by a system of heavy drag wheels, which is an intolerable nuisance when
one wants to get moving. But that system is very useful when there are
rocks ahead and the ship of state has to steer a careful course. Our
constitutional monarchy, our hereditary chamber composed of men who do
not hold their office by popular vote, our traditional and old-fashioned
school of diplomacy, our social castes dominated by those on top who are
conservative and cautious because of their possessions and privileges,
are abominably hindering to ardent souls who want quick progress, but
they are also a national safeguard against wild men. The British system
of government, and the social structure rising by a series of caste
gradations to the topmost ranks, are capable of tremendous reforms and
changes being made gradually, and without any violent convulsion or
break with tradition.
I am of opinion that this is not so in the United States, owing to the
greater pressure of mass emotion. If, owing to the effects of war
throughout the world, altering the economic conditions of life and the
psychology of peoples, there is a demand for radical alteration in the
conditions of labor within the United States, and for a different
distribution of wealth (as there is bound to be), it is, in the opinion
of many observers, almost certain that these changes will be effected
after a period of greater violence in America than in England. The clash
between capital and labor, they think, will be more direct and more
ruthless in its methods of conflict on both sides. It will not be eased
by the numerous differences of social class, shading off one into the
other, which one finds in a less democratic country like mine, where the
old aristocratic families and the country landowning families, below the
aristocracy, are bound up traditionally with the sentiment of the
agricultural population, and where the middle classes in the cities are
sympathetic on the one hand with the just demands of the wage-earning
crowd, and, on the other hand, by snobbishness, by romanticism, by
intellectual association, and by financial ambitions with the governing,
and moneyed, regime.
There are students of life in the United States who forecast two
possible ways of development in the future history of the American
people. Neither of them is pleasant to contemplate, and I hope that
neither is true, but I think there is a shade of truth in them, and that
they are sufficiently possible to be considered seriously as dangers
ahead.
The first vision of these minor prophets (and gloomy souls) is a social
revolution in the United States on Bolshevik lines, leading through
civil strife between the forces of the wage-earning classes and the
profit-holding classes to anarchy as fierce, as wild, and as bloody as
that in Russia during the Reign of Terror.
They see Fifth Avenue swept by machine-gun fire, and its rich shops
sacked, and some of its skyscrapers rising in monstrous bonfires to lick
the sky with flames.
They see cities like Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Cleveland in the hands of
revolutionary committees of workmen after wild scenes of pillage and mob
passion.
They see the rich daughters of millionaires stripped of their furs and
their pearls and roughly handled by hordes of angry men, hungry after
long strikes and lockouts, desperate because of a long and undecided
warfare with the strong and organized powers of law and of capital.
Their vision is rather hazy about the outcome of this imaginary civil
war, but of its immense, far-reaching anarchy they have no doubt, with
the certainty that prophets have until the progress of history proves
them to be false.
Let me say for myself that I do not pose as a prophet nor believe this
particular prophecy in its lurid details. But I do believe that there
may be considerable social strife in the United States for various
reasons. One reason which stares one in the face is the immense,
flaunting, and dangerous luxury of the wealthy classes in cities like
New York. It is provocative and challenging to masses of wage-earners
who find prices rising against them quicker than their wages rise, and
who wish not only for a greater share of the proceeds of their labor,
but also a larger control of the management and machinery of labor. The
fight, if it comes, is just as much for control as for profit, and
resistance on the part of capital will be fierce and ruthless on that
point.
American society--the high caste of millionaires and semi-millionaires,
and demi-semi-millionaires--is perhaps rather careless in its display of
wealth and in its open manifestations of luxury. The long, unending line
of automobiles that go crawling down Fifth Avenue and rushing down
Riverside Drive, on any evening of the year, revealing women all
aglitter with diamonds, with priceless furs round their white shoulders,
in gowns that have cost the year's income of a working family, has no
parallel in any capital of Europe. There is no such pageant of wealth in
London or Paris. In no capital is there such luxury as one finds in New
York hotels, mansions, and ballrooms. The evidence of money is
overwhelming and oppressive. The generosity of many of these wealthy
people, their own simplicity, good humor, and charm, are not safeguards
against the envy and the hatred of those who struggle hard for a living
wage and for a security in life which is harder still to get.
When I was in America I found a consciousness of this among the rich
people, with some of whom I came in touch. They were afraid of the
future. They saw trouble ahead, and they seemed anxious to build bridges
between the ranks of labor and their own class. The wisest among them
did not adopt the stiff-necked attitude of complete hostility to the
demands of labor for a more equal share of profit and of governance. One
or two men I met remembered the days when they were at the bottom of the
ladder, and said, "Those fellows are right.... I'm going half-way to
meet them."
If capital goes anything like half-way, there will be no bloody conflict
in the United States. But there will be revolution, not less radical
because not violent. That meeting half-way between capital and labor in
the United States would be the greatest revolution the modern world has
seen.
That, then, is one of the ways in which English observers see the future
of the United States. The other way they suggest would be a great
calamity for the world. It is the way of militarism--a most grisly
thought!
It is argued by those who take this line of prophecy that democracy is
no enemy of war. On the contrary, they say, a democracy like that of the
United States, virile, easily moved to emotion, passionate, sure of its
strength, jealous of its honor, and quick to resent any fancied insult,
is more liable to catch the war fever than nations controlled by
cautious diplomats and by hereditary rulers. It is generally believed
now that the Great War in Europe which ravaged so many countries was not
made by the peoples on either side, and that it did not happen until the
rival powers on top desired it to happen and pressed the buttons and
spoke the spell-words which called the armies to the colors. It is
probable, and almost certain, that it would not have happened at all if
the peoples had been left to themselves, if the decision of war and
peace had been in their hands, and if their passions had not been
artificially roused and educated. But that is no argument, some think,
against the warlike character of strong democracies. The ancient Greeks
were a great democracy, but they were the most ardent warriors of their
world, and fought for markets, sea supremacy, and racial prestige.
So some people believe that the United States may adopt a philosophy of
militarism challenging the sea-power of the British Empire, by adding
Mexico to her dominions, and by capturing the strategic points of the
world's trade routes. They see in the ease with which the United States
adopted military service in the late war and the rapid, efficient way in
which an immense army was raised and trained a menace to the future of
the world, because what was done once to crush the enemy of France and
England may be done again if France or England arouse the hostility of
the American people. The intense self-confidence of the Americans, their
latent contempt of European peoples, their quickness to take affront at
fancied slights worked up by an unscrupulous press, their consciousness
of the military power that was organized but only partially used in the
recent war, and their growing belief that they are a people destined to
take and hold the leadership of the world, constitute, in the opinion of
some nervous onlookers, a psychology which may lead the United States
into tremendous and terrible adventures. I have heard it stated by many
people not wholly insane that the next world war will be mainly a duel
between the United States and the British Empire.
They are not wholly insane, the people who say these things over the
dinner-table or in the club smoking-room, yet to my mind such opinions
verge on insanity. It is of course always possible that any nation may
lose all sense of reason and play the wild beast, as Germany did. It is
always possible that by some overwhelming popular passion any nation may
be stricken with war fever. But of all nations in the world I think the
people of the United States are least likely to behave in that way,
especially after their experience in the European war.
The men who went back were under no illusions as to the character of
modern warfare. They hated it. They had seen its devilishness. They were
convinced of its idiocy, and in every American home to which they
returned were propagandists against war as an argument or as a romance.
Apart from that, it is almost certain that militarism of an aggressive
kind is repugnant to the tradition and instinct of the American people.
They have no use for "shining armor" and all the old shibboleths of
war's pomp and pageantry which put a spell on European peoples. The
military tradition based on the falsity of war's "glory" is not in their
spirit or in their blood. They will fight for the safety of
civilization, as it was threatened in 1914, for the rescue of free
peoples menaced by brutal destruction, and they will fight, as all brave
people will fight, to safeguard their own women and children and
liberty.
But I do not believe that the American people will ever indulge in
aggressive warfare for the sake of imperial ambitions or for world
domination. Their spirit of adventure finds scope in higher ideals, in
the victories of science and commerce, in the organization of every-day
life, in the triumph of industry, in the development of the natural
sources of wealth which belong to their great country and their ardent
individuality. They believe in peace, if we may judge by their history
and tradition, and non-interference with the outside world. Their
hostility to the peace terms and to certain clauses in the League of
Nations was due to a deep-seated distrust of entanglements with foreign
troubles, jealousies, and rivalries, and the spirit of the United
States, so far from desiring "mandates" over great populations outside
the frontiers of its own people, harked back to the old faith in a
"splendid isolation" free from imperial responsibilities. The people
were perhaps too cautious and too reserved. They risked the chance they
had of reshaping the structure of human society to a higher level of
common sense and liberty. They made "reservations" which caused the
withdrawal of their representatives from the council-chamber of the
Allied nations. But that was due not merely, I think, to party politics
or the passionate rivalry of statesmen. Truly and instinctively, it was
due to the desire of the American people to draw back to their own
frontiers and to work out their own destiny in peace, neither
interfering nor being interfered with, according to their traditional
and popular policy.
Apart from individual theorists, of the "cranky" kind, the main body of
intellectual opinion in England, as far as I know it, looks to the
United States as the arbitrator of the world's destiny, and the leader
of the world's democracies, on peaceful and idealistic lines. There is a
conviction among many of us--not killed by the controversy over the
Peace Treaty--that the spirit of the American people as a whole is
guided by an innate common sense free from antiquated spell-words,
facing the facts of life shrewdly and honestly, and leaning always to
the side of popular liberty against all tyrannies of castes, dynasties,
and intolerance. Aloof from the historical enmities that still divide
the nations of Europe, yet not aloof in sympathy with the sufferings,
the strivings, and the sentiment of those peoples, the United States is
able to play the part of a reconciling power, in any league of nations,
with a detached and disinterested judgment. It is above all because it
is disinterested that Europe has faith and trust in its sense of
justice. It is not out for empire, for revenge, or for diplomatic
vanity. Its people are supporters of President Wilson's ideal of "open
covenants openly arrived at," and of the "self-determination of
nations," however violently they challenge the authority by which their
President pledged them to definite clauses in an unpopular contract.
They are a friendly and not unfriendly folk in their instincts and in
their methods. They respond quickly and generously to any appeal to
honest sentiment, though they have no patience with hypocrisy. They are
realists, and hate sham, pose, and falsehood. Give them "a square deal"
and they will be scrupulous to a high standard of business morality.
Because of the infusion of foreign blood in their democracy which has
been slowly produced from the great melting-pot of nations, they are
subject to all the sensibilities of the human race and not narrowly
fixed to one racial idea or type of mind. The Celt, the Slav, the Saxon,
the Teuton, the Hebrew, and the Latin strains are present in the
subconsciousness of the American people, so that they are capable of an
enormous range of sympathy with human nature in its struggle upward to
the light. They are the new People of Destiny in the world of progress,
because after their early adventures of youth, their time of
preparation, their immense turbulent growth, their forging of tools, and
training of soul, they stand now in their full strength and maturity,
powerful with the power of a great, free, confident people.
To some extent, and I think in an increasing way, the old supremacy
which Europe had is passing westward. Europe is stricken, tired, and
poor. America is hearty, healthy, and rich. Intellectually it is still
boyish and young and raw. There is the wisdom as well as the sadness of
old age in Europe. We have more subtlety of brain, more delicate sense
of art, a literature more expressive of the complicated emotions which
belong to an old heritage of civilization, luxury, and philosophy. But I
look for a Golden Age of literature and art in America which shall be
like our Elizabethan period, fresh and spring-like, and rich in vitality
and promise. I am bound to believe that out of the fusion of races in
America, and out of their present period of wealth and power, and out of
this new awakening to the problems of life outside their own country,
there will come great minds, and artists, and leaders of thought,
surpassing any that have yet revealed themselves. All our reading of
history points to that evolution. The flowering-time of America seems
due to arrive, after its growing pains.
Be that as it may, it is clear, at least, that the destiny of the
American people is now marked out for the great mission of leading the
world to a new phase of civilization. By the wealth they have, and by
their power for good or evil, they have a controlling influence in the
reshaping of the world after its convulsions. They cannot escape from
that power, even though they shrink from its responsibility. Their
weight thrown one way or the other will turn the scale of all the
balance of the world's desires. People of destiny, they have the choice
of arranging the fate of many peoples. By their action they may plunge
the world into strife again or settle its peace. They may kill or cure.
They may be reconcilers or destroyers. They may be kind or cruel. It is
a terrific power for any people to hold. If I were a citizen of the
United States I should be afraid--afraid lest my country should by
passion, or by ignorance, or by sheer carelessness take the wrong way.
I think some Americans have that fear. I have met some who are anxious
and distressed. But I think that the majority of Americans do not
realize the power that has come to them nor their new place in the
world. They have a boisterous sense of importance and prestige, but
rather as a young college man is aware of his lustiness and vitality
without considering the duties and the dangers that have come to him
with manhood. They are inclined to a false humility, saying: "We aren't
our brothers' keepers, anyway. We needn't go fussing around. Let's keep
to our own job and let the other people settle their own affairs." But
meanwhile the other people know that American policy, American
decisions, the American attitude in world problems, will either make or
mar them. It is essential for the safety of the world, and of
civilization itself, that the United States should realize its
responsibilities and fulfill the destiny that has come to it by the
evolution of history. To those whom I call the People of Destiny I
humbly write the words: Let the world have peace.
VI
AMERICANS IN EUROPE
It is only during the war and afterward that European people have come
to know anything in a personal way of the great democracy in the United
States. Before then America was judged by tourists who came to "do"
Europe in a few months or a few weeks. In France, especially, all of
them were popularly supposed to be "millionaires," or, at least,
exceedingly rich. Many of them were, and in Paris, to which they went in
greatest numbers, they were preyed upon by hotel managers and
shopkeepers, and were caricatured in French farces and French newspapers
as the "_nouveaux riches_" of the world who could afford to buy all the
luxury of life, but had no refinement of taste or delicacy of sentiment.
There was an enormous ignorance of the education, civilization, and
temperament of the great masses of people in the United States, and it
was an absolute belief among the middle classes of Europe that the
"almighty dollar" was the God of America and that there was no other
worship on that side of the Atlantic.
This opinion changed in a remarkable way during the war and before the
United States had sent a single soldier to French soil. The cause of the
change was mainly the immensely generous, and marvelously efficient,
campaign of rescue for war-stricken and starving people by the American
Relief Committee under the direction of Mr. Hoover.
In February of 1915 I left the war zone for a little while on a mission
to Holland, to study the Dutch methods of dealing with their enormous
problem caused by the invasion of Belgian refugees. Into one little
village across the Scheldt 200,000 Belgians had come in panic-stricken
flight from Antwerp, utterly destitute, and Holland was choked with
these starving families. But their plight was not so bad at that time as
that of the millions of French and Belgian inhabitants who had not
escaped by quick flight from the advancing tide of war, but had been
made civil prisoners behind the enemy lines. Their rescue was more
difficult because of the needs of the German army, which requisitioned
the produce and the labor of the peasants and work-people, so that they
were cut off from the means of life. The United States was quick to
understand and to act, and in Mr. Hoover it had a man able to translate
the generous emotion in the heart of a great people into practical
action. I saw him in his offices at Rotterdam, dictating his orders to
his staff of clerks, and organizing a scheme of relief which spread its
life-giving influence over great tracts of Europe where war had passed.
My conversation with him was brief, but long enough to let me see the
masterful character, the irresistible energy, the cool, unemotional
efficiency of this great business man whose brain and soul were in his
job.
It was in the arena of war that I and many others saw the result of
American generosity. After the battles of the Somme, when the Germans
fell back in a wide retreat under the pressure of the British army, many
ruined villages fell into our hands, and among the ruins many French
civilians. To this day I remember the thrill I had when in some of those
bombarded places I saw the sign-boards of the American Relief over
wooden shanties where half-starved men and women came to get their
weekly rations which had come across the sea and by some miracle, as it
seemed to them, had arrived at their village close to the firing-lines.
I went into those places, some of which had escaped from shell-fire, and
picked up the tickets for flour and candles and the elementary
necessities of life, and read the notices directing the people how to
take their share of these supplies, and thanked God that somewhere in
the world--away in the United States--the spirit of charity was strong
to help the victims of the cruelty which was devastating Europe.
An immense gratitude for America was in the hearts of these French
civilians. Whatever causes of irritation and annoyance may have spoiled
the fine flower of the enthusiasm with which France greeted the American
armies when they first landed on her coast, and the admiration of the
American people for France herself, it is certain, I think, that in
those villages which were engirdled by the barbed wire of the hostile
armies, and to which the American supplies came in days of dire
distress, there will be a lasting reverence for the name of America,
which was the fairy godmother of so many women and children. Over and
over again these women told me of their gratitude. "Without the American
Relief," they said, "we should have starved to death." Others said, "The
only thing that saved us was the weekly distribution of the American
supplies." "There has been no kindness in our fate," said one of them,
"except the bounty of America."
It is true that into Mr. Hoover's warehouses there flowed great stores
of food from England, Canada, France, and other countries, who gave
generously, out of their own needs, for the sake of those who were in
greater need, but the largest part of the work was America's, and hers
was the honor of its organization.
In the face of that noble effort, revealing the enormous pity of the
United States for suffering people, and a careless expenditure of that
"almighty dollar" which now the American people poured into this abyss
of European distress, it was impossible for France or England to accuse
the United States of selfishness or of callousness because she still
held back from any declaration of war against our enemies.
I honestly believe (though I shall not be believed in saying so) that
the Americans who came over to Europe at this time, in the Red Cross or
as volunteers, were more impatient of that delay of their country's
purpose than public opinion in England. I met many American doctors,
nurses, Red Cross volunteers, war correspondents, and business men,
during that long time of waiting when President Wilson was writing his
series of "Notes," and I could see how strained was their patience and
how self-conscious and apologetic they were because their President used
arguments instead of "direct action." One American friend of mine, with
whom I often used to walk when streams of wounded Tommies were a bloody
commentary on the everlasting theme of war, used to defend Wilson with a
chivalrous devotion and wealth of argument. "Give him time," he used to
say. "He is working slowly but surely to a definite conviction, and when
he has made up his mind that there is no alternative not all the devils
of hell will budge him from his course of action. You English must be
patient with him and with all of us."