action in the war, when for the first time her strength was revealed as
a mighty nation, full grown and conscious of power, she has attained the
highest place among the peoples, and her will shall prevail if it is
based upon justice and liberty. I believe that America's destiny will be
glorious for mankind, not because I think that the individual American
is a better, nobler, more spiritual being than the individual
Englishman, Frenchman, or Russian, but because I see, or think I see,
that this great country is inspired more than any other nation among
the big powers by the united, organized qualities of simple, commonplace
people, with kindness of heart, independence of spirit, and sincerity of
ideas, free from the old heritage of caste, snobbishness, militarism,
and fetish-worship, which still lingers among the Junkers of Europe.
They are a middle-class empire, untainted by imperial ambition or
ancient traditions of overlordship. They are governed by middle-class
sentiment. They put all problems of life to the test of that simplicity
which is found in middle-class homes, where neither anarchy is welcome
nor aristocratic privilege. America is the empire of the wage-earner,
where even her plutocrats have but little power over the independence of
the people. It is a nation of nobodies great with the power of the
common man and the plain sense that governs his way of life. Other
nations are still ruled by their "somebodies"--by their pomposities and
High Panjandrums. But it is the nobodies whose turn is coming in
history, and America is on their side. In that great federation of
United States I saw, even in a brief visit, possible dangers that may
spoil America's chance. I saw a luxury of wealth in New York and other
cities which may be a vicious canker in the soul of the people. I saw a
sullen discontent among wage-earners and home-coming soldiers because
too many people had an unfair share of wealth. I met American Junkers
who would use the military possibilities of the greatest army in the
world for imperialistic adventures and world dominance. I heard of
anarchy being whispered among foreign-born masses in American cities and
passed over to other laborers not of foreign origin. In the censorship
of news I saw the first and most ominous sign of government autocracy
desiring to work its will upon the people by keeping them in ignorance
and warping their opinions; and now and then I was conscious of an
intolerance of free thought which happened to conflict with popular
sentiment, as ruthless as in Russia during Czardom. I saw hatred based
on ignorance and the brute spirit of men inflamed by war. But these were
only accidental things, to be found wherever humanity is crowded, and
after my visit to America I came away with memories, which are still
strong in my heart, of a people filled with vital energy, kind in heart,
sincere and simple in their ways of thought and speech, idealistic in
emotion, practical in conduct, and democratic by faith and upbringing.
The soil of America is clean and strong and free; and the power that
comes out of it will, I think and hope and pray, be used to gain the
liberties of other nations, and to help forward the welfare of the human
family.
V
WHAT ENGLAND THINKS OF AMERICA
The title I have chosen for this chapter is indiscreet, and, as some
readers may think, misleading. At least it needs this explanation--that
there is no absolute point of view in England about the United States.
"England" does not think (a statement not intended to be humorous at the
expense of my own people) any more than any nation may be said to think
in a single unanimous way about any subject under the sun. England is a
collection of individuals and groups of individuals, each with different
points of view or shades of view, based upon certain ideals and
knowledge, or upon passion, ignorance, elementary common sense, or
elementary stupidity, like the United States and every country on earth.
It would convey an utterly false impression to analyze and expound the
opinions of one such class, or to give as a general truth a few
individual opinions. One can only get at something like the truth by
following the drift of current thought, by contrasting national
characteristics, and by striking a balance between extremes of thought.
It is that which I propose to do in this chapter, frankly, and without
fear of giving offense, because to my mind insincerity on a subject like
this does more harm than good.
I will not disguise, therefore, at the outset, that after the armistice
which followed the Great War huge numbers of people in England became
annoyed, bitter, and unfriendly to the United States. The causes of that
unkindness of sentiment were to some extent natural and inevitable,
owing to the state of mind in England at that time. They had their
foundations in the patriotism and emotion of a people who had just
emerged from the crudest ordeal which had ever called to their endurance
in history. When American soldiers, sailors, politicians, and patriots
said, "Well, boys, we won the war!" which, in their enthusiasm for great
achievements, they could hardly avoid saying at public banquets or
welcomes home, where every word is not measured to the sensibilities of
other people or to the exact truth, English folk were hurt. They were
not only hurt, but they were angry. Mothers of boys in mean streets, or
rural villages, or great mansions, reading these words in newspapers
which gave them irritating prominence, said, "So they think that we did
nothing in the years before they came to France!" and some mothers
thought of the boys who had died in 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, and they
hated the thought that Americans should claim the victory which so many
English, Scottish, Irish, Canadians, Australians, New-Zealanders,
South-Africans, and French had gained most of all by long-suffering,
immense sacrifice, and hideous losses.
They did not know, though I for one tried to tell them, that all over
the United States American people did not forget, even in their
justified enthusiasm for the valor of their own men and the immense
power they had prepared to hurl against the enemy, that France and
England had borne the brunt of the war in the long years when Germany
was at her strongest.
A friend of mine--an English officer--was in a New York hotel on
Armistice Night, when emotion and patriotic enthusiasm were high--and
hot. A young American mounted a chair, waving the Stars and Stripes. He
used the good old phrase: "Well, boys, we won the war! The enemy fell to
pieces as soon as the doughboys came along. England and France could not
do the trick without us. We taught 'em how to fight and how to win!"
My friend smiled, sat tight, and said nothing. He remembered a million
dead in British ranks, untold and unrecorded heroism, the first French
victory of the Marne, the years of epic fighting when French and British
troops had hurled themselves against the German lines and strained his
war-machine. But it was Armistice Night, and in New York, and the
"Yanks" had done jolly well, and they had a right to jubilation for
their share in victory. Let the boy shout, and good luck to him. But an
American rose from his chair and pushed his way toward my friend.
"I'm ashamed to hear such rant before British and French officers," he
said, holding out his hand. "We know that our share is not as great as
yours, within a thousand miles."
Those were chivalrous words. They represented the conviction, I am sure,
of millions of Americans of the more thoughtful type, who would not
allow themselves to be swept away beyond the just merits of their
national achievements, even by the fervor of the moment.
But in England people only knew the boast and not the modesty. Because
some Americans claimed too much, the English of the lower and less
intelligent classes belittled the real share of victory which belonged
to America, and became resentful. It was so in France as in England. It
was lamentable, but almost unavoidable, and when this resentment and
this sullen denial of American victory became known in the United
States, passed over the wires by newspaper correspondents, it naturally
aroused counter-action, equal bitterness, and then we were in a vicious
circle, abominable in its effect upon mutual understanding and liking.
All that, however, was limited to the masses, for the most part
certainly, and was only used as poison propaganda by the gutter press on
both sides of the Atlantic. Educated people in both countries understood
the folly and squalor of that stuff, and discounted it accordingly.
What was more serious in its effect upon the intelligent classes was
the refusal of the Senate to ratify the Peace Treaty and its repudiation
of President Wilson's authority. I have already dealt in previous
writings with that aspect of affairs, and have tried to prove my
understanding of the American view. But there is also an English view,
which Americans should know and understand.
At the time I am writing this chapter, and for some months previously,
England has been irritated with the United States because of a sense of
having been "let down" over the Peace Treaty and the League of Nations
by American action. I think that irritation has been to some extent
justified. When President Wilson came to London he received, as I have
told elsewhere, the most enthusiastic and triumphant ovation that has
ever been given to a foreign visitor by the population of that great old
city. The cheers that rose in storms about him were shouted not only
because his personality seemed to us then to have the biggest and most
hopeful qualities of leadership in the world, but because he was, as we
thought, the authorized representative of the United States, to whom,
through him, we gave homage. It was only months afterward, when the
Peace Treaty had been signed and when the League of Nations (Wilson's
child) had been established, that we were told that Wilson was not the
authorized representative of the United States, that the American Senate
did not recognize his authority to pledge the country to the terms of
the treaty, and that the signature to the document was not worth ten
cents. That made us look pretty foolish. It made France and Italy and
other powers, who had yielded in many of their demands in order to
satisfy President Wilson's principles, feel pretty mad. It made a
laughingstock of the new-born League of Nations. It was the most severe
blow to the prospects of world peace and reconstruction. In England, as
I know, there were vast numbers of people who regarded the Peace Treaty
as one of the most clumsy, illogical, and dangerous documents ever drawn
up by a body of diplomats. I am one of those who think so. But that has
nothing to do with the refusal of the Senate to acknowledge Wilson's
signature.
The character of the clauses which created a series of international
blunders leading inevitably to new wars unless they are altered during
the next decade was not the cause of the Senate's "reservations." The
American Senators did not seem to be worried about that aspect of the
treaty. Their only worry was to safeguard the United States from any
responsibility in Europe, and to protect their own traditional powers
against an autocratic President. However right they may have been, it
must at least be acknowledged by every broad-minded American that we in
Europe were put completely "into the cart" by this action, and had some
excuse for annoyance. All this is now past history, and no doubt before
this book is published many other things will have happened as a
consequence of the events which followed so rapidly upon the Peace of
Versailles, so that what I am now writing will read like historical
reminiscence. But it will always remain a painful chapter, and it will
only be by mutual forbearance and the most determined efforts of people
of good will on both sides of the Atlantic that the growth of a most
lamentable misunderstanding between our two peoples in consequence of
those unfortunate episodes will be prevented.
Another cause of popular discontent with the United States was the
rather abrupt statement of Mr. Carter Glass, Secretary of the Treasury,
that the United States would not grant any more loans to Europe so long
as she failed to readjust her financial situation by necessary taxation,
economy, and production.
The general (and in my opinion unjustified) anger aroused by this
statement was expressed by a cartoon in _Punch_ called "Another
Reservation." It was a picture of a very sinister-looking Uncle Sam
turning his back upon a starving woman and child who appeal to his
charity, and he says: "Very sad case. But I'm afraid she ain't trying."
Mr. Punch is a formidable person in England, and by his barbed wit may
destroy any public man or writing man who lays himself open to ridicule,
but I ventured to risk that by denouncing the cartoon as unjust and
unfair in spirit and fact. I pointed out that since the beginning of the
war the United States had shown an immense, untiring, and inexhaustible
generosity toward the suffering peoples of Europe, and reminded England
how under Mr. Hoover's organization the American Relief Committee had
fed the Belgian and French populations behind the German lines, and how
afterward they had poured food into Poland, Serbia, Austria, and other
starving countries. That challenge I made against Mr. Punch was
supported by large numbers of English people who wrote to me expressing
their agreement and their gratitude to America. They deplored the spirit
of the cartoon and the evil nature of so many attacks in low-class
journals of England against the United States, whose own gutter press
was at the same time publishing most scurrilous abuse of us. But among
the letters I received was one from an American lady which I will quote
now, because it startled me at the time, and provides, in spite of its
bitterness, some slight excuse for the criticism which was aroused in
England at the time. If an American could feel like that, scourging her
own people too much (as I think), it is more pardonable that English
sentiment should have been a little ruffled by America's threat to
abandon Europe.
I only wish with all my heart [she wrote] that the _Punch_ cartoon
is wholly undeserved, or that your kind "apologia" is wholly
deserved. I have never been "too proud to fight," but a great deal
too proud to wear laurels I haven't earned. Personally, I think
the drubbing we are getting is wholesome and likely to do good. We
have been given praise _ad nauseam_, and, to be honest, you can
never compete with us on that ground. We can praise ourselves in
terms that would silence any competitors....
I wish, too, that I could believe that the "beggars from Europe"
had either their hats or their bags stuffed with dollars. I'm
afraid you have spoken to the Americans, not to the beggars. I was
one myself. I went home in April, prouder of my country than I had
ever been, jealous of its good repute, and painfully anxious that
it should live up to its reputation. I fear I found that people
were not only tired of generosity, but wholly indifferent to the
impressions being so widely circulated in the press--that France
had been guilty of every form of petty ingratitude, that the
atrocities of Great Britain in Ireland outdid the Germans in
Belgium and France. A minority everywhere was struggling against
the tide, with dignity, and the generosity I had so securely
counted on from my own people. But the collections being made for
the Serbians, for instance, were despairingly small. Belgian
Relief had been turned into Serbian Relief groups, and from New
York to California I heard the same tale--and, alas, experienced
it--people were tired of giving, tired of the war. In New York I
was invited to speak before a well-known Women's Club--I was "a
guest of honor." I accepted, and spoke for ten minutes, and a
woman at a table near by begged me to take up an immediate
contribution. I was not at all anxious to do so, for it seemed a
very base advantage to take of a luncheon invitation, so I
referred her to the president. A contribution was taken up by a
small group of women, all fashionably dressed, with pearl or
"near-pearl," and the result was exactly $19.40. As there were
between 200 and 300 women present in the ballroom, I was
inexpressibly shocked, and sternly suggested that the president
should announce the sum for which I should have to account, and
her speech was mildly applauded. All through my trip I felt
bewilderment. I had just come from Belgium and France, and the
contrast oppressed me. I had the saddest kind of disillusionment,
relieved by the most beautiful instances of charity and
unselfishness.
Even in regard to the Relief of Belgium too much stress is laid on
our generosity and a false impression has gone abroad--an
impression nothing can ever eradicate. The organization of the
B. R. F. was American, but Mr. Hoover never failed to underline how
much of the fund came from Great Britain and Canada. In fact, the
Belgian women embroidered their touching little phrases of
gratitude to the Americans, as I myself saw, on _Canadian_ flour
sacks. During the first year or so the contributions of Americans
were wholly incommensurate with our wealth and prosperity, and a
letter from Gertrude Atherton a year after the war scourged us for
our indifference even then.
Mr. Balfour's revelation that Great Britain had contributed
L35,000,000 toward the relief of Austria, etc., made my heart go
down still farther. I have tried to believe that my experience was
due to something lacking in myself. People were so enchantingly
kind, so ready to give me large and expensive lunches, dinners,
teas--but they would not be induced to refrain from the lunches
and contribute the cost of them toward my cause....
I hope you will pardon this long effusion. Like most Americans who
have served abroad I feel we came in too late, we failed to stay
on the ground to clear up afterward, and now we are indulging in
the most wicked propaganda against our late allies--France as well
as England. Personally, I realize that if we had contributed
twenty times as much I should still not feel we had done enough.
If you were not so confirmed a friend of America, I could never
write as I have done, but just because you reach such an enormous
public, because your influence is so great, I am anxious that
America should not be given undue praise--which she does not
herself credit--and that the disastrous results of her policy (if
we have one) should be printed clear for her to read and profit
by.
That is a sincere, painful, and beautiful letter, and I think it ought
to be read in the United States, not because I indorse its charge
against America's lack of generosity--I cannot do that--but because it
exculpates England and France of unreasoning disappointment, and is also
the cry of a generous American soul, moved by the sufferings of Europe,
and eager that her people should help more, and not less, in the
reconstruction of the world. The English people did not take her view
that the Americans had not done enough or were tired of generosity. It
must be admitted by those who followed our press that, apart from two
gutter journals, there was a full recognition of what the United States
had done, and continual reminders that no policy would be tolerated
which did not have as its basis Anglo-American friendship.
Upon quite another level of argument is the criticism of American
psychology and political evolution expressed by various English writers
upon their return from visits to the United States, and a fairly close
acquaintance with the character of American democracy as it was revealed
during the war, and afterward. The judgment of these writers does not
affect public opinion, because it does not reach down to the masses. It
is confined rather to the student type of mind, and probably has
remained unnoticed by the average man and woman in the United States. It
is, however, very interesting because it seeks to forecast the future of
America as a world power and as a democracy. The chief charge leveled
against the intellectual tendency of the United States may be summed up
in one word, "intolerance." Men like George Bernard Shaw, J. A. Hobson,
and H. W. Massingham do not find in their study of the American
temperament or in the American form of government the sense of liberty
with which the people of the United States credit themselves, and with
which all republican democracies are credited by the proletariat in
European countries.
They seem inclined to believe, indeed, that America has less liberty in
the way of free opinion and free speech than the English under their
hereditary monarchy, and that the spirit of the people is harshly
intolerant of minorities and nonconforming individuals, or of any idea
contrary to the general popular opinion of the times. Some of these
critics see in the "Statue of Liberty" in New York Harbor a figure of
mockery behind which is individualism enchained by an autocratic
oligarchy and trampled underfoot by the intolerance of the masses. They
produce in proof of this not only the position of an American President,
with greater power over the legislature than any constitutional king,
but the mass violence of the majority in its refusal to admit any
difference of opinion with regard to war aims during the time of war
fever, and the tyrannical action of the Executive in its handling of
labor disputes and industrial leaders, during and after the war.
It is, I think, true that as soon as America entered the war there was
no liberty of opinion allowed in the United States. There was no
tolerance of "conscientious objectors" nor mercy toward people who from
religious motives, or intellectual crankiness, were antagonistic to the
use of armed might. People who did not subscribe to the Red Cross funds
were marked down, I am told, dismissed from their posts, and socially
ruined. Many episodes of that kind were reported, and startled the
advanced radicals in England who had regarded the United States as the
land of liberty. Americans may retort that we did not give gentle
treatment to our own "conscientious objectors," and that is true. Many
of them were put into prison and roughly handled, but on the other hand
there was a formal, though insincere, acknowledgment that even in time
of war there should be liberty of conscience, and a clause to that
effect was passed by Parliament. In spite also of the severity of
censorship, and the martial law that was enforced by the Defense of the
Realm Act, there was, I believe, a greater freedom of criticism allowed
to the press than would have been tolerated by the United States.
Periodicals like the _Nation_ and the _New Statesman_, even newspapers
like the _Daily Mail_ and the _Morning Post_, indulged in violent
criticism of the conduct of the war, the methods of the War Cabinet,
the action and military policy of leaders like Lord Kitchener, and the
failure of military campaigns in the Dardanelles and other places. No
breath of criticism against American leadership or generalship was
admitted to the American press, and their war correspondents were
censored with far greater severity than their English comrades, who were
permitted to describe, very fully, reverses as well as successes in the
fields of war.
What, however, has startled the advanced wing of English political
thought more than all that is the ruthless way in which the United
States government has dealt with labor disputes and labor leaders since
the war. The wholesale arrests and deportations of men accused of
revolutionary propaganda seem to these sympathizers with revolutionary
ideals as gross in their violation of liberty as the British
government's coercion of Ireland. These people believe that American
democracy has failed in the essential principle which alone justifies
democracy, a toleration of minorities of opinion and of the absolute
liberty of the individual within the law. They say that even in England
there is greater liberty, in spite of its mediaeval structure. In Hyde
Park on Sunday morning one may hear speeches which would cause broken
heads and long terms of imprisonment if uttered in New York. Labor, they
say, would rise in instant and general revolt if any of their men were
treated with the tyranny which befalls labor leaders in the United
States.
To my mind a great deal of this criticism is due to a misconception of
the meaning of democracy. In England it was a tradition of liberal
thought that democracy meant not only the right of the people to govern
themselves, but the right of the individual or of any body of men to
express their disagreement with the policy of the state, or with the
majority opinion, or with any idea which annoyed them in any way. But,
as we have seen by recent history, democratic rule does not mean
individual liberty. Democracy is government by the majority of the
people, and that majority will be less tolerant of dissent than
autocracy itself, which can often afford to give greater liberty of
expression to the minority because of its inherent strength. The Russian
Soviet government, which professes to be the most democratic form of
government in the world, is utterly intolerant of minorities. I suppose
there is less individual liberty in Russia than in any other country,
because disagreement with the state opinion is looked upon as treachery
to the majority rule. So in the United States, which is a real
democracy, in spite of the power of capital, there is less toleration of
eccentric notions than in England, especially when the majority of
Americans are overwhelmed by a general impulse of enthusiasm or passion,
such as happened when they went into the war. The people of the minority
are then regarded as enemies of the state, traitors to their
fellow-citizens, and outlaws. They are crushed accordingly by the weight
of mass opinion, which is ruthless and merciless, with more authority
and power than the decree of a king or the law of an aristocratic form
of government.
Although disagreeing to some extent with those who criticize the
American sense of liberty, I do believe that there is a danger in the
United States of an access of popular intolerance, and sudden gusts of
popular passion, which may sweep the country and lead to grave trouble.
Being the greatest democracy in the world, it is subject to the weakness
of democracy as well as endowed with its strength, and to my mind the
essential weakness of democracy is due to the unsteadiness and
feverishness of public opinion. When the impulse of public opinion
happens to be right it is the most splendid and vital force in the
world, and no obstacle can stand against it. The idealism of a people
attains almost supernatural force. But if it happens to be wrong it may
lead to national and world disaster.