Ten years after the beginning of the world war, fought on our side
with a high appeal to such great words as “Liberty,” “Justice,” “a
world made safe for democracy” and “the overthrow of militarism,” one
is dismayed to find the beginning of a class warfare with appeals to
force, and denials of liberty and justice, on both sides. Surely the
one sacred remembrance worth keeping, the only glory that belonged to
that war, is the spiritual emotion which for a time exalted our common
clay above self-interest, above the fear of death itself, and united
all classes in the nation in a comradeship of sacrifice and service. It
was so in Germany as well as in England, in the United States as well
as in France. Each side believed itself to be in the right, prayed God
for aid with no sense of blasphemy.
Never before in history, at least in France, England and the United
States, was there such a “sacred union” of all ranks and classes under
the first impulse of that immense emotion for a single purpose. All
political differences were blotted out, all prerogatives of caste and
wealth, all hatreds between groups of men, all intolerance were waived.
In those days, as I have written, the society women went down on their
knees to scrub floors for the wounded, or serve as drudges in wayside
canteens. In those days, ten years ago, the young aristocrat marvelled
at the splendour of his men—“nothing was too good for them.” In those
days before the time of disillusion the men were uplifted by the love
of the nation that went out to them. There was no spirit of class
warfare, no Bolshevism, no hatred of “Labour.” The dirtiest soldier in
the trenches, covered with mud and blood, was our national hero. Our
soul did homage to him. And between the wounded soldier lying in his
shell-hole beside his wounded officer there was no hostility, no gulf
of class. They were crucified together on the same cross. They were
comrades in agony and death.
It was for war. The service which united all classes was the slaughter
of men on the other side of the line drawn across the map of the
world, or the provision of means of slaughter. That intense impulse
of devotion, sacrifice and duty which in its first manifestations had
something divine in its carelessness of self—in all countries—was in
its effects destructive of the best human life in the world. Is it too
much for humanity to get that same impulse for the cause of peace, to
get back to that comradeship and co-operation within those nations for
other purposes than that of war, to rise above self-interest for the
commonwealth of civilisation?
It is very difficult, almost impossible I think, without tremendous
leadership which we cannot yet perceive. War is a shock which thrills
every soul by its terrific portent. Peace is a state in which the
smaller interests of life seem more important than great issues. War
provides the people with a single dominating purpose, inspired by
passion. Peace has no definite goal to capture or defend, and human
intelligence is divided by a million views in its gropings for the
ideals of peace. It is only danger that rallies the human tribes in
self-defence. In safety they scatter and are hostile to each other.
Well, the danger ahead is great enough in my judgment to provide the
impulse again, and to recreate the passion which united classes and
nations ten years ago. If we have that “next war” it is going to thrust
us all into deep pits of ruin. If we have social warfare within the
civilised nations we shall not emerge from it until tides of blood
have flowed. If we have an unrestricted commercial war, a savage and
ruthless competition between great powers out for world trade at all
costs against each other, the other things will happen. The human
tribes in the next phase of history, now approaching, must co-operate
or perish.
There is no one cure for all these troubles, but they may be lessened,
and their greatest perils averted surely by a spirit of reason against
unreason, by tolerance against intolerance, by ideals of peace against
ideals of force, by conciliation against conflict, by a change of heart
in the individual as well as in the nation.