Uncle Sam is no longer the simple New England farmer of a century ago.
He is rich beyond calculation. His family is more numerous than that
of any European country save Russia. His interests are world-wide, his
trade tremendous, his industry complex, his finance fabulous. Above
all, his family is no longer of one race. The hatreds of Europe are
not echoed in his house; they are shared and reverberate through his
corridors. It is difficult, then, for him to take the simple views of
right and wrong, of justice and humanity, that he took a century ago.
He is tempted to balance a hundred sophistries against the principles
of freedom and good faith that yet burn strongly within him. He is
driven to temporise with the evil thing he hates, because he fears, if
he does not, that his household will be split, and thus the greater
evil befall him. But those that personify the evil may goad him once
too often. Dumba the lesser criminal--as also the less dexterous--has
betrayed himself and is expelled. When will Bernstorff’s turn come?
That it will come, indeed _must_ come, is self-evident. The artist
sees things too clearly as they are not to see also what they will be.
He therefore skips the ignoble interlude of prevarication, quibble,
and intrigue, and gives us Uncle Sam happy at last in his recovered
simplicity. So we see him here, enjoying himself, as only a white man
can, in a whole-hearted spurning of lies, cruelty, and murder.
Note that Bernstorff--the victim of a gesture “fortunately rare amongst
gentlemen”--is already in full flight through the air, while Uncle
Sam’s left foot has still fifteen inches to travel. The promise of an
added velocity indicates that the flight of the unmasked diplomatist
will be far. The sketched vista of descending steps gives us the
satisfaction of knowing that the drop at the end will be deep. Every
muscle of our sinewy relative is tense, limp, and projectile--the
mouthpiece of Prussia goes to his inevitable end. There is no need of a
sequel to show him shattered and crumpled at the bottom of the stairway.