American, of whatever origin, the full benefit of his allegiance to
one country as it is to permit the disloyal American to exercise a
treacherous alternative allegiance to two countries. Every man has a
right to one country. He has a right to love and serve that country and
to feel that it is absolutely his country and that he has in it every
right possessed by any one else. It is our duty to require the man of
German blood who is an American citizen to give up all allegiance to
Germany whole-heartedly and without on his part any mental reservation
whatever. If he does this, it becomes no less our duty to give him the
full rights of an American, including our loyal respect and friendship
without on our part any mental reservation whatever. The duties are
reciprocal, and from the standpoint of American patriotism one is as
important as the other.
There has been nothing finer in this war, nothing of better augury
for the future of America, than the high courage and splendid loyalty
shown by the American soldiers and sailors who are of German blood.
Relatively to their number they have come forward as freely into the
ranks of our fighting men as the Americans of any other stock, and
all alike have shown the same soldierly efficiency, the same devoted
patriotism, and, when the need arose, the same heroism. The crew of
the torpedo destroyer who face the submarine, and the airmen of the
battle planes whose lives are in peril every hour, and the infantry
stoggers and doughboys and marines who stand the killing and suffer the
grueling hardship and misery of the line fighting, all alike number in
their ranks relatively just as many Americans of German as of any other
blood. Any one can see this who will look over the lists of casualties
and the lists of men cited for deeds of high gallantry. The official
reports of the German officers bear unintended testimony to the intense
and patriotic Americanism of these men whom the Hohenzollern officials
sneer at as “half Americans,” and who, even when taken prisoners, are
admitted by the German army officers to “express without hesitation
purely American sentiments.” In other words, the Pan-German propaganda
on behalf of German _kultur_ has broken down in America, and as a
consequence there are no people in this country so hated in the
Prussianized Germany of the Hohenzollerns as the Americans of German
blood.
The very worst enemies of these Americans have been the traitors and
dupes of traitors who have been during the last few years the leaders
of the German-American Alliance and of the newspapers in German or
English who have backed up the Alliance and similar organizations. The
dissolution by law of the Alliance and the gradual change of German
newspapers into newspapers published in English will be of benefit to
true Americans of German blood more than any other of our citizens.
But the Americans of other blood must remember that the man who in good
faith and without reservations gives up another country for this must
in return receive exactly the same rights, not merely legal, but social
and spiritual, that other Americans proudly possess. We of the United
States belong to a new and separate nationality. We are all Americans
and nothing else, and each, without regard to his birthplace, creed, or
national origin, is entitled to exactly the same rights as all other
Americans.
MURDER, TREASON, AND PARLOR ANARCHY
JULY 18, 1918
One of the cheapest methods by which some well-meaning, silly people,
and some sinister people who are not well-meaning, achieve a reputation
for broad-minded liberality in matters relating to social reforms is
to champion or excuse criminality on the ground that it is due to
social conditions. The parlor anarchist or parlor Bolshevist is not
an attractive person, and he may be mischievous when he joins the
genuine anarchist, the “direct” man with the bomb, because selfish
and unpatriotic politicians then find it advantageous to pander to
both. This species of parlor anarchist appeals to emotional persons of
superficial cultivation, whether writers, college men, sham economists,
or sham religious and charitable workers, because it makes no demand
either upon robust vigor of soul or thoroughness of mental process.
At the moment it manifests itself in sympathy for the I.W.W. and for
convicted dynamiters and murderers like Mooney.
There are honest and ignorant working-men who join the I.W.W. because
they are misled or because in some given locality industrial conditions
really are intolerable. I have heard on good authority of logging
camps, for instance, where the men joined the I.W.W. and practiced
sabotage because they were treated tyrannically and foolishly and
where good treatment turned them into good citizens. But I know far
more numerous instances in which the leaders have simply been thugs
and murderous malefactors whose criminality was not in the least due
to social conditions, but to their own foul natures. By all means let
us remedy the social conditions that are wrong, but let us shun, as we
would shun the plague, that mawkish sentimentality of downright moral
and physical cowardice which fears to call murder, treason, violence,
arson, and rape by their right names and treat them as crimes to be
punished with relentless severity.
Actually there have been make-believe social reformers who have sought
to excuse a brute who raped a little girl on the ground that social
conditions made him what he was, and others who on similar grounds have
protested against the condign punishment of men who burn haystacks,
ruin machinery, dynamite peace parades, and, in the interest of
German agents, destroy machinery in mines or munition factories. Any
man who is misled in these matters can get full information by buying
a pamphlet recently written by a former Socialist, Mr. Everett Harri,
called “The I.W.W. an Auxiliary of the German Espionage System.” The
simple truth is that the men who lead and give the tone to the I.W.W.
are more dangerous criminals than an equal number of white-slavers and
black-handers, and to give aid and comfort to one set of enemies of the
Nation is as bad as to give aid and comfort to the others.
The ablest, most far-sighted, and most patriotic of the heads of
organized labor are more opposed to the I.W.W. as it is at present
handled than are any other persons in the Nation. In just the same way
the farmers whose resentment of wrongdoing is keenest should repudiate
the Non-Partisan League just as long as it submits to such leadership
as that of most of the men who are at present at its head, and just so
long as it stands for covert disloyalty, as it has recently done on so
many different occasions in so many different places. I am well aware
that great numbers of honest and loyal farmers of high character have
joined the League, because they rightly think that many of the economic
conditions now affecting the farmer imperatively call for remedy. There
are any number of men like myself who will join with the farmers in
any sane and patriotic movement to remedy these conditions, no matter
how radical such a movement may be. But we will join with no movement
whose leaders are tainted with disloyalty, or who refuse to give to
others the same square deal they demand for themselves, or who fail to
insist that here in America the one organization to which we all of
us owe a loyalty greater than is any other, greater than to any labor
union or farmers’ league or business or professional body, is the union
of the entire American people.
BACK UP THE FIGHTING MEN AT THE FRONT
JULY 26, 1918
There is no American worth calling such whose veins do not thrill with
pride when he reads of what has been done by General Pershing and his
gallant army in France. The soldiers over there who wear the American
uniform have made all good Americans forever their debtors. Now and
always afterward we of this country will walk with our heads high
because of the men who face death and wounds, and so many of whom have
given their lives fighting for this Nation and for the great ideals of
humanity across the seas.
But we must not let our pride and our admiration evaporate in mere
pride, in mere admiration of what others have done. We must put the
whole strength of this Nation back of the fighting men at the front. We
owe it to them. We owe it at least as much to the gallant Allies, who
for near four years fought the great battle that was our battle, no
less than theirs.
At last we have begun to come to their assistance, but let us solemnly
realize that we came very late, and that it is a dreadful thing if we
waste one hour that can now be saved, or weaken in the smallest degree
any effort that can be made. The inability, or refusal, of Bolshevist
Russia to do her part in the great war for liberty and democracy has
cast a terrible added burden upon the Allies. On the eastern front
this has meant the temporary Allied ruin and the freeing of the armies
of the autocracy for action against the western peoples. England,
France, and Belgium for four years and Italy for over three years have
been fighting the battle of civilization. Their man power is terribly
depleted. Thank Heaven, we have got some hundreds of thousands of
soldiers across in time to be a real element in saving Paris. Our first
duty, if we wish to win the war, is to save Paris. Temporarily, at
least, and I hope permanently, we have done our part in this respect.
But the least faltering, the least letting-up, or failure in pushing
forward our preparations and our assistance, would be dangerous to the
Allied cause and a wicked desertion of our allies.
From now on America should make this peculiarly America’s war. From now
on we should take the burden of the war upon our shoulders. We should
move forward at once with all the force that there is in us. We should
not allow the war to drag for so much as a day, and above all we should
not permit our people to fall under the spell of pacifist dreams or
possible pacifist actions. There should not be intermission of so much
as a week in sending our troops across the seas. This war won’t be won
by food, or by money, or by savings, or by Thrift Stamps, or by the Red
Cross, or by anything else, although all of these will help win the
war. It will be won by the valor of the fighting men at the front, and
this valor will fail unless our fighting men at the front are millions
strong.
Every week this summer and fall we should be putting fresh troops by
scores of thousands across the ocean, and now, to-day, this week, we
should provide for placing a larger army in the field next spring than
Germany itself, or France and England combined. We are a more populous,
a richer country than Germany, we have a larger population than Great
Britain and France combined. These nations have fought for four years.
We have only just begun to fight. Let us at once mobilize the whole
man power of this country between the ages of nineteen and fifty or
sixty. The draft should take in all men of nineteen, even if they were
not sent abroad until they were twenty years old. Let us act at once.
Perhaps we can beat the Germans this year if we keep pouring our troops
over with the utmost speed. But let us take no chances. Let us proceed
upon the assumption that Germany will fight next spring, and therefore
let us act instantly so that by spring we will have in France an army
of fighting men, exclusive of non-combatants and exclusive of home
dépôts, which shall amount to four million armed soldiers at the very
least. Let us fight beside the French, the British, the Italians, and
be ready to fight instantly in the Balkan Peninsula and in Asia Minor
against the Germans and all her vassal states. There must be no delay,
not by so much as one hour, and no letting-up for one moment in the
cause of our entire strength.
THE AMERICANS WHOM WE MOST DELIGHT TO HONOR
AUGUST 1, 1918
At long intervals in the history of a nation there come great days
when the picked sons of the Nation determine for generations to come
that nation’s place in history. During the last few weeks our fighting
men in France have rendered all the rest of us forever their debtors.
They have won high honor for themselves and for their country. Our
children’s children will owe them deep gratitude for what they have
done. All Americans hold their heads higher because of their deeds.
Their achievement has been won at the cost of perseverance in training
and of resolution in facing unbelievable hardship and fatigue. It has
also cost and will cost the death, the crippling, and the wounding of
many scores of thousands of our best and bravest. We who stay behind
in ease and comfort, who show our patriotism by economizing on sugar
or wheat or beef instead of by living in our clothes until they rot
off us in the trenches, or who pay money for taxes and bonds and Thrift
Stamps instead of paying with our blood, owe an incalculable debt to
the men at the front and to the mothers, wives, and little children of
those who are killed at the front. We must pay this debt.
The debt is due to our wonderful fighting men at the front
individually, to our army collectively, and to this Nation as a whole.
We must provide for the crippled men and for the widows and children
of the dead. Nothing that we can do will lighten the bitter sorrow of
those who have lost the men they loved; stern pride in the courage
and gallant devotion of those who are dead is the only staff that
will help to carry that burden for the living. But the material needs
of the survivors must be met with ample generosity and yet in the
only permanently effective fashion, by training those who need help
to help themselves and achieve an ever-increasing self-respect and
self-reliance.
We must now help the army as a whole by straining every nerve without
a day’s delay immensely to increase our strength, our numbers, and our
resources at the front. We should provide now, and as a matter of fact
we ought to have provided six months ago, for an army of six or seven
million men, so that when next spring opens we may have at least four
million fighting men at the front. We are more populous than Germany,
or France and Great Britain combined, and we should provide so that two
years after we entered the war our army shall be as large as Germany’s
or as the combined forces of our allies in France. We should speed to
the limit the work of the ships, guns, and airplanes. At present our
army is in France mainly because of the aid of British ships, and it
is able to fight mainly because of the field cannon and even airplanes
it has received from the French. The draft limit should be immensely
increased and the exceptions immensely decreased.
To stand by the army is to stand by the Nation, and therefore to stand
by the Allies to whom our national faith is plighted. This war will
be won by the fighting men at the front. All other work is merely
auxiliary and is entirely subordinate to theirs. Let us provide for the
army instantly, and let us provide for the Nation’s future permanently
by at once introducing the policy of universal obligatory military
training for all our young men.
The fighting men at the front are the men most worthy of honor. Let
every American lad hereafter be trained so that in time of need he can
fill this most honorable of all positions.
SOUND NATIONALISM AND SOUND INTERNATIONALISM
AUGUST 4, 1918
The glorious victory of the Allies in the second battle of the Marne, a
victory in which the hard-fighting soldiers of the American army have
borne so distinguished and honorable a part, may mean the failure of
the German military offensive for this year. Therefore it may mean a
renewal of the German peace offensive. No man can prophesy in these
matters, but the Germans may continue the war for a long time; and
therefore we should prepare to have in France an army of four million
fighting men for the battle front next spring. But the Germans may try
to make peace instead of continuing the war, and may seek to cover
their retention of some of their ill-gotten substantial gains by
nominal and theoretical support of some glittering proposal about a
league of nations to end all war. They will thereby hope to keep part
of their booty by appealing to what is vaguely called internationalism
and getting the support not only of sentimentalists who do not like to
look unpleasant facts in the face, but also of the good people who are
appalled and puzzled and panic-struck by the horror Germany has brought
on the world, and who, instead of bracing themselves to put down this
horror by their own hardened strength and iron will, clutch at any
quack remedy which false prophets hold out as offering a substitute for
such action.
Therefore it is well at this time for sober and resolute men and
women to apply that excellent variety of wisdom colloquially known as
“horse sense” to the problems of nationalism and internationalism.
These problems will not be solved by rhetoric. Least of all will
they be solved by competitive rhetoric. Masters of phrase-making may
win immense, although evanescent, applause by outvying one another
in words that glitter, but these glittering words will not have one
shred of lasting effect on the outcome except in so far as they may
have a very mischievous effect if they persuade people to abandon the
possible real good in the fantastic effort to achieve an impossible,
unreal perfection. Let honest men and women remember that this kind of
phrase-mongering does not represent idealism. The only idealism worth
considering in the workaday business of this world is applied idealism.
This is merely another way of saying that permanent good to humanity
only comes from actually trying to reduce ideals to practice, and this
means that the ideals must be substantially or at least measurably
realizable.
The professed internationalist usually sneers at nationalism, at
patriotism, and at what we call Americanism. He bids us forswear
our love of country in the name of love of the world at large. We
nationalists answer that he has begun at the wrong end; we say that as
the world now is, it is only the man who ardently loves his country
first who in actual practice can help any other country at all. The
internationalist bids us promise to abandon the idea of keeping America
permanently ready to defend her rights by her strength, and to trust,
instead, to scraps of paper, to written agreements by which all nations
form a league, and agree to disarm and agree each to treat all other
nations, big or little, on an exact equality. We nationalists answer
that we are ready to join any league to enforce peace or similar
organization which offers a likelihood of in some measure lessening
the number and the area of future wars, but only on condition that
in the first place we do not promise what will not or ought not to
be performed, or be guilty of proclaiming a sham, and that in the
second place we do not surrender our right and duty to prepare our own
strength for our own defense instead of trusting to the above-mentioned
scraps of paper. In justification we point to certain very obvious
facts which ought to be patent to every man of common sense.
Any such league of nations must, of course, include the nine nations
which have the greatest military strength or it will be utterly
impotent. These nine nations include Germany, Austria, Turkey, and
Russia. The first three have abundantly shown during the last four
years that no written or other promise of the most binding kind has
even the slightest effect upon their actions. The fourth, Russia,
under the lead and dominion of the Bolsheviki, has just been guilty
of the grossest possible betrayal of her allies and of the small
kindred Slavonic peoples and of world democracy. This betrayal was in
the interest of a military and despotic autocracy and included the
direct violation of Russia’s plighted faith. Under such conditions it
is unnecessary to say that Russia’s signature to any future league
to enforce peace will not be worth the paper on which it is written.
Therefore the creation of any such league for the future will simply
mean a pledge by the present Allies to make their alliance perpetual
and all to go to war again whenever one of them is attacked. This may
become necessary, but it certainly does not imply future disarmament.
Nor is this all. The United States must come into court with clean
hands. She must not pledge herself without reservation to the right
of “self-determination” for each people while she has behaved toward
Haiti and San Domingo as she is now behaving. It is not possible for
me to say whether our action in these two cases has been right or
wrong, because the Administration, with its usual horror of publicity,
whether pitiless or otherwise, and its inveterate predilection for
secret and furtive diplomacy, has kept most of the facts hidden. I
believe that there was no possible excuse for such secret diplomacy in
these cases and that the same course should have been followed as was
followed in the case of the Panama revolution, where every fact was
immediately laid without reservation before Congress. But even if I
am wrong in my belief in the general principle of open diplomacy, and
even if the Administration is right in its consistent policy of secret
diplomacy as regards the mass of questions which I think ought to be
made public, the fact remains that we have with armed force invaded,
made war upon, and conquered the two small republics, have upset
their governments, have denied them the right of self-determination,
and have made democracy within their limits not merely unsafe but
non-existent. As we have no published facts to go on, I cannot say
whether their misconduct did or did not warrant such drastic action on
our part, but on the assumption that the Administration acted properly,
we are committed to the principle that some nations are not fit for
self-determination, that democracy within their limits is a sham, and
that their offenses against justice and right are such as to render
interference by their more powerful and more civilized neighbors
imperative. I do not doubt that this principle is true in some
cases, whether or not it ought to be applied in these two particular
cases. In any event, our continuing action in San Domingo and Haiti
makes it hypocritical for us to lay down any universal rules about
self-determination for all nations.
Our action also shows how utterly futile it would be to try to treat a
league to enforce peace as a substitute for training our own strength
for our own defense. Let China be the witness of the truth of this
statement. China has actually realized the ideal of the pacifists
who insist that unpreparedness for war secures peace. The ideal of
the internationalists is that patriotism and sense of nationalism
are detrimental to humanity, and the ideal of the Socialists is that
the capitalist régime is the only cause of popular misery. China is
helpless to attack others or defend herself, her people have little
sense of national unity and pride, and there are in China huge
districts where there are no capitalists and where the misery of
the people is greater than in any country of the Occident. China’s
helplessness, instead of helping toward world peace, has been a
positive encouragement to war and violence among her neighbors. Her
future depends primarily, not on herself, but on what her neighbors
choose to do. In spite of her size and her enormous population and
resources, she is helpless to do good to others because she is
powerless to prevent others from doing evil to her. Her agreement to a
league of nations or to a league to enforce peace would be worthless,
because she is unable to put strength back of justice either for
herself or for any one else. The pacifists and internationalists if
they had their way would turn the United States into the China of the
Occident.