development of noble literature in our own land. War for liberty,
justice and humanity always tends to create such a productive period in
literature and the other fine arts. The struggle with Persia was behind
the Periclean age in Athens. It was the conflict of England with the
overshadowing might of Spain that so vitalized the Elizabethan period.
The Revolution was behind the one important school of literature our own
country has produced hitherto.
Since this War is waged on a scale far more colossal than any other in
human history, and since liberty and democracy are at stake, not only in
one land, but throughout the world and for the entire future of
humanity, it is reasonable to expect that the stimulation to the
creation of art and literature will be far greater than that following
any previous struggle. Where the sacrifice for high aims has been
greatest, the inspiration should be greatest, as in France. The
literature currently produced, as in the books of Loti, Maeterlinck and
Rolland, is scrappy and disappointing, it is true; but that is to be
expected when the whole nation is strained to its last energy and
gasping for breath, under the titanic struggle, and is no test of what
will be. In spite of the destruction of so large a fraction of her
manhood, France will surely rise from the ashes of this world
conflagration regenerated and reinspired. The pessimism of her late
decades will be gone. The literature and other art she will produce
will be instinct with new earnestness and exalted vision, and she may
excel even her own great past.
We too are awakening. Since the War began, all over the United States,
men and women have been thinking more earnestly and have been more
willing to listen to the expression of serious thought than ever before
for the last quarter century. Now that the hour of sacrifice has
struck, this earnestness must greatly deepen. Perhaps we, too, may have
our golden age of art.
The same inspiration carries naturally into the religious life. It is
true, as we have seen, that there is a cross-current of reversion to
narrower orthodoxy, caused by the War. The Gods of War are all national
and tribal divinities. While they rule, the face of the God of Humanity
is veiled. The Kaiser's possessive attitude toward the Divine is but the
extreme case of what War does to the religious life. Even among
ourselves the tendency shows in such phenomena as the current popular
evangelism--an eloquent, if artfully calculated and vulgarized preaching
of the purely personal virtues, with an ignorance that there is a social
problem in modern civilization, profound as that displayed by a
mediaeval churchman. The evangelist's list of inmates, whom he relegates
to the kingdom of the lost, makes the place singularly attractive to the
lover of good intellectual society.
Nevertheless, the reversion to narrower creeds but indicates the newly
awakened hunger of the religious life. Men who sacrifice live with
graver earnestness than those who are carelessly prosperous. Cynicism
and pessimism are children of idleness and frivolity, never of heroic
sacrifice and nobly accepted pain. These latter foster faith in life
and its infinite and eternal meaning. Thus, with all the tragic
submerging of our spiritual heritage the War involves, we may hope that
it will cause a revival, not of emotional hysteria, but of deepened
faith in the spirit, in the supreme worth of life, until at last we may
see the dawn of the religion of humanity.
XI
THE WAR AND EDUCATION
Equally far-reaching are the changes the War must produce in our
education. Temporarily, our higher institutions will be crippled by the
drawing off of the youth of the land for war. This is one of the
unfortunate sacrifices such a struggle involves. We must see to it that
it is not carried too far. One still hears old men in the South
pathetically say, "I missed my education because of the Civil War." Let
us strive to keep open our educational institutions and continue all our
cultural activities, in spite of the drain and strain of the War. For
never was intellectual guidance and leadership more needed than in the
present crisis.
The paramount effect of the War on education is, however, in the
multiplied demand for efficiency. This is the cry all across the
country to-day, and, in the main, it is just. Our education has been
too academic, too much molded by tradition. It must be more closely
related to life and to the changed conditions of industry and commerce.
Each boy and girl, youth and maiden, must leave the school able to take
hold somewhere and make a significant contribution to the society of
which he or she is an integral part. Vocational training must be
greatly increased. The problems of the school must be increasingly
practical problems, and thought and judgment must be trained to the
solution of those problems. This is all a part of that socialization of
democracy which must be achieved if democracy is to survive in the new
world following the War.
There is, nevertheless, an element of emotional hysteria in the demand
for efficiency and only efficiency. Efficiency is too narrow a standard
by which to estimate anything concerning human conduct and character.
In the effort to meet and conquer Germany, let us beware of the mistake
of Germany. One of the world tragedies of this epoch is the way in which
Germany has sacrificed her spiritual heritage, first for economic, then
for purely military efficiency. When we recall that spiritual heritage,
as previously described, when we think of Schiller, Herder and Goethe,
Froebel, Herbart and Richter, Tauler, Luther and Schleiermacher, Kant,
Fichte and Schopenhauer, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner, we stand aghast
at the way in which she has plunged it all into the abyss,--for what?
Shall it profit a people, more than a man, if it gain the whole world
and lose its own soul?
In such a time, then, all of us who believe in the spirit must hold high
the torch of humanistic culture. Education is for life and not merely
for efficiency. Of what worth is life, if one is only a cog-wheel in
the economic machine? It is to save the spiritual heritage of humanity
that we are fighting, and it is that heritage that education must bring
to every child and youth, if it fulfills its supreme trust. Education
for the purposes of autocratic imperialism seeks to make a people a
perfect economically productive and militarily aggressive machine.
Education for democracy means the development of each individual to the
most intelligent, self-directed and governed, unselfish and devoted,
sane, balanced and effective humanity.
XII
SOCIALISM AND THE WAR
One of the surprises of the War was the complete breakdown of
international socialism. Not only socialists, but those of us who had
been thoughtfully watching the movement from without, had come to
believe that the measure of consciousness of international brotherhood
it had developed in the artisan groups of many lands, would be a
powerful lever against war. We were wrong: the superficial
international sympathy evaporated like mist under the rays of a revived
nationalism. The socialists fell in line, almost as completely as any
other group, with the purely nationalist aims in each land.
This must have gratified certain despots; for one cause of the War, not
the cause, was undoubtedly the preference on the part of various
autocrats, to face an external war rather than the rising tide of
democracy within the nation. Temporarily, they have been successful,
but surely only for a brief time. The victory of democracy will vastly
accelerate the growth of the spirit of brotherhood throughout the world.
The terrible waste of the War must of itself produce a reaction of the
people on kings and castes in all lands. The suffering that will follow
the War, in the period of economic readjustment, will accentuate this.
Surely the _people_, in England, France, America, Italy, Russia, and
among the neutral nations, will strive that no such war may come again.
Even in Germany, when the people find out what they have paid and why,
inevitably they must struggle so to reform their institutions that no
ruler or class may again plunge them into such disaster for the selfish
benefit or ambitions of that ruler or class. How our hearts have warmed
to Liebknecht!
The realignment of nations must work to the same end. War, like
politics, makes strange bed-fellows. Germany and Austria, for centuries
rivals, and, at times, enemies, we behold united so completely that it
is difficult to imagine them disentangled after the War.
France and England, long regarding each other as natural enemies, are
fused heart and soul. Strangest of all, we have seen England struggling
to win for Russia that prize of Constantinople, which for generations it
has been a main object of British diplomacy to keep from Russian grasp.
Most impressive of all, has been the new consciousness of unity and
common cause among the nations of the earth, and the groups within all
nations, standing for democracy.
Thus the tide, checked for a time, will inevitably break forth with
renewed force. It is probable that the next fifty years will be a
period of great change--even of revolutions, peaceful or otherwise,
throughout the earth.
To understand the effect on the whole socialist movement, one must
distinguish clearly the two contrasting types of socialism. It is the
curse of the orthodox, or Marxian, type of socialism, that it was "made
in Germany." Its economic state is modeled directly on the Prussian
bureaucratic and paternalistic state. Its dream realized, would mean
Prussian efficiency carried to the _nth_ power, in a society of as
merciless slavery as that prevailing among the ants and the bees. It is
doubtless this characteristic that has made so many bureaucratic or
orthodox socialists instinctively Pro-German in sentiment and sympathy
during the War.
The contrasting type of socialism is that which is really the full
development of democracy, its movement from a narrow individualism to
ever wider voluntary co-operation. It moves, not toward government
ownership, but toward ownership by the people, of natural monopolies.
It means, not the turning over to a bureaucratic government, of plants
and instruments of production, but the progressive cooperative ownership
of them by the workers themselves. It will end, not in the overthrow of
the capitalist regime, but in all workers becoming co-operative
capitalists, and all capitalists, productive workers, since no idle
rich--or poor, will be tolerated. Such socialism, if it be so called,
will depend upon the highest individual initiative, the most voluntary
co-operation and will include the individualism which is the cherished
boon of democracy. It is significant that those who represent this type
of socialism and who think for themselves, are breaking away from the
orthodox party, under the courageous leadership and example of John
Spargo, in increasing numbers, since our entrance into the War. They
are as instinctively American and democratic in sympathy, as those of
the opposite type are Pro-German.
Even in the most democratic countries, however, the War has caused a
vast increase of the undesirable type of socialism: that is one of its
temporary penalties. To carry on such a war successfully, it is
necessary to multiply the authority of the central government. That has
been the experience of England, now being repeated here. Men, who were
_citizens_ of a democracy, become, as soldiers, and in part as workers,
_subjects_ of the government in war. To some extent we are forced to
imitate the tendencies we deplore and seek to overthrow in Germany, to
be able to meet and defeat Germany.
Even so, the difference is profound. The subordination to the
government is, for the people as a whole, voluntary, achieved through
laws passed by chosen representatives of the people, and not by the
arbitrary will of a kaiser and ruling caste. Thus the freedom,
voluntarily relinquished for a time, can be quickly regained when the
crisis is past. Subjects will become citizens again, when soldiers
return to civil life.
Nevertheless, there will be no return to the old, selfishly
individualistic regime. The lesson of organized action will have been
learned, and a vast increase of voluntary co-operation, that is, of the
socialism that is true democracy may be anticipated as a beneficent
result of the War. This will be one of the great compensations for the
waste of our heritage, spiritual and material, through the War. _The
voluntary socialization of previously individualistic democracy will be
the next great forward movement of the human spirit_.
XIII
THE WAR AND FEMINISM
Of all consequences of the War, perhaps none is more significant than
its effect upon the position of women. Militarism and feminism are
counter currents in the tide of history. All recrudescence of brute
force carries the subjugation of women. In the degree to which
professional militarism prevails in any society, women are forced into
hard industrial activities, despised because fulfilled by women. On the
other hand, a group of carefully protected women is held apart as a fine
adornment of life. Both ways militarism accentuates the property idea in
reference to women: the one type, useful, the other, adorning, property.
The one shows in marriage by purchase, the other in the dowry system.
It is hard to say which is more dishonoring to women. It would,
perhaps, seem preferable and less offensive to be bought as useful,
rather than accepted with a money payment, as an adorning but expensive
possession, where, as with the automobile, "it is the upkeep that
counts." Surely, however, either attitude is degrading enough.
The accentuation, in the present War, of the notion of women as
property, is evident in more brutal form in the horrors of rape, in the
deliberate and organized use of women as breeders, with the same
efficiency with which Germany breeds her swine.
Nevertheless, here, too, strong counter currents are at work. As this
is a war of nations, not of armies, it is the whole people that, in each
instance, has had to be mobilized and organized. In all the democracies
women have voluntarily risen to this need, just as citizens have
voluntarily become soldiers. Thus women, by the legion, are working in
munition factories, on the farms, in productive plants of every kind, in
public service and commerce organizations. The noble way in which women
have accepted the double burden has created a wave of reverent
admiration throughout the world. Thus where professional militarism
tends to despise the industrial activities into which it forces women,
war for defense and justice causes reverence for the same socially
necessary activities and for the women who so courageously undertake
them for the sake of all.
Moreover, the increased freedom of action for women will outlast its
temporary cause. Once so admitted to new fields of industrial, business
and professional activity, women can never be generally excluded from
them again. Thus when the soldiers become citizens, many of the women
will remain producers, working beside men under new conditions of
equality.
The result, with the general stimulation of radical thinking that the
War involves, will be a profound acceleration of the feminist movement
throughout, at least, the democracies of the world. Already it is being
recognized that all valid principles of democracy apply to women equally
with men. Regenerated, if chaotic, Russia takes for granted the farthest
reaches of feminism. The regime in England, that bitterly opposed
suffrage for women, is now voluntarily granting it before the close of
the War.
Thus the victory of the allied nations will mean the fruition of much of
the feminism that is a phase of humanism. It will mean freeing women
from outgrown custom and tradition, from unjust limitations in
industrial, social and political life. It will mean men and women
working together, on a plane of moral equality, with free initiative and
voluntary co-operation, for the fruition of democracy. Just as that
fruition will see the end of idle rich and poor, so there will be no
more women slaves or parasites, none regarded or possessed as property,
but only free human beings, each self-directed and self-controlled, and
responsible for his or her own personality and conduct.
XIV
THE TRANSFORMATION OF DEMOCRACY
The nineteenth century was the period of rapid growth in adhesion to
those ideals of democracy for which the War is being fought. It is not
so well recognized that during the same hundred years democracy was so
transformed as to be to-day a new thing under the sun.
Up to the time of the French and American revolutions democracy rested
largely upon certain abstract ideas of human nature. Rousseau could
argue that in primitive times men sat down together to form a state,
each giving up a part of his natural right to a central authority, and
thus justifying it. We now know that nothing of the kind ever happened,
that society had undergone a long process of development before men
began to think about it at all. We continue to repeat the splendid at
all. I refer, of course, to the women of antiquity. Where respectable,
these were the head of the household slaves, scarcely removed from the
condition of the latter. The few women who did achieve freedom of
thought and action, and became the companions of cultivated men--the
Aspasias of antiquity--bought their freedom at a sad price.
So Rome is called a republic, and it is true that, during the first half
of her long history, freedom gradually broadened down from the patrician
class to the plebeian multitude. When Rome reached out, however, to the
mastery of the most impressive empire the world has seen, she never
dreamed of extending that freedom to the conquered populations. If she
did grant Roman citizenship to an occasional community, to enjoy the
rights and exercise the privileges of that citizenship, it was necessary
to journey to Rome. It was the city and the world: the city ruling the
world as subject.
The same principle holds with the republics developing at the close of
the middle age, in Italy, in the towns of the Hanseatic League and
elsewhere. Always the freedom achieved was for a city, a group or a
class, never for all the people. Our dream, on the contrary, is to take
all the men and women in the land, ultimately in the world, and help
them, through the free and cooperative activity of each with all the
rest, on toward life, liberty, happiness, intelligence--all the ends of
life that are worth while. If we demand life for ourselves, we ask it
only in harmony with the best life for all. We want no special
privilege, no benefit apart, bought at the price of the best welfare of
humanity. "We," unfortunately, does not yet mean all of us, but it does
signify an increasing multitude, rallying to this that is the standard
of to-morrow.
A third transformation, at least equally important with these, is in the
invention, for it is no less, of representative government. Political
thinkers, such as John Fiske, have tried to make us understand what this
invention means: we do not yet realize it. The development of
representative government is the cause, first of all, of the tremendous
expansion of the area over which we apply democracy. Plato, in the
_Laws_, limits the size of the ideal state--the one realizable in this
world--to 5040 citizens. Why? Well, the exact number has a certain
mystical significance, but the main reason is, Plato could not imagine a
much larger body of citizens than 5000 meeting together in public
assembly and fulfilling the functions of citizenship.
We have extended democracy over a hundred millions of population,
dwelling on the larger part of a continent; and if one travels North,
South, East, West, to-day, one is impressed that, in spite of
unassimilated elements, everywhere men and women are proud, first of
all, of being American citizens, and only in subordinate ways devoted to
the section or community to which they belong. This has been made
possible by the invention and development of representative government.
That is not all: it is representative government that takes the sting
out of all the older criticisms of democracy. Plato devotes one of the
saddest portions of his _Republic_ to showing how in a brief time,
democracy must inevitably fall and be replaced by tyranny. With the
democracy Plato knew this was true. It was impossible for Athens to
protect and make permanent her constitution. She might pass a law
declaring the penalty of death on any one proposing a change in the
constitution. It did no good. Let some demagogue arise, sure of the
suffrage of a majority of the citizens: he could call them into public
assembly, cause a repeal of the law, and make any change in the
constitution he desired. There was no way to prevent it.
It is the invention and development of representative government that
has changed all that. We chafe under the slow-moving character of our
democracy--over the time it takes to get laws enacted and the longer
time to get them executed. We may well be patient: this slow-moving
character of democracy is the other side of its greatest safe-guard. It
is because we cannot immediately express in action the popular will and
opinion, but must think two, three, many times, working through chosen
and responsible representatives of the people, that our democracy is not
subject to the perils and criticisms of those of antiquity.
The voice of the people in the day and hour, under the impulse of sudden
caprice or passion, is anything but the voice of God: it is much more
apt to be the voice of all the powers of darkness. It is common
thought, sifted through uncommon thought, that approaches as near the
voice of God as we can hope to get in this world. It is not the surface
whim of public opinion, it is its _greatest common denominator_ that
approximates the truth.
It behooves us to remember this at a time when changes are coming with
such swiftness. Our life has developed so rapidly that the old
political forms proved inadequate to the solution of the new problems.
As a practical people, we therefore quickly adopted or invented new
forms. Doubtless this is, in the main, right, but we should understand
clearly what we are doing.
For instance, one of the great changes, recently inaugurated, is the
election of national senators by popular vote. Our forefathers planned
that the national upper house should represent a double sifting of
popular opinion. We elected state legislatures; they, in turn, chose the
national senators: thus these were twice removed from the popular will.
It proved easy to corrupt state legislatures; the national senate came
to represent too much the moneyed interests; and so, through an
amendment to the constitution, we changed the process, and now elect our
senators by direct vote of the people. This makes them more immediately
representative of the popular will, and perhaps the change was wise; but
we should recognize that we have removed one more safe-guard of
democracy.
A story, told for a generation, and fixed upon various British
statesmen, will illustrate my meaning. The last repetition attributed
it to John Burns. On one occasion, while he was a member of Parliament,
it is said he was at a tea-party in the West End of London. The
hostess, pouring his cup of tea, anxious to make talk and show her deep
interest in politics, said, "Mr. Burns, what is the use of the house of
Lords anyway?" The statesman, without replying, poured his tea from the
cup into the saucer. The hostess, surprised at the breach of etiquette,
waited, and then said, "but Mr. Burns, you didn't answer my question."
He pointed to the tea, cooling in the saucer: that was the function, to
cool the tea of legislation. That was the function intended for our
national senate. The trouble was, the tea of legislation often became
so stone cold in the process that it was fit only for the political
slop-pail, and that was not what we wanted. So we have changed it all,
but one more safe-guard of democracy is gone.