Reprinted by permission,

50 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

and the pick, with arms at hand to repel or attack. This has
taught us to make the unit battalions instead of divisions or
regiments, and to exert every effort to avoid daily losses
from needless and thoughtless exposure, and to get the day's
work accomplished by division of labor that will keep the
men in condition for the test that may come at any moment.

It is by battalion that sectors are occupied, by battalion
that offensive movements are carried on, by battalion that
small operations are organized. The officer who commands
a battalion does not have to think about tactical and strategic
problems, but he is the chief reliance of the General Staff
in the execution of an offensive movement. If we want to
understand how an offensive is prepared and carried out — •
in a word, how war is being fought in the autumn of 1917,
the r61e of the infantry must be treated from the standpoint
of the battalion. A sector is that portion of the front lines
occupied by a battalion. The battalions are the units. When
a battalion moves up to relieve another battalion the problem
of the organization of the sector confronts the commanding
officer of the battalion. From the moment the order is given
to move forward to occupy a sector until the battalion is
brought back for rest, the responsibilities and duties of the
commanding officer are as great and as onerous as those of
his superiors. He is like the foreman in industrial life — con-
stantly at it, responsible for what the men under him are
doing, responsible to them as well as to the men higher up.
He has to think of everything, carry a dozen different things
at one time in his head, and be ready for any emergency.
He must keep his men in good moral and physical condition
by a just division of labor and by looking after their food
and their safety. Psychologist, pathologist, carpenter, builder,
engineer, cook, physician, scout, judge, father — get all
these professions together, none of which are learned at St.-
Cyr, and you have a good chef de bataillon.

The organization of a sector consists of : (a) accessory
defenses (elements de tranchee) which are made to arrest and

THE INFANTRY IN MODERN WARFARE 51

retard the enemy advancing under fire of the defense; (6)
first line of surveillance, occupied by very few men, from
which all ground in front can be well seen ; (c) line of resist-
ance, occupied very strongly, which must be defended, in
principle, whatever happens ; (d) lines of support, which con-
tain here and there strongly organized centers that can be
defended while lines in the rear are being organized. These
successive lines are connected by communication trenches
(boyaux). The boyaux serve primarily for protecting the
soldiers going forward or coming from the front lines, the
transmission of ammunition and food, the evacuation of
wounded, and the passage of officers on their rounds. But
at the moment of an attack, if the enemy has broken through
one or more lines, the boyaux can be used also as defensive
trenches, and are extremely useful in subjecting the enemy
to a flanking fire. All the lines of trenches, as well as the
centers of resistance on the line of support and the boyaux,
are now protected by a prodigality of barbed-wire entangle-
ments. The parallel trenches, as far as is possible, are dug
in zigzag form, following the old principle of fortification,
not only in order to subject the attackers to cross fire, but
also to enable the defenders to hold a portion of the trench
more readily, if the enemy breaks through at any point.
Just before a general offensive movement steps are dug in
the wall of the trench nearest the enemy, to facilitate the
climbing out of the attacking forces, and the boyaux are
widened so that reinforcements and munitions can pass
rapidly.

The accessory defenses depend entirely upon the nature
of the ground that lies in front of the first line of surveillance,
and this consideration dictates also how strongly it is advis-
able to occupy elements de tranchee. The first line of surveil-
lance cannot always be a continuous line. Sometimes it
means only a little post here and there. Watchers (guetteurs)
must be on the qui vive in the first line night and day. With
adequate artillery preparation, it is always possible for the

52 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

enemy to occupy the elements de tranchee and the premiere
ligne. When one reads in the bulletins of the capture of these
two advanced lines, the same or a following bulletin generally
states that a counter attack has driven out the invaders. An
offensive movement can be considered as serious only when
the line of resistance, where the defenders are well dug in,
has been carried. This line, too, can be smothered by heavy
artillery. As we fight to-day, a big offensive is launched only
after the line of resistance is supposed to be wholly destroyed,
and the line of support subjected to a demoralizing shelling,
which continues during the offensive. The line of support,
occupied by entire companies, to whom reinforcements can
be sent without delay, is where the attacking forces, if the
artillery preparation has been sufficient, begin to suffer their
first serious losses. The centers of resistance, villages and
concrete forts, where existing buildings cannot be utilized,
pour a deadly machine-gun fire upon the attackers.

Under these conditions one might think that the infantry,
constantly exposed to annihilation, has to play a passive
r61e — at least in the first three lines. What can be done
against a crushing artillery fire? Nothing can be done in
the sector or sectors upon which the enemy concentrates
his fire. But we must remember that there never will be
enough cannon and enough ammunition to batter down the
first and second positions, and keep shelling during the
attack the lines of support, for more than a few kilometers
at a time. Even within the few kilometers chosen for a con-
centration of fire, we have learned that millions of shells do
not create everywhere equally great ravages and equally
favorable openings for the attackers. Consequently, while
some sectors are doomed to destruction, others remain to
take the enemy on the flank as he pours through the holes
his artillery has made. This is true of offensives on a large
scale as well as of local operations. Hence it is of a prime
importance for each sector to keep in contact with the neigh-
boring sectors, to be ready at any moment to go to the aid

THE INFANTRY IN MODERN WARFARE 53

of a threatened sector, or to help surround enemy forces
that have advanced too far. The battalion commanders
are in touch with their neighbors on both sides and with
the higher command in the rear. If this contact be never
lost, it is always possible for the commanders of groups of
units, on up to General Headquarters, to know what is hap-
pening, and to direct operations in the ensemble.

At this point one may ask why I have started in to describe
an offensive movement by talking about defensive organiza-
tion. This is easily understood if one realizes that offensive
warfare means now — unfortunately ! — no more than the
moving of a few sectors forward a few kilometers. The suc-
cess of this limited b'iting into the enemy lines depends upon
the rapid organization of the ground taken. The battalion
commanders can tolerate no moment of repose, no matter
how exhausted their soldiers may be. Hesitation, bungling,
slowness, are fatal. For very soon new enemy batteries will
enter into action, and violent counter-attacks to gain the
lost ground must be expected. So every offensive implies a
defensive. If the officers and men who attack are not able to
organize without delay the ground they have won, not only
will they be subjected to a heavy bombardment before they
have dug themselves in, but they will be forced to defend
themselves in positions inferior to ones they have left. With
artillery conditions such as they are, the infantry is able to
conquer ground with slight losses; but, by the same token,
holding the ground won necessitates sacrifices.

For taking the offensive, then, the first training for officers
and men is in organizing defensively a sector, and in learning
how to keep in touch with the sectors on both sides and with
the higher command in the rear. The use of pick and shovel
is as important as that of rifle and bayonet and grenade.
Learning how to avoid needless exposure, how to go back
and forth in the boyaux at night, and how to bring up supplies,
must be followed by instruction in the study of the enemy
ground in front. Space forbids me even to mention the

54 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

numerous signs of enemy activity that a good watcher can
detect. Surprises are now practically impossible, and some
of the best help given to the artillery in warding off enemy
attacks and in preparing the ground for offensives has come
from information of simple soldiers, telephoned back by
chefs de bataillon who kept "on the job" with their men
twenty-four hours in the day.

Then follows the preparation of the soldiers, morally and
technically, for an offensive movement. At the beginning
of the war, raw soldiers who had never faced shell fire were
thrown into action without the slightest preparation. We
had to do it, although it was unfair to the men, for there was
no other way to save France. Since tne war has become a
guerre de tranchee, it is possible to consider the psychology
of the soldier. No matter how courageous and resourceful
a man may be, he needs a progressive training to face death
and to know how to think and act under fire. In the excite-
ment of the actual forward movement, when men are fighting
side by side, all may go well enough. But individual effort
is required of the soldier after mass effort has won the ground.
There comes the moment when men are separated in little
groups, or find themselves alone. That is the critical moment
in which the fruit of victory has to be reaped. Soldiers must
be trained in such a way that they will be able to take full
advantage of that moment.

This training is gained by the progressive use of the soldiers
of the battalion in minor operations immediately in front of
their sector. Under the pretext of carrying messages, they
are sent in couples from one point to another in front lines.
They learn how to use the boyaux, how to pass from shelter
to shelter in exposed places, how to find their way in the
dark, and become familiar with the system of organization
of advanced defenses. Then, if there is a "no man's land"
between their sector and the enemy trenches, they can be
sent out into the open to build elements de tranchee and lis-
tening-posts, to put up and repair barbed wire, and — singly

THE INFANTRY IN MODERN WARFARE 55

now — to act as sentinels to protect others who are working
thus in front of the sector. Next they go out in small groups
for patrol and reconnoitering duty. This familiarizes them
with the kind of country through which they must pass
when the offensive is ordered, and they become expert in
seizing upon everything that affords shelter and protection.
The final step in training for the offensive is participation in
raids (coups de main) . Raids are not made upon the initiative
of the chef de bataillon. They are ordered from headquarters,
but the carrying out of the operation is left to the commanders
of the sectors. Raids always have in view the general objects
of making the enemy nervous, putting him off the scent, and
causing him uselessly to expend his ammunition. Often there
is a particular object of spoiling some plan the enemy is sus-
pected of being about to carry out, reconnoitering to see if
he has a plan on foot, or capturing and destroying a minen-
werfer, a machine-gun position, an annoying element de tranchee,
or an advantageous observation post. Raids are welcomed
by the chef de bataillon. They keep up the fighting spirit
of his men, and, above all, they give him the opportunity
to choose for the work men who need the final training for
the offensive — acquaintance with hand-to-hand fighting
with bayonet or knife or revolver, handling and facing gre-
nades, machine-guns, liquid fires, and gases, passing into and
across barbed wire, enemy trenches, and other obstacles,
looking out and warding off sudden flanking fire attacks, and
undergoing artillery bombardment in the open.

Preparation for the offensive never ends. It is not our
American friends alone, coming fresh to the battle fields of
Europe, who have to go through this training. New men are
being constantly brought to the front in the French and British
armies. From the depots in the rear recruits are being received,
and conditions change so rapidly in a few months that men
who have been evacuated sick or wounded, when they return
to their old regiments, have to go through a new period of
training. They have forgotten much, and there are new

56 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

tricks to learn. They need also to get hardened once more
to pick and shovel, and to pass again progressively through
the ordeal of being shelled.

The four stages of the offensive are : (i) when the artillery
bombardment is deemed sufficient, the troops for the assault
are brought up into the sectors opposite their objective; (2)
the artillery concentrates its fire upon the first enemy line -
at a moment that has been fixed the infantry advances from
its trenches in successive lines and marches forward; (3)
at that same moment the artillery fire moves forward equally
- it is an advancing wall of steel, followed immediately by
the infantry who enter into the enemy lines right behind shells ;
(4) when the objectives have been attained, or when farther
advance becomes impossible, the organization against the
enemy's counter-fire and counter-attack begins immediately.
For the first and fourth, stages the experience gained in the
sectors ought to enable the battalions to do what is required
of them without a hitch. ,

The second and third stages, which constitute the execution
of the attack, will pass off smoothly if three conditions have
been fulfilled : the men must be told what they are expected
to accomplish and become familiar with the ground over
which they will pass ; the artillery must be able to live up to
its program, both as regards the preliminary bombardment
of objectives and the progressive advancement of the curtain
of fire on schedule time after the attack has started ; and the
infantry must keep right along behind the artillery fire.

Before the attack the ground between the sector and the
objective is carefully studied by means of maps and by per-
sonal observation, not only by the officers, but also by the
men of the battalions. The artillery fire, directed by aero-
planes, may have been concentrated upon the front to be
stormed for several days. The aeroplanes and the advance
posts note, as closely as they possibly can, the effect of the
artillery fire. The changes wrought by the bombardment are
wirelessed and telephoned back to Divisional Headquarters,

THE INFANTRY IN MODERN WARFARE 57

where cartographers change every few hours the maps of
the enemy lines according to the indications thus given them.
At the moment of the attack the troops of assault have seen
maps and photographs only a few hours old. Added to this
information from headquarters, they have their own knowl-
edge, from long study and constant observation, of just what
obstacles are to be met on their particular route toward the
objective. So thoroughly do the men know the ground to be
traversed, each trench and center of resistance, each machine-
gun emplacement, that they can go ahead in the dark with
confidence. They have been informed also, as far as is humanly
possible, just where the artillery may not have destroyed
barbed wire and where machine-gun centers are supposed
to remain intact. The officers of the sector have in their
hands a time-table, which is rigidly adhered to, stating ex-
actly when the artillery will advance its fire. So they know
how fast to go to follow directly upon the heels of the shells.
This is of prime importance, for if the march is not regulated
in such a way as to follow from seventy-five to a hundred
yards behind the artillery fire, the enemy will have time to
come out of his dugouts, rig up mitrailleuses, and defend his
line of support and centers of resistance. Trenches must be
entered and centers of resistance surrounded immediately
after the artillery fire has passed on — or there is no hope of
success.

The formation for the assault is a series of waves (vagues)
which leave the trenches successively from fifty to one hun-
dred and fifty yards apart. Where there is reason to believe
that the artillery cannot have completely demolished the first
two enemy lines of trenches, it is frequently deemed advisable
to send expert riflemen, either separately a few feet apart,
or in groups, as the first line of assault. These have a better
chance, at less risk, than solid lines, to silence what resistance
may be encountered in the first trenches. But as the artillery
can now be counted upon to do its work thoroughly, the
waves of assault are generally formed from the start of men

58 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

who march elbow to elbow. In each line there is a mixture
of specialists — lassoers, bomb-throwers, machine-gun and
trench-cannon crews.

We have spoken of the artillery preparation, under the
present conditions, as assuring the possibility of the advance
of the infantry without great loss, and a very recent offensive,
which won the Wyschaete-Messines salient, has demonstrated
the possibility of complete success in this. However, it must
be always borne in mind that everything cannot be expected
to go well everywhere, and that not only machine-gun nests,
but also concealed batteries may in places escape destruction
and enter into action before the objective of the assault is
reached. There is always danger, unless it is a sah'ent that
is being stormed, of flanking fire and attacks. We have not
yet come to the point of overwhelming superiority in artillery
and aeroplanes where we can assure our troops of assault
protection until the moment of counter-fire and counter-
attack. Hence the necessity still remains, during the second
and third stages of the offensive, of keeping the lines moving,
no matter what unexpected resistance may develop, and of
assuring adequate reinforcements.

THE FRENCH ON THE SOMME *
"ODYSSEUS"

["Odysseus" is the pseudonym of a writer in Black-wood's Magazine
who has, in a series of pen pictures called "The Scene of War," which ap-
peared during 1916 and 1917, given perhaps the most artistic descriptions
of the various battle fields and points of interest from the North Sea to
Suez. From the present selection a few paragraphs relating to aviation
have been omitted.]

I had seen the mighty effort of our people on the Somme,
and had witnessed the battle for Morval and Lesboeufs from
a point very near the left wing of our gallant allies ; but I had
not yet seen the French in action. I was therefore glad to
know that an opportunity was now to be given me of doing so.

Our headquarters were in an old Cathedral town, in whose
streets and squares there were almost as many Englishmen as
Frenchmen ; while at our hotel the khaki and the gray blue
were closely intermingled. It was the meeting point here, a
little in the rear, of the two armies.

The early morning found us on one of those straight, logical
roads — unlike our own — that run with their French direct-
ness and singleness of purpose from one considered point to
another. It was a road animated by all the stir and prep-
aration of organized war; which, as it is developed by the
patient and strenuous industry of her people throughout
France, comes slowly, like the shaft of a lance to its blade-
point, to its final conclusion here upon the Front. So over-
whelming is the interest of the Fighting Line — that strange,
shifting, and tragic area, where the thoughts and ideals of men
are brought to the anvil of war — that one is prone to neglect

Blackwood's Magazine, February, 1917. Reprinted by permission.
59

60 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

these mighty preparations, this patient and faithful toil that
is the prelude to victory.

As we swept along the straight white road, it was thronged
with these symbols of the will and tenacity of France.

"Under the light, sparkling surface of this people," said
my companion, "there resides a core of indestructible granite,
and the Boche is up against it now."

So he is; and the granite is legible upon the faces of all
those men who toil upon these long white roads that are the
arteries of war.

Gone for the moment are the vivacity and the joy; but
the infinite patience, the undying valor, these remain; and
let us bow to them when we meet them on the road.

Here are the menders restoring to the road its traditional
perfection ; reclaiming it foot by foot from the indignity
that has been put upon it. Here are the drivers of the wagons,
carrying to their brethren the provender of battle ; the food
and the fuel they need for their sustenance, the shells and
cartridges they claim for the intruder upon their ancient
soil. White with the dust, seamed with the sweat and the
stress of their traffic, hard and enduring, these men have
but one purpose at heart, one end in view ; and to this their
strength is uncomplainingly directed.

Beside them, along the Light Railway that cleaves the
fields, there move the great guns, the armored cars, and
gallant engines, the steel wagons full of shells.

The Light Railways converge at the temporary terminus a
little behind the battle line, and a great activity is concen-
trated here at the base of supply.

It is a busy scene, interrupted from time to time by the
thrust of war. The German aeroplane, when it can get so
far, drops its bombs, under cover of the night, upon the little
colony, killing friend and foe alike; and Fritz and Francois
lie beside each other stricken by the same missile. The sound
of the battle is heard in the distance, and the shadows of
evening are lit with the summer lightning of the guns.

THE FRENCH ON THE SOMME 61

Farther upon the road are the great guns that travel by
rail, and heave their shells a distance of twenty kilometers.
You can see them in the autumn mists like mammoths point-
ing their trunks towards the invader, and from time to time
you can see the flame as it issues from their lips; you can
hear the thunder of their voices as the gros obus go hurtling
through the sky. If you go up to them, you will find them
like Leviathan at home hi a field, and behind each gun the
wagon of steel in which his provender is laid.

When the door of the wagon is opened, one of the sleeping
creatures is nipped by the claws of a traveling crane and de-
posited like a puppy in a cradle that moves along an aerial
line of rail, until it is arrived at the mighty breach, its last
resting place before it fulfills its destiny.

The slow twisting of a screw behind it sends it forth with a
persuasive impulse into the open breach; the door is closed
upon its mystery; and then with a mighty music it sweeps
upon the world, a living thing.

Beside this portent the quiet cattle pasture, indifferent even
to its voice ; the women toil with bent shoulders in the fields
they love, and the life of the hamlet moves upon its ancient
course.

When evening comes, the people of the gun gather together
like factory workers after the day's toil, and you can see
them in a dark silhouette against the reddening sky, as a
truck carries them away to their billets. One of the last to
leave is the Battery Commander, a man who is the human
equivalent of his charge ; solid and direct ; a hard and deter-
mined hitter.

Beyond the great guns and the Aviation Camp, the road
now carries us into the dread Land of War. You cannot
mistake it if you have once seen it here in France; for it
is the negation of all that you have held most dear upon this
earth. In this land Ruin walks hand in hand with Death.
The green meadows and the russet orchards, the lovely woods
that should be turning to gold and amber and cinnabar;

62 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

the creepers that should be climbing in crimson upon the
cottage walls ; the old people at their doors, the children at
the gate, the rose-cheeked maidens blushing with the sap
and flow of life; the blue smoke of each homestead curling
into the quiet sky ; the lights at the windows ; the stir and
music of the street, — all these have gone.

Aceldama, it has become a place of woe; and Golgotha,
a place of skulls.

One cannot convey to another, who has not seen it, the
desolation and horror of the scene. The fields are of a melan-
choly brown, where dying weeds hang their dejected and
tattered heads ; the woods are ghostly remnants of what once
were trees, but are now misshapen and tortured forms that
grieve the open sky ; the houses where they retain any form
at all are ruined beyond the semblance of human habitations,
with roofs that grin at one like the teeth of a skull, and walls
that look as if a leprosy had fastened upon their tottering
remains. The white highway, that was once so superb and
finished a thing, the lineal heir of Rome, is now as weary and
as broken as if it led to Hell.

A side-road from it — one of those familiar and domestic

things we love — leads to the hamlet and Chateau of ,

and it is the most pitiful semblance of a road upon which
human footsteps ever echoed since man began to call himself
civilized.

As we emerged into the daylight, a French plane came
flying low over the ruins of the Chateau, ringed about with
black puffs of shrapnel, which pursued her like hounds.

All about us lay the remnants of the Chateau. That
rubbish-heap there was its farm, and that blistered spot
upon which no blade of grass was visible was its lawn. Those
withered trees were its sheltering wood, and here and there
we could trace the fragments of its encircling wall. The
whole of its area was seamed with the German trenches.

THE FRENCH ON THE SOMME 63

An officer who was with me looked at it with a cool and de-
liberate air.

"Quite done for," he said, "and I happen to know that
De K — - spent three hundred thousand francs on it just
before the war broke out."

It is thus that you realize what France has endured.

We were now obliged to enter the shelter of the long com-
munication trench ; and from time to time as we stopped to
look over its walls we could see the Artillery battle progressing
with an increasing fury, the flight of the German aeroplanes,
and the falling ever nearer and nearer of the shells. Here
and there in the general waste there survived the fragment
of a wall, a solitary tree which helped to mark the direction
we were taking. All else was a void, blistered beyond all
earthly semblance.

The black face of a nigger peeping out from this Inferno
was a startling apparition.

We found him presently, one of a party, clearing the ruined
trenches. Pipe in mouth, clad in the same blue helmet and
uniform, they worked here side by side with their French
brethren. Brethren they were, too, in their easy and friendly
companionship. In the hospitals, too, you find them so —
black face and white face near each other, bound by the tie
of common sacrifice.

Every here and there a small wooden cross, standing up
from the walls of the trench with some simple inscription, "Un
brave Francais," showed where lay the remnants of one who
had died for his country.

And then we came to a point which the diggers had not
yet reached; whence the tide of battle had barely ebbed,
and the trenches still lay as they had been left by the beaten
enemy.

"Here, where we stand now," said one who was with us,
"you see the debris of a barrage across which the Boche
and our people threw hand grenades at each other, until
we broke through and drove them before us."

64 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

Every few yards there was a shaft leading down from the
trench into a dugout, and in each of these dugouts there
lay rifles and bandoliers and gas masks, hastily abandoned
by the enemy ; and sometimes these dugouts were sealed by
the explosion of a shell, and in them there lay those who had
been killed or buried alive.

And so we came to where the dead still lay unburied;
the human creature with all his potentialities reduced to
that which had better remain undescribed. . . .

We still went on, and as I turned to look back I found that

I was alone with C , an officer of the Chasseurs d'Afrique,

who strode on before me gay and exultant.

"We are about 300 meters now from the Boche; let us see
what's happening," said he, and climbing a little way up the
broken wall of the trench, he looked out upon the howling waste.

It was the same tragic scene that had met our eyes since
first we embarked upon this journey — but more deadly,
more intense in its mournful expression. The increasing
battle, the loud explosions of the shells, the rattle of the
machine-guns, the German planes venturing here and there
within our reach, the rising columns and masses of black
smoke, the dead men lying below, gave me an impression
that can never fade of the hell into which the best and bravest
of the world go with a smile.

And then a little incident occurred which brought the
scene to a sort of personal climax. For as I stood here, ab-
sorbed in its detail, I saw approaching me, racing across the
gray waste, like some footballer dashing for his goal, a small
black creature, clearly visible, swaying from side to side, yet
furiously intent upon its course. I dropped into the trench
to the sound of a smashing explosion ; a shower of mud, and

a heavy fall as de V , who had been following us, rolled

over at my feet.

"Nous Fawns echappe belle," laughed C , brushing the

mud from his tunic, and as I did the same a small warm object
fell from the folds of my coat.

THE FRENCH ON THE SOMME 65

"It was the wind of the damned thing that knocked me
over," said de V , picking himself up, somewhat abashed.

We found the shell on the lip of the trench fuming as if
with rage at having failed of its purpose.

We were evidently in luck ; for Mr. Bass, of an American
paper — an old campaigner who carries with him a wound
from the Russian front — who should have been where it
fell, had fortunately dropped a couple of yards behind. The
rest of our party, farther off, seeing the shell fall, retired to
a dugout, assured that we should never meet again. A pause
of a second or two — a yard this way or that, — such is the
interval between all that life means to us and the bleak oblivion
of death.

It is a risk that the soldier at the Front takes every day
of his life.

"Don't be distressed for me if I fall," says he, writing to
mother or wife, "it is a glorious death to die."

We ate our lunch in an underground mansion, which for
the past two years had been the home of a German General
and his Staff. And when we had finished, we climbed out
into the open again to find Francois Flameng, with his
fresh face and cheery air, his blue trench helmet on his
head, and a pipe in the corner of his mouth, painting
the villa. The French officers of our party were delighted
to see him. There was much hand-shaking and friendly
chaff, and we had the honor of being introduced to the
painter.

It seems that M. Flameng has permission to go where he
likes and to paint whatever pleases his eye. Since the be-
ginning of the War he has been busy in this way, and there is
no one better known in trench and camp than this distin-
guished and joyous personage. It was a great and a very un-
expected pleasure to see him at work.

The scene amidst which these events transpired was of an
impressive character. Above it there rose in its tragic and

66 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

misshapen lines the gaunt skeleton of a wood. At one end
of it there was a cemetery of new-made graves, each with
its wooden cross and simple inscription: "Guyot Pierre -

Soldier of France" — "Lieutenant M , an affectionate

tribute from his Company." Beside them stood a tall man in
a long buff coat with his cassock peeping from under it, a
trench helmet on his head, and a face like that of Christ,
with his blond beard and gentle eyes. Next to him stood
the Divisional Surgeon, a humorous character: "Un vrai
type," said an officer, laughing at his singular manner and
speech; about them there moved upon their varied business
the French infantry, hardy and matter-of-fact.

With a sudden whir an aeroplane came flying over the
tree tops, almost brushing them with its wings. And beyond
these the heavy batteries roared their menace, and the ground
shook with their wrath. It was a beautiful sight, too, in its
way: the low concealed valley; the blue figures moving
amongst the trees; the Battery Commanders, cool and icy
in their places of control, their clear, peremptory voices cleav-
ing the welter of sound; the men at the guns like stokers
at a furnace ; the sudden flash, the bursting roar, the recoil ;
and in the gray sky, visible to the eye, the messenger of Death
upon his way. Over all, ceaseless in their brooding, the French
aviators flying low over the field of vision, the eyes of France
fixed upon the enemy.

We met the General at work in his dugout in another part
of the field. It was another habitation to that of his Ger-
man rival. "Voila mon Cabinet de travail," said he, ushering
me into the smallest of little rooms by the roadside, with a
table in it, a chair, a telephone, and a staff-map upon the wall.
Some steps cut in the mud led down to his bedroom, which
was like a steamer cabin. The bulb of an electric light hung
beside his bed. "A present from the Boche," he said. Next
door his Staff were at work, the telephone was constantly
in action, and a dispatch rider occasionally came peppering
up the road.

THE FRENCH ON THE SOMME 67

We climbed up into the field above. The same desolate
waste, the same mournful void that war creates wherever it
places its deadly hand. Upon the skyline I could see the
faint outlines of the Bois de Trones, by which I had stood
on the day of the British battle. French and English, hand
in hand, good friends and loyal comrades, we go forward,
never doubting, to the ultimate goal, sealing our compact
with the blood of our peoples.

Can we ever forget them, or they us ?

And then, as I stood here with the General — a man of
the old type, vivid and martial, a soldier of France — some
homing pigeons came flying through the gray sky, gentle
of wing and faithful to their cause ; and out of the tarnished
waste a lark rose singing into the heavens, above the griefs
and the turmoil of men, unconscious of the tragedy about
her.

DINANT LA MORTE l
CAMILLE DAVID

In the early days of September the terrible news began to
circulate in Brussels: "Dinant is razed to the ground! Its
inhabitants have been either massacred or deported ! Famine
reigns amongst the people who are left ! " This was a few days
after Louvain, and the general depression made us loth to
believe in a fresh misfortune. Yet the refugees gave exact
details, and their grief was so sincere and their condition so
wretched that we were finally convinced. One morning, de-
siring to see for ourselves, we started out for the place of
martyrdom, making a terrible pilgrimage through the devas-
tated countryside and burnt villages.

I had last seen Dinant on August i5th, when I watched the
battle from the heights of Anhee as it raged from one hill to
the next above the town. Now we found ourselves there once
more, or rather on the site where Dinant had been. Under the
citadel, which overhung the rock, was a hole. The old bell-
tower of the thirteenth century cathedral, which had been
built on the ruins of a Roman temple, was broken down. The
tower looked pitiable — like a body without a head. The old
houses which gave to the bright little town its archaic look and,
withal, a note of unique gayety, were nothing but ruins, their
scorched walls and tottering gables revealing the naked rocks
behind. We went into the St. Medard quarter, which had
been raked by fire and shell. The National Bank, the station,
and a few houses are still standing; but their interiors show
traces of unbridled pillage. In order to get at the safe in the
bank the bandits had made a hole in the wall large enough for
a man to pass through.

1 From Contemporary Review, August, 1915. Reprinted by permission.

DINANT LA MORTE 69

Of the 1400 houses which spread lazily along the river not
200 remain. The devastation is complete from Devant-Bou-
vignes all the way to Anseremme, itself also three quarters
destroyed. One would think that a cyclone must have passed
that way. That human hands could have caused such disaster
is beyond the power of the imagination to believe. And yet it
was men who made this fire with their own hands by means of
the grenades they threw.

Towards the Rue Adolphe Sax the houses have been razed
to the ground. In front of the church is a great empty space;
the doorway of the cathedral looks on to the Meuse. Left and
right, as far as one can see, there is not a roof, not a house,
only blackened and crumbling walls, ruins, and rubbish. Higher
up, the Hydrotherapeutic Institute, the villas, Bellevue Col-
lege have disappeared. Above the hospital, which remains,
the facade of a convent is riddled with holes. Over a wooden
bridge supported by piles we pass the Hotel de Ville and the
elementary school, both destroyed. In the streets there is a
mournful silence as of death. The Maison du Peuple has been
overthrown by some "comrades." We step into the church
of St. Pierre, and see walls — and the sky.

The horror continues right on to Leffe. As for noting what
has been destroyed, it is far easier to write down what is left.
The barracks, the police office, and the Athenaeum have been
spared. With death in our hearts we return to the center of
the city and in the direction of the Faubourg St. Nicolas. Of
the Grande Rue, so picturesque with its old shops full of
articles in leather and Dinant shells, nothing remains. We
stumble over the bricks of ruined houses. The Palais de Jus-
tice, the boarding-school, the Girls' Secondary School have not
perished. But the St. Nicolas Church was set on fire. The
Place de Meuse has been preserved. Guaranteed until the
Sunday by the presence of the French on the left bank of the
Meuse, it was subsequently spared through the intervention
of a lady of German origin, from whom a Prussian soldier,,
nevertheless, stole 5000 francs' worth of jewelry. By what

70 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

providential accident the Faubourg St. Paul suffered com-
paratively little is not known. But towards the Rocher Bayard
and further, and opposite at Neffe, the devastation begins
again.

If wealth had but been the only thing destroyed ! But add
to it the human suffering such as Dante himself could not have
imagined !

What had happened?

From the first days of August the French artillery was in-
stalled on the heights of the left bank and their infantry in
the valley in the St. Medard quarter. The Germans had
taken up their position on the right bank. During the night,
like brigands, taking advantage of the darkness, they came
down through the "Fonds de Leffe," and threw themselves
upon the town, shooting with their rifles and causing terror
amongst the inhabitants. Yet the town had been peaceful,
and was anxious only with regard to general events. There
were neither guns, nor rifles, nor soldiers, only civilians with-
out arms. The arms had all been collected by the authorities.
The garde civique had been disarmed and disbanded before
August 1 5th. After the bombardment which took place at
the time of the first battle between the French and Germans
on August 1 5th, when some buildings on the left bank were
destroyed, part of the population had fled. In the days which
followed there were only small artillery duels.

On Friday, August 2ist, in the evening, began the awful
sack of Dinant, which surpasses in horror the destruction of
the town by Charles the Bold in the fifteenth century. It was
half past nine at night. The town was calm and silent. The
inhabitants were all indoors. Suddenly shots rang out, and
dreadful groans were heard. A band of German soldiers was
coming down the Rue St. Jacques firing into the windows of
the houses. A man employed at the gasworks, Auguste Georges,
was going into his house when he was killed. The butcher,

DINANT LA MORTE 71

Cleda, who ventured to look out, was wounded, and the sol-
diers forced him to cry "Vive PEmpereur !" M. Sohet, hotel
keeper, was hit in the stomach with the butt-end of a rifle.

The terrified inhabitants took flight. Along the walls of the
houses, in the dark, shadows of fleeing people might be seen.
An octogenarian scrambled over a wall and managed to escape
into a garden. The doors were broken hi by the Prussians,
and they entered the houses, stealing, pillaging, and smashing.
Then, without going further into the town, they returned by
the way they had come, and went up the Monte de Ciney.

Saturday, August 22d, was quiet, except that towards eve-
ning there was artillery thunder in the valley.

Sunday was a terrible day. As early as a quarter past five
in the morning, at dawn, the Germans, under the orders of
Lieut.-Col. Blegen, began to bombard Dinant. Shells rained
on the town. Soon the mitrailleuses, which were hidden in the
trees, sent down a great shower of bullets. From the left bank
the French replied vigorously. Hardly had the fight begun
before several hundred Germans of the io8th Infantry Regi-
ment advanced through the Fonds de Leffe and by the heights
of St. Nicolas. The first victims fell at Leffe.

The faithful took refuge in the Eglise des Premontres, where
mass was being celebrated, whilst outside was the crack of
rifle fire. It was half past six o'clock. The German soldiers
burst into the church and drove out the worshipers. They
had heard their last mass !

Protests and supplications aroused no pity in the barbarians.
With the butt-ends of their rifles they separated the men from
the women, and made them stand in a group whilst they shot
into the middle of them under the horrified eyes of the women.
About fifty civilians fell dead. The women uttered terrifying
shrieks. At the door of his house, and in the presence of his
wife and children, they killed M. Victor Poncelet. Blood-
thirsty fury took possession of the soldier-assassins. Street by
street and house by house they pillaged the town and set fire
to it, destroying Dinant from top to bottom. It was between

72 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

7 and 9 o'clock in the morning, in the Faubourg St. Pierre and
in the Rue Grande, the center of the city, that this work of
destruction took place. With wild shouts the soldiers of Wil-
liam-the-Murderer chased the people from their houses, and
struck down at random those who tried to escape. Soon the
soldiers were throwing in hand grenades. Fire shot up and
spread with terrible rapidity. Everything was in flames,
crackling, splitting, falling. Long clouds of smoke arose from
the burning valley and wreathed the surrounding hills. The
flames licked the mountain and leapt up to redden the sky.
The conflagration was striking, grandiose, dantesque.

The valley was filled with awful noise. The sound of the
falling houses, the roar of cannon, the cracking of rifles and
guns, the hiss of bullets, the shouts of the soldiers, and the
cries of the unfortunate inhabitants were all mingled. The
Germans drove the population in groups to the places of tor-
ture; 1 60, however, managed to take refuge in the grotto of
Montfort and 400 in the grotto of Rondpeine; they stayed
there a day and a night without being discovered. Others
were able to hide by day in cellars and by night in gardens.

At 9 o'clock a pitiable cortege approached the prison. It was
composed of men, women, and children, about 700 of them.
With their hands held up and surrounded by soldiers, these
martyrs crossed the burning town. Tears flowed, sobs, lamen-
tations, prayers arose from among them. No one listened.
The officers and soldiers were unmoved. Until dusk these
wretched people were kept prisoners. The soldiers passed
backwards and forwards in front of them, saying : "You will
all be shot this evening." Evening arrived. Darkness fell
slowly, so slowly, prolonging the terrible agony. The battle
had come to an end. Namur having fallen, the French had
orders to retire towards Philippeville. The Germans were
masters of the town.

At 6 o'clock a German captain had the women placed high
up on the Montagne de la Croix. A cordon of infantry barred
the street before them. Thirty steps away, against the wall of

DINANT LA MORTE 73

the garden of M. Tchoffen, the public prosecutor, in the Rue
Leopold, at the corner of the Place d'Armes, a row of men was
placed standing, and in front of them a second row kneeling. .
Opposite the public prosecutor's house soldiers were stationed
ready to shoot. To avoid the ricochet of the bullets they were
aiming slantwise. A little further on, waiting their turn, an-
other group of inhabitants helplessly watched these lugubri-
ous preparations. The German officer passes in front of the
crowd in reserve and chooses more victims. At this tragic
moment a thrill of horror goes through the condemned men
and through the crowd of relations and friends who are look-
ing on at the scene. The women implore and wring their
hands and throw themselves on their knees, the children weep,
the men cry : " Mercy ! Mercy ! we did not shoot, we had no
arms. Have pity on us for our children's sake."

It is in vain ! The German officer will listen to nothing. He
takes up his position, shouts an order, lowers his sword. The
rifles go off, the bullets fly, and men fall. A great clamor is
heard which makes the rocks tremble. Women are fainting.
. . . The dead now rest in M. Tchoffen's garden. A few
flowers and some little wooden crosses stuck in the ground
mark the two big graves.

Not all the men, however, have been hit. About twenty
were not touched. They fell down pell-mell amongst those
who had been shot. Others were only wounded. One received
a bullet in his head, another was hit by five bullets, another
had his thigh perforated. All remain motionless in a pool of
blood which gradually congeals, lying side by side with the
corpses of their friends, now become cold and stiff in death.
Not a cry, not a murmur, not a breath rises from this human
heap. Agony and the will to live glue them to the pavement.
Fear itself prevents their teeth from chattering. They feign
death and await the darkness of the night. There is silence
for a long, long time. Then a head lifts from among the dead
in the shadow. Enemies are no longer to be seen near the
prison. In a low voice, in a whisper, the owner speaks and says

74 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

in Walloon: "Can you see any one over St. Nicolas way?"
A man lying on his back opens his eyes and answers : "No,
• nobody." "Let us go into the house opposite," says young

G . It is 8 o'clock and quite dark. The survivors, silently,

with beating hearts, revived by hope, rise up, cross the street
with a run, plunge into a house, climb through the gardens,
the unhurt dragging and supporting the wounded, and hide
in the mountain. They are covered with dark blood which is
not their own. They rub themselves with leaves and grass.
For several days and nights they live on carrots and beets and
other roots. The wounded are untended. Their comrades
tear up their shirts for bandages. They suffer terribly from
thirst.

That tragic Sunday, August 23d, saw other massacres.
In the prison civilians were shut up, men and women together.
At 6 o'clock in the evening a big gun started shooting from
the upper part of the mountain, and dropped a rain of bullets
on the prisoners, who were in the courtyard. A woman fell
pierced through the body. Three other people perished at
her side. Soldiers ran up to kill them. In order to save himself

Doctor D smeared his face with the blood of the victims

and pretended to be dead.

The butchery had been organized at various points in the
town. Inhabitants who had taken refuge in cellars and were
discovered were shot at once. At Leffe, at about 5 o'clock in
the evening, the soldiers forced M. Himmer, the Argentine
consul, director of the Oudin Works, a Frenchman, and fifty
workmen, women, and children to come out of the cellars of
the weaving factory, where they had fled. Four times did they
set fire to the establishment. M. Himmer came out first with
a white flag. "I am consul for Argentina," he said to the
officer, "and I appeal to that country." What was that to
the assassins? They were all shot. The officer said: "It
would have been too much luck to spare you when your

DINANT LA MORTE 75

fellow citizens were dead." The toll of the dead at Leffe is
horrible. 140 civilians were shot. There are only seven
sound men left.

In the garden next to that of M. Servais, ex-Secretary of
the Commune, also shot, rest 80 of the inhabitants of Dinant.
In the cemetery of the Faubourg de Leffe others lie buried.
Others again to the right of the road, in a garden near the
Catholic school, at the entrance to the Fonds de Leffe. And
here it was the inhabitants shut up in the Couvent des Pre-

montres who dug the grave. M. M told me, shaking with

indignant feeling :

They made us dig the grave, like martyrs, saying to us, "That's
for you this evening." They made us bury our massacred fellow
citizens. I saw seventeen bodies thrown into that enormous hole,
and then the contents of three carts, each carrying fifteen murdered
corpses. They were tossed in like bundles, without being identified.

Towards half past six the German savages passed along the

Rue St. Roch. Against the house of M. B a group of

civilians was shot. Then the soldiers threw the bodies into the
cellar, which has been walled up. Forty victims are in that
charnel house. In the Rue En He a paralytic was shot in his
chair. In the Rue d'Enfer a young fellow of fourteen was killed
by a soldier. He had with him a little child whom a soldier
tossed into the burning house of M. Francois G .

At Neffe, a southern suburb of Dinant, armed bandits
sacked, pillaged, and stole, with fire and slaughter. Under the
railway viaduct they shot men, women, and children. An old
woman and all her children were killed in a cellar. A man, his
wife, and son and daughter were put against a wall and killed.
An old man of sixty-five, his wife, his son-in-law, and the
young wife were shot. Down at the river bank there was fur-
ther butchery. Inhabitants of Neffe who had gone by boat
to the Rocher Bayard suffered the same horrible fate. Amongst
them Madame Collard, aged eighty-three, and her husband,
and many women and children. Ninety-eight civilians were

76 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

buried in M. B 's garden, according to the accounts of

the German soldiers themselves. And whilst this awful car-
nage was deluging the town with blood, the German soldiers
gave demonstrations of their cowardice. For instance, this
in the Faubourg St. Paul. Mme. L. P relates :

Soldiers came into my house. They struck me with their fists
in the chest, smashed everything in the house, then, with a revolver
pointed at me, dragged me out of doors. Other women were there
under the threats of these brutes. They pushed us before them to
the parapet at the waterside, exposing us to the French fire, whilst
the coward Prussians stooped and fired, sheltering themselves
behind women.

It was there that Mdlle. Madeleine Massigny was killed.

I have heard of four cases of violation, a young woman who
died after the abuses of fifteen horrid bandits. I have also had
an account of a young mother who was confronted with a
choice between the strangling of her little girl and her own
dishonor. It will be readily understood that names cannot be
given, and that the population keeps religious silence with
regard to these cases.

Doctor A. L took refuge with his wife and a baby of a

few months in a sewer. They had no food but a little sugar,
and nothing to drink but the filthy water flowing by. To feed
the child they had to damp the sugar with this noxious liquid.
The horrible situation lasted two days.

The &«//«r-bearers have refinements of cruelty. In the
barracks at Leffe three hundred civilian prisoners were placed
in line along the wall with their arms up. Behind them a
pastor recited the prayers for the dead, whilst an officer worked
an unloaded gun ! This torture was kept up for a quarter of an
hour. It seemed a century long. In the Eglise St. Paul prison-
ers were kept for five days. In the Eglise des Premontres an
officer of the io8th Infantry came to demand a candle. He
was given a taper. He refused it, and the sacred lamp was
taken down. He was satisfied, and marched all round the

DINANT LA MORTE 77

assembly, jeering, and holding his revolver at the faces of the
women. He carried his trophy away with a roar of laughter.

Pillage and fire continued on the Monday and Tuesday.
The soldiers drank as much wine as they could steal. They
wallowed in murder and blood, celebrating their triumph glass
in hand. Drunken officers sat down with their men. They
obliged the inhabitants who had survived to be present at
their orgies on pain of death. On Monday the soldiers, just to
amuse themselves, killed three old men of eighty. On Tuesday,
at half past five in the morning, soldiers scattered through the
town, shouting and setting fire to the houses on the Quai de
Meuse and in the Rue du Moulin des Batteurs.

From the Monday processions had been formed. Surrounded
by soldiers, who struck the French monks in the face with
horsewhips, the prisoners were taken away towards Prussia,
some by Ciney, others by Marche. About 400 went. How
many will return ? And what must have been the sufferings of
those innocent victims on the long routes, who had not been
able to dress themselves suitably or get their boots, who had
been torn from their wives and children, leaving behind them
that nightmare of bloodshed and ruin. One had only stock-
ings on his feet. Many were in sabots. Already the dead were
strewn along the roads. On the left of the Ciney road, on the
"Tienne d'Aurcy," lie buried four old men who were found
with their hands bound, unable to go any further, and ex-
hausted by suffering and fatigue. They were MM. Jules
Monard (70), Leon Simon (65), Couillard (75), and Bouchat
(73) . The farmer of Chesnois was harnessed between the shafts
of a cart and forced to drag it up the hill of Sorinnes.

Such is the true and sad story of Dinant. It remains for the
world to pass its judgment.

A FIGHT WITH GERMAN AIRPLANES1

"CONTACT" (ALAN BOTT)

[Captain Alan Bott was, before the World War, a correspondent of the
London Daily Chronicle but soon enlisted in the British air forces. From
his experiences on the Western Front were derived the personal narra-
tives of which the account below is a part. They originally appeared
in Blackwood's Magazine under the title "An Airman's Outings." He
was later transferred to Palestine, where he was wounded and made
prisoner by the Turks. The narrative has the merit of being equally
good as an account of the fighting airman's real experience and as a speci-
men of simple but effective narration.]

For weeks we had talked guardedly of "it" and "them"
— of the greatest day of the Push and the latest form of war-
fare. Details of the twin mysteries had been rightly kept
secret by the red-hatted Olympians who really knew, though
we of the fighting branches had heard sufficient to stimulate
an appetite for rumor and exaggeration. Consequently we
possessed our souls in impatience and dabbled in conjecture.

Small forts moving on the caterpillar system of traction
used for heavy guns were to crawl across No Man's Land,
enfilade the enemy front line with quick-firing and machine-
guns, and hurl bombs on such of the works and emplacements
as they did not ram to pieces, — thus a confidential adjutant,
who seemed to think he had admitted me into the inner circle
of knowledge tenanted only by himself and the G. S. O. people
(I, II, and III, besides untabbed nondescripts). Veterans
gave tips on war in the open country, or chatted airily about
another tour of such places as Le Catelet, Le Cateau, Mons,

1 From "Cavalry of the Clouds," copyright, 1918, by Doubleday, Page & Co.
Reprinted by permission.

A FIGHT WITH GERMAN AIRPLANES 79

the Maubeuge district, and Namur. The cautious listened in
silence, and distilled only two facts from the dubious mixture
of fancy. The first was that we were booked for a big advance
one of these fine days ; and the second that, after the over-
ture of bombardment, new armored cars, caterpillared and
powerfully armed, would make their bow to Brother Boche.

The balloon of swollen conjecture floated over the back of
the Front until it was destroyed by the quick-fire of authentic
orders, which necessarily revealed much of the plan and many
of the methods. On the afternoon of September 14 all the
officers of our aerodrome were summoned to an empty shed.
There we found our own particular general, who said more to
the point in five minutes than the rumorists had said in five
weeks. There was to be a grand attack next morning. The
immediate objectives were not distant, but their gain would
be of enormous value. Every atom of energy must be concen-
trated on the task. It was hoped that the element of surprise
would be on our side, helped by a new engine of war, christened
the Tank. The nature of this strange animal, male and female,
was then explained.

Next came an exposition of the part allotted to the Flying
Corps. No German machines could be allowed near enough
to the lines for any observation. We must shoot all Hun
machines at sight and give them no rest. Our bombers should
make life a burden on the enemy lines of communication.
Infantry and transport were to be worried, whenever possible,
by machine-gun fire from above. Machines would be detailed
for contact work with our infantry.

No more bubbles of hot air were blown around the mess
table. Only the evening was between us and the day of days.
The time before dinner was filled by the testing of machines
and the writing of those cheerful, non-committal letters that
precede big happenings at the Front. Our flight had visitors
to dinner, but the shadow of to-morrow was too insistent for
the racket customary on a guest night. It was as if the
electricity had been withdrawn from the atmosphere and

8o THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

condensed for use when required. The dinner talk was curiously
restrained. The usual shop chatter prevailed, leavened by
snatches of bantering cynicism from those infants of the world
who thought that to a beau sabreur one must juggle verbally
with life, death, and Archie shells. Even the war babies (three
of them died very gallantly before we reassembled for break-
fast next day) had bottled most of their exuberance. Under-
standing silences were sandwiched between yarns. A wag
searched for the Pagliacci record, and set the gramophone to
churn out "Vesti la Giubba." The guests stayed to listen
politely to a few revue melodies, and then slipped away. The
rest turned in immediately, in view of the jobs at early dawn.

" Good:night, you chaps," said one of the flight commanders.
"See you over Mossy-Face in the morning!"

In the morning some of us saw him spin earthwards over
Mossy-Face Wood, surrounded by Hun machines.

Long before the dawn of September 15, I awoke to the roar
of engines, followed by an overhead drone as a party of bomb-
ers circled round until they were ready to start. When this
noise had died away, the dull boom of an intense bombard-
ment was able to make itself heard. I rolled over and went to
sleep again, for my own show was not due to start until three
hours later. The Flying Corps program on the great day
was a marvel of organization. The jobs fitted into one another
and into the general tactical scheme of the advance as exactly
as the parts of a flawless motor. At no time could enemy craft
steal towards the lines to spy out the land. Every sector was
covered by defensive patrols which traveled northward and
southward, southward and northward, eager to pounce on
any black-crossed stranger. Offensive patrols moved and
fought over Boche territory until they were relieved by other
offensive patrols. The machines on artillery observation were
thus worried only by Archie, and the reconnaissance forma-
tions were able to do their work with little interruption, ex-
cept when they passed well outside the patrol areas. Through-
out the day those guerillas of the air, the bombing craft,

A FIGHT WITH GERMAN AIRPLANES 81

went across and dropped eggs on anything between general
headquarters and a railway line. A machine first made known
the exploit of the immortal Tank that waddled down High
Street, Flers, spitting bullets and inspiring sick fear. And
there were several free-lance stunts, such as aeroplane attacks
on reserve troops or on trains.

The three squadrons attached to our aerodrome had to the
day's credit two long reconnaissances, three offensive patrols,
and four bomb raids. Six Hun machines were destroyed on
these shows, and the bombers did magnificent work at vital
points. At 2 A.M. they dropped eggs on the German Somme
headquarters. An hour later they deranged the railway sta-
tion of a large garrison town. For the remaining time before
sunset they were not so busy. They merely destroyed two
ammunition trains, cut two railway lines, damaged an impor-
tant railhead, and sprayed a bivouac ground.

An orderly called me at 4.15 A.M. for the big offensive
patrol. The sky was a dark gray curtain decorated by faintly
twinkling stars. I dressed to the thunderous accompaniment
of the guns, warmed myself with a cup of hot cocoa, donned
my flying kit, and hurried to the aerodrome. We gathered
around C., the patrol leader, who gave us final instructions
about his method of attack. I tested my gun and climbed
into the machine. By now the east had turned to a light gray
with pink smudges from the forefinger of sunrise. Punctually
at five o'clock the order, "Start up!" passed down the long
line of machines.

"Contact, sir!" said the flight-commander's mechanic,
his hand on a propeller blade.

" Contact," repeated the pilot. Around swung the propeller,
and the engine began a loud metallic roar, then softened as it
was throttled down. The pilot waved his hand, the chocks were
pulled from under the wheels, and the machine moved forward.
The throttle was again opened full out as the bus raced into
the wind until flying speed had been attained, when it skimmed
gently from the ground,

82 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

The morning light increased every minute, and the gray of
the sky was merging into blue. The faint, hovering ground-
mist was not sufficient to screen our landmarks. The country
below was a shadowy patchwork of colored pieces. The woods,
fantastic shapes of dark green, stood out strongly from the
mosaic of brown and green fields. The pattern was divided
and subdivided by the straight, poplar-bordered roads pecu-
liar to France. We passed on to the dirty strip of wilderness
which is the actual Front. The battered villages and disorderly
ruins looked like hieroglyphics traced on wet sand. A sea of
smoke rolled over the ground for miles. It was a by-product of
the most terrific bombardment in the history of trench war-
fare. Through it hundreds of gun flashes twinkled like the
lights of a Chinese garden.

Having reached a height of 12,000 feet, we crossed the
trenches south of Bapaume. As the danger that stray bullets
might fall on friends no longer existed, pilots and observers
fired a few rounds into space to make sure their guns were
behaving properly. Archie began his frightfulness early. He
concentrated on the leader's machine, but the still dim light
spoiled his aim, and many of the bursts were dotted between
the craft behind. I heard the customary woujff! -wouff! wouff!
followed in one case by the hs-s-s-s-s of passing fragments.
We swerved and dodged to disconcert the gunners. After five
minutes of hide-and-seek, we shook off this group of Archie
batteries.

The flight commander headed for Mossy-Face Wood, scene
of many air battles and bomb raids. Around it are clustered
several aerodromes. One of these, just east of the wood, was
the home of the Fokker star, Boelcke. C. led us to it, for it
was his great ambition to account for Germany's best pilot.
As we approached, I looked down and saw eight machines
with black Maltese crosses on their planes, about three thou-
sand feet below. They had clipped wings of a peculiar white-
ness, and they were ranged one above the other like platforms
on scaffolding. A cluster of small scouts swooped down from

Heaven-knows-what height and hovered above us; but C.
evidently did not see them, for he dived steeply on the Huns
underneath, accompanied by the two machines nearest him.
The other group of enemies then dived.

I looked up and saw a narrow biplane, apparently a Roland,
rushing towards our bus. My pilot (in those days I was not
myself a pilot, but acted as observer) turned on a steep bank
and side-slipped to disconcert the Boche's aim. The black-
crossed hawk swept over at a distance of less than a hundred
yards. I raised my gun-mounting, sighted, and pressed the
trigger. Three shots rattled off and my Lewis gun ceased fire.
Intensely annoyed at being cheated out of such a splendid
target, I applied immediate action, pulled back the cocking-
handle, and pressed the trigger again. Nothing happened.
After one more immediate action test, I examined the gun and
found that an incoming cartridge and an empty case were
jammed together in the breech. To remedy the stoppage, I
had to remove spade-grip and body-cover. As I did this, I
heard an ominous ta-ta-ta-ta-ta from the returning German
scout. My pilot cart-wheeled round and made for the Hun,
his gun spitting continuously through the propeller. The two
machines raced at each other until only some fifty yards sep-
arated them. Then the Boche swayed, turned aside, and put
his nose down. We dropped after him, with our front machine-
gun still speaking. The Roland's glide merged into a dive, and
we imitated him. Suddenly a streak of flame came from his
petrol tank, and the next second he was rushing earthwards
with two streamers of flame trailing behind.

I was unable to see the end of this vertical dive, for two more
single-seaters were upon us. They plugged away while I
remedied the stoppage, and several bullets ventilated the fuse-
lage quite close to my cockpit. When my gun was itself again,
I changed the drum of ammunition and hastened to fire at
the nearest Hun. He was evidently unprepared, for he turned
and moved across our tail. As he did so, I raked his bus from
stem to stern. I looked at him hopefully, for the range was

84 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

very short, and I expected to see him drop towards the ground
at several miles a minute. He sailed on serenely. This is an
annoying habit of enemy machines when one is sure that, by
the rules of the game, they ought to be destroyed. The machine
in question was probably hit, however, for it did not return,
and I saw it begin a glide as though the pilot meant to land.
We switched our attention to the remaining Hun, but this one
was not anxious to fight alone. He dived a few hundred feet,
with tail well up, looking for all the world like a trout when
it drops back into water. Afterwards he flattened out and
went east.

During our fights we had become separated from the re-
mainder of our party. I searched all round the compass, but
could find neither friend nor foe. We returned to the aero-
drome where hostile craft were first sighted. There was no
sign of C.'s machine or of the others who dived on the first
group of Huns. Several German machines were at rest in the
aerodrome.

Finding ourselves alone, we passed on towards the lines. I
twisted my neck in every direction, as if it were made of rub-
ber, for over enemy country only a constant lookout above,
below, and on all sides can save a machine from a surprise
attack. After a few minutes, I spotted six craft bearing to-
wards us from a great height. Through field glasses I was able
to see their black crosses, and I fingered my machine-gun ex-
pectantly. The strangers dived in two lots of three. I waited
until the first three were within 300 yards' range and opened
fire. One of them swerved away, but the other two passed
right under us. Something sang to the right, and I found that
part of a landing wire was dangling helplessly from its socket.
I thanked whatever gods there be that it was not a flying wire,
and turned to meet the next three Huns. We side-slipped, and
they pulled out of their dive well away from us. With nose
down and engine full out, we raced towards the lines and
safety. Three of the attackers were unable to keep up with us
and we left them behind.

A FIGHT WITH GERMAN AIRPLANES 85

The other three Germans, classed by my pilot as Halber-
stadts, had more than our speed. They did not attack at
close quarters immediately, but flew 200 to 300 yards behind,
ready to pounce at their own moment. Two of them got be-
tween my gun and our tail-plane, so that they were safe from
my fire. The third was slightly above our height, and for his
benefit I stood up and rattled through a whole ammunition-
drum. Here let me say I do not think I hit him, for he was not
in difficulties. He dived below us to join his companions,
possibly because he did not like being under fire when they
were not. To my surprise and joy, he fell slick on one of the
other two Hun machines. This latter broke into two pieces,
which fell like stones. The machine responsible for my luck
side-slipped, spun a little, recovered, and went down to land.
The third made off east. In plain print and at a normal time,
this episode shows little that is comic. But when it happened,
I was in a state of high tension, and this, combined with the
startling realization that a Hun pilot had saved me and de-
stroyed his friend, seemed irresistibly comic. I cackled with
laughter, and was annoyed because my pilot did not see the
joke.

We reached the lines without further trouble from anything
but Archie. The pink streaks of daybreak had now disap-
peared beneath the whole body of the sunrise, and the sky was
of that intense blue which is the secret of France. What was
left of the ground-mist shimmered as it congealed in the sun-
light. The pall of smoke from the guns had doubled in volume.
The Ancre sparkled brightly. We cruised around in a search
for others of our party, but found none. A defensive patrol
was operating between Albert and the trenches. We joined
it for half an hour, at the end of which I heard a " Halloa!"
from the speaking tube.

"What's up now?" I asked.

"Going to have a look at the war," was the pilot's reply.

Before I grasped his meaning he had shut off the engine
and we were gliding towards the trenches. At 1200 feet we

86 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

switched on, flattened out, and looked for any movement
below. There was no infantry advance at the moment, but
below Courcelette what seemed to be two ungainly masses of
black slime were slithering over the ground. I rubbed my
eyes and looked again. One of them actually crawled among
the scrap heaps that fringed the ruins of the village. Only
then did the thought that they might be Tanks suggest itself.
Afterwards I discovered that this was so.

The machine rocked violently as a projectile hurtled by
underneath us. The pilot remembered the broken landing-
wire and steered for home. When we had landed and written
a combat report, we compared notes with others who had re-
turned from the expedition. C., we learned, was down at last,
after seventeen months of flying on active service, with only
one break for any appreciable time. He destroyed one more
enemy before the Boches got him. In the dive he got right
ahead of the two machines that followed him. As these hur-
ried to his assistance, they saw an enemy plane turn over,
show a white, gleaming belly, and drop in zigzags. C. 's bus was
then seen to heel over into a vertical dive, and plunge down,
spinning rhythmically on its axis. Probably he was shot dead
and fell over on to the joystick, and this put the machine to
its last dive. The petrol tank of the second machine to arrive
among the Huns was plugged by a bullet, and the pilot was
forced to land. Weeks later, his observer wrote us a letter
from a prison camp in Hanover. The third bus got back to
tell the tale.

C. was one of the greatest pilots produced by the war. He
was utterly fearless, and had more time over the German lines
to his credit that anybody else in the Flying Corps. It was part
of his fatalistic creed that Archie should never be dodged, and
he would go calmly ahead when the A.A. guns were at their
best. Somehow, the bursts never found him. He had won
both the D.S.O. and the M.C. for deeds in the air. Only the
evening before, when asked lightly if he was out for a V.C.,
he said he would rather get Boelcke than the V.C. — and in

A FIGHT WITH GERMAN AIRPLANES 87

the end Boelcke probably got him, for he fell over the famous
German pilot's aerodrome, and that day the German wireless
announced that Boelcke had shot down two more machines.
Peace to the ashes of a fine pilot and a very brave man !

Two observers, other than C.'s passenger, had been killed
during our patrol. One of them was "Uncle," a captain in
the Northumberland Fusiliers. A bullet entered the large
artery of his thigh. He bled profusely and lost consciousness
in the middle of a fight with two Huns. When he came to, a
few minutes later, he grabbed his gun and opened fire on an
enemy. After about forty shots the clatter of the gun stopped,
and through the speaking tube a faint voice told the pilot to
look round. He did so, and saw a Maltese-crossed biplane
falling in flames. Uncle faded into unconsciousness again, and
never came back. It is more than possible that if he had put a
tourniquet round his thigh, instead of continuing the fight,
he might have lived. A great death, you say? One of many
such. Only the day before I had helped to lift the limp body
of Paddy from the floor of an observer's cockpit. He had been
shot over the heart. He fainted, recovered his senses for ten
minutes, and kept two Huns at bay until he died, by which
time the trenches were reached.

Imagine yourself under fire in an aeroplane at 10,000 feet.
Imagine that only a second ago you were in the country of
shadows. Imagine yourself feeling giddy and deadly sick
from loss of blood. Imagine what is left of your consciousness
to be stabbed insistently by a throbbing pain. Now imagine
how you would force yourself in this condition to grasp a
machine-gun in your numbed hand, pull back the cocking
handle, take careful aim at a fast machine, allowing for de-
flection, and fire until you sink into death. Some day I hope
I shall be allowed to visit Valhalla for a few minutes, to con-
gratulate Paddy and Uncle.

We refreshed ourselves with hot breakfast and cold baths.
In the mess the fights were reconstructed. Sudden silences
were frequent — an unconscious tribute to C. and the other

88 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

casualties. At lunch-time we were cheered by the news that
the first and second objectives had been reached, that Mar-
tinpuich, Courcelette, and Flers had fallen, and that the
Tanks had behaved well. After lunch I rested a while before
the long reconnaissance, due to start at three.

Six machines were detailed for this job, but a faulty engine
kept one of them on the ground. The observers marked the
course on their maps, and wrote out lists of railway stations.
We set off towards Arras. Archie hit out as soon as we crossed
to his side of the front. He was especially dangerous that
afternoon, as if determined to avenge the German defeat of
the morning. Each bus in turn was encircled by black bursts,
and each bus in turn lost height, swerved, or changed its course
to defeat the gunner's aim. A piece of H.E. hit our tail-plane,
and stayed there until I cut it out for a souvenir when we had
returned.

The observers were kept busy with notebook and pencil,
for the train movement was far greater than the average, and
streaks of smoke courted attention on all the railways. Roll-
ing stock was correspondingly small, and the counting of the
trucks in the sidings was not difficult. Road and canal trans-
port was plentiful. As evidence of the urgency of all this traffic,
I remarked that no effort at concealment was made. On
ordinary days, a German train always shut off steam when we
approached; and I have often seen transport passing along
the road one minute, and not passing along the road the next.
On September 15 the traffic was too urgent for time to be lost
by hide-and-seek.

We passed several of our offensive patrols, each of whom
escorted us while we were on their beat. It was curious that
there was no activity on the enemy aerodromes. Until we
passed Mossy-Face on the last lap of the homeward journey
we saw no Hun aircraft. Even there the machines with black
crosses flew very low, and did not attempt to offer battle.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened until we were about
to cross the trenches north of Peronne. Archie then gave a

A FIGHT WITH GERMAN AIRPLANES 89

wonderful display. One of his chunks swept the left aileron
from the leader's machine, which banked vertically, almost
rolled over, and began to spin. For two thousand feet the
irregular drop continued, and the observer gave up hope.
Luckily for him, the pilot was not of the same mind, and
managed to check the spin by juggling with his rudder con-
trols. The bus flew home, left wing well down, with the ob-
server leaning far out to the right to restore equilibrium, while
the icy rush of air boxed his ears.

We landed, wrote our reports, and took them to Headquar-
ters. The day's work had been done, which was all that mat-
tered to any extent, and a very able general told us it was
"dom good." But many a day passed before any one sat in
the seats left vacant by Uncle and Paddy.

And so to bed, until we were called for another early morn-
ing show.

. I

SIMS'S CIRCUS1

HERMAN WHITAKER

[Herman Whitaker (1867- ) was born and educated in England.
After serving in the British Army he spent several years in northern
Canada and then removed to California. He has written several novels
of frontier life. He has served as a war correspondent in Mexico and in
France. This vivid sketch, which omits a number of paragraphs of
the original, is an admirable example of popular descriptive writing of
the war, and not only gives us a first-hand account of the capture of the
first German submarine by the American forces, but also reproduces the
atmosphere and spirit of the American navy in the World War.]

From the train window approaching the base I obtained my
first view of "Sims's circus," as the flotilla has been named by
the irreverent ensign. At least, I obtained my first astonished
view of the minor portion thereof that chanced to be in port.
For the base admiral is a most efficient man. His offices and
house windows both overlook the water, and it's said by our
skippers that his idea of heaven is " a harbor clear of ships and
every destroyer at sea."

I may add from personal observation that never was there
a man who did so much to make his idea of heaven obtain on
earth. Nothing short of a " salty condenser " will procure from
him a stay in port — which reminds me of a question put by a
green ensign in our wardroom one day: "Is the water we
drink pure enough to use in our boilers?"

To which was given in indignant chorus : "Of course not !
What do you think you are?"

Returning again to the flotilla. A convoy was ready to sail,
a dozen or so of our destroyers were to be seen nestling like
speckled chickens under the wings of the mother repair ships.

1 From Independent, June i and 8, 1918. Also in Herman Whitaker's "Hunt-
ing the German Shark." Copyrighted 1918, by The Century Company. Re-
printed by permission.

SIMS'S CIRCUS 91

I said "speckled." It is, however, too weak a term for the
"dazzle" paint with which they were bedaubed. No wonder
the irreverent ensign dubbed them "brick-yards."

Barred, striped, blotched, smudged, ring-straked with vivid
pinks, arsenic greens, blowsy reds, violent blues, they looked
like — like nothing in the world unless it be that most poison-
ous of drinks, a 'Frisco pousse-cafe. All of the giraffes, zebras,
leopards, and tigers ever assembled in the "World's Greatest
Aggregation" exhibit conventional patterns in comparison
with this destroyer camouflage. The exception to this blazing
color scheme, a recent arrival from home, looked in her dull
lead paint like a Puritan maiden that had fallen by accident
into a blowsy company of painted Jezebels.

The vessel I went out on had struck America's first blow in
the war by attacking one of the submarines that opposed our
transports in the Atlantic. The thought was hot in my mind
when after boarding her my eyes wandered from the knifelike
bows back over the shotted guns, grim torpedo tubes, along
the low, rakish hull to the stern, where two depth mines hung
poised for instant use.

Of all the enginery of destruction produced in the war, there
is no weapon more terrible than these. The explosion of one
lifts a column of water thirty yards wide fifty feet above the
sea. One that was discharged nearly 200 yards away from a
30,ooo-ton ocean liner heaved her up six inches in the water.
So terrible are they that destroyers only drop them when
running at high speed to insure a "get-away," and even then
the iron floor plates of the boiler room are often lifted by the
concussion.

From the bridge I watched this slender arrow of a ship slip
out through the harbor headlands, where a number of other
destroyers were at work combing the offing for submarines
before the convoy came out. They were beautiful to see,
shooting like a school of rainbow flying fish over the long
green seas ; careening on swift turns, laying the white lace
of their wakes over sixty square miles of sea. Among them,

92 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

graceful as a swallow, was the unfortunate vessel which, tor.
pedoed two weeks later, now lies with sixty-four of our brave
lads at the bottom of the sea. It is only necessary to record
that she did not die unavenged.

Meanwhile there had been no let up in the combing of the
offing for submarines. Here and there, back and forth, the
destroyers swooped with birdlike circlings, and no words can
describe the thoroughness of the watch upon the sea. From
the bridge by officers and quartermasters, by the men in the
crows' nests fore and aft, by the deck lookouts ahead, amid-
ships, and astern, vigilant watch was maintained. Multiply
this steady eye-searching by the number of destroyers and
you can easily imagine that scarcely an inch of ocean remained
for more than a minute unswept by human eye. And yet —
Fritz was there.

There ? Why, for two days he had been there lying in wait
for the convoy which was now poking cautiously out through
the heads, and when he attacked it was like the leap of a lone
wolf on a flock with the following rush of shepherd dogs at his
throat. As he rose to take his sight at the leading steamer a
destroyer almost ran him down. Indeed it was going full speed
astern to avoid the collision when his periscope showed above
water.

It was only an instant, and the periscope was of the finger
variety, an inch and a half in diameter. It was raised in that
instant scarcely a foot above the water, but was still picked
up by the sharp, young eyes of the lookout on the next de-
stroyer. The submarine had submerged at once, but rushing
along his wake the destroyer dropped a depth mine that
wrecked the motors, damaged the oil leads, blew of! the rudder,
tipped the stern up, and sent the "sub" down on a headlong
dive fully two hundred feet.

Afterward the commander said that he thought she would
never stop. In a desperate effort to check her before she was
crushed by deep-sea pressure he blew out all his four water
ballast tanks and so came shooting back up with such velocity

SIMS'S CIRCUS 93

that the "sub" leaped thirty feet out of the water like a
beaching whale.

Instantly, the first destroyer, which had swung on a swift
circle, charged and dropped a second depth mine as the sub-
marine went down again. As the first cleared out of the way
the second destroyer opened with her bow guns on the conning
tower, which was now showing again.

Having no rudder the "sub" was "porpoising" along, now
up, now down, and every time the conning tower showed the
destroyer sent a shot whistling past it. They had fired three
shots each before the hatch flew up and the crew came stream-
ing out and ranged along the deck with hands up.

As the destroyers hove alongside, covering the crew with
their guns, two of the men were seen to run back below. They
were only gone a minute. But that was sufficient. Un-
doubtedly they had opened the sea cocks and scuttled the
vessel, for she sank three minutes thereafter.

The crew jumped into the water and were hauled aboard
the destroyer as fast as they could catch a line, all but one
poor chap who could not swim and was nearly drowned before
he was seen. Then in vivid contrast to the German practice
under similar circumstances, two of our men leaped over-
board and held him up till he could be hauled aboard.

All had happened in no more than ten minutes from the
dropping of the first depth charge.

How I ached to talk to those prisoners ! But discipline de-
manded that we keep our stations ; neither is a large convoy
to be held up while a correspondent chatters. We moved on,
leaving one destroyer to take the prisoners back to the base.

But I heard a good deal more about them afterward. The
bag consisted of one captain-lieutenant, one lieutenant, one
ober-lieutenant, one ober-engineer, and thirty-six men. As
the "sub" had been out from port about six days and had
come straight to our base, it carried down with it a full comple-
ment of twelve torpedoes ; a loss greater than that of the
submarine.

94 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

The crew appeared to be well nourished, but the faces of the
officers, in particular, were deeply lined, haggard from strain
and nervous anxiety. They all appeared stolidly indifferent
to capture. Indeed, after they had been given coffee and
sandwiches — contrast this treatment with that accorded by
a German submarine commander to the murdered crew of the
Belgian Prince — the crew began to sing. When they were
placed in the boats to go ashore on the first lap of their journey
to a prison camp, they gave their captors three cheers.

The prisoners were cross-examined, of course, and from a
plentiful chaff of misinformation were gleaned a few kernels
of truth. The commander said, for instance, that no submarine
captain who knew his business would waste a torpedo on a
destroyer ! That which caused our first casualty did not come
from the hand of a "greenhorn" out on his first voyage ! All
very nice and friendly, but in course of an intimate conversa-
tion with the ensign in whose cabin he was billeted for the
night, he let out the fact that every submarine kept two
torpedoes gauged for a depth of six feet — destroyers, of
course !

The piece of information that most concerned us came in a
radio three hours later — the base port was "closed to com-
merce." The poor harmless submarine that would not waste
a torpedo on a destroyer, not even if it went to sleep on the
water, had sown the offing with mines. All those evolutions
of ours, swallowlike dips and swoopings, had been executed in
a mine field.

I confess to a little gasp. But gasps, if you are given that
way, come thick and fast on a destroyer.

All the time a stream of radios had been coming up to the
bridge from shore stations hundreds of miles away, from ships
far out at sea, from patrol boats and mine sweepers reporting
subs. Some were so close that we were heading across their
course. Others came from a great distance — up the Channel,
the Bay of Biscay, north of Scotland; as far off as the
Mediterranean.

SIMS'S CIRCUS 95

While they were coming in the sun rolled down its western
slant and hung poised for a few moments in a glory of crimson
and gold before it slipped on down into a purple sea. Above
stretched a dappled vault that blazed in rainbow color, save
where in the west a great tear in the radiant tapestries revealed
a wall of pale jade.

It was intensely beautiful, so lovely that the mind refused
further commerce with the petty squabbles of man; refused
to picture the sea murderers that were lying in wait beneath
those jeweled waters.

That evening displayed destroyer life at its best. A brilliant
moon — which the "bridge" most fluently cursed for an ally
of the Boche — laid a path of silver along the sleepy sea. Our
boat laid her long, slim cheek against the slow, soft waves
lovingly as a girl on that of her lover. From the deck below a
mixed tinkle of a mandolin and guitar came floating up to the
bridge, accompanying a mixed repertoire of ragtime and those
sentimental ballads which the sailor so dearly loves.

It had quite the flavor of a Coney Island picnic, but, once
every hour, a dark figure slowly raised and lowered the guns
and swung them the round of the firing circle. The gunners
were taking no chances of the mechanism "freezing" through
cold, stiffened grease, nor failure of the electric sighting
lamps.

This remarkable weather held till we dropped our convoy
well out of the danger zone and picked up a second inward
bound at a rendezvous a hundred miles further south. Two
days later we gave half of our charge to a British flotilla that
led it on other ways. We had expected to drop the remaining
ships on the following morning, but destiny, alias the base
admiral, decreed otherwise. Piqued, no doubt, by his small
bag of one small ship the preceding week, Fritz had broken
into waters which, for him, were extremely unsafe, and was
shooting right and left, like a drunken cowboy on the Fourth
of July. A radio informed us at dawn :

"Area X is closed."

96 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

This meant the delivery of each ship at its port. During
the additional day and night required to do this subs were
operating to the right of us, subs to the left of us, subs in
front, subs behind us. Often we crossed their courses, but
though they sank several ships around us that were uncon-
voyed, they left us strictly alone.

Twice the alarm sounded "general quarters" and we all
piled out — a certain correspondent with his hair standing
on end — to find the alarm was caused by a short circuit.
Twice during the night porpoises charged the ship along
gleaming wakes of phosphorescence and turned the hair of
the engine room crews gray with emergency calls for full
speed astern. But without hitch or mishap we delivered our
ships at their destinations.

All the last day the wind had been stiffening. After we
headed back for the base it raised to half a gale, real destroyer
weather. As we sat at supper in the wardroom that night the
twinkle in Admiral Sims's eye was recalled when, with celerity
that almost equaled sleight of hand, the tablecloth slid with
its load of food and dishes swiftly to the floor.

The casual manner in which the steward accepted and
swept up the ruin betrayed familiarity with the phenomenon.
When he reset the table, we held the tablecloth down and he
had got safely to the coffee when, with his cup poised at his
lip, the skipper tobogganed on his chair back to the transom.
Swallowing the coffee while she hung in balance, he came back
to us on the return roll.

Profiting by his commander's example, the executive officer,
who sat opposite, had hooked his ankles around those of the
table; so took it with him to the other transom. When it
returned, further journeyings were restrained by a rope lash-
ing, but that unfortunately had no effect on the motion. It
kept on just the same ; grew worse ; more of it ; then some.

By midnight the vessel was rearing like a frightened horse
and rolling like a barrel churn, a queer mixture of metaphor
and motion. A Western "outlaw" had nothing on that boat.

SIMS'S CIRCUS 97

She would rear, shiver with rage just as though she were try-
ing to shake the bridge off her back; plunge forward in a
wild buck with her back humped and screws in the air.

It was sickening. When she did her best and beastliest, the
waves would drop from under, leaving two thirds of her
length exposed; then, when the thousand tons of her came
down on the water, she raised everything animate and inani-
mate that was not bolted down to the deck. I was lifted so
often out of my bunk that I spent almost half the night in
midair, and am now quite convinced of the possibility of
levitation.

I confess to making a modest breakfast on one dill pickle.
While I was engaged in the gingerly consumption thereof the
wardroom comforted me with the news that this was "only
half the blow," and that we might "expect the other half
before we made port." They assured me it was fair weather
by comparison with a nine days' gale they had ridden out
last month ; fine weather when measured by a blow the pre-
ceding trip when for thirty-six hours the waves swept her
from stem to stern; the living compartments were flooded;
everything and everybody wet; freezing to boot, while the
wind howled through the rigging at 1 10 miles an hour. Think
of it, you folks who live in warm houses, work in steam-heated
offices !

Fair or fine, the bridge was nearly dipping its ends when I
climbed up there after — after the dill pickle. At every
plunge her nose would go under a solid sea and we would
have to duck to avoid flying water that went over the top of
the bridge. Watery mist veiled the tossing seas. All night
we had been shoved along by a five-knot current running by
dead reckoning. It was now impossible to take a "sight" to
establish position ; so just as a lost boy might inquire his way
from a policeman we ran inshore to a lightship to get a new fix.

The lightship keeper megaphoned a direction which in his
unnautical language amounted to this. If we would proceed
so many blocks to the northward, then take the first turning

98 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR

to the left after we passed a lighthouse, we should come into a
harbor where lay the half dozen ships we were to escort back
to our base. »

The direction proved correct. As the convoy came filing
out after us a few hours later I was able to see for myself one
of those humorous flashes that sometimes lighten the gloom
of the radios. Perceiving still another vessel in harbor after
the convoy came out our skipper sent a radio to inquire if
she would care to make use of our escort.

He received a polite reply: "Thanks very much. Think
I'll stay in. I was torpedoed going out yesterday."

She was one of the luckless of the preceding day.

The delivery of this convoy at the base the following day
completed my cruise. During a period of twelve days we had
steamed 1600 miles and convoyed a total number of sixty-
odd vessels to and fro in the danger zone. Under the old
patrol system, when our fleet first began its labors, the Ger-
mans were sinking from thirty to fifty ships a week and the
seas through which we sailed were loaded with wreckage,
dead cows, horses, pigs, lumber, barrels, anything that would
float. Smashed boats were often found, and sometimes
drowned people held up from sinking by life preservers. But
since the convoy system was adopted, wreckage is seldom
seen ; will, with its extension to all ships in the near future,
become a thing of the past.

In the great improvement already effected our crews and
captains have displayed a fine part. The sixty vessels of ours
were simply one small item in the thousands convoyed through
the danger zone with a loss, as aforesaid, of only one eighth of
one per cent. In the course of this duty the American flotilla
has steamed jointly well over a million miles, a distance
equivalent to the circumnavigation of the globe over forty
times, and their journeyings have always been through mined
seas, subject to attack by submarines.

As I sit here in cozy London chambers writing before a
cheery sea-coal fire and think of my late messmates out upon

SIMS'S CIRCUS 99

those dangerous waters the thing which stands out most
clearly in my remembrance is their loyalty to each other, the
friendly spirit of the fine, clean sailor lads, the mutual respect
for each other of officers and crews, the unswerving belief of
both in their ships and commanders; finally, the faith and
complete devotion of every man in the fleet to Sims, their
Admiral.

I shall not soon forget my last view of the fleet. Looking
down from a high hill behind the town, I could see the de-
stroyers that had cruised with us lying like tired dogs on the
harbor's bosom. Far out on the heads signal lights began to
wink and blink — no doubt the tale of a submarine. From
the heights to my left the Admiralty station answered. Then,
very slowly, a destroyer opened one eye and blinked a re-
sponse. Shortly thereafter three slim, dark shapes slid down
stream and headed to sea.

I was for home, but Sims's captains were again out on the
job.

THE PROMISE1

FREDERIC BOUTET

[Frederic Boutet is one of the chief French writers of short stories
who have come into prominence since the beginning of the World
War. His especial field is the people who stay behind and do not go to
the front, as is shown by the title of one of his volumes of war stories,
"Those Who Wait for Them." The story below first appeared in the
pages of the New York Tribune, and is an admirable example of the
simplicity and delicacy of the best French short stories.]

The afternoon was wearing on. The threat of a coming
storm had deepened the shade of the forest as the soldier
who was following the wooded path debouched into a large
clearing. He recognized this at once, remembering the de-
scription of it which had been given to him, and he also
recognized by its ivy-covered roof the house which he was
seeking. In haste he crossed the clearing and, as the first
drops of rain imprinted themselves in the dust of the path,
he knocked at the door, which was promptly opened.

"M. Maray?" he asked.

"Papa is not here ; he has gone to town," answered a fresh
voice. "But if you wish to see his assistant, he lives only a
little distance away."

A young girl had appeared on the doorstep, followed by a
huge dog, who growled and whom she told to keep quiet.
She seemed to be about sixteen or seventeen years old. In
her gray cloth dress she looked tall and well developed. Her
clear face showed lines that were still childish ; but her eyes
were serious, calm, serene. With her hand she brushed from
her brow some unruly strands of chestnut hair.

1 From "Tales of Wartime France," translated by William J. McPherson.
Copyright, 1918, by Dodd, Mead & Co., Inc. Reprinted by permission.

THE PROMISE 101

"I wanted to speak first to M. Maray," the soldier stam-
mered.

On seeing her he had recoiled involuntarily, and she now
gazed at him with astonishment, for he was obviously and
painfully embarrassed, and that didn't go well with his great
height, his vigorous features, and his frank and open expression.

"If I could come back again," he murmured. "But that
is impossible. I must take my train this evening. And after
all it is you — you are the one with whom I must speak."

The young girl had scarcely caught those last words, so
violent was the beating of the rain. She asked him to enter
the house, and closed the door after him. They both remained
standing in a large, dimly lighted room.

"I see that you do not know," he began, feeling his way.
"I thought that you might already have had some news. I
wanted to break it first to your father. But I am obliged to
return at once, and I must keep the promise which I gave.
I came from the front, you know. My name is Jean Vautier,
and I was the comrade of one whom you know well. Yes —
Paul Tullier. He is wounded — gravely, very gravely — "

"Mon Dieu!" she cried. "He is not — Tell me the
truth!"

He made no answer, realizing that she understood. He
was grieved and annoyed that he should have told his tragic
news so abruptly, when he had intended to lead up to it
more circumspectly. Venturing to look at the young girl, he
saw that she had turned pale and that her cheeks were wet
with tears. But he had a feeling of surprise. There was no
trace there of that terrible despair which he had feared to
see. He began again, in a low voice :

"I promised him to bring here, if anything should happen
to him, some of his effects — as souvenirs. Here they are."

On the table between them he placed a little package, tied
with a black ribbon.

"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Poor Louise! What a misfor-
tune !" murmured the young girl.

102 THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD WAR .

"Louise? You are not Louise? You are not Paul's
fiancee?"

"No, no," she answered, shuddering in confusion and an-
guish. "Louise is my sister. She is twenty years old. They
were engaged before the war. I was only fourteen then. Poor
Louise ! She loved him so much ! These last days she has
been very uneasy. She had received no letter for a long time.
She went to town with papa to try to get some news."

"You are Emilie?" said the soldier. "He talked to me
about you — but as if you were a child."

"Yes, I am Emilie," she replied.

After a moment of silence he began again, motioning to the
package :

"That is for your sister. He said that I must bring it here
if anything happened to him. He fell beside me, killed on the
spot. As soon as I was able to do so I kept my promise. He
was my best comrade, Tullier ; for months we were together.
When he made me swear to come here, he offered to do the
same thing for me, if I should fall. Only, in my case, it was
not worth while."

"Why?" asked Emilie, raising her eyes.

"Why?" he returned, with a forced smile. "Because I am
alone in the world — absolutely alone. I have neither parents,
nor relatives, nor fiancee — nobody who cares for me. In
short, I am without any personal attachments. And even
down there, you know, there are moments when it is hard to
have to say that. But I am talking about things which do
not interest you."

She said softly that they did interest her. Then the soldier,
after a little hesitation, ventured another question.

"Have you a fianc6 down there?"

She shook her head and her face reddened. They stood
there silent, both under the spell of a vague feeling of tender-
ness, with which was mingled the sadness of mourning, evoked
by the poor souvenirs which lay on the table between them.
The soldier thought confusedly of the death which he had so

THE PROMISE 103

narrowly escaped, and he had an imperious desire to live and
to love, the image in which that desire flowered being that
of a budding young girl with chestnut hair. But he did not
dare to put his thoughts into words. He merely said :

"I must go. But I should like to ask a favor of you before
I go. Will you allow me to tell a comrade, if anything happens
to me, to send you some things which I shall leave behind?
That will not displease you ? "

She looked at him, her gray eyes filled with pity and emo-
tion, and, trembling a little, answered :

"You will come back — I am sure you will come back."

Hesitating to read the true meaning of her look and tone,
he said very softly :

"I shall come back — here?"

She nodded assent. He took her hand, bent across the table
on which the little package lay and awkwardly kissed her on
the forehead. Then he went away in the dusk, following the
path through the woods, which smelt of verdure and freshly
moistened earth.

THE SPIRIT OF FRENCH YOUTH1

MAURICE BARRES

[Auguste Maurice Barres (1862- ) was born in Lorraine and was
educated at the Lycee at Nancy. Since 1883, when he went to Paris and
entered literary and political life, he has devoted himself to efforts to
arouse the French people to patriotic and nationalistic feeling. In 1906
he was made a member of the French Academy. The present article is
only part of an address delivered in London at the Hall of the Royal
Society under the auspices of the British Academy on July 12, 1916.
Like most of M. Barres' writings since the beginning of the World War
it is filled with letters from young French soldiers who have fallen hi
battle. For their unrestrained revelation of love of country and heroic
self-confidence to a degree almost impossible for Americans these letters
are invaluable.]

Every year at Saint- Cyr the Fete du Triomphe is celebrated
with great pomp. Upon this occasion is performed a tradi-
tional ceremony in which the young men who have just finished
their two years' course at the school proceed to christen the
class following it and bestow a name upon their juniors.

In July, 1914, this ceremony came just at the time of the
events which in their hasty course brought on the war, and
for that reason was to assume a more than usually serious
character.

On the thirty-first of the month the general in command
at the school made known to the Montmirails (the name of
the graduating class), that they would have to christen their
juniors that same evening, and only according to military
regulations, without the accustomed festivities.

All understood that perhaps during the night they would
have to join their respective regiments.

1 From "The Undying Spirit of France," translated by Margaret W. B.
Corwin. Copyright, 1917, by Yale University Press. Reprinted by permission.

107

io8 THE SPIRIT OF THE WARRING NATIONS

Listen to the words of a young poet of the Montmirail
class, Jean Allard-Meeus, as he tells his mother of the events
of this evening, already become legendary among his com-
patriots :

After dinner the Assumption of Arms (prise d'armes) before the
captain and the lieutenant on guard duty, the only officers entitled
to witness this sacred rite. A lovely evening ; the air is filled with
almost oppressive fragrance; the most perfect order prevails
amidst unbroken silence. The Montmirails are drawn up, officers
with swords, " men " with guns. The two classes take their places
on the parade ground under command of the major of the higher
class. Excellent patriotic addresses ; then, in the midst of growing
emotion, I recited

"TO-MORROW

Soldiers of our illustrious race,
Sleep, for your memories are sublime.

Old time erases not the trace
Of famous names graved on the tomb.

Sleep ; beyond the frontier line
Ye soon will sleep, once more at home.

Never again, dearest mother, shall I repeat those lines, for never
again shall I be on the eve of departure for out there, amongst a
thousand young men trembling with feverish excitement, pride
and hatred. Through my own emotion I must have touched upon
a responsive chord, for I ended my verses amidst a general thrill.
Oh, why did not the clarion sound the Call to Arms at their close !
We should all have carried its echoes with us as far as the Rhine.

It was surrounded by this atmosphere of enthusiasm that
the young officers received the title of Croix du Drapeau for
their class upon their promotion, and it was at this juncture
that one of the Montmirails, Gaston Voizard, cried out : "Let
us swear to go into battle in full dress uniform, with white
gloves, and the plume (casoar) in our hats."

"We swear it," made answer the five hundred of the Mont-
mirail.

THE SPIRIT OF FRENCH YOUTH 109

"We swear it," echoed the voices of the five hundred of the
Croix du Drapeau.

A terrible scene and far too characteristically French,
permeated by the admirable innocence and readiness to serve
of these young men, and permeated, likewise, with disastrous
consequences.

They kept their rash vow. It is not permissible for me to
tell you the proportion of those who thus met death. These
attractive boys of whom I have been telling you are no more.
How have they fallen ?

There were not witnesses in all cases, but they all met
death in the same way as did Lieutenant de Fayolle.

On the twenty-second of August Alain de Fayolle of the
Croix du Drapeau was at Charleroi leading a section. His
men hesitate. The young sub-lieutenant has put on his
white gloves but discovers that he has forgotten his plume.
He draws from his saddle-bag the red and white plume and
fastens it to his shako.

"You will get killed, my lieutenant," protested a corporal.

"Forward !" shouts the young officer.

His men follow him, electrified. A few moments later a
bullet strikes him in the middle of his forehead, just below
the plume.

On the same day, August 22, 1914, fell Jean Allard-Meeus,
the poet of the Montmirail, struck by two bullets.

Gaston Voizard, the youth who suggested the vow, outlived
them by only a few months. He seems to offer apologies for
this in the charming and heart-breaking letter which follows.

December 25, 1914.

It is midnight, Mademoiselle and good friend, and in order to
write to you I have just removed my white gloves. (This is not a
bid for admiration. The act has nothing of the heroic about it;
my last colored pair adorn the hands of a poor foot-soldier — piou-
piou — who was cold.)

I am unable to find words to express the pleasure and emotion
caused me by your letter which arrived on the evening following a

no THE SPIRIT OF THE WARRING NATIONS

terrific bombardment of the poor little village which we are holding.
The letter was accepted among us as balm for all possible racking
of nerves and other curses. That letter, which was read in the
evening to the officers of my battalion, — I ask pardon for any
offense to your modesty, — comforted the most cast down after
the hard day and gave proof to all that the heart of the young girls
of France is nothing short of magnificent in its beneficence.

It is, as I have said, midnight. To the honor and good fortune
which have come to me of commanding my company during the
last week (our captain having been wounded), I owe the pleasure
of writing you at this hour from the trenches, where, by prodigies
of cunning, I have succeeded in lighting a candle without attracting
the attention of the gentlemen facing us, who are, by the way, not
more than a hundred meters distant.

My men, under their breath, have struck up the traditional
Christmas hymn, "He is born, the Child Divine." The sky
glitters with stars. One feels like making merry over all this, and,
behold, one is on the brink of tears. I think of Christmases of other
years spent with my family ; I think of the tremendous effort still
to be made, of the small chance I have for coming out of this alive ;
I think, in short, that perhaps this minute I am living my last
Christmas.

Regret, do you say? . . . No, not even sadness. Only a tinge
of gloom at not being among all those I love.

All the sorrow of my thoughts is given to those best of friends
fallen on the field of honor, whose loyal affection had made them
almost my brothers ; — Allard, Fayolle, so many dear friends whom
I shall never see again ! When on the evening of July 31, in my
capacity of Pbre Systtme of the Class of 1914 (promotion), I had
pronounced amidst a holy hush the famous vow to make ourselves
conspicuous by facing death wearing white gloves, our good-hearted
Fayolle, who was, I may say, the most of an enthusiast of all the
friends I have ever known, said to me with a grin : "What a stun-
ning impression we shall make upon the Boches I They will be so
astounded that they will forget to fire." But, alas, poor Fayolle
has paid dearly his debt to his country for the title of Saint-Cyrien !
And they are all falling around me, seeming to ask when the turn
of their P&re Syst&me is to come, so that Montmirail on entering
Heaven may receive God's blessing with full ranks.

THE SPIRIT OF FRENCH YOUTH in

But a truce to useless repinings ! Let us give thought only to
our dear France, our indispensable, imperishable, ever-living
country ! And, by this beauteous Christmas night, let us put our
faith more firmly than ever in victory.

I must ask you, Mademoiselle and good friend, to excuse this
awful scrawl. Will you also allow me to hope for a reply in the
near future and will you permit this young French officer very re-
spectfully to kiss the hand of a great-souled and generous-hearted
maiden of France?

On the eighth of April, 1915, came his turn to fall.

Roland, on the evening after Roncevaux, murmurs with
dying breath: "O Land of France, most sweet art thou,
my country." It is with similar expressions and the same
love that our soldiers of to-day are dying. "Au revoir," writes
Jean Cherlomey to his -wife, "promise me to bear no grudge
against France if she requires all of me." — "Au revoir, it is
for the sake of France," were the dying words of Captain
Hersart de La Villemarque. — " Vive la France, I am well
content, I am dying for her sake," said Corporal Voituret of
the Second Dragoons, and expired while trying to sing the
Marseillaise. — Albert Malet, whose handbooks are used in
teaching history to our school children, enlisted for the war ;
his chest is pierced by a bullet, he shouts: " Forward, my
friends ! I am happy in dying for France," and sinks upon
the barbed wire in front of the enemy's trenches. — " Vive
la France, I die, but I am well content," cry in turn, one after
another, thousands of dying men, and the soldier Raissac
of the Thirty-first of the line, mortally wounded on the twenty-
third of September, 1914, finds strength before expiring to
write on the back of his mother's photograph : " It is an honor
for the French soldier to die."

They do not wjish to be mourned. Georges Morillot, a
graduate of the Ecole Normale and sub-lieutenant in the
Twenty-seventh Infantry, died for France in the forest of Apre-
mont on December u, 1914, leaving a letter to his parents:

H2 THE SPIRIT OF THE WARRING NATIONS

If this letter comes into your hands it will be because I am no
more and because I shall have died the most glorious of deaths.
Do not bewail me too much ; my end is of all the most to be desired.
. . . Speak of me from time to time as of one of those who have
given their blood that France may live, and who have died gladly.
. . . Since my earliest childhood I have always dreamed of dying
for my country, my face toward the foe. . . . Let me sleep where
the accident of battle shall have placed me, by the side of those who,
like myself, shall have died for France ; I shall sleep well there. . . .
My dear Father and Mother, happy are they who die for their
native land. What matters the life of individuals if France is
saved ? My dearly-beloved, do not grieve. . . . Vive la France I

Louis Belanger, twenty years of age, killed by the enemy
on September 28, 1915, had written to his family:

I hope that my death will not be to you a cause of sorrow, but
an occasion for pride. It is my wish that mourning should not be
worn for me, for, in the glorious day when France shall be restored,
the somber garb must not be allowed to dull the sunlight with which
all French souls will be irradiated.

In obedience to his desire the cards announcing his death
were not framed in black, but edged with silver. Hubert
Prouve-Drouot was a Saint-Cyrien of the class called La
Grande Revanche, who died on the field of honor; when
leaving home to join his regiment, he makes this his last
request to his mother : "When the troops come home victori-
ous through'the Arc de Triomphe, if I am no longer amongst
them, put on your finest apparel and be there."

The fact is that the French mothers, sustained by a power
above, believe that their sons, in yielding their lives for
France, find, not death, but an evolution. One of them, who
is unwilling that her name should be given, uses this word in
a letter radiant with sacred beauty.

Paris, October 20, 1915.
Commandant,

I cannot thank you adequately for the accuracy of your sorrow-
ful recollections. The anniversary of the sacrifice of my brave boy

THE SPIRIT OF FRENCH YOUTH 113

is at the same time particularly cruel and particularly sweet;
cruel, because it recalls to mind a day when I was thinking of him,
without misgivings as to the anguish which his valor was to cost
me; sweet, because I could not visualize the abrupt end of this
pure and brief life under any other aspect than that of a supreme
evolution.

I thank you, Commandant, for all that you tell me of my dear
young soldier; may his glorious death contribute to the victory
of our country ; when that time comes I shall kneel and once more
say " I thank you. " My mother's heart remains shattered in face of
the death of this boy of twenty years who was all my joy. Oh, how
proud and how unhappy one can be at the same time !

Will you, Commandant, allow me to transmit through you my
tender feeling toward all those who cherish a remembrance of him
who has fallen in his country's defense, and say to them that my
thoughts turn frequently to that Land of Lorraine, so dear to all
French hearts?

"A supreme evolution," she says. It would seem, indeed,
that we have known only the chrysalis form and that an entire
people is unfolding its wings. The ever-living France is free-
ing herself. It is for her that the sons of France are dying a
death devoutly accepted by their mothers.

DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN1

JOHN GALSWORTHY

[John Galsworthy (1867- ) lives in Devonshire, England, and is
one of the best-known contemporary novelists and dramatists. His
chief novels are "The Man of Property" (1906) and "The Freelands"
(1915); his best-known play "Justice" (1910). This skillful analysis
originally appeared in the Amsterdamer Revue; it was reprinted later in
the Fortnightly Review for May, 1915. Its stern vigor well reflects the
strength of feeling in regard to the World War on the part of even the
most cultivated and fastidious Englishmen.]

In attempting to understand the real nature of the English-
man, certain salient facts must be borne in mind.

THE SEA. To be surrounded generation after generation
by the sea has developed in him a suppressed idealism, a
peculiar impermeability, a turn for adventure, a faculty for
wandering, and for being sufficient unto himself, in far sur-
roundings.

THE CLIMATE. Whoso weathers for centuries a climate
that, though healthy and never extreme, is, perhaps, the
least reliable and one of the wettest in the world, must needs
grow in himself a counterbalance of dry philosophy, a defiant
humor, an enforced medium temperature of soul. The Eng-
lishman is no more given to extremes than is his climate;
against its damp and perpetual changes he has become coated
with a sort of bluntness.

THE POLITICAL AGE OF His COUNTRY. This is by far the
oldest settled Western Power, politically speaking. For eight
hundred and fifty years England has known no serious mili-
tary disturbance from without; for over one hundred and

1 From "A Sheaf." Copyright, 1916, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Reprinted
by permission.

114

DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN 115

fifty she has known no military disturbance and no serious
political turmoil within. This is partly the outcome of her
isolation, partly the happy accident of her political constitu-
tion, partly the result of the Englishman's habit of looking
before he leaps, which comes, no doubt, from the mixture in
his blood and the mixture in his climate.

THE GREAT PREPONDERANCE FOR SEVERAL GENERATIONS
OF TOWN OVER COUNTRY LIFE. Taken in conjunction with
centuries of political stability, this is the main cause of a
certain deeply engrained humaneness, of which, speaking
generally, the Englishman appears to be rather ashamed than
otherwise.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. This potent element in. the forma-
tion of the modern Englishman, not only of the upper, but of
all classes, is something that one rather despairs of making
understood — in countries that have no similar institution.
But : Imagine one hundred thousand youths of the wealthiest,
healthiest, and most influential classes, passed, during each
generation, at the most impressionable age, into a sort of
ethical mold, emerging therefrom stamped to the core with
the impress of a uniform morality, uniform manners, uniform
way of looking at life ; remembering always that these youths
fill seven eighths of the important positions in the professional
administration of their country and the conduct of its com-
mercial enterprise ; remembering, too, that through perpetual
contact with every other class, their standard of morality and
way of looking at life filters down into the very toes of the
land. This great character-forming machine is remarkable
for an unself-consciousness which gives it enormous strength
and elasticity. Not inspired by the State, it inspires the State.
The characteristics of the philosophy it enjoins are mainly
negative, and, for that, the stronger. "Never show your
feelings — to do so is not manly, and bores your fellows.
Don't cry out when you're hurt, making yourself a nuisance
to other people. Tell no tales about your companions, and
no lies about yourself. Avoid all 'swank,' 'side,' 'swagger,'

braggadocio of speech or manner, on pain of being laughed at."
(This maxim is carried to such a pitch that the Englishman,
except in his Press, habitually understates everything.)
" Think little of money, and speak less of it. Play games
hard, and keep the rules of them, even when your blood is
hot and you are tempted to disregard them. In three words :
PLAY THE GAME" — a little phrase which may be taken as
the characteristic understatement of the modern English-
man's creed of honor, in all classes. This great, unconscious
machine has considerable defects. It tends to the formation
of "caste"; it is a poor teacher of sheer learning; and,
aesthetically, with its universal suppression of all interesting
and queer individual traits of personality — it is almost
horrid. But it imparts a remarkable incorruptibility to Eng-
lish life; it conserves vitality, by suppressing all extremes;
and it implants, everywhere a kind of unassuming stoicism
and respect for the rules of the great game — Life. Through
its unconscious example, and through its cult of games, it has
vastly influenced even the classes not directly under its control.
The Englishman must have a thing brought under his nose
before he will act ; bring it there and he will go on acting after
everybody else has stopped. He lives very much in the
moment because he is essentially a man of facts and not a
man of imagination. Want of imagination makes him, philo-
sophically speaking, rather ludicrous; in practical affairs
it handicaps him at the start; but once he has "got going"
— as we say — it is of incalculable assistance to his stamina.
The Englishman, partly through this lack of imagination
and nervous sensibility, partly through his inbred dislike
of extremes, and habit of minimizing the expression of every-
thing, is a perfect example of the conservation of energy.
It is very difficult to come to the end of him. Add to this
unimaginative, practical, tenacious moderation an inherent
spirit of competition — not to say pugnacity — so strong
that it will often show through the coating of his "Live and
let live," half -surly, half -good-humored manner; add a

DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN 117

peculiar, ironic, "don't care" sort of humor; an under-
ground but inveterate humaneness, and an ashamed idealism
— and you get some notion of the pudding of English char-
acter. Its main feature is a kind of terrible coolness, a rather
awful level-headedness. The Englishman makes constant
small blunders; but few, almost no, deep mistakes. He is
a slow starter, but there is no stronger finisher, because he
has by temperament and training the faculty of getting through
any job that he gives his mind to with a minimum expenditure
of vital energy ; nothing is wasted in expression, style, spread-
eagleism; everything is instinctively kept as near to the
practical heart of the matter as possible. He is — to the eye
of an artist — distressingly matter-of-fact, a tempting mark
for satire. And yet he is in truth an idealist; though it is
his nature to snub, disguise, and mock his own inherent opti-
mism. To admit enthusiasms is "bad form" if he is a "gentle-
man"; and "swank," or mere waste of good heat, if he is
not a "gentleman." England produces more than its proper
percentage of cranks and poets ; it may be taken that this is
Nature's way of redressing the balance in a country where
feelings are not shown, sentiments not expressed, and extremes
laughed at. Not that the Englishman lacks heart ; he is not
cold, as is generally supposed — on the contrary, he is warm-
hearted and feels very strongly; but just as peasants, for
lack of words to express their feelings, become stolid, so it
is with the Englishman, from sheer lack of the habit of self-
expression. Nor is the Englishman deliberately hypocritical;
but his tenacity, combined with his powerlessness to express
his feelings, often gives him the appearance of a hypocrite.
He is inarticulate ; has not the clear and fluent cynicism of
expansive natures, wherewith to confess exactly how he
stands. It is the habit of men of all nations to want to have
things both ways ; the Englishman is unfortunately so unable
to express himself even to himself, that he has never realized
this truth, much less confessed it — hence his appearance
of hypocrisy.

n8 THE SPIRIT OF THE WARRING NATIONS

He is quite wrongly credited with being attached to money.
His island position, his early discoveries of coal, iron, and pro-
cesses of manufacture, have made him, of course, into a con-
firmed industrialist and trader ; but he is more of an adven-
turer in wealth than a heaper-up of it. He is far from sitting
on his money-bags — has absolutely no vein of proper avarice ;
and for national ends will spill out his money like water, when
he is convinced of the necessity.

In everything it comes to that with the Englishman — he
must be convinced ; and he takes a lot of convincing. He
absorbs ideas slowly, reluctantly, he would rather not imagine
anything unless he is obliged ; but in proportion to the slow-
ness with which he can be moved is the slowness with which
he can be removed ! Hence the symbol of the bulldog. When
he does see and seize a thing, he seizes it with the whole of
his weight, and wastes no breath in telling you that he has
got hold. That is why his Press is so untypical ; it gives the
impression that he does waste breath. And, while he has
hold he gets in more mischief in a shorter time than any other
dog, because of his capacity for concentrating on the present,
without speculating on the past or future.

For the particular situation which the Englishman has now
to face, he is terribly well adapted. Because he has so little
imagination, so little power of expression, he is saving nerve
all the time. Because he never goes to extremes, he is saving
energy of body and spirit. That the men of all nations are
about equally endowed with courage and self-sacrifice has
been proved in these last six months; it is to other qualities
that one must look for final victory in a war of exhaustion.
The Englishman does not look into himself; he does not
brood ; he sees no further forward than is necessary ; and he
must have his joke. These are fearful and wonderful advan-
tages. Examine the letters and diaries of the various com-
batants, and you will see how far less imaginative and reflect-
ing (though shrewd, practical, and humorous) the English
are than any others ; you will gain, too, a profound, a deadly

DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN 119

conviction that behind them is a fiber like rubber, that may
be frayed and bent a little this way and that, but can neither
be permeated nor broken.

When this war began, the Englishman rubbed his eyes
steeped in peace, he is still rubbing them just a little, but less
and less every day. A profound lover of peace by habit and
tradition, he has actually realized by now that he is in for it
up to the neck. To any one who really knows him — c'est
quelque chose!

It shall freely be confessed that from an aesthetic point of
view the Englishman, devoid of high lights and shadows,
coated with drab, and superhumanly steady on his feet, is
not too attractive. But for the wearing, tearing, slow, and
dreadful business of this war, the Englishman — fighting of
his own free will, unimaginative, humorous, competitive,
practical, never in extremes, a dumb, inveterate optimist,
and terribly tenacious — is equipped with Victory.

PRO PATRIA1

MAURICE MAETERLINCK

[Maurice Maeterlinck (1862- ) was born in Ghent, but in 1896
settled in Paris as a man of letters. He has written many plays and poems,
the best known of the former being "L'Oiseau Bleu" (1909). Among his
other literary works are "La Vie des Abeilles" ("The Life of the Bees")
and "Mon Chien" ("My Dog") published in 1906. In 1911 he was
awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In his method he is a symbolist.
The present address was delivered at the Scala Theater in Milan, Italy,
on November 30, 1914, and not only presents the attitude of the Belgians
toward the German invasion, but is a skillful plea for Italy to abandon
her neutrality and enter the war on the side of the Allies.]

I need not here recall the events that hurled Belgium into
the depths of distress most glorious where she is struggling
to-day. She has been punished as never nation was punished
for doing her duty as never nation did before. She saved
the world while knowing that she could not be saved. She
saved it by flinging herself in the path of the oncoming bar-
barians, by allowing herself to be trampled to death in order
to give the defenders of justice time, not to rescue her, for
she was well aware that rescue could not come in time, but
to collect the forces needed to save our Lathi civilization from
the greatest danger that has ever threatened it. She has
thus done this civilization, which is the only one whereunder
the majority of men are willing or able to live, a service exactly
similar to that which Greece, at the time of the great Asiatic
invasions, rendered to the mother of this civilization. But,
while the service is similar, the act surpasses all comparison.

1 From "The Wrack of the Storm," translated by Alexander Teixeira de
Mattos. Copyright, 1916, by Dodd, Mead & Co., Inc. Reprinted by
permission.

120

PRO PATRIA 121

We may ransack history in vain for aught to approach it
in grandeur. The magnificent sacrifice at Thermopylae,
which is perhaps the noblest action in the annals of war, is
illumined with an equally heroic but less ideal light, for it
was less disinterested and more material. Leonidas and his
three hundred Spartans were in fact defending their homes,
their wives, their children, all the realities which they had left
behind them. King Albert and his Belgians, on the other
hand, knew full well that, in barring the invader's road, they
were inevitably sacrificing their homes, their wives, and their
children. Unlike the heroes of Sparta, instead of possessing
an imperative and vital interest in fighting, they had every-
thing to gain by not fighting and nothing to lose — save
honor. In the one scale were fire and the sword, ruin, mas-
sacre, the infinite disaster which we see; in the other was
that little word honor, which also represents infinite things,
but things which we do not see, or which we must be very
pure and very great to see clearly. It has happened now and
again in history that a man standing higher than his fellows
perceives what this word represents and sacrifices his life
and the life of those whom he loves to what he perceives;
and we have not without reason devoted to such men a sort
of cult that places them almost on a level with the gods.
But what had never yet happened — and I say this without
fear of contradiction from whosoever cares to search the
memory of man — is that a whole people, great and small,
rich and poor, learned and ignorant, deliberately immolated
itself thus for the sake of an unseen thing.

And observe that we are not discussing one of those heroic
resolutions which are taken in a moment of enthusiasm, when
man easily surpasses himself, and which have not to be main-
tained when, forgetting his intoxication, he lapses on the
morrow to the dead level of his everyday life. We are con-
cerned with a resolution that has had to be taken and main-
tained every morning, for now nearly four months, in the
midst of daily increasing distress and disaster. And not only

122 THE SPIRIT OF THE WARRING NATIONS

has this resolution not wavered by a hair's breadth, but it
grows as steadily as the national misfortune; and to-day,
when this misfortune is reaching its full, the national reso-
lution is likewise attaining its zenith. I have seen many of
my refugee fellow countrymen : some used to be rich and had
lost their all; others were poor before the war and now no
longer owned even what the poorest own. I have received
many letters from every part of Europe where duty's exiles
had sought a brief instant of repose. In them there was lamen-
tation, as was only too natural, but not a reproach, not a
regret, not a word of recrimination. I did not once come upon
that hopeless but excusable cry which, one would think, might
so easily have sprung from despairing lips :

"If our king had not done what he did, we should not be
suffering what we are suffering to-day."

The idea does not even occur to them. It is as though this
thought were not of those which can live in that atmosphere
purified by misfortune. They are not resigned, for to be re-
signed means to renounce the strife, no longer to keep up one's
courage. They are proud and happy in their distress. They
have a vague feeling that this distress will regenerate them
after the manner of a baptism of faith and glory and ennoble
them for all time in the remembrance of men. An unex-
pected breath, coming from the secret reserves of the human
race and from the summits of the human heart, has suddenly
passed over their lives and given them a single soul, formed
of the same heroic substance as that of their great king.

They have done what had never before been done; and
it is to be hoped for the happiness of mankind that no nation
will ever again be called upon for a like sacrifice. But this
wonderful example will not be lost, even though there be
no longer any occasion to imitate it. At a time when the uni-
versal conscience seemed about to bend under the weight of
long prosperity and selfish materialism, suddenly it raised
by several degrees the political morality of the world and
lifted it all at once to a height which it had not yet reached

PRO PATRIA 123

and from which it will never again be able to descend, for
there are actions so glorious, actions which fill so great a place
in our memory, that they found a sort of new religion and
definitely fix the limits of the human conscience and of human
loyalty and courage.

They have really, as I have already said and as history will
one day establish with greater eloquence and authority than
mine, they have really saved Latin civilization. They had
stood for centuries at the junction of two powerful and hos-
tile forms of culture. They had to choose and they did not
hesitate. Their choice was all the more significant, all the
more instructive, inasmuch as none was so well qualified
as they to choose with a full knowledge of what they were
doing. You are all aware that more than half of Belgium is
of Teutonic stock. She was therefore, thanks to her racial
affinities, better able than any other to understand the cul-
ture that was being offered her, together with the imputation
of dishonor which it included. She understood it so well that
she rejected it with an outbreak of horror and disgust unpar-
alleled in violence, spontaneous, unanimous, and irresistible,
thus pronouncing a verdict from which there was no appeal
and giving the world a peremptory lesson sealed with every
drop of her blood.

But to-day she is at the end of her resources. She has ex-
hausted not her courage but her strength. She has paid with
all that she possesses for the immense service which she has
rendered to mankind. Thousands and thousands of her chil-
dred are dead; all her riches have perished; almost all her
historic memories, which were her pride and her delight,
almost all her artistic treasures, which were numbered among
the fairest in this world, are destroyed forever. She is nothing
more than a desert whence stand out, more or less intact,
four great towns alotoe, four towns which the Rhenish hordes,
for whom the epithet of barbarians is in point of fact too
honorable, appear to have spared only so that they may
keep back one last and monstrous revenge for the day of the

124 THE SPIRIT OF THE WARRING NATIONS

inevitable rout. It is certain that Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges,
and Brussels are doomed beyond recall. In particular, the
admirable Grand'place, the H6tel de Ville, and the Cathedral
at Brussels are, I know, undermined : I repeat, I know it
from private and trustworthy testimony against which no
denial can prevail. A spark will be enough to turn one of the
recognized marvels of Europe into a heap of ruins like those
of Ypres, Malines, and Louvain. Soon after — for, short of
immediate intervention, the disaster is as certain as though
it were already accomplished — Bruges, Antwerp, and Ghent
will suffer the same fate ; and in a moment, as I was saying
the other day, there will vanish from sight one of the corners
of this earth in which the greatest store of memories, of his-
toric matter and artistic beauties had been accumulated.

The time has come to end this foolery ! The time has come
for everything that draws breath to rise up against these
systematic, insane, and stupid acts of destruction, perpetrated
without any military excuse or strategic object. The reason
why we are at last uttering a great cry of distress, we who
are above all a silent people, the reason why we turn to your
mighty and noble country is that Italy is to-day the only Euro-
pean power that is still in a position to stop the unchained
brute on the brink of his crime. You are ready. You have
but to stretch out a hand to save us. We have not come to beg
for our lives : these no longer count with us and we have al-
ready offered them up. But, in the name of the last beautiful
things that the barbarians have left us, we come with our
prayers to the land of beautiful things. It must not be, it
shall not be, that on the day when at last we return, not to
our homes, for most of these are destroyed, but to our native
soil, that soil is so laid waste as to become an unrecognizable
desert. You know better than any others what memories
mean, what masterpieces mean to a natfon, for your country
is covered with memories and masterpieces. It is also the
land of justice and the cradle of the law, which is simply
justice that has taken cognizance of itself. On this account,

PRO PATRIA 125

Italy owes us justice. And she owes it to herself to put a stop
to the greatest iniquity in the annals of history, for not to
put a stop to it when one has the power is almost tantamount
to taking part in it. It is for Italy as much as for France that
we have suffered. She is the source, she is the very mother
of the ideal for which we have fought and for which the last
of our soldiers are still fighting in the last of our trenches.

THE SOUL AND STONES OF VENICE1
GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO

[Gabriele d'Annunzio (1864- ) is perhaps the most prominent
Italian novelist and poet of the present day. His first poetical work was
published in 1879 and his first novel in 1889. By 1895 he had achieved
an international reputation. By many Italians he is considered an ex-
cellent poet, especially in his presentation of the beauty and romance of
Italian life during the Renaissance period, but as the product of mate-
rialistic influences of the present day which make him incapable of ap-
preciating the social problems of Italy since it has achieved its national
unity. He is, however, one of the principal voices hi the demand that
Italia Irredenta should be wrested from Austria and added to the Italian
kingdom. He is now an aviator in the Italian Air Service. The sketch
presented was originally published in the London Daily Telegraph for
September 14, 1915, and presents in a striking fashion the feelings of
many Italians toward the World War.]

In belligerent Venice, that reenforces her airy arches, her
delicate triforae, with rough walls of bricks, cement, and
beams ; in the Venice that has transformed her hotels, for-
merly sacred to leisure and love, into hospitals full of bleeding
heroes ; in the dark and silent Venice, whose soul is in intense
expectation of the roar of the far-away guns; in courageous
and determined Venice, which hourly waits the apparition
in the sky, where there still linger Tiepolo's and Veronese's
soft clouds, of winged death-bearing craft; in the Venice
of the greater Italy, the Land of Abraham Lincoln has to-day
an extraordinary representative and admirable witness, whose
mission has assumed unexpected importance.

This representative is an American woman, who has conse-
crated herself to our Saint Francis of Assisi. I like to think
of her as one of those saints who bear in the palm of their

1 From the Current History Magazine, published by the New York Times
Company, November; 1915. Reprinted by permission.

126

THE SOUL AND STONES OF VENICE 127

open hand either a tower or a church or a palace. She was
sent to Venice many years ago to execute miniature plaster
copies of the most artistic buildings. If the stupid Austrian
ferocity should ruin one of St. Mark's domes, a wing of the
Procuratie, a lodge of the Ducal Palace, a nave of SS. John
and Paul's Church, the choir of the Frari, or the gentle miracle
of the Ca' d' Oro, there will remain a souvenir of the beautiful
things destroyed in the plaster models of the patient artifi-
ceress.

The Venetian knows her well under the name which I my-
self bestowed on her years ago, the Franciscan sister of the
Guidecca. The Ca' Frollo, where she resides, is a yellow struc-
ture overlooking a large garden bordering on the Lagoon.
A steep oak stairway leads up to the living room. Above
the entrance there is an iron shield, with ornamental edges
resembling a frying pan, which in ancient times was used to
dish out polenta. It is Miss Clara's coat-of-arms.

She comes and meets me smiling on the threshold. On her
face a smile multiplies as a ray of sun on a rippled water sur-
face. I have the immediate and strong impression of finding
myself before that strange phenomenon represented by a
person truly full of life. She wears a bluish cassock, like an
artificer. Her hair is white, of the brightest silver, raised on
the forehead and thrown back. The eyes are sky blue, shin-
ing, innocent, infantine, and in them the internal emotions
ebb constantly like flowing water. She has the strong, rough
hand of the working woman.

Her attic is very large. The massive beams fastened with
iron are as numerous as the trunks of a forest, moth-eaten,
with all their fibers exposed, of a golden brown color. Along
the wall plaster casts of architectonic details are disposed :
capitals, arches, tailpieces, cornices, bas reliefs. There is a
complete fireplace by Lombardo, the very fireplace of the
Ducal Palace. There are Madonnas, busts and masks. Sus-
pended on two ropes is a model of an ancient Venetian galley,
a hull of which the lines are most beautiful. •

128 THE SPIRIT OF THE WARRING NATIONS

"I rescued it at Chioggia with a few cents from a fisherman
who was in the act of burning it to cook his polenta," Miss
Clara told me.

On one side the windows look out on the Guidecca Canal,
which shows the Ducal Palace, the Piazzetta, the library,
and the anchored ships, and on the other they look into the
garden and the Lagoon. At intervals a rumbling is heard in
the distance. Miss Clara sits by the window.

"With the hands of a saint, with religious hands," I tell
her, "you have copied the most beautiful churches and palaces
of Venice. Now these beautiful things are threatened, are
in danger. We expect to see them in ruin any day. There
will at least live the copies that you have sent beyond the
seas."

Her blue eyes suddenly fill with tears, and the horror of
war, the horror of blind destruction, draws all the lines of
her face.

"My God, my God!" she murmurs, joining her hands.
" Will you allow such a crime?"

"What does it matter," I venture to say, "if the old stones
perish, so long as the soul of Italy is saved and renewed?"

She stares at me intently with profound sadness, shaking
her white head, over which there plays the purest light of
sunset.

"Have you seen the blinded Ducal Palace ?" she asked me,
meaning the lodges which the curators have had immured.

We have before us the plaster model of the Palace, on which
she has been working for several years. With infinite care
she has modeled every arch, every column, every capital,
every smallest detail. Her work is an enormous toy, built
for an infant nation. She removes the roof and bends to look
into it, resembling in the proportions the image of a gigantic
saint in the act of guarding a refuge which she protects. No-
body knows better than she the structure of the edifice which
incloses the blackened paradise. In my presence she dis-
mounts the copy piece by piece, organ by organ ; almost, I

THE SOUL AND STONES OF VENICE 129

would say, limb by limb, even as an anatomist would do with
the parts composing the human body in order to learn to
know their number, their form, their location, and their rela-
tion to each other.

As the shadows begin to invade the attic, she lights an old
brass lamp with four arms. The wicks crackle, diffusing a
smell of olive oil, which mixes with that of the wax. In the
attic the prints of the many matrices pile up, and it seems
to be as if an impalpable sentiment of vigor rises from the
concave matrices whence the copies of the beautiful things
emerge.

Miss Clara works there together with a few workmen, who
also compose her simple family. She eats with them the
polenta, at the same table. She takes me by the hand and
leads me into her kitchen, where there is a single hearth,
with a rack full of common but decorated dishes. Truly
there breathes the spirit of St. Francis. She is a kind of nun
in freedom who has passed from contemplation to action.
Before all those beams I think of the worn-out, splintered
wood of the Santa Chiara choir. Before the ears of corn
which I see in a rustic vase my mind goes to the cluster of
brown ears which I saw at the top of the reading desk in the
choir of St. Bernardino of Siena.

"I am very poor," she tells me.

Whole treasures of goodness, indulgence, and love shine
at the bottom of the flowing waters of her blue eyes. There
is in the structure of her head something virile, and at the
same time tender, something intrepid and meek. As the
lines of her face seem rays, so her work, her solitude, her pov-
erty are transfigured into divine happiness.

"I am very poor," she says, and she shows me her naked
hands, strong and pure, the only source of her daily wealth.

I know she distributes all her earnings; I know that on
more than one occasion she suffered hunger and cold. To-day
she had not even a bag of plaster for her work. Sitting by
the window, she talks to me of her perennial joy, of the joy

i3o THE SPIRIT OF THE WARRING NATIONS

of working from dawn to sunset. Slowly the garden grows
dark in the dusk. Night begins to fall on the Venice that
no longer lights her lamps, not even the lights before the
virgins watching over the deserted canals. The nocturnal
horror of war begins to expand on the Lagoon. In the dis-
tance a rumbling is heard coming, perhaps from Aquilega
or Grado where they- are fighting for redemption. The vast
attic illuminated by the four-armed lamp becomes alive with
shadows and quiverings.

Sitting by the window, simple, candid, sweet, she searches
my innermost soul, then she observes my hands, too white,
and my nails, too polished, and, lo! poverty appears to me
as the nakedness of force, as the sincerest and most noble
statue of life.

"I also work," I tell her, as if ashamed of hands too white
and my nails too polished. Then I speak to her of my dis-
cipline, of my nights spent at the desk, of my patient re-
searches, of my constancy in remaining bent over my desk for
fifteen, twenty hours at a stretch, of the enormous quantity
of oil I consume in my lamp, of the pile of paper, bundles
of pens, of the large inkstand, of all the tools of my trade.
Then I show her a tangible proof; on my middle finger,
deformed by the constant use of the pen, a smooth furrow and
a callosity. She is immediately touched. All her face expresses
a maternal tenderness. She takes my finger, examines the
sign. Then suddenly, with a gesture of human grace which
I shall never forget, she gently touches it with her lips.

"God bless you," she says.

The flowing water ebbs between her eyebrows, glittering,
rippling, ever new.

" God keep you ever."

My heart is full of tender gratitude. I am going to the war,
and the blessing of this pure creature will bring me back.
My hands shall become rough and dark. I shall work for
the God of Italy, fight for the God of Italy.

"God keep Italy ever," she adds.

THE SOUL AND STONES OF VENICE 131

In leaving I stroll by the plaster models of the churches,
palaces, lodges, bell-towers. The American nun, holding
my hand, escorts me to the threshold. As I descend the oak
stairway she vanishes in the shadow.

Night is already falling on Venice as an azure avalanche.
As I raise my head to spy the appearance of the first star, I
hear coming over from the deserted sky the rumbling of an
aeroplane approaching from Malamocco.

"May God keep the stones of Venice."

And it seems to me that Miss Clara weeps, over there, in
her attic amid the images of the beautiful things over which
there hangs the threat of destruction.

THE AMERICAN FLAG1
RENE VIVIANI

[Rene Viviani ( 1 863- ) , French premier at the opening of the World
War, and one of the most brilliant leaders and orators of the Socialist
party in France, was born in French North Africa. He has been in Par-
liamentary life since 1893. This short oration was delivered in St.
Louis, Missouri, hi May, 1917, during the visit to the United States of the
French Mission, of which M. Viviani and Marshal Joffre were both mem-
bers. In its simple and stirring phrasing of the emotions evoked by the
occasion, the presentation of an American flag to a regiment, it is char-
acteristic of French feeling toward American participation in the World
War.]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

I wish my voice were powerful enough, and I wish my words
could be expressed in your own language, so clear and ringing,
so that they might reach across this hall and at the same time
find a way to your hearts. But still, for only a few minutes,
allow me to voice to-night, not only in my name, but hi all
my countrymen's name, to whom you have given such a
hearty welcome, a welcome so worthy of France, the feelings
of emotion and pride which are swelling up in our souls.

We are happy to find ourselves in this great city of St. Louis.
Amidst your welcome, we shall not forget that if to-day living
men stand up to escort us, we also find here the shades of our
ancestors, of the first Frenchmen who found themselves in
this city. We are happy to meet here people of all races,
merged into the very heart of the fatherland, merged into the
life of this city, and we know that, whoever they may be,

1 From "Balfour, Viviani and Joffre, Their Speeches and Other Public
Utterances in America," edited by Francis W. Halsey. Copyright, 1917, by
Funk & Wagnalls Co. Reprinted by permission.

132

THE AMERICAN FLAG 133

they remain unflinchingly faithful to their American father-
land in this vast conflict, faithful to the country of which,
first of all, they are sons.

And I am also happy, for my part, to speak here under the
auspices of Mr. Long, our friend, your representative, and
the descendant of that illustrious family, one of whom has a
statue on one of your squares. I am happy to greet the
venerable and distinguished mother of the assistant secretary
of the Department of State, who, ever since we landed on
American soil, has stretched out to us brotherly hands,
and in whose heart we feel the love he bears to France, our
fatherland.

Here, ladies and gentlemen, you have not lost the memory
of the great historical event which took place here a few
months ago. It is in this hall, where you now sit, that was
held the Democratic convention, which designated as its
presidential candidate your illustrious fellow countryman,
President Wilson. At that time his own party and you, ladies,
and you also, citizens, did not realize that war was so near at
hand ; you were hoping you might long enjoy the blessings of
peace, and at that very moment you were going through the
same drama that we, the French people, went through three
years ago. France, generous and pacific France, who had
made supreme sacrifices for the peace of the world, who turned
toward humanity with feelings of love, who had one thought
only, to bring forth liberty for all nations — this very same
France was attacked, and then she rose for the defense of
her honor and of her independence.

For nearly three years, with her faithful allies, but, at the
start of the conflict, almost alone, she has been struggling
breast against breast, hand against hand, weapon against
weapon. For close upon three years, in the deep trenches, the
sons of France held in check the enemies who were striving
to invade her. For close upon three years immortal France,
faithful at all times to herself, preserving her sacred image
pure through all storms, the France of to-day, worthy of the

134 THE SPIRIT OF THE WARRING NATIONS

France of the past, raises the flag which is torn by shot and
shell, but which is yet held aloft by the valiant hand of her
soldiers.

And, a few minutes ago, in that touching ceremony, touch-
ing as all those earnest and solemn ceremonies in which soldiers
speak in plain and laconic language, but a language which
conies from the depth of their hearts, when, in the name of
the Fifth Regiment of St. Louis, one of your officers handed
to Marshal Joffre the flag which he at once returned with a
few earnest words, it seemed to me that I was witnessing a
spectacle comparable to that which I witnessed on the soil
of France. How often have we seen our generals hand over
flags to our children? How often have we seen our children
leave for the hell of the fighting line, their heads erect, their
hearts full of a virile joy, for they knew that they were de-
fending their fatherland. All of them, they kept their eyes
fixed on the flag, on the flag which is the symbol of liberty
and justice.

And, just as we were able to preserve the flag from any
stain, just as our children would rather die where they stood
than permit that sacred flag to fall to the ground, just as we
realized that it was the soul of the fatherland that was being
carried forward in the folds of the tricolor flag, in the same
way — because all people are one in that — it is the soul of
the American fatherland which shines radiant through the
stars of the American flag, and Mr. Mayor was right when he
said that already it is bringing us the promise of final victory.
To-morrow that flag will be waved on the battle fields.

To-morrow it also will know the glory of conflict. Oh, it
was never meant to sleep in peace in a hall, to be placed over
a monument and to feel only the gentle breath of a pacific
mind. Because it was the symbol of a free fatherland, it was
meant to face the risks of the battle fields, and to return in
glory, so that you may keep it in a temple high enough
and sacred enough to pay back the homage which is due
to it.

THE AMERICAN FLAG 135

A*u revoir, then, soldiers of the Fifth Regiment, sons of the
American fatherland, you who to-morrow, clothed in warlike
uniform, will bring on the battle field all the courage which
you have shown for 140 years. Au revoir, soldiers of the
American fatherland. Perhaps you will meet over there,
across the Atlantic Ocean, the sons of the French fatherland,
the sons of the Allies. All together you will march to the fight.
And why will you march to the fight? Is it in order to rend
others, is it to conquer territory, is it to wrench away robber
hands, a province or a city? No, no. It is not thus we wage
war; we wage war for justice, for universal democracy, for
right, that autocracy may perish, that at last free men may
draw free breath in the full enjoyment of peace and in the
pursuit of their labors.

AMERICA OFFERS HER TROOPS

JOHN J. PERSHING

[General John Joseph Pershing (1860- ) was educated at West
Point and has spent his life as an officer in the United States Army. He
served in various Indian campaigns, in the Spanish-American War, and
during the insurrection in the Philippines. In 1916 he commanded the
expedition into Mexico against Villa, and was sent to France as head of
the American Expeditionary Force in May, 1917. The following offer
was made at the height of the German offensive which began in March,
1918, and marked the fusion of all the Allied armies into one command
under the Supreme War Council and General Foch.]

PARIS, March 30, 1918. — General Pershing visited General
Foch, the new supreme commander of the allied forces, yester-
day and placed all the men and resources of the United States
at his disposal in the following words :

I come to say to you that the American people would hold it a
great honor for our troops were they engaged in the present battle.
I ask it of you, in my name and in that of the American people.

There is at this moment no other question than that of fighting.
Infantry, artillery, aviation — all that we have are yours to dispose
of them as you will. Others are coming which are as numerous
as will be necessary. I have come to say to you that the American
people would be proud to be engaged in the greatest battle in
history.

136

THE DECISION TO MAKE WAR1

FRIEDRICH VON BERNHARDI

[General Friedrich von Bernhardi began to publish military books in
1889, when his "Cavalry in the Next War" appeared. In 1896 he pub-
lished his most famous book, " Germany and the Next War," which went
through several editions in the original and was translated into English
in 1911, in which year it had been revised by the author. The ideas which
Bernhardi presents are largely taken from Treitschke, but the vigor and
frankness of the disciple is even greater than that of the master. The
present selection is part of Chapter II, entitled "The Duty to Make War,"
and in the light of subsequent events in Germany when war was actually
determined upon displays the mental processes of the ruling class and the
military leaders.]

Prince Bismarck repeatedly declared before the German
Reichstag that no one should ever take upon himself the
immense responsibility of intentionally bringing about a war.
It could not, he said, be foreseen what unexpected events
might occur, which altered the whole situation, and made a
war, with its attendant dangers and horrors, superfluous. In
his "Thoughts and Reminiscences" he expresses himself to
this effect : "Even victorious wars can only be justified when
they are forced upon a nation, and we cannot see the cards
held by Providence so closely as to anticipate the historical
development by personal calculation." 2

We need not discuss whether Prince Bismarck wished this
dictum to be regarded as a universally applicable principle,
or whether he uttered it as a supplementary explanation of
the peace policy which he carried out for so long. It is

1 From "Germany and the Next War," translated by Allen H. Powles.
Authorized American Edition. Copyright, Longmans, Green & Co. Reprinted
by permission.

2 "Gedanken und Erinnerungen," vol. ii., p. 93. [Author's note.]

137

138 THE SPIRIT OF THE WARRING NATIONS

difficult to gauge its true import. The notion of forcing a war
upon a nation bears various interpretations. We must not
think merely of external foes who compel us to fight. A war
may seem to be forced upon a statesman by the state of
home affairs, or by the pressure of the whole political situation.

Prince Bismarck did not, however, always act according to
the strict letter of that speech ; it is his special claim to great-
ness that at the decisive moment he did not lack the boldness
to begin a war on his own initiative. The thought which he
expresses in his later utterances cannot, in my opinion, be
shown to be a universally applicable principle of political
conduct. If we wish to regard it as such, we shall not only
run counter to the ideas of our greatest German Prince, but
we exclude from politics that independence of action which
is the true motive force.

The greatness of true statesmanship consists in a knowledge
of the natural trend of affairs, and in a just appreciation of the
value of the controlling forces, which it uses and guides in its
own interest. It does not shrink from the conflicts, which
under the given conditions are unavoidable, but decides
them resolutely by war when a favorable position affords
prospect of a successful issue. In this way statescraft be-
comes the tool of Providence, which employs the human will
to attain its ends. "Men make history,"1 as Bismarck's
actions clearly show.

It may be, then, assumed as obvious that the great practical
politician Bismarck did not wish that his words on the political
application of war should be interpreted in the sense which
has nowadays so frequently been attributed to them, in order
to lend the authority of the great man to a weak cause. Only
those conditions which can be ascertained and estimated
should determine political action.

1 Treitschke, "Deutsche Geschichte," i, p. 28. [Author's note.]

THE DECISION TO MAKE WAR 139

For the moral justification of the political decision we must
not look to its possible consequences, but to its aim and its
motives, to the conditions assumed by the agent, and to the
trustworthiness, honor, and sincerity of the considerations
which led to action. Its practical value is determined by an
accurate grasp of the whole situation, by a correct estimate
of the resources of the two parties, by a clear anticipation of
the probable results — in short, by statesmanlike insight and
promptness of decision.

If the statesman acts in this spirit, he will have an acknowl-
edged right, under certain circumstances, to begin a war,
regarded as necessary, at the most favorable moment, and to
secure for his country the proud privilege of such initiative.
If a war, on which a Minister cannot willingly decide, is bound
to be fought later under possibly far more unfavorable con-
ditions, a heavy responsibility for the greater sacrifices that
must then be made will rest on those whose strength and
courage for decisive political action failed at the favorable
moment.

The man whose high and responsible lot is to steer the for-
tunes of a great State must be able to disregard the verdict
of his contemporaries; but he must be all the clearer as to
the motives of his own policy, and keep before his eyes, with
the full weight of the categorical imperative, the teaching of
Kant: "Act so that the maxim of thy will can at the same
time hold good as a principle of universal legislation." *

He must have a clear conception of the nature and purpose
of the State, and grasp this from the highest moral standpoint.
He can in no other way settle the rules of his policy and recog-
nize clearly the laws of political morality.

He must also form a clear conception of the special duties
to be fulfilled by the nation, the guidance of whose fortunes
rests in his hands. He must clearly and definitely formulate

1 Kant, "Kritik der praktischen Vernunft," p. 30. [Author's note.]

140 THE SPIRIT OF THE WARRING NATIONS

these duties as the fixed goal of statesmanship. When he is
absolutely clear upon this point, he can judge in each particular
case what corresponds to the true interests of the State ; then
only can he act systematically in the definite prospect of
smoothing the paths of politics, and securing favorable condi-
tions for the inevitable conflicts; then only, when the hour
for combat strikes and the decision to fight faces him, can
he rise with a free spirit and a calm breast to that standpoint
which Luther once described in blunt, bold language: "It
is very true that men write and say often what a curse war
is. But they ought to consider how much greater is that curse
which is averted by war. Briefly, in the business of war men
must not regard the massacres, the burnings, the battles, and
the marches, etc. — that is what the petty and simple do
who only look with the eyes of children at the surgeon, how
he cuts off the hand or saws off the leg, but do not see or
notice that he does it in order to save the whole body. Thus
we must look at the business of war or the sword with the
eyes of men, asking, Why these murders and horrors ? It will
be shown that it is a business, divine in itself, and as needful
and necessary to the world as eating or drinking, or any other
work." i

Thus in order to decide what paths German policy must
take in order to further the interests of the German people,
and what possibilities of war are involved, we must first try
to estimate the problems of State and of civilization which
are to be solved, and discover what political purposes corre-
spond to these problems.

1 Luther, "Whether soldiers can be in a state of salvation." [Author's note.]

THE ESSENTIALS OF THE AMERICAN
CONSTITUTION l

ELIHU ROOT

[For a sketch of Elihu Root see page 12. The analysis selected is
part of two articles which appeared in the North American Review for
July and August, 1913. They were originally delivered at Princeton in
1913, and were intended as a discussion of the initiative, referendum,
and recall.]

The Constitution of the United States deals in the main
with essentials. There are some non-essential directions, such
as those relating to the methods of election and of legislation,
but in the main it sets forth the foundations of government in
clear, simple, concise terms. It is for this reason that it has
stood the test of more than a century with but slight amend-
ment, while the modern state constitutions, into which a
multitude of ordinary statutory provisions are crowded, have
to be changed from year to year. The peculiar and essen-
tial qualities of the Government established by the Constitu-
tion are :

First. It is representative.

Second. It recognizes the liberty of the individual citizen
as distinguished from the total mass of citizens, and it pro-
tects that liberty by specific limitations upon the power of
government.

Third. It distributes the legislative, executive, and judicial
powers, which make up the sum total of all government, into
three separate departments, and specifically limits the powers
of the officers in each department.

1 From "Experiments in Government and Essentials of the Constitution."
Copyright, 1913, by the Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission.

143

144 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

Fourth. It superimposes upon a federation of state govern-
ments a National Government with sovereignty acting directly
not merely upon the states, but upon the citizens of each state,
within a line of limitation drawn between the powers of the
National Government and the powers of the state govern-
ments.

Fifth. It makes observance of its limitations requisite to
the validity of laws, whether passed by the Nation or by the
states, to be judged by the courts of law in each concrete case
as it arises.

Every one of these five characteristics of the Government
established by the Constitution was a distinct advance be-
yond the ancient attempts at popular government, and the
elimination of any one of them would be a retrograde move-
ment and a reversion to a former and discarded type of
government. In each case it would be the abandonment
of a distinctive feature of government which has succeeded,
in order to go back and try again the methods of govern-
ment which have failed. Of course, we ought not to take
such a backward step except under the pressure of inevitable
necessity.

The first two of the characteristics which I have enumerated,
those which embrace the conception of representative govern-
ment and the conception of individual liberty, were the prod-
ucts of the long process of development of freedom in England
and America. They were not invented by the makers of the
Constitution. They have been called inventions of the Anglo-
Saxon race. They are the chief contributions of that race to
the political development of civilization.

The expedient of representation first found its beginning in
the Saxon witenagemot. It was lost in the Norman Conquest.
It was restored step by step, through the centuries in which
Parliament established its power as an institution through the
granting or withholding of aids and taxes for the King's use.
It was brought to America by the English colonists. It was
the practice of the colonies which formed the Federal Union.

145

It entered into the Constitution as a matter of course, because
it was the method by which modern liberty had been steadily
growing stronger and broader for six centuries as opposed to
the direct unrepresentative method of government in which
the Greek and Roman and Italian Republics had failed.
This representative system has in its turn impressed itself
upon the nations which derived their political ideas from
Rome and has afforded the method through which popular
liberty has been winning forward in its struggle against royal
and aristocratic power and privilege the world over. Blunt-
schli, the great Heidelberg publicist of the last century, says :

Representative government and self-government are the great
works of the English and American peoples. The English have pro-
duced representative monarchy with parliamentary legislation and
parliamentary government. The Americans have produced the
representative republic. We Europeans upon the Continent recog-
nize in our turn that in representative government alone lies the
hoped-for union between civil order and popular liberty.

In the first of these lectures I specified certain essential
characteristics of our system of government, and discussed
the preservation of the first — its representative character.
The four other characteristics specified have one feature in
common. They all aim to preserve rights by limiting power.

Of these the most fundamental is the preservation in our
Constitution of the Anglo-Saxon idea of individual liberty.
The Republics of Greece and Rome had no such conception.
All political ideas necessarily concern man as a social animal,
as a member of society — a member of the state. The ancient
republics, however, put the state first and regarded the individ-
ual only as a member of the state. They had in view the
public rights of the state in which all its members shared, and
the rights of the members as parts of the whole, but they did
not think of individuals as having rights independent of the
state, or against the state. They never escaped from the

I46 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

attitude toward public and individual civil rights which was
dictated by the original and ever-present necessity of military
organization and defense.

The Anglo-Saxon idea, on the other hand, looked first to the
individual. In the early days of English history, without
theorizing much upon the subject, the Anglo-Saxons began
to work out their political institutions along the line expressed
in our Declaration of Independence, that the individual
citizen has certain inalienable rights — the right to life, to
liberty, to the pursuit of happiness, and that government is
not the source of these rights, but is the instrument for the
preservation and promotion of them. So when a century and
a half after the Conquest the barons of England set themselves
to limit the power of the Crown they did not demand a grant
of rights. They asserted the rights of individual freedom and
demanded observance of them, and they laid the corner stone
of our system of government in this solemn pledge of the
Great Charter:

No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or be disseized of his
free hold, or his liberties, or his free customs, or be outlawed, or
exiled, or otherwise destroyed, but by the lawful judgment of his
peers, or by the law of the land.

Again and again in the repeated confirmations of the Great
Charter, in the Petition of Rights, in the habeas corpus act,
in the Bill of Rights, in the Massachusetts body of liberties,
in the Virginia Bill of Rights, and, finally, in the immortal
Declaration of 1776 — in all the great utterances of striving
for broader freedom which have marked the development of
modern liberty, sounds the same dominant note of insistence
upon the inalienable right of individual manhood under gov-
ernment, but independent of government, and, if need be,
against government, to life and liberty.

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the conse-
quences which followed from these two distinct and opposed
theories of government. The one gave us the dominion, but

ESSENTIALS OF AMERICAN CONSTITUTION 147

also the decline and fall of Rome. It followed the French
declaration of the rights of man, with the negation of those
rights in the oppression of the Reign of Terror, the despotism
of Napoleon, the popular submission to the second empire,
and the subservience of the individual citizen to official
superiority which still prevails so widely on the Continent of
Europe. The tremendous potency of the other subdued the
victorious Normans to the conquered Saxon's conception of
justice, rejected the claims of divine right by the Stuarts,
established capacity for self-government upon the inde-
pendence of individual character that knows no superior
but the law, and supplied the amazing formative power
which has molded, according to the course and practice of
the common law, the thought and custom of the hundred
millions of men drawn from all lands and all races who in-
habit this continent north of the Rio Grande.

The mere declaration of a principle, however, is of little avail
unless it be supported by practical and specific rules of conduct
through which the principle shall receive effect. So Magna
Charta imposed specific limitations upon royal authority to
the end that individual liberty might be preserved, and so to
the same end our Declaration of Independence was followed
by those great rules of right conduct which we call the limi-
tations of the Constitution. Magna Charta imposed its limi-
tations upon the kings of England and all their officers and
agents. Our Constitution imposed its limitations upon the
sovereign people and all their officers and agents, excluding all
the agencies of popular government from authority to do the
particular things which would destroy or impair the declared
inalienable right of the individual.

Thus the Constitution provides : No law shall be made by
Congress prohibiting the free exercise of religion, or abridging
the freedom of speech or of the press. The right of the people
to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The right of
the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not

148 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

be violated. No person shall be subject for the same offense
to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ; nor be compelled,
in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself ; nor be
deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of
law ; nor shall private property be taken for public use with-
out just compensation. In all criminal prosecutions, the ac-
cused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by
an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime
shall have been committed ; and to be informed of the nature
and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses
against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining wit-
nesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for
his defense. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive
fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be sus-
pended, except in case of rebellion or invasion. No bill of
attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed. And by the
fourteenth amendment, no state shall deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property without due process of law ; nor deny
to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of
the law.

We have lived so long under the protection of these rules
that most of us have forgotten their importance. They have
been unquestioned in America so long that most of us have
forgotten the reasons for them. But if we lose them we shall
learn the reasons by hard experience. And we are in some
danger of losing them, not all at once, but gradually, by in-
difference.

As Professor Sohm says : "The greatest and most far-reach-
ing revolutions in history are not consciously observed at the
time of their occurrence."

Every one of these provisions has a history. Every one stops
a way through which the overwhehning power of government
has oppressed the weak individual citizen, and may do so
again if the way be opened. Such provisions as these are not
mere commands. They withhold power. The instant any

ESSENTIALS OF AMERICAN CONSTITUTION 149

officer, of whatever kind or grade, transgresses them he ceases
to act as an officer. The power of sovereignty no longer sup-
ports him. The majesty of the law no longer gives him au-
thority. The shield of the law no longer protects him. He
becomes a trespasser, a despoiler, a lawbreaker, and all the
machinery of the law may be set in motion for his restraint
or punishment. It is true that the people who have made
these rules may repeal them. As restraints upon the people
themselves they are but self-denying ordinances which the
people may revoke, but the supreme test of capacity for
popular self-government is the possession of that power of
self-restraint through which a people can subject its own
conduct to the control of declared principles of action.

These rules of constitutional limitation differ from ordinary
statutes in this, that these rules are made impersonally, ab-
stractly, dispassionately, impartially, as the people's expres-
sion of what they believe to be right and necessary for the
preservation of their idea of liberty and justice. The process
of amendment is so guarded by the Constitution itself as to
require a lapse of time and opportunity for deliberation and
consideration and the passing away of disturbing influences
which may be caused by special exigencies or excitements
before any change can be made. On the contrary, ordinary
acts of legislation are subject to the considerations of expedi-
ency for the attainment of the particular objects of the mo-
ment, to selfish interests, momentary impulses, passions,
prejudices, temptations. If there be no general rules which
control particular action, general principles are obscured or
set aside by the desires and impulses of the occasion. Our
knowledge of the weakness of human nature and countless
illustrations from the history of legislation in our own
country point equally to the conclusion that if govern-
mental authority is to be controlled by rules of action, it
cannot be relied upon to impose those rules upon itself at
the time of action, but must have them prescribed for it
beforehand.

150 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

The second class of limitations upon official power provided
in our Constitution prescribe and maintain the distribution
of power to the different departments of government and the
limitations upon the officers invested with authority in each
department. This distribution follows the natural and logical
lines of the distinction between the different kinds of power -
legislative, executive, and judicial. But the precise allotment
of power and lines of distinction are not so important as it is
that there shall be distribution, and that each officer shall be
limited in accordance with that distribution, for without such
limitations there can be no security for liberty. If whatever
great officer of state happens to be the most forceful, skillful,
and ambitious is permitted to overrun and absorb to himself
the powers of all other officers and to control their action,
there ensues that concentration of power which destroys the
working of free institutions, enables the holder to continue
himself in power, and leaves no opportunity to the people for
a change except through a revolution. Numerous instances
of this very process are furnished by the history of some of
the Spanish- American Republics. It is of little consequence
that the officer who usurps the power of others may design
only to advance the public interest and to govern well. The
system which permits an honest and well-meaning man to
do this will afford equal opportunity for selfish ambition to
usurp power in its own interest. Unlimited official power con-
centrated in one person is despotism, and it is only by carefully
observed and jealously maintained limitations upon the power
of every public officer that the workings of free institutions
can be continued.

The rigid limitation of official power is necessary not only to
prevent the deprivation of substantial rights by acts of oppres-
sion, but to maintain that equality of political condition which
is so important for the independence of individual character
among the people of the country. • When an officer has au-
thority over us only to enforce certain specific laws at par-
ticular times and places, and has no authority regarding

ESSENTIALS OF AMERICAN CONSTITUTION 151

anything else, we pay deference to the law which he represents,
but the personal relation is one of equality. Give to that
officer, however, unlimited power, or power which we do not
know to be limited, and the relation at once becomes that of
an inferior to a superior. The inevitable result of such a rela-
tion long continued is to deprive the people of the country of
the individual habit of independence. This may be observed
in many of the countries of Continental Europe, where official
persons are treated with the kind of deference, and exercise
the kind of authority, which are appropriate only to the rela-
tions between superior and inferior.

So the Massachusetts constitution of 1780, after limiting
the powers of each department to its own field, declares that
this is done "to the end it may be a government of laws and
not of men."

The third class of limitations I have mentioned are those
made necessary by the novel system which I have described
as superimposing upon a federation of state governments a
national government acting directly upon the individual
citizens of the states. This expedient was wholly unknown
before the adoption of our Constitution. All the confedera-
tions which had been attempted before that time were simply
leagues of states, and whatever central authority there was
derived its authority from and had its relations with the
states as separate bodies politic. This was so of the old Con-
federation. Each citizen owed his allegiance to his own state
and each state had its obligations to the Confederation. Under
our constitutional system, in every part of the territory of
every state there are two sovereigns, and every citizen owes
allegiance to both sovereigns — to his state and to his nation.
In regard to some matters, which may generally be described
as local, the state is supreme. In regard to other matters,
which may generally be described as national, the nation is
supreme. It is plain that to maintain the line between these
two sovereignties operating in the same territory and upon
the same citizens is a matter of no little difficulty and delicacy.

152 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

Nothing has involved more constant discussion in our political
history than questions of conflict between these two powers,
and we fought the great Civil War to determine the question
whether in case of conflict the allegiance to the state or the
allegiance to the nation was of superior obligation. We should
observe that the Civil War arose because the Constitution did
not draw a clear line between the national and state powers
regarding slavery. It is of very great importance that both of
these authorities, state and national, shall be preserved to-
gether and that the limitations which keep each within its
proper province shall be maintained. If the power of the
states were to override the power of the nation, we should
ultimately cease to have a nation and become only a body of
really separate, although confederated, state sovereignties
continually forced apart by diverse interests and ultimately
quarreling with one another and separating altogether. On
the other hand, if the power of the nation were to override
that of the states and usurp their functions, we should have
this vast country, with its great population, inhabiting widely
separated regions, differing in climate, in production, in in-
dustrial and social interests and ideas, governed in all its local
affairs by one all-powerful central government at Washington,
imposing upon the home life and behavior of each community
the opinions and ideas of propriety of distant majorities. Not
only would this be intolerable and alien to the idea of free
self-government, but it would be beyond the power of a central
government to do directly. Decentralization would be made
necessary by the mass of government business to be trans-
acted, and so our separate localities would come to be gov-
erned by delegated authority — by proconsuls authorized
from Washington to execute the will of the great majority
of the whole people. No one can doubt that this also would
lead by 'its different route to the separation of our Union.
Preservation of our dual system of government, carefully
restrained in each of its parts by the limitations of the
Constitution, has made possible our growth in local

ESSENTIALS OF AMERICAN CONSTITUTION 153

self-government and national power in the past, and, so far
as we can see, it is essential to the continuance of that
government in the future.

All of these three classes of constitutional limitations are
therefore necessary to the perpetuity of our Government. I
do not wish to be understood as saying that every single
limitation is essential. There are some limitations that might
be changed and something different substituted; but the
system of limitation must be continued if our governmental
system is to continue — if we are not to lose the fundamental
principles of government upon which our Union is maintained
and upon which our race has won the liberty secured by law
for which it has stood foremost in the world.

Lincoln covered this subject in one of his comprehensive
statements that cannot be quoted too often. He said in his
first inaugural :

A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limi-
tations and always changing easily with deliberate changes of
popular opinion and sentiment is the only true sovereign of a
free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or
despotism.

Rules of limitation, however, are useless unless they are en-
forced. The reason for restraining rules arises from a tendency
to do the things prohibited. Otherwise no rule would be
needed. Against all practical rules of limitation — all rules
limiting official conduct — there is a constant pressure from
one side or the other. Honest differences of opinion as to the
extent of power, arising from different points of view, make
this inevitable, to say nothing of those weaknesses and faults
of human nature which lead men to press the exercise of
power to the utmost under the influence of ambition, of im-
patience with opposition to their designs, of selfish interest
and the arrogance of office. No mere paper rules will restrain
these powerful and common forces of human nature. The
agency by which, under our system of government, observance

154 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

of constitutional limitation is enforced is the judicial power.
The Constitution provides that :

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall
be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall
be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the su-
preme law of the land, and the judges in every state shall be bound
thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the
contrary notwithstanding.

Under this provision an enactment by Congress not made in
pursuance of the Constitution or an enactment of a state con-
trary to the Constitution is not a law. Such an enactment
should strictly have no more legal effect than the resolution
of any private debating society. The Constitution also pro-
vides that the judicial power of the United States shall extend
to all cases in law and equity arising under the Constitution
and laws of the United States. Whenever, therefore, in a case
before a Federal court rights are asserted under or against
some law which is claimed to violate some limitation of the
Constitution, the court is obliged to say whether the law does
violate the Constitution or not, because if it does not violate
the Constitution, the court must give effect to it as law, while
if it does violate the Constitution, it is no law at all and the
court is not at liberty to give effect to it. The courts do not
render decisions like imperial rescripts declaring laws valid
or invalid. They merely render judgment on the rights of the
litigants in particular cases, and in arriving at their judgment
they refuse to give effect to statutes which they find clearly
not to be made in pursuance of the Constitution, and there-
fore to be no laws at all. Their judgments are technically
binding only in the particular case decided ; but the knowl-
edge that the court of last resort has reached such a conclusion
concerning a statute, and that a similar conclusion would un-
doubtedly be reached in every case of an attempt to found
rights upon the same statute, leads to a general acceptance
of the invalidity of the statute.

ESSENTIALS OF AMERICAN CONSTITUTION 155

There is only one alternative to having the courts decide
upon the validity of legislative acts, and that is by requiring
the courts to treat the opinion of the legislature upon the
validity of its statutes, evidenced by their passage, as con-
clusive. But the effect of this would be that the legislature
would not be limited at all except by its own will. All the
provisions designed to maintain a government carried on by
officers of limited powers, all the distinctions between what
is permitted to the national government and what is per-
mitted to the state governments, all the safeguards of the
life, liberty, and property of the citizen against arbitrary
power would cease to bind Congress, and on the same theory
they would cease also to bind the legislatures of the states.
Instead of the Constitution being superior to the laws the
laws would be superior to the Constitution, and the essential
principles of our Government would disappear. More than
100 years ago Chief Justice Marshall, in the great case of
Marbury v. Madison, set forth the view upon which our
Government has ever since proceeded. He said :

The powers of the legislature are defined and limited ; and that
those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the Constitution is
written. To what purpose are powers limited and to what purpose
is that limit committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time,
be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction
between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abol-
ished if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are
imposed and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obliga-
tion. It is a proposition too plain to be contested that the Consti-
tution controls any legislative ac repugnant to it, or that the legis-
lature may alter the Constitution by an ordinary act.

Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The
Constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by
ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts
and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please
to alter it. If the former part of the alternative be true, then
a legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law; if the
latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts

156 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

on the part of the people to limit a power, in its own nature,
illimitable.

Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions con-
template them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of
the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government
must be that an act of the legislature repugnant to the Constitu-
tion is void. This theory is essentially attached to a written consti-
tution and is consequently to be considered by this court as one of
the fundamental principles of our society.

And of the same opinion was Montesquieu, who gave the
high authority of the Esprit des Lois to the declaration that —

There is no liberty if the power of judging be not separate from
the legislative and executive powers ; were it joined with the legis-
lative the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbi-
trary control.

It is to be observed that the wit of man has not yet devised
any better way of reaching a just conclusion as to whether a
statute does or does not conflict with a constitutional limita-
tion upon legislative power than the submission of the ques-
tion to an independent and impartial court. The courts are
not parties to the transactions upon which they pass. They
are withdrawn by the conditions of their office from partici-
pation in business and political affairs out of which litigations
arise. Their action is free from the chief dangers which
threaten the undue extension of power, because, as Hamilton
points out in the Federalist, they are the weakest branch of
government ; they neither hold the purse, as does the legis-
lature, nor the sword, as does the executive. During all our
history they have commanded and deserved the respect and
confidence of the people. General acceptance of their con-
clusions has been the chief agency in preventing here the
discord and strife which afflict so many lands and in preserv-
ing peace and order and respect for law.

A number of countries have copied our Constitution, coupled
with a provision that the constitutional guaranties may be

ESSENTIALS OF AMERICAN CONSTITUTION 157

suspended in case of necessity. We are all familiar with the
result. The guaranties of liberty and justice and order have
been forgotten; the government is dictatorship and the
popular will is expressed only by revolution.

Nor, so far as our national system is concerned, has there
yet appeared any reason to suppose that suitable laws to
meet the new conditions cannot be enacted without either
overriding or amending the Constitution. The liberty of
contract and the right of private property which are pro-
tected by the limitations of the Constitution are held subject
to the police power of government to pass and enforce laws
for the protection of the public health, public morals, and
public safety. The scope and character of the regulations
required to accomplish these objects vary as the conditions
of life in the country vary. Many interferences with contract
and with property which would have been unjustifiable a
century ago are demanded by the conditions which exist
now and are permissible without violating any constitutional
limitation. What will promote these objects the legislative
power decides with large discretion, and the courts have no
authority to review the exercise of that discretion. It is only
when laws are passed under color of the police power and
having no real or substantial relation to the purposes for which
the power exists that the courts can refuse to give them effect.

By a multitude of judicial decisions in recent years our courts
have sustained the exercise of this vast and progressive power
in dealing with the new conditions of life under a great variety
of circumstances. The principal difficulty in sustaining the
exercise of the power has been caused ordinarily by the fact
that carelessly or ignorantly drawn statutes either have failed
to exhibit the true relation between the regulation proposed
and the object sought or have gone further than the attain-
ment of the legitimate object justified. A very good illus-
tration of this is to be found in the Federal employer's liability
act, which was carelessly drawn and passed by Congress in
1906 and was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court,

158 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

but which was carefully drawn and passed by Congress in
1908 and was declared constitutional by the same court.

Insistence upon hasty and violent methods rather than
orderly and deliberate methods is really a result of impatience
with the slow methods of true progress in popular government.
We should probably make little progress were there not in
every generation some men who, realizing evils, are eager for
reform, impatient of delay, indignant at opposition, and in-
tolerant of the long, slow processes by which the great body
of the people may consider new proposals in all their relations,
weigh their advantages and disadvantages, discuss their
merits, and become educated either to their acceptance or
rejection. Yet that is the method of progress in which no
step, once taken, needs to be retraced, and it is the only way
in which a democracy can avoid destroying its institutions
by the impulsive substitution of novel and attractive but im-
practicable expedients.

The wisest of all the fathers of the Republic has spoken,
not for his own day alone, but for all generations to come after
him, in the solemn admonitions of the Farewell Address. It
was to us that Washington spoke when he said :

The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make
and to alter their constitutions of government, but the Constitu-
tion which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authen-
tic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. . . .
Towards the preservation of your Government and the perma-
nency of your present happy state it is requisite not only that you
steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged
authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation
upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method
of assault may be to effect in the forms of the Constitution altera-
tions which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to under-
mine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to
which you may be invited remember that time and habit are at
least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of
other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard
by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a

ESSENTIALS OF AMERICAN CONSTITUTION 159

country ; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothe-
sis and opinion, exposes to perpetual changes from the endless
variety of hypothesis and opinion.

While in .the nature of things each generation must assume
the task of adapting the working of its government to new
conditions of life as they arise, it would be the folly of ignorant
conceit for any generation to assume that it can lightly and
easily improve upon the work of the founders in those matters
which are, by their nature, of universal application to the
permanent relations of men in civil society.

Religion, the philosophy of morals, the teaching of history,
the experience of every human life, point to the same con-
clusion — that in the practical conduct of life the most diffi-
cult and the most necessary virtue is self-restraint. It is the
first lesson of childhood; it is the quality for which great
monarchs are most highly praised ; the man who has it not
is feared and shunned ; it is needed most where power is
greatest ; it is needed more by men acting in a mass than by
individuals, because men in the mass are more irresponsible
and difficult of control than individuals. The makers of our
Constitution, wise and earnest students of history and of life,
discerned the great truth that self-restraint is the supreme
necessity and the supreme virtue of a democracy. The people
of the United States have exercised that virtue by the estab-
lishment of rules of right action in what we call the limitations
of the Constitution, and until this day they have rigidly ob-
served those rules. The general judgment of students of
government is that the success and permanency of the Amer-
ican system of government are due to the establishment and
observance of such general rules of conduct. Let us change
and adapt our laws as the shifting conditions of the times
require, but let us never abandon or weaken this funda-
mental and essential characteristic of our ordered liberty.

THE STRENGTH OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY1
JAMES BRYCE

[James Bryce (1838- ) has been prominent in English political
and intellectual life since 1864, when he published his brilliant history
"The Holy Roman Empire." He is best known in America as British
Ambassador from 1907 to 1913 and as the author of "The American
Commonwealth" (1888, revised in 1910), generally admitted to be the
best exposition of the American system of government, Federal and
state, yet written. Since the beginning of the World War, he has headed
two important commissions, on Belgian and Armenian atrocities re-
spectively. See page 305 for another selection by the same author.]

Those merits of American government which belong to its
Federal Constitution have already been discussed : 2 we have
now to consider such as flow from the rule of public opinion,
from the temper, habits, and ideas of the people.

The first is that of stability. As one test of a human body's
soundness is its capacity for reaching a great age, so it is high
praise for a political system that it has stood no more changed
than any institution must change in a changing world, and that
it now gives every promise of durability. The people are
profoundly attached to the form which their national life
has taken. The Federal Constitution has been, to their eyes,
an almost sacred thing, an Ark of the Covenant, whereon no
man may lay rash hands. All over Europe one hears schemes
of radical change freely discussed. There is still a monarchical
party in France, a republican party in Italy and Spain, a
social democratic party everywhere, not to speak of sporadic
anarchist groups. Even in England, it is impossible to feel

1 From Chapter CII, "The American Commonwealth." Copyright, 1910,
The Macmillan Company. Reprinted by permission.

2 See Chapters XXVII-XXX in vol. i. [Author's note.]

160

THE STRENGTH OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 161

confident that any one of the existing institutions of the
country will be standing fifty years hence. But in the United
States the discussion of political problems busies itself with
details, so far as the native Americans are concerned, and
assumes that the main lines must remain as they are forever.
This conservative spirit, jealously watchful even in small
matters, sometimes prevents reforms, but it assures to the
people an easy mind, and a trust in their future which they
feel to be not only a present satisfaction but a reservoir
of strength.

The best proof of the well-braced solidity of the system is
that it survived the Civil War, changed only in a few points
which have not greatly affected the balance of national and
state powers. Another must have struck every European
traveler who questions American publicists about the insti-
tutions of their country. When I first traveled in the United
States, I used to ask thoughtful men, superior to the prej-
udices of custom, whether they did not think the states'
system defective in such and such points, whether the legis-
lative authority of Congress might not profitably be extended,
whether the suffrage ought not to be restricted as regards
negroes or immigrants, and so forth. Whether assenting or
dissenting, the persons questioned invariably treated such
matters as purely speculative, saying that the present arrange-
ments were too deeply rooted for their alteration to come
within the horizon of practical politics. So when serious
trouble arises, such as might in Europe threaten revolution,
the people face it quietly, and assume that a tolerable solution
will be found. At the disputed election of 1876, when each of
the two great political parties, heated with conflict, claimed
that its candidate had been chosen President, and the Consti-
tution supplied no way out of the difficulty, public tranquillity
was scarcely disturbed, and the public funds fell but little.
A method was invented of settling the question which both
sides acquiesced in, and although the decision was a boundless
disappointment to the party which hao> cast the majority of

1 62 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

the popular vote, that party quietly submitted to lose those
spoils of office whereon its eyes had been feasting.

Feeling the law to be their own work, the people are disposed
to obey the law. In a preceding chapter I have examined
instances of the disregard of the law, and the supersession of
its tardy methods by the action of the crowd. Such instances,
serious as they are, do not disentitle the nation as a whole to the
credit of law-abiding habits. It is the best result that can be
ascribed to the direct participation of the people in their
government that they have the love of the maker for his
work, that every citizen looks upon a statute as a regulation
made by himself for his own guidance no less than for that of
others, every official as a person he has himself chosen, and
whom it is therefore his interest, with no disparagement to
his personal independence, to obey. Plato thought that those
who felt their own sovereignty would be impatient of all
control : nor is it to be denied that the principle of equality
may result in lowering the status and dignity of a magistrate.
But as regards law and order the gain much exceeds the loss,
for every one feels that there is no appeal from the law, behind
which there stands the force of the nation. Such a temper
can exist and bear fruits only where minorities, however
large, have learned to submit patiently to majorities, however
small. But that is the one lesson which the American govern-
ment through every grade and in every department daily
teaches, and which it has woven into the texture of every
citizen's mind. The habit of living under a rigid constitution
superior to ordinary statutes — indeed two rigid constitutions,
since the state constitution is a fundamental law within
its own sphere, no less than is the Federal — intensifies this
legality of view, since it may turn all sorts of questions which
have not been determined by a direct vote of the people into
questions of legal construction. It even accustoms people to
submit to see their direct vote given in the enactment of a
state constitution nullified by a decision of a court holding that
the Federal Constitution has been contravened. Every page

THE STRENGTH OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 163

of American history illustrates the wholesome results. The
events of the last few years present an instance of the con-
straint which the people put on themselves in order to respect
every form of law. The Mormons, a community not exceed-
ing 140,000 persons, persistently defied all the efforts of
Congress to root out polygamy, a practice eminently repulsive
to American notions. If they had inhabited a state, Congress
could not have interfered at all, but as Utah was then only a
territory, Congress had not only a power of legislating for it
which overrides territorial ordinances passed by the local
legislature, but the right to apply military force independent
of local authorities. Thus the Mormons were really at the
mercy of the Federal government, had it chosen to employ
violent methods. But by intrenching themselves behind
the letter of the Constitution, they continued for many years
to maintain their "peculiar institution" by evading the
statutes passed against it and challenging a proof which under
the common law rules of evidence it was usually impossible
to give. Declaimers hounded on Congress to take arbitrary
means for the suppression of the practice, but Congress and
the Executive submitted to be outwitted rather than depart
from the accustomed principles of administration, and suc-
ceeded at last only by a statute whose searching but strictly
constitutional provisions the recalcitrants failed to evade.
The same spirit of legality shows itself in misgoverned cities.
Even where it is notorious that officials have been chosen by
the grossest fraud and that they are robbing the city, the
body of the people, however indignant, recognize the au-
thority, and go on paying the taxes which a Ring levies,
because strict legal proof of the frauds and robberies is not
forthcoming. Wrongdoing supplies a field for the display
of virtue.

There is a broad simplicity about the political ideas of the
people, and a courageous consistency in carrying them out in
practice. When they have accepted a principle, they do not
shrink from applying it " right along," however disagreeable

1 64 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

in particular cases some of the results may be. I am far from
meaning that they are logical in the French sense of the word.
They have little taste either for assuming abstract proposi-
tions or for syllogistically deducing practical conclusions there-
from. But when they have adopted a general maxim of policy
or rule of action they show more faith in it than the English
for instance would do, they adhere to it where the English
would make exceptions, they prefer certainty and uniformity
to the advantages which might occasionally be gained by
deviation. If this tendency is partly the result of obedience
to a rigid constitution, it is no less due to the democratic dis-
like of exceptions and complexities, which the multitude finds
not only difficult of comprehension but disquieting to the
individual who may not know how they will affect him. Take
for instance the boundless freedom of the press. There are
abuses obviously incident to such freedom, and these abuses
have not failed to appear. But the .Americans deliberately
hold that in view of the benefits which such freedom on the
whole promises, abuses must be borne with and left to the
sentiment of the people and to the private law of libel.
When the Ku Klux outrages disgraced several of the Southern
States after the military occupation of those states had
ceased, there was much to be said for sending back the troops
to protect the negroes and Northern immigrants. But the
general judgment that things ought to be allowed to take
their natural course prevailed; and the result justified this
policy, for the outrages after a while died out, when ordinary
self-government had been restored. When recently a gigantic
organization of unions of working men, purporting to unite
the whole of American labor, attempted to enforce its
sentences against particular firms or corporations by a
boycott in which all laborers were urged to join, there was
displeasure, but no panic, no call for violent remedies. The
prevailing faith in liberty and in the good sense of the mass
was unshaken ; and the result soon justified this tranquil
faith. Such a tendency is not an unmixed blessing, for it

THE STRENGTH OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 165

sometimes allows evils to go too long unchecked. But in
giving equability to the system of government it gives steadi-
ness and strength. It teaches the people patience, accustoming
them to expect relief only by constitutional means. It confirms
their faith in their institutions, as friends value one another
more when their friendship has stood the test of a journey full
of hardships.

American government, relying very little on officials, has the
merit of arming them with little power of arbitrary inter-
ference. The reader who has followed the description of
Federal authorities, state authorities, county and city or town-
ship authorities, may think there is a good deal of administra-
tion; but the description has been minute just because the
powers of each authority are so carefully and closely restricted.
It is natural to fancy that a government of the people and by
the people will be led to undertake many and various functions
for the people, and in the confidence of its strength will con-
stitute itself a general philanthropic agency for their social
and economic benefit. Of later years a current has begun to
run in this direction.1 But the paternalism of America differs
from that of Europe in acting not so much through officials
as through the law. That is to say, when it prescribes to a
citizen a course of action it relies upon the ordinary legal sanc-
tions, instead of investing the administrative officers with
inquisitorial duties or powers that might prove oppressive,
and when it devolves active functions upon officials, they are
functions serving to aid the individual and the community
rather than to interfere with or supersede the action of pri-
vate enterprise. Having dwelt on the evils which may flow
from the undue application of the doctrine of direct popular
sovereignty, I must remind the European reader that it is
only fair to place to the credit of that doctrine and of the
arrangements it has dictated, the intelligence which the
average native American shows in his political judgments,
the strong sense he entertains of the duty of giving a vote,
1 See Chapter XCV. [Author's note.]

1 66 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

the spirit of alertness and enterprise, which has made him self-
helpful above all other men.

The government of the Republic, limited and languid in
ordinary times, is capable of developing immense vigor. It
can pull itself together at moments of danger, can put forth
unexpected efforts, can venture on stretches of authority
transcending not only ordinary practice but even ordinary
law. This is the result of the unity of the nation. A divided
people is a weak people, even if it obeys a monarch ; a united
people is doubly strong when it is democratic, for then the
force of each individual will swells the collective force of the
government, encourages it, relieves it from internal embar-
rassments. Now the American people is united at moments of
national concern from two causes. One is that absence of class
divisions and jealousies which has been already described.
The people are homogeneous : a feeling which stirs them stirs
alike rich and poor, farmers and traders, Eastern men and
Western men — one may now add, Southern men also. Their
patriotism has ceased to be defiant, and is conceived as the
duty of promoting the greatness and happiness of their
country, a greatness which, as it does not look to war or
aggression, does not redound specially, as it might in Europe,
to the glory or benefit of the ruling caste or the military pro-
fession, but to that of all the citizens. The other source of
unity is the tendency in democracies for the sentiment of the
majority to tell upon the sentiment of a minority. That
faith in the popular voice whereof I have already spoken
strengthens every feeling which has once become strong, and
makes it rush like a wave over the country, sweeping every-
thing before it. I do not mean that the people become wild
with excitement, for beneath their noisy demonstrations they
retain their composure and shrewd view of facts. I mean only
that the pervading sympathy stirs them to unwonted efforts.
The steam is superheated, but the effect is seen only in the

167

greater expansive force which it exerts. Hence a spirited
executive can in critical times go forward with a courage and
confidence possible only to those who know that they have a
whole nation behind them. The people fall into rank at once.
With that surprising gift for organization which they possess,
they concentrate themselves on the immediate object; they
dispense with the ordinary constitutional restrictions ; they
make personal sacrifices which remind one of the self-devotion
of Roman citizens in the earlier days of Rome.

Speaking thus, I am thinking chiefly of the spirit evolved by
the Civil War in both the North and the South. But the sort
of strength which a democratic government derives from its
direct dependence on the people is seen in many smaller
instances. In 1863, when on the making of a draft of men for
the war, the Irish mob rose in New York City, excited by
the advance of General Robert E. Lee into Pennsylvania, the
state governor called out the troops, and by them restored
order with a stern vigor which would have done credit to
Radetzsky or Cavaignac. More than a thousand rioters were
shot down, and public opinion entirely approved the slaughter.
Years after the war, when the Orangemen of New York pur-
posed to have a i2th of July procession through the streets,
the Irish Catholics threatened to prevent it. The feeling of
the native Americans was aroused at once; young men of
wealth came back from their mountain and seaside resorts
to fill the militia regiments which were called out to guard
the procession, and the display of force was so overwhelming
that no disturbance followed. These Americans had no
sympathy with the childish and mischievous partisanship
which leads the Orangemen to perpetuate Old World feuds
on New World soil. But processions were legal, and they were
resolved that the law should be respected, and the spirit of
disorder repressed. They would have been equally ready to
protect a Roman Catholic procession.

Given an adequate occasion, executive authority in America
can better venture to take strong measures, and feels more

1 68 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

sure of support from the body of the people, than is the case
in England. When there is a failure to enforce the law, the
fault lies at the door, not of the people, but of timid or tune-
serving officials who fear to offend some interested section
of the voters.

Democracy has not only taught the Americans how to use
liberty without abusing it, and how to secure equality : it
has also taught them fraternity. That word has gone out of
fashion in the Old World, and no wonder, considering what
was done in its name in 1793, considering also that it still
figures in the program of assassins. Nevertheless, there is
in the United States a sort of kindliness, a sense of human
fellowship, a recognition of the duty of mutual help owed by
man to man, stronger than anywhere in the Old World, and
certainly stronger than in the upper or middle classes of
England, France, or Germany. The natural impulse of every
citizen in America is to respect every other citizen, and to
feel that citizenship constitutes a certain ground of respect.
The idea of every man's equal rights is so fully realized that
the rich or powerful man feels it no indignity to take his
turn among the crowd, and does not expect any deference
from the poorest. Whether or no an employer of labor has
any stronger sense of his duty to those whom he employs than
employers have in continental Europe, he has certainly a
greater sense of responsibility for the use of his wealth. The
number of gifts for benevolent and other public purposes,
the number of educational, artistic, literary, and scientific
foundations, is larger than even in Britain, the wealthiest and
most liberal of European countries. Wealth is generally felt
to be a trust, and exclusiveness condemned not merely as
indicative of selfishness, but as a sort of offense against the
public. No one, for instance, thinks of shutting up his pleas-
ure-grounds; he seldom even builds a wall round them,
but puts up only a low railing, so that the sight of his trees
and shrubs is enjoyed by passers-by. That any one should be
permitted either by opinion or by law to seal up many miles

THE STRENGTH OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 169

of beautiful mountain country against tourists or artists is
to the ordinary American almost incredible. Such things are
to him marks of a land still groaning under feudal tyranny.

The characteristics of the American people which I have
passed in review, though not all due to democratic government,
have been strengthened by it, and contribute to its solidity
and to the smoothness of its working. As one sometimes sees
an individual man who fails in life because the different parts
of his nature seem unfitted to each other, so that his action,
swayed by contending influences, results in nothing definite
or effective, so one sees nations whose political institutions
are either in advance of or lag behind their social conditions,
so that the unity of the body politic suffers, and the harmony
of its movements is disturbed. America is not such a nation.
There have, no doubt, been two diverse influences at work
on the minds of men. One is the conservative English spirit,
brought from home, expressed, and (if one may say so)
intrenched in those fastnesses of the Federal Constitution,
and (to a less degree) of the state constitutions, which reveal
their English origin. The other is the devotion to democratic
equality and popular sovereignty, due partly to Puritanism,
partly to abstract theory, partly to the circumstances of the
Revolutionary struggle. But since neither of these two
streams of tendency has been able to overcome the other,
they have at last become so blent as to form a definite type of
political habits, and a self -consistent body of political ideas.
Thus it may now be said that the country is made all of a
piece. Its institutions have become adapted to its economic
and social conditions and are the due expression of its char-
acter. The new wine has been poured into new bottles : or
to adopt a metaphor more appropriate to the country, the
vehicle has been built with a lightness, strength, and elasticity
which fit it for the roads it has to traverse.

THE ATTITUDE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN A
DEMOCRACY l

CHARLES EVANS HUGHES

[Charles Evans Hughes (1862- ) was educated at Brown Uni-
versity and first came into prominence by his fearless investigation of
insurance companies in New York City. He has served as Governor of
New York and as an associate justice of the United States Supreme
Court. In 1916 he was the Republican candidate for President. The
present selection is part of the first of three addresses delivered at
Yale in 1910, and vigorously restates in terms of to-day "the public
duty of educated men."]

When one is about to loose the ties of delightful association
in college and to face a world of competitive efforts, he
naturally asks himself, "What is to be my lot in life?"
" Where shall I find a chance to prove what I can do ? " " How
shall I win for myself a place of security protected by my
energy or ingenuity or thrift from the possible assaults of
misfortune?" "How can I achieve a competence or a for-
tune, or distinction?" For many, perhaps most, young men,
the pressure of necessity is so strong, or ambition is so keen or
the vision of opportunity is so alluring that these questions
seem to transcend all others and too frequently suggest the
dominant motive.

But there is another question, too rarely defined in conscious
self -discipline, yet urged by a myriad of voices whose appeal
dimly heard in the medley and confusion of the market place
sounds the deep tone of democracy , — " What shall be my
attitude toward the community ? " " How shall I relate myself
to that struggling, achieving mass of humanity, — the people

1 From "Conditions of Progress in Democratic Government." Copyright,
1910, by Yale University Press. Reprinted by permission.

170

THE INDIVIDUAL IN A DEMOCRACY 171

of this great country?" "What part shall I play, not as a
unit fighting other units for individual advantage, but as a
citizen of a Republic?"

Probably every one of you has been impressed with the
forces of progress. I do not refer merely to those represented
in production and exchange, significant as are these activities
of an energetic and talented people. The large success and
expansion of industry, the increase of wants and the ability
to supply them, the extraordinary development in facilities of
communication, are a sufficient answer to any who would speak
of decadence in energy or will. But even more significant are
the multiplying indications of earnest desire for the better-
ment of community life. I refer to the fine endeavors that
are being made to extend and perfect the means of education ;
to improve conditions of labor ; to secure better housing and
sanitation ; to stay the ravages of communicable disease ; to
provide proper care for the afflicted and defective in body and
mind ; to increase reformatory agencies and to improve penal
methods to the end that society may protect itself without the
travesty of making its prisons schools of crime; to secure
higher standards of public service and a higher sense of loyalty
to the common weal.

Slight consideration of the course of these endeavors
emphasizes the lesson that progress is not a blessing conferred
from without. It merely expresses the gains of individual
efforts in counteracting the sinister and corrupting influences
which, if successful, would make democratic institutions
impossible. Gratifying as is the vast extent and variety of our
accomplishment, one cannot be insensible to the dangers to
which we are exposed. No greater mistake can be made than
to think that our institutions are fixed or may not be changed
for the worse. We are a young nation and nothing can be
taken for granted. If our institutions are maintained in their
integrity, and if change shall mean improvement, it will be
because the intelligent and the worthy constantly generate
the motive power which, distributed over a thousand lines of

172 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

communication, develops that appreciation of the standards
of decency and justice which we have delighted to call the
common sense of the American people.

Increasing prosperity tends to breed indifference and to
corrupt moral soundness. Glaring inequalities in condition
create discontent and strain the democratic relation. The
vicious are the willing, and the ignorant are the unconscious,
instruments of political artifice. Selfishness and demagoguery
take advantage of liberty. The selfish hand constantly seeks
to control government, and every increase of governmental
power, even to meet just needs, furnishes opportunity for
abuse and stimulates the effort to bend it to improper uses.
Free speech voices the appeals of hate and envy as well as
those of justice and charity. A free press is made the instru-
ment of cunning, greed, and ambition, as well as the agency
of enlightened and independent opinion. How shall we pre-
serve the supremacy of virtue and the soundness of the com-
mon judgment? How shall we buttress Democracy? The
peril of this nation is not in any foreign foe ! We, the people,
are its power, its peril, and its hope !

The causes of indifference to the obligations of citizenship
may be traced in part to the optimistic feeling that nothing
can go seriously wrong with us. This may indeed spring from
belief in the intelligence and moral worth of the people, but
that belief has ground only as there are predominant evidences
of a growing sense of the duties imposed by democratic gov-
ernment, of an appreciation of responsibility enlarging apace
with the seductions that are incident to material advancement.
There is also the difficulty of realizing that government is not
something apart from us, or above us, that it is we ourselves
organized in a grand cooperative effort to protect mutual
rights and to secure common opportunity and improvement.
More potent still is the feeling of helplessness in the presence
of organized agencies which, with their effective combinations
based upon mutual interest, seem to make of slight conse-
quence the efforts of citizens who are not members of inner

THE INDIVIDUAL IN A DEMOCRACY 173

circles of power. But no organized agency and no combination,
however strong, can outrage the rights of any community, if
the community sees fit to assert them. The character of the
agencies of the community, its instruments of expression, the
forms of its organized effort are simply what it may desire or
tolerate. Whatever evil may exist in society or politics simply
points the question to the individual citizen, "What are you
doing about it?"

Before we deal with particular problems and relations, I
desire to consider the fundamental question of attitude and
the principles of action which must be regarded as essential
to the faithful discharge of the civic duties.

It is of first importance that there should be sympathy with
democratic ideals. I do not refer to the conventional attitude
commonly assumed in American utterances and always taken
on patriotic occasions. I mean the sincere love of Democracy.
As Montesquieu says : "A love of the republic in a democracy
is a love of the democracy; as the latter is that of
equality."

It would be difficult to find an association in which wealth,
or family, or station are of less consequence, and in which a
young man is appraised more nearly at his actual worth than
in an American college. Despite the increase of luxury in
college living, the number of rich men's sons who frequent
these institutions, and the amount of money lavishly and
foolishly expended, our colleges are still wholesomely demo-
cratic. A young man who is decent, candid, and honorable
in his dealings will not suffer because he is poor, or his parents
are obscure, and the fact that he may earn his living in humble
employment in order to pay for his education will not cost
him the esteem of his fellows. He will be rated, as the rich
man's son will be rated, at the worth of his character, judged
by the standards of youth which maintain truth and fair
dealing and will not tolerate cant or sham. This is so largely
true that it may be treated as the rule, and regrettable de-
partures from it as the exception.

174 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

But a larger sympathy and appreciation are needed. The
young man who goes out into life favorably disposed toward
those who have had much the same environment and oppor-
tunity may still be lacking in the broader sympathy which
should embrace all his fellow countrymen. He may be
tolerant and democratic with respect to those who, despite
differences in birth and fortune, he may regard as kindred
spirits, and yet in his relation to men at large, to the great
majority of his fellow beings, be little better than a snob. Or
despite the camaraderie of college intercourse he may have
developed a cynical disposition or an intellectual aloofness
which, while not marked enough to interfere with success in
many vocations, or to disturb his conventional relations,
largely disqualifies him from aiding his community as a
public-spirited citizen. The primary object of education is to
emancipate; to free from superstition, from the tyranny of
worn-out notions, from the prejudices, large and small, which
enslave the judgment. His study of history and of the insti-
tutions of his country has been to little purpose if the college
man has not caught the vision of Democracy and has not
been joined by the troth of heart and conscience to the great
human brotherhood which is working out its destiny in this
land of opportunity.

The true citizen will endeavor to understand the different
racial viewpoints of the various elements which enter into our
population. He will seek to divest himself of antipathy or
prejudice toward any of those who have come to us from
foreign lands, and he will try, by happy illustration in his own
conduct, to hasten appreciation of the American ideal. For
him "American" will ever be a word of the spirit and not of
the flesh. Difference in custom or religion will not be per-
mitted to obscure the common human worth, nor will bigotry
of creed or relation prevent a just appraisement. The pitiful
revelations of ignorance and squalor, of waste and folly, will
not sap his faith. He will patiently seek truly to know himself
and others, and with fraternal'insight to enter into the world's

THE INDIVIDUAL IN A DEMOCRACY 175

work, to share the joys of accomplishment, and to help in the
bearing of the burdens of misery. He will be free from the
prejudice of occupation or of residence. . He will not look
askance either at city or at country. For him any honest
work will be honorable, and those who are toiling with their
hands will not be merely economic factors of work, but
human beings of like passions and possessed of the "certain
unalienable rights." Neither birth nor station, neither circum-
stance nor vocation, will win or prevent the esteem to which
fidelity, honesty, and sincerity are alone entitled. He will
look neither up nor down, but with even eye will seek to read
the hearts of men.

This sense of sympathetic relation should increase respect
both for individual interests and for community interests and
should give a better understanding of what is involved in each.
They are not in opposition ; properly speaking, they cannot
be divorced. By individual interests I mean those interests
which concern the normal development of the individual life,
which relate to freedom in choice of work and individual pur-
suits, to the conservation of opportunities for the play of
individual talent and initiative, to the enjoyment of property
honestly acquired. The liberty of the individual in communi-
ties must of course be restrained by the mutual requirements
imposed upon each by the equal rights of others, and by the
demands of the common welfare. It may be difficult to define
the precise limitations of such restrictions, but the guiding
principle must be that the common interest cannot be pre-
served if individual incentive is paralyzed, and that to preserve
individual incentive there must be scope for individual effort
freely expended along lines freely chosen and crowned by
advantages individually acquired and held. There is no
alchemy which can transmute the poverty of individual hope
into communal riches. Restrictions, to be justified, must be
such as are essential to the maintenance of wholesome life
and to prevent the liberty of some from accomplishing the
enthraldom of all.

176 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

In all its efforts, democracy will make progress in the degree
that the people cultivate the patience and steadiness of
justice. The obligations of citizenship are not to be met by
spasmodic outbursts or by feverish demonstrations of public
interest. It is true that we make our most important choices
of the representatives of the people amid the tumult of exag-
gerated and interested appeals. To a superficial observer the
excitements of a political campaign would seem to imply the
dethronement of reason. But it is to the credit of our people
that they are so largely deliberative and have proved them-
selves so well able to sift the chaff from the wheat in political
arguments, and are so skillful in following the thread of truth
through the maze of prejudiced assertion and cunning perversion.
If we were governed by gusts of passion and lost our heads in
the turmoil of political strife, our freedom would be a travesty.

The desire to know the truth and to deal fairly with men and
measures is of the essence of good citizenship. The most
dangerous foes of democratic government are those who seek
through special privilege to pervert it to selfish uses, and those
who, by reckless, untruthful, and inflammatory utterances,
corrupt the public sentiment. The more dangerous is the
latter. For the motive power of any remedial effort must be
found in public opinion, and to achieve good results it must be
just. There are those who take a poor view of our prospects
because of the recklessness of the sensational press. It is
difficult for them to conceive that the community can steady
itself against these constant and insidious assaults upon its
judgment and sense of proportion. If indeed the people
believed all they read and their mental attitude and emphasis
were accurately reflected in headlines and type, it would seem
cause for despair. But those who are pessimistic with regard
to the influence of certain portions of the press fail to take
account of the many forces that determine public sentiment.
The habit of exaggeration furnishes to a large degree its own
corrective, and its sensational exhibitions are taken seriously
by few. The average man is very curious, and the fact that

THE INDIVIDUAL IN A DEMOCRACY 177

his curiosity will tempt him to buy and read does not neces-
sarily indicate that what he has read has made much of an
impression. Men are in constant communication with each
other, in the shop, in the office, in going to and from their
work, in the family, in their varied social relations, and in this
intercourse information and opinions derived from many
sources are freely interchanged. Their experience of life
largely determines their point of view. What is read with re-
gard to men and measures is generally accepted or rejected not
upon mere assertion, but as it may or may not accord with
the general opinions which experience has produced. This
fact points the lesson that the most serious consequences of
breaches of public trust and of corruption in high places are
not to be found in the particular injuries inflicted, but in the
undermining of the public confidence and in the creating of a
disposition to give credit to charges of similar offending.
But, as has been said, much of reckless and disproportionate
statement, much of malicious insinuation, much of frenzied
and demagogical appeal, fails of its mark.

While we may be grateful for this, and fully appreciate that
with the spread of education this capacity of the people to
resist such assaults will tend to increase, we cannot but be
sensible of the evil influence that is actually exerted. To com-
bat this and to maintain in the community standards of can-
dor and justice should be the aim of every citizen.

If it be asked how an individual can accomplish aught in
this direction, it may be answered that it lies with the individ-
ual to accomplish everything. The man who demands the
facts, who is willing to stand or fall by the facts, who forms
his convictions deliberately and adheres to them tenaciously,
who courts patient inquiry and "plays fair," is a tower of
strength in any group to which he may be related. We have
no greater advantage than a free press and the freedom of
public utterance. We would not lose its benefits because of
its abuses. Demagoguery will always have a certain influence,
and the remedy is to be found not in repression or impatient

178 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

denunciation, but in the multiplication of men of intelligence
who love justice and cannot be stampeded.

The citizen should contribute something more than sym-
pathy with democracy, something more than respect for
individual and community interests, something more than
adherence to the standards of fair dealing. Sympathy and
sentiment will fail of practical effect without independence
of character. A man owes it to himself so to conduct his life
that it be recognized that his assent cannot be expected until
he has been convinced. He should exhibit that spirit of self-
reliance, that sense of individual responsibility in forming and
stating opinion, which proclaims that he is a man and not a
marionette. This of course is a matter of degree varying with
personality and depends for its beneficial effect upon intelli-
gence and tact. None the less, the emphasis is needed. There
are so many who with respect to public affairs lead a life largely
of self -negation ! They are constantly registering far below
their capacity and never show anything like the accomplish-
ment for which they were constructed and equipped. We
have too many high-power vessels whose power is never used.

It is constantly urged that men must act in groups and
through organizations to accomplish anything. This is
obviously true and describes such a marked tendency that it
is hardly necessary to point the lesson. The difficulty is not
to get men to act in groups and through organization, but to
have groups and organizations act properly and wisely by
reason of the individual force and independent strength of
their members. Groups and organizations constantly tend to
represent the influence and power of one man or a few men,
who are followed not because they are right, but because they
lead, and who maintain themselves not so much by the
propriety and worth of leadership as by their skill and acumen
in availing themselves of the indifference of others and by use
of solicitations, blandishments, and patronage. This is illus-
trated in all forms of association, and to the extent that it
exists, the association loses its strength and capacity to

THE INDIVIDUAL IN A DEMOCRACY 179

accomplish the results for which it is intended. Groups and
organizations within democracy depend upon the same condi-
tions as those which underlie the larger society. If they come
into the strong control of a few by reason of the indifference
and subservience of the many, the form is retained without the
substance and the benefits of cooperative action are lost.

It is of course a counsel of wisdom that men should be tactful
and desirous of cooperating, and not in a constant state of
rebellion against every effort at group action. But men who are
eccentric and impossible are proof against counsel ; and their
peculiarities simply illustrate the exceptional and abnormal
in society. The normal man naturally tends to work with
others; to him the sentiment of loyalty makes a powerful
appeal. And the counsel that is most needed is that men in
the necessary action of groups should not lose their individual
power for good by blind following. The man who would meet
the responsibilities of citizenship must determine that he will
endeavor justly, after availing himself of all the privileges
which contact and study afford, to reach a conclusion which for
him is a true conclusion, and that the action of his group shall
if possible not be taken until, according to his opportunity
and his range of influence, his point of view has been presented
and considered. This does not imply sheer obstinacy or opinion-
ated stubbornness. Progress consists of a series of approxi-
mations. But it does imply self-respect, conscientious effort to
be sound in opinion, respect for similar efforts on the part of
others, and accommodations in the sincere desire for coopera-
tive achievement which shall be rational and shall be sensibly
determined in the light of all facts and of all proposals. It
also implies that there shall be no surrender that will compromise
personal integrity or honor, or barter for gain or success one's
fidelity to the oath of office or to the obligation of public trust.

A consideration of the obstacles which are found to be suc-
cessfully interposed to this course is not flattering to those of
our citizens who have had the greatest advantages. There
is, in the first place, the base feeling of fear. Lawyers are

i8o IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

afraid that they will lose clients; bankers, that they will
lose deposits; ministers, that important pew-holders will
withdraw their support; those who manage public service
corporations, that they will suffer retaliation. Throughout the
community is this benumbing dread of personal loss which
keeps men quiet and servile.

The first lesson for a young man who faces the world with
his career in his own hands is that he must be willing to do with-
out. The question for him at the start and ever after must
be not simply what he wants to get, but what he is willing to
lose. ''Whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it," is the
profoundest lesson of philosophy. No one can fight as a good
soldier the battles of democracy who is constantly seeking cover.

But still more influential is the desire to avoid controversy
and to let things go. The average American is good-hearted,
genial, and indisposed not simply to provoke a quarrel, but
even to enter into a discussion. By the constant play of his
humor he seeks to avoid sharp contacts or expression of
differences. But independence of conviction and the exercise
of one's proper influence do not imply either ill nature or
constant collisions with opposing forces. The power of the man
who is calm and temperate, just and deliberate, who seeks to
know the truth and to act according to his honest convictions,
is after all not best figured by the force of arms, but by the
gracious influence of sunshine and of rain and the quiet play
of the beneficent forces of nature. In suitably expressing
his individuality, in presenting his point of view, he need
not sacrifice his geniality or the pleasures of companionship
which are always enhanced by mutual respect.

Then there are the fetters of accumulated obligations.
The strongest appeal that can be made to an American is to
his generous sense of obligation because of favors received.
Men whom no wealth could bribe and no promise could seduce
will fall in public life victims to a chivalrous regard for those
who have helped them climb to public place. This is because
of a strange inversion of values. The supposed private debt

THE INDIVIDUAL IN A DEMOCRACY 181

is counted more important than the public duty. But there
are no obligations which friendship or kindly action can
impose at the expense of public service. It is simply a per-
verted sentiment which suggests such a demand or the neces-
sity of meeting it. It is a strange notion, which courses in
ethics and the benefits of higher education so frequently find
it difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge.

Whether you like it or not, the majority will rule. Accept
loyally the democratic principle. The voice of the majority
is that neither of God nor of devil, but of men. Do not be
abashed to be found with the minority, but on the other hand
do not affect superiority or make the absurd mistake of think-
ing you are right or entitled to special credit merely because
you do not agree with the common judgment. Your experience
of life cannot fail to impress you with the soundness of that
judgment in the long run, and I believe you will come to put
your trust, as I do, in the common sense of the people of this
country, and in the verdicts they give after the discussions of
press, of platform, and of ordinary intercourse. The dangers
of the overthrow of reason and of the reign of passion and prej-
udice become serious only as resentment is kindled by abuses
for which those who have no sympathy with popular govern-
ment and constantly decry what they call "mob rule" are
largely responsible. But whether the common judgment shall
exhibit that intelligence and self-restraint which have given
to our system of government so large a degree of success, will
depend upon your attitude and that of the young men of the
country who will determine the measure of capacity for self-
government and progress in the coming years.

Prize your birthright and let your attitude toward all public
questions be characterized by such sincere democratic sym-
pathy, such enthusiasm for the commonweal, such genuine love
of justice, and such force of character, that your life to the full
extent of your talent and opportunity shall contribute to the
reality, the security, and the beneficence of government by
the people.

THE PALE SHADE1
GILBERT MURRAY

[George Gilbert Aime Murray (1866- ), one of the most famous of
English scholars and poets, was born in Australia, but was educated at
the Merchant Taylors' School, London, and at Oxford. Since 1908 he
has been Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford. He is widely known for
his unequaled translations from the Greek, especially his renderings of
Euripides into English verse of superb felicity and eloquence. Since the
beginning of the World War he has written extensively in advocacy of a
liberal and democratic solution of its problems. This admirable essay , from
which a considerable number of paragraphs have been omitted, is a bril-
liant discussion of the British Constitution.]

The British soldier fought in the pale shade of aristocracy. — NAPIER

The conception which one country entertains of another is
always several generations out of date, and nearly always
based on something romantic or startling. There are still
plenty of Englishmen, and many more Frenchmen, who in
their secret hearts conceive of America as a mixture of Bret
Harte and the "Last of the Mohicans," with a rather regret-
table surface-dressing of skyscrapers and great inventors
and millionaires mourning for their kidnaped sons. And I
have noticed in American popular theaters traces of a belief
that our farmers still dress in the costumes of George Ill's
day, and that kings, princesses, earls, and — oddly enough -
pickpockets play a more prominent part in our daily life than
is warranted by experience. And neither party likes to lose
its illusion. Our people are distinctly saddened when they
hear that there are no more wild buffaloes and that Indians
are taking university degrees, and sympathetic Americans

1 From North American Review, September, 1917. Reprinted by permission.

182

THE PALE SHADE 183

are a little pained and incredulous when our statesmen de-
scribe England as a "great democracy" and discuss social
problems without even mentioning the wishes of the King.

The fact is that in Great Britain the King and the House
of Lords are both survivals. They are relics of a form of
government and a structure of society that have both passed
out of existence. In other countries they would have been
swept away by a clean-cut revolution about the years 1830-
1848, but the English habit in reform is never to go further
than you really want. If your eye offends you, try shutting
it for a bit; or use a little ointment or lotion; or give up
reading by artificial light. But do not be such a fool as to
have it taken out until you are perfectly certain you must.
And still more, if your neighbor offends you : try to put up
with him, try to get round him, try to diminish his powers
in the particular point where he is most offensive ; but do not
hang him or shoot him unless he absolutely insists upon it ;
and, if you must fight him, do not forget that you will have
to live with him or his friends afterwards.

It is this characteristic which has won for England two
reputations which seem at first sight contradictory. She is
known as the most Liberal of European nations and also as
the most Conservative. Both statements are fairly true, and
they both mean almost the same thing. She is Liberal be-
cause she believes in letting people do as they like and think
as they like : she hates oppression and espionage and inter-
ference except where they are absolutely necessary for the
public safety; and for that very same reason she is Conser-
vative. She adapts herself to new conditions with as little
disturbance as she conveniently can, and never destroys in-
stitutions or worries individuals for the sake of mere logical
consistency. The people who praise her for being Liberal
would seldom claim that she was specially Progressive. Those
who call her Conservative would never think of her as Re-
actionary. The fact is that, for various reasons, she has
enjoyed greater security, both inside and out, than most

184 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

European nations ; and, being free from fear, she could afford,
as a general rule, to be patient and good-natured.

Of these ancient undemocratic institutions which Eng-
lish Conservatism has left in being while in other democracies
they have disappeared, the Crown is at once the most con-
spicuous and the most harmless. No king has ever asserted
his will against that of the nation since George III, and no
one seems to anticipate that any king is likely again to do so.
Such republican feeling as there is in Great Britain — and
it is markedly less than it was thirty years ago — • is idealist
and theoretic. It is not a protest against felt oppression;
it is an echo from Mazzini and Kossuth and 1848, and, in
the last few months, from the great wind of the Russian
Revolution. The only grievance of a practical kind that
could be charged against the monarchy is its supposed ex-
pensiveness. About half a million yearly is voted by Parlia-
ment to the King's "Civil List." But then many of the
services now charged to the Civil List would have to continue
under any system ; only instead of being put down under
this heading, they would be under the Board of Works or
Public Health or some other government department. And
experts differ as to whether the expenses actually due di-
rectly and indirectly to the maintenance of the Crown are
greater or less than the expenses of a recurrent Presidential
election would be.

The real strength of the monarchy lies in its practical con-
venience. It hurts no one, and it solves a number of dif-
ficult problems. The races of India and Egypt and Afghan-
istan understand loyalty to a king; many of them would
not understand loyalty to a Parliament. Princes and Rajahs
of ancient birth and accustomed to magnificence are flat-
tered by a message from the King-Emperor, or his Viceroy :
it might be less easy to win their homage for an elected official.
More important than these considerations is the advantage
of not having the head of the Empire a party leader. Party
feeling runs very high in Great Britain. Opinion in the

THE PALE SHADE 185

colonies and the dominions is often greatly out of touch with
opinion at home ; it is generally more democratic, it is often
less liberal. And it might make a strain on the loyalty, say,
of Indian soldiers and officials if a radical leader, whom they
were accustomed to curse every morning at tiffin, were sud-
denly made the chief magistrate of the Empire. As it is, the
King has no politics, and people of all views can be loyal to
him. He represents something permanent amid the changes of
ministries, something that seems to be England itself, and, if
people feel disposed to idealize it, does nothing to prevent them.

The same consideration has some force at home also.
When party feeling is strong, a change of government pro-
duces a great strain ; but it would be a far greater strain if
the hated head of the opposite political party became ac-
tually the President of the whole British people. As it is the
Crown and the civil service remain unchanged, so the beaten
party can comfort itself ; the whole government of the nation
has not quite been given over into the hands of the wicked !

By the British Constitution the King is a mythical being
built up by a mass of legal fictions. He is king "by the Grace
of God"; he can do no wrong; he never dies; he is never
under age; he cannot be taxed; he cannot be arrested.
Conversely he is the only person in the realm who cannot
arrest a suspected criminal, because if he arrested by mistake
an innocent man, no action at law could be taken against
him, and therefore there would be " a wrong without a
remedy"! He is also the fountain of justice and the foun-
tain of honor, and the sole repository of the prerogative of
pardon. But when you examine into the meaning of all these
wonderful statements, they melt into mist. He does no wrong
because he never does anything. He cannot act except by
the advice of his ministers. And his ministers are the leaders
of the political party which represents the majority of the
nation. He pardons criminals or reduces their sentences, but
only when the Home Secretary on behalf of the Government
advises him to do so. He is the fountain of honor and he alone

1 86 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

can create peers ; but he only creates those whom the Prime
Minister recommends. No Act of Parliament is valid without
his signature, and he can in theory refuse to sign. But it is
over 200 years since Queen Anne refused the royal assent to a
certain Scotch Militia Act, and no sovereign since has at-
tempted to follow her example. At a few great constitutional
crises, like the passing of the Reform Bill, the hotheads of the
minority party have talked of persuading the King to veto
some bill which they thought particularly monstrous; but
they have never had their way.

Does the King then really count for nothing ? No ; clearly
it would not be true to say that. But it is very hard to say
what his power actually is. Though he cannot ever overrule
the ministers with whom the House of Commons provides
him, it must be remembered that he is always in office whereas
the ministers change. He sees a great deal of the most im-
portant business of state. He gets to know all the persons of
political importance in the Kingdom. If he is a man of char-
acter himself or a good judge of character in others, he is
pretty sure to obtain sooner or later a considerable personal
influence, dependent not on his supposed prerogative but on
his experience and position. Published memoirs enable us to
say with confidence that in the last generation a proposal
which had the approval of King Edward or of Queen Victoria
had generally a smoother career than one which those sover-
eigns thought harmful. But of course there would be no ques-
tion in either case of the Crown setting itself up against the
known will of Parliament.

It is true then that, to a slight extent, in a matter where
the will of Parliament and people was not clear, and minis-
ters were not interested or were divided among themselves,
the wish of the King, a hereditary and unrepresentative
officer, might be the deciding force. That is, as far as it goes,
a defect in the British Constitution from the standpoint of
pure democracy. But there are few democracies in the world
that have not worse defects than that.

THE PALE SHADE 187

The ardent republican will no doubt insist upon something
more fundamental. "The Crown," he will say, "produces
inevitably a false social atmosphere. The air of the Court,
with its immense interest in small personal questions, with
its honors and distinctions which depend on the pleasure of
particular individuals, with its regard for hereditary rank and
its false standards in judging the world, is an influence es-
sentially hostile to human dignity and to the spiritual equality
of man with man. It concentrates attention on itself, and,
among the masses of thoughtless people at any rate, that
means concentrating attention on a wrong object. When
George III was speaking with Dr. Johnson, certainly most
people in England would have been more interested in listen-
ing to the King than to the philosopher. And if instead of
Dr. Johnson, His Majesty had been speaking to Socrates and
George Washington and Shakespeare all at once, I daresay
it would have been much the same. When Burke was study-
ing the French Revolution he was so dazzled by the thought
of the suffering Queen that he could not see the social and eco-
nomic distresses of the people of France. 'He pitied the plu-
mage and forgot the dying bird,' and that is just the state of
mind which the false glitter of monarchy leads to."

This argument, as far as it goes, is probably quite true:
but it is just the sort of argument that middle-aged English-
men, as a rule, are not much affected by. A Frenchman or
an Italian perhaps feels it more. An Englishman is apt to
smile indulgently and say he sees what you mean, but that
after all in practice he thinks there is not much harm done,
and that snobbish people would be just as snobbish without
a Court as with one.

The House of Lords is, from the political point of view, a
body hard to defend. It is unrepresentative, it is too large,
it is drawn too predominantly from one class, and that a class
whose interests are exceptionally exposed to criticism. Such

1 88 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

a Second Chamber stands condemned. Yet we may put in
some pleas in mitigation of sentence. It would be wrong to
conceive of the House of Lords as a great mass meeting of
nearly seven hundred hereditary landowners sitting per-
manently to obstruct all Liberal reforms. It is only on very
rare occasions that the mass of peers — the "backwoodsmen"
as they are called — turn up to vote ; only on the great party
issues, such as the Home Rule Bill, the Parliament Bill, and
the like. On ordinary occasions the House of Lords is attended
by some forty to sixty members, nearly all of them serious,
eminent, and hard-working public men, and a good number
of them Liberals.

The ranks of the peerage are recruited every year by new
creations ; and, to one who does not expect too much of our
frail human nature, especially in a region where it is apt to
be seen at its frailest, the new creations, though far from ideal,
are, on the whole, by no means unrespectable. The obviously
bad appointments attract lively public interest ; the good
ones pass by unnoticed. Of course mere money bags count
far too much ; of course party services are unduly rewarded.
Of course the people who work and scheme industriously to
get a title are more likely to receive one than those who do
not. Occasionally there is a scandal. One or two have echoed
across the Atlantic. But if you make a list of the most recent
peers, you will find among them a very large proportion of
men who are at the head of their respective professions or
walks of life, especially of course if they have been engaged
in law or public administration. Turn up the record of a few
old House of Lords debates and notice the speakers. You will
find first several of these recent peers, whose rank is not
hereditary but has been conferred on them for public services :
Lord Cromer, a very great governor who reformed the finances
of Egypt ; Lord Morley, the famous radical philosopher and
man of letters, friend of Mr. Gladstone and John Stuart Mill ;
Lord Milner, an extreme imperialist, who is strongly distrusted
in Liberal circles but certainly achieved his peerage by hard

THE PALE SHADE 189

work and personal qualities ; Lord Loreburn, a great lawyer
and a former Liberal Lord Chancellor; Lord Courtney,
formerly Chairman of Committees in the House of Commons,
a leading radical and pacifist ; Lord Parmoor, a Conservative
lawyer ; two or three Bishops, some very conservative, some
moderate like the Archbishop of Canterbury, some Socialist,
like the Bishop of Oxford. Then there are many peers whose
title is hereditary, but who would probably have attained
eminence in whatever rank of life they had been born : Lord
Rosebery, the famous orator ; Lord Crewe, Lord Lansdowne,
the very accomplished leaders of the Liberal and Conserva-
tive peers respectively; Lord Curzon, a great traveler, a
distinguished ex-Viceroy of India, and a man of academic
distinction. These are all men whose opinion is of real im-
portance, and who probably ought to be members of any
second chamber, however democratically constructed. Then
there are a number of successful business men, brewers, doc-
tors, and men of science.

The House of Lords on ordinary days is not at all an un-
satisfactory senate. An old friend of the writer, a Liberal
of undoubted soundness and an enthusiastic admirer of
Abraham Lincoln, avers that on ordinary occasions, where
no great party questicn is at issue, he finds the debates in the
House of Lords better than those which he remembers in the
Commons. Above all there is more freedom, and more power
of expressing unpopular views. When certain Quakers and
other Conscientious Objectors to military service were shown
to have been harshly or unfairly treated, the best statement
of their case was made in the House of Lords. When the
Government, by way of "reprisals" against German cruelty,
sent an expedition to drop bombs on the open town of Frei-
burg, by far the best and most effective protest was made in
the House of Lords — and made by Liberals, Bishops, and
Conservatives alike. Again when abstruse questions affect-
ing remote parts of the world come up for debate, there are
generally some peers present who have special knowledge

190 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

of them. Only those peers attend who are really interested
in public affairs; there is no obstruction or "filibustering,"
no "talking out" of proposals, no threats by party leaders
against their too independent followers. There is just the one
absolutely fatal defect, that, whenever the Conservative
leader thinks fit to take the trouble, he can whip up an over-
whelming majority to destroy any Liberal bill; and that
majority will consist largely of quite undistinguished and un-
political persons, some few of them perhaps of indifferent
character and intelligence, and most of them not known to
him by sight.

It is England all over, this anomalous and indefensible
institution, which generally happens to work rather well be-
cause most of its members do not attend, and has not — until
lately — made itself so serious an obstacle to progress and the
popular will that the nation was willing to take the trouble of
"ending or mending it." However, reform is now inevitable.
The only question is whether the House of Lords itself will
consent to a reform sufficiently thorough to satisfy the feeling
of the country, or whether it prefers to follow the counsel of
its own "Die-hards" and "Last-ditchers," and will go down
fighting. It will no longer be a grave obstacle to the progress
of democracy. That may be taken as certain.

If you consulted at this moment the feeling of radical and
socialist circles hi Great Britain, you would probably find
comparatively little bitterness against the House of Lords;
rather the reverse. It has proved itself the one place where
the unpopular views of the pacifists can be fully expressed and
accorded a courteous hearing. The real object of bitterness
would be the pseudo-democratic capitalist press — which is
quite another story.

"This is all very well," an American reader may say. "It
may be that your King has no political power and your
House of Lords is having its claws clipped at the moment,
so far as the poor things needed clipping. But you are an

THE PALE SHADE 191

aristocratic nation. We know it in our bones. We feel it when
we meet Englishmen. The first thing they ask about a man is
whether he is or is not a 'gentleman,' — it is the all-impor-
tant question. And the answer to it seems to depend neither
on the man's moral qualities, which we would respect, nor on
the size of his income, which we could at least understand,
but on the abstruse points connected with his pronunciation,
and his relatives, and the way he wears his necktie. Your
aristocrats are supposed to have exquisite manners, but as a
matter of fact they often offend us. They are too much
accustomed to deference from common people; they stand
aside and expect to be waited on. And, when we go to England,
we may not see as much gross luxury as in New York or New-
port, but we do see that life is made extraordinarily comfort-
able for the 'upper classes,' and for them alone. They do no
doubt care about the 'poor' ; they are charitable and they are
public-spirited ; but they despise, or, at any rate, they exclude
from their society whole classes of people who seem to us just
as good as they are — commercial men, wealthy shop-keepers,
leaders of industry and others, just because they have not the
same way of talking."

Now there is some truth in this, and some falsehood. And
it is exceedingly difficult to unravel the two, even in the
roughest and most elementary way. I should not dare to at-
tempt it if I were a born Englishman, educated at Eton or
Winchester. Because in that case, I believe I should think it
mere nonsense. But, having come to England from Australia,
and been at one time a stranger to the well-to-do English
public-school society which sets the tone in the British upper
class, I think I can understand the criticism.

It is a fact that in Great Britain the aristocracy, which
America on the whole shook off when it shook off the British
connection, still survives and is in some ways still powerful.
And I think, perhaps, in no way more than this: that its
standard of behavior and minor morals is more or less ac-
'cepted as a model by the whole nation. It is true that

192 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

Englishmen, more than other nations, do consider whether a
man is a gentleman ; and the average Englishman of all classes
normally considers that he himself is a gentleman and expects
to be treated as one. This may sound like mere servility or
class-worship ; but of course it is not that. It does not mean
that the average man tries to behave exactly as he has seen
some earl or viscount behave, or as he reads that such persons
did behave in the eighteenth century. It means that a certain
ideal has been formed of the way in which a "gentleman"
ought to behave, and that practically every self-respecting
British citizen feels himself — theoretically at least — bound
to live up to it.

It is in part a class imitation and in part a genuine moral
standard; it is based in part on snobbishness and in part
on idealism. That is just what gives it its power. It appeals
to every kind of person. No doubt it would be far better to
aim at being a philosopher or a true Christian ; but thousands
of people who have no ambition in either of those directions
will be very strong on conducting themselves like gentlemen.
And some will do it in a superficial way and some in a sincere
and searching way.

All this, as I re-read it, sounds somewhat oligarchical,
somewhat inconsistent with the true and complete ideal of
democracy. But the truth is that no democracy can thrive
without a widespread and vigorous sense of self-respect and
mutual respect among its members. And the British democ-
racy has set about acquiring that sense by the means that
happened for historical reasons to lie ready to its hand. In
an old aristocratic society, such as existed in the eighteenth
century, where only the select Few were really respected,
wider and wider circles of the nation determined to live up
to the standard of that Few in honor and courtesy and self-
discipline, and so to earn the respect which that standard gave.

I do not feel ashamed when I think of it. If the standard
were, owing to the war, to break down, as some people say

THE PALE SHADE 193

it will, I should be bitterly sorry, not glad. When I heard
people attack a late Foreign Minister on the ground that he
was "too much of a gentleman for the work that is wanted
in war," I found it difficult within the limits of gentlemanly
language to express the vehemence of my dissent. I will not
for a moment plead, on behalf of my country, that she once
had these somewhat aristocratic standards but is now throw-
ing them over. And the majority of any working class audience
in the country will feel as I do.

We want to democratize the country, true, but we do not
want to vulgarize it. Just the reverse. I remember twenty
years ago hearing two members of Parliament discuss who
was the truest gentleman in the House of Commons, and the
choice fell on a Northumberland miner, sent by his fellow
miners to represent them. It is not from the working classes
that any danger to this ideal will come. Money and intrigue
and insincerity and lying advertisement: those are the ene-
mies to true ''gentleness," not hard work nor poverty.

We are no doubt still affected by the tradition of the aris-
tocracy which once governed Great Britain, a tradition al-
ready made legendary and greatly idealized. The class of
gentlefolk has enormously widened and no man living is
necessarily shut out from it. It still largely fills the civil serv-
ice and governs the outlying portions of the empire. The
public services are now, with few exceptions, filled by open
competitive examination. The examinations are severe and
skillful, and their fairness has never been questioned. If the
services still remain somewhat select and aristocratic, that is
because the higher education has in Great Britain, as in all
industrial societies, remained too much a privilege of the
upper and middle classes. We must not forget the immense
and steady effort made to counteract this tendency from the
Renaissance onwards. No nation has had such rich provision
for the education of "poor scholars" as England had after
the foundation of the great public schools. No nation has such
a system of "scholarships," or large money prizes lasting for

i94 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

four years or so, and open to the best pupils in competitive
examinations in all parts of the country. The present writer
was supported almost entirely by scholarships from the age
of fourteen to the age of twenty-three, and could not have got
through the University otherwise. So it is not for him to com-
plain of the exclusion of poor boys from the highest education
that England can provide. And his case is perfectly normal
and common. If you look through the lists of "scholars" and
"exhibitioners" compiled by several Oxford colleges of recent
years, you will find a majority coming from homes by no means
wealthy and a large proportion actually from the working
class. And these men go on to fill high positions in the civil
service, politics, the law, the Church, or other "gentlemanly"
professions. And if this was done under the old system with
its "great Public Schools," with high fees, numbering less
than a hundred all told, how much more will be done when the
new State-aided Secondary Schools, numbering over nine
hundred already, with very low fees and an abundance of free
places and university scholarships, have begun to exert their
full influence in the national education ? Of course we must
not delude ourselves. It remains difficult, by any measures
of public help, entirely to get over the inherent disadvantages
to a working-class child of the poverty of its parents. They
will want it to bring in wages at once instead of improving
its education. They will not be able to provide it at home with
a background of cultured thought or interesting conversation.
However, we see those difficulties and we mean to face them.
I must not allow them now to make me digress from my main
subject. . . . Hitherto the public services and learned pro-
fessions, the original preserves of the "upper classes," have
absorbed without any loss of standard, indeed with a consider-
able rise in standard, the hundreds of "poor scholars" who
came to them from the old Public Schools and Universities.
They will absorb equally the thousands of chosen boys and
girls who come from the new Secondary Schools and the cheap
modern Universities.

THE PALE SHADE 195

I have spoken of the civil side of life, since that is the only
side of which I have personal knowledge. The army and navy
used to be the great strongholds of aristocratic privilege, the
impregnable fortresses of anti-liberal thought. The famous
phrase quoted at the head of this essay has lingered in men's
memories. But it is well to remember that it referred to the
Engand of 1812, and even then only to the army. The army
of 1917 is very different from the army of a hundred years ago,
or even of three years ago. The soldier in whom the nation
now places its chief trust, Sir William Robertson, was himself
a working man. Promotions from the ranks are now the rule,
not the exception. I make no profession of knowing the army
from inside; but I believe one is safe in saying that if the
nation as a whole is moving forward in a democratic direc-
tion, the opposite tendency will find no stronghold any longer
in the army. The British soldier fights no more "in the pale
shade of aristocracy."

Yet the standard of honor remains untouched. War makes
good men do horrible things ; there is no shutting of the eyes to
that. Yet I believe all good judges will agree that our soldiers
now have more chivalry, not less, than those of Wellington.

There are bad symptoms here and there : vulgarities,
meannesses, intrigues, and blatancies. Such things exist in
every large society, and a state of long and desperate warfare
calls them into prominence. But, on the whole, there is no
visible decay in the strength of that ideal of manners which
is descended originally from a bygone aristocracy but is
now felt to be part of the birthright of every free Briton : an
obligation imposed on him by his own freedom and by the
position which his race holds in the world. How can a mem-
ber of so great a Commonwealth consent to be anything but
a Gentleman? A rule of duty as of the strong towards the
weak, courage and gentleness, no bullying and no intrigue:
it may be based ultimately on mere pride, but it is better to
be proud of these qualities than of their opposites. And such
pride, as America herself is the best witness, is no bad orna-
ment to a great and sovereign democracy.

THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS1
JAN CHRISTIAN SMUTS

[Lieutenant-General Smuts (1870- ) is a native of South Africa, but
was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he distinguished him-
self as a scholar. In the Boer War of 1899-1002 he fought against the Brit-
ish, but in the World War he commanded the British troops which drove
the Germans out of East Africa. During 191 7 he visited England as South
African representative in the Imperial War Cabinet, and his speeches on
the war and the question of Imperial federation made a profound impres-
sion. This after-dinner speech was delivered at a banquet given in
his honor by members of both Houses of Parliament on May 15, 1917,
and was characterized by the London Daily Telegraph as "one of the
finest and most statesmanlike utterances that the war has produced."
It is especially valuable for its presentation before a not entirely sym-
pathetic audience of the attitude of the British "colonials" to the British
Crown and Constitution.]

Ever since I have come to this country, about two months
ago, I have received nothing but the most profound and charm-
ing kindness and hospitality, which has culminated in this
unique banquet to-night. I appreciate it all the more because
I know it is given at a time when the greatest storm in the
world's history is raging, and when nobody in this country
or great city feels inclined to indulge in any festivities or
banquets. When I return home, I shall be able to tell the
people of South Africa that I have been received by you not
as a guest, not as a stranger, but simply as one of yourselves.
Speaking with a somewhat different accent, and laying a dif-
ferent emphasis on many things, as no doubt becomes a bar-
barian from the outer marches of the Empire — and one
whose mind is not yet deeply furrowed with trenches and
dugouts — I would like first of all to say how profoundly

1 From International Conciliation, November, 1917. Reprinted by permission.

196

THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS 197

thankful I am to Lord French for the words which have fallen
from his lips. Your expressions in regard to myself are largely,
I feel, undeserved. At any rate, I accept them as coming
from an old opponent and comrade in arms. I know they are
meant in the best spirit, and I accept them as such.

Your words recall to my mind many an incident of those
stirring times when we were opposing commanders in the
Boer War. I may refer to two. On one occasion I was sur-
rounded by Lord French — and was practically face to face
with disaster. Nothing was left me but, by the most diligent
scouting, to find a way out. I ventured into a place which
bore the very appropriate name of Murderers' Gap — and I
was the only man who came out alive. One account of that
stated that one Boer escaped, but he probably had so many
bullets in him that he would be no further danger. I survived
to be your guest to-night. Two days after I broke through —
blessed words in these times — and on a very dark night, I
came to a railway, which I was just on the point of crossing,
when we heard a train. Some of us felt inclined to wreck and
capture that train, but for some reason or other I said, "No,
let it pass." You can imagine my feelings when some time
afterwards I learned that the only freight on that train was
Sir John French with one or two A.D.C.'s, moving round from
one part of his front to another to find out how I had broken
through. If I had not missed that chance, he would have been,
my guest, no doubt very welcome, though no doubt embar-
rassing. Fate has willed otherwise. I am his guest.

Those were very difficult and strenuous days in which one
learned many a valuable lesson, good for all life. One of those
lessons was that under stress of great difficulty practically
everything breaks down ultimately, and the only things that
survive are really the simple human feelings of loyalty and
comradeship to your fellows, and patriotism which can stand
any strain and bear you through all difficulty and privation.
We soldiers know the extraordinary value of these simple
feelings, how far they go, and what strain they can bear, and

198 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

how ultimately they support the whole weight of civilization.
That war was carried on by both sides in a sportsmanlike
spirit, and in a clean, chivalrous way — and out of that
calamity has been produced the happy state of affairs that
you see to-day in South Africa, and which led to a new basis
on which to build the larger and happier South Africa which
is arising to-day.

I am sure in the present great struggle now being waged you
will see some cause leading to lasting results. Here you have
from all parts of the British Empire young men gathering
on the battle fields of Europe, and whilst your statesmen keep
planning a great scheme of union for the future of the Empire,
my feeling is that very largely the work is already done. The
spirit of comradeship has been borne in this campaign on the
battle fields of Europe, and many of the men from the various
parts of the Empire will be far more powerful than any in-
strument of government that you can elect in the future. I
feel sure that in after days, when our successors come to sum
up what has happened and draw up a balance-sheet, there
will be a good credit balance due to this common feeling of
comradeship which will have been built up. Now once more,
as many ages ago during the Roman Empire, the Germanic
volcano is in eruption, and the whole world is shaking. No
doubt in this great evolution you are faced in this country
with the most difficult and enormous problems which any
Government or people have ever been called upon to face —
problems of world-wide strategy, of man-power, communica-
tions, food supply, of every imaginable kind and magnitude,
so large that it is almost beyond the wit of man to solve them,
and it is intelligible that where you have so many difficulties
to face, one forgets to keep before one's eye the situation as a
whole. And yet that is very necessary.

It is most essential that even in this bitter struggle, even
when Europe is looming so large before our eyes, we should
keep before us the whole situation. We should see it steadily
and see it whole. I would ask you not to forget in these times

THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS 199

the British Commonwealth of nations. Do not forget that
larger world which is made up of all the nations that belong
to the Empire. Bear in mind that after all Europe is not so
large, and will not always continue to loom so large as at
present. Even now in the struggle the pace of Europe is being
permanently slowed down. Your Empire is spread all over the
world, and even where the pace is slowed down in one portion
it is accelerated in another, and you have to keep the whole
before you in order to judge fairly and sanely of the factors
which affect the whole.

I wish to say a few words to-night on this subject, because
I think there is a tendency sometimes to forget certain aspects
of the great questions with which we are now confronted.
That is one of the reasons why I am glad the Imperial Con-
ference was called at this time, apparently a very opportune
moment, and yet the calling of this Conference at this time
has already directed attention once more to that other aspect
of the whole situation which is so important to us. Remember,
it is not only Europe that we have to consider, but also the
future of this great commonwealth to which we all belong.
It is peculiarly situated ; it is scattered over the whole world ;
it is not a compact territory ; it is dependent for its very ex-
istence on world-wide communications, which must be main-
tained or this Empire goes to pieces. In the past thirty years
you see what has happened. Everywhere upon your communi-
cations Germany has settled down ; everywhere upon the
communications of the whole globe you will find a German
colony here and there, and the day would have come when
your Empire would have been in very great jeopardy from
your lines of communication being cut.

Now, one of the by-products of this war has been that the
whole world outside Europe has been cleared of the enemy.
Germany has been swept from the seas, and from all continents
except Central Europe. Whilst Germany has been gaining
ground in Central Europe, from the rest of the world she
has been swept clean; and, therefore, you are now in this

200 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

position — almost providentially brought to this position
- that once more you can consider the problem of your future
as a whole. When peace comes to be made you have all these
parts in your hand, and you can go carefully into the question
of what is necessary for your future security and your future
safety as an Empire, and you can say, so far as it is possible
under war circumstances, what you are going to keep and what
you are going to give away.

That is a very important precedent. I hope when the time
comes — I am speaking for myself, and expressing nobody's
opinion but my own — I feel when the time comes for peace
we should not bear only Central Europe in mind, but the whole
British Empire. As far as we are concerned, we do not wish
this war to have been fought in vain. We have not fought for
material gain, or for territory; we have fought for security
in the future. If we attach any value to this group of nations
which compose the British Empire, then we, in settling peace,
will have to look carefully at our future safety and security,
and I hope that will be done, and that no arrangement will be
made which will jeopardize the very valuable and lasting
results which have been attained.

That is the geographical question. There remains the other
question — a very difficult question— of the future consti-
tutional relations and readjustments in the British Empire.
At a luncheon given recently by the Empire Parliamentary
Association I said, rather cryptically, that I did not think
this was a matter in which we should follow precedents, and
I hope you will bear with me if I say a few words on that theme,
and develop more fully what I meant. I think we are inclined
to make mistakes in thinking about this group of nations to
which we belong, because too often we think of it merely as
one State. The British Empire is much more than a State.
I think the very expression "Empire" is misleading, because
it makes people think as if we are one single entity, one unity,
to which that term "Empire" can be applied. We are not an
Empire. Germany is an Empire, so was Rome, and so is India,

THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS 201

but we are a system of nations, a community of states and of
nations far greater than any empire which has ever existed ;
and by using this ancient expression we really obscure the real
fact that we are larger and that our whole position is different,
and that we are not one nation, or state, or empire, but we
are a whole world by ourselves, consisting of many nations
and states, and all sorts of communities under one flag. We
are a system of states, not only a static system, a stationary
system, but a dynamic system, growing, evolving all the time
towards new destinies.

Here you have a kingdom with a number of Crown colonies ;
besides that you have large protectorates like Egypt, which
is an empire in itself, which was one of the greatest empires
in the world. Besides that you have great dependencies like
India — an empire in itself, one of the oldest civilizations in
the world, and we are busy there trying to see how East and
West can work together, how the forces that have kept the
East going can be worked in conjunction with the ideas we
have evolved in Western civilization for enormous problems
within that State. But beyond that we come to the so-called
Dominions, a number of nations and states almost sovereign,
almost independent, who govern themselves, who have been
evolved on the principles of your constitutional system, now
almost independent states,, and who all belong to this group,
to this community of nations, which I prefer to call the British
Commonwealth of nations. Now, you see that no political
ideas that we evolved in the past, no nomenclature will apply
to this world which is comprised in the British Empire ; any
expression, any name which we have found so far for this
group has been insufficient, and I think the man who would
discover the real appropriate name for this vast system of
entities would be doing a great service not only to this country,
but to constitutional theory.

The question is, how are you going to provide for the future
government of this group of nations? It is an entirely new
problem. If you want to see how great it is, you must take the

2012 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

United States in comparison. There you find what is essential
— one nation, not perhaps in the fullest sense, but more and
more growing into one; one big State, consisting of subor-
dinate parts, but whatever the nomenclature of the United
States Constitution, you have one national State, over one
big, contiguous area. That is the problem presented by the
United States, and for which they discovered this federal solu-
tion, which means subordinate governments for the subordinate
parts, but one national Federal Parliament for the whole.

Compare with that state of facts this enormous system com-
prised in the British Empire of nations all over the world,
some independent, living under diverse conditions, and all
growing towards greater nations than they are at present.
You can see at once that the solution which has been found
practicable in the case of the United States probably never
will work under our system. That is what I feel in all the
empires of the past, and even in the United States — the
effort has been towards forming one nation. All the empires
that we have known in the past and that exist to-day are
founded on the idea of assimilation, of trying to force different
human material through one mold so as to form one nation.
Your whole idea and basis is entirely different. You do not
want to standardize the nations of the British Empire. You
want to develop them into greater nationhood. These younger
communities, the offspring of the Mother Country, or terri-
tories like that of my own people, which have been annexed
after various vicissitudes of war — all these you want not to
mold on any common pattern, but you want them to de-
velop according to the principles of self-government and free-
dom and liberty. Therefore, your whole basic idea is different
from anything that has ever existed before, either in the em-
pires of the past or even in the United States.

I think that this is the fundamental fact which we have to
bear in mind — that the British Empire, or this British Com-
monwealth of nations, does not stand for unity, standardiza-
tion, or assimilation, or denationalization ; but it stands for

THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS 203

a fuller, a richer, and more various life among all the nations
that compose it. And even nations who have fought against
you, like my own, must feel that they and their interests,
their language, their religions, and all their cultural interests
are as safe and as secure under the British flag as those of the
children of your household and your own blood. It is only in
proportion as that is realized that you will fulfill the true
mission which you have undertaken. Therefore, it seems,
speaking my own individual opinion, that there is only one
solution, that is the solution supplied by our past traditions
of freedom, self-government, and the fullest development.
We are not going to force common Governments, federal or
otherwise, but we are going to extend liberty, freedom, and
nationhood more and more in every part of the Empire.

The question arises, how are you going to keep this world
together if there is going to be all this enormous development
towards a more varied and richer life among all its parts?
It seems to me that you have two potent factors that you must
rely on for the future. The first is your hereditary kingship.
I have seen some speculations recently in the papers of this
country upon the position of the kingship of this country ;
speculations by people who, I am sure, have never thought
of the wider issues that are at stake. You cannot make a Re-
public in this country. You cannot make a Republic of the
British Commonwealth of nations, because if you have to
elect a President not only in these Islands, but all over the
British Empire, who will be the ruler and representative of
all these peoples, you are facing an absolutely insoluble prob-
lem. Now, you know the theory of our Constitution is that
the King is not merely your King, but he is the King of all of
us. He represents every part of the whole Commonwealth
of nations. If his place is to be taken by anybody else, then
that somebody will have to be elected by a process which, I
think, will pass the wit of man to devise. Therefore let us be
thankful for the mercies we have. We have a kingship here
which is really not very different from a hereditary Republic,

204 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

and I am sure that more and more in the future the trend
will be in that direction, and I shall not be surprised to see
the time when our Royal princes, instead of getting their Con-
sorts among the princelings of Central Europe, will go to the
Dominions and the outlying portions of the Empire.

I think that in the theory of the future of this great Empire
it is impossible to attach too much importance to this institu-
tion which we have existing, and which can be developed, in
my opinion, to the greatest uses possible for its future preser-
vation and development. It will, of course, be necessary to
go further than that. It is not only the symbol of unity which
you have in the Royal ruler, but you will have to develop
further common institutions.

Every one admits that it would be necessary to devise better
machinery for common consultation than we have had hitherto.
So far we have relied upon the Imperial Conference which
meets every four years, and which, however useful for the
work it has done hitherto, has not, in my opinion, been a
complete success. It will be necessary to devise better means
for achieving our ends. A certain precedent has been laid
down of calling the Prime Ministers and representatives from
the Empire of India to the Imperial Cabinet, and we have
seen the statement made by Lord Curzon that it is the inten-
tion of the Government to perpetuate that practice in future.
Although we have not yet the details of the scheme, and we
have to wait for a complete exposition of the subject from his
Majesty's Government, yet it is clear that in an institution
like that you have a far better instrument of common con-
sultation than you have in the old Imperial Conference, which
was called only every four years, and which discussed a num-
ber of subjects which were not really of first-rate importance.
After all, what you want is to call together the most impor-
tant statesmen in the Empire from time to time — say once
a year, or as often as may be found necessary — to discuss
matters which concern all parts of the Empire in common,
and in order that causes of friction and misunderstanding

THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS 205

may be removed. A common policy should be laid down to
determine the true orientation of our Imperial policy.

Take foreign policy, for instance, on which the fate of the
Empire may from time to time depend. I think it is highly
desirable that at least once a year the most important leaders
of the Empire should be called together to discuss these mat-
ters, and to determine a common policy, which would then
be carried out in detail by the various executive Governments
of the commonwealth nations. This Imperial Council or
Cabinet will not themselves exercise executive functions,
but they will lay down the policy which will be carried out by
the Governments of the various parts of the Empire. A sys-
tem like that, although it looks small, must in the end lead to
very important results and very great changes. You cannot
settle a common policy for the whole of the British Empire
without changing that policy very considerably from what it
has been in the past, because the policy will have to be, for
one thing, far simpler. We do not understand diplomatic
finesse in other parts of the Empire. We go by large principles,
and things which can be easily understood by our undeveloped
democracies. If your foreign policy is going to rest, not only
on the basis of your Cabinet here, but finally on the whole
of the British Empire, it will have to be a simpler and more
intelligible policy, which will, I am sure, lead in the end to
less friction, and the greater safety of the Empire.

Of course, no one will ever dispute the primacy of the Im-
perial Government in these matters. Whatever changes and
developments come about, we shall always look upon the
British Government as the senior partner in this concern.
When this Council is not sitting, the Imperial Government
will conduct the foreign affairs of the Empire. But it will
always be subject to the principles and policy which have
been laid down in these common conferences from time to
time, and which, I think, will be a simpler and probably, in
the long run, a saner and safer policy for the Empire as a whole.
Naturally, it will lead to greater publicity. There is no doubt

206 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

that, after the catastrophe that has overtaken Europe, nations
in future will want to know more about the way their affairs
are conducted. And you can understand that, once it is no
longer an affair of one Government, but of a large number of
Governments who are responsible ultimately to their Parlia-
ments for the action they have taken, you may be sure there
will be a great deal more publicity and discussion of foreign
affairs than there has ever been.

I am sure that the after effects of a change like this, although
it looks a simple change, are going to be very important, not
only for this community of nations, but for the world as a
whole. Far too much stress is laid upon the instruments of
government. People are inclined to forget that the world is
getting more democratic, and that forces which find expres-
sion in public opinion are going to be far more powerful in
the future than they have been in the past. You will find that
you have built up a spirit of comradeship and a common
feeling of patriotism, and that the instrument of government
will not be the thing that matters so much as the spirit that
actuates the whole system of all its parts. That seems to me
to be your mission. You talk about an Imperial mission. It
seems to me this British Empire has only one mission, and
that is a mission for greater liberty and freedom and self-de-
velopment. Yours is the only system that has ever worked
in history where a large number of nations have been living
in unity. Talk about the League of Nations — you are the
only league of nations that has ever existed ; and if the line
that I am sketching here is correct, you are going to be an
even greater league of nations in the future ; and if you are
true to your old traditions of self-government and freedom,
and to this vision of your future and your mission, who knows
that you may not exercise far greater and more beneficent
influence on the history of mankind than you have ever
done before ?

In the welter of confusion which is probably going to follow
the war in Europe, you will stand as the one system where

THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS 207

liberty to work successfully has kept together divers com-
munities. You may be sure the world such as will be sur-
rounding you in the times that are coming will be very likely
to follow your example. You may become the real nucleus
for the world government for the future. There is no doubt
that is the way things will go in the future. You have made a
successful start ; and if you keep on the right track, your
Empire will be a solution of the whole problem.

I hope I have given no offense. When I look around this
brilliant gathering, and see before me the most important men
in the Government of the United Kingdom, I am rather
anxious that we should discuss this matter, which concerns
our future so very vitally — a matter which should never be
forgotten even in this awful struggle, in which all our energies
are engaged. Memories of the past keep crowding in upon me.
I think of all the difficulties which have surrounded us in the
past, and I am truly filled with gratitude for the reception
which you have given me, and with gratitude to Time, the
great and merciful judge, which has healed many wounds —
and gratitude to that Divinity which "shapes our ends, rough
hew them how we will." I think of the difficulties that still
lie ahead of us, which are going to test all the nations fighting
for liberty far more than they have ever been tested in the
past, and I hope and pray that they all may have clearness of
vision and purpose, and especially that strength of soul in
the coming days, which will be more necessary than strength
of arm. I verily believe that we are within reach of priceless
and immeasurable good, not only for this United Kingdom
and group of nations to which we belong, but also for the whole
world. But, of course, it will depend largely upon us whether
the great prize is achieved now in this struggle, or whether
the world will be doomed to long, weary waiting in the future.
The prize is within our grasp, if we have strength, especially
the strength of soul, which I hope we shall have, to see this
thing through without getting tired of waiting until victory
crowns the efforts of our brave men in the field.

THE IDEA OF LIBERTY IN FRANCE1
EMILE BOUTROUX

[Etienne Emile Marie Boutroux (1845- ) is a professor of phi-
losophy in the University of Paris and is one of the most distinguished of
French philosophers. He has been an Exchange Professor at Harvard
University, and was in 1912 elected to the French Academy. He has
written, among other works, "Education and Ethics" (1913) and lives
of Pascal and of William James. This is part of an address delivered on
December 5, 1915, before the Conference de Foi et Vie in Paris. In its
presentation of the double origin of the French ideal of government and
attitude toward life and the perfect combination of the two tendencies,
it is a valuable contribution to an understanding of European principles
of government.]

The French idea of liberty is not a modern invention. It
is the blossoming of a double tradition : the Graeco-Roman
and the Christian.

Opposed to the Orient, which subjected man and the world
to an absolute empire of transcendent powers and indeter-
minable fatalities, ancient Greece considered the world to
be self-animated, and as tending to realize its own destinies
within itself. The directing ideal of Greek thought is Art.
Now, in a work of art such as the Greeks conceived it, matter
and form are so exactly adjusted to one another, that one is
unable to say whether form is the result of the spontaneous
development of matter, or whether matter has been purely
and simply disciplined by form. In the eyes of the Greek
artist matter and form are one. It is neither a foreign force
nor an oppressive one which develops matter under the laws
of form. According to the voice of Amphion's lyre there arise,

1 Translated by Morris Edmund Speare from "L'Id6e de Libertfi en France
et en Allemagne." Paris, 1915.

208

THE IDEA OF LIBERTY IN FRANCE 209

of their own accord, pliable materials which develop into walls
and towers. The great blind man of Mceonie * opens his mouth.
"... and the ancient boughs already
Incline their foliage sof-tly and in cadence ! "

If nature in general possesses, within itself, the power of
elevating itself toward the ideal, by a much stronger reason
is human nature capable of manifesting the attributes of the
true, the beautiful, and the good, and of its own accord press-
ing toward them. When he loves and seeks for knowledge,
man thus constitutes morality, convention, the social life,
and the political life. From thence springs the Hellenic ideal
of education. To uplift men is not, according to the Platonists
and the Aristotelians, to impose upon them any plan which
one might judge useful, without taking into consideration
their natures and their aspirations ; it is, on the contrary, to
consummate their most intimate wishes, to help them to reach
the goal which they themselves aim for. Art, says Aristotle,
makes masterpieces with which Nature should be content.
It is so with Education, which is the supreme art.

If Greece, above all other things, put forth the power of
initiative and of perfection which reside in the nature of man,
the more peculiarly practical genius of Rome expressly de-
duced from this notion of man the moral and the juridical
consequences which it embodied. Capable of self-mastery
and of reflecting upon his own acts man is subjected to the
law of Duty. He is not only a plant which blossoms through
liberty. He is a will which must obey. And, capable of as-
suming dignity and moral worth, he possesses as an essential
attribute that eminent quality which we call Right.

As the Graeco-Latm civilization conceives him, man is
thus a being capable of personally fashioning himself, of
aspiring to the true, the beautiful, and the good, subject to
the higher laws which impose upon him duties, and he is
provided with essential rights which are born out of this very
dignity of his,

1 Andr£ Ch6nier, L'Aveugle.

210 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

If French thought comes out of this so-called Classical
tradition, it is also heir to the Christian tradition. The latter
does not contradict the classical ideal at all. But, while the
Greeks and the Romans had considered above all things
Reason in man, reason through which all men tend to mold
themselves into a single being, universal and impersonal,
Christianity exalted, in particular, the individual, with his
conscience and with his own traits of character. It gives first
importance, in God and in man, to love, sentiment, — that is
to say, to the peculiarly individualistic element of the soul.
It is not simply the human species which, according to the
doctrine of Christ, is privileged to approach God and to
commune with him ; it is every man taken separately, however
humble his condition and however limited his vision. "Be-
hold," says Jesus, "this poor widow casting thither, into the
alms-box, her two mites. Of a truth I say unto you that she
hath cast in more than they all. For they have cast of their
abundance ; but she of her penury hath cast in all the living
that she had." Such are the examples that Jesus gave to his
disciples ; such are the servants of God to whom He promises
the first places in the Kingdom of Heaven. Every individual,
according to this doctrine, is called upon as such to save him-
self from sin and from death, and to live in God. And the sal-
vation of all, taken every single one, is equally dear to the
Father who is all-powerful and all-good.

Nourished upon this twofold tradition, French thought
has affirmed an ideal of liberty which is vitally identical in
the conscience of the people and in the writings and speeches
of scholars and statesmen.

Liberty, according to this way of looking at things, implies
a power of disposing of oneself, of desiring, of thinking, of
acting for oneself which belong to the individual as an in-
dividual. This power is expressed by the phrase : free agent,
which, according to the French point of view, designates a
faculty at the same time very genuine and very superior.

THE IDEA OF LIBERTY IN FRANCE 211

Each man, through this free agent, is like a personal empire
within a universal empire. His very conscience, in fact, is
not an insignificant secondary phenomenon, but an original
and efficacious reality. Through it each individual is somehow
master of himself. Not that the individual is sufficient unto
himself nor has the right to regard himself as superior to all
laws. French thought does not ratify the exaggerated asser-
tion of Rousseau attributing to the individual "an absolute
existence and a naturally independent one." Man finds in
his own conscience with irresistible clearness the laws of
justice and of humanity. He considers himself therefore as
under obligation to his kind and to the universal order of
things. The aim which he should impose upon himself is, in
this sense, not to differentiate between an absolute individual
sovereignty and an absolute abdication, but to conciliate
within himself the liberty and the right of the individual
with the right of the ideal and the sovereignty of moral laws.
If every individual is, by some means, an entire being, it is
perforce an entire being that individuals ought to consum-
mate by their union. So that the problem of moral life for
French conscience is the very problem which a Greek poet
put forth in these words

Hoi? 8e p,oi (v TL TO. TroVr' etrrai
/cat

"How can we so bring it about that the All be One, and at
the same time that each member possess an individual ex-
istence?"

The conception of liberty in the individual is, according to
the French doctrine, determined by nations, in the measure
that these latter can be held responsible as yo"u would hold
people responsible ; that is to say, in the measure with which
they are endowed with a national conscience and possess the
necessary elements for self-government. They also belong to
themselves, and must be masters of their own destinies ; they
also, at the same time, must recognize the existence of a

212 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

universal justice for the realization of which they are in duty
bound to collaborate with all the others.

One cannot deny that in the course of our own history this
idea of liberty has not, at times, changed, and has not, some-
times, failed to suffer destruction while working out its own
salvation. It is evident that in teaching men that they have a
personal worth, that they are capable and worthy of personally
determining themselves and of governing themselves, we
expose them to forgetting that they are dependent upon a
superior authority and so to take themselves as if they were
in themselves the ultimate end of action. It would be more
simple, surely, to mold' them to the necessary obedience;
to inculcate in them that belief that of themselves they are
nothing, and that they acquire a value and a reality only in
acting under the impulse of a higher power. Hence the French
conception of liberty has fallen in certain crises, a fact which
has endangered the social order and liberty itself. Ill-willed
critics have been able to say that France oscillated between
despotism and anarchy. And it is fashionable, notably beyond
the Rhine, to maintain that the French are vowed to an un-
governable individualism. The individual, according to this
opinion, would consider himself in France as literally sover-
eign. In the satisfaction of his own wishes, his desires, his
caprices, he would place the only law for his conduct. He
would recognize in his governors no other r61e, no other right,
than that of assuring, of guaranteeing to each person the
integral development of his individuality.

That those who have thus estimated France are mistaken
is what the attitude of the French people in the present war
shows most forcibly. Certainly every one is his very self,
every one acts according to the dictates of his own conscience.
Does it follow that France is given over to anarchy ; that the
revolution or the civil war which its enemies foresaw are
ready to open up our country ; that its unity is only super-
ficial and illusory? There can be nothing more false than such
a deduction. The unanimity of these free minds is real. This

THE IDEA OF LIBERTY IN FRANCE 213

war, more than any other perhaps, is a national war for the
people of France. It is for this reason that the general will is
now more united than ever before. We distinguish no longer
between the soldiers of the regular army, the reserves, or the
territorials, between the civilian and the military, between
the army and the nation. All offer themselves for the common
cause, each according to the place which he occupies or which
is assigned to him. A single thought fills all hearts : to free
the country, Europe, and the world, and to establish the rule
of Right among .the nations. One dominating ideal pervades
all our action, great or small : the good of the service. Before
this necessity personal pride disappears. Politics itself, in
fact, bows before the national duty. The country has re-
solved in its entirety and to the limit to perform valiantly all
the physical and the moral sacrifices which patriotism demands
of it.

What does that mean? Has France become transformed,
or resuscitated, or galvanized ?

France is to-day what she was yesterday ; but the frightful
danger with which she saw herself menaced has now spared
her the necessity of coordinating, of combining, and of leading
back to unity the individual liberties, if those liberties were
to have efficacious action. To find principles capable of thus
disciplining liberties, without doing them any violence, France
has only to study its own conscience. She found there pro-
foundly rooted sentiments of a sovereign grandeur and potency.
The first is worship of the Past. There resides in every French-
man the love of the soil where his ancestors repose, and of the
monuments which betoken their piety, their glories, and their
genius. The second is that love of Justice and of ideal humanity
which, no less than the reverence for the Past, is traditional
in the country of France.

If the present war has especially recalled Frenchmen to
the duty of subjecting their individual wills to a higher Law,
it has, by that challenge, simply excited them to develop
harmoniously all their instincts, Man, says Descartes, is

214 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

naturally endowed with free will. But free will is, itself, only
a faculty of which one may make bad use as well as good
use. The destiny of free will is to become Liberty. Free will
attains that dignity only when it spends itself in realizing,
not any kind of end at all but those alone which dictate
or admit Reason.

A CLUE TO RUSSIA1
H. N. BRAILSFORD

[Henry Noel Brailsford (1873- ) is an English political writer and
journalist who is identified with the Liberal Party. He has made several
visits to the Near East, in 1913 serving on the Carnegie International
Commission sent there. His chief writings are "Macedonia" (1906)
and "A League of Nations" (1917). The following article owes its value
to its succinct explanation of an intricate matter which is at the base of
much of the unrest in Russia.]

About the Russian revolution one feels what Heraclitus
felt about the nature of things. It is in continual flux, and
any assertion which one may make about it will have ceased
to be true as one speaks. The safest plan would be to wag a
symbolic finger, as the wise man recommended, by way of
indicating that "it flows." Ministries chase each other
across the field of vision; after one congress to restore the
nation's unity, it is safe to predict that another will be neces-
sary in a month ; the little Cossack Korniloff, in spite of his
pitiable failure, may not be the last of the Napoleons; and
the Maximalists will "demonstrate" again and yet again.
It is the way of revolutions to generate energy by explosion.
To the steady gaze, however, the flux reveals itself as a stream
which moves in conscious and determined currents. The
instability and confusion at the center of power is far from
meaning chaos; it is, on the contrary, the oscillating index
of a struggle of tendencies as rational and inevitable as any
clash of wills which can occur in any human society. Our
English newspapers attribute the whole conflict to disputes
over the conduct of the war or the promotion of peace. The
Maximalists are for them merely traitors, bought by German

1 From New Republic, October 20, 1917. Reprinted by permission.

216 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

gold, who work to make a separate peace, while Korniloff
was the pure-minded patriot whose single purpose was to
"get on with the war." This elegant simplification misses
the whole point of the internal conflict. To be sure, each
side accuses the other of working for a separate peace ; the
charge is merely a way of saying with due emphasis that one
disagrees with a man. The root of the whole misunderstand-
ing is that few of us realize, even yet, that there is latent in
the revolution a social as well as a political upheaval.

The general view was that Russia had got rid of Tsardom,
and all that now remained for her to do was to adopt at leisure
something resembling the French Republican constitution.
That, to be sure, was an immense change, but the country
seemed to be wonderfully unanimous about it. The partisans
of Tsardom dared not show themselves, and the conservative
elements, who would have preferred a constitutional mon-
archy, were embarrassed by the difficulty of finding a suit-
able dynasty. The Romanoffs, after the Rasputin scandal,
were finally impossible, and Russia could hardly go, like
a Balkan state, to pick up a foreign princeling in a Viennese
cafe. The graver dispute turned on the question whether
the republic should be a federal system, based on full auton-
omy for such regions as Finland, the Ukraine, the Baltic
provinces, and Siberia. That question, in spite of the prefer-
ence of the Cadets and other Liberal-Conservatives for a
strong centralized government, has practically settled itself.
It became clear that these non-Russian regions must receive
the fullest measure of home rule ; the only practical alterna-
tive was independence. The great Russian majority had
neither the will nor the power to coerce them. One might
have supposed that the foundations of the future Russia
were already laid, and that no controversy could shake them.
Republicanism on the French pattern, federation of a loose
and generous type, universal suffrage for all classes and both
sexes, these were fixed by the will of the people or the pressure
of irresistible forces. What then is the source of unrest?

A CLUE TO RUSSIA 217

The source of unrest is the thing which destroyed the abor-
tive revolution of 1905-1906. When the first Duma met, its
first act was to set to work to draft an ambitious scheme of
land purchase, under the inspiration of the Cadets. Bold
as their scheme looked to English eyes, it did not satisfy
the Socialists, while the landed class, which included the
officers of the army, saw in it red ruin. The result of attempt-
ing this immense social change, before the representative
system was consolidated or civil rights secure, was that autoc-
racy triumphed, while the people split into three camps —
Liberal property, Conservative property, and the half-aroused
proletariat. The raising of the land question at that moment
seemed a gross error in tactics, but the more one talked with
Russians about it, the more one realized that it was inevitable.
No revolution can succeed in Russia without peasant support,
and the peasants will follow a revolution only when its leaders
promise them land. The present revolution was made by
peasants, since the revolted regiments of the Petrograd garri-
son, whose delegates formed the Soviet (Council), were all
composed of reservists only recently called up. The main
body of the Socialists has been commendably willing to
cooperate with "bourgeois" parties, but from the first there
has been one point on which it admits no compromise. It
stands for the abolition of private property in land. The
Russian revolution was inspired by Socialists, and in those
first days of fighting when the Liberals watched it inactive
from a balcony they lost all chance of directing it. It was
rather naive to imagine, as our English press did and still
does, that Socialists had shed their blood merely to set up a
Liberal republic.

A great victory was won for democratic diplomacy, when
M. Miliukoff fell from office as a result of his defense of the
secret treaties. But a still more important change occurred
during those stirring days of May. The Ministry of Agri-
culture was confided to a Revolutionary Socialist leader,
M. Tchernoff. His views are those of his whole party, and

2i8 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

they are shared on the land question by the more cautious
peasant "Party of Toil." M. Tchernoff set to work to draft
a scheme of land settlement for submission to the constituent
assembly, which in spite of postponement must some day
meet. Its outlines became known, and M. Tchernoff was at
once the butt of Liberal and Conservative attacks, which
soon degenerated into personal calumny. When Kerensky
became premier in July, the first proclamation of his govern-
ment established as a principle the abolition of private prop-
erty in land.

The general idea of the Social Revolutionaries and the
Party of Toil is to vest the ownership of land in the commune
or parish. The Social Democrats differ only hi preferring
national to communal ownership. Each family will have the
use of as much land as it can cultivate with its own hands,
with its share of pasture. The average, it is reckoned, will
be, including pasture, about thirty or thirty-five acres. The
quantity, to English notions, seems handsome ; but Russian
agriculture is very primitive, and the Russian family is very
large. Forests will belong to the whole commune or to groups
of communes. The old crown estates, the lands of the monas-
teries, and the excessive portions of private estates are all
to be thrown into the common stock. There will have to be
a good deal of migration, much rearrangement of communal
boundaries, and a bold subdivision of private estates, before
the great settlement can be completed. Finally, and this is
the grave feature of the scheme, it is not proposed that either
the state or the peasant shall pay any compensation what-
ever for the prairie value of confiscated land. That something
will be allowed for improvements is probable, but Russian
landlords did not usually sink much capital in their land as
English proprietors do. Even allowing for the many com-
promises and alterations in detail which are certain to be in-
troduced, the scheme means broadly that the Russian landed
class may find itself possessed, as the result of the revolution,
of just as much land as each aristocratic family can till with

A CLUE TO RUSSIA 219

its own white hands. That is the real issue between revolu-
tion and counter-revolution.

The western reader may be tempted to dismiss such a
scheme as this as visionary doctrinaire socialism. It is far
from being that. Socialism in western countries has a vision-
ary look, because it is the product of theoretic thinking with
no basis of tradition behind it. Even the peasant in the West
believes in the private ownership of land. The Russian peas-
ant, on the contrary, regards private ownership as a criminal
usurpation. He grew up in the Mir, or village commune, which
owned the inadequate stock of common land as its collective
proprietor and parceled it out periodically in thin and hungry
strips among its families. The institution is as ancient as our
common Indo-European origin, and it has formed all the
peasant's conceptions of property. To him the immoral,
the antisocial thing is to seize and possess and bequeath
more land than one can till. Again and again, from Pogat-
chefif's rebellion in the seventeenth century down to the
emancipation of the serfs, the rumor has spread among the
peasants that the Tsar was going to give back to them the
land which the aristocracy had filched from them. The revo-
lution is going at last to do what the Little Father never
did. M. Stolypin, realizing that a conservative Russia must
be based on private property, began in 1907, through a law
carried by a coup d'etat, to break up the Mir and to create
a class of peasant owners. That law in ten years had wrought
a good deal of destruction, but it could not reverse the think-
ing of centuries.

It is idle to discuss the expediency of restoring the land —
the morality of it seems to me to need no defense. It is
what nine tenths of the Russian people demand. Even the
Liberal-Conservative Cadets would have to deal with this
question, as they tried to do in 1906, and in one way or another
would have to insure to each peasant family a holding on
which it could live. The dangerous point of the scheme is
its insistence on expropriation without compensation. Here

220 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

again, it is fact rather than theory which is decisive. "The
State," as a Russian Socialist expert put it to me, " cannot
pay compensation, and the peasants will not." With the ruble
at about a quarter of its pre-war exchange value, and the
external war debt mounting to a total which threatens bank-
ruptcy, it seems idle to the purpose that the state should buy
out the landlords. As for the peasants, who is going to coerce
them? Not the army, for it is composed of peasants reck-
oning on the day when peace will mean for them the conquest
of Russian soil. Not the police, it is all disbanded. Not the
constituent assembly, for nine tenths of it will be elected
by peasant votes. The municipal elections in the towns result
in immense Socialist majorities. The Cadets have no early
prospect of attaining power. The peasants care nothing for
Socialist theory and have a certain intuitive dread of "Maxi-
malists" and of Petrograd. But they will vote only for candi-
dates who promise them the land.

It is a fairly safe axiom in politics that land is one of the
two or three things for which a propertied class will always
be willing to make a civil war. Its interests are solid, for
when once you have abolished private property in agricultural
land, the oil-wells and mines suggest themselves as interest-
ing marginal cases, and when the owners of these begin to
tremble, the whole capitalist world feels nervous. But what
is property to do ? A direct frontal attack is hopeless. It can
only conduct a guerrilla warfare, disparage the revolution as
far as it can, sow dissensions in its ranks, make the utmost
use of the war, and postpone the evil day by putting off the
date of the constituent assembly. It has attempted one coun-
ter-revolution already, but Korniloff's venture does not sug-
gest that this is a hopeful expedient. The Cossacks, who are
all small landowners holding by military tenure, may be
induced to fight for it. The wilder non-Russian soldiery, Tur-
comans, Moslem Tartars, and the rest, might be united or
bribed into supporting it. But with these exceptions, the
rank and file of the army is solid for the revolution. So long

A CLUE TO RUSSIA 221

as it is mobilized, a military coup d'etat in its present condi-
tion is doomed to failure. Its condition might perhaps be
changed. The restoration of discipline, even by the drastic and
wholesale revival of the death penalty, was a good war cry
while the Germans were breaking through on a wavering point.

My own belief is that the demoralization of the Russian
army has been grossly and deliberately exaggerated. Honest
men exaggerated it, in the hope of rousing Russia to a sense
of shame. Less honest men exaggerated it in order to discredit
the revolution. German military critics, including a progres-
sive writer like Colonel Gadke, were amazed by these lamenta-
tions, and placed on record the view of the German army that,
on the whole, the Russians fought well even in their retreats.
There was real demoralization only at one point, but that
was after a too rash and gallant offensive had ended in mere
massacre. In the retreats of 1915 the Russian army lost
900,000 prisoners. Was there no demoralization then? In
the retreat of this summer the prisoners amounted to 23,000.
Newspapers have one measure for a Grand Ducal commander
in chief and another for a revolutionary army. The intention
behind all this excessive insistence on discipline was partly
to discredit the provisional government and partly to pave
the way for the introduction of the old iron rule which would
again make an automatic army — the kind of army which
will follow its chiefs wherever they may lead. To-day these
chiefs may lead it against the Germans, to-morrow they may
march on Petrograd. It is this fear that the army may again
be hammered into a dull tool for despotism, which explains
the anxiety of the Socialists as they listen to proposals for
restoring the habit of passive obedience. If Korniloff had been
a little less sanguine and impatient, if he had restored dis-
cipline effectively before he launched his picked divisions
against Kerensky, it is just possible that he might have had
a temporary success.

The conflict is postponed, it is not settled. No propertied
class would accept defeat at this stage. Before the plan of

222 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

confiscation is adopted, it will try other expedients. In the
last resort, it may appeal to foreign aid. For the moment
this counter-revolutionary tendency, popularized by a con-
servative press, undoubtedly has the sympathy of most of
our English middle class. The issue is not understood. Our
public sees that revolutionary Russia is useless as an aggres-
sive element in the war, it forgets that after May, 1915,
Tsarist Russia did no better. The plain fact is that this mili-
tary failure is not so much moral as material. Three nations
in Europe have shown the capacity to conduct war year after
year on the modern scale: France, Britain, and Germany.
Austria, backward when compared with these three, advanced
when compared with Russia, is almost at the end of her
endurance. It is only the developed industries, the elaborate
railways, the good roads, the diffused education, the habit of
orderly work of a modern civilization, which enables Britain,
France, and Germany to endure the strain. Russia, with her
infant industries, her sparse railways, her execrable roads,
her general illiteracy and the slack rhythm of unorganized
peasant labor, is unable to adapt herself to the trial. The
food problem threatens this winter to make general famine,
and the reason is primarily that the whole capacity of the
railways is required to feed the army at the front. Production
has fallen off, but distribution is the chief problem. No gal-
lant Cossack adventurer, however childlike, can alter a situa-
tion like this. Neither Kerensky's speeches, nor the Soviet
proclamations, nor even the death penalty, can enable a
backward, neglected, primitive, agricultural country to wage
war on the modern industrial scale.

The chief difference between revolution and counter-revo-
lution is that while the former appeals to us to moderate our
war aims, summons us to council at Stockholm, and works
with all its sincerity for an early general peace, the latter
would be only too likely to seek an accommodation by some
devious back way. What the counter-revolutionary party
does as an opposition, or might do if it were in power, is

A CLUE TO RUSSIA 223

determined, however, not so much by its opinions on European
policy as by the exigencies of the internal Russian struggle.
It is battling for the rights of property as it conceives them,
it is opposing a movement which has latent in it a social revo-
lution. It will make war and peace, it will call in the foreigner
or drive out the foreigner, according as it reckons that one
course or the other will serve its class interests in its dire
peril. The internal lines of division in Russia are fast becom-
ing sharper and deeper than any frontier.

THE GERMAN IDEAL OF THE STATE1

HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE

[Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-1896) was born in Saxony and first
came into prominence as lecturer on history at the University of Leipzig.
His ardent advocacy of German unity under Prussian leadership in 1866
caused him to remove to Berlin, where from 1873 he was Professor of
History in the University of Berlin. His chief works are "Die Politik"
(1897-1898) and his "History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century"
(1874-1894). During his lifetime he was the most popular and influential
exponent of the Hohenzollern theory of the supremacy of the state over
the individual and of the righteousness and necessity of war.]

Let us now apply the standard of a deeper and real Chris-
tian civilization to the State, and let us bear in mind that the
existence of this great collective personality is power, and
that therefore the highest moral duty of the State is to foster
this power. The individual is bound to sacrifice himself for
the next higher community of which he is a member; but
the State itself is the highest among the communities of men,
and therefore the duty of self-abnegation cannot apply to it.
The Christian duty of self-sacrifice for something higher does
not exist for the State, for the reason that there is nothing
above and beyond it in the world's history, and consequently
it cannot sacrifice itself for another. When the State sees
its downfall approaching, we praise it if it goes to its downfall
sword in hand. A sacrifice for a foreign nation is not only
non-moral, but it is contrary to the idea of self-assertion which
is the highest law of the State.

Thus we find it necessary to distinguish between public
and private morality. The rank of the various duties must

1 From "Die Politik," translated for "Germany's War Mania." London,
1914.

224

THE GERMAN IDEAL OF THE STATE 225

necessarily be very different for the State and the individual
man. There is a whole series of these duties which are im-
posed upon the individual which are absolutely out of ques-
tion for the State. The State's highest law is that of self-
assertion; that is for it the absolute morality. Therefore,
one must assert that of all political sins, the worst and most
contemptible is weakness ; it is the sin against the holy ghost
of politics. In private life certain weaknesses of the soul are
excusable. But of these there is no question in the State ; for
the State is might, and if it should belie its very essence, there
would be no judgment severe enough for it. Think of the
reign of Frederick William IV. Magnanimity and gratitude
are certainly political virtues, but only when they are not
opposed to the main object of politics, the maintenance of
its own power. In the year 1849 the thrones of every possible
German principality were shaken. Frederick William took
a step which in itself was justifiable ; he sent Prussian troops
into Saxony and Bavaria, and restored order therein. But
now came the mortal sin. Were the Prussians there in order
to shed their blood for the King of Saxony or of Bavaria?
There must be some permanent advantage for Prussia to
be derived therefrom. We had the little ones in our grip;
we only needed to allow the troops to remain there until
these princes had adapted themselves to the new German
Empire. Instead of this, the King withdrew his troops
and quite properly the little ones made a long nose behind
their backs as they marched away. That was simply unthink-
able weakness; the blood of the Prussian nation had been
sacrificed for nothing.

It further follows from the nature of the State as sovereign
power, that it can recognize no arbiter above itself, and that
moreover constitutional obligations must be subject in a last
resort to its jurisdiction. We have to bear that in mind in
order that in times of crisis we may not judge like Philistines
from the advocate's point of view. When Prussia broke the
treaty of Tilsit, she was from the standpoint of the civil

226 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

procedure in the wrong. But who is there to-day who will have
the brazen face to assert this? Even the French could not
do so any longer. That also holds in the case of national
treaties which are not quite so immoral as was that one en-
forced on Prussia by France. Thus every State reserves
to itself the right to judge of its treaty obligations for itself,
and the historian cannot here step in with his purely conven-
tional standards. He must ask the deeper question as to
whether the unconditional duty of self-preservation does not
justify the State. It was thus in Italy in 1859. Piedmont
was the virtual aggressor; and Austria and her servile de-
pendents in Germany did not fail to complain of the disturb-
ance of the everlasting peace. But in reality Italy had been
for years in a state of siege. No noble nation will ever toler-
ate such a position, and in reality it was not Piedmont, but
Austria, which took the offensive, because she had for years
shamefully sinned by helping herself to Italy's greatest
treasures.

Thus it is the upholding of its own power that is the supreme
moral duty of the State. But if we follow up the natural
consequence of this truth, it becomes clear that the State
must only set itself moral aims, or else it would be contradict-
ing itself.

Up to now the earnest thinker can hardly rind any subject
for disagreement, but now we come to a series of most diffi-
cult questions with the consideration of how far political aims,
moral in themselves, may be allowed the use of means which
in civil life would be considered reprehensible. The well-known
Jesuitical saying is in its unvarnished directness rough and
radical, but no one can deny that it contains a certain amount
of truth. There are in political life innumerable cases, as in
the life of individuals, in which the use of pure methods is
quite impossible. If it be possible, if it be feasible to obtain
an objective moral in itself by moral means, then these are
to be preferred even though their action may be slower and
more inconvenient.

THE GERMAN IDEAL OF THE STATE 227

We have already seen that the power of truth and frank-
ness in politics is greater than is usually supposed. The newer
conception is that there is no impulse of truth inherent in
man, and that it has arisen conventionally from the political
aims. But not so. An impulse towards truth is indeed in-
herent in man, but it varies according to times and nations.
Even amongst the most mendacious of nations, the Orientals,
we find this striving for truth. The elder brother of Welling-
ton won for himself an enormous influence in India owing
to the fact that the Nabobs knew that this man always said
what he thought. On the whole, however, it is clear that
political methods with nations on a lower grade of culture
must be adapted to their powers of sensation and understand-
ing. The historian who tried to judge European politics in
Africa or in the East by the same standards as in Europe
would be a fool. He who cannot inspire fear over there is lost.

THE ARMY AND NATIONAL UNITY1
HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE

[For a sketch of Professor Treitschke see page 224.- The following
selection consists of extracts from various parts of Treitschke's work, all
dealing with his views on the value of war and the relation of the individ-
ual to the state.]

One must certainly, when considering war, remember that
it does not always appear as a judgment of God ; there are
also temporary results, but the life of a people is reckoned
by centuries. The decisive verdict can only be obtained by
the review of great epochs. A State Like Prussia, which was
freer and more rational than the French, might, owing to
momentary exhaustion, be brought near annihilation, but it
would then call to mind its inner life, and would thus regain
its superiority. One must say with the greatest determina-
tion : War is for an afflicted people the only remedy. When
the State exclaims : My very existence is at stake ! then social
self-seeking must disappear and all party hatred be silent.
The individual must forget his own ego and feel himself a
member of the whole, he must recognize how negligible is
his life compared with the good of the whole. Therein lies
the greatness of war, that the little man completely vanishes
before the great thought of the State. The sacrifice of na-
tionalities for one another is nowhere invested with such
beauty as in war. At such a time the corn is separated from
the chaff. All who lived through 1870 will understand the
saying of Niebuhr with regard to the year 1813, that he then
experienced the "bliss of sharing with all his fellow-citizens,

1 From "Die Politik," translated for "Germany's War Mania." London,
1914.

228

THE ARMY AND NATIONAL UNITY 229

with the scholar and the ignorant, the one common feeling —
no man who enjoyed this experience will to his dying day for-
get how loving, friendly, and strong he felt."

To the historian who lives in the realms of the Will, it is
quite clear that the furtherance of an everlasting peace is
fundamentally reactionary. He sees that to banish war from
history would be to banish all progress and becoming. It is
only the periods of exhaustion, weariness, and mental stag-
nation that have dallied with the dream of everlasting peace.

We are now in the third epoch (and again after a great
war) which seems to have destroyed all the idealism of Ger-
many. For to-day an outburst of loud and shameless laughter
from the vulgar greets the destruction of anything which
Germany has made great. The very foundations of our noble,
ancient culture are now being destroyed. All that which has'
raised us into a very aristocracy among the nations is derided
and trodden under foot. Truly it is the right time now to
indulge in fantastic ravings of everlasting peace ! It is not
worth spending one's breath talking of such things. The
living God will see to it that war returns again and again as
a terrible medicine for humanity.

From the fact that the army constitutes the aggregate
physical power of a nation follows, moreover, that it is also
interwoven in the most intimate fashion with the idea of the
unity of the State. One may even assert that there is no
institution which brings home to the thoughtful man so
sharply the thought of the unity of the State and of the inter-
dependence of the whole as an army organized in accordance
with the real conditions of the nation. Commerce, art, and
science are cosmopolitan and lead the way beyond the bound-
aries of the nation. The common activity of elections, of the
judge and jury, certainly strengthen the feeling of the State
community; but parliamentary life does not only unite the
citizens together in a common political labor, it also splits

230 IDEALS OF GOVERNMENT

them up again and sets parties against one another and un-
avoidable hatred.

A really popularly organized army is the only one of all
political institutions that unites the burghers with burghers ;
in the army alone do they feel themselves all united as sons
of the Fatherland. After the experience we have had in the
new German Empire this will hardly be disputed. The Ger-
man army has become beyond all doubt the most supremely
real and effective bond of national unity, and this most cer-
tainly cannot be claimed for the German Reichstag, as had
formerly been hoped. That institution is rather responsible
for the fact that Germans have once again begun mutually
to hate and calumniate one another. But the army has
trained us into practical unity.

For the reason that it embodies in the most striking manner
for the masses of the people the idea of the unity of the
State, the monarchy is therefore especially suited to take the
direction of the army; the King is the natural Commander
in Chief.

After all, it is the normal and reasonable course for a great
nation to embody and train the very essence of the State,
which is in itself power, in its organized military system and
by means of its physical strength. And since we have lived
in a warlike age, the hyper-delicate, philanthropic way of
looking at these things has more and more been pressed into
the background, so that with Clausewitz we have once again
come to regard war as the forceful continuation of politics.
Not all the advocates of peace in the world will ever succeed
in bringing about such a state of affairs that all the political
powers will be of one mind; if they are not of one mind,
then there is nothing but the sword that can decide their
differences of opinion.

We have learned to recognize as the civilizing majesty of
war precisely what appears to the superficial observers to be

THE ARMY AND NATIONAL UNITY 231

brutality and inhumanity. That one should for the sake of
the Fatherland overcome the natural feelings of humanity,
that men should murder one another who have never wronged
one another, who perhaps highly esteem one another as
chivalrous foes, that appears at first sight to be the frightful
side of war, but also at the same time its greatness. Man
must not only be ready to sacrifice his life, but also the natural
deeply rooted feelings of the human soul ; he must devote his
whole ego for the furtherance of a great patriotic idea : that
is the moral sublimity of war.

THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

GAINS FROM THE WAR1
CHARLES W. ELIOT

[Charles William Eliot (1834- ), a graduate of Harvard and its
president from 1869 to 1909, has wielded a great influence on American
education, especially in securing the adoption of the elective system in
colleges. He has written largely on education and public affairs, and is
one of the clearest thinkers on the problems of American life. Since the
beginning of the World War he has written extensively on its issues and
problems. His best essays are "American Contributions to Civilization "
(1897), especially "The Working of American Democracy," and "The
Modern Definition of the Cultivated Man" (1903). The present article, a
few paragraphs of which have been omitted, presents perhaps as compre-
hensive a survey of the war from a liberal point of view as can be found.]

In a few weeks or months the American people will begin
to sacrifice their sons by the thousand in the most savage
and cruel war that has ever been waged. They have already
begun to expend the savings of generations on preparations
for fighting and destruction, and they have stopped innu-
merable forms of expenditure which contributed to their
welfare and that of their descendants. Under these circum-
stances it is fitting that the voters and their political leaders
review the war situation as it stands to-day, and take account
of the gains for human liberty and the democratic form of
government which have already been secured.

The principal features of the war situation are as follows :
(i) The two principal contestants — the Central Mon-
archies and the Entente Allies — have demonstrated that
each can hold the other in trench warfare ; so that no con-
siderable, well-defended areas can be conquered by either
party. In open country where the means of communication

1 From New York Times, August 5, 1917. Reprinted by permission.

235

236 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

are scanty or difficult each can successfully come back against
the other after defeat or withdrawal, and neither side when
occupying new territory has thus far been able to disarm or
extinguish the opposing army. The Belgian, Serbian, and
Rumanian armies are still on foot in large numbers, and no
considerable body of German or Austro-Hungarian troops has
thus far been forced to surrender. In three years neither side
has won a military victory in the old sense. There has been
no Austerlitz, or Waterloo, or Sedan, or Yorktown ; and there
is not likely to be. In this sense, President Wilson was right
when he used the ambiguous phrase "peace without victory."
It has been a war without victory on land and without any
victory on sea of the Nelson sort.

(2) Industrial and financial strength having been proved
necessary to the acquisition and maintenance of great mili-
tary power, it appears that the manufacturing nations are
the only ones that can endure long wars ; because they alone
can create and maintain inexhaustible supplies of munitions
and of the modern means of rapid transportation on land and
water for both men and supplies. An agricultural or pastoral
people engaged in serious war will require the aid of a manu-
facturing people. Hence, ultimate success in war will go to
the side which has been made wealthiest and strongest by
successful commerce, agriculture, mining, and manufacturing ;
provided that this wealth and these industrial achievements
have not impaired the public morality and energy.

(3) The success of Great Britain and France in developing
under the most trying circumstances a greater efficiency than
that of Germany in the manufactures indispensable to modern
war has settled the question whether despotically ruled peoples
have an advantage over free peoples in warfare in which every
resource of modern science is utilized, and settled it in favor
of the freer.

(4) The war has also proved already that violations of
treaties on the ground of military necessity and oppressive
exactions on the population remaining in conquered territory

GAINS FROM THE WAR 237

do not profit the conqueror in the present state of the civilized
world, except as he appropriates for immediate use machinery,
fuel, foods, and raw material, but on the contrary are dis-
astrous to him and his cause. In other words, the war has
proved that the moral and physical forces which can be rallied
to the side of international justice are sufficient to make acts
of international injustice inexpedient and unprofitable.

(5) It clearly appears that all the nations of Europe now
recognized as such can command the services in proper pro-
portion to their population of soldiers who are robust, brave,
and patriotic, and that there is no nation in Europe so de-
generate morally or physically that a strong and healthy
nation may rightfully seize it and govern it for its own good.
Both sides exhibit full capacity for acquiring the skill needed
to use artillery, airplanes, telephones, photographs, and motor
trucks ; and all are capable of hand-to-hand fighting with
bayonets, swords, knives, and hand grenades. The primitive
savage with all his hunting and fighting instincts reappears
to-day in civilized white men as well as in Turks, Turcos, and
Gurkhas.

(6) As the war has gone on the conviction has gradually
penetrated all the governments and peoples concerned that
the redressing of three great international wrongdoings must
be included in any terms of settlement which are to have a
fair chance of leading to durable peace. These wrongs are the
partition of Poland (1772), the wresting of Alsace-Lorraine
from France by Germany (1871), accompanied by an attempt
to " bleed France white," and the Treaty of Berlin (1878),
which outraged Russia and planted seeds of fierce discord
among the Balkan peoples. All thinking people have come
to understand that no permanent peace for Europe or any
relief from competitive armaments can be obtained without
disinfecting these festering sores. And yet this disinfection
cannot but prove a very difficult task.

(7) The war has greatly strengthened the conviction, held
by most publicists who have had occasion to consider the

238 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

causes of grave international disputes, that the peace of the
world would be much more secure if nations which possess
few ports or none could obtain, under firm international con-
ventions, free access to the seas and oceans through the terri-
tories and ports of other nations. An interior country, like
Serbia, or a great interior sub-arctic region like the Russian
empire or Canada, needs for its own free life and growth access
to the seas and oceans through the ports of other countries,
if it has few or none of its own. For the full enjoyment of
such rights durable peace is necessary. Remove from the
European world, or the whole world, the apprehension of war,
and the dread that an insular population, or a population
confined within an interior area, naturally feels lest it be de-
prived of an adequate supply of foods or raw materials, and
a principal cause of war would be removed. The Germans'
dread of such compression and such deprivation, coupled with
an extraordinary belief in the superiority of German civiliza-
tion to every other civilization, seems to have been the under-
lying cause of the present war.

(8) Although the strength and endurance of the belligerents
are by no means exhausted, there is a new disposition to
speculate and talk about peace ever since President Wilson
requested the Central Monarchies on the one side and the
Entente Allies on the other to state the terms on which they
would consent to make peace. Although the two parties are
still wide apart in regard to the preliminary terms or condi-
tions on which negotiations for peace might be opened, and
although the present condition of Russia has raised new hopes
in the minds of the German oligarchy, the disposition of the
several governments to talk about terms of peace is an im-
portant feature of the present situation. It is supported, if
not induced, by the state of mind among the soldiers of all
the nations at war. It will be a dire calamity for the human
race if peace negotiations are opened before the Central Mon-
archies publicly repent of the invasion of Serbia, the violation
of the neutrality treaties on behalf of Belgium, the sinking of

GAINS FROM THE WAR 239

the Lusitania, and the Prussian-Turkish treatment of non-
combatants.

Two new implements of warfare have been developed during
the war — the airplane and the submarine ; but the capacities
of neither for destruction have been fully revealed. Both
violate in practice — by necessity — most of the rules which
international law has tried to establish for the protection of
non-combatants and the mitigation of the horrors of war.
Those who use them require singular skill, courage, and en-
durance ; but neither mercy nor chivalry can often influence
their deeds. Those, too, whose duty is to destroy either air-
planes or submarines must do so without the least regard to
their human occupants. The submarine forces on everybody,
assailant or defendant, the policy of killing at sight. Drown
or choke your adversary without giving any ,chance of escape.
Take no prisoners. These policies or methods are not yet
publicly and avowedly adopted on land. The airplane in-
volves single combat, or combat in small groups, under very
dangerous conditions for both parties, and with little chance
to surrender for either side. It is kill or be killed. "Bomb-
ing" by airplanes means miscellaneous destruction of life and
property without taking good aim. This kind of warfare is
peculiarly revolting, in spite of the extraordinary bravery and
fortitude of the men who engage in it. The use made of sub-
marines by Germany proves that during war d Voutrance
between great powers neutrals have no protection against
being sunk while passing between neutral ports. This is a new
barbarity in war. All nations with exterior trade are interested
in determining now, if possible, the future of the submarine.

Such is the formidable scene in which the American people
are about to become one of the principal actors. As they
enter on this fearful task they can reasonably draw inspira-
tion and hope from the great gains for liberty and democracy
which have been already achieved through the war.

The war has brought about extraordinary progress for de-
mocracy in Europe, especially in Great Britain and Russia.

240 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

In Great Britain the gains of democracy within three years
have been much more considerable than in all the hundred
years previous. They have taken effect chiefly in the execu-
tive branch of the Government, including the army and navy,
but also in the legislative; and the gains seem likely to be
permanent. Three years ago no one familiar with the condi-
tions of public life in Great Britain would have believed that
three men with the antecedents of Kitchener, Bonar Law, and
Lloyd George could exercise supreme powers in the civil
government during the greatest crisis in British history, or
that a democratic, extemporized British army could succeed
to the former aristocratic regular army, and fight better.
After ten days' discussion the House of Commons lately
adopted by a vote of eight to one a large measure of suffrage
reform under the title of "Representation of the People
Bill." In Russia, the coup d'etat was a sudden act and pre-
mature, but long foretold in the growing strength and capacity
for local government of the provincial and municipal councils,
and in the increasing activity in large business of the co-
operative societies. It is as yet impossible to tell whether
the inexperienced Russian democracy will or will not prove
itself capable of establishing at this first effort a firm and
efficient Government in a democratic form; but the revolu-
tion has already accomplished much preliminary work toward
that end, and it is almost impossible to believe that the Czar-
dom, or anything like it, can be reproduced in Russia, or that
the landed nobility and the permanent official class, both
military and civil, can regain the power they have lost.

It is equally difficult to believe that the professional, com-
mercial, and manufacturing classes which have now assumed
political leadership with strong support from large portions
of the agricultural class will be compelled to resign it to labor
agitators, socialistic extremists, or disciples of Tolstoy. The
United States, believing that Russia will no more return to
a Romanoff Czar than France to a Bourbon King, is co-
operating with the Provisional Government in every possible

GAINS FROM THE WAR 241

way — with its money, supplies, and engineering experience,
and with its practice in political and religious liberty and its
hearty sympathy. Such cooperation between two huge de-
mocracies augurs well for the future safety of democracy
throughout the world. The unexampled experiment which
the mission to Russia from the United States has had in hand
is one of extraordinary interest ; for it is an effort on the part
of a people long accustomed to public liberty to help a multi-
tudinous people with no experience of political freedom and
but lately escaped from serfdom to establish in wartime a
firm and effective republican Government.

It is an immense permanent gain for democracy that the
democratic Governments of Great Britain and France have
proved themselves capable of great efficiency in time of war.
Comparative study of democratic and autocratic Govern-
ments during the last 130 years has revealed the fact that
in times of peace democratic Governments are not so effective
as autocratic Governments can sometimes be in promoting
the physical welfare of the people governed. Germany had
cleaner and better ordered cities, more effective vocational
schools, and better sanitary and medical supervision than
any democratic government in Europe or America could
show; so that many people doubted whether a democratic
government could develop as much efficiency in war as an
autocratic government. But both Great Britain and France
have already exhibited, and the United States is about to
exhibit, a greater efficiency in war and in the industries that
support war than Germany or any other autocratic Govern-
ment has ever attained.

The war has also proved that free peoples, in which financial
and industrial corporate management has been largely de-
veloped and many citizens possess a high degree of personal
initiative and energy in their daily work, can outdo in indus-
trial productiveness any peoples that are autocratically gov-
erned. The free peoples may start far in the rear when war
breaks out ; but hi a year or two they will catch up with and

242 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

surpass their autocratically governed opponents. This is a
demonstration of high importance to the democracies of the
future, as well as of great significance in regard to the out-
come of the present war, for these methods of democratic
society, which are quite independent of government processes,
are prime sources of democratic efficiency.

It has also been proved that democratic armies fight better
than armies aristocratically organized and autocratically gov-
erned ; or, in other words, that the armies of nations in which
the mass of the people determine legislation, elect their public
servants, and settle questions of peace and war, fight better
than the armies of an autocrat who rules by right of birth
and by commission from the Almighty. The obedient, sub-
missive soldier who always acts under orders without per-
sonal initiative or intelligent comprehension of his immediate
task is outclassed by the independent soldier who possesses
personal initiative, and is capable of understanding both the
ultimate purpose of the fighting arid the immediate object of
the movement in which he is to take part. The soldier who
is to take effective part in trench warfare must be capable of
fighting intelligently and persistently without seeing or hear-
ing an officer, or even a non-commissioned officer, during the
actual charge. The great war has developed in the democratic
countries a new and more effective kind of private soldier and
a new and more effective kind of officer; and in producing
these better kinds of soldier and officer a democracy has a
great and permanent advantage over an autocracy.

The war and Germany's elaborate preparation for it have
proved beyond all doubt that no reliance for the peace of the
world can be placed on any of the Utopian schemes which for
centuries have been from time to time announced as sure
methods of preventing war and leaving mankind free to ad-
vance, unafraid and at ease, on peaceful paths of gradual
political, industrial, and social development. Discussions of
world Parliaments, world public opinion, world courts, vast
leagues to prevent .war, societies of nations, and schemes to

GAINS FROM THE WAR 243

reform the world through improved methods of education
and improved international law, were never so rife as in the
twenty years before the present war broke out. No one of
these schemes has even approached fulfillment, or, indeed,
definite formulation; but the two Hague Conferences, al-
though they were in many respects disappointing, had per-
suaded some people inclined to political and philanthropic
speculation that the tune was near when international law
and international organization could prevent international
war without the use of force.

All these plans and hopes were completely defeated by the
outbreak of the present war; and they will remain defeated
and powerless so long as a single strong nation in Europe
adheres to the principles and practices of autocratic govern-
ment allied with a large class of professional soldiers. The
same may be said of the official religions which prevail among
the various belligerents to-day. No one of the national
churches or religious institutions concerned — Buddhist,
Greek, Roman, Mohammedan, or Protestant — has shown
the least capacity to obstruct or condemn the long and elab-
orate preparation for war by Germany, or to oppose the
unchristian philosophy concerning the State which justified
that preparation, or to prevent the outbreak of the war, or
to mitigate its unexampled ferocity. It is a large gain for
humanity to have learned, once for all, that no inchoate
international organization and no instituted religion or es-
tablished church can be depended on to secure to the civilized
world of to-day an enduring peace and to all nations a rightful
liberty. Peace, liberty, and justice must be secured by prac-
ticable measures of obvious immediate serviceableness. The
world in agony is in no mood for remote goals or vast and
hazy imaginings; it will take the one step which seems
feasible and be satisfied with that. It will be a martial step ;
but its goal will be human brotherhood.

The war has also demonstrated that the progress of man-
kind in knowledge of nature and its laws, and in skill in

244 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

utilizing those laws and the material resources of the earth
to human advantage will not prevent war, and do not neces-
sarily tend to the preservation of peace. The chemical and
physical inventions of the last hundred and fifty years have
made the present war infinitely more destructive and horrible
than any earlier war, and indeed seem to be partly accountable
for the extreme ferocity with which war has been conducted
in Europe and the Near East for three years. The world has
learned that the same scientific discoveries and industrial
inventions which make the average lot of mankind freer and
happier in peace tunes are capable of making that lot su-
premely wretched in war times ; because they increase fright-
fully the destructiveness of war. The nations, therefore, must
not depend on any Utopian theories, or any ecclesiastical
institutions, or any progress in literature, science, and the
arts to defend them in the future from catastrophes and
miseries such as the civilized world is now enduring. The
means of securing peace hereafter will be simple and prac-
ticable, because based on experience in the present war, and
efficacious, because supported by an overwhelming peace-
preserving international force.

Must, then, gentle and reasonable men and women give
over their sons to the National Government to be trained for
the devilish work of war? Must civilized society continue
to fight war with war ? Is not that process a complete failure ?
Shall we not henceforth contend against evil-doing by good-
doing, against brutality by gentleness, against vice in others
solely by virtue in ourselves ? There are many sound answers
to these insistent queries. One is the policeman, usually a
protective and adjusting force, but armed and trained to
hurt and kill in defense of society against criminals and
lunatics. Another is the mother who blazes into violence,
with all her little might, in defense of her child. Even the
little birds do that. Another is the instinctive forcible

GAINS FROM THE WAR 245

resistance of any natural man to insult or injury committed
or threatened against his mother, wife, or daughter. The
lions and tigers do as much. A moving answer of a different
sort is found in words written by Mme. le Verrier to the
parents of Victor Chapman on her return from his funeral in
the American Church hi Paris — "It . . . has brought home
to me the beauty of heroic death and the meaning of life."
The answer from history is that primitive Governments were
despotic, and in barbarous societies might makes right ; but
that liberty under law has been wrung from authority and
might by strenuous resistance, physical as well as moral, and
not by yielding to injustice or practicing non-resistance.
The Dutch Republic, the British Commonwealth, the French
Republic, the Italian and Scandinavian constitutional mon-
archies, and the American republics have all been developed
by generations of men ready to fight and fighting. So long
as there are wolves, sheep cannot form a safe community.
The precious liberties which a few more fortunate or more
vigorous nations have won by fighting for them generation
after generation, those nations will have to preserve by keep-
ing ready to fight in their defense. The only complete answer
to these arguments in favor of using force in defense of liberty
is that liberty is not worth the cost. In free countries to-day
very few persons hold that opinion.

NATIONALITY AND THE NEW EUROPE1
ARCHIBALD C. COOLIDGE

[Archibald Gary Coolidge (1866- ) was educated at Harvard, and,
after several years' connection with the American diplomatic service in
European capitals, returned to Harvard and is now Professor of Euro-
pean History. In 1914 he was Harvard Exchange Professor at the Uni-
versity of Berlin. He has written "The United States as a World Power"
(1908) and "The Origins of the Triple Alliance" (1918). The discus-
sion below, from which some paragraphs have been omitted, summarizes
with admirable detachment the basic facts on which a settlement of the
World War in accordance with the principle of nationality must be made.]

Apart from whatever sympathies we may feel in regard to
the war now devastating Europe, most of us fervently hope
that at least it may not soon be followed by another ; that is
to say, that when peace is concluded, the settlement arrived
at may contain the elements of some sort of permanence.
This does not mean that every one can be or will be satisfied
and that many seemingly reasonable desires, even of the
victors, will not have to be relinquished. It does mean that
in as many cases as possible the settlement shall be based on
broad grounds of human rights and legitimate interests which
will content those who profit by them, while not appearing
too unjust to the rest of the world.

A first condition of this is that in the Europe of the future,
so far as may be, no people and especially no great people
shall be forced to live in a manner to which it cannot be
expected to resign itself. The defeated parties in the conflict
will doubtless have to give up or postpone indefinitely what
are to them natural and proper ambitions. This is the common
lot of the vanquished. Nevertheless, if peace is to be lasting,

1 From Yale Review, April, 1915. Reprinted by permission.
246

NATIONALITY AND THE NEW EUROPE 247

existence must not be made intolerable for them. For in-
stance, such a regime as Napoleon imposed on Prussia cannot
in the long run be fastened on a defeated enemy, nor can any
complete economic or geographic servitude. Thus it is safe
to predict that if Germany, as a result of victory over Russia,
were to hand over Finland to Sweden and to take the Baltic
provinces for herself, Russia would sooner or later risk another
struggle in order to regain a sufficient shore on the Baltic.
Conversely, in the case of the triumph of the Allies, a treaty
of peace which should deprive of direct access to the Adriatic
the German populations not only of Austria but, through her,
of the German Empire, might be pregnant with trouble for the
future. Even the retention of certain isolated positions of
vantage, however tempting as immediate booty, might mean
such serious consequences that the advisability would be more
than questionable. Could any good that Germany might
obtain from the possession of Constantinople compensate for
the permanent hostility of Russia, which such possession must
engender? Would it even be wise for England to take back
Helgoland when experience has shown that Spain can never
get reconciled to her owning Gibraltar, which will always
remain a stumbling-block to good relations between the two
countries? A permanent sore spot should not be lightly
created even by the most successful power.

Another class of considerations turns on the desire of the
populations themselves in any future determination of fron-
tiers. We Americans in particular believe in government
with the consent of the governed. When exceptions must
be made, we think of them as justified only by temporary
necessity, as in the South after our Civil War, or by the
racial inferiority of the governed, as, let us say, in the case
of the negro. None the less, we hold to the general prin-
ciple, and it is one that is admitted even by the most reac-
tionary autocracy as being desirable. Now, in the disputed
regions of Europe to-day, not only the consent but the ardent
aspirations of the governed on the whole correspond with what

248 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

we call nationality. And aspirations of the nationalities to
shape their own destinies are not a matter of internal politics
only. In the last hundred years, the strivings of Greeks,
Italians, Germans, Magyars, South Slavs, Alsatians, and others
against foreign rulers have been of the utmost international as
well as national consequence. It is true the discontent of the
Irish has seldom, owing to the insular position of the United
Kingdom, been of more than local importance, but the Polish
question has been a running sore in general European politics
ever since the partitions in the eighteenth century.

Let us hope, therefore, that in the reconstruction of Europe
the wishes of the various nationalities shall be important
factors in determining the bounds of the different states.
There may be confederations among the smaller ones for the
common advantage, but such unions should be voluntary
and should leave sufficient play for the individuality of each.
At first sight this seems simple. We take a race map of the
Continent, note the chief splashes of color on it, and evolve
the ideal Europe of the future to correspond with these
splashes, leaving out of account the little detached ones that
interfere with the general scheme. This kind of map-making
has been popular of late. Any imaginative contributor to a
newspaper may indulge in it, it can be understood by the
meanest intelligence, and it appeals to the sympathies as a
generous attempt to reconstruct society in accordance with
the fundamental rights of man. Unfortunately, when we come
to look at solutions of this sort with a little care, we perceive
that they bristle with difficulties. We soon learn that our
race map alone is not a safe guide, for it leaves out such
physical features as mountains. Ethnical and natural physical
frontiers seldom coincide exactly. For instance, they do not
in a good part of the western Alps, or of the Pyrenees, or of
the Carpathians. To which frontier are we to give the
preference, the geographical or the racial? This is perhaps a
minor problem that can often be solved by a few mutual
concessions ; but it is a part of the general question as to

NATIONALITY AND THE NEW EUROPE 249

what extent rights of nationality are superior to those based
on other considerations.

At the very outset, we are faced by uncertainty as to the
meaning of our terms. What is nationality? On what is
it based ? Not on race — most of the nations of Europe are
of too mixed and uncertain origin to have blood count for
much. The skull measurements in the different parts of the
Continent suggest totally different divisions from the modern
political and linguistic ones. It is worth remarking here that
an imaginary descent may be of more importance than the
real one. It matters little whether the modern Greeks are or
are not descended from the ancient Hellenes. What is of
consequence is that they believe they are. This belief affects
them profoundly; it permeates their national consciousness
and is a fundamental part of their psychology. In the same
way, we need not care to what extent the modern Rumanians
are the children of the Roman legionaries and colonists and
to what extent they are of Dacian, Slavic, or other origin.
The thing that counts is that, speaking a Latin language,
they regard themselves as a Latin people, akin to the French,
Italians, and Spaniards, something different from the Slavs
about them, something more western, the heirs to an older
civilization. Although they belong to the Greek Orthodox
church, they turn for inspiration not to Constantinople and
Moscow, but to Rome and Paris.

We know that the Swiss are a nation though composed
of several nationalities, and that as long as these prefer to
remain in their present glorious little republic no one has a
right to interfere with them, though this doctrine is hardly
acceptable to the extreme partisans of Pan-Germanism or of
Italia Irredenta. We apply the same principle to the Belgians
though they speak two languages; but of what nationality
are the inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine? The Germans claim
the Alsatians as German by speech and descent as well as by
most of their history. The French base their arguments on
what they regard as a more modern conception, that of

250 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

national consciousness and desire, of common ideas and
aspirations. They declare that, though the French language
is that of the great mass of the people in France, and is the
official and literary vehicle of expression — one they believe
superior to any other — nevertheless a Basque, a Breton, a
Fleming, an Alsatian, may be a genuine and most patriotic
Frenchman even if he knows nothing but his local dialect.
It must be admitted that in this instance the claim to a
nationality, as based on language and history, cannot well be
reconciled with our belief in government with the consent of
the governed. Had the Germans, during the last forty years,
been as successful in Alsace-Lorraine as the Americans have
been in our own South, the situation would be different. As
it is, compromise or reconciliation has not been reached, and
the question of the future allegiance of Alsace-Lorraine has
once more been referred to arbitrament of the sword.

In many European countries, ethnographical statistics are
to be accepted with much caution. To be sure, partisan guesses
are still more unreliable, for where no official figures exist, the
widest play is left to passion and imagination; witness the
extraordinary estimates that have been made frequently in
good faith of the strength of the various elements in Mace-
donia. In lands where there are official statistics, we may
take it for granted that the nationality which has charge
of the census will get more than its share in the returns.
Doubtful and neutral elements can always be used to swell
the figures. For instance, in the Austrian province of Gali-
cia, 808,000 out of a total of 871,000 Jews are officially recorded
as speaking Polish, which assures to the Poles a good majority
of the population. In the neighboring province of Bukowina,
out of 192,000 Jews, 95,000 are put down as Germans. In
both cases the real language of most of the Jews is Yiddish.
Now, if as a result of the present war, Russia keeps Galicia,
the Jews of the eastern half of the province will no longer be
reckoned as Poles; and if at the same time Rumania gets
Bukowina, the Jews there will soon go to swell the Rumanian

NATIONALITY AND THE NEW EUROPE 251

element in that province, and there is no reason why they
should not. Why should not the Jew in the Dual Empire
transfer his linguistic allegiance? It is often transferred for
him. If he lives in southern Hungary, he may be to-day an
ardent Magyar, though his father was counted as a German ;
and it may be the duty of his son to be a good Rumanian or
Servian without his wishes being consulted in any event.
This does not mean that the Jews as a race are always prompt
to change their linguistic or other allegiance with each shift
of their political fortune. There are plenty of cases to the
contrary. Many Jews have, for example, been good Polish
patriots. A more surprising recent instance of their abiding
loyalty to one country is the obstinacy with which the colony
of Jews from Livorno, settled in Tunis, have remained irrec-
oncilably Italian in their opposition to French rule.

But even after admitting language to be the chief though
not the only determinant of nationality, we still have to
inquire what constitutes a language, and the answer is some-
times far from easy. Whatever the philologists may have
decided, there is sometimes from a political point of view
great difficulty in distinguishing between a language and a
dialect. Such things may be matters of national conscious-
ness rather than of grammar or vocabulary; indeed, practi-
cally the same tongue may be regarded as a dialect or as a
language, according to where it happens to be spoken. Dutch
is a language, but the claim of Flemish is a little more doubtful ;
and they are both mere branches of Low German which is
admittedly nothing but a dialect. In the same way, Portu-
guese is a language, but Gallejo, which hardly differs from it,
counts as a dialect of Spanish. Modern languages have
grown out of certain local dialects, and the process is still
going on. Astonishing as it may seem, the tendency in
Europe to-day, in spite of the tremendous increase of the
ease and the need of communication throughout mankind,
and in spite of the strength of such cosmopolitan movements
as socialism, appears to be rather towards the multiplication

252 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

than to the diminution of tongues. Within recent years,
written Norwegian has been drawing further away from written
Danish, with which it formerly was almost identical. Slovak
has come to regard itself as an independent speech not as a
dialect of Bohemian, and Moravian may possibly do the same.
All the efforts of the Russian government to maintain the
unity of the national language and to keep Little Russian in
the position of a mere dialect, like Plattdeutsch in Germany,
have not prevented the growth of a strong Ukrainophil party
in southern Russia, which in time may menace the political
as well as the linguistic unity of the empire ; indeed it is one
of the most serious perils that threatens its future. The Little
Russians have among themselves local differences that may
develop, and to the north of them are the White Russians,
as yet without a separatist consciousness, but capable of
finding one. In Ireland, Irish still lingers, and at least the
teaching of it is on the increase ; and even in France all the
intense patriotism and pride in la patrie and her language
that every Frenchman feels, have been required to keep the
Provencal movement in the nineteenth century within the
bounds of a harmless literary cult, and prevent its getting into
politics and weakening the unity of the French nation.

Enthusiasts for liberty are apt to overlook the sad truth
that, however admirable the development of national and
linguistic consciousness may be of itself, it does not necessarily
make for peace among nationalities any more than do free
institutions and advanced civilization. On the contrary, in
mixed districts, as long as there are no schools or legislative
bodies, the question of what language shall prevail in such
institutions does not come up. When, at least in the form of
newspapers, posters, and shop-signs, the written word becomes
a necessity for the most inert minds, the need of a common
medium increases. Here progress and friction are apt to go
hand in hand. The very fact that men are thrown together so
much more than they used to be makes it the more irritating
if they are unable to understand one another. To admit that

NATIONALITY AND THE NEW EUROPE 253

any other tongue has superior merits to your own or should
enjoy greater privileges argues a sad want of patriotism.
All the European movements of emancipation and unification
of the last century have been accompanied by higher national
consciousness and have meant keener national rivalries if not
hatreds. The awakening of modern Russia was accompanied
by fierce nationalistic strife. It was also in the usual order of
things that after the Turks and Christians in the Ottoman
Empire had combined to overthrow the despotism of Abdul
Hamid the Second, their antagonisms towards one another
should have soon become more acute, for they were relieved
of the pressure that had kept down their vitality and desire for
expansion. Like all such parties, the Young Turks have been
ultra-nationalists .

Everywhere in Europe to-day where we find two nation-
alities in considerable numbers in the same state, the outlook
is discouraging. In Russia and Germany, the minorities have
been frankly oppressed ; in Austria-Hungary, the various peo-
ples are in fierce antagonism with one another ; in Belgium,
the Flemish movement, however justified, has threatened the
future of the kingdom ; and even in Switzerland, where, thanks
to a federal constitution and a splendid common patriotism
and pride, representatives of three great nationalities have
lived on an equal footing hi such harmony as nowhere else,
there has been increasing friction in the last few years between
the French and the German elements. The circumstance
that in the present war their respective sympathies are, as is
natural, on the side of the belligerent whose language they
speak, can hardly contribute to good feeling between themselves.

But granting that it would be desirable that in the Europe
of the future each national group should be as far as possible
self-governing, there is an obvious limit to the principle.
Under modern conditions, a state, and particularly an inland
state, requires a certain size for independent political and
economic existence. In these days of large countries, such
isolated groups as the Saxons in Transylvania, the Slovaks

254 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

in North Hungary, the Wends in the Lausitz, the Basques
in France and Spain, cannot be expected to exist as inde-
pendent communities; indeed they have no desire to. All
they ask for is certain local privileges, but it is doubtful
whether these can be preserved much longer. The future
seems to offer little promise to small detached minorities,
however historically or culturally interesting.

The claims of historical possession cannot always be lightly
dismissed. Has a people no right to maintain its supremacy
in the homes and the lands that have come to it through long
generations? If it has been too hospitable to strangers, is it
therefore a fit subject for dismemberment or conquest? In
any equitable territorial adjustment, the historical unity of a
country may legitimately demand consideration. For instance,
the Czechs in Bohemia do not desire an independence or
greater self-government than would sever them from the
frontier portions of their territory which have a German popu-
lation. In like manner, to deprive Hungary of all the parts of
the kingdom where the Magyars do not form the majority
of the inhabitants would be to sin against a state which,
though its boundaries may have varied, has had a unity and
fixed abode in the same region for over nine hundred years,
during which its history has counted many glorious pages.

But by and large, accepting the principle of nationality as
representing legitimate aspirations which command our
sympathy, it is interesting to see how some of them may be
expected to fare in case of the decisive triumph of either
side in the present war.

If ... the Allies are successful, Alsace-Lorraine will go
back to France. Luxemburg also may be given to her or to
Belgium as being too small to defend itself and too strategically
important to be left in a position of neutrality which experience
has shown is not respected. Schleswig-Holstein is in a dif-
ferent situation. People who propose that it be handed back

NATIONALITY AND THE NEW EUROPE 255

to Denmark are presumably ignorant of the fact that the Ger-
mans in the duchies far outnumber the Danes, being over a
million strong. That is to say, they would make up more than
twenty-five per cent of the population of the enlarged Danish
kingdom, and would be as restive under Danish rule as they
were in the past when they so often revolted against it. Sooner
or later they would return to Germany. On the other hand,
the cession to Denmark of the Danish-speaking region of
north Schleswig, as looked forward to in the Treaty of Prague
in 1866, but never carried out, would be quite within the
bounds of reason and right.

The defeat of Austria would doubtless mean the building
up of a greater Servia, including Bosnia, and if the defeat
were complete, Croatia and all or most of Dalmatia and
perhaps the Slovenian regions. If this happens, Bulgaria, with
the aid and friendship of the Allies, may recover the larger
part of Macedonia, which would be another satisfaction of the
principle of nationality and of the desire of the inhabitants.

No people, not even the Belgians, are more to be pitied
in the present war than are the Poles. Not only is a great
part of their country the fighting ground for huge armies
and suffering terribly in the process, but they themselves,
whatever their sympathies may be, are forced into the hosts
on both sides and are killing each other at the behest of for-
eign masters. It is at least some compensation that, which-
ever side wins, the Poles may hope for an amelioration of
their present lot and perhaps the revival of a Polish state — •
though hardly an independent one, and not in either case with
the boundaries desired by Polish patriots. If the victory
goes to Germany and Austria, it is quite likely we shall wit-
ness a new kingdom of Poland as part of the federal empire
of the Hapsburgs or under a Hapsburg prince. This king-
dom would be made up of Galicia and of such part of Poland
as could be taken away from Russia. To be sure, Germany
would scarcely view the new state with favor on account
of the attraction it would exercise on her own Polish

256 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

subjects, and she certainly would not give up any of them for
its sake. This Polish kingdom would also include a consider-
able disaffected element, the Ruthenian or Little Russian
population of the eastern half of Galicia, which in recent years
has been growing increasingly anti-Polish in spite of its Polish
aristocracy. On the other hand, Russia in the event of her
success has promised an autonomous Poland to include and
unite practically the whole Polish nation. This would mean,
in addition to the strictly Polish provinces of Russia, much
at least of the Polish parts of Prussia as well as western Galicia,
but it would not include eastern Galicia, which would be
treated as being Russian not Polish. Such a provision would
not please the Polish upper class there, nor the Poles anywhere,
and probably none too well the mass of the population, for
to-day the language of the Little Russians enjoys greater
rights in Austria than it does on the Muscovite side of the
frontier, where it is treated as a mere dialect of Russian proper
and suppressed as far as possible for fear it may endanger the
unity of the national language. Besides that, the Little
Russians in eastern Galicia belong not to the Greek Orthodox,
but to the United Greek church, one which the Russian govern-
ment has in the past treated as having no real right to exist.
In the case of Rumania also, there are two opposite possi-
bilities of expansion which have tempted ardent and acquisi-
tive patriots. Had Rumania joined Germany and Austria
in the war, as she would have done up to three years ago, and
as her former king, it is said, still wished to do last summer,
she might perhaps have acquired the province of Bessarabia,
which was hers historically until 1812, and where still about
half the population are Rumanians. Should she now take
side with the Allies, she will hope for the Austrian province
of Bukowina (where a large percentage of the people are
Rumanians), and a bit of southern Hungary as well as Transyl-
vania. The case of Transylvania is peculiar. The Rumanians
there make up not far from two thirds of the inhabitants,
and they claim to be the oldest settlers though the claim is

NATIONALITY AND THE NEW EUROPE 257

disputed. Yet for the last nine hundred years, Transylvania
has almost without interruption been a part of the kingdom of
Hungary. The whole story of its past in that time, its rulers,
its civilization, its articulate life, have been Hungarian, save
in the regions where the German colonists of the twelfth
century, the so-called Saxons, have had special privileges
and have maintained their individuality. To every Magyar,
Transylvania is as much an integral part of Hungary as Wales
is of Great Britain or as Brittany of France. We have here a
striking instance of the conflict between historical right and
the predominance of nationality.

Italy, too, has dallied with rival attractions. She has now
apparently rejected once and for all those held out to her by
her former partners ; that is, Tunis, where the Italian element
is larger than the French, and Nice and Corsica, which she
still regards as fundamentally Italian. On the other hand, she
expects in return for assistance to the Allies or as a reward
for mere friendly neutrality to obtain Italian-speaking terri-
tory to the north and east of her; namely, the Trentino,
Trieste, and perhaps the Dalmatian coast. But there are
certain obstacles besides the military ones that may inter-
fere with her desires. The Trentino, or Italian-speaking
southern Tyrol, could be handed over to her with little diffi-
culty, though she has no better historical or linguistic right
to it than she has to the Swiss Canton of the Ticino. Still
the preferences of the people count for something, and whereas
the inhabitants of Ticino have no wish to become subjects of
King Victor Emmanuel, most of the population of the Tren-
tino would probably be glad to. With Trieste, the question
is more complicated. The city would suffer economically by
coming under Italian rule; and restricting ourselves to the
question of nationality, we must remember that though in
Trieste itself the greater part of the population is Italian,
yet if we include with the- city its natural background made
up of the rest of the peninsula of Istria and the territory that
connects it with Italy, we get a majority of Slavs.

258 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

In Dalmatia the case is much worse. Most of the Dal-
matian towns for centuries belonged to the republic of Ven-
ice, and its atmosphere still lingers about them. Public
opinion in Italy regards them as part of Italia Irredenta,
and the casual traveler knowing a little Italian and no Slav
shares that opinion. In actual fact, if the latest statistics
are to be trusted, the Italians make up less than three per
cent of the total population of Dalmatia, an absurdly insig-
nificant minority on which to found nationalistic claims.
They are in the majority only in the one town of Zara, and
even there the rest of the district is Slav. Now, the times
are past when Slavs were content with being the docile sub-
jects of a superior Italian civilization. A greater Servia
will claim Dalmatia, and likewise the territory of Trieste, on
the ground of nationality; but Italy, although her own
unification has been in the name of that principle, has shown
that she is quite capable of paying no attention to it when
it conflicts with her ambitions. Some day we shall hear
more about the question of Italian versus Slav in the Adriatic,
besides which we must not forget that the strongest geographi-
cal and economic considerations would seem to indicate that
the Germans cannot be permanently cut off from direct access
to these waters.

But all such speculations about the future have an element
of futility in them. The great conflict now raging in Europe
still has surprises in store for us, and when the time comes
to fix the terms of peace, the rulers and statesmen who have
to formulate and to agree to them will not be as free to fol-
low their fancies as are irresponsible map-makers. Perchance
when peace is at last made, it will be based on no principles
except those of common exhaustion and of beati possidentes.
But the fact that the rights, the aspirations, the dreams of so
many nations and interesting nationalities, large and small,
are now at stake is one reason why the present gigantic struggle
makes such deep appeal to the imagination and the sympathies
of all of us.

FORCE AND PEACE1
HENRY CABOT LODGE

[Henry Cabot Lodge (1850- ) was educated at Harvard and has
represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate since 1893. He
is a distinguished statesman, a writer on historical-political subjects,
best known for his lives of Washington and Hamilton, "Hero Tales from
American History," and several volumes of essays and addresses. This
vigorous discussion is, with the omission of a few paragraphs, a Commence-
ment address delivered at Union College, Schenectady, New York, on
June 9, 1915. By its thorough analysis and effective illustration of the
basic principles of "preparedness" it brilliantly presents the viewpoint of
an important section of American opinion.]

In the general Commination service to which Carlyle
devoted so much time and space he always found opportunity
to hymn the praise of the strong, silent man who looked facts
in the face. Very characteristically he dismissed with a sneer
the most silent, perhaps, of all great men, one certainly who
looked at the many hostile facts which he encountered in life
with a steady gaze, undimmed by illusions, to a degree rarely
equaled. I do not mean by this that Washington never
spoke, never in speech or writing uttered his thoughts. Many
volumes attest the supreme sufficiency of his dealings with
all the crowding questions of war and peace which in such
victorious manner he met and answered. But there was one
subject upon which he held his peace, and that was himself.
I once searched every line of his writings which have been
printed, as well as those of his contemporaries, and all that
could be found in regard to the man himself were a few sen-
tences of his own capable of an inference, and elsewhere some

1 From "War Addresses," 1915-1917. Copyright, 1917. Reprinted by
special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers.

259

260 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

stray anecdotes. We have his opinions, frank and free, on
all the transactions of his life, but nothing about himself.
There silence reigns, and hence he may be called in the truest
sense the most silent of the great men of modern times. A
very noble quality this, worthy of consideration in any age
and especially in an age of much delivery of personal feel-
ings and much self-advertising, where publication is easy and
passing notoriety extremely cheap. From the many necessary
words, however, written and spoken by this most silent
man upon all the far-reaching business of his life and about
the world of men and things which he touched at so many
points, there emerge, very luminous and distinct, an unfail-
ing power of looking facts, whether favorable or unfavorable,
in the face, a fine freedom from illusions and complete refusal
to admit self-deception or to attempt the deception of others.
In these days when the readiness to accept words for deeds,
language for action, and a false or maudlin sentimentality
for true sentiment, one of the noblest and purest of human
motives, — when, I repeat, the cheerful acceptance of these
unrealities seems at least to be extremely prevalent, such
veracity of mind and character as that possessed by Wash-
ington would appear more than usually worthy of contempla-
tion and imitation.

How is peace to be established and maintained hereafter
among the nations of the earth? One thing is certain, it
cannot be done by words. Nothing will be accomplished by
people who are sheltered under neutrality gathering outside
the edges of the fight and from comfortable safety summon-
ing the combatants to throw down their arms and make
peace because war is filled with horrors and women are the
mothers of men. The nations and the men now fighting, as
they believe, for their lives and freedom and national exist-
ence know all this better than any one else, and would heed
such babble, if they heard it, no more than the twittering

FORCE AND PEACE 261

of birds. In our Civil War, when we were fighting for our
national life, England and France and other outsiders were
not slow in telling us that the Union could not be saved, that
the useless carnage ought to cease, that peace must be made
at once. Except as an irritating impertinence we regarded
such advice as of no more consequence than the squeaking
of mice behind the wainscot when fire has seized upon the
house. Neither present peace, nor established peace in the
future for which we hope, is helped by fervent conversation
among ourselves about the beauties of peace and the horrors
of war, interspersed with virtuous exhortations to others,
who are passing through the valley of the shadow, to give
up all they are fighting for and accept the instructions of
bystanders who are daring and sacrificing nothing and who
have nothing directly at stake. Peace will not come in this
way by vain shoutings nor by mere loudness in shrieking
uncontested truths to a weary world. No men or women
possessed of ordinary sense or human sympathies need argu-
ments to convince them that peace among nations is a great
good, to be sought for with all their strength, but the estab-
lishment and maintenance of peace cannot be accomplished
by language proclaiming the virtues of peace and demon-
strating the horrors of war. The many excellent people who
may be described as habitual if not professional advocates
of peace appear to be satisfied with making and listening
to speeches about it. They seem to think great advances
are made if we put our official names to a series of perfectly
empty and foolish agreements which it is charitable to describe
as harmless follies, for they weaken and discredit every real
treaty which seeks to promote international good-will and
settle international differences. They are so vain and worth-
less that, when the hour of stress came, no one would think
it worth while even to tear them up. Treaty agreements
looking to the peaceful settlement of international disputes,
and which can be carried out, are valuable to the extent to
which they go, but treaty agreements which go beyond the

262 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

point of practical enforcement, which are not meant to be en-
forced, and which have neither a sense of obligation nor force
to sustain that obligation behind them, are simply injurious.
If we are to secure our own peace and do our part toward
the maintenance of world peace, we must put rhetoric, whether
in speech or on paper, aside. We must refuse to be satisfied
with illusions. We must refuse to deceive ourselves or others.
We must pass by mere words and vague shows, and come
clear-eyed to the facts and the realities. The dominant fact
to-day, I repeat, is the physical force now unchained in this
great war. Some people seem to think that if you can abolish
force and the instruments of force you can put an end to the
possibilities of war. Let us for a moment go to the roots of
existing things. Let us make the last analysis.

When I was a very young man I saw a large part of my na-
tive city swept away by fire in a single night. The calamity
brought with it an enormous destruction of property, of the
accumulated savings of years and much consequent suffering,
both direct and indirect. What was the cause of this destruc-
tion and suffering ? There was only one — fire. Not fire from
the heaven above or the earth beneath, but fire produced and
used by man, set loose without control. The abolition of fire
would undoubtedly have prevented a repetition of this dis-
aster, but no one suggested it. The impossibility of attempt-
ing to stop the destruction of life and property through fire
by abolishing fire itself was as apparent as its absurdity.
Somewhere in the dim, unwritten history of man upon earth
a great genius, perhaps several great geniuses, discovered the
production and control of fire. In the earliest traces of man
there is, I think, as yet no proof of his existence without fire,
and yet we know that at some period he r^ust have discovered
its production and control. Even when we come to the little
fragment of time covered by man's recorded history, we find
that the thought of the production and control of fire as the
greatest of discoveries still lingered in the human mind and
found its expression in symbolism of the beautiful Promethean

FORCE AND PEACE 263

myth. Fire, therefore, has probably been with man as his
servant for a period which could only be expressed in the
vast terms of geology. In large measure, society and civiliza-
tion rest upon the use of fire. Without it, great spaces of the
earth's surface would become not only useless to man but
uninhabitable. Without it, the huge and intricate fabric
of modern civilization in its present form would not exist.
Therefore, no argument is needed to convince men that the
miseries and misfortunes caused by uncontrolled fire cannot
be escaped by the abolition of fire itself. Relief must be
sought, not in abolition, but in a better and wiser control
which will render it difficult at least for man's best servant
at any time to become his master. It is unchained force, with
the dread accompaniments of science, which is to-day destroy-
ing life and limb, happiness, industry, property, and the joys
and beauties of the art and devotion of the dead centuries.
Is the terrible problem here presented to be solved by the
abolition of the physical force possessed by nations ? Go back
again to the dark beginnings and study the comparatively
few years, eight or ten thousand at the outside, of which we
may be said to have a record.

In the dim light of that remote dawn we see men engaged
in an unending conflict with the forces of nature, struggling
with the forces of nature, struggling with the wilderness, with
wild beasts, with hot and cold, and continually fighting with
each other. Gradually they emerge in tribes with leaders,
and then come states, communities, kingdoms, empires.
But among all these confused events which make up history
we find, I think, that the one fact which marks the develop-
ment of every organized society, whether rude or compli-
cated, of every political entity, whether great or small, is
the substitution of the will of the community and the protec-
tion of the community for the will of the individual and for
the self-protection which each man naturally exercises. The
one unfailing mark of what, for lack of a better word, we call
civilization, is this substitution of the force of the community,

264 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

embodied in law and administered by what we describe as
government, for the uncontrolled sporadic force of each indi-
vidual member of the community. Wherever man is left
to his own protection and his own defense, there is nothing
possible but personal righting and general anarchy. The
man possessed of the greatest physical force and the most
effective weapons is the best protected. About him others
gather and submit to his leadership and give him their sup-
port in return for his protection. Then we have the predatory
band which found its highest expression in the feudal system.
Gradually one band or lordship conquers or unites with itself
other bands, and they establish control over a certain terri-
tory ; a state emerges, and the process is repeated on a larger
scale by the conquest or union of other states. Physical is
supplemented by intellectual force and we have at last the
kingdom, the great republic, or the mighty empire. But
under it all lies the replacement of the scattered force of the
individual by .the consolidated force of the community, and
power, order, commerce, art, and peace rest in the last analysis
upon the force of the community expressed in government
of some sort, such government being merely its instrument
and manifestation. You may carry your inquiry across the
whole range of history and over the earliest human societies
of which we have knowledge, to the vigilance committees
of the Far West, and you will find that law, order, and peace
were brought about by men coming together and exercising
the united force of the community, great or small, hi order
to put an end to the chaos and disorders of uncontrolled force
exercised by each individual. When the civilization and the
society reach a high point of organization, the underlying
force upon which the entire social and political fabric rests
is exerted and is often effective through what may be called
merely a symbol. The longest period of general peace cover-
ing a large region of the earth of which we have knowledge
in historic times was probably that of the Roman Empire,
which endured for some three centuries. There was fighting

FORCE AND PEACE 265

on the widely extended frontiers, at intervals diminishing
in length as the end approached. After the decline began
there were internal wars also at intervals with the imperial
purple as the prize, but on the whole through the first three
centuries of our era the general condition of the Roman Empire
and throughout most of its extent was one of peace. That
time is still referred to as the period of the Pax Romana.

In his romance of the "Last Days of Pompeii," Bulwer
makes a dramatic point of the Roman sentry motionless at
his post while the darkness and the flame and the burning
flood were rushing down upon the doomed city. That solitary
sentry was the symbol of the force of the Roman Empire.
Peace, order, and law reigned throughout all western Europe,
but it was the gleam upon the sword and corselet of the Roman
legionary which made men realize that behind that law and
peace and order was the irresistible force of the Empire of
Rome. Let us take a more homely illustration. We have
all seen in London and New York police officers stationed
at points where the traffic is densest regulating and guiding
its movement by merely raising one hand. They would be
perfectly incapable of stopping the vehicles carrying on that
traffic, by their own physical force. It could pass over them
and destroy them in a moment, and yet it is all governed by
the gesture of one man. The reason is simple ; the policeman
is the symbol of the force of the community against which
no individual force can prevail, and of this the great mass
of individuals are thoroughly if unconsciously aware. Law
is the written will of the community. The constable, the
policeman, the soldier, is the symbol of the force which gives
sanction to law and without which it would be worthless.
Abolish the force which maintains order in every village,
town, and city in the civilized world and you would not have
peace — you would have riot, anarchy, and destruction;
the criminal, the violent, and the reckless would dominate
until the men of order and the lovers of peace united and re-
stored the force of the community which had been swept

266 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

away. It is all obvious enough, it all rests on human nature,
and if there was not somewhere an organized force which
belonged to the whole community there would be neither peace
nor order anywhere. No one has suggested, not even the most
ardent advocates of peace, that the police of our cities should
be abolished on the theory that an organization of armed men
whose duty it is to maintain order, even if they are compelled
often to wound and sometimes to kill for that purpose, are
by their mere existence an incitement to crime and violence.
If order, peace, and civilization in a town, city, or state, rest
as they do rest in the last analysis, upon force, upon what
does the peace of a nation depend? It must depend, and it
can only depend, upon the ability of the nation to maintain
and defend its own peace at home and abroad. Turn to the
Constitution of the United States. In the brief preamble
one of the chief purposes of the Constitution is set down as
provision for the "common defense." In the grant of powers
to Congress one of the first powers conferred is to provide
for the "common defense of the United States." For this
purpose they are given specific powers : to raise and support
armies, to provide and maintain a navy, to provide for calling
forth the militia, suppressing insurrections and repelling inva-
sions. The States are forbidden to engage in war unless ac-
tually invaded, and the United States is bound to protect
each of them against invasion and, on their request, to protect
them also against domestic violence. In other words, the
Constitution provides for the maintenance of order at home
and peace abroad through the physical force of the United
States. The conception of the Constitution is that domestic
order as well as peace with other nations rests upon the force
of the nation. Of the soundness of this proposition there can
be no doubt, I think, in the mind of any reasonable man. This
obvious principle embodied in the Constitution and recognized
by every organized government in the world is too often over-
looked at the present moment in the clamor against armament.
The people who urge the disarmament of one nation in an

FORCE AND PEACE 267

armed world confuse armament and preparation with the
actual power upon which peace depends. They take the
manifestation for the cause. Armament is merely the instru-
ment by which the force of the community is manifested and
made effective, just as the policeman is the manifestation of
the force of the municipal community upon which local order
rests. The fact that armies and navies are used in war does
not make them the cause of war, any more than maintaining
a fire in a grate to prevent the dwellers in the house from suf-
fering from cold warrants the abolition of fire because where
fire gets beyond control it is a destructive agent. Alexander
the Great was bent on conquest, and he created the best
army in the world at that time, not to preserve the peace of
Macedonia, but for the purpose of conquering other nations,
to which purpose he applied his instrument. The wars which
followed were not due to the Macedonian phalanx, but to
Alexander. The good or the evil of national armament de-
pends, not on its existence or its size, but upon the purpose
for which it is created and maintained. Great military and
naval forces created for purposes of conquest are used in the
war which the desire of conquest causes. They do not in
themselves cause war. Armies and navies organized to main-
tain peace serve the ends of peace because there is no such
incentive to war as a rich, undefended, and helpless country,
which by its condition invites aggression. The grave ob-
jections to overwhelming and exhausting armaments are
economic. A general reduction of armaments is not only desir-
able, but is something to be sought for with the utmost earnest-
ness. But for one nation to disarm and leave itself defenseless
in an armed world is a direct incentive and invitation to war.
The danger to the peace of the world, then, lies not in arma-
ment, which is a manifestation, but in the purposes for which
the armament was created. A knife is frequently dangerous
to human life, but there would be no sense in abolishing knives,
because the danger depends solely on the purpose or passion
of the individual in whose hand the knife is and not upon the

268 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

fact that the knife exists. The peace of a nation depends in
the last resort, like domestic order, upon the force of the
community and upon the ability of the community to main-
tain peace, assuming that the nation lives up to its obligations,
seeks no conquest, and wishes only to be able to repel aggres-
sion and invasion. If a nation fulfills strictly all its inter-
national obligations and seeks no conquest and has no desire
to wrong any other nation, great or small, the danger of war
can come only through the aggression of others, and that
aggression will never be made if it is known that the peace-
loving nation is ready to repel it. The first step, then, toward
the maintenance of peace is for each nation to maintain its
peace with the rest of the world by its own honorable and
right conduct and by such organization and preparation as
will enable it to defend its peace.

This should be our policy. We should show the world
that democracy, government by the people, makes for peace,
in contrast to the government of a military autocracy which
makes for war. We should demonstrate this by our conduct,
by justice hi our dealings with other nations, by readiness
to make any sacrifices for the right and stern refusal to do
wrong ; by deeds, not words, and finally by making the whole
world understand that while we seek no conquests we are
able to repel any aggression or invasion from without for the
very reason that we love peace and mean to maintain it.
We should never forget that if democracy is not both able
and ready to defend itself, it will go down in subjection before
military autocracy because the latter is then the more efficient.
We must bear constantly in mind that from the conflict which
now convulses the world there may possibly come events
which would force us to fight with all our strength to preserve
our freedom, our democracy, and our national life. But this
concerns ourselves and will have only the slow-moving influ-
ence of example. What can be done now? What can we do
in the larger sense toward securing and maintaining the peace
of the world? This is a much more difficult question, but

FORCE AND PEACE 269

turn it back and forth as we may there is no escape from the
proposition that the peace of the world can be maintained
only, as the peace and order of a single community are main-
tained, as the peace of a single nation is maintained, by the
force which united nations are willing to put behind the peace
and order of the world. Nations must unite as men unite
in order to preserve peace and order. The great nations must
be so united as to be able to say to any single country, you
must not go to war, and they can only say that effectively
when the country desiring war knows that the force which
the united nations place behind peace is irresistible. We have
done something in advancing the settlement by arbitration
of many minor questions which in former times led to wars
and reprisals, although the points of difference were essen-
tially insignificant, but as human nature is at present consti-
tuted and the world is at present managed there are certain
questions which no nation would submit voluntarily to the
arbitration of any tribunal, and the attempt to bring such
questions within the jurisdiction of an arbitral tribunal not
only fails in its purpose, but discredits arbitration and the
treaties by which the impossible is attempted. In differences
between individuals the decision of the court is final, because
in the last resort the entire force of the community is behind
the court decision. In differences between nations which go
beyond the limited range of arbitrable questions, peace can
be maintained only by putting behind it the force of united
nations determined to uphold it and to prevent war. No one
is more conscious than I of the enormous difficulties which
beset such a solution or such a scheme, but if we are to pass
beyond the limits of voluntary arbitration, it is in this direction
alone that we can find hope for the maintenance of the world's
peace and the avoidance of needless wars. It may well be
that it is impossible, that we cannot go beyond voluntary
arbitration. Even if we could establish such a union of na-
tions, there would be some wars that could not be avoided,
but there might certainly be others which could be prevented.

270 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

It may be easily said that this idea, which is not a new one,
is impracticable, but it is better than the idea that war can
be stopped by language, by speech-making, by vain agree-
ments which no one would carry out when the stress came,
by denunciations of war and laudations of peace, in which
all men agree ; for these methods are not only impracticable,
but impossible and barren of all hope of real result. It may
seem Utopian at this moment to suggest a union of civilized
nations in order to put a controlling force behind the mainte-
nance of peace and international order, but it is through the
aspiration for perfection, through the search for Utopias, that
the real advances have been made. At all events, it is along
this path that we must travel if we are to attain in any meas-
ure to the end we all desire of peace upon earth. It is at least
a great, a humane purpose to which, in these days of death
and suffering, of misery and sorrow among so large a portion
of mankind, we might well dedicate ourselves. We must
begin the work with the clear understanding that our efforts
will fail if they are tainted with the thought of personal or
political profit or with any idea of self-interest or self-glorifica-
tion. We cannot possibly succeed in any measure if we mix
up plans for future peace with attempts to end this war now
raging. We must be content to work within rigid limitations.
We may not now succeed even in this restricted way, but I
believe that in the slow process of the years others who come
after us may attach to it some result not without value. At
least we can feel that the effort and the sacrifice which we
make will not be in vain when the end in sight is noble, when
we are striving to help mankind and lift the heaviest burdens
from suffering humanity.

A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE1
A. LAWRENCE LOWELL

[A. Lawrence Lowell (1856- ) was educated at Harvard, taught
political science there from 1897 to 1909^ and has since been its president.
His chief writings are " Governments and Parties in Continental Europe"
(1896) and "The Government of England" (1908). The present selec-
tion illustrates very well the careful working out of an argument in favor
of a cause, with emphasis upon the most serious objection to it.]

In spite of its ominous sound, the suggestion of a league of
nations to enforce peace has no connection with any effort
to stop the present war. It is aimed solely at preventing fu-
ture conflicts after the terrific struggle now raging has come
to an end ; and yet this is not a bad time for people in private
life to bring forward proposals of such a nature. Owing to the
vast number of soldiers under arms, to the proportion of men
and women in the warring countries who suffer acutely, to
the extent of the devastation and misery, it is probable that,
whatever the result may be, the people of all nations will be
more anxious to prevent the outbreak of another war than
ever before in the history of the world. The time is not yet
ripe for governments to take action, but it is ripe for public
discussion of practicable means to reduce the danger of future
breaches of international peace.

The nations of the world to-day are in much the position
of frontier settlements in America half a century ago, before
orderly government was set up. The men there were in the
main well disposed, but in the absence of an authority that
could enforce order, each man, feeling no other security from
attack, carried arms which he was prepared to use if danger
threatened. The first step, when affrays became unbearable,

1 From Atlantic Monthly, September, 1915. Reprinted by permission.

271

272 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

was the formation of a vigilance committee, supported by the
enrollment of all good citizens, to prevent men from shooting
one another and to punish offenders. People did not wait for
a gradual improvement by the preaching of higher ethics
and a better civilization. They felt that violence must be
met by force, and when the show of force was strong enough,
violence ceased. In time the vigilance committee was re-
placed by the policeman and by the sheriff with the posse
comitatus. The policeman and the sheriff maintain order
because they have the bulk of the community behind them,
and no country has yet reached, or is likely for an indefinite
period to reach, such a state of civilization that it can wholly
dispense with the police.

Treaties for the arbitration of international disputes are
good. They have proved an effective method of settling ques-
tions that would otherwise have bred ill-feeling without
directly causing war ; but when passion runs high, and deep-
rooted interests or sentiments are at stake, there is need of
the sheriff with his posse to enforce the obligation.

There are, no doubt, differences in the conception of justice
and right, divergencies of civilization, so profound that people
will fight over them, and face even the prospect of disaster in
war rather than submit. Yet even in such cases it is worth
while to postpone the conflict, to have a public discussion of
the question at issue before an impartial tribunal, and thus
give to the people of the countries involved a chance to con-
sider, before hostilities begin, whether the risk and suffering
of war are really worth while. No sensible man expects to
abolish wars altogether, but we ought to seek to reduce the
probability of war as much as possible. It is on these grounds
that the suggestion has been put forth of a league of nations
to enforce peace.

Without attempting to cover details of operation (which
are, indeed, of vital importance and will require careful study
by experts in international law and diplomacy), the proposal
contains four points stated as general objects. The first is

A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 273

that before resorting to arms the members of the league shall
submit disputes with one another, if justiciable, to an inter-
national tribunal; second, that in like manner they shall
submit non- justiciable questions — that is, such as cannot
be decided on the basis of strict international law — to an
international council of conciliation, which shall recommend
a fair and amicable solution; third, that if any member of
the league wages war against another before submitting the
question in dispute to the tribunal or council, all the other
members shall jointly use forthwith both their economic and
military forces against the state that so breaks the peace;
and fourth, that the signatory powers shall endeavor to codify
and improve the rules of international law.

The kernel of the proposal, the feature in which it differs
from other plans, lies in the third point, obliging all the mem-
bers of the league to declare war on any member violating
the pact of peace. This is the provision that provokes both
adherence and opposition ; and at first it certainly gives one
a shock that a people should be asked to pledge itself to go
to war over a quarrel which is not of its making, in which it
has no interest, and in which it may believe that substantial
justice lies on the other side. If, indeed, the nations of the
earth could maintain complete isolation, could pursue each
its own destiny without regard to the rest ; if they were not
affected by a war between two others or liable to be drawn
into it; if, in short, there were no overwhelming common
interest in securing universal peace, the provision would be
intolerable. It would be as bad as the liability of an individ-
ual to take part in the posse comitatus of a community with
which he had nothing in common. But in every civilized
country the public force is employed to prevent any man,
however just his claim, from vindicating his own right with
his own hand instead of going to law, and every citizen is
bound when needed to assist in preventing him, because that
is the only way to restrain private war, and the maintenance
of order is of paramount importance for every one. Surely

274 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

the family of nations has a like interest in restraining war
between states.

It will be observed that the members of the league are not
to bind themselves to enforce the decision of the tribunal or
the award of the council of conciliation. That may come in
the remote future, but it is no part of this proposal. It would
be imposing obligations far greater than the nations can
reasonably be expected to assume at the present day; for
the conceptions of international morality and fair play are
still so vague and divergent that a nation can hardly bind
itself to wage war on another, with which it has no quarrel,
to enforce a decision or a recommendation of whose justice
or wisdom it may not be itself heartily convinced. The pro-
posal goes no further than obliging all the members to pre-
vent, by a threat of immediate war, any breach of the public
peace before the matter in dispute has been submitted to
arbitration; and this is neither unreasonable nor imprac-
ticable. There are many questions, especially of a non-
justiciable nature, on which we should not be willing to bind
ourselves to accept the decision of an arbitration, and where
we should regard compulsion by armed intervention of the
rest of the world as outrageous. Take, for example, the ques-
tion of Asiatic immigration, or a claim that the Panama Canal
ought to be an unfortified neutral highway, or the desire by
a European power to take possession of Colombia. But we
ought not, in the interest of universal peace, to object to
making a public statement of our position in these matters
at a court or council before resorting to arms; and in fact
the treaty between the United States and England, ratified
on November 14, 1914, provides that all disputes between
the high contracting parties, of every nature whatsoever,
shall, failing other methods of adjustment, be referred for
investigation and report to a permanent international com-
mission, with a stipulation that neither country shall declare
war or begin hostilities during such investigation and before
the report is submitted.

A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 275

What is true of this country is true of others. To agree to
abide by the result of an arbitration, on every non- justiciable
question of every nature whatsoever, on pain of compulsion
in any form by the whole world, would involve a greater
cession of sovereignty than nations would now be willing to
concede. This appears, indeed, perfectly clearly from the
discussions at the Hague Conference of 1907. But to exclude
differences that do not turn on questions of international law
from the cases in which a state must present the matter to a
tribunal or council of conciliation before beginning hostilities,
would leave very little check upon the outbreak of war.
Almost every conflict between European nations for more
than half a century has been based upon some dissension
which could not be decided by strict rules of law, and in
which a violation of international law or of treaty rights has
usually not even been used as an excuse. This was true of the
war between France and Austria in 1859, and, in substance,
of the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866. It was true
of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, of the Russo-Turkish
War in 1876, of the Balkan War against Turkey in 1912, and
of the present war.

No one will claim that a league to enforce peace, such as is
proposed, would wholry prevent war, but it would greatly
reduce the probability of hostilities. It would take away 'the
advantage of surprise, of -catching the enemy unprepared for
a sudden attack. It would give a chance for public opinion
on the nature of the controversy to be formed throughout the
world and in the militant country. The latter is of great im-
portance, for the moment war is declared argument about
its merits is at once stifled. Passion runs too high for calm
debate, and patriotism forces people to support their govern-
ment. But a trial before an international tribunal would give
time for discussion while emotion is not yet highly inflamed.
Men opposed to war would be able to urge its injustice, to
ask whether, after all, the object is worth the sacrifice, and
they would get a hearing from their fellow citizens which

276 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

they cannot get after war begins. The mere delay, the interval
for consideration, would be an immense gain for the prospect
of a peaceful settlement.

In this connection it may be of interest to recall the way
in which the medieval custom of private war was abolished
in England. It was not done at one step, but gradually, by
preventing men from avenging their own wrongs before going
to court. The trial by battle long remained a recognized part
of judicial procedure, but only after the case had been pre-
sented to the court, and only in accordance with judicial
forms. This had the effect of making the practice far less
common, and of limiting it to the principals in the quarrel
instead of involving a general breach of the peace in which
their retainers and friends took part. Civilization was still too
crude to give up private war, but the arm of the law and the
force in the hands of the crown were strong enough to delay
a personal conflict until the case had been presented to court.
Without such a force the result could not have been attained.

Every one will admit this in the case of private citizens,
but many people shrink from the use of international force
to restrain war ; some of them on the principle of strict non-
resistance, that any taking of life in war cannot be justified,
no matter what its purpose or effect. Such people have the
most lofty moral ideals, but these are not a part of true
statesmanship, unless they aim at the total welfare which
may require the attacking of evils even by forcible means.
Many years ago when an Atlantic steamship was wrecked,
it was said that some of the crew made a rush for the boats,
beating the passengers off, and that the captain, who was
urged to restore order by shooting a mutineer, replied that
he was too near eternity to take life. The result was a far
greater loss of life than would have been suffered had he re-
stored order by force. Probably no man with the instincts
of a statesman would defend his conduct to-day. He was not
a coward, but his sentiments unfitted him for a responsible
post in an emergency.

A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 277

Most people who have been thinking seriously about the
maintenance of peace are tending to the opinion that a sanc-
tion of some kind is needed to enforce the observance of
treaties and of agreements for arbitration. Among the meas-
ures proposed has been that of an international police force,
under the control of a central council which could use it to
preserve order throughout the world. At present such a plan
seems visionary. The force would have to be at least large
enough to cope with the army that any single nation could
put into the field, — under existing conditions let us say five
millions of men fully equipped and supplied with artillery
and ammunition for a campaign of several months. These
troops need not be under arms, or quartered near The Hague,
but they must be thoroughly trained and ready to be called
out at short notice. Practically that would entail yearly
votes of the legislative bodies of each of the nations supply-
ing a quota ; and if any of them failed to make the necessary
appropriation, there would be great difficulty in preventing
others from following its example. The whole organization
would, therefore, be in constant danger of going to pieces.

But quite apart from the practical difficulties in the perma-
nent execution of such a plan, let us see how it would affect
the United States. The amount of the contingents of the
various countries would be apportioned with some regard to
population, wealth, and economic resources ; and if the total
were five million men, our quota on a moderate estimate
might be five hundred thousand men. Is it conceivable that
the United States would agree to keep anything like that
number drilled, equipped, and ready to take the field on
the order of an international council composed mainly of
foreign nations? Of course it will be answered that these
figures are exaggerated, because any such plan will be ac-
companied by a reduction in armaments. But that is an
easier thing to talk about than to effect, and especially to
maintain. One must not forget that the existing system of
universal military compulsory service on the continent of

278 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

Europe arose from Napoleon's attempt to limit the size of
the Prussian army. He would be a bold or sanguine man
who should assert that any treaty to limit armaments could
not in like manner be evaded ; and however much they were
limited, the quantity of troops to be held at the disposal of
a foreign council would of necessity be large, while no nation
would be willing to pledge for the purpose the whole of its
military force. Such a plan may be practicable in some re-
mote future when the whole world is a vast federation under
a central government, but that would seem to be a matter
for coming generations, not for the men of our day.

Moreover, the nations whose troops were engaged in fight-
ing any country would inevitably find themselves at war with
that country.

One cannot imagine saying to some foreign state, "Our
troops are killing yours, they are invading your land, we are
supplying them with recruits and munitions of war, but
otherwise we are at peace with you. You must treat us as
a neutral, and accord to our citizens, to their commerce and
property, all the rights of neutrality." In short the plan of
an international police force involves all the consequences
of the proposal of a league to enforce peace, with other com-
plex provisions extremely hard to execute.

A suggestion more commonly made is that the members
of the league of nations, instead of pledging themselves ex-
plicitly to declare war forthwith against any of their number
that commits a breach of the peace, should agree to hold at
once a conference, and take such measures — diplomatic,
economic, or military — as may be necessary to prevent war.
The objection to this is that it weakens very seriously the
sanction. Conferences are apt to shrink from decisive action.
Some of the members are timid, others want delay, and much
time is consumed in calling the body together and in dis-
cussions after it meets. Meanwhile the war may have broken
out, and be beyond control. It is much easier to prevent a
fire than to put it out. The country that is planning war is

A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 279

likely to think it has friends in the conference, or neighbors
that it can intimidate, who will prevent any positive decision
until the fire is burning. Even if the majority decides on
immediate action, the minority is not bound thereby. One
great power refuses to take part; a second will not do so
without her ; the rest hesitate, and nothing is done to prevent
the war.

A conference is an excellent thing. The proposal of a league
to enforce peace by no means excludes it ; but the important
matter, the effective principle, is that every member of the
league should know that whether a conference meets or not,
or whatever action it may take or fail to take, all the members
of the league have pledged themselves to declare war forth-
with on any member that commits a breach of the peace
before submitting its case to the international tribunal or
council of conciliation. Such a pledge, and such a pledge
alone, can have the strong deterrent influence, and thus fur-
nish the sanction that is needed. Of course the pledge may
not be kept. Like other treaties it may be broken by the
parties to it. Nations are composed of human beings with
human weaknesses, and one of these is a disinclination to
perform an agreement when it involves a sacrifice. Never-
theless, nations, like men, often do have enough sense of
honor, of duty, or of ultimate self-interest, to carry out their
contracts at no little immediate sacrifice. They are certainly
more likely to do a thing if they have pledged themselves to
it than if they have not ; and any nation would be running a
terrible risk that went to war in the hope that the other mem-
bers of the league would break their pledges.

The same objection applies to another alternative proposed
in place of an immediate resort to military force : that is the
use .of economic pressure, by a universal agreement, for
example, to have no commercial intercourse with the nation
breaking the peace. A threat of universal boycott is, no
doubt, formidable, but by no means so formidable as a threat
of universal war. A large country with great natural resources

280 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

which has determined to make war, might be willing to face
commercial non-intercourse with the other members of the
league during hostilities, when it would not for a moment
contemplate the risk of fighting them. A threat, for example,
by England, France, and Germany to stop all trade with the
United States might or might not have prevented our going
to war with Spam; but a declaration that they would take
part with all their armies and navies against us would cer-
tainly have done so.

It has often been pointed out that the threat of general
non-intercourse would bear much more hardly on some
countries than on others. That may not in itself be a fatal
objection, but a very serious consideration arises from the
fact that there would be a premium on preparation for war.
A nation which had accumulated vast quantities of munitions,
food, and supplies of all kinds might afford to disregard it;
while another less fully prepared could not.

Moreover, economic pressure, although urged as a milder
measure, is in fact more difficult to apply and maintain. A
declaration of war is a single act, and when made sustains
itself by the passion it inflames; while commercial non-
intercourse is a continuous matter, subject to constant opposi-
tion exerted in an atmosphere relatively cool. Our manu-
facturers would complain bitterly at being deprived of dye-
stuffs and other chemical products on account of a quarrel
in which we had no interest ; the South would suffer severely
by the loss of a market for cotton ; the shipping firms and the
exporters and importers of all kinds would be gravely injured ;
and all these interests would bring to bear upon Congress a
pressure well-nigh irresistible. The same would be true of
every other neutral country, a fact that would be perfectly
well known to the intending belligerent and reduce its -fear of
a boycott.

But, it is said, why not try economic pressure first, and, if
that fails, resort to military force, instead of inflicting at once
on unoffending members of the league the terrible calamity of

A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 281

war? What do we mean by "if that fails"? Do we mean,
if, in spite of the economic pressure, the war breaks out ? But
then the harm is done, the fire is ablaze and can be put out
only by blood. The object of the league is not to chastise a
country guilty of breaking the peace, but to prevent the out-
break of war, and to prevent it by the immediate prospect of
such appalling consequences to the offender that he will not
venture to run the risk. If a number of great powers were to
pledge themselves, with serious intent, to wage war jointly
and severally on any one of their members that attacked
another before submitting the case to arbitration, it is in
the highest degree improbable that the casus fcederis would
ever occur, while any less drastic provision would be far less
effective.

An objection has been raised to the proposal for a league
to enforce peace on the ground that it has in the past often
proved difficult, if not impossible, to determine which of two
belligerents began a war. The criticism is serious, and pre-
sents a practical difficulty, grave but probably not insur-
mountable. The proposal merely lays down a general prin-
ciple, and if adopted, the details would have to be worked out
very fully and carefully in a treaty, which would specify the
acts that would constitute the waging of war by one member
upon another. These would naturally be, not the mere creat-
ing of apprehension, but specific acts, such as a declaration
of war, invasion of territory, the use of force at sea not dis-
owned within forty-eight hours, or an advance into a region
in dispute. This last is an especially difficult point, but those
portions of the earth's surface in which different nations have
conflicting claims are growing less decade by decade.

It must be remembered that the cases which would arise
under a league of peace are not like those which have arisen
in the past, where one nation is determined to go to war and
merely seeks to throw the moral responsibility on the other
while getting the advantage of actually beginning hostilities.
It is a case where each will strive to avoid the specific acts

282 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

of war that may involve the penalty. The reader may have
seen, in a country where personal violence is severely pun-
ished, two men shaking their fists in each other's faces, each
trying to provoke the other to strike the first blow; and no
fight after all.

There are many agreements in private business which are
not easy to embody in formal contracts ; agreements where,
as in this case, the execution of the terms calls for immediate
action, and where redress after an elaborate trial of the facts
affords no real reparation. But if the object sought is good,
men do not condemn it on account of the difficulty in devis-
ing provisions that will accomplish the result desired; cer-
tainly not until they have tried to devise them. It may,
indeed, prove impossible to draft a code of specific acts that
will cover the ground; it may be impracticable to draft it
so as to avoid issues of fact that can be determined only after
a long sifting of evidence, which would come too late; but
surely that is no reason for failure to make the attempt.
We are not making a treaty among nations. We are merely
putting forward a suggestion for reducing war, which seems
to merit consideration.

A second difficulty that will sometimes arise is the rule of
conduct to be followed pending the presentation of the ques-
tion to the international tribunal. The continuance or cessa-
tion of the acts complained of may appear to be, and may
even be in fact, more important than the final decision. This
has been brought to our attention forcibly by the sinking of
the Lusitania. We should have done very wisely to submit
to arbitration the question of the right of submarines to
torpedo merchant ships without warning, provided Germany
abandoned the practice pending the arbitration; and Ger-
many would probably not have refused to submit the ques-
tion to a tribunal on the understanding that the practice was
to continue until the decision was rendered, because by that
time the war would be over. This difficulty is inherent in
every plan for the arbitration of international disputes,

A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 283

although more serious in a league whose members bind them-
selves to prevent by force the outbreak of war. It would be
necessary to give the tribunal summary authority to decree
a modus vivendi, to empower it, like a court of equity, to
issue a temporary injunction.

In short, the proposal for a league to enforce peace cannot
meet all possible contingencies. It cannot prevent all future
wars, nor does any sensible person believe that any plan can
do so in the present state of civilization. But it can prevent
some wars that would otherwise take place, and if it does
that, it will have done much good.

People have asked how such a league would differ from the
Triple Alliance or Triple Entente, — whether it would not be
nominally a combination for peace which might in practice
have quite a different effect. But in fact its object is quite
contrary to those alliances. They are designed to protect
their members against outside powers. This is intended to
insure peace among the members themselves. If it grew
strong enough, by including all the great powers, it might
well insist on universal peace by compelling the outsiders to
come in. But that is not its primary object, which is simply
to prevent its members from going to war with one another.
No doubt if several great nations, and some of the smaller
ones, joined it, and if it succeeded in preserving constant
friendly relations among its members, there would grow up
among them a sense of solidarity which would make any out-
side power chary of attacking one of them; and, what is
more valuable, would make outsiders want to join it. But
there is little use in speculating about probabilities. It is
enough if such a league were a source of enduring peace
among its own members. '

How about our own position in the United States? The
proposal is a radical and subversive departure from the
traditional policy of our country. Would it be wise for us
to be parties to such an agreement ? At the threshold of such
a discussion one thing is clear. If we are not willing to urge

284 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

our own government to join a movement for peace, we have
no business to discuss any plan for the purpose. It is worse
than futile, it is an impertinence, for Americans to advise the
people of Europe how they ought to conduct their affairs if
we have nothing in common with them; to suggest to them
conventions with burdens which are well enough for them, but
which we are not willing to share. If our peace organizations
are not prepared to have us take part in the plans they devise,
they had better disband, or confine their discussions to Pan-
American questions.

To return to the question : would it be wise for the United
States to make so great a departure from its traditional policy?
The wisdom of consistency lies in adherence to a principle so
long as the conditions upon which it is based remain un-
changed. But the conditions that affect the relations of
America to Europe have changed greatly in the last hundred
and twenty years. At that tune it took about a month to
cross the ocean to our shores. Ships were small and could
carry few troops. Their guns had a short range. No country
had what would now be called more than a very small army ;
and it was virtually impossible for any foreign nation to make
more than a raid upon our territory before we could organize
and equip a sufficient force to resist, however unprepared
we might be at the outset. But now, by the improvements
in machinery, the Atlantic has shrunk to a lake, and before
long will shrink to a river. Except for the protection of the
navy, and perhaps in spite of it, a foreign nation could land
on our coast an army of such a size, and armed with such
weapons, that unless we maintain forces several times larger
than at present, we should be quite unable to oppose an attack
before we had suffered incalculable damage.

It is all very well to assert that we have no desire to quarrel
with any one, or any one with us ; but good intentions in the
abstract, even if accompanied by long-suffering and a disposi-
tion to overlook affronts, will not always keep us out of strife.
When a number of great nations are locked in a death-grapple,

A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 285

they are a trifle careless of the rights of the bystander.
Within fifteen years of Washington's Farewell Address we
were drawn into the wars of Napoleon, and a sorry figure we
made for the most part of the fighting on land. A hundred
years later our relations with the rest of the world are far
closer, our ability to maintain a complete isolation far less.
Except by colossal self-deception we cannot believe that the
convulsions of Europe do not affect us profoundly, that wars
there need not disturb us, that we are not in danger of being
drawn into them; or even that we may not some day find
ourselves in the direct path of the storm. If our interest in
the maintenance of peace is not quite so strong as that of
some other nations, it is certainly strong enough to warrant
our taking steps to preserve it, even to the point of joining a
league to enforce it. The cost of the insurance is well worth
the security to us.

If mere material self-interest would indicate such a course,
there are other reasons to confirm it. Civilization is to some
extent a common heritage which it is worth while for all na-
tions to defend, and war is a scourge which all peoples should
use every rational means to reduce. If the family of nations
can by standing together make wars less frequent, it is clearly
their duty to do so, and in such a body we do not want the
place of our own country to be vacant.

To join such a league would mean, no doubt, a larger force
of men trained for arms in this country, more munitions of
war on hand, and better means of producing them rapidly;
for although it may be assumed that the members of the
league would never be actually called upon to carry out their
promise to fight, they ought to have a potential force for the
purpose. But in any case this country ought not to be so
little prepared for an emergency as it is to-day ; and it would
require to be less fully armed if it joined a league pledged to
protect its members against attack, than if it stood alone and
unprotected. In fact the tendency of such a league, by pro-
curing at least delay before the outbreak of hostilities, would

286 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

be to lessen the need of preparation for immediate war, and
thus it would have a more potent effect in reducing armaments
than any formal treaties could have, whether made volun-
tarily or under compulsion.

The proposal for a league to enforce peace does not conflict
with plans to go further, to enforce justice among nations by
compelling compliance with the decisions of a tribunal by
diplomatic, economic, or military pressure. Nor, on the
other hand, does it imply any such action, or interfere with
the independence or sovereignty of states except in this one
respect, that it would prohibit any member, before submitting
its claims to arbitration, from making war upon another on
pain of finding itself at war with all the rest. The proposal is
only a suggestion, defective probably, crude certainly; but
if, in spite of that, it is the most promising plan for main-
taining peace now brought forward, it merits sympathetic
consideration both here and abroad.

AMERICA'S TERMS OF PEACE1

(Message to Congress January 8, 1918)

WOODROW WILSON

[For a sketch of Woodrow Wilson see page 3. The following address
was delivered to both Houses of Congress by President Wilson on
January 8, 1918 and gives the most definite statement of the American
attitude toward terms of peace. It has been publicly approved by states-
men of all the Allied nations as the best expression of conditions of peace.]

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:

Once more, as repeatedly before, the spokesmen of the
Central Empires have indicated their desire to discuss the
objects of the war and the possible basis of a general peace.
Parleys have been in progress at Brest-Litovsk between
Russian representatives and representatives of the Central
Powers to which the attention of all the belligerents has been
invited for the purpose of ascertaining whether it may be
possible to extend these parleys into a general conference with
regard to terms of peace and settlement. The Russian repre-
sentatives presented not only a perfectly definite statement
of the principles upon which they would be willing to conclude
peace, but also an equally definite program of the concrete
application of those principles. The representatives of the
Central Powers, on their part, presented an outline of settle-
ment which, if much less definite, seemed susceptible of liberal
interpretation until their specific program of practical terms
was added. That program proposed no concessions at all,
either to the sovereignty of Russia or to the preferences of the
population with whose fortunes it dealt, but meant, in a

1 From International Conciliation, February, 1918. Reprinted by permission.

287

288 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

word, that the Central Empires were to keep every foot of
territory their armed forces had occupied — every province,
every city, every point of vantage — as a permanent addi-
tion to their territories and their power. It is a reasonable
conjecture that the general principles of settlement which
they at first suggested originated with the more liberal states-
men of Germany and Austria, the men who have begun to
feel the force of their own peoples' thought and purpose,
while the concrete terms of actual settlement came from the
military leaders who have no thought but to keep what they
have got. The - negotiations have been broken off. The
Russian representatives were sincere and in earnest. They
cannot entertain such proposals of conquest and domination.
The whole incident is full of significance. It is also full of
perplexity. With whom are the Russian representatives deal-
ing ? For whom are the representatives of the Central Empires
speaking? Are they speaking for the majorities of their re-
spective Parliaments or for the minority parties, that military
and imperialistic minority which has so far dominated their
whole policy and controlled the affairs of Turkey and of the
Balkan States, which have felt obliged to become their asso-
ciates in this war? The Russian representatives have in-
sisted, very justly, very wisely, and in the true spirit of
modern democracy that the conferences they have been
holding with the Teutonic and Turkish statesmen should be
held within open, not closed, doors, and all the world has
been audience, as was desired. To whom have we been
listening, then? To those who speak the spirit and inten-
tion of the resolutions of the German Reichstag of the Qth
of July last, the spirit and intention of the liberal leaders and
parties of Germany, or to those who resist and defy that spirit
and intention and insist upon conquest and subjugation? Or
are we listening, in fact, to both, unreconciled and in open
and hopeless contradiction ? These are very serious and preg-
nant questions. Upon the answer to them depends the peace
of the world.

AMERICA'S TERMS OF PEACE 289

But whatever the results of the parleys at Brest-Litovsk,
whatever the confusions of counsel and of purpose in the
utterances of the spokesmen of the Central Empires, they
have again attempted to acquaint the world with their objects
in the war and have again challenged their adversaries to say
what their objects are and what sort of settlement they would
deem just and satisfactory. There is no good reason why that
challenge should not be responded to, and responded to with
the utmost candor. We did not wait for it. Not once, but
again and again we have laid our whole thought and purpose
before the world, not in general terms only, but each time
with sufficient definition to make it clear what sort of definite
terms of settlement must necessarily spring out of them.
Within the last week Mr. Lloyd George has spoken with
admirable candor and in admirable spirit for the people and
government of Great Britain. There is no confusion of counsel
among the adversaries of the Central Powers, no uncertainty
of principle, no vagueness of detail. The only secrecy of
counsel, the only lack of fearless frankness, the only failure
to make definite statement of the objects of the war, lies with
Germany and her allies. The issues of life and death hang
upon these definitions. No statesman who has the least con-
ception of his responsibility ought for a moment to permit
himself to continue this tragical and appalling outpouring
of blood and treasure unless he is sure beyond a peradventure
that the objects of the vital sacrifice are part and parcel of
the very life of society and that the people for whom he speaks
think them right and imperative as he does.

There is, moreover, a voice calling for these definitions of
principle and of purpose which is, it seems to me, more thrill-
ing and more compelling than any of the many moving voices
with which the troubled air of the world is filled. It is the
voice of the Russian people. They are prostrate and all but
helpless, it would seem, before the grim power of Germany,
which has hitherto known no relenting and no pity. Their
power apparently is shattered. And yet their soul is not

290 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

subservient. They will not yield either in principle or in action.
Their conception of what is right, of what is humane and
honorable for them to accept, has been stated with a frank-
ness, a largeness of view, a generosity of spirit, and a universal
human sympathy which must challenge the admiration of
every friend of mankind ; and they have refused to compound
their ideals or desert others that they themselves may be safe.
They call to us to say what it is that we desire, in what, if in
anything, our purpose and our spirit differ from theirs ; and I
believe that the people of the United States would wish me to
respond with utter simplicity and frankness. Whether their
present leaders believe it or not, it is our heartfelt desire and
hope that some way may be opened whereby we may be
privileged to assist the people of Russia to attain their utmost
hope of liberty and ordered peace.

It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace,
when they are begun, shall be absolutely open, and that they
shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings
of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is
gone by ; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into
in the interest of particular governments and likely at some
unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world. It is
this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man
whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and
gone, which makes it possible for every nation whose purposes
are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow
now or at any other time the objects it has in view.

We entered this war because violations of right had occurred
which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own
people impossible unless they were corrected and the world
secured once for all against their recurrence. What we de-
mand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves.
It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in ; and par-
ticularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation
which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its
own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealings by

AMERICA'S TERMS OF PEACE 291

the other peoples of the world, as against force and selfish
aggression. All of the peoples of the world are in effect part-
ners in this interest and for our own part we see very clearly
that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us.

The program of the world's peace, therefore, is our program,
and that program, the only possible program, as we see it,
is this :

I. Open covenants of peace must be arrived at, after which
there will surely be no private international action or rulings of
any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the
public view.

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside
territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas
may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the
enforcement of international covenants.

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers
and the establishment of an equality of. trade conditions among all
the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for
its maintenance.

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national arma-
ments will reduce to the lowest point consistent with domestic
safety.

V. Free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of
all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle
that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests
of the population concerned must have equal weight with the equi-
table claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settle-
ment of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and
freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining
for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the
independent determination of her own political development and
national policy, and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society
of free nations under institutions of her own choosing ; and, more
than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need
and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her
sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their
good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished

292 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish
sympathy.

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated
and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which
she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single
act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the
nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined
for the government of their relations with one another. Without
this healing act the whole structure and validity of international
law is forever impaired.

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded
portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in
1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the
peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order
that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

LX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected
along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the
nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded
the freest opportunity of autonomous development.

XT. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated;
occupied territories restored ; Serbia accorded free and secure access
to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan States to one
another determined by friendly counsel along historically estab-
lished lines of allegiance and nationality ; and international guar-
antees of the political and economic independence and territorial
integrity of the several Balkan States should be entered into.

XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire
should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities
which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted
security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of auton-
omous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently
opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations
under international guarantees.

XIII. An independent Polish State should be erected which
should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish
populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to
the sea, and whose political and economic independence and terri-
torial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

AMERICA'S TERMS OF PEACE 293

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under
specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees
of political independence and territorial integrity to great and
small States alike.

In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and
assertions of right, we feel ourselves to be intimate partners
of all the governments and peoples associated together against
the imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided
in purpose. We stand together until the end.

For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to
fight and to continue to fight until they are achieved; but
only because we wish the right to prevail and desire a just
and stable peace, such as can be secured only by removing
the chief provocations to war, which this program does re-
move. We have no jealousy of German greatness, and there
is nothing in this program that impairs it. We grudge her
no achievement or distinction of learning or of pacific enter-
prise such as have made her record very bright and very
enviable. We do not wish to injure her or to block in any
way her legitimate influence or power. We do not wish to
fight her either with arms or with hostile arrangements of
trade, if she is willing to associate herself with us and the
other peace-loving naticns of the world in covenants of jus-
tice and law and fair dealing. We wish her only to accept a
place of equality among the peoples of the world — the new
world in which we now live — instead of a place of mastery.

Neither do we presume to suggest to her any alteration or
modification of her institutions. But it is necessary, we must
frankly say, and necessary as a preliminary to any intelligent
dealings with her on our part, that we should know whom her
spokesmen speak for when they speak to us, whether for- the
Reichstag majority or for the military party and the men
whose creed is imperial domination.

We have spoken now, surely in terms too concrete to ad-
mit of any further doubt or question. An evident principle
runs through the whole program I have outlined. It is the

294 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities, and their
right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one
another, whether they be strong or weak. Unless this prin-
ciple be made its foundation, no part of the structure of inter-
national justice can stand. The people of the United States
could act upon no other principle, and to the vindication of
this principle they are ready to devote their lives, their honor,
and everything that they possess. The moral climax of this,
the culminating and final war for human liberty, has come,
and they are ready to put their own strength, their own high-
est purpose, their own integrity and devotion to the test.

THE CONDITIONS OF PERMANENT PEACE

(Address in New York City on September 27, 1918)

WOODROW WILSON

[For sketch of Woodrow Wilson see page 3. The address here pre-
sented was delivered at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York
City, on September 27, 1918 at the opening of the Fourth Liberty Loan
Campaign. It is especially valuable for its discussion of the deeper issues
of the war and of the establishment of a League of Nations.]

MY FELLOW CITIZENS :

I am not here to promote the loan. That will be done — •
ably and enthusiastically done — • by the hundreds of thou-
sands of loyal and tireless men and women who have under-
taken to present it to you and to our fellow citizens throughout
the country ; and I have not the least doubt of their complete
success ; for I know their spirit and the spirit of the country.
My confidence is confirmed, too, by the thoughtful and ex-
perienced cooperation of the bankers here and everywhere,
who are lending their invaluable aid and guidance. I have
come, rather, to seek an opportunity to present to you some
thoughts which I trust will serve to give you, in perhaps fuller
measure than before, a vivid sense of the great issues involved,
in order that you may appreciate and accept with added
enthusiasm the grave significance of the duty of supporting
the Government by your men and your means to the utmost
point of sacrifice and self-denial. No man or woman who
has really taken in what this war means can hesitate to give
to the very limit of what they have; and it is my mission
here to-night to try to make it clear once more what the war

295

296 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

really means. You will need no other stimulation or reminder
of your duty.

At every turn of the war we gain a fresh consciousness of
what we mean to accomplish by it. When our hope and
expectation are most excited we think more definitely than
before of the issues that hang upon it and of the purposes
which must be realized by means of it. For it has positive
and well-defined purposes which we did not determine and
which we cannot alter. No statesman or assembly created
them : no statesman or assembly can alter them. They have
arisen out of the very nature and circumstances of the war.
The most that statesmen or assemblies can do is to carry them
out or be false to them. They were perhaps not clear at the
outset; but they are clear now. The war has lasted more
than four years and the whole world has been drawn into it.
The common will of mankind has been substituted for the
particular purposes of individual states. Individual states-
men may have started the conflict, but neither they nor their
opponents can stop it as they please. It has become a peoples'
war, and peoples of all sorts and races, of every degree of
power and variety of fortune, are involved in its sweeping
processes of change and settlement. We came into it when its
character had become fully denned and it was plain that no
nation could stand apart or be indifferent to its outcome.
Its challenge drove to the heart of everything we cared for
and lived for. The voice of the war had become clear and
gripped our hearts. Our brothers from many lands, as well
as our own murdered dead under the sea, were calling to us,
and we responded, fiercely and of course.

The air was clear about us. We saw things in their full,
convincing proportions as they were ; and we have seen them
with steady eyes and unchanging comprehension ever since.
We accepted the issues of the war as facts, not as any group
of men either here or elsewhere had defined them, and we can
accept no outcome which does not squarely meet and settle
them. Those issues are these :

THE CONDITIONS OF PERMANENT PEACE 297

Shall the military power of any nation or group of nations be
suffered to determine the fortunes of peoples over whom they have
no right to rule except the right of force?

Shall strong nations be free to wrong weak nations and make
them subject to their purpose and interest?

Shall peoples be ruled and dominated, even in their own internal
affairs, by arbitrary and irresponsible force or by their own will
and choice ?

Shall there be a common standard of right and privilege for all
peoples and nations or shall the strong do as they will and the weak
suffer without redress ?

Shall the assertion of right be haphazard and by casual alliance
or shall there be a common concert to oblige the observance of
common rights ?

No man, no group of men, chose these to be the issues of
the struggle. They are the issues of it ; and they must be
settled — • by no arrangement or compromise or adjustment
of interests, but definitely and once for all and with a full and
unequivocal acceptance of the principle that the interest of
the weakest is as sacred as the interest of the strongest.

This is what we mean when we speak of a permanent peace,
if we speak sincerely, intelligently, and with a real knowledge
and comprehension of the matter we deal with.

We are all agreed that there can be no peace obtained by
any kind of bargain or compromise with the Governments
of the Central Empires, because we have dealt with them
already and have seen them deal with other Governments
that were parties to this struggle, at Brest-Litovsk and
Bucharest. They have convinced us that they are without
honor and do not intend justice. They observe no covenants,
. accept no principle but force and their own interest. We
cannot "come to terms" with them. They have made it
impossible. The German people must by this time be fully
aware that we cannot accept the word of those who forced
this war upon us. We do not think the same thoughts or
speak the same language of agreement.

298 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

It is of capital importance that we should also be explicitly
agreed that no peace shall be obtained by any kind of com-
promise or abatement of the principles we have avowed as
the principles for which we are fighting. There should exist
no doubt about that. I am, therefore, going to take the lib-
erty of speaking with the utmost frankness about the prac-
tical implications that are involved in it.

If it be indeed and in truth the common object of the
Governments associated against Germany and of the nations
whom they govern, as I believe it to be, to achieve by the
coming settlements a secure and lasting peace, it will be
necessary that all who sit down at the peace table shall come
ready and willing to pay the price, the only price, that will
procure it; and ready and willing, also, to create in some
virile fashion the only instrumentality by which it can be
made certain that the agreements of the peace will be honored
and fulfilled.

That price is impartial justice in every item of the settle-
ment, no matter whose interest is crossed ; and not only
impartial justice, but also the satisfaction of the several
peoples whose fortunes are dealt with. That indispensable
instrumentality is a League of Nations formed under covenants
that will be efficacious. Without such an instrumentality,
by which the peace of the world can be guaranteed, peace
will rest in part upon the word of outlaws, and only upon
that word. For Germany will have to redeem her character,
not by what happens at the peace table but by what follows.
And, as I see it, the constitution of that League of Nations
and the clear definition of its objects must be a part, is in a
sense the most essential part, of the peace settlement itself.
It cannot be formed now. If formed now, it would be merely
a new alliance confined to the nations associated against a
common enemy. It is not likely that it could be formed after
the settlement. It is necessary to guarantee the peace; and
the peace cannot be guaranteed ,as an afterthought. The
reason, to speak in plain terms again, why it must be

THE CONDITIONS OF PERMANENT PEACE 299

guaranteed is that there will be parties to the peace whose
promises have proved untrustworthy, and means must be found
in connection with the peace settlement itself to remove that
source of insecurity. It would be folly to leave the guarantee
to the subsequent voluntary action of the Governments we
have seen destroy Russia and deceive Rumania.

But these general terms do not disclose the whole matter.
Some details are needed to make them sound less like a thesis
and more like a practical program. These, then, are some of
the particulars, and I state them with the greater confidence
because I can state them authoritatively as representing
this Government's interpretation of its own duty with regard
to peace :

First. The impartial justice meted out must involve no discrim-
ination between those to whom we wish to be just and those to
whom we do not wish to be just. It must be a justice that plays
no favorites and knows no standard but the equal rights of the
several peoples concerned.

Second. No special or separate interest of any single nation
or any group of nations can be made the basis of any part of the
settlement which is not consistent with the common interest of all.

Third. There can be no leagues or alliances or special covenants
and understandings within the general and common family of the
League of Nations.

Fourth. And more specifically, there can be no special, selfish
economic combinations within the league and no employment of
any form of economic boycott or exclusion except as the power
of economic penalty by exclusion from the markets of the world
may be vested in the League of Nations itself as a means of disci-
pline and control.

Fifth. All international agreements and treaties of every kind
must be made known in their entirety to the rest of the world.

Special alliances and economic rivalries and hostilities
have been the prolific source in the modern world of the plans
and passions that produce war. It would be an insincere
as well as an insecure peace that did not exclude them in
definite and binding terms.

300 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

The confidence with which I venture to speak for our people
in these matters does not spring from our traditions merely
and the well-known principles of international action which
we have always professed and followed. In the same sentence
hi which I say that the United States will enter into no special
arrangements or understandings with particular nations let
me say also that the United States is prepared to assume its
full share of responsibility for the maintenance of the common
covenants and understandings upon which peace must hence-
forth rest. We still read Washington's immortal warning
against "entangling alliances" with full comprehension and
an answering purpose. But only special and limited alliances
entangle ; and we recognize and accept the duty of a new day
in which we are permitted to hope for a general alliance which
will avoid entanglements and clear the air of the world for
common understandings and the maintenance of common
rights.

I have made this analysis of the international situation
which the war has created, not, of course, because I doubted
whether the leaders of the great nations and peoples with
whom we are associated were of the same mind and enter-
tained a like purpose, but because the air every now and again
gets darkened by mists and groundless doubtings and mis-
chievous perversions of counsel and it is necessary once and
again to sweep all the irresponsible talk about peace intrigues
and weakening morale and doubtful purpose on the part of
those in authority utterly, and if need be unceremoniously,
aside and say things in the plainest words that can be found,
even when it is only to say over again what has been said
before, quite as plainly if in less unvarnished terms.

As I have said, neither I nor any other man in govern-
mental authority created or gave form to the issues of this
war. I have simply responded to them with such vision as I
could command. But I have responded gladly and with a
resolution that has grown warmer and more confident as the
issues have grown clearer and clearer. It is now plain that

THE CONDITIONS OF PERMANENT PEACE 301

they are issues which no man can pervert unless it be willfully.
I am bound to fight for them, and happy to fight for them as
time and circumstance have revealed them to me as to all
the world. Our enthusiasm for them grows more and more
irresistible as they stand out in more and more vivid and un-
mistakable outline.

And the forces that fight for them draw into closer and
closer array, organize their millions into more and more un-
conquerable might, as they become more and more distinct
to the thought and purpose of the peoples engaged. It is
the peculiarity of this great war that while statesmen have
seemed to cast about for definitions of their purpose and have
sometimes seemed to shift their ground and their point of
view, the thought of the mass of men, whom statesmen are
supposed to instruct and lead, has grown more and more un-
clouded, more and more certain of what it is that they are
fighting for. National purposes have fallen more and more
into the background and the common purpose of enlightened
mankind has taken their place. The counsels of plain men
have become on all hands more simple and straightforward
and more unified than the counsels of sophisticated men of
affairs, who still retain the impression that they are playing
a game of power and playing for high stakes. That is why I
have said that this is a peoples' war, not a statesmen's. States-
men must follow the clarified common thought or be broken.

I take that to be the significance of the fact that assemblies
and associations of many kinds made up of plain workaday
people have demanded, almost every time they came together,
and are still demanding, that the leaders of their Govern-
ments declare to them plainly what it is, exactly what it is,
that they are seeking in this war, and what they think the
items of the final settlement should be. They are not yet
satisfied with what they have been told. They still seem to
fear that they are getting what they ask for only in states-
men's terms, — only in the terms of territorial arrangements
and divisions of power, and not in terms of broad-visioned

302 THE NEW EUROPE AND A LASTING PEACE

justice and mercy and peace and the satisfaction of those
deep-seated longings of oppressed and distracted men and
women and enslaved peoples that seem to them the only
things worth fighting a war for that engulfs the world. Per-
haps statesmen have not always recognized this changed
aspect of the whole world of policy and action. Perhaps they
have not always spoken in direct reply to the questions asked
because they did not know how searching those questions
were and what sort of answers they demanded.

But I, for one, am glad to attempt the answer again and
again, in the hope that I may make it clearer and clearer
that my one thought is to satisfy those who struggle in the
ranks and are, perhaps above all others, entitled to a reply
whose meaning no one can have any excuse for misunder-
standing, if he understands the language in which it is spoken
or can get some one to translate it correctly into his own. And
I believe that the leaders of the Governments with which we
are associated will speak, as they have occasion, as plainly
as I have tried to speak. I hope that they will feel free to say
whether they think that I am in any degree mistaken hi my
interpretation of the issues involved or in my purpose with
regard to the means by which a satisfactory settlement of those
issues may be obtained. Unity of purpose and of counsel are
as imperatively necessary in this war as was unity of command
in the battle field ; and with perfect unity of purpose and
counsel will come assurance of complete victory. It can be
had in no other way. " Peace drives" can be effectively neu-
tralized and silenced only by showing that every victory of
the nations associated against Germany brings the nations
nearer the sort of peace which will bring security and re-
assurance to all peoples and make the recurrence of another
such struggle of pitiless force and bloodshed forever impossible,
and that nothing else can. Germany is constantly intimating
the "terms" she will accept; and always finds that the world
does not want terms. It wishes the final triumph of justice
and fair dealing.

FEATURES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND
CHARACTER

NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS AS MOLDING
PUBLIC OPINION 1

JAMES BRYCE

[For another selection by the same author and a biographical sketch
see page 160.]

As the public opinion of a people is even more directly
than its political institutions the reflection and expression
of its character, we may begin the analysis of opinion in
America by noting some of those general features of national
character which give tone and color to the people's thoughts
and feelings on politics. There are, of course, varieties proper
to different classes, and to different parts of the vast territory
of the Union ; but it is well to consider first such character-
istics as belong to the nation as a whole, and afterwards to
examine the various classes and districts of the country.
And when I speak of the nation, I mean the native Americans.
What follows is not applicable to the recent immigrants from
Europe, and, of course, even less applicable to the Southern
negroes.

The Americans are a good-natured people, kindly, helpful
to one another, disposed to take a charitable view even of
wrongdoers. Their anger sometimes flames up, but the fire
is soon extinct. Nowhere is cruelty more abhorred. Even
a mob lynching a horse thief in the West has consideration
for the criminal, and will give him a good drink of whisky
before he is strung up. Cruelty to slaves was unusual while
slavery lasted, the best proof of which is the quietness of the
slaves during the war when all the men and many of the boys
of .the South were serving in the Confederate armies. As

1 From "The American Commonwealth," Chapter LXXX. Copyright,
1910, The Macmillan Company. Reprinted by permission.

305

306 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

everybody knows, juries are more lenient to offenses of all
kinds but one, offenses against women, than they are any-
where in Europe. The Southern "rebels" were soon for-
given; and though civil wars are proverbially bitter, there
have been few struggles in which the combatants did so many
little friendly acts for one another, few in which even the
vanquished have so quickly buried their resentments. It is
true that newspapers and public speakers say hard things of
their opponents ; but this is a part of the game, and is besides
a way of relieving their feelings: the bark is sometimes the
louder in order that a bite may not follow. Vindictiveness
shown by a public man excites general disapproval, and the
maxim of letting bygones be bygones is pushed so far that
an offender's misdeeds are often forgotten when they ought
to be remembered against him.

All the world knows that they are a humorous people.
They are as conspicuously the purveyors of humor to the
nineteenth century as the French were the purveyors of wit
to the eighteenth. Nor is this sense of the ludicrous side of
things confined to a few brilliant writers. It is diffused
among the whole people; it colors their ordinary life, and
gives to their talk that distinctively new flavor which a
European palate enjoys. Their capacity for enjoying a joke
against themselves was oddly illustrated at the outset of the
Civil War, a time of stern excitement, by the merriment
which arose over the hasty retreat of the Federal troops at
the battle of Bull Run. When William M. Tweed was ruling
and robbing New York, and had set on the bench men who
were openly prostituting justice, the citizens found the situa-
tion so amusing that they almost forgot to be angry. Much
of President Lincoln's popularity, and much also of the gift
he showed for restoring confidence to the North at the darkest
moments of the war, was due to the humorous way he used
to turn things, conveying the impression of not being himself
uneasy, even when he was most so.

307

The native Americans are an educated people, compared
with the whole mass of the population in any European
country except Switzerland, parts of Germany, Norway,
Iceland, and Scotland ; that is to say, the average of knowl-
edge is higher, the habit of reading and thinking more gen-
erally diffused, than in any other country. They know the
Constitution of their own country, they follow public affairs,
they join in local government and learn from it how govern-
ment must be carried on, and in particular how discussion
must be conducted in meetings, and its results tested at elec-
tions. The Town Meeting was for New England the most
perfect school of self-government in any modern country.
In villages, men used to exercise their minds on theological
questions, debating points of Christian doctrine with no
small acuteness. Women, in particular, pick up at the
public schools and from the popular magazines far more
miscellaneous information than the women of any European
country possess, and this naturally tells on the intelligence
of the men. Almost everywhere one finds women's clubs
in which literary, artistic, and social questions are discussed,
and to which men of mark are brought to deliver lectures.

That the education of the masses is nevertheless a super-
ficial education goes without saying. It is sufficient to enable
them to think they know something about the great problems
of politics; insufficient to show them how little they know.
The public elementary school gives everybody the key to
knowledge in making reading and writing familiar, but it has
not time to teach him how to use the key, whose use is in
fact, by the pressure of daily work, almost confined to the
newspaper and the magazine. So we may say that if the
political education of the average American voter be com-
pared with that of the average voter in Europe, it stands
high; but if it be compared with the functions which the
theory of the American government lays on him, which its
spirit implies, which the methods of its party organization
assume, its inadequacy is manifest. This observation, however,

3o8 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

is not so much a reproach to the schools, which generally
do what English schools omit — instruct the child in the prin-
ciples of the Constitution — as a tribute to the height of the
ideal which the American conception of popular rule sets up.
For the functions of the citizen are not, as has hitherto been
the case in Europe, confined to the choosing of legislators,
who are then left to settle issues of policy and select executive
rulers. The American citizen is one of the governors of the
Republic. Issues are decided and rulers selected by the direct
popular vote. Elections are so frequent that to do his duty
at them a citizen ought to be constantly watching public
affairs with a full comprehension of the principles involved
in them, and a judgment of the candidates derived from a
criticism of their arguments as well as a recollection of their
past careers. The instruction received in the common schools
and from the newspapers, and supposed to be developed by
the practice of primaries and conventions, while it makes the
voter deem himself capable of governing, does not fit him to
weigh the real merits of statesmen, to discern the true grounds
on which questions ought to be decided, to note the drift of
events and discover the direction in which parties are being
carried. He is like the sailor who knows the spars and ropes
of the ship and is expert in working her, but is ignorant of
geography and navigation; who can perceive that some of
the officers are smart and others dull, but cannot judge which
of them is qualified to use the sextant or will best keep his
head during a hurricane.

Religion apart, they are an unreverential people. I do not
mean irreverent, — far from it ; nor do I mean that they
have not a great capacity for hero-worship, as they have
many a time shown. I mean that they are little disposed,
especially in public questions — political, economical, or
social — to defer to the opinions of those who are wiser or
better instructed than themselves. Everything tends to

NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS 309

make the individual independent and self-reliant. He goes
early into the world; he is left to make his way alone; he
tries one occupation after another, if the first or second
venture does not prosper ; he gets to think that each man is
his own best helper and adviser. Thus he is led, I will not
say to form his own opinions, for few are those who do that,
but to fancy that he has formed them, and to feel little need
of aid from others towards correcting them. There is, there-
fore, less disposition than in Europe to expect light and lead-
ing on public affairs from speakers and writers. Oratory is
not directed towards instruction, but towards stimulation.
Special knowledge, which commands deference in applied
science or in finance, does not command it in politics, be-
cause that is not deemed a special subject, but one within
the comprehension of every practical man. Politics is, to be
sure, a profession, and so far might seem to need pro-
fessional aptitudes. But the professional politician is not
the man who has studied statesmanship, but the man who
has practiced the art of running conventions and winning
elections.

Even that strong point of America, the completeness and
highly popular character of local government, contributes
to lower the standard of attainment expected in a public
man, because the citizens judge of all politics by the politics
they see first and know best, — those of their township or city,
— and fancy that he who is fit to be selectman, or county
commissioner, or alderman, is fit to sit in the great council of
the nation. Like the shepherd in Virgil, they think the only
difference between their town and Rome is in its size, and
believe that what does for Lafayetteville will do well enough
for Washington. Hence when a man of statesmanlike gifts
appears, he has little encouragement to take a high and
statesmanlike tone, for his words do not necessarily receive
weight from his position. He fears to be instructive or horta-
tory, lest such an attitude should expose him to ridicule;
and in America ridicule is a terrible power. Nothing escapes

310 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

it. Few have the courage to face it. In the indulgence of
it even this humane race can be unfeeling.

They are a commercial people, whose point of view is
primarily that of persons accustomed to reckon profit and
loss. Their impulse is to apply a direct practical test to men
and measures, to assume that the men who have got on fastest
are the smartest men, and that a scheme that seems to pay
well deserves to be supported. Abstract reasonings they dis-
like, subtle reasonings they suspect; they accept nothing
as practical which is not plain, downright, apprehensible by
an ordinary understanding. Although open-minded, so far
as willingness to listen goes, they are hard to convince, be-
cause they have really made up their minds on most subjects,
having adopted the prevailing notions of their locality or
party as truths due to their own reflection.

They are an unsettled people. In no State of the Union
is the bulk of the population so fixed in its residence as every-
where in Europe; in some it is almost nomadic. Except in
the more stagnant parts of the South, nobody feels rooted to
the soil. Here to-day and gone to-morrow, he cannot readily
contract habits of trustful dependence on his neighbors.
Community of interest, or of belief in such a cause as temper-
ance, or protection for native industry, unites him for a time
with others similarly minded ; but congenial spirits seldom live
long enough together to form a school or type of local opinion
which develops strength and becomes a proselytizing force.
Perhaps this tends to prevent the growth of variety of opinion.
When a man arises with some power of original thought in
politics, he is feeble if isolated, and is depressed by his in-
significance, whereas if he grows up in favorable soil with
sympathetic minds around him, whom he can in prolonged
intercourse permeate with his ideas, he learns with con-
fidence and soars on the wings of his disciples. One who
considers the variety of conditions under which men live

NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS 311

in America may certainly find ground for surprise that there
should be so few independent schools of opinion.

But even while an unsettled, they are nevertheless an
associative, because a sympathetic people. Although the
atoms are in constant motion, they have a strong attraction
for one another. Each man catches his neighbor's sentiment
more quickly and easily than happens with the English.
That sort of reserve and isolation, that tendency to repel
rather than to invite confidence, which foreigners attribute
to the Englishman, though it belongs rather to the upper and
middle class than to the nation generally, is, though not
absent, yet less marked in America. It seems to be one of
the notes of difference between the two branches of the race.
In the United States, since each man likes to feel that his
ideas raise in other minds the same emotions as in his own,
a sentiment or impulse is rapidly propagated and quickly
conscious of its strength. Add to this the aptitude for or-
ganization which their history and institutions have educed,
and one sees how the tendency to form and the talent to work
combinations for a political or any other object has become
one of the great features of the country. Hence, too, the
immense strength of party. It rests not only on interest and
habit and the sense of its value as a means of working the
government, but also on the sympathetic element and in-
stinct of combination ingrained in the national character.

They are a changeful people. Not fickle, for they are if
anything too tenacious of ideas once adopted, too fast bound
by party ties, too willing, to pardon the errors of a cherished
leader. But they have what chemists call low specific heat;
they grow warm suddenly and cool as suddenly; they are
liable to swift and vehement outbursts of feeling which rush
like wildfire across the country, gaining glow, like the wheel
of a railway car, by the accelerated motion. The very simi-
larity of ideas and equality of conditions which makes them
hard to convince at first makes a conviction once implanted
run its course the more triumphantly. They seem all to take

312 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

flame at once, because what has told upon one, has told in
the same way upon all the rest, and the obstructing and sepa-
rating barriers which exist in Europe scarcely exist here.
Nowhere is the saying so applicable that nothing succeeds
like success. The native American or so-called Know-Nothing
party had in two years from its foundation become a tre-
mendous force, running, and seeming for a time likely to
carry, its own presidential candidate. In three years more
it was dead without hope of revival. Now and then, as for
instance in the elections of 1874-1875, and again in those of
1890, there comes a rush of feeling so sudden and tre-
mendous, that the name of Tidal Wave has been invented
to describe it.

After this it may seem a paradox to add that the Americans
are a conservative people. Yet any one who observes the
power of habit among them, the tenacity with which old
institutions and usages, legal and theological formulas, have
been clung to, will admit the fact. Moreover, prosperity
helps to make them conservative. They are satisfied with
the world they live in, for they have found it a good world,
in which they have grown rich and can sit under their own
vine and fig tree, none making them afraid. They are proud
of their history and of their Constitution, which has come out
of the furnace of civil war with scarcely the smell of fire upon
it. It is little to say that they do not seek change for the sake
of change, because the nations that do this exist only in the
fancy of alarmist philosophers. There are nations, however,
whose impatience of existing evils, or whose proneness to be
allured by visions of a brighter future, makes them under-
estimate the risk of change, nations that will pull up the
plant to see whether it has begun to strike root. This is not
the way of the Americans. They are no doubt ready to listen
to suggestions from any quarter. They do not consider that
an institution is justified by its existence, but admit every-
thing to be matter for criticism. Their keenly competitive
spirit and pride in their own ingenuity have made them

NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS 313

quicker than any other people to adopt and adapt inven-
tions : telephones were in use in every little town over the
West, while in the city of London men were just beginning
to wonder whether they could be made to pay. The Ameri-
cans have doubtless of late years become, especially in the
West, an experimental people, so far as politics and social
legislation are concerned. Yet there is also a sense in which
they are at bottom a conservative people, in virtue both of
the deep instincts of their race and of that practical shrewd-
ness which recognizes the value of permanence and solidity
in institutions. They are conservative in their fundamental
beliefs, in the structure of their governments, in their social
and domestic usages. They are like a tree whose pendulous
shoots quiver and rustle with the lightest breeze, while its
roots enfold the rock with a grip which storms cannot loosen.

CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE WEST TO AMERICAN
DEMOCRACY1

FREDERICK J. TURNER

[Frederick J. Turner (1861- ) was educated at the University of
Wisconsin and at Johns Hopkins, and from 1889 to 1910 was connected
with the former as instructor and professor of history. Since then he has
been Professor of History in Harvard University. He is best known for
his studies of Western history, among these being the present essay
and "The Rise of the New West" (1906) in the American Nation series.
Nowhere can a better presentation of the characteristic features of West-
ern democracy and its various problems be found than in the essay from
which the historical review below has been taken.]

... It is to changes in the economic and social life of a
people that we must look for the forces that ultimately create
and modify organs of political action. ... In dealing with
Western contributions to democracy, it is essential that the
considerations which have just been mentioned should be kept
in mind. Whatever these contributions may have been, we
find ourselves at the present time in an era of such profound
economic and social transformation as to raise the question of
the effect of these changes upon the democratic institutions
of the United States. Within a decade four marked changes
have occurred in our National development : taken together
they constitute a revolution.

First, there is the exhaustion of the supply of free land and
the closing of the movement of Western advance as an effec-
tive factor in American development. ... In the second
place, contemporaneously with this there has been such a
concentration of capital in the control of fundamental indus-
tries as to make a new epoch in the economic development
1 From A tlantic Monthly, January, 1903. Reprinted by permission.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 315

of the United States. ... A third phenomenon ... is the
expansion of the United States politically and commercially
into lands beyond the seas. . . . And fourth, the political
parties of the United States now tend to divide on issues that
involve the question of Socialism.

Jefferson was the first prophet of American democracy, and
when we analyze the essential features of his gospel, it is clear
that the Western influence was the dominant element. Jef-
ferson himself was born in the frontier region of Virginia, on
the edge of the Blue Ridge, in the middle of the eighteenth
century. His father was a pioneer. Jefferson's Notes on
Virginia reveal clearly his conception that democracy should
have an agricultural basis, and that manufacturing develop-
ment and city life were dangerous to the purity of the body
politic. Simplicity and economy in government, the right of
revolution, the freedom of the individual, the belief that those
who win the vacant lands are entitled to shape their own
government in their own way, these are all parts of the plat-
form of political principles to which he gave his adhesion,
and they are all elements eminently characteristic of the
Western democracy into which he was born. In the period of
the Revolution he had brought in a series of measures which
tended to throw the power of Virginia into the hands of the
settlers in the interior rather than of the coastwise aristocracy.
The repeal of the laws of entail and primogeniture would have
destroyed the great estates on which the planting aristocracy
based its power. The abolition of the established church
would still further have diminished the influence of the coast-
wise party in favor of the dissenting sects of the interior.
His scheme of general public education reflected the same
tendency, and his demand for the abolition of slavery was
characteristic of a representative of the West rather than of the
old-time aristocracy of the coast. His sympathy with Western
expansion culminated in the Louisiana Purchase. In a word,

316 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

the tendencies of Jefferson's legislation were to replace the
dominance of the planting aristocracy by the dominance of
the interior class, which had sought in vain to achieve its
liberties in the period of Bacon's rebellion.

Nevertheless, Thomas Jefferson was the John the Baptist
of democracy, not its Moses. Only with the slow setting of
the tide of settlement farther and farther toward the interior
did the democratic influence grow strong enough to take
actual possession of the government. The period from 1800
to 1820 saw a steady increase in these tendencies. The estab-
lished classes of New England and the South began to take
alarm. Perhaps no better illustration of the apprehensions of
the old-time Federal conservative can be given than these
utterances of President D wight, of Yale College, in the book of
travels which he published in that period :

The class of pioneers cannot live in regular society. They are
too idle, too talkative, too passionate, too prodigal, and too shift-
less to acquire either property or character. They are impatient
of the restraints of law, religion, and morality, and grumble about
the taxes by which the Rulers, Ministers, and Schoolmasters are
supported.

After exposing the injustice of the community in neglecting to
invest persons of such superior merit in public offices, in many an
eloquent harangue uttered by many a kitchen fire, in every black-
smith shop, in every corner of the streets, and finding all their ef-
forts vain, they become at length discouraged, and under the pres-
sure of poverty, the fear of the gaol, and consciousness of public
contempt, leave their native places and betake themselves to the
wilderness.

Such was a conservative's impression of that pioneer
movement of New England colonists who had spread up the
valley of the Connecticut into New Hampshire, Vermont,
and western New York in the period of which he wrote,
and who afterwards went on to possess the Northwest. New
England Federalism looked with a shudder at the democratic
ideas of those who refused to recognize the established order.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 317

But in that period there came into the Union a sisterhood of
frontier states — Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri — with
provisions for the franchise that brought in complete de-
mocracy. Even the newly created states of the Southwest
showed the same tendency. The wind of democracy blew so
strongly from the West, that even in the older states of New
York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia conventions
were called, which liberalized their constitutions by strength-
ening the democratic basis of the state. In the same time the
labor population of the cities began to assert its power and
its determination to share in government. Of this frontier
democracy which now took possession of the nation, Andrew
Jackson was the very personification. He was born in the back-
woods of the Carolinas in the midst of the turbulent democ-
racy that preceded the Revolution, and he grew up in the
frontier state of Tennessee. In the midst of this region of
personal feuds and frontier ideals of law, he quickly rose to
leadership. The appearance of this frontiersman on the floor
of Congress was an omen full of significance. He reached
Philadelphia at the close of Washington's administration,
having ridden on horseback nearly eight hundred miles to
his destination. Gallatin, himself a Western man, describes
Jackson as he entered the halls of Congress: "A tall, lank,
uncouth-looking personage, with long locks of hair hanging
over his face and a cue down his back tied in an eel skin ; his
dress singular ; his manners those of a rough backwoodsman."
And Jefferson testified : " When I was president of the Senate
he was a senator, and he could never speak on account of the
rashness of his feelings. I have seen him attempt it repeatedly
and as often choke with rage." At last the frontier in the
person of its typical man had found a place in the government.
This six-foot backwoodsman, with blue eyes that could blaze
on occasion, this choleric, impetuous, self-willed Scotch-Irish
leader of men, this expert duelist, and ready fighter, this
embodiment of the tenacious, vehement, personal West, was
in politics to stay. The frontier democracy of that time had

the instincts of the clansman in the days of Scotch border
warfare. Vehement and tenacious as the democracy was,
strenuously as each man contended with his neighbor for the
spoils of the new country that opened before them, they all
had respect for the man who best expressed their aspirations
and their ideas. Every community had its hero. In the war
of 1812 and the subsequent Indian fighting Jackson made
good his claim, not only to the loyalty of the people of Ten-
nessee, but of the whole West, and even of the nation. He had
the essential traits of the Kentucky and Tennessee frontier.
It was a frontier free from the influence of European ideas and
institutions. The men of the "Western World" turned their
backs upon the Atlantic Ocean, and with grim energy and
self-reliance began to build up a society free from the domi-
nance of ancient forms.

The Westerner defended himself and resented governmental
restrictions. The duel and the blood-feud found congenial
soil in Kentucky and Tennessee. The idea of the personality
of law was often dominant over the organized machinery of
justice. That method was best which was most direct and
effective. The backwoodsman was intolerant of men who
split hairs, or scrupled over the method of reaching the right.
In a word, the unchecked development of the individual was
the significant product of this frontier democracy. It sought
rather to express itself by choosing a man of the people than
by the formation of elaborate governmental institutions. It
was because Andrew Jackson personified these essential West-
ern traits that in his presidency he became the idol and the
mouthpiece of the popular will. In his assaults upon the
bank as an engine of aristocracy, and in his denunciation of
nullification, he went directly to his object with the ruthless
energy of a frontiersman. For formal law and the subtleties
of state sovereignty he had the contempt of a backwoodsman.
Nor is it without significance that this typical man of the new
democracy will always be associated with the triumph of the

CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 319

spoils system in national politics. To the new democracy of
the West, office was an opportunity to exercise natural rights
as an equal citizen of the community. Rotation hi office
served not simply to allow the successful man to punish his
enemies and reward his friends, but it also furnished the train-
ing in the actual conduct of political affairs which every
American claimed as his birthright. Only in a primitive
democracy of the type of the United States in 1830 could such
a system have existed without the ruin of the state. National
government in that period was no complex and nicely adjusted
machine, and the evils of the system were long in making
themselves fully apparent.

The triumph of Andrew Jackson marked the end of the old
era of trained statesmen for the presidency. With him began
the era of the popular hero. Even Martin Van Buren, whom
we think of in connection with the East, was born in a log
house under conditions that were not unlike parts of the older
West. Harrison was the hero of the Northwest, as Jackson
had been of the Southwest. Polk was a typical Tennesseean,
eager to expand the nation, and Zachary Taylor was what
Webster called a "frontier colonel." During the period that
followed Jackson power passed from the region of Kentucky
and Tennessee to the border of the Mississippi. The natural
democratic tendencies that had earlier shown themselves in the
Gulf States were destroyed, however, by the spread of cotton
culture and the development of great plantations in that re-
gion. What had been typical of the democracy of the Revo-
lutionary frontier and of the frontier of Andrew Jackson
was now to be seen in the states between the Ohio and the
Mississippi. As Andrew Jackson is the typical democrat of
the former region, so Abraham Lincoln is the very embodiment
of the pioneer period of the old Northwest. Indeed, he is the
embodiment of the democracy of the West. How can one
speak of him except in the words of Lowell's great Com-
memoration Ode :

320 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

For him her Old- World molds aside she threw,
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast

Of the unexhausted West,
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.

His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind,
Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars,
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind ;
Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined,
Fruitful and friendly for all human kind,
Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars.
Nothing of Europe here,

New birth of our new soil, the first American.

The pioneer life from which Lincoln came differed in impor-
tant respects from the frontier democracy typified by Andrew
Jackson. Jackson's democracy was contentious, individualis-
tic, and it sought the ideal of local self-government and expan-
sion. Lincoln represents rather the pioneer folk who entered
the forest of the great Northwest to chop out a home, to build
up their fortunes in the midst of a continually ascending
industrial movement. In the democracy of the Southwest,
industrial development and city life were only minor factors,
but to the democracy of the Northwest they were its very life.
To widen the area of the clearing, to contend with one another
for the mastery of the industrial resources of the rich provinces,
to struggle for a place in the ascending movement of society,
to transmit to one's offspring the chance for education, for
industrial betterment, for the rise in life which the hardships
of the pioneer existence denied to the pioneer himself , these
were some of the ideals of the region to which Lincoln came.
The men were commonwealth builders, industry builders.
Whereas the type of hero in the Southwest was militant, in
the Northwest he was industrial. It was in the midst of these
"plain people," as he loved to call them, that Lincoln grew

CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 321

to manhood. As Emerson says : "He is the true history of the
American people in his tune." The years of his early life were
the years when the democracy of the Northwest came into
struggle with the institution of slavery that threatened to
forbid the expansion of the democratic pioneer life in the West.
In President Eliot's essay on Five American Contributions
to Civilization he instances as one of the supreme tests of
American democracy its attitude upon the question of slavery.
But if democracy chose wisely and worked effectively toward
the solution of this problem, it must be remembered that
Western democracy took the lead. The rail-splitter himself
became the nation's President in that fierce time of struggle,
and the armies of the woodsmen and pioneer farmers recruited
in the old Northwest, under the leadership of Sherman and of
Grant, made free the Father of Waters, marched through
Georgia, and helped to force the struggle to a conclusion at
Appomattox. The free pioneer democracy struck down slave-
holding aristocracy on its march to the West.

The last chapter in the development of Western democracy
is the one that deals with its conquest over the vast spaces
of the new West. At each new stage of Western development,
the people have had to grapple with larger areas, with vaster
combinations. The little colony of Massachusetts veterans
that settled at Marietta received a land grant as large as the
state of Rhode Island. The band of Connecticut pioneers that
followed Moses Cleaveland to the Connecticut Reserve
occupied a region as large as the parent state. The area which
settlers of New England stock occupied on the prairies of
northern Illinois surpassed the combined area of Massa-
chusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Men who had been
accustomed to the narrow valleys and the little towns of the
East found themselves out on the boundless spaces of the
West dealing with units of such magnitude as dwarfed their
former experience. The Great Lakes, the prairies, the Great
Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the Mississippi and the Missouri,
furnished new standards of measurement for the achievement

322 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

of this industrial democracy. Individualism began to give
way to cooperation and to governmental activity. Even
in the earlier days of the democratic conquest of the wilderness,
demands had been made upon the government for support
in internal improvements, but this new West showed a grow-
ing tendency to call to its assistance the powerful arm of
national authority. In the period since the Civil War, the vast
public domain has been donated to the individual farmer, to
states for education, to railroads for the construction of trans-
portation lines. Moreover, with the advent of democracy in
the last fifteen years upon the Great Plains, new physical
conditions have presented themselves which have accelerated
the social tendency of Western democracy. The pioneer
farmer of the days of Lincoln could place his family on the
flatboat, strike into the wilderness, cut out his clearing, and
with little or no capital go on to the achievement of industrial
independence. Even the homesteader on the Western prairies
found it possible to work out a similar independent destiny,
although the factor of transportation made a serious and
increasing impediment to the free working out of his individual
career. But when the arid lands and the mineral resources of
the far West were reached, no conquest was possible by the
old individual pioneer methods. Here expensive irrigation
works must be constructed, cooperative activity was demanded
in utilization of the water supply, capital beyond the reach
of the small farmer was required. In a word, the physiographic
province itself decreed that the destiny of this new frontier
should be social rather than individual.

Magnitude of social achievement is the watchword of the
democracy since the Civil War. From petty towns built in
the marshes, cities arose whose greatness and industrial power
are the wonder of our time. The conditions were ideal for the
production of captains of industry. The old democratic admi-
ration for the self-made man, its old deference to the rights of
competitive individual development, together with the stu-
pendous natural resources that opened to the conquest of the

CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 323

keenest and the strongest, gave such conditions of mobility
as enabled the development of the vast industries which in
our own decade have marked the West.

Thus, in brief, have been outlined the larger phases of the
development of Western democracy in the different areas
which it has conquered. There has been a steady development
of the industrial ideal, and a steady increase of the social
tendency, in this later movement of Western democracy.
While the individualism of the frontier, so prominent in the
earliest days of Western advance, has been preserved as an
ideal, more and more these individuals struggling each with
the other, dealing with vaster and vaster areas, with larger
and larger problems, have found it necessary to combine under
the leadership of the strongest. This is the explanation of
the rise of those preeminent captains of industry whose genius
has concentrated capital to control the fundamental resources
of the nation. If now, in the way of recapitulation, we try
to pick out from the influences that have gone to the making
of Western democracy the factors which constitute the net
result of this movement, we shall have to mention at least
the following :

Most important of all has been the fact that an area of free
land has continually lain on the western border of the settled
area of the United States. Whenever social conditions tended
to crystallize in the East, whenever capital tended to press
upon labor or political restraints to impede the freedom of
the mass, there was this gate of escape to the free conditions
of the frontier. These free lands promoted individualism,
economic equality, freedom to rise, democracy. Men would
not accept inferior wages and a permanent position of social
subordination when this promised land of freedom and equality
was theirs for the taking. Who would rest content under
oppressive legislative conditions when with a slight effort he
might reach a land wherein to become a co-worker in the
building of free cities and free states on the lines of his own
ideal? In a word, then, free lands meant free opportunities.

324 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

Their existence has differentiated the American democracy
from the democracies which have preceded it, because ever
as democracy in the East took the form of a highly specialized
and complicated industrial society, in the West it kept in
touch with primitive conditions, and by action and reaction
these two forces have shaped our history.

In the next place, these free lands and this treasury of
industrial resources have existed over such vast spaces that
they have demanded of democracy increasing spaciousness
of design and power of execution. Western democracy is con-
trasted with the democracy of all other times in the largeness
of the tasks to which it has set its hand, and in the vast achieve-
ments which it has wrought out in the control of nature and of
politics. Upon the region of the Middle West alone could be
set down all of the great countries of Central Europe, — France,
Germany, Italy, and Austro-Hungary, — and there would
still be a liberal margin. It would be difficult to over-empha-
size the importance of this training upon democracy. Never
before in the history of the world has a democracy existed on
so vast an area and handled things in the gross with such
success, with such largeness of design, and such grasp upon the
means of execution. In short, democracy has learned in the
West of the United States how to deal with the problem of
magnitude. The old historic democracies were but little states
with primitive economic conditions.

But the very task of dealing with vast resources, over vast
areas, under the conditions of free competition furnished by
the West, has produced the rise of those captains of industry
whose success in consolidating economic power now raises
the question as to whether democracy under such conditions
can survive. For the old military type of Western leaders like
George Rogers Clark, Andrew Jackson, and William Henry
Harrison have been substituted such industrial leaders as
James Hill, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie.

The question is imperative, then, What ideals persist from

CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 325

this democratic experience of the West; and have they
acquired sufficient momentum to sustain themselves under
conditions so radically unlike those in the days of their origin ?
In other words, the question put at the beginning of this dis-
cussion becomes pertinent. Under the forms of the American
democracy is there in reality evolving such a concentration of
economic and social power in the hands of a comparatively
few men as may make political democracy an appearance
rather than a reality? The free lands are gone. The material
forces that gave vitality to Western democracy are passing
away. It is to the realm of the spirit, to the domain of ideals
and legislation, that we must look for Western influence upon
democracy in our own days.

Western democracy has been from the time of its birth
idealistic. The very fact of the wilderness appealed to men
as a fair, blank page on which to write a new chapter in the
story of man's struggle for a higher type of society. The
Western wilds, from the Alleghanies to the Pacific, constituted
the richest free gift that was ever spread out before civilized
man. To the peasant and artisan of the Old World, bound
by the chains of social class, as old as custom and as inevitable
as fate, the West offered an exit into a free life and greater
well-being among the bounties of nature, into the midst of
resources that demanded manly exertion, and that gave in
return the chance for indefinite ascent in the scale of social
advance. "To each she offered gifts after his will." Never
again can such an opportunity come to the sons of men. It
was unique, and the thing is so near us, so much a part of our
lives, that we do not even yet comprehend its vast significance.
The existence of this land of opportunity has made America
the goal of idealists from the days of the Pilgrim Fathers.
With all the materialism of the pioneer movements, this
idealistic conception of the vacant lands as an opportunity
for a new order of things is unmistakably present. Kipling's
" Song of the English " has given it expression :

326 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town ;
We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.
Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the

Need,
Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead.

As the deer breaks — as the steer breaks — from the herd where

they graze,

In the faith of little children we went on our ways.
Then the wood failed — then the food failed — then the last water

dried —
In the faith of little children we lay down and died.

On the sand-drift — on the veldt-side — in the fern-scrub we lay,
That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way.
Follow after — follow after ! We have watered the root,
And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit !
Follow after — we are waiting by the trails that we lost
For the sound of many footsteps, for the tread of a host.

Follow after — follow after — for the harvest is sown :
By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own !

This was the vision that called to Roger Williams, — that
"prophetic soul ravished of truth disembodied," "unable to
enter into treaty with its environment," and forced to seek the
wilderness. "Oh, how sweet," wrote William Penn, from his
forest refuge, "is the quiet of these parts, freed from the
troubles and perplexities of woeful Europe." And here he pro-
jected what he called his "Holy Experiment in Government."

If the later West offers few such striking illustrations of the
relation of the wilderness to idealistic schemes, and if some of
the designs were fantastic and abortive, none the less the
influence is a fact. Hardly a Western state but has been the
Mecca of some sect or band of social reformers, anxious to
put into practice their ideals, in vacant land, far removed
from the checks of a settled form of social organization. Con-
sider the Dunkards, the Icarians, the Fourierists, the Mormons,
and similar idealists who sought our Western wilds. But the

CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 327

idealistic influence is not limited to the dreamers' conception
of a new state. It gave to the pioneer farmer and city builder
a restless energy, a quick capacity for judgment and action,
a belief in liberty, freedom of opportunity, and a resistance to
the domination of class which infused a vitality and power
into the individual atoms of this democratic mass. Even as
he dwelt among the stumps of his newly cut clearing, the
pioneer had the creative vision of a new order of society.
In imagination he pushed back the forest boundary to the
confines of a mighty commonwealth ; he willed that log cabins
should become the lofty buildings of great cities. He decreed
that his children should enter into a heritage of education, com-
fort, and social welfare, and for this ideal he bore the scars
of the wilderness. Possessed with this idea he ennobled his
task and laid deep foundations for a democratic state. Nor
was this idealism by any means limited to the American pioneer.
To the old native democratic stock has been added a vast
army of recruits from the Old World. There are in the Middle
West alone four million persons of German parentage out of a
total of seven millions in the country. Over a million persons
of Scandinavian parentage live in the same region. This im-
migration culminated in the early eighties, and although
there have been fluctuations since, it long continued a most
extraordinary phenomenon. The democracy of the newer
West is deeply affected by the ideals brought by these immi-
grants from the Old World. To them America was not simply
a new home; it was a land of opportunity, of freedom, of
democracy. It meant to them, as to the American pioneer that
preceded them, the opportunity to destroy the bonds of social
caste that bound them in their older home, to hew out for
themselves in a new country a destiny proportioned to the
powers that God had given them, a chance to place their
families under better conditions and to win a larger life than
the life that they had left behind. He who believes that even
the hordes of recent immigrants from southern Italy are
drawn to these shores by nothing more than a dull and blind

328 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

materialism has not penetrated into the heart of the problem.
The idealism and expectation of these children of the Old
World, the hopes which they have formed for a newer and a
freer life across the seas, are almost pathetic when one con-
siders how far they are from the possibility of fruition. He
who would take stock of American democracy must not forget
the accumulation of human purposes and ideals which immi-
gration has added to the American populace.

In this connection it must also be remembered that these
democratic ideals have existed at each stage of the advance
of the frontier, and have left behind them deep and enduring
effects on the thinking of the whole country. Long after the
frontier period of a particular region of the United States has
passed away, the conception of society, the ideals and aspira-
tions which it produced, persists in the minds of the people.
So recent has been the transition of the greater portion of the
United States from frontier conditions to conditions of settled
life, that we are, over the larger portion of the United States,
hardly a generation removed from the primitive conditions of
the West. If, indeed, we ourselves were not pioneers, our
fathers were, and the inherited ways of looking at things, the
fundamental assumptions of the American people, have all
been shaped by this experience of democracy on its westward
march. This experience has been wrought into the very warp
and woof of American thought. Even those masters of indus-
try and capital who have risen to power by the conquest of
Western resources came from the midst of this society and
still profess its principles. John D. Rockefeller was born on a
New York farm, and began his career as a young business man
in St. Louis. Marcus Hanna was a Cleveland grocer's clerk
at the age of twenty. Claus Spreckles, the sugar king, came
from Germany as a steerage passenger to the United States in
1848. Marshall Field was a farmer boy in Conway, Massachu-
setts, until he left to grow up with the young Chicago. Andrew
Carnegie came as a ten year old boy from Scotland to Pitts-
burg, then a distinctively Western town. He built up his

CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 329

fortunes through successive grades until he became the
dominating factor in the great iron industries, and paved the
way for that colossal achievement, the steel trust. Whatever
may be the tendencies of this corporation, there can be little
doubt of the democratic ideals of Mr. Carnegie himself.
With lavish hand he has strewn millions through the United
States for the promotion of libraries. The effect of this library
movement in perpetuating the democracy that comes from
an intelligent and self-respecting people can hardly be meas-
ured. In his " Triumphant Democracy," published in 1886,
Mr. Carnegie, the iron master, said, in reference to the mineral
wealth of the United States: "Thank God, these treasures
are in the hands of an intelligent people, the Democracy,
to be used for the general good of the masses, and not made
the spoils of monarchs, courts, and aristocracy, to be turned to
the base and selfish ends of a privileged hereditary class." It
would b5 hard to find a more rigorous assertion of democratic
doctrine than the celebrated utterance attributed to the
same man, that he should feel it a disgrace to die rich.

In enumerating the services of American democracy, Presi-
dent Eliot includes the corporation as one of its achievements,
declaring that "freedom of incorporation, though no longer
exclusively a democratic agency, has given a strong support
to democratic institutions." In one sense this is doubtless
true, since the corporation has been one of the means by
which small properties can be aggregated into an effective
working body. Socialistic writers have long been fond of point-
ing out also that these various concentrations pave the way
for and make possible social control. From this point of view
it is possible that the masters of industry may prove to be not
so much an incipient aristocracy as the pathfinders for democ-
racy in reducing the industrial world to systematic consoli-
dation suited to democratic control. The great geniuses that
have built up the modern industrial concentration were trained
in the midst of democratic society. They were the product of
these democratic conditions. Freedom to rise was the very

330 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

condition of their existence. Whether they will be followed by
successors who will adopt the policy of exploitation of the
masses, and who will be capable of retaining under efficient
control these vast resources, is one of the questions which we
shall have to face.

This, at least, is clear : American democracy is funda-
mentally the outcome of the experiences of the American
people in dealing with the West. Western democracy through
the whole of its earlier period tended to the production of a
society of which the most distinctive fact was the freedom
of the individual to rise under conditions of social mobility,
and whose ambition was the liberty and well-being of the
masses. This conception has vitalized all American democ-
racy, and has brought it into sharp contrast with the democ-
racies of history, and with those modern efforts of Europe to
create an artificial democratic order by legislation. The prob-
lem of the United States is not to create democracy, but to
conserve democratic institutions and ideals. In the later period
of its development, Western democracy has been gaining
experience in the problem of social control. It has steadily
enlarged the sphere of its action and the instruments for its
perpetuation. By its system of public schools, from the grades
to the graduate work of the great universities, the West has
created a larger single body of intelligent plain people than
can be found elsewhere in the world. Its educational forces
are more democratic than those of the East, and counting the
common schools and colleges together, the Middle West alone
has twice as many students as New England and the Middle
States combined. Its political tendencies, whether we con-
sider Democracy, Populism, or Republicanism, are distinctly
in the direction of greater social control and the conservation
of the old democratic ideals. To these ideals the West as a
whole adheres with even a passionate determination. If, in
working out its mastery of the resources of the interior, it has
produced a type of industrial leader so powerful as to be the
wonder of the world, nevertheless it is still to be determined

CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 331

whether these men constitute a menace to democratic insti-
tutions, or the most efficient factor for adjusting democratic
control to the new conditions.

Whatever shall be the outcome of the rush of this huge
industrial modern United States to its place among the nations
of the earth, the formation of its Western democracy will
always remain one of the wonderful chapters in the history of
the human race. Into this vast shaggy continent of ours
poured the first feeble tide of European settlement. European
men, institutions, and ideas were lodged in the American
wilderness, and this great American West took them to her
bosom, taught them a new way of looking upon the destiny
of the common man, trained them in adaptation to the condi-
tions of the New World, to the creation of new institutions to
meet new needs, and ever as society on her eastern border grew
to resemble the Old World in its social forms and its industry,
ever, as it began to lose its faith in the ideals of democracy,
she opened new provinces, and dowered new democracies in
her most distant domains with her material treasures and with
the ennobling influence that the fierce love of freedom, the
strength that came from hewing out a home, making a school
and a church, and creating a higher future for his family,
furnished to the pioneer. She gave to the world such types as
the farmer Thomas Jefferson, with his Declaration of Inde-
pendence, his statute for religious toleration, and his purchase
of Louisiana. She gave us Andrew Jackson, that fierce Ten-
nessee spirit who broke down the traditions of conservative
rule, swept away the privacies and privileges of officialdom,
and, like a Gothic leader, opened the temple of the nation to
the populace. She gave us Abraham Lincoln, whose gaunt
frontier form and gnarled, massive hand told of the conflict
with the forest, whose grasp on the ax handle of the pioneer
was no firmer than his grasp of the helm of the ship of state
as it Freasted the seas of civil war. She gave us the tragedy
of the pioneer farmer as he marched daringly on to the conquest
of the arid lands, and met his first defeat by forces too strong to

332 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

be dealt with under the old conditions. She has furnished to
this new democracy her stores of mineral wealth, that dwarf
those of the Old World, and her provinces that in themselves are
vaster and more productive than most of the nations of Europe.
Out of her bounty has come a nation whose industrial competi-
tion alarms the Old World, and the masters of whose resources
wield wealth and power vaster than the wealth and power of
kings. Best of all, the West gave, not only to the American,
but to the unhappy and oppressed of all lands, a vision of hope,
an assurance that the world held a place where were to be
found high faith in man and the will and power to furnish
him the opportunity to grow to the full measure of his own
capacity. Great and powerful as are the new sons of her loins,
the Republic is greater than they. The paths of the pioneer
have widened into broad highways. The forest clearing has
expanded into affluent commonwealths. Let us see to it that
the ideals of the pioneer in his log cabin shall enlarge into the
spiritual life of a democracy where civic power shall dominate
and utilize individual achievement for the common good.

THE SPIRIT OF THE PACIFIC COAST1

JOSIAH ROYCE

[Josiah Royce (1855-1916), one of the greatest American philosophers,
was born in California and educated at the University of California and
at Johns Hopkins. From 1882 to his death he taught philosophy at Har-
vard. He wrote, besides a large number of other works, a history of Cali-
fornia, "The Philosophy of Loyalty" (1908), and "William James and
Other Essays on the Philosophy of Life" (1911). His brilliant defense
of idealism entitled "Loyalty and Insight" in the last-mentioned vol-
ume is perhaps the best popular example of his philosophical teaching.
The analysis below is part of an address entitled "The Pacific Coast:
A Psychological Study of the Relations of Climate and Civilization,"
prepared for a meeting of the National Geographic Society in 1898 and
first printed in the International Monthly for November, 1900. Its
luminous discussion of the distinctive temperament of the inhabitant
of the Pacific Coast is a valuable contribution to any survey of Amer-
ican character.]

I have been asked to describe some of the principal physical
aspects of California, and to indicate the way in which they
have been related to the life and civilization of the region.
The task is at once, in its main outlines, comparatively simple,
and in its most interesting details hopelessly complex. The
topography of the Pacific slope, now well known to most
travelers, is in certain of its principal features extremely easy
to characterize. The broad landscapes, revealing very fre-
quently at a glance the structure of wide regions, give one an
impression that the meaning of the whole can easily be com-
prehended. Closer study shows how difficult it is to under-
stand-the relation of precisely such features to the life that
has grown up in this region.- The principal interest of the
task lies in the fact that it is our American character and

1 From "Race Questions, Provincialism, and Other American Problems."
Copyright, 1908, by The Macmillan Company. Reprinted by permission.

333

334 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

civilization which have been already molded in new ways
by these novel aspects of the far western regions. But we
stand at the beginning of a process which must continue for
long ages. Any one interested in the unity of our national life,
and in the guiding of our destinies by broad ideals, desires
to conceive in some fashion how the physical features of the
Pacific Coast may be expected to mold our national type.
Yet thus far we have, as it were, only the most general indi-
cations of what the result must be.

In endeavoring to distinguish between what has already re-
sulted from physical conditions and what has been due to per-
sonal character, to deliberate choice, or to the general na-
tional temperament, or to what we may have to call pure
accident, one is dealing with a task for which the data are not
yet sufficient. We can but make a beginning.

One may say that the main feature of the whole climate,
apart from its mildness, is the relatively predictable charac-
ter of the year's weather. In the drier regions of the south,
wherever irrigation is possible and has been developed, the
agriculturist often feels a superiority to weather conditions
which makes him rejoice in the very drought that might other-
wise be regarded as so formidable. In central California one
is sure, in advance, of the weather that will steadily prevail
during all the summer months. Agricultural operations are
thus rendered definite by the knowledge of when the, drought
is coming, and by the freedom from all fear of sudden storms
during the harvest season.

That this climate is delightful to those who are used to its
routine will be well known to most readers. That it is not with-
out its disagreeable features is equally manifest to every tour-
ist. Nor can one say that this far western country is free from
decided variations in the fortunes of different years. Where
irrigation is not developed, great anxiety is frequently felt with
regard to the sufficiency of the annual rain supply of the rainy
season. Years of relative flood and of relative drought are as
well known here as elsewhere. Nor is one wholly free within

THE PACIFIC COAST 335

any one season, from unexpected and sometimes disagreeably
long-continued periods of unseasonable temperature. A high
barometer over the region north and east of California occa-
sionally brings to pass the well-known California "northers."
These have, in the rainy season, a character that in some
respects reminds one of the familiar cold-wave phenomena of
the east, although the effect is very much more moderate.
Frosts may then extend throughout northern California,
may beset the central Coast Range, and may on occasion
extend far into the southern part of California itself. But
when the "northers" come during the dry season, they are
frequently intensely hot winds, whose drought, associated with
hill or forest fires, may give rise to very memorable experiences.
But these are the inevitable and minor vicissitudes of a
climate which is, on the whole, remarkably steady, and which
is never as trying as are the well-known variations of our own
northeastern climate. The generally good effect upon the
health of such a climate is modified in certain cases by the
possibly over-stimulating character of the coast summer,
which, as for instance at San Francisco, permits one to work
without thought of holidays all the year round. In my own
boyhood it used often to be said that there were busy men in
San Francisco who had reached that place in 1849, and who
had become prominent in mercantile or other city life, and
who had never taken vacations, and never left San Francisco,
even to cross the bay, from the hour of their coming until that
moment. Of course, such men can be found hi almost any
busy community, but these men seemed rather characteristic
of the early California days and suggested the way hi which
a favorable climate may on occasion be misused by an ambi-
tious ifian to add to the strains otherwise incident to the life
of a new country.

If one attempts to describe in what way the civilization
either of the golden days or of the later agricultural period

336 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

has been affected by the geographical conditions, a student
of my own habits and prejudices feels at once disposed to pass
directly to the inner life of the Calif ornian and to ask himself
what influence the nature and climate of such a region seem to
have upon the life of the individual mind and body, and,
indirectly, upon the social order.

The most familiar account of the California climate in
literature is Bret Harte's characterization of the seasonal
changes in his poem, "Concepcion Arguello." The scene is
here at the Presidio at San Francisco, close by the Golden
Gate, where the heroine waited for her Ipver during the long
years that the poem describes.

Day by day on wall and bastion beat the hollow empty breeze —
Day by day the sunlight glittered on the vacant, smiling seas ;
Week by week the near hills whitened in their dusty leather

cloaks —

Week by week the far hills darkened from the fringing plain of oaks ;
Till the rains came, and far-breaking, on the fierce southwester

tost,
Dashed the whole long coast with color, and then vanished and were

lost.

So each year the seasons shifted, wet and warm and drear and dry ;
Half a year of clouds and flowers — half a year of dust and sky.

Now what all this poetry in general psychologically means,
quite apart from special moods, is that the Californian, of
necessity, gains a kind of sensitiveness to nature which is
different in type from the sensitiveness that a severer climate
would inevitably involve, and different too in type from that
belonging to climates mild but moist and more variable. In
the first place, as you see, such a climate permits one to be a
great deal out of doors in the midst of nature. It permits
wide views, where the outlines are vast and in general clear.
As, when you are on a steamer it is a matter of some skill to
understand what are the actual conditions of wind and sea,
while, when you are on a sailing vessel, you constantly feel
both the wind and the sea with a close intimacy that needs no

THE PACIFIC COAST 337

technical knowledge to make it at least appreciated, so, in the
case of such a climate as the one of California, your relations
with nature are essentially intimate, whether you are a stu-
dent of nature or not. Your dependence upon nature you
feel in one sense more, and in another sense less, — more, be-
cause you are more constantly in touch with the natural
changes of the moment ; less, because you know that nature
is less to be feared than under severer conditions. And this
intimacy with nature means a certain change in your relations
to your fellow men. You get a sense of power from these wide
views, a habit of personal independence from the contempla-
tion of a world that the eye seems to own. Especially hi
country life the individual Californian consequently tends
toward a certain kind of independence which I find in a strong
and subtle contrast to the sort of independence that, for in-
stance, the New England farmer cultivates. The New
England farmer must fortify himself in his stronghold against
the seasons. He must be ready to adapt himself to a year
that permits him to prosper only upon decidedly hard terms.
But the California country proprietor can have, during the
drought, more leisure, unless, indeed, his ambition for wealth
too much engrosses him. His horses are plenty and cheap.
His fruit crops thrive easily. He is able to supply his table
with fewer purchases, with less commercial dependence. His
position is, therefore, less that of the knight in his castle and
more that of the free dweller in the summer cottage, who is
indeed not at leisure, but can easily determine how he shall be
busy. It is of little importance to him who his next neighbor
is. At pleasure he can ride or drive a good way to find his
friends ; can chc ose, like the southern planter of former days,
his own range of hospitality ; can devote himself, if a man of
cultivation, to reading during a good many hours at his own
choice, or, if a man of sport, can find during a great part of the
year easy opportunities for hunting or for camping both for
himself and for the young people of his family. In the dry
season he knows beforehand what engagements can be made,

338 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

without regard to the state of the weather, since the state of
the weather is predetermined.

The free life and interchange of hospitality, so often de-
scribed in the accounts of early California, has left its traces in
the country life of California at the present day. Very readily,
if you have moderate means, you can create your own quiet
estate at a convenient distance from the nearest town. You
may cover your house with a bower of roses, surround yourself
with an orchard, quickly grow eucalyptus as a shade tree, and
with nearly equal facility multiply other shade trees. You
become, on easy terms, a proprietor, with estate and home of
your own. Now all this holds, in a sense, of any mild climate.
But in California the more regular routine of wet and dry
seasons modifies and renders more stable the general psycho-
logical consequences. All this is encouraging to a kind of
harmonious individuality that already tends in the best in-
stances toward a somewhat Hellenic type.

A colleague of my own, a New Englander of the strictest
persuasion, who visited California for a short time when he
was himself past middle life, returned enthusiastic with the
report that the California countrymen seemed to him to re-
semble the ancient, yes, even the Homeric, Greeks of the
Odyssey. The Californians had their independence of judg-
ment ; their carelessness of what a barbarian might think, so
long as he came from beyond the border ; their apparent free-
dom in choosing what manner of men they should be ; their
ready and confident speech. All these things my friend at
once noticed as characteristic. Thus different in type are
these country proprietors from the equally individual, the
secretively independent, the silently conscientious New
England villagers. They are also quite different from the
typical southern proprietors. From the latter they differ in
having less tendency to respect traditions, and in laying much
less stress upon formal courtesies. The Californian, like the
westerner in general, is likely to be somewhat abrupt in
speech, and his recent coming to the land has made him on

THE PACIFIC COAST 339

the whole quite indifferent to family tradition. I myself, for
instance, reached twenty years of age without ever becoming
clearly conscious of what was meant by judging a man by his
antecedents, a judgment that in an older and less isolated com-
munity is natural and inevitable, and that, I think, in most of
our western communities, grows up more rapidly than it has
grown up in California, where the geographical isolation is
added to the absence of tradition. To my own mind, in child-
hood, every human being was, with a few exceptions, whatever
he happened to be. Hereditary distinctions I appreciated only
in case of four types of humanity. There were the Chinamen,
there were the Irishmen, there were the Mexicans, and there
were the rest of us. Within each of these types, every man,
to my youthful mind, was precisely what God and himself had
made him, and it was distinctly a new point of view to attach
a man to the antecedents that either his family or his other
social relationships had determined for him. Now, I say,
this type of individuality, known more or less in our western
communities, but developed in peculiarly high degree in
California, seems to me due not merely to the newness of the
community, and not merely to that other factor of geographi-
cal isolation that I just mentioned, but to the relation with
nature of which we have already spoken. It is a free and on
the whole, an emotionally exciting, and also, as we have said,
an engrossing and intimate relation.

In New England, if you are moody, you may wish to take a
long walk out-of-doors, but that is not possible at all or even
at most seasons. Nature may not be permitted to comfort
you. In California, unless you are afraid of the rain, nature
welcomes you at almost any time. The union of the man and
the visible universe is free, is entirely unchecked by any hos-
tility on the part of nature, and is such as easily fills one's
mind with wealth of warm experience. Our poet just
quoted has laid stress upon the directly or symbolically pain-
ful aspects of the scene. But these are sorrows of a sort that
mean precisely that relation with nature which I am trying

340 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

to characterize, not the relation of hostility but of closeness.
And this is the sort of closeness determined not merely by mild
weather, but by long drought and b} the relative steadiness of
all the climatic conditions.

Now, I must feel that such tendencies are of vast impor-
tance, not merely to-day but for all time. They are tendencies
whose moral significance in the life of California is of course
both good and evil, since man's relations with nature are, in
general, a neutral material upon which ethical relations may
be based. If you are industrious, this intimacy with nature
means constant cooperation, a cooperation never interrupted
by frozen ground and deep snow. If you tend to idleness,
nature's kindliness may make you all the more indolent, and
indolence is a possible enough vice with the dwellers in all
mild climates. If you are morally careless, nature encour-
ages your freedom, and tends in so far to develop a kind of
morale frequently characteristic of the dwellers in gentle
climates. Yet the nature of California is not enervating. The
nights are cool, even in hot weather ; owing to the drought the
mildness of the air is not necessarily harmful. Moreover, the
nature that is so uniform also suggests in a very dignified way
a regularity of existence, a definite reward for a definitely
planned deed. Climate and weather are at their best always
capricious, and, as we have seen, the variations qf the Cali-
fornia seasons have involved the farmers in much anxiety,
and in many cases have given the farming business, as carried
on in certain California communities, the same sort of gam-
bling tendency that originally vitiated the social value of the
mining industry. But on the other hand, as the conditions
grew more stable, as agriculture developed, vast irrigation
enterprises introduced once more a conservative tendency.
Here again for the definite deed nature secures a definite re-
turn. In regions subject to irrigation, man controls the
weather as he cannot elsewhere. He is independent of the
current season. And this tendency to organization — a tend-
ency similar to the one that was obviously so potent in the

THE PACIFIC COAST 341

vast ancient civilization of Egypt — is present under Cali-
fornian conditions, and will make itself felt.

It remains necessary to characterize more fully the way in
which the consequences of the early days, joined to the
geographical factors upon which we have already laid stress,
have influenced the problems of California life and society.
From the very outset, climate and geographical position, and
the sort of life in which men were engaged, have encouraged
types of individuality whose subtle distinction from those
elsewhere to be found we have already attempted in a very
inadequate fashion to suggest. Accordingly, from the first
period down to the present time, the California community
has been a notable theater for the display of political and
financial, and, on occasion, of intellectual individuality of
decidedly extraordinary types.

It would be wholly wrong to conceive California individual-
ity as at all fairly represented by a border type such as Terry's.
Yet when one looks about in California society and politics,
one finds even at the present day picturesque personalities
preserving their picturesqueness amidst various grades of
nobility and baseness, in a fashion more characteristic, I
think, than is customary in most of our newer communities.
The nobler sort of picturesque personality may be the public
benefactor, like Lick or Sutro. He may be the social reformer
of vast ideals, like Henry George. Or again the baser individ-
ual may be the ignorant demagogue of the grade of Dennis
Kearney. Your California hero may be the chief of the Vigi-
lance Committee of 1856, or some other typical and admired
pi6neer, growing old in the glory of remembered early deeds.
He may be the railway magnate, building a transcontinental
line under all sorts of discouragements, winning a great for-
tune, and dying just as he founds a university. But in all
these phases he remains the strong individual type of man
that in a great democracy is always necessary. It is just this

342 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

type that, as some of us fear, the conditions of our larger
democracy in more eastern regions tend far too much to elim-
inate. In California, such individuality is by no means
yet eliminated.

The individuality that we have described quickly revolts
against its false prophets. In party politics, California.proves
to be an extremely doubtful state. Party ties are not close.
The vote changes from election to election. The independent
voter is well in place. Finally, through all these tendencies,
there runs a certain idealism, often more or less unconscious.
This idealism is partly due to the memory of the romance due
to the unique marvels of the early days. It is also sustained
by precisely that intimacy with nature which renders the
younger Californians so sensitive. I think that perhaps
Edward Rowland Sill, whose poems are nowadays so widely
appreciated, has given the most representative expression to
the resulting spirit of California, to that tension between indi-
vidualism and loyalty, between shrewd conservatism and bold
radicalism, which marks this community.

TRANS-NATIONAL AMERICA1
RANDOLPH S. BOURNE

[Randolph S. Bourne (1886- ) was educated at Columbia Uni-
versity and has traveled and studied in Europe. He is one of the most
important of the younger contributors to American magazines on social
and political movements and on education. His most important books
are "Youth and Life" (1913) and "Education and Living" (1917). The
pages below are part of a stimulating discussion on the assimilation of the
immigrant into American life which has come to be referred to as "the
melting pot."]

No reverberatory effect of the great war has caused Ameri-
can public opinion more solicitude than the failure of the
"melting pot." The discovery of diverse nationalistic feelings
among our great alien population has come to most people
as an intense shock. It has brought out the unpleasant in-
consistencies of our traditional beliefs. We have had to watch
hard-hearted old Brahmins virtuously indignant at the spec-
tacle of the immigrant refusing to be melted, while they jeer
at patriots like Mary Antin who write about "our forefathers."
We have had to listen to publicists who express themselves
as stunned by the evidence of vigorous nationalistic and cul-
tural movements in this country among Germans, Scan-
dinavians, Bohemians, and Poles, while in the same breath
they insist that the alien shall be forcibly assimilated to
that Anglo-Saxon tradition which they unquestioningly label
"American."

As the unpleasant truth has come upon us that assimilation
in this country was proceeding on lines very different from
those we had marked out for it, we found ourselves inclined
to blame those who were thwarting our prophecies. The

1 From Atlantic Monthly, July, 1916. Reprinted by permission.
343

344 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

truth became culpable. We blamed the war, we blamed the
Germans. And then we discovered with a moral shock that
these movements had been making great headway before the
war even began. We found that the tendency, reprehensible
and paradoxical as it might be, has been for the national
clusters of immigrants, as they became more and more firmly
established and more and more prosperous, to cultivate more
and more assiduously the literatures and cultural traditions
of their homelands. Assimilation, in other words, instead
of washing out the memories of Europe, made them more
and more intensely real. Just as these clusters became more
and more objectively American did they become more and
more German or Scandinavian or Bohemian or Polish.

To face the fact that our aliens are already strong enough
to take a share in the direction of their own destiny, and that
the strong cultural movements represented by the foreign
press, schools, and colonies are a challenge to our facile at-
tempts, is not, however, to admit the failure of Americaniza-
tion. It is not to fear the failure of democracy. It is rather to
urge us to an investigation of what Americanism may rightly
mean. It is to ask ourselves whether our ideal has been broad
or narrow — whether perhaps the time has not come to assert
a higher ideal than the "melting pot." Surely we cannot be
certain of our. spiritual democracy when, claiming to melt
the nations within us to a comprehension of our free and demo-
cratic institutions, we fly into panic at the first sign of their
own will and tendency. We act as if we wanted Americaniza-
tion to take place only on our own terms, and not by the
consent of the governed. All our elaborate machinery of
settlement and school and union, of social and political natu-
ralization, however, will move with friction just in so far as
it neglects to take into account this strong and virile insistence
that America shall be what the immigrant will have a hand
in making it, and not what a ruling class, descendant of those
British stocks which were the first permanent immigrants,
decide that America shall be made. This is the condition

TRANS-NATIONAL AMERICA 345

which confronts us, and which demands a clear and general
readjustment of our attitude and our ideal.

Mary Antin is right when she. looks upon our foreign-born
as the people who missed the Mayflower and came over on
the first boat they could find. We are all foreign-born or the
descendants of foreign-born, and if distinctions are to be made
between us, they should rightly be on some other ground than
indigenousness. The early colonists came over with motives
no less colonial than the later. They did not come to be assimi-
lated in an American melting pot. They did not come to
adopt the culture of the American Indian. They had not the
smallest intention of "giving themselves without reservation"
to the new country. They came to get freedom to live as
they wanted to. They came to escape from the stifling air
and chaos of the Old World ; they came to make their fortune
in a new land. They invented no new social framework.
Rather they brought over bodily the old ways to which they
had been accustomed. Tightly concentrated on a hostile
frontier, they were conservative beyond belief. Their pioneer
daring was reserved for the objective conquest of material
resources. In their folkways, in their social and political
institutions, they were, like every colonial people, slavishly
imitative of the mother-country. So that, in spite of the
"Revolution," our whole legal and political system remained
more English than the English, petrified and unchanging,
while in England law developed to meet the needs of the
changing times.

It is just this English-American conservatism that has
been our chief obstacle to social advance. We have needed
the new peoples — the order of the German and Scandinavian,
the turbulence of the Slav and Hun — to save us from our own
stagnation. I do not mean that the illiterate Slav is now
the equal of the New Englander of pure descent. He is raw
material to be educated, not into a New Englander, but
into a socialized American along such lines as those thirty

346 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

nationalities are being educated in the amazing schools of
Gary. I do not believe that this process is to be one of decades
of evolution. The spectacle of Japan's sudden jump from
medievalism to post-modernism should have destroyed that
superstition. We are not dealing with individuals who are to
"evolve." We are dealing with their children, who, with that
education we are about to have, will start level with all of
us. Let us cease to think of ideals like democracy as magical
qualities inherent in certain peoples. Let us speak, not of
inferior races, but of inferior civilizations. We are all to edu-
cate and to be educated. These peoples in America are in
a common enterprise. It is not what we are now that con-
cerns us, but what this plastic next generation may become
in the light of a new cosmopolitan ideal.

If we come to find this point of view plausible, we shall
have to give up the search for our native "American" cul-
ture. With the exception of the South and that New England
which, like the Red Indian, seems to be passing into solemn
oblivion, there is no distinctively American culture. It is
apparently our lot rather to be a federation of cultures. This
we have been for half a century and the war has made it
ever more evident that this is what we are destined to remain.
This will not mean, however, that there are not expressions
of indigenous genius that could not have sprung from any
other soil. Music, poetry, philosophy, have been singularly
fertile and new. Strangely enough, American genius has
flared forth just in those directions which are least under-
standed of the people. If the American note is bigness, ac-
tion, the objective as contrasted with the reflective life, where
is the epic expression of this spirit? Our drama and our
fiction, the peculiar fields for the expression of action and
objectivity, are somehow exactly the fields of the spirit which
remain poor and mediocre. American materialism is in some
way inhibited from getting into impressive artistic form its
own energy with which it bursts. Nor is it any better in

TRANS-NATIONAL AMERICA 347

architecture, the least romantic and subjective of all the arts.
We are inarticulate of the very values which we profess to
idealize. But in the finer forms — music, verse, the essay,
philosophy — the American genius puts forth work equal to
any of its contemporaries. Just in so far as our American
genius has expressed the pioneer spirit, the adventurous, for-
ward-looking drive of a colonial empire, is it representative
of that whole America of the many races and peoples, and not
of any partial or traditional enthusiasm. And only as that
pioneer note is sounded can we really speak of the American
culture. As long as we thought of Americanism in terms of
the "melting pot," our American cultural tradition lay in the
past. It was something to which the new Americans were
to be molded. In the light of our changing ideal of Ameri-
canism, we must perpetrate the paradox that our American
cultural tradition lies in the future. It will be what we all
together make out of this incomparable opportunity of attack-
ing the future with a new key.

The failure of the melting pot, far from closing the great
American democratic experiment, means that it has only
just begun. Whatever American nationalism turns out to be,
we see already that it will have a color richer and more excit-
ing than our ideal has hitherto encompassed. In a world
which has dreamed of internationalism, we find that we have
all unawares been building up the first international nation.
The voices which have cried for a tight and jealous nationalism
of the European pattern are failing. From that ideal, how-
ever valiantly and disinterestedly it has been set for us, time
and tendency have moved us further and further away. What
we have achieved has been rather a cosmopolitan federation
of national colonies, of foreign cultures, from whom the sting
of devastating competition has been removed. America
is already the world-federation in miniature, the continent
where for the first time in history has been achieved that

348 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

miracle of hope, the peaceful living side by side, with char-
acter substantially preserved, of the most heterogeneous
peoples under the sun. Nowhere else has such contiguity
been anything but the breeder of misery. Here, notwith-
standing our tragic failures of adjustment, the outlines are
already too clear not to give us a new vision and a new orienta-
tion of the American mind in the world.

It is for the American of the younger generation to accept
this cosmopolitanism, and carry it along with self-conscious
and fruitful purpose. In his colleges, he is already getting,
with the study of modern history and politics, the modern
literatures, economic geography, the privilege of a cosmopoli-
tan outlook such as the people of no other nation of to-day
in Europe can possibly secure. If he is still a colonial, he
is no longer the colonial of one partial culture, but of many.
He is a colonial of the world. Colonialism has grown into
cosmopolitanism, and his motherland is no one nation, but
all who have anything life-enhancing to offer to the spirit.
That vague sympathy which the France of ten years ago was
feeling for the world — a sympathy which was drowned in
the terrible reality of war — may be the modern American's,
and that in a positive and aggressive sense. If the American
is parochial, it is in sheer wantonness or cowardice. His
provincialism is the measure of his fear of bogies or the defect
of his imagination.

Only America, by reason of the unique liberty of oppor-
tunity and traditional isolation for which she seems to stand,
can lead in this cosmopolitan enterprise. Only the American
— and in this category I include the migratory alien who has
lived with us and caught the pioneer spirit and a sense of
new social vistas — has the chance to become that citizen
of the world. America is coming to be, not a nationality but a
trans-nationality, a weaving back and forth, with the other
lands, of many threads of all sizes and colors. Any movement

TRANS-NATIONAL AMERICA 349

which attempts to thwart this weaving, or to dye the fabric
any one color, or disentangle the threads of the strands, is
false to this cosmopolitan vision. I do not mean that we shall
necessarily glut ourselves with the raw product of humanity.
It would be folly to absorb the nations faster than we could
weave them. We have no duty either to admit or reject. It
is purely a question of expediency. What concerns us is the
fact that the strands are here. We must have a policy and
an ideal for an actual situation. Our question is, What shall
we do with our America? How are we likely to get the
more creative America — by confining our imaginations
to the ideal of the melting pot, or broadening them to
some such cosmopolitan conception as I have been vaguely
sketching ?

The war has shown America to be unable, though isolated
geographically and politically from a European world-situa-
tion, to remain aloof and irresponsible. She is a wandering
star in a sky dominated by two colossal constellations of
states. Can she not work out some position of her own, some
life of being in, yet not quite of, this seething and embroiled
European world? This is her only hope and promise. A
trans-nationality of all the nations, it is spiritually impossible
for her to pass into the orbit of any one. It will be folly to
hurry herself into a premature and sentimental nationalism,
or to emulate Europe and play fast and loose with the forces
that drag into war. No Americanization will fulfill this vision
which does not recognize the uniqueness of this trans-national-
ism of ours. The Anglo-Saxon attempt to fuse will only
create enmity and distrust. The crusade against " hyphenates "
will only inflame the partial patriotism of trans-nationals,
and cause them to assert their European traditions in strident
and unwholesome ways. But the attempt to weave a wholly
novel international nation out of our chaotic America will
liberate and harmonize the creative power of all these peoples
and give them the new spiritual citizenship, as so many indi-
viduals have already been given, of a world.

350 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

Is it a wild hope that the undertow of opposition to meta-
physics in international relations, opposition to militarism,
is less a cowardly provincialism than a groping for this higher
cosmopolitan ideal? One can understand the irritated rest-
lessness with which our proud pro-British colonists contem-
plate a heroic conflict across the seas in which they have no
part. It was inevitable that our necessary inaction should
evolve in their minds into the bogey of national shame and
dishonor. But let us be careful about accepting their sensi-
tiveness as final arbiter. Let us look at our reluctance rather
as the first crude beginnings of assertion on the part of cer-
tain strands in our nationality that they have a right to a
voice in the construction of the American ideal. Let us face
realistically the America we have around us. Let us work
with the forces that are at work. Let us make something
of this trans-national spirit instead of outlawing it. Already
we are living this cosmopolitan America. What we need
is everywhere a vivid consciousness of the new ideal. De-
liberate headway must be made against the survivals of the
melting-pot ideal for the promise of American life.

We cannot Americanize America worthily by sentimentaliz-
ing and moralizing history. When the best schools are ex-
pressly renouncing the questionable duty of teaching patriot-
ism by means of history, it is not the time to force shibboleth
upon the immigrant. This form of Americanization has been
heard because it appealed to the vestiges of our old sentimen-
talized and moralized patriotism. This has so far held the
field as the expression of the new American's new devotion.
The inflections of other voices have been drowned. They
must be heard. We must see if the lesson of the war has not
been for hundreds of these later Americans a vivid realization
of their trans-nationality, a new consciousness of what America
meant to them as a citizenship in the world. It is the vague
historic idealisms which have provided the fuel for the Euro-
pean flame. Our American ideal can make no progress until
we do away with this romantic gilding of the past.

TRANS-NATIONAL AMERICA 351

All our idealisms must be those of future social goals in
which all can participate, the good life of personality lived
in the environment of the Beloved Community. No mere
doubtful triumphs of the past, which redound to the glory of
only one of our trans-nationalities, can satisfy us. It must
be a future America, on which all can unite, which pulls us
irresistibly toward it, as we understand each other more warmly .

To make real this striving amid dangers and apathies is
work for a younger intelligentsia of America. Here is an enter-
prise of integration into which we can all pour ourselves, of a
spiritual welding which should make us, if the final menace
ever came, not weaker, but infinitely strong.

DEMOCRACY IN INDUSTRY1
LYMAN ABBOTT

[Lyman Abbott (1835- ) was educated at New York University
and has been editor of The Outlook since 1893. He is a frequent writer and
speaker on social and religious topics. This popular and friendly discus-
sion is one of a series entitled "Democracy around the World," and
covers clearly but succinctly the chief developments of industrial
democracy.]

The other day I noticed a motto on a teamster's cart in our
village: "There's no fun like work." The cart belongs to
an original neighbor of mine who thinks himself and sets
other people a-thinking; and his motto set me a-thinking.
Is it true?

True to my experience, yes. My work has always been my
best fun. There is no game that begins to interest me as does
my work. I began to wonder whether that was temperamental.
Or is it universal? If not, can it be made universal? I re-
flected that almost every kind of workaday activity is also
employed in a more or less modified form as a recreation. I
recalled the saying attributed to Phillips Brooks, "It is great
fun preaching." I remembered what a very successful and
very hard-working business man once said to me, "It is more
fun to make money than to have it or to spend it." I recalled
the pride and pleasure I had seen all sorts of workmen take
in their work : the seamstress in her stitch, the cook in her
dishes, the teacher in his pupil, the lawyer in his brief. Surgery
would be impossible for me. But I remembered how often I
had heard that surgeons speak of "a beautiful operation."

I hope that my readers will not lay down this article at this
point under the impression that I am trying to prove that

1 From The Outlook, August 17, 1912. Reprinted by permission.
352

DEMOCRACY IN INDUSTRY 353

there is no difference between work and play. Not at all.
NOT AT ALL. What I am trying to show is that nearly every
activity of mind and body employed in useful work may be
made to minister to the pleasure of the worker. The toil of
the farmer, of the carpenter, of the railway engineer, of the
teamster, of the lawyer, of the teacher, of the surgeon, of the
preacher, and whatever other toil there is, may be, and often
is, a joy. My epigrammatic friend is right: "There's no fun
like work."

In this article I am trying to give my readers a vision of
what industry might be and ought to be, but is not — the
vision as one sees it who believes in democracy in industry.
Raphael says that "we paint nature not as she is, but as she
ought to be." I am trying to depict industry not as it is, but
as it ought to be.

All natural, normal, healthful activity, whether of mind or
body, is pleasurable. This is not equivalent to saying that it
is all pleasant. It is not saying that it is not accompanied by
discomfort, and sometimes very great discomfort. But if it
is natural, normal, healthful, it is pleasurable — that is, able
to give pleasure. If it fails to do so, the failure is probably due
to artificial conditions which we have created. It is at least
well for us to consider whether we cannot change those con-
ditions which we have created, and give back to the activity
the pleasure-giving qualities of which we have robbed it.

There are five conditions which the industrial democrat
desires to see established in industry in order to restore to it
the pleasurable qualities of which our artificially established
conditions have deprived it. There may be more ; there are
at least these five :

I. We needlessly work overtime.

Every activity of mind or body uses up some physical tissue
which must be removed from the body and replaced by a new
tissue in order that the activity may be healthfully continued.
The dead tissue must be removed. Living tissue must take
its place. When the worker works overtime, he becomes, as

354 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

we say, exhausted ; that is, he is drained or emptied. And this
is literally true. He is exhausted when the vital tissue em-
ployed has been drained and he is left with too small a supply
to furnish adequate energy for pleasurable activity. Of course
the more monotonous the industry, the more the same class of
tissues are employed, and the greater is the drain or exhaus-
tion. The mere fact that the worker can enter upon some other
form of activity is no indication that he is not exhausted.
That the men of a factory in a noon hour engage in a game of
ball does not indicate that they are not exhausted. The ball
game calls a new set of muscles into play and leaves the others
to rest. So when one's eyes are tired with reading, he may
converse. He rests his exhausted eyes and uses his unex-
hausted throat. But rest is indispensable to pleasurable work ;
re-creation is indispensable to pleasurable creation.

In America most of us work overtime. We glorify the
strenuous life. To be always doing something is our ambition.
Robert Louis Stevenson's essay in praise of idleness gets scant
attention. We begrudge the time necessary to wind up the
mainspring; and it takes more time to wind up the main-
spring of a man than the mainspring of a watch. We cut our
nights short ; stay up as late as our fellow-mortals in Europe,
but are not willing to sleep as late in the morning. We have
adopted European habits of retiring, and try to keep up
Puritan habits of rising. We pare off our Sundays at both
ends ; work late Saturday night because we can lie abed Sun-
day morning, and go to bed earlier Sunday night in order to
arise earlier Monday morning, and use Sunday as a day of
travel to get from one business appointment to another.

The industrial democrat believes in an eight-hour day for
all organized employments. It is true that eight hours is a
purely artificial standard. In some vocations the hours of
labor should be fewer ; it is doubtful whether in any organized
industry they should be more. In employments in which the
labor is monotonous, as in most factories, the hours of labor
should be fewer than in employments which allow for great

DEMOCRACY IN INDUSTRY 355

variety of activity and therefore less exhaustion of particular
tissues, as in most household work. But we all work overtime.
And it is inconceivable that a man should work, as some steel
workers do, twelve hours in the day and seven days in the
week and retain that physical and mental energy which is
essential to pleasure in work. If my friend were to run his
motor car for seven days in succession, eight hours a day, he
would probably be as tired of motoring as the railway engineer
is of driving his engine ; and if the preacher were to preach a
sermon eight hours long, he would be almost as exhausted as
his congregation. Different persons doubtless have different
powers of endurance. For myself three hours spent at my desk
in creative work is as much as I can usually give with profit
in any one day. The remainder of the day is not given to rest,
but it is given to a changed occupation.

This working overtime is wholly unnecessary. One in-
dividual cannot step out of the mill ; but the owner of the
mill — that is, society — can order the work stopped. This
incessant grinding is not required in order to give us food.
The statisticians tell us that with our improved machinery
seven men can feed a thousand. Why, then, go on driving the
mill as though hunger demanded it ? The invention of machin-
ery has made possible the lessening of toil and largely the
elimination of drudgery. Says Emerson

The farmer had much ill temper, laziness, and shirking to
endure from his hand sawyers, until one day he bethought him to
put his sawmill on the edge of a waterfall ; and the river never
tires of turning his wheel ; the river is good-natured and never
hints an objection. . . . The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism,
light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us day by day and cost us nothing.

And yet, fired by this passion for work, we go on working
as though our lives depended on it. In fact, our lives depend
as much on our resting as on our working. Social students in
England have demonstrated, by actual experiment, that in
many industries men will produce, not only better products,

356 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

but actually more products, in nine hours than in ten, and
better men if not both better products and more products in
eight hours than in nine.

It is said that the average life of a stoker on an ocean steamer
is nine years. James Ford Rhodes tells us in his "History of
the United States" that the average industrial life of a plan-
tation slave on the sugar plantations of Louisiana was seven
years. The industrial democrat desires to see industry so
organized that it shall prolong human life, not shorten it, and
enhance the joy of life, not rob it of its joy. He wishes to see
industry so organized that it shall be a pleasurable activity.
A first condition is a reasonable limitation for every worker
in the hours of his work — a limitation that shall give him
daily adequate time in the repair shop — that is, adequate time
for rest and for that change of activity which is re-creation.

II. Only second in importance to limited hours of labor
are the conditions in which the labor is performed. All that
science and art can do should be done to make them both
sanitary and comfortable. There is something preposterous
in the prevailing fashion of making luxurious the rooms wherein
we spend the fewest hours of life and taking any kind of room
for our working-room. The kitchen, the nursery, and the
living-room ought to be the best rooms in the house — the
sunniest in winter, the airiest in summer, the most commodious
and comfortable in all seasons. The kitchen is the working-
room of the housekeeper and her assistants; the nursery is
the training-room of the children; and the living-room is
the gathering-place of the family. In the old New England
days the parlor was intended to be, what it was courteously
called, the "best room," and was open only on state occasions
or perhaps on Sundays. We have inherited this folly from the
past, and are not yet entirely emancipated from it.

The same curious disregard of comfort and convenience in
the rooms in which our work is done and the major part of
our life is spent has in the past characterized our industrial
life. We are slowly, but far too slowly, realizing that bad

DEMOCRACY IN INDUSTRY 357

conditions produce bad workingmen and bad work. We are
providing machinery to expel from our mines the air that once
poisoned the miners. We are providing our factories with
windows that furnish adequate sunlight, and in summer ap-
proximately adequate ventilation. We are requiring clean-
liness, not only in floor and wall and ceiling, but in the at-
mosphere. We are abolishing the conditions which made the
head heavy and the heart sick, which begot discomfort and
bred discontent. Law has done something, public sentiment
has done even more. There are an increasing number of em-
ployers who really care more for the health and comfort of
the men and women in their factories than for the health and
comfort of the horses in their barns. Only a real though grad-
ual revolution has brought this about — a revolution bitterly
resisted by some of our "best citizens" both in England and
America: and much still remains to be done. Read Charles
Dickens's description of Coketon:

It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red
if the smoke and ashes had allowed it ; but as matters stood it was
a town of unnatural red and black, like the painted face of a savage.
It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which inter-
minable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and
never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran
purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of buildings full of
windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long,
and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up
and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy mad-
ness. It contained several large streets, all very like one another,
and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by
people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same
hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the
same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and
to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.1

How can work in such conditions be fun?

1 "Hard Times," Chapter V.

358 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

III. Not less important than making useful work enjoyable
to the worker by a limitation in the hours of his labor and an
improvement in the conditions under which it is performed is
it that his right to some share in the finished product should
be recognized.

The demand for profit-sharing is not the same as a demand
for increased wages. It is not merely a demand for better
compensation. It is a demand for a better and more human
relationship between the employer and the employed, the
recognition of the fact that the two are working together,
and that the product of their common industry belongs to
them both, and should be shared between them upon some
just and equitable basis.

It is a common charge made against the modern working-
man that he takes no interest in his job. Why should he? It
is not his job. It is his master's job. If he slights his work,
the loss falls on the master. If he does peculiarly excellent
work, the profit goes to his master, and to his master the honor
is given. The workingman is not interested in the product
because it is not his product when it is finished, and he has no
share in it. He is not working to produce anything; he is
working for a wage. And I do not find that any one complains
that he is not interested in his wage.

Let me by a single illustration make clear what I mean by
profit-sharing.

A few years ago I went into a little local shoemaker's shop,
where my shoes had been repaired, and ordered a pair made
for me. They cost about the same that equally well made
shoes would have cost in one of the great shoe stores, and they
fitted me a little better. But I was interested to see the shoe-
maker's interest in his work and his pride in the fit when the
shoes were done. His interest was not merely in the price that
was paid for them, it was in the product itself, because it was
his product, and the profit and the honor were his. For that
reason he unmistakably had fun in his work.

DEMOCRACY IN INDUSTRY 359

About the same time I heard Mr. George W. Perkins, at a
public dinner in New York, give an account of the profit-
sharing scheme which has been introduced into the Steel Cor-
poration. I pass here no judgment upon the method pursued.
What interested me then, and what illustrates the point I am
making here, was Mr. Perkins's statement that the result of
the profit-sharing introduction has been to make the men en-
gaged in the industry interested in the industry. The corpora-
tion had not, he said, introduced profit-sharing as a philan-
thropy. But, as it paid thousands of dollars every year to keep
the material machinery in the best condition, so it thought it
worth while to pay thousands of dollars to make the men who
operate that machinery contented with their position and
interested in their work. Mr. Filene, who has built up from
small beginnings one of the most successful department stores
in Boston, and gives to his employees both a share in the
profits of the business and a participation in its administra-
tion, has found the same results to follow : an almost entire
elimination of perfunctory service, and a contented and in-
terested body of co-workers in every department.

IV. If the worker is to find any fun in his work, he must
have not only some share in the product, but also some share
in determining under what conditions it shall be carried on.
This principle seems to me eminently just ; though there are
some employers, apparently, who think that it is entirely
impracticable to apply it in our modern industrial system.

The Golden Rule has always seemed to me to afford, not
only an excellent ideal, but an eminently practicable rule of
conduct. To determine what is just toward any man I ask
myself, If I were in his place, what should I think I had a
right to demand? If I were a railway engineer and not only
my comfort but my life depended on the fireman who traveled
with me, I should want to have something to say as to the
conditions upon which men should be appointed as firemen.
If I were a miner, I should, for the same reason, want to have

360 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

something to say as to the conditions on which other miners
working with me should be appointed. If I were to work in
a factory, I should want to have something to say as to hours
of labor and the sanitary conditions of the room in which I
was to spend my working hours.

We read much in the daily papers of the "recognition of
the union" ; and sometimes of strikes maintained with great
obstinacy, not for higher wages or shorter hours, but for this
"recognition of the union." Such strikes are generally con-
demned unsparingly by the daily papers. I suppose that the
phrase "recognition of the union" has different meanings at
different times and in different localities. But when it means
that the laborers are insisting, not merely that they shall have
better wages or shorter hours, but also that they shall have
some share in determining what the hours and conditions of
their labor shall be, I sympathize with their demand, though
I may not with their methods. The adjustment of this new
and growing demand of the workingman to have some share
in the control of the organized industries of the world presents
many difficult problems. Certainly the direction cannot be
transferred by any instantaneous process from the autocracy
which has controlled the industry in the past to the democ-
racy which will perhaps control it, at least in part, in the
future. But the history of industry in the past in all civilized
countries makes it equally clear that it cannot, with safety
to the workingmen or to the community, be left in the unlim-
ited control of an irresponsible autocracy. The administra-
tion of our great businesses has not been so uniformly just,
humane, and public-spirited, or even so economically efficient
and so beneficent to the community, that its advocates are
justified in insisting that no change can be made for the better.

V. There is one other condition necessary in order to make
modern work carried on by organizations of workers fun to the in-
dividual worker. This it is difficult to state, because it is a con-
dition of the spirit in which the work must be carried on, and it
is always difficult to define anything so subtle as spirit of life.

DEMOCRACY IN INDUSTRY 361

It is evident that the man in the shoe factory who simply
puts the eyelets in the shoe cannot have the kind of pride in
the finished shoe that the individual shoemaker can have who
by his individual labor makes the entire shoe from start to
finish. The pride of the latter in his work is an individual
pride ; the modern laborer's pride in his work must be a social
pride; a pride in the organization to which he belongs and
in the work of his fellows no less than in his own.

A simple illustration of this pride in one's cooperative work
is furnished by the soldier in the army. His personal contribu-
tion may seem insignificant. He believes in his commander,
whether he be General Lee or General Grant, and in his cause,
whether it be States' rights or Nationalism, and to that cause
and to that commander he has given himself with absolute
devotion. Whether he is in front as a sharpshooter, or in the
-rear guarding a baggage train, or in camp cleaning his gun,
he is a member of a great army, devoted to a great cause, and
sharer in a great service ; and when the war is over, his country
will rear a soldiers' monument to his memory and to the mem-
ory of all his brave comrades. The service is a common serv-
ice, the achievement will be a common achievement, the
honor will be a common honor.

To reach the highest joy in work this consciousness of co-
operation in industry is necessary. It is necessary for us to
realize that we are all engaged in cooperative industry ; that
life is an exchange of services ; that the least and humblest
of us is contributing to a great achievement which is possible
only as a combined achievement; that no man is more es-
sential than another ; that the least work is a great work be-
cause it is a necessary part of a great work, as the day laborer
with his spade at Panama is necessary to the completion of
the great world waterway between two oceans. Inspired by
this sense of a great fellowship, any work may become joyful.
"If," says a friend of mine, "I cannot do what I like, I like
what I do." "If," says Professor Josiah Royce, " I am to be
loyal, my cause must from moment to moment fascinate me,

362 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

awaken my muscular vigor, stir me with some eagerness for
work, even if this be painful work."

I am an industrial democrat. I am also an optimist. And I
look forward with hope to the time when, even more than
now, machinery will do the world's drudgery and man will
cease to be a drudge ; when his hours of labor will be so limited
that his life will not be exhausted, but will be enriched and de-
veloped by his labors ; when the conditions of his labor will
be always sanitary and generally comfortable; when he will
share in the profits of his labor, and so realize the value to
himself of good work; when he will have a voice, and an
influential voice, in determining how the organized labor in
which he takes a part shall be carried on; when commerce
will be seen to be what the word imports, an interchange of
services ; when there will be none so rich that they will have
no incentive to work, and none so poor that they can get no
work to do; and when the now perilous class consciousness
will grow into a social consciousness, and we shall all, employer
and employed, recognize the truth that an injury to one is an
injury to all, and a benefit to one is a benefit to all.

Impossible ideal? No! No true ideal is ever impossible.
Toward its realization society is slowly, very slowly, tending.
And the great democratic movement throughout the world
is one of the signs of its coming.

THE AMERICAN NOVEL1
ROBERT HERRICK

[Robert Herrick (1868- ), one of the best-known of present-day
American novelists, was educated at Harvard and is now Professor of
English in the University of Chicago. Among his most noteworthy novels
may be mentioned "The Common Lot" (1904) and "The Healer" (1911).
This trenchant criticism of contemporary American literature, with
special reference to the novel of to-day, followed an article in the January
number of the Yale Review entitled "The Background of the American
Novel."]

One hears much of the romantic quality of American life,
which when analyzed is found to consist for the most part of
our dazzling performances in conquering wealth and the
frequently bizarre conduct of the successful rich. The feel-
ing, still widespread, that opportunities for similar individual
achievements exist more abundantly here than elsewhere
continues this romantic note even in the face of sobering
economic facts. In harmony with the rest of the world,
American literature is less flamboyantly romantic than it was
a scant decade ago, but it vaunts at all times a robust optimism
that verges upon the romantic. We are also told that ours is
a fertile soil artistically, ripe for a creative period of self-
expression. How does it happen then, one is likely to ask,
that the most significant imaginative work of the day still
comes to us from the other side of the ocean — the best plays
from Austria and Germany, the best novels from the much-
worked English field? Why is it that Wells, Bennett, and
Galsworthy — not to mention half a dozen others almost as
distinguished as these three — are writing in England at the
present time, while in America one would have to strain
1 From Yale Review, April, 1914*. Reprinted by permission.
363

364 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

patriotism to the point of absurdity to name any novelist of
similar performance? In answering this pertinent question
we shall have to consider incidentally the quality of our
imaginative life to-day and thus continue the theme of my
paper in the January number of this magazine.

We have had a literature in America — not an American
literature, to be sure, — but a good sort of literature in
America. The best of it came from the New England group
of writers — the purest, the most authentic expression we
have yet had. When Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow,
and Lowell were writing, New England may have been but
one province of a greater country, but it was intellectually
a dominant and fairly homogeneous province. Mr. Howells
has garnered admirably the last sheaves from that soil. Puri-
tan America found its ultimate expression in "Silas Lap-
ham," "A Modern Instance," and "The Hazard of New
Fortunes." Mrs. Freeman and others have gleaned faith-
fully the last stalks. Some of their disciples are still trying
to revive the cold ashes on the hearth.

Meanwhile, following the more robust inspiration of Bret
Harte and Mark Twain, a large number of writers have
risen to take possession of local fields — Cable in the South,
Miss Murfree in the mountain districts of Tennessee, Owen
Wister and many others in the varied localities of the great
West, to name but a few of these fruitful writers. Already
that period of local literature is passing, and the reason for
its swift passing is obvious. It was in no sense national, and
was largely sentimental in its appeal — pretty and pictur-
esque. The people, the country as a whole, was never re-
flected therein. It offered nothing, so to speak, to go on :
it opened no new vistas for the younger generation. There
is, of course, nothing incompatible with greatness in the use
of purely local material. Hauptmann in his "Weavers"
has shown that a great modern labor play can be written with
a Silesian background of the Forties. More recently, Gustav
Frenssen has written an important German novel with a

THE AMERICAN NOVEL 365

Hamburg lad as the hero and a narrow North German back-
ground. It is the spirit always that counts. The spirit of
our American local literature has been generally, to be quite
frank, merely provincial — always seeking the picturesque,
the sensational, the so-called romantic. And those are the
elements of any civilization that are most surely discarded,
swept aside in the flow of national life. Wister's cowboys
were already romantic memories when he drew them. Social
settlements, railroads, and hook-worm commissions are eradi-
cating the picturesque conditions that provided Miss Murfree
and Mr. John Fox with their material. The Panama Canal
will abolish the last vestiges of Cable's New Orleans, as
general prosperity has already effaced the sentimental South
of Mr. Thomas Nelson Page and Mr. Hopkinson Smith.
The swift current of our national life has swept into all these
backwater places and stripped them of the peculiar aspects
that charmed the story-tellers.

While these local fields were still being enthusiastically
worked, we had our romantic historical revival of the Nine-
ties. Janice Merediths and Richard Carvels were circulated
by the ton, not to mention the purely imitative output of
machine-made American historical novels. They were our
recognition of the pseudo-romantic wave started by Steven-
son. The preceding generation of school children got their
history from the storybooks. Then suddenly as we turned
into the new century, the demand for this sort of imaginative
solace stopped. Authors who had sold hundreds of thousands
of these candied products could not sell fifty thousand. Why
was this? The distressed publishers have never been able to
account satisfactorily for the sudden cessation in the demand
for such books and have been seeking hither and yon for "a
new line of goods" that shall have the same popular appeal.
What happened to the American reading public? Had they
become sufficiently educated to go direct to the history books
for their history, and to "foreign-made literature" for im-
aginative realization? It would surely seem so, if we consider

366 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

the steady increase in the number and the sales of so-
called serious books, and the broadening demand for the
novels and plays and poems of contemporary European
writers.

To understand the situation intelligently, we must first
realize a great social phenomenon that has appeared, one
might almost say, since the time of the New England writers,
— and that is journalism. I mean not merely daily and weekly
and monthly journalism, but journalistic drama and jour-
nalistic books. In short, the thing done for the immediate
moment, whatever form it may take, — that is what I mean
by journalism. It is not my affair to account for the tidal
wave of journalism that has swept around the earth in our
day and reached its height in this country, nor to judge it
socially or aesthetically. For the moment it seems to have
crowded serious literature quite out of public attention — I
mean the ordered, leisurely, imaginative product. And this
other sort of thing, which I call perforce literature, if it is to
emerge once more, must absorb journalism and transcend it.
I am not interested in the moral or aesthetic or educational
value of journalism. I see merely the facts as they apply
to that other sort of product in which I am fervently inter-
ested : I see that journalism because it pays tremendously
well has drawn into its ranks the more vital writers of our
day ; that it has insensibly affected the form as well as the
content of literature ; lastly that it has fed a huge reading
public with the raw meat of imagination, on which it gorges
until it has no appetite for more refined dishes. To be quite
specific, why should we read picaresque novels when we can
follow the McNamara case day by day? What detective
story can compete with Burns and the San Francisco
"grafters," or with the snaky involutions and pollutions of
the Lorimer scandal? Is "Robert Elsmere" any more pro-
foundly human and ethical than Judge Lindsey's story of
his struggle to save the souls of Denver children? The
point can be indefinitely illustrated by a thousand instances

THE AMERICAN NOVEL 367

drawn from our newspapers and magazines. And these
journalistic "stories" are true — or supposed to be — and the
persons described are real people — or pretend to be. How,
then, can literature contend in interest with these revelations
of the actual social life going on around us ?

For one thing, it can feebly reproduce them, as has been
the case with our commercial fiction, for example, in the -"big
business" stories, conveniently shaped to the requirements
of the magazines. Especially in the short story — a product
that our magazines have made almost their own — incidents
and types familiar to us through the newspaper are repro-
duced again and again. The short story of commerce and
the magazined novel have done more, I believe, to debauch
our literary situation than any other one thing. They ener-
vate both writers and readers.

But all who think on such matters know that neither jour-
nalism nor commercialized fiction is an adequate medium
for interpreting life deeply — for realizing ourselves and our
country. We know that these are not literature and never
can become such by any perversion of terms. Life is a
flowing stream, and to mirror that stream with its multiform
drama we must have some large, organic form — something
epic in size and in purpose. Every race has had its epics, in
prose or verse, — its famous deeds, its heroes and its villains,
its own peculiar themes. Ours cannot be the exception. In
the modern socialized world these epics must take the form
of prose fiction. The large, loose form of the novel, so
thoroughly developed yet not exhausted in the last two hun-
dred years, resembles the stream of life in its volume, and
is the only literary form known to us that is adequate to
the task of interpreting and realizing the complex life of
our day. To say that it is dead, that the play, or the news-
paper, or the magazine, has come to take its place, is as
absurd as to hold that men will no longer rear families and
build homes for them because they have taken to flats. And
as a matter of easily verifiable fact, the novel has never shown

368 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

more vitality, developed in more promising spontaneity, than
during the last decade, when all the noise has been about
the play.

We as a people have not had our due share in this renais-
sance of the prose epic. Since that boom in the fiction mar-
ket, to which I have referred, when quarter-million sales of
favorite novels were not uncommon, there have been com-
paratively few successful novels from the publisher's exact
viewpoint. Nor has there been much consideration given to
the American novel by that minority of the reading public
that is supposed to be superior to the publishers' viewpoint.
For the moment, we seem to have a distaste for our own fic-
tion product and are going abroad for imaginative wares.
Witness the success with us, among the intelligent, and one
suspects among the less intelligent also, of De Morgan,
Locke, Galsworthy, Wells, and more recently of Arnold
Bennett and Leonard Merrick, — not to mention such jour-
nalistic stuff as "The Rosary" and "The Broad Highway,"
both being "English-made." Is it possible that we have
outgrown the American novel such as we have had, that we
realize it does not truly represent us, does not satisfy our
aspirations for self-realization? Do we feel the artificiality
and the thinness of the pictures it gives us of American lif e ?
It seems so. It would be hardly gracious for me to enter into
personalities and to examine in detail the work of contempo-
rary craftsmen. I prefer to give four general reasons for
the inferiority that I find in the American novel, four ways
in which it is inadequate and not to be considered in the same
class with the best foreign work of the day. And I am
thinking only of the more representative and serious novels,
not of that machine-made product which the weekly and
monthly magazines provide by the million words. For that
is a commercial, not an artistic product, and has nothing to
do with the question, although in passing I may point out
that America without the aid of protection leads the world
hi this sort of manufacture — machine-made fiction. I am

THE AMERICAN NOVEL 369

concerned with the sincere efforts for vital self-expression in
the novel form, not with commerce.

In the first place, our novels are weakly sentimental. As
a people we have always been excessively sentimental beneath
our practical surface. Among the great mass, sentimen-
tality is one of our blind spots, and "the mass" here does not
imply poverty or ignorance. "The Rosary," which might
justly be described as the most sirupy concoction of current
years, found its immense market among American women.
But we are no longer as sentimental as the novelists think us
to be: at least, our more intelligent readers are fast losing
the vice. The tone of public discussion, the note of the news-
paper world, no longer has the sickly sentimentality that has
characterized it largely since the Civil War. Our charities
no longer dare to put forward the sentimental plea. The
vice conditions of our cities are not only being exposed with
sensational candor, but are being met with unsentimental
efforts at reform. When we consider the verdict of the press
and of the people upon the McNamara case, we cannot be
accused of the maudlin, sentimental squint that has often
made our criminal procedure a farce. But with all the evi-
dence of a growing appetite for healthy fact, sentimentalism
persists in our novels. We sentimentalize in them success
and business warfare ; above all we sentimentalize our women
— both the amorous relation of the sexes and the home.
One of the benefits we may expect from the present woman
movement is that American women will rise in resentment and
kick over the false pedestal of chivalrous sentimentality on
which (in our novels) American men have posed them inanely
for so long.

But sentimentalism dies hard. It is an insidious disease
inherited through romance from the miasmatic mysticism
of the Mid!dle Ages. It has proved peculiarly corrupting
to art in all forms, because it is the easy means of gaining
an immediate popular appeal. Therefore sentimentalism
should be fought hard wherever it makes an appearance.

370 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

Until we as a people are able and willing to look all the facts
of our civilization in the face and recognize the unpleasant
as well as the " pleasant," until we demand in our literature
the same strong tonic of clear-sighted truth that we get from
science, we shall remain morally flabby — soft. What can
we expect of a young man or woman who accepts the pre-
vailing type of serialized novel in our magazines as a true
or desirable picture of life? As a people, we are far more
mature than our novelists assume : we have a clearer vision
and a sterner temper. Publishers say that our novels are
no longer read by adult persons. The commercial product,
at any rate, is manifestly designed for the consumption of
the young person. That is a great pity, for a virile litera-
ture must represent both a man's world and a woman's
world — with the interests and the values of maturity.

Again, our novels are weak religiously. For the most
part, they avoid altogether the religious side of life, perhaps
as unfit for the tired reader in his hour of relaxation ; and at
the best they represent a conventionally or negatively reli-
gious social world. In a few cases, survivals of the New
England tradition, they iterate the old Puritan themes of
sin, self-sacrifice, and regeneration. The Puritan tradition
is dead, however : for good or for bad it no longer expresses
the spiritual life of the people. Yet there is abundant reli-
gious feeling in America. We have always had a strain of
transcendental mysticism, cropping out in the least expected
spots, developing latterly into Christian Science and other
healing cults. The ancient creed of Catholicism still has a
vital hold, especially in the cities, and the older Protestant
creeds have some influence in the smaller towns. It is per-
haps not surprising that these formal religions have not shown
their influence in our literature. For as a people, our atti-
tude towards the whole subject of religion has fundamentally
changed. We demand increasingly an effective religion — a
religion that shall have its point d'appui on this terrestrial
abode. Moreover, American life is becoming peculiarly

THE AMERICAN NOVEL 371

paganized, yet without renouncing a vital religious interest.
It is not a sensual or self-indulgent paganism, but a vital,
active, effective paganism, with a popular creed that might
read like this: "Life is good! I desire to make it better.
For me life is here and now, and what I can do to make it
better must be done here and now, and done not by prayer
and fasting but by strong deeds." All our interest in social
betterment, which is literally immense, is permeated with this
spirit at once scientific, pagan, and mystic. But very little
of this spirit gets into our novels. A lot of it gets into the
novels of Mr. Wells and Mr. Galsworthy. In these writers
are felt always the stirrings of a new social and religious world.
Even when — as in "Ann Veronica" — • the medium is one of
gentle ridicule or irony, the new spirit is found just the same.
As for Mr. Galsworthy, his work is saturated with social and
religious speculation of the kind I am describing : his char-
acters move always in an atmosphere of awakened social
consciousness that is the special contribution of the creator.
Our novelists still cling to the old individualistic string, — the
story of the triumphant industrial pirate and his adventures
with the stock market and incidentally womankind. Social-
ism, for instance, which in many of its protean manifestations
is surely religious, is scarcely tolerated in the American novel.
Our imaginative writers in ignoring it display the same igno-
rance of its meaning as have our two ex-presidents in their
published utterances.

In the third place, there is our prudery in the sex realm.
Nobody denies that sex is of profound importance in life.
Probably more than half of the larger issues of living are
affected in one way or another by the sex impulse — at least
are colored by it. One can't persistently ignore half life,
or give a sentimentally false interpretation to its phenomena
with any hope of creating a human literature of enduring
significance. It is easy to be misunderstood in this delicate
ground, for we have somehow tied up four fifths of our moral-
ity in sex prohibitions, and any statement in opposition to

372

the conventional beliefs about sex at once arouses suspicion
of gross immorality. No serious writer believes in encour-
aging "boudoir literature," which is unhealthy, nor in the
deliberate exploitation of sex "problems" for the sensation
that may be found in them. But he should not be forced by
a prudish and fearful public opinion, which is not the opinion
of the public, into dodging the sex side of life when it comes
inevitably into the picture as I believe it must. There is, of
course, the "young person." But the young man, if he reads
at all, should read what his elders do, and as for the young
woman, she will get less harm from "Madame Bo vary" than
from perusing one of our sentimental boy-and-girl serial
stories. Unless she were neurotic and degenerate, she would
get from Flaubert's masterpiece a truthful picture of sex
relations that should give her a profound horror of emotional
indulgence. From the American book she might get an
entirely false conception of the healthy relations of the sexes,
from which some day she must awake, possibly with a rude
shock of experience. And in either case, man or woman, the
young person must face the facts of life, no matter how much
we sterilize the reading. All we need is more honesty in
this matter, and that it seems to me we are fast learning, to
the advantage of our novels and also of our essential morality.
Lastly, for a democratic people, as we call ourselves, we
have a singularly unreal and aristocratic literature. The
preoccupation of our popular novelists with the lives and the
possessions of the rich, who perforce are our aristocrats, is
something amazing. Even that much-read novel "The
House of Mirth," which came near being the woman's epic
of our day, betrays this unbalanced absorption in the lives
of the privileged, with little or no shading of the commoner
experience. American women must be held responsible for
this aristocratic taste. They are still by far the chief reading
public, and they prefer books about rich and luxurious people.
Their favorite epic still remains the old barbaric one of the
triumphant male who conquers the riches and the powers of

THE AMERICAN NOVEL 373

this earth, only to lay them at the feet of his loved one, chival-
rously surrounding her with all the glories of his conquest,
and rewarded by her with faithfulness and love. Another less
childish epic is already emerging into sight — • that of woman
making her struggle for life and accomplishment, conquering
in an honorably equal strife with her male comrades. Why
does not some woman write that epic for us ? The fact that
our novels are written largely by women and for the enter-
tainment of women, is in itself a weakening element in our
literature. It would be idle to champion a male literature
as opposed to a feminine one, but our literature should repre-
sent both sexes and interest both sexes. The man's concep-
tion of life ought to interest women, and what the woman
feels about it ought to interest men — if true and not merely
sentimental.

To return for a moment to the aristocratic aspect of our
novels, wealth has been the great American fact for the past
generation — the making, the conquest, the control, the
disposal of money. The figures that have fascinated the
imagination of our people have been the forceful men who
have taken, often ruthlessly, what they wanted out of life,
who have directed the economic energies of the race. The
capitalist has been both our buccaneer and our epic hero.
So we had for a time a great many business novels that
described commercial struggles and money conquests. But
this rich material of the pioneer days of capitalism was
largely wasted : it never gave us one great epic figure, en-
during, illustrative for all tune of our predatory period.
The future American will have to go to the magazine biog-
raphies of Gould, Rockefeller, Harriman, or Morgan to get the
epic, not to our novels. The pity of it ! For it was the one
big theme of the past twenty years — the story of the money-
maker, his inner meaning and his self -explanation. We are
already passing out of that period of towering industrial cre-
ators : we have come to the era of luxury and trusteeship —
the family life of wealth in the second and third generations.

374 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

And what we get of them in our novels is a profusion of
motors, country houses, — Palm Eeach and Fifth Avenue.
We do not get the stories of the little people, and they make
up the living of most of our ninety millions. As I have said
in my previous article, our writers belong to the old stock;
perhaps they too have been easily prosperous. The little
people — not necessarily the submerged elements of society
— have got themselves abundantly into modern English
novels. It is often said that the experiences of the ordinary
citizen are tame and his soul commonplace. The test of real
imagination is the power to find the significant beneath the
commonplace. At any rate, a literature to be truly national
must concern itself with more than the prosperous classes —
especially in a democratic society !

On these four grounds, then, among others, I find the Amer-
ican novel to-day lacking in importance, not really represent-
ative of our richest and most significant life. I find it thin and
impermanent — and not a little shoddy. Naturally, in deal-
ing with such a subject in this broad and generalized fashion,
I am aware that I have ignored certain instances of genuine
worth — signs, let us hope, of a fuller, richer development for
our imaginative literature. It is a matter of private judg-
ment with all of us as to how far I may be correct in estimat-
ing the trend of the current, as to how significant the scat-
tered instances of serious effort to create less superficially
may be. Unfortunately in America it must always be an
affair of private judgment. For we have no criticism of lit-
erature worth the name. Criticism along with much else has
been handed over to the daily newspaper. Our few journals
professedly devoted to literary criticism have slight vogue
and practically no weight in the utterance of their opinions.
We have had no critic of recognized reputation since Lowell
and seem in no haste to produce one. Our literary criticism
remains a haphazard affair of personal taste, enormously
laudatory, cocksure, and ignorant of all but the season's
grist of books. Just how far this state of things may be

THE AMERICAN NOVEL 375

another ground for our inadequate creative performance it
would be hard to say. Under the circumstances, the wisest
course for the imaginative writer to pursue is to ignore all
so-called criticism and do his best in his own way, untroubled
by journalistic chatter.

Thus far I have been obliged to dwell rather insistently
upon the negative side of the situation ; and before conclud-
ing, it would be well to glance at the other side and try to
see what there is of hope for us in getting a more vital, a
more representative presentation of ourselves as a people in
the imaginative record. There is, of course, much to be said
on this side. Our reading public has expanded enormously
of recent years, in spite of the motor car, and has become
more discriminating and more intelligent as well as better
educated. If it were not true that we are gaining in intelli-
gence and discrimination, it would be depressing for us to go
on pouring out of our colleges each year tens of thousands of
young men and women, who presumably have made some
acquaintance with ideas and formed some standards of
judgment. The fact that the reading public tends to split
up into many different circles, each one demanding its own
kind of imaginative food, is another healthy sign of progress,
although it has undoubtedly cut down the huge sales of a few
popular books. The demand for the works of the more ad-
vanced foreign authors, which is now quite considerable in
this country, is also an encouraging sign, because an appetite
for mature and virile literature once formed cannot be satis-
fied with froth and frivol. To-day in all our bookstores are
found the plays and novels of writers that a few years ago had
to be imported specially from Europe. More broadly sug-
gestive than these signs is the evidence of general improvement
in the intellectual grasp of our people : they are thinking "on
tough political and economic problems, trying to realize
themselves in this twentieth-century life, and the longer they
do that the more insistently will they demand that life as
they perceive it be portrayed in the fiction offered them. If

376 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

it cannot be said that in general the tone of our amusements
has become more elevated, it is certainly possible to satisfy
occasionally a more exacting taste at our theaters than
ever before. Nothing moves by itself in modern society.
Every interest helps in some way every other interest. To
make a literature intelligent and virile, there must first be
an intelligent and open-minded public, and somehow one feels
that we are getting that faster than we are getting the litera-
ture. For we await the writer or writers keen enough to
perceive the opportunity, powerful enough to interest the
public in what it has been unwilling to heed, and of course
endowed with sufficient insight to comprehend our big new
world.

The material in that world is crying for expression — as
rich human material as the creative artist has ever had. In
place of the narrow individualistic epic of the "captain of
industry," we have the social struggle. That struggle is
already expressing itself confusedly in our political life, and
from it must emerge picturesque and powerful types sug-
gestive to the novelist. Hitherto our novels have scarcely
dabbled in politics because for the most part we as a people
have merely dabbled in politics. We are beginning now
to understand that modern social life must be largely politi-
cal, that each and all, including women, must take a hand
in politics if we are to make our destiny something nearer
the ideal than our fathers have made theirs. Already our
political life is putting upon the screen certain enticing
figures for artistic interpretation — not great heroes, perhaps,
but Americans spotted with the weaknesses of our civilization
and terribly human. Their types should not be lost in the
ephemeral columns of the newspapers. As our less favored
classes become more expressive, we may hope to hear from
them and have imaginative pictures of those who have lived
all their lives in the treadmill of American industrialism.
Certain magazine studies of men and women in factory life
are the harbingers of a more epic treatment of the labor

THE AMERICAN NOVEL 377

subject. Our literature will not continue to ignore for another
twenty years the daily lives and spiritual experiences of four
fifths of the people, nor of all those of stranger blood whom
fate has placed in our social system. In this way, I foresee
our novels coming to include the larger interests which
occupy the thoughts of many of us. It will not be necessarily
a "problem" or "thesis" literature: the imaginative writer
ought never to make a propaganda of his social beliefs. But
he should represent men and women as they are in the struggle
of modern life, actuated by the serious ideas and ideals of their
time, not solely as sentimental puppets preoccupied with
getting married.

As has been said before, we have the richest background
in a purely human way that the story-teller ever had offered
him. It abounds with new notes of character, of situation,
of theme, of human drama. It is religious and pagan, selfish
and generous, adventurous and mean, sordid and splendid, —
at one and the same time. Our novels should reveal all that.
They should reflect not merely the lives of the successful,
the predatory, the indulgent, but also the lives of the small,
the struggling, the obscure. They should give us not simply
the sensual atmosphere of prodigal spenders, but the strong
religious impulses moving in new ways to sanctify our lives.
I say our novels — not the American novel, which is a figment
of the newspaper critic's imagination. The newspaper critic
seems distressed because he cannot find one book that displays
all these powers and riches.. He complacently discovers the
American novel each season — the one that most nearly
pleased him of the last consignment. Every year a number
of these discoveries are proclaimed to be the American novel
- the epic masterpiece of our civilization. But they quickly
fall back into the ranks.

The truth is that we are not yet ready for the masterpiece,
if we ever shall be, — if, indeed, one epic, no matter how

splendid, will ever serve for the complete record. Before
that appears we must have developed a truly national spirit :
our society must have a greater solidarity. We must be
clearer about what we want to do, what we think about
momentous matters, where we stand as a people. We must
lose that excessive consciousness of our individualism that
characterizes us now, and become more conscious of our
nationalism. When in spirit and in purpose we are truly
national, we shall doubtless create a national literature. The
local and the individual will be merged in the broader type of
the nation. Then we may speak of the American novel.

THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSITY l
GEORGE E. VINCENT

[George Edgar Vincent (1864- ) was educated at Yale and has had
much to do with the administration of the Chautauqua Institution
founded by his father, Bishop John H. Vincent. While serving as pro-
fessor of sociology in the University of Chicago, he was in 1911 elected
president of the University of Minnesota. Since 1917 he has been presi-
dent of the Rockefeller Foundation. Though the Commencement address
which follows is substantially that which was delivered at the University
of Wisconsin in 1911, its characterization of the social aims of modern
higher education, and its ringing challenge to youth for service to the
commonwealth, make it peculiarly appropriate for study to-day.]

Modern students of human nature have changed the old
saying, "Many men, many minds," into the new dictum,
"One man, many selves." There is much talk of multiple
personality. Our complex modern life reflects itself in a com-
posite person. A man is said to have as many selves as there
are social groups of which he feels himself a member. To
maintain a business self which can look a moral self straight
in the eye, to have a theological self on good terms with a
scientific self, to keep the peace between a party self and a
patriotic self, to preserve in right relations a church self and
a club self — such are the present problems of many a man or
woman. One way to escape embarrassment is to invite at a
given time only congenial and harmonious selves, and to ban-
ish from the company the selves that are discordant and dis-
concerting. The strong soul is he who can summon all his
selves into loyal team play. Personality is the name men give
to this unity of the self, and purpose is the organizing prin-
ciple. Only as many groups of thought and feeling are schooled

1From Science, June 30, 1911. Reprinted by permission.
379

380 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

into cooperation by a well-considered, steadfast aim can a
man be master of a single self. To be sure, unity of a sort can
be achieved by one who has a meager company of selves.
Narrowness, provincialism, bigotry, describe a personality
in which unity of purpose is won at a sacrifice of breadth,
outlook, and sympathy. The highest type of personality grows
out of many far-reaching selves which have been selected and
organized into unity by a dominant purpose. It is no easy
task to unify often divergent and conflicting impulses, habits,
memories, and ideals into a harmonious hierarchy of aims.
But such singleness of ideal and effort creates power. The
man of purpose is not to be resisted. Every instinct and habit,
every picture of the mind, every effort of the will, every emo-
tion, fits into his scheme of things. He never wanders from the
path which leads toward the end he has set up. He turns every
opportunity to account. He foresees problems and is prepared
to meet them. He confronts difficulties undaunted. He is
master of a company ever devoted and responsive to command.
The world submits to great men of single aim.

In many ways a human group, a family, a community, an
institution, a nation, is like a personality. Hobbes saw the
state as a vast Leviathan. Comte conceived humanity as an
on-going continuous life which sweeps through the centuries.
Bluntschli endows political society with the characteristics of
a person. Contemporary philosophers attribute to society the
mental and moral traits of a vast super-man. The analogy
is not wholly fanciful. Just as purpose unifies the individual,
so a common aim gives the human group a sense of solidarity.
Social consciousness is the well-worn term for this thrill of
comradeship. The sense of team play that makes the eleven
or the nine an efficient unit gives us the type. Each individual
sees the group as a whole, is aware of his own relation to it,
knows that his fellows share his feeling, and counts upon them
to act promptly for a common end. A group which cannot
control its members and rally them in loyalty to a single aim
lacks solidarity and effectiveness.

PURPOSE AND SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSITY 381

If the university, as an organ of society, is to gain strength
of purpose, it must have a consciousness of its function and
duty. Only by such sense of team play can individuals, de-
partments, schools, colleges, faculties, classes, student groups,
be fused into genuine unity and rallied to a common loyalty.
In general, the university ideal is changing from the thought
of personal privilege to the conception of social service, from
a preaching of personal culture to a democracy of studies, or
in another phrase, from culture -to efficiency. This does not
mean that colleges and universities have not always had some
sense of social obligation. But too generally the privileges
of higher education were for the favored few who by virtue
of their special opportunities were set off from the masses of
men. The growth of democracy has made new demands, has
widened opportunity, has broken down the barriers of class.
Even in the old world, and notably in the new, democracy
has created schools, colleges, and universities, and has char-
tered them to serve the common welfare. The university has
become, therefore, especially in this mid-western region, "the
people's organized instrument of research," or as President
Van Hise puts it, "the scientific adviser of the state." On
every hand we hear variations of this central theme of social
service. College presidents and men in political life, each
group from its own point of view, insist upon this conception
of higher education. In this view the university appeals to
the imagination, it becomes an organ of the higher life of the
community and the state, it connects itself at every point
with the industry, commerce, social conditions, educational
interests, ideal purposes of the commonwealth.

The university as a social agent is intrusted with certain
standards of the community, standards of scientific method
and of truth, standards of technical efficiency, standards of
cultural attainment, standards of personal character and of
civic duty. It is only through the creation, the guarding, the
elevation of these standards that material and spiritual prog-
ress is possible. The university becomes a trustee of ideas and

382 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

ideals, a custodian of standards. In the administration of
these standards the university cannot sacrifice the common
welfare to individual need or desire. It must exclude those
who fail to meet the standards of attainment and character
which the university administers. Favoritism, faltering, com-
promise, cowardice mean betrayal of a social trust. Nor may
the standards of the university be provincial and temporary.
In the words of President Hadley, "the university must be
judged by the standards which have held for all time rather
than those of a single generation, or of a single profession."
The imagination kindles at this thought of a university ex-
alting the tests of truth and character by which society slowly
gropes toward higher levels.

When the mind is possessed by this vision of the university,
all the careers for which it provides training take on the dignity
of social worth. Vocations which have been thought of as
individual widen into literal calls to be servants of the common
life. The office of the teacher, the function of the physician,
the work of the engineer, get their higher meaning from their
value to the community. The profession of the law, so often
thought of as a field for personal exploitation, is in its true
significance a social service. "We lawyers," declares Woodrow
Wilson, " are servants of society, officers of the courts of justice
. . . guardians of the public peace, . . . bond servants of the
people." The scientific farmer is in one view seeking personal
gain, but in a much deeper sense he is diffusing knowledge and
skill and is raising into higher esteem fundamental industry
which makes modern society possible. The college graduate
who has received the training men are fond of calling liberal
may no longer regard himself merely as a member of a privi-
leged class. In the new spirit of noblesse oblige he must recog-
nize his obligation to his fellows and to the community ; must
remember that "life is not a cup to be drained, but a measure
to be filled." Such is the ideal purpose which summons the
modern university to unity and comradeship in the service
of the common life. When this vision fills the minds of all,

PURPOSE AND SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSITY 383

when it controls their conduct, when it stirs their emotions
and carries them steadily forward to loyal achievement, then
the university gains an irresistible power and becomes a true
expression of the higher purposes of the state, the nation, and
mankind.

The university fails of its purpose if its students do not
catch the inspiration of the common ideal. To generous-
minded young men and women this thought of the university
must make appeal. It is the duty of the institution to fix this
image of the university in the imaginations of its students.
From the day they enter to the day they leave, this dominant
purpose, this persuasive spirit should grow ever more potent
and fascinating. It would be well if students could begin their
college life with formal ceremony, so that at the very outset
they might feel more keenly the social obligations they are
assuming. Admission to the university should seem to them
initiation into a high calling. It is a pity that they should
begin for the most part thoughtlessly or with minds fixed
solely upon personal aims and plans. The state is calling them
to her service. She has a right to insist that only those who are
in earnest, who have at least a dawning sense of social duty,
should seek admission to the public training which can be
justified only by its service to the state. It should be made
clear that no one has the right to demand admission as a per-
sonal privilege. Conformity with technicalities of entrance
must not blind us to the moral obligations involved. Out of
the common fund to which all citizens contribute, the state
erects and maintains not for personal advantage but for public
good this West Point of science, the arts, and the professions.
Every matriculant, therefore, by virtue of admission is honor
bound to meet the state halfway in her desire to prepare
soldiers of science for the battles of peace. The university
must unhesitatingly rid itself of individuals who are indifferent
to intellectual work or hostile to it. After fair test, those who
fail to show their sense of the university's purpose must be
dismissed. This is necessary not only in justice to the state,

384 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

but in fairness to those who show due appreciation of their
opportunities and duties.

The dominant university purpose gives a proper setting to
the activities of student life and to the standards and conduct
of the groups into which the student community naturally
falls. The contacts of daily association and searching tests of
comradeship, the discovery and development of leadership,
the give and take of social intercourse, the healthy recreation
of undergraduate life — all constitute an environment which
may afford admirable discipline. There is large truth in the
assertion that the university is the world in miniature and
that it offers a social training which will be turned to account
in the wider life of the community. But all these activities
must be tested by the dominant purpose of the university.
The question must always be, Is this or that out of harmony
with the ideal of the university as an organ of the common life ?
Does this student demonstration or that rollicking festivity
create in the public mind the feeling that the university is
living for itself and not for the community ; does it foster the
belief that the university is not dominated by the motive of
service; does it create the suspicion that students ignore or
forget their duty to the state which is making their self -prep-
aration possible ? This is a vital question. So with the student
groups that play so large a part in academic communities.
Are these groups working loyally for the common welfare,
have they due regard for the fundamental things of university
life, are they actuated by a sense of responsibility for their
members, do they cultivate tolerance, justice, and good will?
These are questions which individuals and groups must con-
stantly put to themselves and answer frankly and honestly.
The good name of the university is safe only when its members
feel an obligation to further the common purpose to make the
university a true organ of the whole people.

So long as this spirit prevails, no sense of arrogance, of ex-
clusiveness, of privilege or caste will enter the minds of its
members. The old distinction of "town" and "gown," the

PURPOSE AND SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSITY 385

traditional attitude of superiority toward those outside the
walls of the academic cloister, these things have no place in
an institution dominated by the spirit of social service. Every
man and woman of the commonwealth becomes in this view
a supporter and patron of the university, and may expect
from it good will and loyal service. If to say that the uni-
versity belongs to the state is anything more than phrase-
making, every member who has imagination, the power to
see the institution in its real relationships, must feel the gen-
uine humility of one who would faithfully serve his fellows.

If the university is to fulfill its function, it must carry con-
viction to the people of the commonwealth. It must impress
them with its purpose, make them see it as a faithful agency
of the people. The men and women of the state must not
think of the university as an institution which, because it
has public support, should lower its standards to admit the
weak, indifferent, or incompetent, or to graduate those who
have failed to reach the minimum of attainment. People
must not think of the university as a place in which personal
influences can secure special privilege. Rather they must
regard it as fearlessly loyal to the common welfare, true to
high standards of scholarship, truth, efficiency, character, and
judgment. They must not ask or expect special favors from
this servant of the whole democracy.

If the university purpose is to be achieved, the institution
must seek special ability wherever this is to be found. It
would be a calamity if only sons and daughters of the rich and
well-to-do could gain access to higher training. Talent and
genius ignore the distinctions of wealth and class. A way must
be found by which young men and young women of great
promise, however they may be hampered by poverty, may
gain access to the social training of the university, and be
freed in large part or wholly from the self-supporting work
which makes the best scholarship impossible. We must be-
lieve that men and communities will catch this vision of the
university and by providing scholarships see to it that no

386 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

exceptional ability shall be deprived of development for the
service of the commonwealth. The university would lose its
power and its ideals if it ever became a place of privilege for
the well-to-do and not a training school for all who have
talents and capacities for which the state has need. The con-
trolling ideal, the mastering purpose of the university, there-
fore, is not a mere phrase or conceit ; it is a guiding principle
which finds application to every individual, to every group,
to every activity of academic life, and organizes these into
the strength and unity which only a common aim can confer.
Purpose steadily pursued creates a persuasive spirit, regis-
ters itself in institutional character. Open-mindedness must
be a conspicuous trait of a true academic community. The
very search for new knowledge, the effort to see the relations
of things, presupposes an attitude of inquiry, a willingness
to look at an idea or a fact from many different standpoints.
Open-mindedness toward truth merges into tolerance and
mutual respect as between the individuals and groups who
make up the university. Narrowness or prejudice, a patron-
izing attitude of one group toward another, the discrediting
of this calling as compared with that, the limiting of the con-
ception of research to traditional fields of inquiry — these
things have no place in an institution mastered by a sense of
loyal duty to commonwealth and nation. Genuine culture
consists largely in sympathy with many kinds of men and in
insight into the widest ranges of human life. To live in a highly
specialized community and to enter with appreciation into
the activities of one's colleagues in many fields is in itself a
liberalizing experience. There is place for generous rivalry
in a great university, but this rivalry must be kept on a high
level and not allowed to sink into unworthy conflict and dis-
cord. Open-mindedness, tolerance, high-minded rivalry can-
not fail, under the guidance of a controlling ideal, to fuse the
university into a genuine unity of comradeship and good will.
When each man and each group can see, not only through
its own eyes but through the eyes of other persons and groups,

PURPOSE AND SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSITY 387

the common problems of the institution, there must develop
a keener sense of team play, a quickened loyalty, a more vivid
corporate consciousness.

The university, a servant of the common life, exalting
standards of efficiency and worth, summoning its members to
a common task, must stand for the loftiest ideals. It must
inspire enduring faith. It must exalt character above tech-
nical skill, mental alertness, refinement of feeling. It must
lay hold of the fundamental motives. The university rightly
aims at leadership, but in the words of .Dr. Pritchett, it can
win this

only by inspiring the youth of the democracy with a true, vibrant
living faith. . . . The American university is to-day the home of
that faith. It is the faith of humanity in humanity . . . and the
American university, which embodies the intellectual aspirations
of a free people, is becoming day by day the representative of their
spiritual aspirations as well.

The state university cannot fulfill its true function unless it
rises to the higher level of spiritual idealism. It may not ally
itself with any church or support any one theology, but it
must draw its inspiration from an essentially religious view
of life. As the Sir Thomas More's Utopians tolerated many
theologies of widely varying kinds, but united in common
worship of the divine energy back of all nature and human
life, so the university welcomes men and women of many faiths
and rallies them to a devoted loyalty to common ideals of duty,
service, and reverent aspiration.

In the "Republic" Socrates, in talking of testing the young
for leadership, declares,

We must inquire who are the best guardians of their own con-
viction that the interest of the state is to be the rule of all their
actions. We must watch them from their youth upwards and pro-
pose deeds for them to perform in which they are most likely to
forget or be deceived, and he who remembers and is not de-
ceived is to be selected and he who fails in the trial is to be
rejected.

388 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

The gentle sage, goes on to describe the tests of toil and pain,
the tests of fear, the tests of seductive pleasures, and he tells
us that

He who at every age as boy and youth, and in mature life, has
come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall be appointed a ruler
and guardian of the state. He shall be honored in life and death,
and shall receive sepulcher and other memorials of honor, the
greatest that we have to give.

The essentials of life and character have not changed since
the days when Socrates talked of truth and justice in the
groves of Academus. You graduates to-day go forth to be
tested. You have in varying measure the vision of the uni-
versity, the sense of obligation which your training lays upon
you. You must hear, be it ever so faintly, the call to be serv-
ants of the commonwealth. Put to yourselves the question
which comes down through the centuries, can you hold to this
conviction that the interests of the community should be the
rule of all your actions ? You will face intellectual sophistry
and beguiling fallacies. Have you the keenness of mind and
the force of character to analyze these specious assertions
and to hold steadfastly to things that are true and enduring?
You will be tested by fear, fear of financial loss, fear of ridi-
cule, fear it may be of social ostracism. Have you the courage
and character to preserve your convictions of loyalty to the
general good? You will be lured by pleasure, dazzled it may
be by luxury and ostentation, tempted to self-indulgence
and evanescent pleasures. Have you the fiber to resist these
appeals and to remember that the social servant must be
ever strong, clear eyed, and faithful to his work?

May you hold to the vision you have caught : may it with
the passing years grow ever clearer, brighter, more command-
ing in your lives. The university sends you forth to-day with
God speed, intrusts to you the good name of our widening
community, summons you to loyalty, urges you to organize
all your resources of mind and spirit into the unity of a high

PURPOSE AND SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSITY 389

aim, the firm resolve to realize in your own lives the master-
ful purpose of the university which is to be in ever fuller meas-
ure at once the standard bearer and the servant of the state.

Go to your work and be strong, halting not in a world of men,
Balking the end half won for an instant dole of praise.
Stand to your work and be wise — certain of sword and pen,
Who are neither children nor Gods, but men in a world of men.

MILITARY CHARACTER1

YATES STIRLING

[Captain Yates Stirling, United States Navy (1872- ), was edu-
cated at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and has served
in the navy since his graduation in 1892. He participated in the Spanish-
American War, served in the Philippines during the insurrection, and in
1913 commanded the submarine flotilla of the Atlantic Fleet. He has
written many technical articles on the navy and several books for boys
("A United States Midshipman in the Philippines, " etc.). The present
selection discusses those moral qualities which from a military and naval
standpoint may be considered the chief aims of education not only at
West Point and Annapolis but in any educational program of the present
day.]

"A high moral courage capable of great resolutions. A
physical courage which takes no account of danger. A man
who is gallant, just, firm, upright, capable of esteeming merit
in others without jealousy," — this is Jomini's definition of
a leader of men.

The great leaders each possessed moral power and intel-
lectual power to a high degree. Of the two, moral power is
by far the more important. Moral power, or strength of
character, is usually a product of heredity and early training.

For a military leader qualities of character that have the
greatest weight are decision and good sense. He must have
clearness in conception and energy in execution. History
offers many examples to show that after decision one of the
qualities of leadership which contributes the most to success
is stubbornness.

Napoleon was fond of declaring to his less decisive com-
manders: "Before conceding the victory let us wait until

1 From " Fundamentals of Naval Service." Copyright, 1917, by J. B. Lip-
pincott Company. Reprinted by permission.

39°

MILITARY CHARACTER 391

it is snatched from us. Before retiring let us wait until we are
forced to do so."

John Paul Jones on board the sinking Bon Homme Rich-
ard, engaged in a death struggle with the Serapis, when
asked if he had struck, stubbornly answered : "I have not yet
begun to fight." Moral power won for him the victory.

General Grant betrayed this important characteristic of
military character when he announced, "We will fight it out
on this line if it takes us all summer."

A leader, to be able correctly to use his natural moral power,
must be thoroughly versed in his profession, and thus obtain
the necessary confidence in his ability to succeed in any under-
taking. Knowledge alone is not enough; he must have fre-
quently applied his knowledge to cases ; in other words, solved
and executed problems dealing with the elements and prin-
ciples of his profession.

Napoleon, before his campaign in Italy, had thoroughly
trained his mind for war, yet he had not acquired that supreme
self-confidence which afterwards made him the boldest leader
of history. This boldness came to him gradually through the
practical experience of handling armies in the field. It was not
until the great victory at the bridge of Lodi that he fully real-
ized his great ability as a general, and gained a self-con-
fidence that seemed impossible of resistance.

"The Articles for the Government of the Navy," popularly
known as the "Articles of War," define the standard of char-
acter of a "Gentleman and a Naval Officer" in the following
words :

"The Commanders of all fleets, squadrons, naval stations,
and vessels belonging to the Navy are required to show in
themselves* a good example of virtue, honor, patriotism and sub-
ordination."

Possessing these four cardinal qualities of character will not
assuredly produce a leader, yet they are necessary ingredients
in leadership. No man can be a truly great leader without all
of them.

392 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

VIRTUE signifies the quality of manliness, manly strength
or valor, courage, bravery. Can any one doubt that Caesar,
Hannibal, Alexander, Nelson, Napoleon, St. Vincent, Farra-
gut, John Paul Jones, Sampson, or Dewey lacked these ?

"Add to your faith virtue and to your virtue knowledge"
is an excellent receipt for military character. Also bear in
mind that "The brave man is not he who feels no fear, but he
whose noble mind its fears subdues."

A famous military leader when going into battle could not
control his legs, which shivered so as to make him fear others
would observe them and believe he was afraid. He is said to
have been overheard saying : "Tremble, legs, but if you only
knew where I am about to take you, you would give way
under me."

Virtue demands strong spirit and precludes the weak and
vicious; it produces the kind of men that command respect
and attention everywhere and at all times. With virtue as a
foundation honor erects a high sense of duty. It gives the
possessor a subconscious understanding of what is right and
just. From honor, loyalty, fair dealing, and faithfulness to
trust naturally flow. Honor causes a person in the performance
of a duty not to look for reward or punishment, but to scrupu-
lously execute the task for the task's sake.

PATRIOTISM is the motive binding us all together in one
great cause. It gives unity to action. The virtue in the civil
administrators, the heroism and self-sacrifice of the soldiers
and sailors, flow from a custom acquired by men of considering
their nation as an entity. They delight to identify themselves
with its fortunes, share in its triumphs, and mourn in its dis-
asters ; ever looking to a future when the nation's destiny will
be fulfilled. This noble idea of " Country " represents a heritage
of sentiments, of traditions, of thoughts, of common interests.
Patriotism is fundamental. We must learn in our childhood
to cherish and defend this most sacred of all national ideals.

A nation in whose citizens the virtue of patriotism is securely
implanted is of consequence strong, vigorous, progressive.

MILITARY CHARACTER 393

Without this ideal, a nation will be weak and spineless — two
traits of national character which inevitably lead to national
death. Patriotism becomes a passion which burns undimin-
ished. It exerts the strongest influence for unity; it is the
moving force in war; it is the ideal for which sailors and
soldiers cheerfully die, their beloved national anthem upon
their lips.

All great leaders understood the power of patriotism and
seldom missed an opportunity to arouse it in their followers.
If an army or a fleet is blessed with a true leader, patriotism
often centers around the personal magnetism of that leader.
He becomes the embodiment of the ideal of patriotism. It
is said that Napoleon's presence upon the battle field, in the
effect it had upon the morale of his soldiers, was worth 30,000
men. Nelson was given the value of three ships of the line.

SUBORDINATION, the quality or habit of obedience, is indis-
pensable in a military service. Subordination is an essential
quality to regulate the relations of subordinates to their
leaders. Without subordination in a community chaos will
reign supreme.

Burke glorifies this attribute of good citizenship in words
so stirring as to appeal to every patriot: "That generous
loyalty to rank and sex; that proud submission; that dig-
nified obedience ; that subordination of the heart which kept
alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom."

Virtue, honor, patriotism, subordination, will, self-confidence,
all go to make up military character. Yet there is another
and most important attribute for leadership; it is the "will-
ingness to take responsibility."

The courage of responsibility is a glorious and divine gift, which
alone enables a high-placed general to achieve great results ; for,
if his experience and intelligence are not sufficient, he finds shrewd
helpers to supply his deficiency. Courage of responsibility is
born of a certain magnanimity which must be inherent in the gen-
eral, and which ennobles his whole nature. It is a feeling of supe-
riority which elevates without making presumptuous. It is moral

394 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

courage and strength of mind in high development, schooled to
endure the severest trials without unsettlement of the power to
reason clearly, and without swerving from the great end in view.
Thorough knowledge enhances security, steels self-confidence, and
so gives calmness under responsibility. Ignorance and uncertainty
undermine it, destroying the power to act with decision under
stress. — VON DER GOLTZ.

Every leader worthy of the name must be prepared to ac-
cept responsibility for the acts of his subordinates.

AMBITION, the soldier's virtue, is a valuable military at-
tribute. It is the desire to excel, to be first, and with it there
will be continuous and unflinching effort to succeed. "Great
deeds are impossible without ambition."

Other contributing attributes to leadership are patience
and resolution in order to "meet with triumph and disaster
and treat those two impostors just the same."

IMAGINATION puts the crowning glory upon the head of a
leader. It is the creative force. Napoleon attributed his in-
spirations to memories called up by his imagination.

Will, ambition, and a love of fame, blended with creative pow-
ers (a trained and imaginative mind), result in an irresistible
activity.

Military history teaches that in nearly every battle, character,
morale has been the determining factor. We accept the statement
readily. But the remarkable fact is that in spite of the known de-
termining value of superior morale, of superior military character,
and especially of the value of superior military character in those
who command, no systematic and continued effort has been made
in our service to examine the ways of creating superior morale, of
creating a high average of military character in the service.

We understand academically the several attributes which
go to make a leader of men, but we seem to take for granted
that these factors are innate and cannot be developed. That
this is not true has been shown by many writers on military
history.

MILITARY CHARACTER 395

Military character is a product developed by gradual and
prolonged application. It does not shine forth except after
profound studies and in its beginnings, like every creature
that tries to walk, it is obliged to follow a guide on whom it
leans. The true genius differs from other men in this, that he
may soon dispense with his guide to become in his own turn
a creator. Yet a genius never ceases work on his own mind.
He constantly builds by the untiring effort of a will that has
an end in view.

A study of the life of Napoleon shows that his genius was
so developed. Education, the will to learn, the concentrated
life-long effort, the clear perception of the mission, the appli-
cation of the knowledge and experience gained, all joined in
an individual of exceptional attainments, served to produce
the greatest military genius of modern times.

If such a genius found such measures necessary, if he had
to endure the labor of preparation to insure achievement, no
man can be justified in believing he can succeed with lesser
effort.

Education first of all must ever be considered the founda-
tion for genius, the principles underlying cause and effect;
a clear comprehension of past events. With these there must
be a precise formulation of one's own ideas, and lastly exercise
in application.

Military and naval operations require more than mere
loyalty. In a large mixed force of battleships, cruisers, scouts,
destroyers, submarines, and auxiliaries, going into action
against an enemy's fleet, there is no time for the supreme
leader to attend to every detail of the impending battle.
Subordinates must appreciate the situation and act appro-
priately for themselves. It is therefore evident that in war
the forces of mentality and character enter most frequently
and are the dominating forces. Subordinate leaders must act
to oppose the enemy at every point. To do this effectively
they must act upon their own initiative. Not independently,
but in coordinate effort. The quality required is called " trained

396 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

initiative." It must be based upon knowledge — knowledge
of their profession and the plan of the supreme leader. Trained
initiative implies loyalty, not a mere personal loyalty, but a
loyalty to the plan, to the end to be accomplished.

"Whoever is loyal, whatever be his cause, is devoted, is
active, controls himself, is in love with his cause, and believes
in it."

Loyalty aims at unity. Full knowledge is a necessary es-
sential for true loyalty. A subordinate leader with full knowl-
edge of the plan of the supreme leader uses his trained initia-
tive and loyally furthers the aims of his chief. The aim, the
end to be reached, must ever be held before his mind's eye;
an act which does not further that end is disloyal.

Loyalty to the supreme leader must be coupled with loyalty
from that leader to all his subordinates.

Napoleon's "system" meant merely that his subordinate
leaders thoroughly understood the plans, intentions, strategy,
and tactics of their chief. They had been indoctrinated and
taught by Napoleon himself ; the workings of Napoleon's mind
were plain to such soldiers as Davout, Bernadotte, Lannes,
and Murat. They possessed the trained initiative coupled
with loyalty to act for the furtherance of Napoleon's aims.
"A word to the wise is sufficient." Each understood the "sys-
tem," and they by united and continued effort, without re-
stricting directions from their chief, won for him Austerlitz,
Jena, Wagram. Napoleon was loyal to such captains. When
he ceased to be loyal, when through mistrust in their loyalty
and ability he failed to make known his plans, then his "sys-
tem" broke down and battles were lost. Even the genius of
Napoleon could not give directions at every point of a battle
field, and subordinate leaders cannot act to further a plan
whose end in view is not known nor understood. "They do
not understand my system," Napoleon i§ quoted to have
said. Why? Because he had not freely confided in his sub-
ordinates. No man can be fully loyal either to a cause or a
plan without a full understanding of it. The desire to be loyal

MILITARY CHARACTER 397

is insufficient ; it must be augmented with knowledge to guide
loyal effort.

Loyalty naturally involves a surrender of a measure of
individualism. Proper loyalty in the military sense should
not lessen individual worth, but, on the contrary, should
enhance it.

Self-assertive independence is suppressed, but individual
judgment and initiative find themselves encouraged.

To be great within his own authority and prepare for being
great in a higher area should be the true aim of loyalty.

To inspire his subordinates with loyalty, a leader must
have their full confidence. He must instruct them thoroughly
and carefully in his plans of action, feel sure that each one
understands them clearly and that all know what results are
desired, what end is in view. And in addition to this and
equally as important, he must let his subordinates feel his
confidence in them and fully realize the limits of their own
authority in order that they can be prepared to act with
promptness and decision.

The following is quoted from a paper written by a young
lieutenant of the Fleet upon loyalty. It is particularly inter-
esting in view of the intimate knowledge of conditions por-
trayed :

We have all seen unexpected failures of ships officered by ca-
pable men that could only be explained by a lack of team work.
Conversely, in seeking the secret of some very successful ships
manned by officers of only average abilities, we could only conclude
that they had merged their efforts. Who has not seen the divi-
sional officer who could not look beyond his own division ? Who
has not seen the chief engineer who, immersed in his own depart-
ment, failed to consider the ship as a whole ? A most vital tactical
error is to send one's forces into action piecemeal ; similarly, dis-
jointed action in the everyday affairs of the ship will certainly
ruin her.

A condition such as might exist on board ship through dis-
jointed action of subordinates must be laid at the captain's

398 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

door. He has failed in his loyalty, either through sheer lazi-
ness or else through lack of confidence in his subordinates, in
not making plain his plans and his aims and encouraging his
subordinates to join him as subordinate partners in a common
cause.

DECISION OF CHARACTER. — We have frequently heard it
said of men in high places, "He lacks decision of character."
What do we mean to convey by this expression? "Sway
over others is before all else founded upon WILL. He who
knows best how to give the most definite expression to his will
leads." This is axiomatic and the description fits our expres-
sion "decision of character." Knowledge reenforced by
practice, thoughtful consideration, a decision, and then will
or stubbornness in execution, — that is decision of character,
and he who possesses it will rise high in a military profession.
In the navy there is no place for an indecisive man. He is a
destroyer of unity, of confidence, and he fritters away valuable
time. He dissipates his own energy and the energy of his sub-
ordinates through "resolutions adopted, rejected, resumed,
suspended."

Who is there who cannot recall such indecisive characters
— a man occupying a position of responsibility and trust who
could not give a decided answer to the least important ques-
tion where action was concerned? Instead he would hide
behind such answers as "I'll think it over" or "I'll take it
under consideration."

Decision of character is the habit of dealing with each sit-
uation as it arises with a prompt, clear, and firm reply as to
what shall be done and the manner of doing it. It is a habit
and requires cultivation by practice.

In the cultivation of this valuable habit, a habit most im-
portant for any man who is in a position of responsibility, no
matter how unimportant the position may be, the first thing
to consider is, "What is the task?"; then, "What are the
obstacles in the way of its accomplishment?"; further, a
knowledge of and a careful weighing of the means at hand for

MILITARY CHARACTER 399

overcoming the obstacles. The reasoning mind by a method
of pure logic is then ready to give the reply. This process of
reasoning is long and laborious to the novice, who has not the
knowledge of either the obstacles or the means at hand of
overcoming them. Knowledge and practice overcome these
difficulties. A trained mind can "estimate a situation" with
the speed of thought ; his " decision" or reply comes so quickly
after the question is put to him it would appear almost that
he had rendered his reply without reasoning. But such is
not the case; his mind "short circuits" from the recognition
of the task to the decision as to the manner of its accomplish-
ment merely because the mind is trained. The reasoning be-
comes subconscious and such reasoning has the speed of light
itself.

"The man who seeks decision of character should decide
knowingly if he can, ignorantly if he must, but in any case he
should decide."

INITIATIVE is of two kinds : (i) The power to make starts.
(2) To act upon one's own responsibility in order to help the
cause of the Chief.

These two should not be confounded ; it is the second which
is of most importance in a military service. It is called trained
initiative and has been casually discussed above. We are now
going to elaborate more fully upon the fundamental attribute.

Thorough and systematic study, education, in other words,
in order to be able to grasp the principles of the art of war,
naval or military, must be the base rock foundation upon which
this initiative can be built. Without a clear understanding
of these principles, initiative must inevitably lead to a dis-
organizing independence.

We all know that a boy of eight or ten years cannot be given
complete initiative; why? Because the moral and material
principles of life have not yet been learned. If we could con-
fine his experiments in initiative in reasonably shallow water,
and near enough home, it would be the most salutary expe-
rience for him to let him take his own risks and get,

400 AMERICAN LIFE AND CHARACTER

figuratively speaking, capsized. Thus he will learn the wind's
treachery, the water's danger and discomfort, and his own poor
judgment and insufficiency without losing his young life, or,
what is worse, his developing character. He needs to buy as
cheaply as possible the necessary experience of failure which
will tone down his willfulness, develop his caution, cultivate
his dexterity in handling his own craft (himself), practice
his judgment and his quickness of decision, and give him
thus a working knowledge of the world.

For the navy, and those who will join in time of war, this
initiative must be acquired in time of peace through frequent
practice.

It is a very old saying that "We learn from our failures,
not our successes." No one should be ashamed of a failure
that occurred through a lack of knowledge, which was through
no fault of his. Yet do not depend upon learning the many
lessons through the failures of yourself alone; profit by the
failures of others. This was the method of all great leaders.

We have seen that as a base foundation for the development
of military character we must obtain our knowledge of war
from both historical study and experience during peace. In
war, character comes to the front quickly, but in peace many
officers having the qualities of great leaders lie fallow, await-
ing only the call of opportunity.

THE INTERNATIONAL MIND : HOW TO
DEVELOP IT1

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER

[Nicholas Murray Butler (1862- ) is one of the most prominent
figures in American education. He was educated at Columbia University,
served there as professor of philosophy and education, and has been its
president since 1902. His writings embrace "The Meaning of Educa-
tion" (1915) and "True and False Democracy" (1907). He is the editor
of The Educational Review. The address below was delivered at the
first session of the National Conference on the Foreign Relations of
the United States at Long Beach, New York, on May 28, 1917. It
was first published in the Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science
for July, 1917.]

For two generations it has been a common complaint that
the people of the United States took no adequate interest
in foreign policy and were without any but cursory knowl-
edge of international politics. This judgment has been
expressed, often publicly, by successive secretaries of state,
by those who have held important diplomatic posts, and by
those who, in the Senate of the United States, have seen long
service upon the Committee on Foreign Relations. A sort of
national self-centeredness together with a feeling of geographic
and political isolation have combined to bring about this
unfortunate state of affairs. It has been unfortunate for two
reasons: first, because it marked a serious break with our
earlier national tradition; and second, because it has held
back the people and the government of the United States
from making the full measure of contribution of which they
were capable to the better and closer international organiza-
tion of the world.

1 From " A World in Ferment." Copyright, 1918, by Charles Scribner's
Sons. Reprinted by permission.

403

404 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

One need have but slight acquaintance with the writings
and speeches of the Fathers and with the records of the early
Congresses to know that, when the government of the United
States was young, it was the eager ambition of those who most
fully represented it to play a large part in the international life
of the world, primarily with the view of advancing those ideas
and those principles in which the people of the new American
republic believed and to which they were committed. Ben-
jamin Franklin was our first great internationalist. Alexander
Hamilton, of whom Talleyrand said that he had divined
Europe; Thomas Jefferson, whose public service in Europe
was quite exceptional ; as well as Chancellor Livingston, John
Jay, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, John Quincy Adams, and
Henry Clay not only knew western Europe, but were known
by it. In making endeavor, therefore, to increase the interest
of the American people in foreign relationships and in inter-
national policy we are but asking them to return to one of
the finest and soundest of national traditions.

Our national self-absorption has held us back, too, from
playing an adequate part in the development of that inter-
national organization which has long been under way and
which the results of the present war will hasten and greatly
advance. Despite these facts, and chiefly because of the high
character and ability of those who represented the' United
States at the two Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, the
American contributions to the deliberations and recommenda-
tions of those notable assemblies were most important. In-
deed, when the record of history comes to be made up, it
may be that those contributions will be judged to mark the
beginning of a new epoch in the world's history.

The Conference which now assembles to consider and dis-
cuss the international relations and the international policies
of the United States is a beginning and only a beginning of
a campaign of education and enlightenment which is to con-
tinue until there has been developed among all parts and sec-
tions of our land what I ventured some years ago to describe

THE INTERNATIONAL MIND 405

as the "international mind." The international mind is noth-
ing else than that habit of thinking of foreign relations and
business, and that habit of dealing with them, which regards
the several nations of the civilized world as free and cooperat-
ing equals in aiding the progress of civilization, in developing
commerce and industry, and in spreading enlightenment and
culture throughout the world. It would be as inconsistent with
the international mind to attempt to steal some other nation's
territory or to do that nation an unprovoked injury or damage,
as it would be inconsistent with the principles of ordinary
morality to attempt to steal some other individual's purse or to
commit an unprovoked assault upon him. The international
mind requires that a nation and its government shall freely
and gladly grant to every other nation and to every other gov-
ernment the rights and the privileges which it claims for itself.
From this it follows that the international mind is not con-
sonant with any theory of the state which regards the state as
superior to the rules and restrictions of moral conduct or which
admits the view that to some one state is committed the he-
gemony of the world's affairs for the world's good. When that
doctrine prevails and takes hold of the conviction and the
imagination of a great people, an issue is presented that cannot
be settled by vote in conference, that cannot be arbitrated by
the wisest statesmen, and that cannot be determined by the
findings of any court. The authority and the value of each
of these modes of procedure is challenged by the very issue
itself. Therefore resort must be had to armed force in order
to determine whether the international mind, shared by a score
or more of independent and self-respecting nations, shall pre-
vail or whether the arms of a non-moral, all-powerful, military
imperialism shall be stretched out over the whole round world
for its government and its protection. It is to determine this
issue that the world is now at war.

Should the cause of imperialism, by any chance, win this
war, the people of the United States would find it quite un-
necessary for some time to come to concern themselves with

4o6 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

foreign relations and with foreign policy. Those matters
would be taken care of for them, by a power that had shown
itself strong enough to overcome and to suppress internation-
ally minded men and nations. On the other hand, if, as we
confidently hope and believe, the issue of this war is to be
favorable to the free self-governing democracies of the world,
then the people of the United States must address themselves
with redoubled energy and with closest attention to those
matters of legislation, of administration, and of general public
policy which constitute and determine national conduct.
The first task of this conference and of every similar confer-
ence that may be held hereafter is to drive this lesson home.

When this task is undertaken, it will speedily appear that our
government is not well organized at the moment for the formu-
lation and prosecution of effective international policies. The
division of authority between the national government and
governments of the several states raises one set of problems.
Action under the treaty-making power of the national govern-
ment raises another set of problems, particularly since there
is not yet a substantial unanimity of opinion as to the scope
and authority of the treaty-making power itself, or as to the
proper and effective means which should be at the command
of the government of the United States for enforcing among
its own people adherence to a treaty obligation into which,
through their government, they have solemnly entered. The
difficulties with which we shall have to contend are, therefore,
not alone difficulties arising from present lack of popular in-
formation and present lack of popular interest in international
policies, but they are also those which arise from the structure
and the operation of our own form of constitutional govern-
ment.

That the old secrecy of diplomatic action has gone forever
is a happy circumstance. This secrecy was well suited to the
making of conventions between ruling monarchs or reigning
dynasties, or between governments which represented only
very select and highly privileged classes. It has no place,

THE INTERNATIONAL MIND 407

however, in diplomatic intercourse between democratic
peoples. The people themselves must understand and assent
to international policies and contracts that are entered upon
and executed in their name. Otherwise there can be no assur-
ance that these policies will be executed and these contracts
observed ; for without foreknowledge on the part of the people
of that to which they are committed there can be no successful
moral appeal made to them to keep their word and their bond
at a later time when an opposition may arise between prin-
ciple and immediate self-interest.

We are assembled, then, to help begin a movement which
must not cease until the entire American people are interested
in their international relationships, their international position,
and their international influence. When that shall have been
even measurably accomplished, the people themselves will be
quick to bring about such changes in the form of their gov-
ernmental structure and in their administrative procedure as
will enable them honorably and finely to maintain their place,
not as a nation that lives to itself alone, but as a nation that
shares with every other like-minded nation the desire and the
purpose to improve the lot of mankind everywhere, and to
carry into the uttermost parts of the earth those hopes, those
principles, and those forms of governmental action that are
best adapted to giving man the fullest opportunity to make
himself free, and to be worthy of freedom.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE EVOLUTION
OF DEMOCRACY1

ALBERT SHAW

[Albert Shaw (1857- ) was educated at Grinnell College (Iowa) and
at Johns Hopkins. In 1891 he established the American Review of Re-
views and has been its editor ever since. He has written books and ar-
ticles on political science, economics, and municipal government. The
article which follows was an address delivered at Long Beach, New York,
on May 30, 1917, before the National Conference on the Foreign Rela-
tions of the United States and is valuable for calling attention to the
"larger vision" of the Monroe Doctrine which has become merged in
Pan- Americanism .]

The power and persistence of ideas lie at the base of all
historical movements. Policies have a tendency to form
themselves around doctrines and theories, and in due time
precedents begin to support policies and to reflect credit upon
doctrines. The Monroe Doctrine has run some such course,
until now the tendency has been to glorify it as well as to
accept it. In order that hope may not die within us and that
pessimism may not paralyze our power to press forward, we
are compelled to believe that the millennium is about to dawn,
that the great war of nations will end in the near future, and
that in the happiness of a world peace we shall somehow find
solutions for all the problems hitherto unsettled. I like to
indulge in these rosy, optimistic dreams, although I have
observed too much and studied too widely to suppose that
in plain reality a great war will have enlightened all under-
standings, chastened all spirits, and made everybody at once
right-minded and true-visioned.

1From Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, July 1917- Re-
printed by permission.

408

THE MONROE DOCTRINE 409

We shall continue to live in a world that is highly unequal in
its stages of development. Some parts of the world will be
much more unfinished than other parts. The future will have
very difficult questions to deal with that are not involved in
the present war. Nevertheless, if many great things that we
deem righteous and just can be established at the end of this
war, the future course of progress and civilization will be ren-
dered accordingly less difficult. We shall have our western-
hemisphere problems, but we shall also, I hope, have found
improved ways of dealing with them.

I should like to say a few words upon the relation of the
Monroe Doctrine to a far larger doctrine that had been earlier
proclaimed and that persisted in the convictions of some of Ijhe
men concerned with the Monroe Doctrine's formulation. The
political teachers of the eighteenth century, who were the
mentors and prophets of the revolutionary period, not only
proclaimed their doctrines of the rights of man and of political
and social democracy, but they also held firmly to the doctrine
of world organization. Europe lost the great vision and en-
tered upon a period of unrestrained nationalism after the col-
lapse of the Holy Alliance. But the American leaders, notably
Jefferson, kept alive both parts of the great conception of the
revolutionary reformers. That is to say, the authors and de-
fenders of the Declaration of Independence not only stood
for democracy, but also believed in the confederation of dem-
ocratic sovereignties and in the abolition of international
conflict.

Thus our American union of states was consciously built
upon both parts of the great conception of a reformed political
life for the world. The first part was the democratic rule of
communities, and the second part was the confederation of
sovereign states. In both parts we have made a marvelous suc-
cess of the practical demonstration. This success was based
not merely upon the doctrines themselves, but also very greatly
upon wisdom and generosity at moments of crisis. Two great
steps stand out among others. Hamilton's leadership in

4io AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

securing the assumption of the revolutionary debts of the states
by the confederation as a whole was most admirable in its
effects. Still more important was Jefferson's leadership in
persuading Virginia to cede her western lands, with the result
that the Northwestern Ordinance gave us a series of magnifi-
cent states while pointing the way toward creating the group
of states south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi. The
conceptions embodied in the Northwestern Ordinance have
been projected across the continent. They have given us
forty-eight sovereign states, not by any means of equal size
and importance, but sufficiently alike in their averages of
population and resources to constitute a true and permanent
sisterhood of commonwealths.

It was because of the persistence of this great conception of
democratic self-government in the particular states with the
common interests of them all merged in the higher structure of
the confederation, and with a higher machinery of justice to
deal with possible misunderstandings between them, that
Jefferson could see no necessary limit to the extension of a
system thus firmly based upon human equality and universal
education. He expressed the opinion repeatedly that a con-
federation thus formed might expect in due time to comprise
the whole of North America and ultimately to include Cen-
tral and South America.

Canada has, indeed, had a different history thus far from
that which both British and American statesmen had antici-
pated until a very recent period. Yet the course of things in
the Dominion of Canada has not, upon the whole, been widely
divergent from that which Jefferson and others had predicted.
The great northwestern areas have been divided into states,
in each of which — as in Manitoba and the rest — there is now
to be found a thoroughly modern and strictly democratic
government, with all the attributes of autonomy. The Cana-
dian states, from the maritime communities of the east to
British Columbia on the west, are united in a confederacy that
is quite in harmony with the Jeffersonian conception. So

THE MONROE DOCTRINE 411

closely akin are the essential principles that control the individ-
ual states and the Canadian confederation with the prin-
ciples that control our individual states and our union, that
there is visible an increasing harmony between the two halves
of the North American continent. There is practically little
more danger that Michigan will quarrel with Ontario, or that
Minnesota will quarrel with Manitoba, than that either Michi-
gan or Minnesota will quarrel with Wisconsin. I hope and
believe, however, that in case of a quarrel, as over a boundary
line, there may in due time be an authoritative tribunal as
between Alberta and Montana, so that the diplomatic methods
of the past that dealt with the Maine boundary and the Alaska
boundary may be superseded by an institution more analogous
to our Supreme Court. Suffice it to say that North America
has upon the whole worked out fairly well the eighteenth-cen-
tury conception of the democratic autonomy of states and the
confederation of neighboring commonwealths extending over
continental areas.

Jefferson and the men of his time undoubtedly realized that
democratic institutions could not be so easily developed where
people were lacking in homogeneity or were made up of races
lacking in education and unequal in economic development and
position. Yet those statesmen of the revolutionary period had
supreme faith in democracy, and they were not so contemptu-
ous of the so-called inferior or backward races.

The Monroe Doctrine was inspired by two things : first, a
large vision; and second, an exigency of statesmanship. I
shall not, I am sure, be thought to touch upon matters of his-
torical controversy when I ascribe the Monroe Doctrine to
Jefferson in so far as the larger vision is concerned. His
correspondence with Monroe affords all the evidence that one
needs. For the statesmanship of John Quincy Adams I have
the most unqualified regard, as also I have for the Pan- Ameri-
canism of Henry Clay and those of his school. The independ-
ence of Latin America was favored by our political leaders
and thinkers in the United States as the great preliminary step.

412

There were also those in Latin America who cherished the
earlier ideals of the French Revolution, and who believed
both in democracy and in the federation of states for the
preservation of peace. It was plain enough that even with
admirable paper constitutions prescribing democracy, it would
be a painful task to build up the intelligent and capable body
of democratic citizens without which mere paper institutions
cannot give freedom or security. But Jefferson, Adams, Mon-
roe, and their contemporaries believed that Latin America
would have a better future if it were free to go on in its own
way creating through arduous experience the reality of a series
of democratic republics, than if it were brought back under the
yoke of European colonialism by the united military and
naval efforts of the emperors of the Holy Alliance and the
Spanish crown.

It is true that the nature and the motives of the Monroe
Doctrine have been construed in different ways at dif-
ferent times by statesmen in Europe, in South America,
and in North America. These different constructions have
been due chiefly to practical problems involving the possible
application of the doctrine. It can never be rightly or fully
understood, however, unless one keeps in mind not only the
historical circumstances but the political doctrines and the
large visions under which it had its origin.

I repeat, then, that the conception of the American union
of self-governing states was in no small measure the outgrowth
of that still larger conception of world federation and per-
petual peace that German and British thinkers, as well as
French and American, were entertaining in the latter part of
the eighteenth century. The Monroe Doctrine was intended
to save the whole of the western hemisphere for the processes of
democracy and interstate organization, for the abolition of war
and the promotion of the concerns of the common civilization.

I have never had much respect for that view of the Monroe
Doctrine which has made foreigners think of it as a sort of

THE MONROE DOCTRINE 413

Yankee jingoism. Doubtless at certain times and in certain
aspects our own national interests have been involved in the
assertion that Europe must not meddle in western-hemisphere
affairs. We have desired to keep the western world from be-
coming militaristic, and in this sense we have helped to make
the Monroe Doctrine a success. From the Straits of Magellan
to Baffin's Bay and the Northwest Passage, there has been no
state or community that has founded itself upon the doctrine
of military power as against its neighbors. For a region so
relatively undeveloped in natural resources, and so far from
maturity in the creation of its bodies politic, South America
in recent decades has been singularly free from the din of
arms. Brazil, Argentina, and Chile have learned to be good
neighbors; and there is little evidence anywhere in Latin
America of the existence in any country of a party or a leader-
ship that has in mind the securing of a dominant position as
among neighbors by the militarizing of national resources on
the European model.

It was precisely to prevent the growth of such military
policies, and to encourage friendly and helpful inter-relation-
ships among the American democracies, that the men of
Monroe's time took their stand against the extension to the
western hemisphere of the European system of exploited
colonies. The survival of that system in Cuba remained as
an awful example and a standing justification of the prin-
ciples that Monroe and Adams enunciated and that Mr.
Canning seems to have supported.

It is necessary, I think, to have this larger vision in mind
in order to judge at times of the value of practical applica-
tions. It happens that the confederation of our forty-eight
sovereign states becomes relatively less a confederacy of sov-
ereigns, and relatively more a national union of subordinate
parts, simply because of the great homogeneity of the older
American stock and the wide distribution of our newer immi-
grant elements. But for these facts the states would be
relatively more individual and the union would not absorb

4i4 ' AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

power quite so easily. I am making this remark because of
its relation to the future of entities that have distinct popu-
lations. Thus, Porto Rico can derive security and much
economic and social progress from her place in our confedera-
tion while exercising democratic self-government according
to the genius of her own people and with the enjoyment of
her own language and customs. Cuba, in turn, can, for pur-
poses of international policy, derive benefit from a limited
connection with our confederacy while working out her own
destiny as a self-governing people. I am of opinion that the
two principles of democracy and confederation may also secure
for all of the Central American states, and even for Mexico,
some advantages from special or limited partnerships in our
confederation, with full freedom of domestic evolution.

As respects the larger nations of South America, the Monroe
Doctrine has become for them and us merely a family concern.
As against European imperialistic assertions, we may indeed
at times have been justified in declaring that ours was the
place of leadership in the western hemisphere, and that we
would make it our business to see that no small American
state should be treated by any European empire as Serbia
was treated in 1914 by the government at ^Vienna. But, as
among ourselves in the western hemisphere, it was not the
purpose of the Monroe Doctrine to create or set up a position
of overlordship. Much less was it any part of our doctrine
that Europe must find her spheres of interest and exploitation
in Asia and Africa in order that we might have the western
hemisphere as our sphere of commercial or political exploita-
tion. So far as Brazil and the other larger and more stable
republics are concerned, the Monroe Doctrine is to be in-
terpreted as one of mutual help and good understanding.
We seek increasing friendship with our South American
neighbors and rejoice in their progress and welfare.

It is entirely in accord with the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine
that the Pan-American Union has been established, and that

THE MONROE DOCTRINE 415

the various Pan-American conferences have been held from
time to time. Our interests in the European struggle were
identical with those which we asserted in the period of the
Monroe Doctrine. We stand now, as then, for Democracy,
Liberty, non-militarism, and friendly adjustments for all
international differences. We have joined in the war against
Germany, not to help one set of European powers obtain the
advantage over another group of powers for selfish reasons
of their own, but because the interests of all the American
republics, as of democracies everywhere, were imperiled
everywhere by the methods which Germany had adopted,
and by the doctrines and policies that Germany and her
allies were supporting with an organized application, such
as the world had never seen, of science and skill to military
ends.

The Monroe Doctrine was a part of that larger message of
peace, democracy, and universal friendship that the best
thinkers of modern times had delivered to Europe and America
in the latter part of the eighteenth century. With many
blemishes, but faithful in the main, North America and
South America have gone forward trying to realize in prac-
tice those great dreams of Democracy and International
Peace. Over against these high doctrines, announced in the
eighteenth century by utilitarian philosophers and Christian
moralists alike, we are now combating the destructive and
hideous doctrine of the right to dominate in the affairs of
the world by unrestrained force.

The object of the Monroe Doctrine was the peaceful evolu-
tion of Democracy in the western hemisphere. Our particular
interest in the war against Germany is in strict fulfillment
of the aims of the Monroe Doctrine. We are fighting for the
rights of Democracy and the claims of International Peace.
Fundamentally, the whole of the western hemisphere, South
America no less than North America, had become imperiled
by the doctrines and methods of Germany and her allies.
The cause of the United States in this war, therefore, is also

4i6 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

the cause of Brazil and other South American republics.
We are entitled to the moral support, if not to the physical
aid, of all the members of the Pan-American Union. If in
this crisis the western hemisphere shall see alike, it will be
fortunate indeed for the future relations of the United States
with the sister republics of South America, and the com-
munities of the mainland and of the islands around the
Caribbean.

OUR LATIN-AMERICAN POLICY1
RICHARD OLNEY

[Richard Olney (1835-1917) was educated at Brown and Harvard
universities and was a member of President Cleveland's Cabinet from
1893 to 1897, first as Attorney- General and then as Secretary of State.
The chief incident of his term of office was the Venezuela Affair, in which
the United States by a rather tart note induced Great Britain to refer
her boundary dispute with Venezuela to arbitration. The present
discussion is valuable for showing clearly the chief recent development of
the Monroe Doctrine since President Wilson took office.]

Twenty years ago a practical application of the Monroe
Doctrine seemed to be called for and was made. Subsequent
events have not weakened it, but rather enlarged its scope
and increased the esteem in which our people hold it.

The relations between the United States and the countries
of South and Central America — commonly spoken of col-
lectively as Latin America — have as a rule been friendly,
though not intimate. Those countries on the one hand have
relied for their commercial and financial connections almost
wholly upon Europe and treated their relations with the
United States as mostly official and perfunctory. The United
States, on the other hand, has viewed those relations in pretty
much the same way, while until within a very short time our
capitalists, producers, and manufacturers have failed to realize
the advantages of trade and intercourse with the peoples of
the South American continent. The one marked exception
to this condition of things has been the Monroe Doctrine —
a policy whereby the United States declares itself prepared
to resist any aggression by a European state upon the inde-
pendence or territorial integrity of any other American state.

1 From North American Review, February, 1916. Reprinted by permission.

4i 8 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

The policy simply means protection and security for any
other American state, and, maintained and exercised in good
faith, cannot easily be objected to by any other American state.
In that view it is a policy directed against Europe only, and
until recently it represented our entire Latin- American policy.

Within a short period, however, the United States has
developed a distinctive rule of action in respect of Latin
America, which in one sense certainly is in the interest of
Europe and not against it, and whose only connection with
the Monroe Doctrine is the desire and purpose of the United
States to avoid any clash with Europe over the practical
application of the Doctrine. Perhaps what has been done in
the course of developing the new policy may be considered
as a tacit acknowledgment and acceptance of the claims of
European jurists and statesmen that if the United States
assumes to protect the political independence and territorial
integrity of other American states it must see to it that such
states abide by and perform their international duties and
obligations. At all events, that is what the United States
has been doing and is doing with the acquiescence of Euro-
pean states in various well-known instances. Instead of
standing by and looking on while a European state enforces
its international rights as against a lawless or defaulting
American state, the United States has intervened, has in
effect warned the European state concerned off the premises,
and has itself caused international justice to be done. It has
undertaken the protection of the lives and property of Euro-
peans when threatened by riots and revolutionary move-
ments. It has exacted indemnities and penalties for injuries
suffered by them, and has collected debts for European states
and their citizens by occupying ports and collecting and ap-
plying customs revenues. In cases of this sort it has, in
effect, charged itself with duties and trusts analogous to
those devolving upon the receiver of a bankrupt corporation.

Consequently, whether the supplemental policy above
sketched is or is not the logical and inevitable sequence of

OUR LATIN-AMERICAN POLICY 419

the Monroe Doctrine, it is now no longer aimed at Europe
only, but also trenches upon American states themselves. It
is a policy, indeed, which as respects such states impairs
their independence. It does not alter the case that the inter-
vention of the United States in the manner described may be
for the best good of such states. Such intervention is in
clear conflict with the basic principle of international law,
which asserts the absolute equality inter sese of all states,
great and small.

But our Latin-American policy, hitherto practically lim-
ited to the Monroe Doctrine and its corollaries, has neces-
sarily taken on a wholly new development by reason of our
acquisition of the Panama Canal and the Panama Zone. The
United States is now a South American power, with exten-
sive territorial interests acquired at immense cost. It holds
the Canal in double trust — on the one hand for the people
of the United States, on whose behalf it is bound to make
the operation of the Canal efficient and, if possible, fairly
remunerative; on the other hand for the world at large, on
whose behalf it is pledged to give to all nations the like facil-
ities in the use of the Canal upon equal terms. In both rela-
tions it has assumed to protect the Canal against all assaults
from every quarter, whether they come in the shape of mili-
tary invasion or of economic competition. Hence, on the one
hand the United States has fortified the Canal and will un-
doubtedly take all other measures necessary to protect it
against military attack. Hence, on the other hand the
United States has initiated measures looking to the preemp-
tion of all other routes practicable for a rival canal.

It sufficiently appears from these premises that the Latin-
American policy of the United States now has the following
objects :

First. To secure every American state against loss of
independence or territory at the hands of a European Power,
as means to which end the United States will resist aggres-
sion by such Power by force of arms, if necessary, while, in

420 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

the case of the weak and backward states, removing any ex-
cuse for such aggression by itself seeing to the performance
of their international duties ;

Second. To secure its interest in the Panama Canal by
whatever military measures may be appropriate or neces-
sary; and

Third. To protect its interest in the Panama Canal and
Zone by whatever measures may be appropriate and neces-
sary to prevent unjust and ruinous competition.

These being the general objects aimed at by our present
Latin-American policy, what is the best and most obvious
course for the United States to pursue in order to insure
their accomplishment? The efforts of the present Adminis-
tration for the pacification of Mexico distinctly point the
way to the course to be pursued. The striking feature of
those efforts is the cooperation between the United States
and South American states. That the cooperation has been
highly beneficial to all interests concerned is unquestionable,
and, should normal conditions in Mexico follow, as now seems
probable, it must be largely credited with the result. Never-
theless, and however more or less valuable such cooperation
in this particular instance, its chief value lies in its tendency
to introduce into our Latin-American policy a new and im-
portant factor, which in all respects — ethical, political, and
practical — should operate decidedly to the advantage of
the United States and all American states.

Our Latin-American policy as represented by the Monroe
Doctrine has always been woefully weak at one vital spot.
The United States, the originator of it so far as America is
concerned, failed to receive any substantial support for it
from Great Britain except for a comparatively short period.
Ever since, the United States has been the sole asserter and
sponsor of the Doctrine. The other American states have
been content to enjoy its advantages while in no way assum-
ing any share of its burdens. Realizing that the United
States assumes those burdens not from benevolence but from

OUR LATIN-AMERICAN POLICY 421

considerations of self-interest, they have no special reason
for gratitude, and as a rule exhibit none. On the contrary,
the more they have gained in wealth and general importance,
the more their pride seems to take offense at a doctrine
which, in a degree at least, makes them stand to the United
States in the relation of wards to a guardian. Further, the
proceedings by which the United States has felt constrained
to compel some of the smaller and less advanced American
states to perform their international duties have unquestion-
ably excited uneasiness in all. They feel those proceedings,
however temporary or however beneficent in purpose and
result, to be distinctly menacing and to indicate purposes
and ambitions on our part quite inconsistent with their dig-
nity and safety as independent states. This feeling has been
greatly intensified by the lawless violence which robbed
Colombia of its territory for the purpose of the Panama
Canal enterprise. It thus comes about that, in its relations
to Latin America and Europe respectively, the United States
now figures as a self-appointed guardian of the independence
of the one and the self-appointed guarantor of the rights of
the other — both the guardianship and the guaranty being
submitted to rather than desired, and neither gaining for the
United States any special consideration or reward — while
our glaring invasion of Colombia's sovereignty makes us
"suspect" in the eyes of all Latin America. A futile at-
tempt to remove or lessen the suspicion led to the ex-Presi-
dent's suggested qualification of the Monroe Doctrine already
noted. This situation is obviously anomalous and unnatural
and cannot be expected to last. The best practical solu-
tion of its difficulties as already intimated would seem to
be indicated by the course of the present Administration
in its handling of the Mexican situation. For the r61e of sole
dictator of affairs on the American continent as now under-
taken by the United States, there should be substituted co-
operation between the United States and the other principal
American states for the promotion and protection of their

422 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

common American interests, In short, what is to be desired
in place of the present unsatisfactory status is a Concert of
American states, with powers, objects, and means of accom-
plishing them denned with all practicable precision. The
detailed provisions of any plan for such Concert it is un-
necessary now to consider. But certain of the great objects to
be attained have already been indicated. The Concert would
put all American states behind the Monroe Doctrine, so en-
larged as to mean the protection of every American state not
only against European aggression but against foreign ag-
gression from whatever quarter. The discretion of the Concert
would decide when in the common interest it was necessary
and proper to so far invade the independence of any par-
ticular state as to compel it to recognize and perform its
international duties, and would also determine by what state
or states the decision of the Concert should be enforced.
And, the United States having become an important South
American as well as North American Power by virtue of its
construction and ownership of the Panama Canal — a purely
American enterprise world-wide in its significance and con-
sequences, and which the United States proposes to carry on
not merely for its own account, but as trustee for all nations
and peoples — the Concert would unquestionably make
appropriate and adequate provision for its security and
defense against all dangers, whether military or economic.

The advantages of the Concert for the accomplishment
of these several ends are apparent. In place of being a self-
constituted agency, the Concert would hold credentials from
a practically "United America" as represented by the states
the most populous, the most powerful in material resources
and military strength, and the most advanced in all the
constituents of modern civilization. It would wield an au-
thority well-nigh irresistible, not merely because of its su-
periority in physical forces, but because the diverse interests,
policies, and rivalries of the many states concurring in a
result would be a practical guaranty that the end in view

OUR LATIN-AMERICAN POLICY 423

was the general interest of the whole Concert, and not the
special interest of any particular state. It would follow that
as a rule, and except in extraordinary cases, a mandate of the
Concert might be expected to be self-executing and not de-
pendent upon the use of physical force for its effectiveness.

Still another important advantage of such an American
Congress remains to be stated. The Monroe Doctrine is with-
out recognition in international law. It exists as a policy of
the United States, firmly settled at this moment, but subject
to change at pleasure. But an established Concert of Ameri-
can states on the lines and for the purposes already outlined
might well challenge recognition as coming within the pur-
view and entitled to the sanction of international law. A
Federation of the World — a Parliament of Man — may be a
dream. But if it ever becomes a reality, it will be by a pro-
cess of gradual approach and as the result of a merger in a
world- wide unification of many groups of nations which,
through geographical proximity, racial affinities, common in-
stitutions and modes of thought, have been led to form them-
selves into local federations for the attainment of certain
common ends. In the last analysis, the true basis of inter-
national law is the usages and practices of the great civilized
states of the world. As those usages and practices neces-
sarily change with the advent of new conditions, inter-
national law, which is a progressive science, also changes in
order to meet the new conditions. It cannot be doubted, for
example, that the conception of the absolute equality of states
and the unconditional independence of each is now displaced
by the conception that every state is perforce a member of
an International Society of States and by virtue of that rela-
tion both acquires rights and assumes obligations. The
whole International Society is in theory at least the common
superior by which the rights and obligations of each member
should be determined and enforced. In point of fact, of
course, and while the logical status is perfect, there has been
no world-wide organization of civilized states and no action

424 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

by them as a whole. On the other hand, international con-
troversies often arise which are local and limited in their
nature and in which only a group of states has a substantial
interest.

In such cases, long-established international practice
seems to justify the conclusion that the particular group
concerned may legitimately settle such controversies even
if the settlement involves overriding the resistance of a
particular state. The principle applied in every such case
is of course the general welfare — the greater good of the
greater number — the common interests of all the members of
the group rather than the special interests of one or a few
members. The many instances in which groups of European
states have thus settled controversies between their mem-
bers, always on the plea of acting for the good of the whole
group, are too well known to need citation. That their de-
cisions have often been criticized and sometimes with only
too much justice may be admitted. Yet on the whole the
operation of the various European concerts has been con-
sidered to be beneficent especially in their tendency to pre-
vent wars between the members of a group. For that reason
and on the grounds already stated, and because there can be
no useful and effective cooperation between states for com-
mon objects unless each can be made to subordinate its
special interest to the general interest, international law
must be regarded as acquiescing in the authority of a group
of states to control the actions of its members whenever
there is a real exigency calling for such control and pro-
vided always that the authority is exercised in good faith,
by the use of reasonable and appropriate means and with
all practicable regard to the rights, interests, sentiments, and
traditions of the several peoples concerned. Tried by such a
test, an American Concert established for the objects and
with the purposes already stated, and providing for their ac-
complishment through strictly necessary and appropriate
agencies, might confidently contend that principle as well as

OUR LATIN-AMERICAN POLICY 425

the usages and practices of civilized nations amply justify
its existence and purposes. Obviously no rule of interna-
tional law can be violated by an American Concert under-
taking to protect every American state against European or
other foreign aggression. So it is difficult to contend that
such a Concert's intervention in the affairs of an American
state with no other aim and no other result than to bring
about the performance of international duties is not calcu-
lated to strengthen the ascendancy of international law
rather than to weaken it. And it is yet more difficult to be-
lieve that an American Concert for the maintenance and
security of the Panama Canal should not be recognized as a
fit subject for the protection of international law — on the
contrary, as a neutralized canal muring to the benefit of
humanity at large, the Panama Canal might well be held as
matter of international law to be under the guardianship of
each and all of the civilized states of the world. Modern
writers on international law concur in the principle which
is thus stated by one of them — "Canals which connect great
bodies of water and are international hi character, modify
the course of the commerce of the world, and their status is
therefore a matter of international concern."

If opinions may differ as to the merit of any or all of the
foregoing suggestions, there surely can be no difference
as to the necessity of determining with the least delay prac-
ticable what our future Latin-American policy is to be.
"Preparedness" for defensive war is demanded by the coun-
try notwithstanding the immense burdens it entails. It
involves many besides strictly military problems, and among
them one of the most serious is for what contingencies we
are to prepare and for what causes we are to be ready to
fight. Shall we preserve unchanged our traditional atti-
tude as the champion of every American state against for-
eign aggression without regard to its consent or request or
its preference to take care of itself or to seek some other
ally than the United States, and without regard to the surely

426 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

incurred hostility of the aggressive foreign Power? It has
often been claimed and sometimes effectively asserted that
the United States in its own interest and for its own welfare
must firmly resist any surrender of independence or cession
of territory by an American state to a foreign Power even
if the same be entirely voluntary. Suppose, for example,
that an American state undertakes to permit an oversea
Power to plant a colony on its soil, or to convey to it a port
or a coaling station, is the United States to resort to war, if
necessary, in order to defeat the scheme? These are only
some of the inquiries which go to show the necessity of a
speedy and comprehensive revision of our Latin-American
policy. The replies to them involve possibilities which must
be taken into account in any intelligent estimate of the kind
and measure of military "preparedness" the United States
ought to initiate. Obviously our "preparedness" means
one thing with the cooperation of Lathi America secured
through the American Concert suggested, and a wholly dif-
ferent and much more difficult and burdensome thing with-
out such cooperation. The difficulties of arranging such a
cooperation are not to be underrated. Yet the exigencies of
the situation are apparent and threaten not merely the
United States but all American states. It is matter of self-
preservation for each — and each should realize the vital
interest it has hi supporting a Concert which is formed on
lines broad enough to cover all measures essential to the
security of all, which is wholly defensive in nature, and
which carefully abstains from any unnecessary impairment
of the sovereignty of each.

BAINBRIDGE COLBY

[Bainbridge Colby (1869- ) was educated at Williams College and
practices law in New York City. He was one of the founders of the Pro-
gressive Party in 1912, and is now a member of the United States Ship-
ping Board. The following is an address delivered in May, 1917, before
the National Conference on the Foreign Relations of the United States.
It is valuable for its emphasis on the importance of economic factors in
international affairs, especially as illustrated by the policy of the " open
door."]

The supreme concern of mankind is justice. This is the
aspiration of democracy, not only in its internal but in its
international relations. Justice not only demanded for our-
selves but freely accorded to others.

This is the keynote of President Wilson's epoch-making ap-
peal to the nations of the world. This immortal address con-
stitutes not only a satisfactory declaration of the principles for
which we entered the Great War, but it is the latest and most
authentic expression of the spirit of democracy. The in-
violability of treaties, respect for nationality, the right of de-
velopment along self-evolved and national lines, obedience to
the promptings of humanity, in other words, international
justice — these are the salients of his definition of democracy's
aims and of the democratic ideal in international relations.

But nations are animated not only by theories but by con-
ditions. And it is well for us to remember that a nobly defined
ideal does not necessarily meet or vanquish a robust and per-
sistent condition. The issue of the Great War is familiarly

1 From Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, July, 1917. Re-
printed by permission.

427

428 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

defined as between autocracy or militarism on the one hand,
and democracy on the other. But militarism or even autoc-
racy, odious as they are, are only different lines of approach
to, or treatment of, underlying conditions in the world.

I think it may fairly be said that the ailment which afflicts
the world is economic and not exclusively political. The
trouble with the highly industrialized nations of the temper-
ate zone is that they cannot produce what they need to con-
sume, and they cannot consume what they need to produce.
The populations of the industrial nations are steadily growing.
The nations of western Europe in a century have doubled
their population. Germany is adding a million per annum to
her population, and the United States even more. The nations
of western Europe cannot produce the means required for their
subsistence. They have not the agricultural basis which yields
them their requirements in food and raw materials. These in-
dispensables of national life must be obtained beyond their
borders. They must, in other words, be purchased, and the
means necessary to the purchase are manufactured products,
which must greatly exceed in amount what the domestic mar-
ket of the producing nation can absorb. From this universal
need of nations, i.e. food and raw materials on the one hand,
and a market for products on the other, arises the value of
colonial possessions, particularly in the unexploited and highly
productive regions in the tropics and the Orient.

These regions are in large part peopled by nations whose
titles to the lands they hold are unassailable, yet the people
are lacking either in industry or ambition, and the productive
possibilities of their lands are incapable of realization unless
the popular energies are marshaled and directed and even
supplemented by the more progressive and colonizing nations.
The world needs their produce, the life of Europe demands
their raw materials, and mere rights of nations can with diffi-
culty make a stand against necessities that are so imperious.
There has thus arisen an economic imperialism, of which,
strange to say, the most democratic of nations are the most

IDEAL IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS 429

conspicuous examples. England throughout the world, France
in Africa and the East, are deeply conscious of the relation
to their industrial vigor of colonial expansion.

Economic advantage seems to follow in the wake of politi-
cal control. It is the mother country which builds the rail-
roads in the colonies, controls port privileges, fixes tariffs,
and secures to her nationals the out-distancing advantages
which make alien competition impossible. Theoretically this
may not be true, but in practice it is uniformly true. Of
Algeria's exportations seventy-nine per cent are to France,
and eighty-five per cent of her imports come from France.

As the industrial nation grows in population, the pressure
upon her means of sustenance increases, her need of raw ma-
terials grows greater, and she turns a ranging eye throughout
the world for the means of satisfying this internal pressure.

Here is the motive of wars, here is the menace to world
peace. And it is with reference to this condition, prevalent
throughout the world, that we must determine the attitude
of democracy in its international relations.

This economic pressure is but beginning to be felt in the
United States, but its premonitory symptoms are already seen.
It is only a question of time when our complacent sense of
security will give way to a realization that our vast agricultural
basis is not vast enough to sustain our even vaster industrial
development. We shall then feel, if not so acutely as sister
nations in the east, at least as truly, the need of expanding
markets and enlarged sources of raw materials, if not of food.

The spiritual aims of democracy, so perfectly defined by
the President, will have to encounter the imperious economic
necessities which drive all nations, which cannot be stayed, and
which refuse to be silenced. The freedom of the seas, respect
for international boundaries, observance of treaties, obedience
to international law, recognition of the dictates of humanity
— in short, all the aims which animate America and her allies
in this great war, do not in and of themselves contain the
promise of a complete tranquilization of the world. To end

430 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

wars requires that the sources of international friction should
be reached. The repression of barbarism, the punishment of
ruthlessness, constitute a sufficient but only an immediate ob-
jective of the world's struggle. It is, of course, the primary
undertaking of civilization, and once achieved, our thought
and our effort must go forward in aims that are more far
reaching. Our goal must be the destruction of the economic
root of war — in other words, to establish an economic, not
only a political, internationalism, a community of interests,
even if qualified and incomplete, among great nations. The
American policy of the open door in colonial administration
must find acceptance in the world if mankind is to emerge
from the perennial menace of war.

CHARLES H. BRENT

[Charles H. Brent (1862- ) was born in Canada and educated at
Trinity College, Toronto. From 1901 to 1917 he was the bishop of the
Episcopal Church for the Philippine Islands and was closely identified
with the progress made by the Filipinos after the American occupation.
In 1911 he was president of the International Opium Conference at the
Hague. Since the entrance of the United States into the World War he
has been appointed a major in the United States Army and put in charge
of all Protestant Chaplains of the American Army in France. This candid
article is especially valuable for its clear exposition of the application of
American democratic ideas to our dependencies.]

In the course of a recent discussion of the Philippine prob-
lem, I was asked by one of our most eminent educators of
the senior generation, whether any instance in history could
be cited where one nation had successfully tutored another
in self-government. My answer took the form of a counter-
question — Can an instance be adduced where the full experi-
ment has been tried, except so far as our own nation has done
so during the last two decades? No reply was made.

By tutoring in self-government was understood the effort
of a country to develop to the uttermost the latent capacity
of a backward dependency, with a view to bringing it to
nationhood and launching it with all the responsibilities and
prerogatives of a new unit of government in the world of
men. I believe that this can be successfully done and that the
result of our labors in the Philippines testifies to the fact.

Great Britain, whatever her deficiencies, has been the most
just friend of weak and backward people that history has
known. The part she has played in their development and
1 From Yale Review, July, 1917. Reprinted by permission.

432 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

protection has been replete with noble elements, especially
during the last half-century. She has consistently put her
dependencies and colonies to school, carrying them from the
kindergarten to the higher grades, but she has always stopped
short of graduating them into independent statehood. In
every instance, her frankly declared objective has been not
their independence but their continued and, in a sense, in-
creased dependence. Her whole viewpoint has been imperial :
her first concern has been the well-being of the empire, and
her second, the individual aspirations and desires of the
dependency. Of course, her statesmen would claim that
what was good for the empire was good for the dependencies,
and that it was more profitable all the way round to develop
a strong dependency within the empire than a weak nation out-
side of it. That, however, is not to the point. Even if it be
true that the British Empire came into existence through a
fit of absent-mindedness, it represents, with its famous pax
Britannica and its network of colonies all over the world,
one of the noble monuments of history, quite capable of
justifying its principles and its main methods. But the
question at stake is not whether Great Britain is a structure
of magnificent proportions and beneficent influence. It is
whether she or any other European power has ever set as the
goal of a dependency ultimate self-government and used all
her wisdom and resources to compass that end. I am aware
of no such instance.

The outstanding example of the British government's
educational and philanthropic ventures among alien peoples
is its administration, for more than a quarter of a century,
of Egyptian affairs. It was doubtless for Egypt's sake that
the country was occupied, but it was still more for the benefit
of the empire. An effete and bankrupt nation, under Great
Britain's firm discipline and beneficent schooling, renewed
its youth and credit in a remarkably short period. But the
moment Egyptian nationalism reared its head, it was, to use
mild language, discouraged. That is to say, the educational

TUTORING THE PHILIPPINES 433

terminus ad quern came short of the ideal of independence, and
the child was kept in the schoolroom. The late Lord Cromer,
Egypt's greatest friend and servant, a man whom history
cannot fail to place high on the roll of statesmen and ad-
ministrators, was of the opinion that there was lack of capacity
among the Egyptians to come up to the requirements of a
modern independent state. In 1905 in reply to my categorical
question — Will Egypt ever be able to govern herself? — he
gave an unqualified negative. Recently Great Britain has
found it necessary to denude Egypt of even the semblance of
independence.

In the case of Cuba, America's occupation was too brief
to be immediately effective. Nevertheless, however short it
was, it represented a period of administrative education
without which Cuba could not have so soon become a tolerable
neighbor. Between the moment when the American flag
went up on Morro Castle, and the Cuban flag took its place,
a period of four years, America was tutoring Cuba in self-
government. Popular education was begun, departments
of government planned, and standards of political integrity
set. Cuba, because of her history, her proximity to the
American continent, her comparative freedom from hetero-
geneous elements of population, her territorial compactness,
was at once put into an advanced class and given her degree
of independent statehood early. A short post-graduate course
was administered later. Now the new republic seems to have
settled down to sober business and bears perpetual witness to
America's purpose to promote the interests of small or weak
nations and her aptitude as a teacher in self-government.
Her case stands alone in history.

The Philippines presented a vastly different proposition.
Situated ten thousand miles away ; composed of the broken
territory of an archipelago; with a diversified population
widely scattered excepting in an occasional congested district

434 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

such as Cebu; with no common language, save among a
small percentage where there is a babel of dialects ; devoid
of a native literature; disturbed by internal troubles; with
a stubborn fragment of the people wild and unorganized, and
a Mohammedan tertium quid traditionally hostile to the
Christian population, — with all this to face, the problem
presented by the pupil to the teacher was baffling.

Even before the process of restoring public order was well
under way, the symbol of democracy, the schoolhouse, made
its appearance. In 1901, the year in which civil govern-
ment was established, a veritable army of American school-
teachers was drafted into the Philippine service. The training
of Filipino teachers was begun at the earliest possible moment.
In 1913, there were in the Department of Public Instruction
some 9500 teachers, of whom 658 were American, the balance,
of course, being Filipino. This is noteworthy, for it indicates
that the purpose of the United States was sincere. There can
be no successful experiment in democracy where free educa-
tion for all does not prevail. And the converse is true -
where there is a strong public school system, democracy will
surely take root. The progress of education marks the progress
of democratic ideals and principles, that is to say, of self-
government. There never yet was a republic in more than
name that had not an instructed commonalty, either in
Central or in South America. And where the franchise out-
runs the intelligence of the voters, you have bureaucracy •
among officeholders, manipulation of voters by corrupt and
self-seeking politicians, and a debased governmental system
from top to bottom. You cannot teach men how to vote
merely by extending the franchise, as we know to our sorrow in
our own country without looking further. It is not merely that
efficient public schools promote literacy, valuable as the func-
tion is. The Philippine public school is the direct application
of democracy to the life of the child. "Definite training for
citizenship," says the Report of the Philippine Commission
for 1914, "is given in the primary, intermediate, and secondary

435

courses. Various literary societies afford pupils practice in
conducting meetings at which questions of interest to all
citizens are discussed."

Admitting shortcomings in the Philippine Department of
Public Instruction, which was organized in 1901, it repre-
sents the high-water mark of popular education in an Oriental
dependency. To quote again from the Commission's Report:

The intellectual awakening of the Philippines which followed
the American occupation and the establishment of a modern school
system is one of the most gratifying results of American control
in the Islands. Everywhere there is the keenest desire for educa-
tion. ... It is because of this intellectual awakening and desire
for growth and development that the American teachers have an
opportunity of doing so important a work in introducing Western
methods and ideals, and in keeping the schools in close touch with
Western culture. Through the introduction of English, the people
of the Philippine Islands have had access to a literature un-
dreamed of by them, and, not only in the schools, but in the
public libraries, works of history, travel, biography, and science
are greatly sought, not only by the coming generation, but by
many of the older generation who learned English because they
found that their horizon was immeasurably widened through the
reading of English prose and verse.

I attach supreme importance to the place of public educa-
tion and the preservation of its standards in our school of
Philippine self-government. Education outranks all else
although its fruits ripen slowly. It is the mightiest engine
of democracy ; and where it is weak, citizenship is weak. In
the case of Mexico, no group of men have more nearly analyzed
her need, or intimated the solution of her problem, than the
group of college professors who have been giving careful con-
sideration to her educational poverty and how to remedy it.

In the Philippines, the great mass of the adult population
is illiterate, and their horizon is more circumscribed than can
be easily realized by those personally unfamiliar with the
country at large. Though the terms for qualifying as a voter

436 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

were from the first set at the bottom notch, only some 200,000
out of a population of approximately 9,000,000 have up to
this time claimed the franchise. Voters are now those com-
prised within one of the following classes: men who under
existing law are legal voters and have exercised the right of
suffrage; men who own real property to the value of five
hundred pesos, or who annually pay thirty pesos or more of
the established taxes; men who are able to read and write
Spanish, English, or a native language. It was the Jones Bill
which added the ability to read and write a native language
as an alternative. The provision is theoretically just. Un-
fortunately, however, it is premature, as it will not only
increase the present number of poorly informed voters but
also tend to check the bilingual movement which is going
to be so valuable an asset in the unifying of the Archipelago
and in the international relations of the Philippines of the
future. It would be the part of wisdom, even at the cost of
hurting the feelings of the adult generation of the day, to
restrict the electorate until the present school children shall
have reached their majority. In advocating this, I am only
applying to the Philippines a principle which I should like to
see operative in the United States, where the emphasis is rather
on the extension of democratic privilege than on the exactions
of democratic responsibility and the preservation of its purity.
Next in importance to the Philippine Department of Public
Instruction, I would place the cooperative method of actual
government which has characterized our procedure in the
Philippines. With a consistency that has been more rapid
than opportune, we have "moved from a government of
Americans aided by Filipinos to a government of Filipinos
aided by Americans." From the beginning, an honest effort
was made to fill every possible office with Filipinos as they
manifested ability. A minority of the first Commission were
Filipinos ; likewise the chief justice, an increasing number of
the associate justices, and so on through every department
and bureau of government to the personnel of the most obscure

TUTORING THE PHILIPPINES 437

municipality. There can be no possible objection to this course
provided the appointees are chosen with strict regard for
fitness and training, which has not always been the case.
Men have been taught to govern by being given a share in
government. The response through a decade has been emi-
nently satisfactory, and a carefully organized civil service,
controlling both Americans and Filipinos, has promoted a
purity of motive and an efficiency of service that is admirable.
Every step in the direction of Filipinization — this awkward
but expressive word is current coin — has been logical.
Government by commission gave place in the course of time
to government by commission and popular assembly. A
majority of American commissioners gave place to a majority
of Filipino commissioners, and in provincial administration
similar changes were made. Now within a few months, gov-
ernment by commission and popular assembly has been
superseded by government by a legislature of two chambers —
a Senate and a House of Representatives.

The Jones Bill, after three years of consideration, emerged
as a tolerably creditable product. Its defects, in my judgment,
are three. The preamble is marred by the insincerity of
intentional ambiguity — it is "the deliberate purpose of the
people of the United States to withdraw their sovereignty
over the Philippine Islands and to recognize their independ-
ence as soon as stable government can be established therein."
The room for controversy over the italicized section of this
clause is so patent as to call for no comment. In the second
place, it is dangerous and provocative of conflict for the
young Senate to be immediately clothed with authority to
checkmate at will the chief executive in his appointments.
Lastly, an increase of the electorate at this stage is unwise
in the light of our experience in America.

It was to the credit of the House of Representatives in
Washington that they negatived in emphatic manner the
Clarke Amendment to the Jones Bill, which provided for
complete Philippine independence in not more than four

438 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

years. It was unintelligent in conception, cowardly in motive,
and unjust to the Philippines in substance. Loyalty, not
opposition, to the true principles of Philippine freedom prompts
this criticism. I write as one who, without prospect or thought
of reward, has given the best years of his life to the Philippine
cause in its more difficult and obscure phases. Democracy I
hold to be a sacred trust. It is governed, as history clearly
shows, by inflexible laws. Opportunism which scouts these
laws may bring momentary satisfaction, but later on retribu-
tion will inflict its scorpion sting. Other governmental systems
may flourish without regard to the condition of each individual
citizen. Democracy, never. Democracy is as dependent for its
purity and effectiveness, its wisdom and integrity, upon the
purity and effectiveness, the wisdom and integrity of each
citizen small or great, as the babe is upon its mother's milk.
In the Philippines, America is for the moment the steward of
democracy in a university of government of her own creation.
She must exercise her stewardship with due regard for the
nature of the treasure she is dispensing, as well as with con-
sideration for the desires and aspirations of the people she is
educating.

Mention should be made of the thorough training that is
being given our wards in scientific research through the
agency of the Bureau of Science, which is by long odds the
most efficient institution of the sort in the Orient. They are
also being trained in the treatment of criminals under the
Bureau of Prisons, which, in the Gwahig Penal Colony where
there is neither weapon, bolt, nor bar, and in San Rameon
Farm among the Moros, has in operation among one thousand
five hundred prisoners the most advanced and humane prin-
ciples of penology. The Filipinos are being educated hi road
building, in the development of irrigation and artesian water,
in architecture and construction, by the Bureau of Public
Works ; in matters pertaining to exports and imports, to the
preservation of public order, to hygiene and sanitation, by
their respective Bureaus ; and, last but not least, in religious

TUTORING THE PHILIPPINES 439

magnanimity, which I believe to be greater than in any other
Latin-trained country, by the separation of church and state.
I mention the foregoing not as exhaustive but as illustrative.
Moreover, the instruction has all been given in our university
of self-government without drawing upon the Treasury of the
United States. Apart from the twenty million dollars agreed
upon as a douceur to Spain by the Treaty of Paris, and the
added expense connected with maintaining the army and
navy in the Philippines, the affairs of our insular dependency
have been so honestly and economically handled that the
receipts of government meet all liabilities. The men who laid
the foundations of this undertaking and bore the burden and
heat of the day builded a fabric too strong and too deep to
be easily shaken. All who come after will be able to do them-
selves and their task credit only hi so far as they give honor
to whom honor is due.

The future of the Philippines is difficult to forecast. It
will depend in large part upon the way America executes
the balance of her trust. But I would say in conclusion that
this seems tolerably clear : the young or small or weak nation
of to-morrow is going to have a harder time and a grander
opportunity than ever before. It is true that nations like
India and Egypt did govern themselves or, to speak more
accurately, had independent statehood — the two expressions
are not synonymous — in ancient days. But that was at a
period when the ends of the earth did not rub shoulders.
Such government as they had would not be tolerated in our
modern world any more than an absolute monarchy would
be tolerated in America. If internationalism and the fed-
eration of the world are anything more than empty verbiage,
they imply that every nation is responsible for the purity
and effectiveness of its government not only to itself but also
to the whole family of nations, just as truly as the States
of the Union are responsible to the federal center which
symbolizes and cements the whole. Even' we have not hesi-
tated to call to account Spain and Santo Domingo and Haiti

440 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

and, forbearingly and ineffectively, Mexico, for financial
incompetence or inability to preserve order. The small state
of the future, if it has any self-respect, will not even desire
to crawl behind the pseudo-protection of the discredited
principle of neutralization. Every nation, great and small,
will desire and be compelled to stand on its own merits and
character, manfully shouldering its responsibility. It is not
merely that neutralization fails to protect from attack from
the outside. If a nation were really to trust in its guaranteed
inviolability as, happily, Belgium did not, as Holland and
Switzerland do not, neutrality would prevent growth from
within, for it would emasculate and sterilize its victim. A
nation cannot be a nation in more than name if it declines
to accept full international responsibility.

Democracy to grow healthily must grow slowly; and, as
I view it, it will be to the mutual advantage of both America
and the Philippines to walk yet awhile in close organic rela-
tion. America has had no more sobering or enlightening ex-
perience than her direct responsibility for the well-being of a
people like the Filipinos. It goes without saying that when
once America's governmental authority in the Philippines
has reached the vanishing point, the flag that has guaranteed
and presided over an unprecedented period of peace, pros-
perity, and progress, will go down forever, leaving the Islands
to their own self-protection as well as their own self-govern-
ment. But I still cling to the hope that our school, so ably
and hopefully established by American men and patriots, will
not close its doors until the Philippines shall have honorably
graduated into a liberty that will be as secure as it will be
to the liking of its citizens and to the credit of democracy.

THE FAR-EASTERN PROBLEM1
J. O. P. BLAND

[J. O. P. Bland (1863- ) is an English journalist and author who
has spent most of his life in the Far East. He has been connected with
the Chinese Customs Service, been the London Times correspondent at
Shanghai, and was in Peking from 1907-1910. He has also traveled ex-
tensively in Japan since 1887, and during the Russo-Japanese War of
1904-1905 he assisted the Japanese secret service in China. His wife is
an American. The present article, from which some paragraphs of tem-
porary interest have been omitted, furnishes an interpretation of Jap-
anese aims in the Far East, which, while not entirely unchallenged, is
helpful in forming American opinion on this vexing question.]

At the conclusion of the present struggle, the exhaustion of
European nations must leave the United States and Japan
relatively much stronger and richer than they were. Both
powers will be deeply and directly interested in the arrange-
ment of the conditions under which peace is eventually re-
stored. Japan, as an ally of the Quadruple Entente, and
America, possibly as a mediator, must have a voice in the
international conference which will define the future frontiers
of Europe and many subsidiary questions. Among these, the
rights and interests of the powers in China, and the future of
that country as an independent state, present problems which,
unless carefully studied in advance, may well create great
difficulties and even new casus belli for the powers whose
territories border on the Pacific Ocean. The shadow of the
Far-Eastern question has frequently been darkly cast between
the United States and Japan in recent years, and never more
ominously than when the renewal of the Anglo- Japanese
Alliance (1911) relieved England of the duty of assisting

1 From Century Magazine, January, 1916. Reprinted by permission.

441

442 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

Japan against any nation with which Great Britain might
have concluded a treaty of arbitration. But much of the
trouble has been due to ignorance : a closer study of the ques-
tion should serve to reassure public opinion in the United
States and to put an end to the suspicious uneasiness which
finds expression in the unbalanced writings of a Homer Lea
or the diplomatic vagaries of a Philander Knox.

Japanese statecraft, whether displayed in Manchuria, in
Magdalena Bay, or in the Marshall Islands, points to a per-
fectly consistent and legitimate policy, which has only to be
rightly appreciated in order to remove all immediate prospect
of serious friction between Nippon and Anglo-Saxon peoples.
The Japanese, who would not hesitate for a moment to ex-
clude from their country Chinese or other cheap labor, are
fully alive to the economic necessity which has compelled
America, Canada, and Australia to frame their Asiatic ex-
clusion acts. Beyond all question they recognize the legiti-
mate protective purpose of these acts ; what they object to,
and very properly, is the implied assumption of the racial
and moral superiority of the white races. They are well
aware that the objection to Chinese laborers in the Pacific
States and to Japanese children in the Californian schools is
just as directly due to economic causes as the anti-Semitic
movement in Russia. They know that the Asiatic is excluded
not because he would contaminate, but simply because he
would devour, the white man in open-labor competition.
England, which professes to believe in free trade and unre-
stricted immigration, can hardly meet the Japanese on this
question in the spirit of "frank and full consultation" for
which the text of the alliance provides. Frankness must
stultify either the British Government or the acts of the
dominions overseas. Similarly, with its Monroe Doctrine
for America and its open door for Asia, with its professed
belief in the right of every human being freely to change his
nationality and domicile, the United States is not in a posi-
tion to discuss the exclusion acts with Japanese statesmen

THE FAR-EASTERN PROBLEM 443

on its accustomed lofty ground of political morality. The
Anglo-Saxon's ultimate argument, conceal it as we may, lies
in the stern law of self-preservation, backed by force.

Now, if there is one fact which stands out more prominently
than any other in the history of the last ten years, — that is,
since the conclusion of the Treaty of Portsmouth, — it is
that Japanese statesmen are prepared to recognize and accept
these self-protective activities of the Anglo-Saxon races, pro-
vided only that Japan also is allowed to follow her own na-
tional instincts of self-preservation on the lines of geographical
gravitation dictated by her economic necessities; that is to
say, by expansion into China's thinly peopled dependencies
of Manchuria and Mongolia. Even a cursory study of the
recent history of the Far East points clearly to this conclusion.
Japan is not prepared to accept the Monroe Doctrine and
the Asiatic exclusion acts and at the same time to acquiesce
in the traditional policy of the commercial powers, which
insists on maintenance of the status quo in China.

It is true that by the terms of the Portsmouth Treaty and
other conventions Japan pledged herself to abstain from any
encroachments on the territorial integrity and sovereignty
of China ; but her diplomacy, trained in the best European
traditions, is unsurpassed in the gentle art of treaty-making
and treaty-breaking. It has learned to a nicety the time and
place for "extra-textual interpretations" and the conclusive
value of the fait accompli. As far as China is concerned, the
protective clauses of the Portsmouth Treaty, greeted with
intense satisfaction in America, were never likely to be effec-
tive in Manchuria even had Russia and Japan remained on
guard against each other in their respective spheres. Those
who hoped and believed that China, in accordance with that
treaty, would be allowed to develop the resources of this
fertile region without interference and for her own benefit
knew little of the imperative necessity which had compelled
Japan to fight Russia for Port Arthur. The same necessity
led her, immediately after the conclusion of the Portsmouth

444 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

Treaty, to come to terms with Russia for a division of the
spoil under conditions which virtually insured the benevolent
acquiescence of England and France. Upon the conclusion of
this pact of spoliation, diplomatically known as an entente,
the Portsmouth Treaty became a dead letter; it had never
been more than a time-and-face-saving device.

The results were many and important. Not only was China
not permitted to develop her commerce in Manchuria by the
extension of her northern railways, not only did Russia and
Japan separately and jointly veto the construction by English
and American capitalists of the Chinchou-Aigun trunk-line;
but they went much further, asserting and extending their
special rights and interests over China's loosely held de-
pendency of Mongolia, forbidding its colonization by Chinese
subjects, and establishing their usual trading and mining
monopolies. By the end of 1910, China's sovereignty through-
out all the region north of the Great Wall was evidently
doomed. Mr. Secretary Knox, under the direction of Amer-
ican financiers, made spasmodic, but futile, attempts to pre-
vent the inevitable, by his scheme for the neutralization of
Manchurian railways, by forlorn excursions into dollar di-
plomacy, and by earnest appeals to the open-door pledges
of all concerned; their only result was to draw Russia and
Japan more closely together in the bonds of a most profitable
pact. In 1910, Korea, whose independence had been solemnly
guaranteed by Japan and by all the powers, was "persuaded"
to sign away the remnants of her sovereignty and become an
integral part of the Japanese Empire. The scraps of paper,
which were consigned to oblivion by the European and Amer-
ican chancelleries at this passing of the Hermit Kingdom, had
ceased to represent either actualities or vital interests. This
being so, the forces of geographical gravitation met with no
resistance, and the disappearance of an economically un-
profitable nation evoked only perfunctory valedictory articles
in the press.

THE FAR-EASTERN PROBLEM 445

In view of the probability that the Far-Eastern question,
with many others, will eventually have to be settled at a
post-bellum international conference, it is evidently desirable
that public opinion in England and America should be formed
upon accurate knowledge of the main facts of the actual
situation. So long as the censorship continues to function as
at present, this knowledge will not be generally available in
England ; this makes it the more necessary that all possible
publicity should be brought to bear on the subject in America.
In view of the misunderstandings and mutual suspicions which
have been created between Tokio and Washington on more
than one occasion by the reckless sensationalism of yellow-
press writers on the one hand and, on the other, by the Amer-
ican public's indifference to foreign affairs, it is a matter of
no little importance to the future of the world's peace that
the Far-Eastern question should be carefully studied and
widely discussed by leading publicists in the United States.
The creation of an enlightened public opinion, based on
accurate knowledge, is essential to the conclusion of a general
agreement between the powers interested in the future of
China and the trade routes of the Pacific.

In the formation and education of such a body of opinion
certain venerable shibboleths of diplomacy and catchwords
long current will need to be gently, but firmly, relegated to
the limbo of creeds outworn. All the political ideas under-
lying the open-door conventions and the international guaran-
tees for the maintenance of China's territorial integrity must
be frankly recognized as obsolete, for the simple reason that
they have been abrogated by Russia and Japan with the
tacit consent of all concerned. The resultant grouping of
rival forces and interests at Peking, both before and after
the Russo-Japanese War, conferred on China the protective
benefits of a period of equilibrium; but this period came to
an end with the definite conclusion of the Russo-Japanese
entente. Optimistic belief in the possibility of China's effec-
tively setting her own house in order must also be abandoned.

446 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

It is a belief that gained many sentimental adherents in
America as the result of Young China's so-called Republican-
ism in 1911, but the prospect of organizing honesty and effi-
ciency out of any class of officialdom in China is just as remote
to-day as it was under the Manchus. Eloquent platform
enthusiasm for representative government, and the profession
of high moral ideas by political adventurers and place-seekers,
can no more make for good government in China than in
Mexico. The men and machinery are completely lacking for
the production of honest administration and military efficiency
from the official corruption and ignorance of China's rulers.
All our instincts of justice and respect for the rights of nations,
all our sympathy for the misfortunes of the Chinese people,
patient victims of misgovernment from time immemorial, are
powerless to avert from them the destiny which sooner or
later overtakes a passive, non-resisting race menaced by the
necessities of earth-hungry neighbors in arms.

Deeply as we may sympathize with the Chinese, we should
not hastily criticize or condemn the expansionist policy of
Japan. In considering the causes and possible results of that
expansion, certain fundamental truths are often overlooked
by writers who approach the Far-Eastern question from a
sentimental point of view. In the first place, it must be borne
in mind that the Japanese nation differs radically from the
typically passive Oriental races of India and China. It is,
in the words of John Stuart Mill, an "active, self -helping "
people, a people inspired not only by ideals of imperialism,
but possessed of strong martial instincts. When in India or
China the pressure of population upon food supplies becomes
acute, the patient toiling millions accept death with fatalistic
resignation. By thousands and tens of thousands, almost un-
complaining, they go to their graves as to beds, accepting
plague, pestilence, and famine as part of the inevitable burden
of humanity. Only in the southern maritime provinces the
more virile inhabitants in China have endeavored to lessen
this burden by emigration, by seeking work and wealth

THE FAR-EASTERN PROBLEM 447

overseas ; but individually and collectively the race is lacking
in the " self -helping " instinct which solves such problems of
expansion by warfare and the survival of the fittest.

In the second place, it must be remembered that Japan's
vital need of wider frontiers, new sources of food supply, and
new markets for her industries has been in very great measure
forced upon her by the policies and example of the Anglo-
Saxon peoples. In self-defense they have learned from us the
organization of machine labor in cities ; following our example,
they have passed swiftly from the condition of an agricultural
to that of an industrial nation. With these economic changes
came the modern science of sanitation, the immediate result
being an increase of population far greater than that which
had taken place when the country lived by and for agriculture.
In 1875, before industrialism had set in, the population of
Japan's 150,00x3 square miles was thirty-four millions; last
year it was fifty-four millions, and the average annual excess
of births over deaths is roughly seven hundred thousand.
The Elder Statesmen of Japan anticipated long ago, as all
their unswerving policy has proved, the consequences to
their country of the ever-increasing fierceness of industrial
competition. They realized that, as the number of countries
that depend for their very existence upon the exchange of
manufactured goods for foodstuffs and raw materials in-
creases, and as the countries with surplus food supplies be-
come fewer and fewer, Japan must face the alternative either
of emigration on a large scale or of finding in territorial ex-
pansion new sources of supply and an outlet for her surplus
population. The Anglo-Saxon peoples, by their Asiatic ex-
clusion acts, have shut the door on emigration to those parts
of the world where Japanese labor might have reaped a rich
harvest. Small wonder, then, that the eyes of Japan's wise
rulers became fixed upon Korea and the fertile, unpeopled
regions of Manchuria and Mongolia, that the possession of
these lands became the be-all and end-all of Japanese policy,
the goal toward which all the hopes and energies of the nation

448 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

have been unswervingly directed. "Eastern Asia," said Count
Komura in the Diet three years ago, *' is the only safe field for
Japanese emigration." Like Prince Ito and other makers of
modern Japan, Count Okuma has never had any illusions
on this subject. If at times the Japanese have seemed to be
desirous of testing the resistant strength of the Monroe Doc-
trine hi California and in Mexico; if they have displayed
activity in Vancouver and Honolulu, and cast their eyes
toward island outposts in the southern seas, these have been
political side issues, deliberately planned and pursued in
order to create opportunities for application of the principle
of do ut des.

Long before the Russian invasion had been swept back
from the shores of the Yellow Sea, while still the Japanese
people were working patiently and with undivided patriotism
to master the mechanical and military sciences of the Western
world, the whole nation knew that its destinies depended
upon the struggle for Korea and the Manchurian hinterland.
Eastern Asia could not become a safe field for Japanese immi-
gration so long as Russia remained undefeated and in posses-
sion of Port Arthur, but it was always the only possible
field in sight. Every page of Japanese history since the Treaty
of Shimonoseki reveals the conscious purpose of the nation's
rulers to make that field both safe and fruitful at the earliest
possible moment. Their policy of expansion, unlike that of
Russia, has been from first to last dictated by recognition of
the supreme law of self-preservation. We may deplore the
fact that Japanese emigration to eastern Asia can be carried
out only by inflicting grave injustice and suffering upon
millions of defenseless Chinese. We may assume that de-
barred from colonizing Mongolia, gradually reduced in Man-
churia to the position of a subject race, prevented from de-
veloping the resources of their country for their own profit
by the vested rights and monopolies of the predominant
power, the Chinese must find the struggle for life greatly
intensified. Nevertheless, the Anglo-Saxon, whose whole

THE FAR-EASTERN PROBLEM 449

history has been one of expansion in anticipation of the
actual and future needs of the race, can assume no moral
grounds for criticizing or condemning the policy of the Jap-
anese. The law of self-preservation, as applied between
nations, recognizes no scope for altruism; red men, and
yellow and brown, being unfit to survive in the struggle for
places in the sun, have been eliminated by the European.
To oppose Japan's actions and intentions on grounds of self-
interest, as by treaties and conventions has been done in
the past, may be justifiable; but to oppose them on high
moral grounds is hypocritical and futile. British interests in
this Far-Eastern question are partly commercial, partly
political ; Japan's are national and vital.

In taking advantage of the present situation in Europe to
-exact from China concessions and privileges far greater than
she could ever have hoped to obtain at Peking under normal
conditions of diplomatic procedure, the Japanese Govern-
ment has ignored certain of its obligations recorded in the
treaty of alliance with Great Britain, but the attitude and
official statements of the British Foreign Office for the last
four years have been of a nature to suggest that, so long as
existing trading rights and railway concessions are not seriously
menaced, Japan has a free hand. As far as the special rights
and interests claimed in Manchuria and Mongolia are con-
cerned, this vast region was definitely recognized as coming
under Japanese influence four years ago ; in other words, the
open door is there closed, and the principle of equal oppor-
tunities abandoned. As for the "contingent" demands of
the Japanese protocol, it would be unwise to speculate too
closely as to their real intentions. Allowance must be made
for Count Okuma's vote-catching program at election-time,
and the prudence of the Elder Statesmen may be relied upon
to look carefully before they leap into an untenable position
in central or southern China. Even though neither England,
France, Germany, nor the United States is at present likely
to oppose Japanese infringement of treaty rights in China

450 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

by anything more than diplomatic protests, there are ob-
viously many powerful obstacles, financial and political, to
limit the ambitions and check the activities of the military
party and the jingoes in Tokio. It is to be expected that for
some time to come these activities will be concentrated on
the colonizing of Manchuria and on the development of
points (Tappui in Shantung and Fu-kien.

Assuming the Japanese to be capable of organizing and en-
forcing good government in China, the cause of civilization
and the welfare of the Chinese people would alike have much
to gain from the establishment of a Japanese protectorate
over the eighteen provinces. History proves clearly that the
Chinese are prepared to accept alien rulers so long as they
rule with wisdom and justice. It is certain that China's
intelligentsia is utterly incapable of ruling wisely, and that the
people are unfit for self-government; it is equally certain
that no European power or group of powers could now under-
take the stupendous work of reorganization and education
which the country requires. Realizing this fact, millions of
Japanese undoubtedly believe in the possibility of a great
Asiatic empire under the flag of the rising sun, but there is
no evidence that the sober sense of their responsible statesmen
entertains any such ambitions. If they did, it would remain
to be demonstrated that the ruling class in Japan possesses
the moral qualities and administrative genius requisite to
secure the loyalty and good will of the Chinese people.

To sum up, recent events at Peking mark clearly the be-
ginning of a period hi the history of the Far East in which
Japanese predominance will be the central factor, and I have
endeavored to show that the expansion of Japan into Man-
churia and Mongolia, obviously preliminary to formal an-
nexation, is the result of urgent economic necessity, the
inevitable response to instincts of self-preservation. I have
assumed that neither on political nor high moral grounds can
exception rightly be taken to this expansion into the un-
populous regions north of the Great Wall ; on the contrary,

THE FAR-EASTERN PROBLEM 451

that it should advance the cause of civilization by developing
great sources of wealth which Chinese and Mongolian ineffi-
ciency have allowed to lie fallow.

But a clear line should be drawn between this justifiable
expansion into thinly peopled fertile lands and the contingent
claims to assert special rights of a semi-administrative char-
acter hi China proper. Except with the clear consent of the
Chinese, and for their ultimate benefit, any such political
ascendancy might prove to be destructive of the world's
peace and a cause of fresh calamities to the Chinese people.
On the other hand, unless the present chaos and corruption
in China can be checked internally and anarchy prevented,
something will have to be done by agreement of the powers
to impose upon the elements of disorder some form of forceful
authority.

The problem is a vast one and intricate : upon its solution
depend the peace and prosperity of countless millions. Upon
it also must depend the future balance of power in the region
of the Pacific, a matter of no small concern to the United
States. Clearly the first thing needful is that the leaders and
exponents of public opinion in England and America should
carefully study and discuss the problem in all its bearings,
so that when, with the restoration of peace, the time comes
for consideration of the facts accomplished at Peking, that
opinion may be clear visioned and firmly rooted in accurate
knowledge.

NOTES AND REFERENCES FOR COLLATERAL

READING

A WAR FOR DEMOCRACY (WILSON)

For full notes on the address see Pamphlet No. 101, " The War Message and
the Facts, behind It," distributed free by the Committee on Public Information,
10 Jackson Place, Washington, D. C. ; also for special parts of the address the
following pamphlets from the same source : No. 4, " The President's Flag Day
Address, with Evidence of Germany's Plans " ; Nos. 6 and 8, " German War
Practices " ; No. 10, " German Plots and Intrigues in the United States."

THE INVASION OF BELGIUM (BETHMANN-HOLLWEG)

PAGE 30. France stood ready : The statement that France was ready to
invade Belgium is disproved by the fact that the French armies at the beginning
of the war were concentrated on the boundary of Alsace-Lorraine and were
transferred with great difficulty to the Belgian border when the French found the
Germans in Belgium. For the complete address of the German Chancellor and
for Prime Minister Asquith's address to the House of Commons on August 6,
1914, see International Conciliation for November, 1914.

PRINCIPLES AT WAR (DWIGHT)

PAGE 38. obscure London schoolman : Hakluyt began to publish his "Voy-
ages " in 1598.

For other articles on the issues of the War and its causes, see " The War :
by a Historian " (F. J. Mather) in the Unpopular Review for November, 1914 ;
" The War : by an Economist " (A. S. Johnson) in the Unpopular Review for
November, 1914; " Headquarters Nights " by Vernon Kellogg in the Atlantic
Monthly for August, 1917 ; and the address of President of the Council Viviani
to the French Senate, August 4, 1914, in International Conciliation for Decem-
ber, 1914.

ROLE OF THE INFANTRY IN MODERN WARFARE (MALLETERRE)

PAGE 58. very recent offensive : capture of Messines Ridge on June 7, 1917.
For another technical exposition vividly phrased, see " The 75*3 " by " Odysseus "
in Blackwood's Magazine for January, 1916.

453

454 NOTES AND REFERENCES

THE FRENCH ON THE SOMME ("ODYSSEUS")

PAGE 59. Lesboeufs : between Peronne and Bapaume.

PAGE 61. gros obus : French for " a heavy shell."

PAGE 62. emerged into the daylight: a short section in the original which
describes the underground headquarters of an officer is here omitted.

PAGE 65. Mr. Bass : John Foster Bass ; see " Who's Who in America "
for all living Americans and the similar volume for Englishmen.

For a similar picture of the British soldier see " The Non-Combatant " by
Ian Hay in Black-wood's Magazine for April, 1917.

DINANT LA MORTE (DAVID)

For confirmatory accounts of happenings in Dinant see the Bryce Report
on Belgian Atrocities, The German White Book (accounts of Lieutenant von
Rochow and Staff-Surgeon Dr. Petrentz).

A FIGHT WITH GERMAN AIRPLANES (Boxr)

PAGE 78. Push : slang term for an offensive movement, in this case the
battle of the Somme, July i, 1916, the first appearance of the armored tractors
known as " tanks."

PAGE 80. Archie : anti-aircraft guns and batteries. — Vesti da Guibba:
an aria in the opera " Pagliacci." — Mossy-Face : the places mentioned are all
between Albert and Bapaume.

PAGE 81. bus : slang term for an airplane.

PAGE 83. immediate action : firing by pressing the trigger directly with the
finger instead of firing automatically.

PAGE 86. joystick : slang term for the apparatus which causes the airplane
to dive.

PAGE 88. H. E. : heavy explosive.

SIMS'S CIRCUS (WHITAKER)

PAGE 92. unfortunate vessel : the American destroyer Jacob Jones, sunk
on December 6, 1917, off the Scilly Isles.

PAGE 93. The report of the commanding officer of the U. S. S. Fanning,
which is the ship which made the capture, assisted by the destroyer Nicholson,
can be found in " Composition for Naval Officers " by Stevens and Alden.
This shows that the date was November 17, 1917 ; the location of the engage-
ment is, however, still kept secret.

PAGE 94. Belgian Prince: crew taken on deck of submarine and then thrown
into the water and drowned by the submarine's submerging.

For other descriptions of fighting see " From Bapaume to Passchendaale "
(1918) by Philip Gibbs. For naval actions see " Sea Warfare " by Rudyard
Kipling ; " The Pirate " by Mayne Lindsay in Living Age for December 30,
1916 ; " The Gunlayer," Black-wood's Magazine for November, 1917 ; and
" Sunk " by R. N. V. in Blackwood's Magazine for October, 1916.

NOTES AND REFERENCES 455

THE SPIRIT OF FRENCH YOUTH (BARRES)

PAGE 109. Charleroi: battle of August 22, 1914. — piou-piou: a nick-
name for the French infantry.

For other articles by Barres see " Young Soldiers of France " in the Atlantic
Monthly for July, 1917. See also " The Frenchman as a Soldier " by James
Milne in the Living Age for September 2, 1917.

DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN (GALSWORTHY)

See also Mr. Britling's letter to the parents of the young German tutor in his
family, in " Mr. Britling Sees It Through," by H. G. Wells.

SOUL AND STONES OF VENICE (D'ANNUNZIO)

PAGE 127. Ca' d'Oro : the House of Gold, one of the most elegant of the
fifteenth century Gothic palaces on the Grand Canal. — Guidecca : an island
opposite St. Mark's, also the broad canal between the two.

PAGE 129. Santa Chiara : a church in Assisi, the home of St. Francis, which
contains the tomb of St. Clara, an enthusiastic admirer of St. Francis and
founder of the Clarissime Order.

PAGE 130. Aquilego or Grado : places near Trieste on the Austro-Italian
boundary.

See also " Italy's Duty " by G. Ferrero in the Atlantic Monthly for April, 1915,
and " Venice in War Time " in Blackwood's Magazine for December, 1916.

THE AMERICAN FLAG (VIVIANI)

PAGE 133. Mr. Long : Third Assistant Secretary of State, a native of St.
Louis and American representative with the Mission.

AMERICA OFFERS HER TROOPS (PERSHING)

For a vivid picture of the actual arrival of American troops in the trenches
see " The American Relief Has Come " by Wythe Williams in Collier's Weekly
for March 23, 1918.

THE DECISION TO MAKE WAR (BERNHARDI)

For other articles on the spirit of Germany and its attitude toward war see
" The German Spirit " by Havelock Ellis in the Atlantic Monthly for April,
1915 ; " A Prussian Guardsman " by " Leander " in the Contemporary Review
for September, 1917; and the chapter " Pretexts for War " in " Conquest and
Kultur " issued by the Committee on Public Information. For the best evidence
that Germany planned the World War see Henry Morgenthau on the Potsdam
Conference in World's Work for May and June, 1918, and " Memorandum and
Letters of Dr. Muehlon " in International Conciliation for September, 1918. For
a discussion of Bismarck's ideas of the relations of diplomacy and force see " If
Germany " byMunroe Smith in the North American Review for November, 1915.

456 NOTES AND REFERENCES

ESSENTIALS OF THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION (ROOT)
PAGE 148. Prof essor Sohm : (1841- ) German writer on political science.

THE STRENGTH OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY (BRYCE)

PAGE 167. 12th of July : anniversary of the battle of the Boyne, 1690, when
William of Orange defeated James II. Celebrated as a Protestant victory.
— Orangemen : an anti-Catholic society which originated in the North
of Ireland.

See also " The Working of American Democracy " by C. W. Eliot in his
" American Contributions to Civilization " (1888) and Balfour's Speech at
Ottawa on May 28, 1917, relating to democratic efficiency in war — to be found
in " Balfour, Viviani, and Joffre," for which see page 132 of this volume.

ATTITUDE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN A DEMOCRACY (HUGHES)

See also " Duties of a Citizen as a Member of a Political Party " by Elihu
Root in " Addresses on Citizenship and Government."

THE PALE SHADE (MURRAY)

PAGE 184. King's " Civil List " : a grant by Parliament for the support
of the King and the Royal Family in lieu of the income of lands formerly owned
by the King in his own right. From it the King grants various pensions and
annuities to men of literary and artistic importance.

PAGE 195. Sir William Robertson : Chief of the General Staff of the British
Army in France in 1915-1916. He rose from very humble circumstances, his
father having been a stable-keeper.

See also " The Social Revolution in England " by Arthur Gleason in the
Century Magazine for February, 1917 ; " Democratic England " (1918) by Percy
Alden ; and compare " On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners " by James
Russell Lowell.

THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS (SMUTS)

PAGE 204. Lord Curzon : (1859- ) Viceroy of India 1899-1905.

See also " The Problem of the Commonwealth " by J. A. R. Marriott in
Nineteenth Century for January, 1917, and "British Imperial Federation after
the War " by G. B. Adams in the Yale Review for July, 1916.

IDEA OF LIBERTY IN FRANCE (BOUTROUX)

PAGE 209. blind man of Mceonie : Homer.

See also " Strength and Weakness of French Republic " by A. V. Dicey in
Nineteenth Century for August, 1910, and " The Republic and Democracy "
by Barrett Wendell in " France of To-Day."

NOTES AND REFERENCES 457

A CLUE TO RUSSIA (BRAILSFORD)

PAGE 215. Maximalists : the Majority party, a translation of Bolsheviki.

PAGE 216. Rasputin : a Russian monk who wielded great influence over the
Czar and his family : assassinated in 1916.

See also " The Psychology of the Russian " by Havelock Ellis in The New
Statesman for May 22, 1915.

GERMAN IDEAL OF THE STATE (TREITSCHKE)

PAGE 224. real Christian civilization : so called apparently by the author
because Christianity implies self-sacrifice. So, the Prussian theory of the
subordination of the individual to the State is Christian !

For Treitschke see A. T. Hadley in the Yale Review for 1915, page 235 ;
" The Political Philosophy of Treitschke " in the London Quarterly Review for
July, 1916; " German Autocracy " by Kuno Francke in the Yale Review, Vol.
V, p. 775 ; " The Political Future of Germany " by Kuno Francke and James
M. Beck in Fortnightly Review for September, 1917. Read also " National
Efficiency Best Developed under Free Governments " by C. W. Eliot in the
Atlantic Monthly for April, 1915.

THE ARMY AND NATIONAL UNITY (TREITSCHKE)

PAGE 228. freer and more rational than the French ; means that Prussia
was less bound by traditions, and more rational because looking at matters in a
more practical way, being less susceptible to idealism and sentiment. —
sacrifice of nationalities for one another: nationalities means citizens, and their
sacrifice of themselves for the good of the State.

PAGE 229. third epoch : written 1872-1896; the years since the Franco-
Prussian War of 1870 are the third epoch.

See also " The German Theory of Warfare " by Munroe Smith in the North
American Review for September, 1917.

An excellent discussion of the German philosopher Nietzsche will be found in
the Yale Review for October, 1915, by Prof. C. M. Bakewell, and entitled : " A
Modern Stoic."

GAINS FROM THE WAR (ELIOT)

PAGE 237. Turcos : troops from the North African colonies of France. —
Gurkhas : from Nepal — regarded as the best troops in India.

PAGE 245. Victor Chapman : young American aviator killed at Verdun in
1916.

NATIONALITY AND THE NEW EUROPE (COOLIDGE)

PAGE 251. Livorno : Italian for Leghorn.

PAGE 252. Plattdeutsch: Low German such as is spoken in northern Ger-
many.

458 NOTES AND REFERENCES

PAGE 254. Wends in Lausitz : the Wends are Slavic remnants in Lusatia in
central Germany ; they still speak a Slavic dialect.

See also " Nationality and the War " by A. J. Toynbee ; " Italy and the
Adriatic " by G. Ferrero in the Atlantic Monthly for July, 1917; " The Destiny
of the Turkish Straits " by Noe'l Buxton in the Contemporary Review for June,
1917.

FORCE AND PEACE (LODGE)

See also " Nobel Peace Prize Address " by Elihu Root in " Addresses on
International Subjects " ; " Carnals and Celestials " by E. S. Martin in Life
for March 23, 1916, also in his " Diary of a Nation."

A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE (LOWELL)

See also " A League to Enforce Peace " by William H. Taft and William J.
Bryan in International Conciliation for September, 1916 ; " The United States
and the League of Peace " by H. N. Brailsford in the Atlantic Monthly for
April, 1917 ; " An International Court of Justice " by J. B. Scott in Proceedings
of the Lake Mohonk Conference for International Arbitration, 1916.

AMERICA'S TERMS OF PEACE (WILSON)

PAGE 287. Brest-Livotsk : the Bolshevik Government finally accepted all
the conditions imposed by Germany.

PAGE 288. resolution of German Reichstag : the Reichstag adopted a peace
resolution proposed by the Socialists, Radicals, and the Catholic Party, ex-
pressing a desire for peace without forced acquisition of territory.

Compare with President Wilson's Senate Speech of January 22, 1917, Mount
Vernon Address of July 4, 1918, and New York Address of September 27, 1918.
Compare also with " British Labor's War Aims " of December 28, 1917, and
" Great Britain's War Aims " by David Lloyd George of January 5, 1918, both
in International Conciliation for February, 1918.

For the special terms see : (Open Diplomacy) " The Causation of the
European War " by Perns in Contemporary Review for April, 1916, and " Demo-
cratic Control of Foreign Policy " by G. Lowes Dickinson in Atlantic Monthly
for August, 1916 ; (Freedom of the Seas) " The Freedom of the Seas " by H.
Sidebotham in Atlantic Monthly for August, 1916 ; (Equality of Trade) " The
Open Door " by J. A. Hobson in " Towards a Lasting Settlement " and the
article by Bainbridge Colby in this volume ; (Disarmament) " Imperial De-
fense after the War " by A. G. Gardner in Contemporary Review for January,
1917 ; (Territorial Adjustment) " Nationality and the War " by A. J. Toynbee ;
'' Italy and the Adriatic" by G. Ferrero in Atlantic Monthly for July, 1917 ;
" Future of Turkey and the Balkan States " by Sir Edwin Pears in Atlantic
Monthly for July, 1915 ; " The Return of Alsace-Lorraine " by Dimnet in
Nineteenth Century for September, 1917.

CONDITIONS OF PERMANENT PEACE (WILSON)

See references under other addresses of President Wilson and articles by
Lloyd George, Root, Dwight, Treitschke, Eliot, Coolidge, and Lodge.

NOTES AND REFERENCES 459

NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS AS MOULDING PUBLIC OPINION

(BRYCE)

PAGE 309. Lafayetteville : any small town.

See also " The Divine Average " by G. Lowes Dickinson in his " Appear-
ances," Part IV, Chap. I ; and " Culture : European and American " by G.
Ferrero in his " Europe's Fateful Hour " (1918). For the Press see " The
Growth and Expression of Public Opinion " by E. L. Godkin in his " Unforeseen
Tendencies of Democracy." •

CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE WEST TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

(TURNER)

PAGE 326. Icarians, Fourierists : communistic experiments, Brook Farm
being of the latter kind.

See also " Ideals of America " by Woodrow Wilson in Atlantic Monthly for
December, 1902 ; " Conflict between Individualism and Collectivism in a De-
mocracy " by C. W. Eliot ; " The Democrat Reflects " by Grant Showerman in
the Unpopular Review, 1914, p. 34.

THE SPIRIT OF THE PACIFIC COAST (ROYCE)

PAGE 341. Terry : a chief justice and politician in California who opposed
attempts to introduce law and order in the iSso's by means of the extra legal
vigilance committees. — Kearney : a labor agitator who became a political
leader and stirred up great excitement. See " Kearneyism in California " in
Bryce's " American Commonwealth."

For other pictures and discussions of California character, see Frank Norris's
novel " The Octopus " and B. I. Wheeler in the Outlook for September 23, 1911.

TRANS-NATIONAL AMERICA (BOURNE)

PAGE 343. Mary Antin : author of " The Promised Land " (1912), a record
of her experiences in Russia and later immigration to the United States and
education here.

DEMOCRACY IN INDUSTRY (ABBOTT)

PAGE 354. Stevenson's essay : " An Apology for Idlers."
PAGE 359. Perkins, Filene, etc. : see " Who's Who in America."
See also " Democracy as a Factor in Industrial Efficiency " by H. B. Drury
in the Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science, May, 1916 ; "The
Economic Necessity of Trade Unionism " by John Mitchell in the Atlantic
Monthly for February, 1914 : " Labor and Capital Partners " by John D. Rocke-
feller, Jr., in Atlantic Monthly for January, 1916 ; " Organized Labor and
Democracy " by W. G. Merritt in Unpopular Review for April, 1916.

460 NOTES AND REFERENCES

THE AMERICAN NOVEL (HERRICK)

PAGE 365. Janice Meredith : historical novel by Paul L. Ford in 1899.

PAGE 366. McNamara case : blowing up of the printing plant of the Los
Angeles Times in 1910 during labor troubles. See International Year Book,
1911, p. 138.

See also for other views, the articles in Atlantic Monthly for December, 1914,
June, 1915, and December, 1915, by E. Garnett, Owen Wister, and H. S. Harri-
son, respectively.

PURPOSE AND SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSITY (VINCENT)

PAGE 380. Bluntschli : German political scientist and statesman (1808—
1881).

For other discussions of education see " Five Evidences of an Education "
(1901) by Nicholas Murray Butler in " The Meaning of Education " ; " What
Can a University Do to Provide Intellectual Pleasures in Later Life " (1907)
by James Bryce in his " University and Historical Addresses " ; " The New
Definition of the Cultivated Man " by C. W. Eliot ; " What Is a College For"
by Woodrow Wilson in Scribner's Magazine for November, 1909 ; " Democracy
hi Education " by Nicholas Murray Butler in his " True and False Democracy "
(1907).

MILITARY CHARACTER (STIRLING)

See also " Military Character " by Admiral W. S. Sims in Proceedings of the
United States Naval Institute for March, 1917 ; " Leadership and Freedom"
by W. B. Norris in Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute for January,
1916; " Liberty and Discipline " by A. L. Lowell in the Yale Review, Vol. V,
pp. 741-53 ; and, for an admirable comparison of Nelson and Farragut as com-
manders, the last chapter of " Admiral Farragut " by Admiral A. T. Mahan.

THE INTERNATIONAL MIND (BUTLER)

See also " World Liberalism " by Lincoln Colcord in Proceedings of the
Academy of Political Science for July, 1917 ; " 'Thinking Internationally " by
Lord Cromer in Nineteenth Century for July, 1916 ; " Socialism and Interna-
tionalism " by John Spargo in Atlantic Monthly for September, 1917.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE EVOLUTION OF
DEMOCRACY (SHAW)

See also Address of Secretary Lansing at Madison Barracks on July 29, 1917,
'ssued by Bureau of Pan-American Republics.

OUR LATIN-AMERICAN POLICY (OLNEY)

See also President Wilson's Speech at Mobile, November, 1913 ; " Differ-
ences between Anglo-Saxon and Latin America " by F. A. Pezet in Report of
Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration, 1914 ; " President

NOTES AND REFERENCES 461

Wilson's Mexican Policy " by L. Ames Brown in Atlantic Monthly for June,
1916 ; " The Real Monroe Doctrine " by Elihu Root in his " Addresses on In-
ternational Subjects."

421. ex-President's suggested qualification: that the Monroe Doctrine be
held not to apply to the more stable and powerful South American governments.
The previous mention of this has been omitted.

DEMOCRATIC IDEAL IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS

(COLBY)

See also " The Open Door " by J. A. Hobson in " Towards a Lasting Settle-
ment."

TUTORING THE PHILIPPINES (BRENT)

PAGE 436. Jones Bill : a bill introduced into Congress in 1913 which pro-
vided for greater self-government for the Philippines and promised ultimate
independence as soon as a stable government was established.

See also " Colonial Policy of the United States " by Theodore Roosevelt in
the Outlook, Vol. 95, p. 345 ; " Ideals of America " by Woodrow Wilson in
Atlantic Monthly for December, 1902.

THE FAR-EASTERN PROBLEM (BLAND)

PAGE 442. Homer Lea : author of " The Valor of Ignorance," an early book
on " preparedness."

PAGE 443. Treaty of Portsmouth : (1905) closed Russo-Japanese War and
made Japan predominant in Manchuria.

PAGE 444. Chinchu-Aigun trunk line : a railroad that was to run from Chin-
chu (Changchau) in South China to Aigun in northern Manchuria. It was
projected in 1909 by British, American, and Chinese interests, but was objected
to by Japan and Russia and never built. See " Contemporary Politics in the
Far-East " by Stanley Hornbeck, page 162 and passim.

PAGE 447. Elder Statesmen : a group of aristocrats in Japan who advise the
Mikado and have exercised a predominant influence in the government.

PAGE 448. Diet : the two Houses of the Japanese Parliament.

See also " Action and Reaction in the Far East " by E. B. Mitford in Fort-
nightly Review for January, 1916 ; Hornbeck, as above ; and " Japan and
Righteousness " by Barrett Wendell in Scribner's Magazine for July, 1918.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

OUTLINES OF EUROPEAN HISTORY

BY JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON, Columbia University, CHARLES A.

BEARD, Columbia University, and JAMES HENRY

BREASTED, The University of Chicago

PART I, $1.64 PART II, $1.64

THIS new series of textbooks offers the most noteworthy solution
of the present-day high-school history problem yet attempted. With
the two volumes of " Outlines of European History " in hand the
teacher can cover general European history, beginning with ancient
history, satisfactorily in two years, leaving the third year for American
history. Moreover, the series is fully in accord with the new spirit in
the teaching of history. Emphasis throughout is placed on conditions
and institutions rather than on unrelated events, while by devoting
Part II to the history of the last two hundred years, the course
directs the pupil's attention especially to the problems and develop-
ments that are of present-day import. In short, both volumes of
" Outlines of European History " are designed primarily to furnish
the pupil the needed background for the intelligent interpretation of
contemporary events.

The authors' reputation for sound scholarship and historical insight
is international,while their style has an incisiveness and an imagina-
tive freshness that make as attractive reading for the high-school pupil
as any romance. The success of previous textbooks by the same authors
is guaranty of the teachability of these new texts and of their entire
fitness at every point for class use.

PART I 728 pages By JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON and JAMBS HENRY BREASTED

THIS volume covers oriental, classical, and medieval history to the beginning
of the eighteenth century, setting forth vividly those fundamental notions most
essential to an understanding of subsequent developments. In style, in illustra-
tion, in organization, this book sets a new standard of achievement for high-school
histories. The abundance and excellence of the illustrations are particularly
notable. These, with their detailed legends, form a sort of parallel narrative of
immense value to a proper understanding of the text. Several full-page illustra-
tions in color and a number of "pen etchings," designed especially for this volume,
add to the artistic excellence.

PART II 745 pages By JAMES HARVBY ROBINSON and CHARLES A. BEARD

THIS volume offers an illuminating treatment of European history from the
eighteenth century to the present time. It includes the best and most compre-
hensive treatment of European developments of the first decade of the twentieth
century available in any high-school history. The text is a rewriting and conden-
sation for high schools of the authors' two-volume " Development of Modern
Europe," the standard college text in the subject.

GINN AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN
EUROPE

By JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON and CHARLES A. BEARD,
Columbia University

VOLUME I. The Eighteenth Century : The French Revolution
and the Napoleonic Period. 362 pages, illustrated, $1.72.

VOLUME II. Europe since the Congress of Vienna.

448 pages, illustrated, $1.80.

AN AUTHORITATIVE treatment of recent history, covering the social,
economic, and political development of our own age. The more fun-
damental economic matters — the Industrial Revolution, commerce
and the colonies, the internal reforms of the European states, etc. —
have been generously treated. The aim has been to bring the past
into relation with the present — to trace past events, conditions,
politics, industries, and intellectual achievements of Europe in such
a way that the student will recognize their results as they appear in
the Europe of to-day.

READINGS IN
MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY

Edited by JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON and CHARLES A. BEARD
VOLUME I. 410 pages, $1.64.
VOLUME II. 541 pages, $1.80.

A COLLECTION of extracts from the primary sources to illustrate
the chief phases of the development of Europe during the last two
centuries. In organization the Readings correspond with the two
volumes of " The Development of Modern Europe." The selections
include both extracts of a constitutional nature and those of the lively,
interesting kind that give the real flavor of the times. Classified
bibliographies for further reading are a valuable feature.

GINN AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE
ENGLISH CLASSICS

(Revised Edition)

By WILLIAM P. TRENT, Columbia University, CHARLES L. HANSON, Mechanic
Arts High School, Boston, and WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, Columbia University

AN INVALUABLE aid to teachers in presenting the English
classics to high-school pupils. It provides detailed studies, with
a wealth of suggestions and questions, for over sixty of the
books on the College-Entrance Requirements list. In addition
it includes a brief discussion of the value of literature in gen-
eral and of the particular place in English literature of the
most noteworthy of the volumes usually read in high school.

Each study contains questions on setting, characters, story
or argument and incidents, construction and style, and life and
work of the author. Subjects for themes are included. All the
material is richly suggestive and is of such nature that it may
be freely abridged or expanded at the will of the teacher.
JO2 pages, 72 cents.

FIVE SHORT COURSES OF
READING

(Third Revised Edition)
By CALEB THOMAS WINCHESTER, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.

A MANUAL of direct service to any person wishing to give
intelligent choice and direction to his reading of English litera-
ture. Each of the five courses represents one great period of
English literature in its most important specimens, with accom-
panying lists of the best biography and criticism for the period.
The revised edition includes in these lists the most noteworthy
books of the past ten years. 150 pages, 60 cents.

29 b

GINN AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS

SUPPLEMENTARY READING IN
ENGLISH LITERATURE

BELLAMY: TWELVE ENGLISH POETS. Chaucer to Tennyson. 513
pages, 92 cents.

BRYAN AND CRANE: THE ENGLISH FAMILIAR ESSAY. 79 essays
by 13 English essayists. Ix + 471 pages, #1.50.

CALHOUN AND MAcALARNEY : READINGS FROM AMERICAN
LITERATURE. A wealth of material from the Colonial Period to James
Whitcomb Riley. 635 pages, $1.60.

COOK: LITERARY MIDDLE ENGLISH READER. Specimens of Eng-
lish literature between 1150 and 1500, edited especially for general students
of English literature, xxviii -t- 554 pages, $2.40.

FULTON: SOUTHERN LIFE IN SOUTHERN LITERATURE. Gener-
ous selections from Southern poems, essays, and fiction. 53 pages, 84 cents.

GARNET: ENGLISH PROSE FROM ELIZABETH TO VICTORIA.
Selections from 33 authors. 701 pages, $1.80.

GAYLEY AND FLAHERTY: POETRY OF THE PEOPLE. Old and
modern ballads and patriotic songs. 403 pages, 60 cents.

HOPKINS AND HUGHES: THE ENGLISH NOVEL BEFORE THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY. Comprehensive selections from 18 novels
from Malory to Jane Austen, xxi + 794 pages, $2.00.

HUDSON: CLASSICAL ENGLISH READER. Over 200 selections of prose
and verse from Spenser to Longfellow. 467 pages, $1.28.

LITCHFIELD: FIVE ENGLISH POETS. Poems by Dryden, Goldsmith,
Gray, Burns, and Coleridge. 104 pages, 24 cents.

MANLY: ENGLISH POETRY (1170-1892). Some 50,000 lines of represent-
ative poetry, xxviii + 580 pages, $ 1.80.

MANLY : ENGLISH PROSE (1137-1890). About 100 selections, usually
whole pieces, xix + 544 pages, #1.80.

MANLY : ENGLISH PROSE AND POETRY. A careful condensation of
the material in the two preceding volumes, with fuller notes. 792 pages, #2.40.

PARROTT AND LONG: ENGLISH POEMS FROM CHAUCER TO
KIPLING. Selections from 51 poets, xx + 401 pages, $ 1.08.

SHACKFORD: LEGENDS AND SATIRES FROM MEDI/EVAL LIT-
ERATURE. Selections from the minor literature of the period for students
of Chaucer, xi + 176 pages, $1. 50.

THAYER: THE BEST ELIZABETHAN PLAYS. Five plays by dramatists
other than Shakespeare. 611 pages, $1.50.

GINN AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

L) World War issues and ideals

509

W67

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "World War issues and ideals : readings in contemporary history and literature"

See other formats