of September 1, 1915, brought its welcome message of concession. It
is as little worth while to analyze the motives which prompted this
change of front as it is worth while to speculate upon its sincerity.
In the light of subsequent events, we are painfully aware that our
satisfaction was excessive, our self-congratulations unwarranted, our
jubilant editorials a trifle overcharged. But at the time we believed
what we wanted to believe, we joyfully assumed that Germany had been
converted to the ways of humanity, and that she stood ready to anger
her own people for the sake of conciliating ours.
Why the submarine warfare should have so endeared itself to the Teuton
heart is a problem for psychologists to elucidate. There is little
about it to evoke a generous enthusiasm. It lacks heroic qualities.
The singularly loathsome song which celebrated the sinking of the
Lusitania is as remote in spirit from such brave verse as “Admirals
All,” as those old sea-dogs were remote in spirit from the foul work
of Von Tirpitz. No flight of fancy can conceive of Nelson counting up
the women and children he had drowned. And because the whole wretched
business sickened as well as affronted us, we hailed with unutterable
relief any modification of its violence. For the first time in many
months our souls were lightened of their load. We felt calm enough
to review the summer of suspense, and to ask ourselves sincerely and
soberly what were the lessons that it had taught us.
The agitation produced in this country by a terrible--and to us
unexpected--European war was intensified in the spring of 1915 by
the discovery that we were not so immune as we thought ourselves. It
dawned slowly on men’s minds that the sacrifice of the nation’s honour
might not after all secure the nation’s safety; and this disagreeable
doubt impelled us to the still more disagreeable consideration of
our inadequate coast defences. Then and then only were we made aware
of the chaotic confusion which reigned in the minds of our vast and
unassimilated population. Then and then only did we understand that
perils from without--remote and ascertainable--were brought close and
rendered hideously obscure by shameful coöperation from within.
Ten years ago, two years ago, we should have laughed to scorn the
suggestion that any body of American citizens--no matter what their
lineage--would be disloyal to the State. A belief in the integrity
of citizenship was the first article of our faith. To-day, the
German-American openly disavows all pretence of loyalty, and says
as plainly and as publicly as he can that he will be betrayed into
no conflict with his “mother country,” unless the United States be
actually invaded,--by which time the rest of us would feel ourselves a
trifle insecure. It is strange that the men who, had they remained in
their mother country (a choice which was always open to them), would
never have ventured a protest against Germany’s aggressive warfare,
should here be so stoutly contumacious. What would have happened to the
president of the New York State German-American Alliance, had he lived
in Berlin instead of in Brooklyn, and had he spoken of the Kaiser as
he dared to speak of Mr. Wilson! The license which the German (muzzled
tightly in Germany) permits himself in the United States, is not unlike
the license which the newly emancipated slaves in the South mistook for
liberty when the Civil War was ended. It takes as many generations to
make a freeman as it does to make a gentleman.
The inevitable result of this outspoken disloyalty at home was a
determined and very hurtful pressure from abroad. A big, careless,
self-confident nation is an easy prey; and while we waited, not very
watchfully, Germany seized many chances to hit us below the belt,
and hit us hard. The fomenting of strikes and labour agitation; the
threatening of German workmen employed in American factories; the
misuse of the radio service at Sayville, and the continued sending
of code messages; the affidavits of Gustav Stahl before the Federal
Grand Jury, and his assisted flight from the authorities; the forged
American passports with which German spies wander over England and
the Continent; the diplomatic indiscretions--to put it mildly--of
German and Austrian ambassadors; the mysterious activities of German
officials, which we were too inexperienced to understand;--all these
things filled us with anger and alarm. We could not resort to the
simple measures of Italians, who in Philadelphia stoned the agents whom
they found trying to hold back reservists about to sail for Italy. We
bore each fresh affront as though inured to provocation; but we bore
it understandingly, and with deep resentment. If ever our temper snaps
beneath the strain, the anger so slow to ignite will be equally hard to
extinguish.
Playing consciously or unconsciously into the hands of Germany are the
pacifists,--a compact body of men and women, visibly strengthened by
months of indecision. Their methods may at times be laughable, but
we cannot afford to laugh. I do not class under this head any of the
so-called “Neutrality Leagues,” and “National Peace Councils,” which
aim at securing a German victory by withholding munitions from the
Allies. Such “neutrals” are all partisans parading under a borrowed
name, which they have rendered meaningless. They have a great deal of
money to spend on advertisements, and posters, and mass meetings. They
can any day, in any town, fill a hall with German sympathizers who are
all of one mind concerning the duty of noncombatants. Their leaders
are well aware that law and usage permit, and have long permitted, to
neutral nations the sale of munitions to belligerents. Their followers
for the most part know this too. But it seems worth while to profess
ignorance. Something can always be accomplished by agitation, were it
only a murderous attack on a financier, or the smuggling of dynamite
into the hold of a cargo boat.
But in reckoning up our perils, it is the fanatic, not the hypocrite,
who must be taken into account. Sincerity is a terrible weapon in the
hands of the ill-advised. There can be no contagion of folly, unless
that folly be sincere. And what gives the uncompromising, because
uncomprehending, pacifist his dangerous force is the fact that he is
psychologically as inevitable as were the Iconoclasts, or the Thebaid
anchorites, or any other historic instance of recoil. He is the
abnormal product of abnormal conditions. The fury of war has bred this
child of peace. The fumes of battle have stupefied him. Aggression and
defence, brutality and heroism, the might of conquest and the right of
resistance, have for him no separate significance. He is one who cannot
master--as every sane man must learn to master--the deadly sickness of
his soul.
To call the pacifist a coward is simple, but not enlightening.
Cowardice is a natural and pervasive attribute of humanity. Few of us
can flatly disavow it. There are women opposed to all war because their
sons might be shot. A popular song--now employed to raise the spirits
of school-children--expresses this sentiment. There are men opposed to
all war because they might themselves be shot. So far, no music-hall
ditty has exalted them. But this normal human cowardice is not
infectious, save in the heat of battle, where, happily, it is seldom
displayed. Infectious pacificism is a revolt from war, irrespective
of abstract considerations like justice or injustice, and of personal
considerations like loss or gain.
History is full of similar revolts, and they have always overstepped
the limits of sanity. Because the pagan sensualist tended his body
with loathsome solicitude, the Christian ascetic subjected his to
loathsome indignities. The excesses of the Roman baths sanctified the
uncleanliness of the early monasteries. Just as inevitable is the
reaction from a ravenous war to non-resistance. Because Germany’s
armaments are powerful enough to terrorize Europe, we are bidden to
weaken our defences. Because France and Belgium have been attacked
and devastated, we are implored to take no steps for self-protection.
The appeal sent out by Quaker citizens of Philadelphia--good men,
ready, no doubt, to die as honourably as they have lived--was at once
a confession of faith and a denial of duty. They asked that the money
of the taxpayer should be spent in making “more homes happy,” and
they were content to leave the security of these happy homes to the
unassisted care of Providence. To keep our powder dry implied mistrust
of God.
That the authorities of Iowa should strip the American flag of a white
border, neatly stitched around it by the pacifists of Fort Dodge, was
perhaps to be expected. The action seems peremptory; but if every
society were permitted to trim and patch our national emblem, we should
soon have as many flags as we have disputants in the field. For months
the patient post-office officials passed on without a murmur envelopes
ornamented with huge stamps, bearing pictures of a cannon partly
metamorphosed into a ploughshare, a bloated child, and a pouncing dove;
and inscribed with these soul-subduing lines:--
“I am in favour of world-wide peace,
Spread this idea, and war will cease.”
The decoration of envelopes with strange devices has long afforded
a vent for pent-up feelings. The peace-stamp was nobly seconded
by the “peace-pin,” a white enamelled dove, carrying the motto,
“World-Peace,” and destined--so its wearers assured us--to prove itself
“one of the greatest factors in eliminating prejudices and division
lines.”
Are these puerilities unworthy of consideration and comment? They are
not so preposterous as was Mr. Wanamaker’s suggestion that we should
recompense Germany for the trouble and expense she had incurred in
seizing Belgium by paying her $100,000,000,000 for her spoils. They
are not so demoralizing as the teaching of American school-children
to calculate how many bicycles they could buy for the money spent on
the battleship Oregon, or how many tickets for a ball-game could be
provided at the price of the American navy. The Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace is to be congratulated on having devised a scheme
by which boys and girls can be taught arithmetically to place pleasure
above patriotism. If Germans teach their children to deny themselves
some portion of their mid-day meal for the needs of Germany, and
Americans teach their children to hold ball-games and bicycles more
sacred than the needs of America, what chance have the men we rear
against men reared to discipline and self-sacrifice!
When an anti-enlistment league can be formed in a country which may
possibly be called to war, and anti-enlistment pledges can be signed
by young men who promise never to enroll themselves for their nation’s
defence, we have cause for apprehension. When college students can be
found petitioning for peace at any price, we have cause for wonder.
When women who have suffered nothing fling scorn at men who have
suffered all things, we have cause in plenty for resentment.
Cause, too, for sorrow that such evil words should be so lightly
spoken. It was but a dreary laugh that was provoked by Miss Addams’s
picture of intoxicated regiments bayoneting one another under the
stimulating influence of drink. Laughter is hard to come by in these
dark days; but Heaven knows we should gladly have foregone the mirth to
have been spared a slander so unworthy. The snatching of honour from
the soldier in the hour of his utmost trial is possible only to the
pacifist, who, sick with pity for pain, has lost all understanding of
the things which ennoble pain: of fidelity, and courage, and the love
of one’s country, which, next to the love of God, is the purest of all
emotions which winnow the souls of men.
The mad turmoil of folly and disaffection was kept at high pressure
by the adroitness of the Imperial Government in juggling with
technicalities. While we fed, like Hamlet, on the chameleon’s dish,
and, “promise-crammed,” debated windily over words, ship after ship
was sunk, and fresh exonerations and pledges were served up for
our entertainment. It became difficult even for German-Americans
to know just where they stood, and how far they might fittingly
express their contempt for the United States, without out-distancing
the Fatherland. When the “Friends of Peace” in Chicago cheered
the sinking of the Hesperian,--an exploit naturally gratifying to
peaceful souls,--they were silenced by more prudent members of the
convention, who bethought themselves that this illustration of good
faith might in turn be politely regretted. All that was left for these
enthusiasts was to praise Germany’s “magnanimity,” to brag of her
“historic friendship” for America (apparently under the impression
that Lafayette was a Prussian officer), to regret the “hysteria” of
Americans over the drowning of their countrymen, and to ascribe the
whole war to the machinations of “Grey and Asquith, and Delcassé, and
Poincaré,”--“demons whom we should hiss and howl into the abyss of
Hell.”
There was plenty of disaffection in 1776, plenty in 1861; but we fought
our two great wars without dishonour. If the Germans, well aware of
our unpreparedness and of our internal dissensions, have flouted
us unsparingly, it is because they are, as they have always been,
densely incapable of reading the souls of men. Let us not add to our
own peril by misreading the soul of Germany. We lack her discipline,
we lack her unity, we lack her efficiency, the splendid result of
thirty years’ devotion to a single purpose. It avails us very little
to analyze the “falling sickness” which has made her so mighty.
Dr. Lightner Witmer, in a profoundly thoughtful and dispassionate
paper on “The Relation of Intelligence to Efficiency,” diagnoses her
disease as “primitivism,”--“meaning thereby a reversion in manners,
customs, and principles to what is characteristic of a lower level of
civilization.” Mr. Owen Wister, who is as poignantly eloquent as Dr.
Witmer is logical and chill, reaches in “The Pentecost of Calamity” a
somewhat similar conclusion. “The case of Germany is a hospital case, a
case for the alienist; the mania of grandeur complemented by the mania
of persecution.” Even Mr. Bryan (always a past-master of infelicitous
argument) tells us that a war with Germany is impossible, because it
would be like “challenging an insane asylum;”--as if an insane asylum
which failed to restrain its inmates could be left unchallenged by the
world.
It is unwise to minimize our danger on the score of our saner judgment
or higher morality. These qualities may win out in the future, but
we are living now. Germany is none the less terrible because she
is obsessed, and we are not a whit safer because we recognize her
obsession. The German war-maps of Paris, cut into sections and
directing which sections were to be burned, are grim warnings to the
world. It is disturbing to think how insensitive Paris was to her peril
when those maps were prepared. It is disturbing to think that a fool’s
paradise is always the most popular playground of humanity. In the
“Atlantic Monthly” for August, 1915, an Englishman explained lucidly to
American readers (the only audience patient enough to hear him) that
non-resistance is the road to security. Mr. Russell, “a mathematician
and a philosopher,” is confident that if England would submit passively
to invasion, and refuse passively to obey the invader, she would suffer
no great wrong. Had he read “Sandford and Merton” when he was a little
boy, it might possibly occur to him that Germany would treat the
non-resisting strikers as Mr. Barlow treated Tommy, when that misguided
child refused to dig and hoe. Had he read the “Bryce report,”--which
is not pleasant reading,--he might feel less sure that English homes
and English women would be safe from assault because they lacked
protectors.
The same happy confidence in our receptivity and in our limitless good
nature was shown by Professor Kraus, who, in the “Atlantic Monthly” for
September, 1915, conveyed to us in the plainest possible language his
unfavourable opinion of the Monroe Doctrine and of its supporters. No
German could be less “nice” in concealing his contempt than was this
ingenuous contributor; and nothing could be better for us than to hear
such words spoken at such a time. The threat of a “general accounting”
was not even presented suavely to our ears, but it left us no room for
doubt.
That two such arguments from two such sources should have enlivened our
term of waiting is worthy of note. The Englishman, seeing us beset
by irrationalities, added one more phantasy to our load. The German,
seeing us beset by alarms, added one more menace to affright us. Our
patience is impervious to folly and to intimidation. We have plenty
of both at home. Only an American can understand the cumulative anger
in his countryman’s heart as affront is added to affront, and the
slow lapse of time brings us neither redress nor redemption. However
sanguine and however peace-loving we may be, we cannot well base our
hopes of future security on the tenderness shown us in the past. If
long months of painful suspense, of hope alternating with despondency,
and pride with shame, have wrought no other good, they have at least
revealed to us where our danger lies. They have bared disloyalty, and
have put good citizens on their guard.
Somewhere in the mind of the nation is a saving sanity. Somewhere in
the heart of the nation is a saving grace. A day may come when these
two harmonious qualities will find expression in the simple words of
Cardinal Newman: “The best prudence is to have no fear.”
Americanism
Whenever we stand in need of intricate knowledge, balanced judgment,
or delicate analysis, it is our comfortable habit to question our
neighbours. They may be no wiser and no better informed than we are;
but a collective opinion has its value, or at least its satisfying
qualities. For one thing, there is so much of it. For another, it
seldom lacks variety. Two years ago the “American Journal of Sociology”
asked two hundred and fifty “representative” men and women “upon what
ideals, policies, programmes, or specific purposes should Americans
place most stress in the immediate future,” and published the answers
that were returned in a Symposium entitled, “What is Americanism?” The
candid reader, following this symposium, received much counsel, but
little enlightenment. There were some good practical suggestions; but
nowhere any cohesion, nowhere any sense of solidarity, nowhere any
concern for national honour or authority.
It was perhaps to be expected that Mr. Burghardt Du Bois’s conception
of true Americanism would be the abolishment of the colour line, and
that Mr. Eugene Debs would see salvation in the sweeping away of
“privately owned industries, and production for individual profit.”
These answers might have been foreseen when the questions were
asked. But it was disconcerting to find that all, or almost all, of
the “representative” citizens represented one line of civic policy,
or civic reform, and refused to look beyond it. The prohibitionist
discerned Americanism in prohibition, the equal suffragist in votes
for women, the biologist in applied science, the physician in the
extirpation of microbes, the philanthropist in playgrounds, the
sociologist in eugenism and old-age pensions, and the manufacturer in
the revision of taxes. It was refreshing when an author unexpectedly
demanded the extinction of inherited capital. Authorship seldom
concerns itself with anything so inconceivably remote.
The quality of miscellaneousness is least serviceable when we leave the
world of affairs, and seek admission into the world of ideals. There
must be an interpretation of Americanism which will express for all of
us a patriotism at once practical and emotional, an understanding of
our place in the world, and of the work we are best fitted to do in it,
a sentiment which we can hold--as we hold nothing else--in common, and
which will be forever remote from personal solicitude and resentment.
Those of us whose memories stretch back over half a century recall too
plainly a certain uneasiness which for years pervaded American politics
and American letters, which made us unduly apprehensive, and, as a
consequence, unduly sensitive and arrogant. It found expression in Mr.
William Cullen Bryant’s well-known poem, “America,” made familiar to my
generation by school readers and manuals of elocution, and impressed by
frequent recitations upon our memories.
“O mother of a mighty race,
Yet lovely in thy youthful grace!
The elder dames, thy haughty peers,
Admire and hate thy blooming years;
With words of shame
And taunts of scorn they join thy name.”
There are eight verses, and four of them repeat Mr. Bryant’s conviction
that the nations of Europe united in envying and insulting us. To be
hated because we were young, and strong, and good, and beautiful,
seemed, to my childish heart, a noble fate; and when a closer
acquaintance with history dispelled this pleasant illusion, I parted
from it with regret. France was our ally in the Revolutionary War.
Russia was friendly in the Civil War. England was friendly in the
Spanish War. If the repudiation of state debts left a bad taste in the
mouths of foreign investors, they might be pardoned for making a wry
face. Most of them were subsequently paid; but the phrase “American
revoke” dates from the period of suspense. By the time we celebrated
our hundredth birthday with a world’s fair, we were on very easy terms
with our neighbours. Far from taunting us with shameful words, our
“haughty peers” showed on this memorable occasion unanimous good temper
and good will; and “Punch’s” congratulatory verses were among the most
pleasant birthday letters we received.
The expansion of national life, fed by the great emotions of the Civil
War, and revealed to the world by the Centennial Exhibition, found
expression in education, art, and letters. Then it was that Americanism
took a new and disconcerting turn. Pleased with our progress, stunned
by finding that we had poets, and painters, and novelists, and
magazines, and a history, all of our own, we began to say, and say very
loudly, that we had no need of the poets, and painters, and novelists,
and magazines, and histories of other lands. Our attitude was not
unlike that of George Borrow, who, annoyed by the potency of Italian
art, adjured Englishmen to stay at home and contemplate the greatness
of England. England, he said, had pictures of her own. She had her own
“minstrel strain.” She had all her sons could ask for. “England against
the world.”
In the same exclusive spirit, American school boards proposed that
American school-children should begin the study of history with the
colonization of America, ignoring the trivial episodes which preceded
this great event. Patriotic protectionists heaped duties on foreign
art, and bade us buy American pictures. Enthusiastic editors confided
to us that “the world has never known such storehouses of well-selected
mental food as are furnished by our American magazines.” Complacent
critics rejoiced that American poets did not sing like Tennyson, “nor
like Keats, nor Shelley, nor Wordsworth”; but that, as became a new
race of men, they “reverberated a synthesis of all the poetic minds
of the century.” Finally, American novelists assured us that in their
hands the art of fiction had grown so fine and rare that we could
no longer stand the “mannerisms” of Dickens, or the “confidential
attitude” of Thackeray. We had scaled the empyrean heights.
There is a brief paragraph in Mr. Thayer’s “Life and Letters of John
Hay,” which vividly recalls this peculiar phase of Americanism. Mr.
Hay writes to Mr. Howells in 1882: “The worst thing in our time about
American taste is the way it treats James. I believe he would not be
read in America at all if it were not for his European vogue. If he
lived in Cambridge, he could write what he likes; but because he finds
London more agreeable, he is the prey of all the patriotisms. Of all
vices, I hold patriotism the worst, when it meddles with matters of
taste.”