The Mailed Fist
39
Supporting Bismarck's idea of the mailed fist; Democracy stems
from and is supported by aristocracy.
¶ Why is it that, in the American Republic, there is aversion to
acknowledging the services of men sprung from aristocracy, like
Bismarck? Are the facts unrecognized, or is the silence only another
form of political quackery?
¶ To bring the matter home, let us ask, "How is it in the United
States?" Washington was an aristocrat of fortune, one of the richest
men of his time, dispassionate, cold, aloof; Hamilton, an aristocrat
of breeding, contributing his quota to democracy, as he saw it;
Lafayette, an aristocrat of birth, helped us gain our liberty; and
certainly Jefferson, an aristocrat of intellect as well as of fortune,
the owner of 185 slaves, and the gifted author of the Declaration of
Independence, offered inestimable services to the common people.
¶ Off-hand, the average biographer records this: "Bismarck had no
confidence in the common people. He fought a written Constitution. He
did not wish to see his King yield an inch to the masses. It was the
Crown against the Crowd. Violently reactionary, he blocked
progress--for there can be no progress without change. He was trying
to force the stream of time backward, instead of going with the tide."
* * * * *
¶ An American who for the first time follows the history of the
Unifier of Germany begins very early in the investigation to have a
feeling of apprehension. He is sure that Bismarck is a reactionary;
his ideas are so out of "harmony" with the spirit of the times, the
air full of the "liberty, equality and fraternity."
Bismarck's attempt to sustain the monarchial system, especially the
idiotic conception of "Divine-right" of kings, as against the rising
tide of "confidence in the people," has about as much chance for
success as that the slavery system could be re-introduced into the
United States, after that question had been settled by five years'
war. Thus you conclude, from the American view!
¶ As you read on and on, you feel that on the very next page, Bismarck
will surely go to the scaffold, or will fall by the dagger of some
"friend of the people," a thug ever after regarded as the veritable
Savior of his country for the assassination of the enemy of the common
people.
* * * * *
¶ The much ridiculed "Divine-right" of kings is cognizable as a right
based on the survival of the fittest, backed by the sword; filled
with human weaknesses and shortcomings, but defensible as a system,
withal; just as the real intent of the words "captain of industry"
should mean one whose fatherly care over his laborers, his judgment,
his risk of capital, his foresight in weathering bad times--redounds
to the immediate prosperity of the workers with whom he can have no
quarrel.
¶ To those who make light of Bismarck's theory of blood and iron, in
government, it should be pointed out that all governments that endure,
regardless of what theory you may work under, in the end fall to the
strongest;--just as in a family fight the estate goes to the
strongest, or in a partnership fight, or in religion, science, social
affairs, love or war, the strong man has his way over the weak; and it
is still to be proven that the American democracy, which at best is
only another of manifold experiments in self-government, is to survive
as long as have in the past royalist ideas--already that have
persisted for thousands of years.
¶ So, we have invented Democracy out of a thousand costly expenditures
of blood and treasure. We protest that this latest experiment in
government is to endure forever more, but not one man in a thousand
has any real conception of the Democracy in which all men shall work
for a common National end.
Thus, Democracy is fully as large an experiment as any other in the
Halls of Time; and today we are still nursing childish ideals,
attempting to level men by legislation, and incidentally taking
satisfaction in stoning our public servants, decrying wealth, and
robbing the individual of any broad conception of responsibility.
40
Parallel elements that make for power in America and Germany.
¶ It is difficult for a certain type of American mind to get
Bismarck's point of view. This is because of the failure to recognize
that in whatever respect Absolutism and Republicanism may differ, as
forms of government, the fact remains that it is society, and not
human nature, that has been transformed. The old motives, ambition,
love, war, marriage, pride, prejudice, still sum up underlying
conditions, however firmly any government may seem to be established,
called by whatever name, and led by Crown or Crowd. In addition, all
history forecasts the ultimate ruin of any régime founded on human
nature.
¶ As between the share which belongs to each man, and the share which
does not belong to him but to the body politic, expressed in a
reciprocal concession, upon each side, for the good of the state--that
dream of governmental idealism has never yet been attained, even in
free America, to say nothing of Germany, France, England or Russia,
and men will continue to annex the spoils to their private estates as
long as men are what they are, at heart.
¶ The elements that make for a desire to grasp power, in free America,
are essentially the same, though in a different dress, as they were in
Prussia, in Bismarck's day.
We are wont to dismiss this matter with a shrug and charge all the
turmoil up to a senseless desire on the part of the King of Prussia to
force, for his own aggrandizement, his rule on an unwilling people,
and we therefore call Bismarck a tyrant, as though in this conclusion
we thus elevated our own virtues by a shuddering "May-God-forbid!"
sort of recognition of Bismarck's political vices.
* * * * *
¶ The old man had a grand idea just the same; he devoted his life to
building up a free and united Germany. His intense belief in German
virtues made his task sacred. He met the desire for a National cause
and for greater freedom. He had to carry men by storm.
¶ However offensive, politically speaking, may seem in democratic
America Prussia's "Divine-right" theory, it is a fact that we, also,
appeal to the god of battles just as Bismarck did. We open our
Congress with prayers often couched in conceited belief that God is on
our side; while our historians have repeatedly dwelt on the fact that
America has a "manifest destiny," a phrase reiterated by editors the
land over till it has sunk deep into the public conscience. Therefore,
in democratic America, we avow that we are in the hands of the Lord;
an idea secretly nourished by millions of Americans who would publicly
deny that any such Feudal conception as Divine-right of kings could
possibly exist in related form, in the United States.
Surely we cannot mean that Divinity has anything to do with the
majorities in an American election?
¶ Then this "manifest destiny" must refer to the ultimate fact that,
however we may blunder along, in times of crisis the Lord comes forth,
to lead us out of the wilderness.
It is a familiar line of thought to find Grant, Sherman, and Lincoln
and others, deified in the American press, as men "miraculously risen"
in storm and stress to preserve the "manifest destiny" of our Nation.
If there be any logical distinction between this hope on the part of
millions of loyal Americans, expressing their patriotism in terms of
Heaven's protective policy, and the attitude of Bismarck in regard to
his King, as ordained of God, to rule over the Prussian people, then
it would require a high-power microscope to detect any essential
variation.
¶ Meantime, we go on building dreadnaughts and inscribe on our coins,
"In God We Trust."
King William in Bismarck's day refused the people's paper crown of the
Frankfort assembly, but plotted to have one offered to him by the
princes of Germany. Was he, logically, any more inconsistent than is
our own "manifest destiny" conception of America?
* * * * *
¶ For it is ever the way with strong men to believe themselves the
Lord's anointed, likewise with strong nations--and democratic America
is no exception.
"Chinese" Gordon carried with him wood of the real Cross, as he
believed, and read his Bible day by day, up to the last, confident
that he was in the charge of some unseen power for good, as against
the destroying African tribes around Khartum.
Henry M. Stanley's books are honeycombed with appeals to God as his
guide and protector; he believed that God was with him in "Darkest
Africa," would see him through at the price of how many negro murders
it mattered not, warding off fever, discouragement, starvation, and
standing ever on the white man's side.
In America, where the "Divine-right" of kings is a subject of
political ridicule, it is a fact that in the courts we raise our right
hand and swear to tell the whole truth; our marriage ceremonies are
consecrated; and the last word at the grave is that God is our refuge;
we have our chaplains who speak of God on our battleships, and in our
armies; in the Autumn the President of the United States invokes a
blessing for bountiful crops, and returns the Nation's thanks to God
for these favors.
¶ All this is no more illogical than that Bismarck should insist that
the Hohenzollerns, his masters, obtained their right to rule as a
direct dispensation from high heaven, as against the Hapsburgs, who
were Prussia's rivals. Bismarck preached his theological-political
dogma with intense earnestness during his long life; and at last the
people must have been impressed with his arguments--or was it that he
forced them to his way of thinking?