THE PATRIOTISM OF PEACE
The great mind knows the power of gentleness--
Only tries force because persuasion fails.
--ROBERT BROWNING.
THE patriotism of war is far easier to teach than the patriotism of
peace. When bands are playing and the love of adventure is calling, men
find it easy to march away to battle for their country, and boys and
girls throb through all their young beings to do something for it.
But when men are staying at home, with comfort beckoning; with the
government jogging along and getting the main things done somehow or
other, under the guidance of professional politicians; and with one's
personal affairs requiring apparently the application of all one's
mortal powers,--then patriotism needs a spur.
It was of such "piping times of peace" that Goldsmith wrote:
"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay."
The task set forth before the conscientious citizen then is to keep
alive in himself the clear torch of patriotism,--which simply means the
duty to sacrifice as freely, in proportion to the need, in time of peace
as in time of war.
It is the difficulty of this task, seldom yet accomplished, which has
led to the many eloquent panegyrics, in all languages, upon war as
necessary to the very existence of a nation. Several entire books have
been written to prove that sordidness and selfishness always possess and
soon destroy a nation which does not have frequent wars. The philosophy
of Nietzsche is largely founded upon this theory. Treitschke and
Bernhardi follow him closely. Even De Quincey, Ruskin, and others from
among our best English writers, subscribe to this monstrous doctrine,
and it is true that there is plenty of support for it in history.
But we Americans have always believed in brains rather than brawn for
the settlement of international as well as personal controversies. The
duel has been banished from our country as an antiquated means of
adjusting the quarrels of individual men, and logic requires that a
similar course be pursued toward quarrels on a larger scale. Because we
have been obliged to lay aside temporarily our convictions in order to
save ourselves and the right, from a mad dog of a nation, which
threatens to overthrow civilization, does not mean that we have given up
our ideals. If the American nation stands for anything, it stands for
peace, though we can and will fight if liberty and right are threatened.
In the study of the Iliad which has been suggested, the words which
Agamemnon speaks to Hector should be especially commended to children:
"Cursed be the man, and void of law and right,
Unworthy property, unworthy light,
Unfit for public rule or private care,
The wretch, the monster, who delights in war,--
Whose lust is murder, and whose horrid joy,
To tear his country and his kind destroy."
But in the face of the almost universal testimony against it, all of us
should realize that extraordinary pains must be taken to inculcate the
truth, and live it, that high patriotism can be kept alive in peace as
well as in war.
Precept alone goes not very far in any line, and less, perhaps, in
this, than in any other. The study of history and a little of the most
modern literature, helps. Classical literature, in all languages,
preaches with frightful unanimity, the necessity and the nobility of
war. In the religion of Rome, Mars received ten times more homage than
did Jupiter. The book and the precept must not be neglected, but your
chief weapon in teaching your child the patriotism of peace must be the
deed. You must set a strenuous example, or else all your words will pass
like the whistle of the wind.
In President Hadley's inaugural, he asserted that the main object of
education is to make good citizens,--which is, perhaps, only another way
of saying that the chief object of education is to make patriots.
He was talking of the education of the schools; but Emerson somewhere
says, in effect, that though we send our children to the schoolmaster,
it is, after all, their environment which does most of the educating.
Emerson speaks of the shop-windows along the child's way; but it is his
home which forms the most influential factor in his environment; and the
part of the home usually dearest to him is his mother. It is a common
saying, especially in our cities, that fathers see their children only
when they are asleep, leaving them at breakfast-time, and returning
after they have gone to bed. Up to the age of twelve, or thereabout,
children should retire shortly after eight o'clock. During the next few
years, even though they sit up later, they generally have to study.
Thus, during their formative period, it is upon the mother that the home
training of the children chiefly devolves.
A distinguished clergyman in a public address once eulogized his
mother. He attributed to her every virtue and a wonderful mind. He was a
violent anti-suffragist, and supposed that he was presenting a strong
argument for his side when he said, "But though my incomparable mother
counseled us upon almost every subject that could engage our attention,
she never mentioned to us the subject of politics."
Had he not struck, perhaps, the main reason for the corruption of our
politics? The fathers have no chance to instruct their young children in
the rudiments of politics,--yet those children ought to be so instructed
by somebody. They get little or nothing of it in school. If their mother
does not teach them something about it, they will probably grow up
ignorant of many of its snares and its opportunities.
To-day the anti-suffragists are wiser. They say that women should
understand civic duties and should canvass them thoroughly with their
children. The sin and the shame come only, in their opinion, when women
actually vote for the best men and women to fill the offices.
The case is as if a woman should furnish a house, supplying its kitchen
with every facility for cooking and cleaning; fitting its dining-room
with the proper linen, silver and china; arranging its bedrooms for
comfortable sleep; making its parlors beautiful for guests; and then,
though she has known so well the needs of a household and how to provide
for them, she draws back from the responsibility of running her model
house, as if to say: "My sisters and I are not competent to manage this
house. You men are far abler. Please make and enforce all the rules to
govern it."
Let the men and the women work together, dividing the responsibility
according to the fitness of each individual. There are stupid men and
stupid women and there are bright men and bright women. Women are human
beings before all else and all human interests are their interests.
There is among us too much of cowardice and laziness, posing as
hyper-refinement and modesty. Women as voters, "weavers of peace," as
the old Saxons called them, are bound to be a helpful force in many
departments, and especially in this great work of establishing universal
peace, and teaching men how to use it. They should begin with the child
in its cradle.
For, let us repeat, it cannot be too strongly impressed that the
underlying and fundamental principles of politics must be taught by the
mother, if they are taught at all; and like everything else that is
good, they can be and should be taught. It does not seem to be generally
understood, but it is a fact, that a training in politics is possible,
and if our great experiment in government is to succeed, such a training
should be given to every child, and the mother seems to be the natural,
and often the only person to give it.
A mother was one day walking along the streets of the great city in
which she lived, when she saw that a new liquor-saloon had been opened
within two blocks of her home.
"Oh, dear!" she said to her little boy of eight, who held her hand,
"Here is another saloon,--another place where men will spend their money
foolishly and perhaps become drunkards,--and so near our own home! We
have never had one so near before."
As she spoke, two men staggered out from the saloon-door and made their
way unsteadily along the sidewalk. The child had never seen a drunken
man before. His eyes widened with horror and an expression of utter
disgust settled upon his eager little face.
"Why do they let 'em do it!" he burst forth. "Aren't there any
Christians in Congress?"
It was plain that ideas of law and restraint, and of the difference
between good government and bad government, were struggling for form and
coherence in the child's mind.
The mother seized her opportunity. She explained briefly some of the
evils of the saloon; the meaning of "high license" and "prohibition,"
and something of the arguments on both sides; how most good people agree
that the saloon, as at present conducted, is a cancer on the body
politic, and how the chief disagreement is concerning the best ways of
controlling or suppressing it; how the liquor men are active in
politics, while the temperance men are so busy with their own affairs,
and usually so contemptuous of legislatures that they do not look
carefully after the laws; how voters are often bribed; and as many more
details as the boy seemed to want to hear.
He listened closely and asked many intelligent questions. He had
received a lesson in politics which he did not forget, as his chance
remarks showed for months afterward. He talked the matter over with his
younger brothers, and they, too, began to ask questions. During the next
few years that mother gave her boys brief talks on arbitration, the
tariff, public education and its bearing on democracy, street-cleaning,
road-making, silver and gold money, and many other topics of current
politics. She was careful never to force them, for she knew that it is
only when the mood is upon him that a boy likes to discuss serious
subjects. The terms she used were of the simplest; and her husband, who
was deeply interested in her efforts, and helped her whenever he could,
supplied her with many illustrations, such as children could understand.
Especially did she impress upon her children's minds the true and
striking saying of a great Frenchman, that "governments are always just
as bad as the people will let them be"; and that, as a part of the
people, it was their duty to see that the government was made and kept
good.
By "line upon line, precept upon precept," knowing that opinions are
formed
"As boys learn to spell,--
By reiteration chiefly."
this mother tried to impress upon those children the duties of good
citizenship. They are grown up now and show the effects of their
training.
Many of us feel that more upon the subject of politics,--again we
should remind ourselves that politics and patriotism are very nearly the
same thing,--might easily and properly be taught in our public schools;
for the foundation principles of politics are only those of ordinary
ethics. In this way, morality, which is far more necessary than
book-learning for the perpetuity of our institutions, would take that
dominant place in our educational system, so strongly advocated by that
prince of educators, Horace Mann. "Among all my long list of
acquaintances," he says, "I find that for one man who has been ruined
for want of intellectual attainments, hundreds have perished for want of
morals. And yet we go on bestowing one hundred times more care and pains
and cost on the education of the intellect than on the cultivation of
the moral sentiments and the establishment of moral principles." He
insists that morals should be regularly taught, and not "left to casual
and occasional mention."
Thus broad and clear ideas of perfect honesty, with Abraham Lincoln and
other good and great men as examples, form the foundation of clean
politics, and should be impressed upon the children in our schools. The
daily papers often describe shining instances of this cardinal virtue.
Suppose that a theater is burned and many lives lost. Laws may have
been passed for the safeguarding of theaters, but the manager of this
house disregarded them in order to save a few dollars. There is a chance
to impress regard for law and its enforcement.
Or suppose that bribery is under discussion. Here is a true story of the
way in which its devious methods were impressed upon the mind of a small
boy:
He was stopping with his mother in a country town, when the tailor of
the place, in speaking of the day's voting, remarked: "I don't gen'ally
vote, but I did to-day, because they sent a carriage up from the Center
for me. It takes time to vote and 'tain't much use. What does one vote
amount to anyway? But when one of the bosses is anxious enough to come
an' git me, why, then I'll vote, or if they'll give me my fare on the
cars."
"Why," said the boy quickly, "isn't that bribery?"
"Lord, no!" said the man, shuffling about uneasily. "That jest pays me
for my time an' trouble. I don't git nothin' for my _vote_."
Sophistries like this should be immediately made clear to the child. It
would probably be impossible to show them to that tailor.
"Our Revolutionary fathers," said Horace Mann again, "abandoned their
homes, sacrificed their property, encountered disease, bore hunger and
cold, and stood on the fatal edge of battle, to gain that liberty which
their descendants will not even go to the polls to protect. Our Pilgrim
Fathers expatriated themselves, crossed the Atlantic,--then a greater
enterprise than now to circumnavigate the globe,--and braved a savage
foe, that they might worship God unmolested,--while many of us throw our
votes in wantonness, or for a bribe, or to gratify revenge."
This is a terrible indictment. It is not as true now as it was in the
time of Horace Mann. Still, the lesson contained in it should be
impressed upon our children.