The embarrassments of the partisan who is challenged to explain the
faith that is in him are greatly multiplied in this year of grace.
Considerable literature is available as to the rise and development
of the two major parties, but a student might exhaust the whole of
it and yet read the Chicago and San Francisco platforms as through a
glass darkly. There is a good deal of Jeffersonian democracy that is
extremely difficult to reconcile with many acts of Mr. Wilson. The
partisan who tries to square his Democracy or his Republicanism with
the faith he inherited from his grandfather is doomed to a severe
headache. The rope that separates the elephant from the donkey in the
menagerie marks only a nominal difference in species: they eat the
same fodder and, when the spectator’s back is turned, slyly wink at
each other. There is a fine ring to the phrase “a loyal Republican”
or “a loyal Democrat,” but we have reached a point of convergence
where loyalty is largely a matter of tradition and superstition.
What Jefferson said on a given point, or what Hamilton thought about
something else, avails little to a Democrat or a Republican in these
changed times. We talk blithely of fundamental principles, but are
still without the power to visualize the leaders of the past in newly
developed situations of which they never dreamed. To attempt to
interview Washington as to whether he intended his warning against
entangling alliances to apply to a League of Nations to insure the
peace of the world is ridiculous; as well invoke Julius Cæsar’s opinion
of present-day questions of Italian politics.
Delightful and inspiring as it would doubtless be, we can’t quite
trust the government to the counsels of the ouija-board. The seats
of the cabinet or of the supreme bench will hardly be filled
with table-rapping experts until more of us are satisfied of the
authenticity of the communications that purport to be postmarked
oblivion. We quote the great spirits of the past only when we need
them to give weight and dignity to our own views. (Incidentally, a
ouija-board opinion from John Marshall as to the propriety of tacking
a police regulation like the Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal
Constitution would be first-page stuff for the newspapers.)
Monroe was luckier than most of our patriarchs. The doctrine associated
with his name is jealously treasured by many patriotic Americans who
haven’t the slightest idea of the circumstances that called it forth;
but to mention it in a discussion of international affairs is to stamp
the speaker as a person of breeding, endowed with intellectual gifts of
the highest order. If by some post-mortem referendum we could “call up”
Monroe to explain just how far America might safely go in the defense
of his doctrine, and whether it could be advantageously extended
beyond the baths of all the western stars to keep pace with such an
expansion as that represented by the Philippines, we might profit by
his answer--and again, we might not.
We can’t shirk our responsibilities. One generation can’t do the work
of another. In the last analysis we’ve got to stand on our own feet and
do our own thinking. The Constitution itself has to be interpreted over
and over again, and even amended occasionally; for the world does, in
spite of all efforts to stop it, continue to move right along. This is
not a year in which either of the major parties can safely harp upon
its “traditional policy.” There are skeletons in both closets that
would run like frightened rabbits if dragged into the light and ordered
to solve the riddles of 1920.
The critics of President Wilson have dwelt much on the vision of the
founders, without conceding that he too may be blessed with a seer’s
vision and the tongue of prophecy. To his weaknesses as a leader
I shall revert later; but his high-mindedness and earnest desire
to serve the nation and the world are questioned only by the most
buckramed hostile partisan, or by those who view the present only
through the eyes of dead men.