If America had started to prepare when Belgium was invaded, had entered
the war when the Lusitania was sunk, Germany might by now have been
defeated, hundreds of thousands of lives might have been spared. All
this may be admitted. Yet, looking backward, it is easy to read the
reason for our hesitancy in our national character and traditions.
We were pacifists, yes, but pacifists of a peculiar kind. One of our
greatest American prophets, William James, knew that there was an issue
for which we were ready to fight, for which we were willing to make the
extreme sacrifice,--and that issue he defined as “war against war.” It
remained for America to make the issue.
Peoples do not rush to arms unless their national existence is
threatened. It is what may be called the environmental cause that drives
nations quickly into war. It drove the Entente nations into war, though
incidentally they were struggling for certain democratic institutions,
for international justice. But in the case of America, the environmental
cause was absent. Whether or not our national existence was or is
actually threatened, the average American does not believe that it is.
He was called upon to abandon his tradition, to mingle in a European
conflict, to fight for an idea alone. Ideas require time to develop, to
seize the imagination of masses. And it must be remembered that in 1914
the great issue had not been defined. Curiously enough, now that it
is defined, it proves to be an American issue--a logical and positive
projection of our Washingtonian tradition and Monroe doctrine. These
had for their object the preservation and development of democracy,
the banishment from the Western Hemisphere of European imperialistic
conflict and war. We are now, with the help of our allies, striving to
banish these things from the face of the earth. It is undoubtedly
the greatest idea for which man has been summoned to make the supreme
sacrifice.
Its evolution has been traced. Democracy was the issue in the Spanish
War, when we fought a weak nation. We have followed its broader
application to Mexico, when we were willing to ignore the taunts and
insults of another weak nation, even the loss of “prestige,” for the
sake of the larger good. And we have now the clue to the President’s
interpretation of the nation’s mind during the first three years of the
present war. We were willing to bear the taunts and insults of Germany
so long as it appeared that a future world peace night best be brought
about by the preservation of neutrality, by turning the weight of the
impartial public opinion of our democracy and that of other neutrals
against militarism and imperialism. Our national aim was ever consistent
with the ideal of William James, to advance democracy and put an end to
the evil of war.
The only sufficient reason for the abandonment of the Washingtonian
policy is the furtherance of the object for which it was inaugurated,
the advance of democracy. And we had established the precedent,
with Spain and Mexico, that the Republic shall engage in no war of
imperialistic conquest. We war only in behalf of, or in defence of,
democracy.
Before the entrance of America, however, the issues of the European
War were by no means clear cut along democratic lines. What kind of
democracy were the allies fighting for? Nowhere and at no time had it
been defined by any of their statesmen. On the contrary, the various
allied governments had entered into compacts for the transference
of territory in the event of victory; and had even, by the offer of
rewards, sought to play one small nation against another. This secret
diplomacy of bargains, of course, was a European heritage, the result of
an imperialistic environment which the American did not understand,
and from which he was happily free. Its effect on France is peculiarly
enlightening. The hostility of European governments, due to their fear
of her republican institutions, retarded her democratic growth, and
her history during the reign of Napoleon III is one of intrigue for
aggrandizement differing from Bismarck’s only in the fact that it was
unsuccessful. Britain, because she was separated from the continent and
protected by her fleet, virtually withdrew from European affairs in
the latter part of the nineteenth century, and, as a result, made great
strides in democracy. The aggressions of Germany forced Britain in
self-defence into coalitions. Because of her power and wealth she became
the Entente leader, yet her liberal government was compelled to enter
into secret agreements with certain allied governments in order to
satisfy what they deemed to be their needs and just ambitions. She had
honestly sought, before the war, to come to terms with Germany, and had
even proposed gradual disarmament. But, despite the best intentions,
circumstances and environment, as well as the precarious situation of
her empire, prevented her from liberalizing her foreign relations to
conform with the growth of democracy within the United Kingdom and the
Dominions. Americans felt a profound pity for Belgium. But she was
not, as Cuba had been, our affair. The great majority of our citizens
sympathized with the Entente, regarded with amazement and disgust the
sudden disclosure of the true character of the German militaristic
government. Yet for the average American the war wore the complexion
of other European conflicts, was one involving a Balance of Power,
mysterious and inexplicable. To him the underlying issue was not
democratic, but imperialistic; and this was partly because he was unable
to make a mental connection between a European war and the brand of
democracy he recognized. Preaching and propaganda fail unless it can be
brought home to a people that something dear to their innermost nature
is at stake, that the fate of the thing they most desire, and are
willing to make sacrifices for, hangs in the balance.
During a decade the old political parties, between which there was
now little more than an artificial alignment, had been breaking up.
Americans were absorbed in the great liberal movement begun under the
leadership of President Roosevelt, the result of which was to transform
democracy from a static to a pragmatic and evolutionary conception,--in
order to meet and correct new and unforeseen evils. Political freedom
was seen to be of little worth unless also accompanied by the economic
freedom the nation had enjoyed before the advent of industrialism.
Clerks and farmers, professional men and shopkeepers and artisans were
ready to follow the liberal leaders in states and nation; intellectual
elements from colleges and universities were enlisted. Paralleling
the movement, at times mingling with it, was the revolt of labour,
manifested not only in political action, but in strikes and violence.
Readily accessible books and magazines together with club and forum
lectures in cities, towns, and villages were rapidly educating the
population in social science, and the result was a growing independent
vote to make politicians despair.
Here was an instance of a democratic culture growing in
isolation, resentful of all external interference. To millions of
Americans--especially in our middle western and western states--bent
upon social reforms, the European War appeared as an arresting
influence. American participation meant the triumph of the forces
of reaction. Colour was lent to this belief because the conservative
element which had opposed social reforms was loudest in its demand for
intervention. The wealthy and travelled classes organized preparedness
parades and distributed propaganda. In short, those who had apparently
done their utmost to oppose democracy at home were most insistent that
we should embark upon a war for democracy across the seas. Again, what
kind of democracy? Obviously a status quo, commercially imperialistic
democracy, which the awakening liberal was bent upon abolishing.
There is undoubtedly in such an office as the American presidency
some virtue which, in times of crisis, inspires in capable men an
intellectual and moral growth proportional to developing events.
Lincoln, our most striking example, grew more between 1861 and 1865
than during all the earlier years of his life. Nor is the growth of
democratic leaders, when seen through the distorted passions of
their day, apparently a consistent thing. Greatness, near at hand, is
startlingly like inconsistency; it seems at moments to vacillate, to
turn back upon and deny itself, and thus lays itself open to seemingly
plausible criticism by politicians and time servers and all who cry out
for precedent. Yet it is an interesting and encouraging fact that the
faith of democratic peoples goes out, and goes out alone, to leaders
who--whatever their minor faults and failings--do not fear to reverse
themselves when occasion demands; to enunciate new doctrines, seemingly
in contradiction to former assertions, to meet new crises. When a
democratic leader who has given evidence of greatness ceases to develop
new ideas, he loses the public confidence. He flops back into the ranks
of the conservative he formerly opposed, who catch up with him only when
he ceases to grow.
In 1916 the majority of the American people elected Mr. Wilson in the
belief that he would keep them out of war. In 1917 he entered the war
with the nation behind him. A recalcitrant Middle West was the first
to fill its quota of volunteers, and we witnessed the extraordinary
spectacle of the endorsement of conscription: What had happened? A very
simple, but a very great thing Mr. Wilson had made the issue of the
war a democratic issue, an American issue, in harmony with our national
hopes and traditions. But why could not this issue have been announced
in 1914 or 1915? The answer seems to be that peoples, as well as their
leaders and interpreters, must grow to meet critical situations. In 1861
the moral idea of the Civil War was obscured and hidden by economic and
material interests. The Abraham Lincoln who entered the White House in
1861 was indeed the same man who signed the Emancipation Proclamation
in 1863; and yet, in a sense, he was not the same man; events and
responsibilities had effected a profound but logical growth in his
personality. And the people of the Union were not ready to endorse
Emancipation in 1861. In 1863, in the darkest hour of the war, the
spirit of the North responded to the call, and, despite the vilification
of the President, was true to him to victory. More significant still,
in view of the events of today, is what then occurred in England. The
British Government was unfriendly; the British people as a whole had
looked upon our Civil War very much in the same light as the American
people regarded the present war at its inception--which is to say that
the economic and materialistic issue seemed to overshadow the moral one.
When Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it to be a war for human freedom,
the sentiment of the British people changed--of the British people as
distinct from the governing classes; and the textile workers of the
northern counties, whose mills could not get cotton on account of the
blockade, declared their willingness to suffer and starve if the slaves
in America might be freed.
Abraham Lincoln at that time represented the American people as
the British Government did not represent the British people. We are
concerned today with peoples rather than governments.
It remained for an American President to announce the moral issue of the
present war, and thus to solidify behind him, not only the liberal mind
of America, but the liberal elements within the nations of Europe. He
became the democratic leader of the world. The issue, simply stated, is
the advancement of democracy and peace. They are inseparable. Democracy,
for progress, demands peace. It had reached a stage, when, in a
contracting world, it could no longer advance through isolation:
its very existence in every country was threatened, not only by the
partisans of reaction from within, but by the menace from without of a
militaristic and imperialistic nation determined to crush it, restore
superimposed authority, and dominate the globe. Democracy, divided
against itself, cannot stand. A league of democratic nations, of
democratic peoples, has become imperative. Hereafter, if democracy wins,
self-determination, and not imperialistic exploitation, is to be the
universal rule. It is the extension, on a world scale, of Mr.
Wilson’s Mexican policy, the application of democratic principles to
international relationships, and marks the inauguration of a new era. We
resort to force against force, not for dominion, but to make the
world safe for the idea on which we believe the future of civilization
depends, the sacred right of self-government. We stand prepared to treat
with the German people when they are ready to cast off autocracy and
militarism. Our attitude toward them is precisely our attitude toward
the Mexican People. We believe, and with good reason, that the German
system of education is authoritative and false, and was more or less
deliberately conceived in order to warp the nature and produce
complexes in the mind of the German people for the end of preserving and
perpetuating the power of the Junkers. We have no quarrel with the
duped and oppressed, but we war against the agents of oppression. To the
conservative mind such an aspiration appears chimerical. But America,
youngest of the nations, was born when modern science was gathering
the momentum which since has enabled it to overcome, with a bewildering
rapidity, many evils previously held by superstition to be ineradicable.
As a corollary to our democratic creed, we accepted the dictum that to
human intelligence all things are possible. The virtue of this dictum
lies not in dogma, but in an indomitable attitude of mind to which the
world owes its every advance in civilization; quixotic, perhaps, but
necessary to great accomplishment. In searching for a present-day
protagonist, no happier example could be found than Mr. Henry Ford, who
exhibits the characteristic American mixture of the practical and the
ideal. He introduces into industry humanitarian practices that even
tend to increase the vast fortune which by his own efforts he has
accumulated. He sees that democratic peoples do not desire to go to
war, he does not believe that war is necessary and inevitable, he lays
himself open to ridicule by financing a Peace Mission. Circumstances
force him to abandon his project, but he is not for one moment
discouraged. His intention remains. He throws all his energy and wealth
into a war to end war, and the value of his contribution is inestimable.
A study of Mr. Ford’s mental processes and acts illustrates the true
mind of America. In the autumn of 1916 Mr. Wilson declared that “the
people of the United States want to be sure what they are fighting
about, and they want to be sure that they are fighting for the things
that will bring the world justice and peace. Define the elements; let
us know that we are not fighting for the prevalence of this nation over
that, for the ambitions of this group of nations as compared with the
ambitions of that group of nations, let us once be convinced that we are
called in to a great combination for the rights of mankind, and America
will unite her force and spill her blood for the great things she has
always believed in and followed.”
“America is always ready to fight for the things which are American.”
Even in these sombre days that mark the anniversary of our entrance into
the war. But let it be remembered that it was in the darkest days of the
Civil War Abraham Lincoln boldly proclaimed the democratic, idealistic
issue of that struggle. The Russian Revolution, which we must seek
to understand and not condemn, the Allied defeats that are its
consequences, can only make our purpose the firmer to put forth all our
strength for the building up of a better world. The President’s masterly
series of state papers, distributed in all parts of the globe, have
indeed been so many Proclamations of Emancipation for the world’s
oppressed. Not only powerful nations shall cease to exploit little
nations, but powerful individuals shall cease to exploit their fellow
men. Henceforth no wars for dominion shall be waged, and to this
end secret treaties shall be abolished. Peoples through their
representatives shall make their own treaties. And just as democracy
insures to the individual the greatest amount of self-determination,
nations also shall have self-determination, in order that each shall be
free to make its world contribution. All citizens have duties to
perform toward their fellow citizens; all democratic nations must be
interdependent.
With this purpose America has entered the war. But it implies that our
own household must be swept and cleaned. The injustices and inequalities
existing in our own country, the false standards of worth, the
materialism, the luxury and waste must be purged from our midst.