_To the Editor of The New York Times:_
There is nothing new in the obsession of the principal European nations
that, in order to be great and successful in the world as it is, they
must possess military power available for instant aggression on weak
nations, as well as for effective defense against strong ones.
When Sir Francis Bacon wrote his essay on "The True Greatness of
Kingdoms and Estates" he remarked that forts, arsenals, goodly races of
horses, armaments, and the like would all be useless "except the breed
and disposition of the people be stout and warlike." He denied that
money is the sinews of war, giving preference to the sinews of men's
arms, and quoted Solon's remark to Croesus, "Sir, if any other come that
hath better iron than you, he will be master of all this gold"--a truly
Bismarckian proposition. Indeed, Sir Francis Bacon says explicitly "that
the principal point of greatness in any State is to have a race of
military men."
Goethe, reflecting on the wretchedness of the German people as a whole,
found no comfort in the German genius for science, literature, and art,
or only a miserable comfort which "does not make up for the proud
consciousness of belonging to a nation strong, respected, and feared."
Because Germany in his time was weak in the military sense, he could
write: "I have often felt a bitter grief at the thought of the German
people, which is so noble individually, and so wretched as a whole"; and
he longed for the day when the national spirit, kept alive and hopeful,
should be "ready to rise in all its might when the day of glory dawns."
"The day of glory" was to be the day of military power. Carlyle said of
Germany and France in November, 1870, "that noble, patient, deep, pious,
and solid Germany should be at length welded into a nation, and become
Queen of the Continent, instead of vaporing, vainglorious,
gesticulating, quarrelsome, restless, and oversensitive France, seems to
me that hopefulest public fact that has occurred in my time." How did
Germany attain to this position of "Queen of the Continent"? By creating
and maintaining, with utmost intelligence and skill, the strongest army
in Europe--an army which within six years had been used successfully
against Denmark, Austria, and France. Germany became "Queen" by virtue
of her military power.
In the same paper Carlyle said of the French Revolution, of which he was
himself the great portrayer: "I often call that a celestial infernal
phenomenon, the most memorable in our world for a thousand years; on the
whole, a transcendent revolt against the devil and his works, (since
shams are all and sundry of the devil, and poisonous and unendurable to
man.)" Now, the French Revolution was an extraordinary outbreak of
passionate feeling and physical violence on the part of the French
Nation, both at home and abroad; and it led on to the Napoleonic wars,
which were tremendous physical struggles for mastery in Europe.
In a recent public statement two leading philosophical writers of modern
Germany, Profs. Eucken and Haeckel, denounce the "brutal national
egoism" of England, which they say "recognizes no rights on the part of
others, and, unconcerned about morality or unmorality, pursues only its
own advantage"; and they attribute to England the purpose to hinder at
any cost the further growth of German greatness. But what are the
elements of that German greatness which England is determined to arrest
by joining France and Russia in war against Germany and Austria-Hungary?
The three elements of recent German greatness are the extension of her
territory; contiguous territories in Europe and in other continents
colonial possessions; the enlargement of German commerce and wealth, and
to these ends the firm establishment of her military supremacy in
Europe. These are the ideas on the true greatness of nations which have
prevailed in the ruling oligarchy of Germany for at least sixty years,
and now seem to have been accepted, or acquiesced in, by the whole
German people. In this view, the foundation of national greatness is
fighting power.
This conception of national greatness has prevailed at many different
epochs--Macedonian, Roman, Saracen, Spanish, English, and French--and,
indeed, has appeared from time to time in almost all the nations and
tribes of the earth; but the civilized world is now looking for better
foundations of national greatness than force and fighting.
The partial successes of democracy in Europe have much increased the
evils of war. Sir Francis Bacon looked for a fighting class; under the
feudal system when a Baron went to war he took with him his vassals, or
that portion of them that could be spared from the fields at home.
Universal conscription is a modern invention, the horrors of which, as
now exhibited in Germany, Austria-Hungary, and France, much exceed those
of earlier martial methods. There has never been such an interruption of
agricultural and industrial production, or such a rending of family ties
in consequence of war as is now taking place in the greater part of
Europe. Moreover, mankind has never before had the use of such
destructive implements as the machine gun, the torpedo, and the dynamite
bomb. The progress of science has much increased the potential
destructiveness of warfare.
Thinking people in all the civilized countries are asking themselves
what the fundamental trouble with civilization is, and where to look for
means of escape from the present intolerable conditions. Christianity in
nineteen centuries has afforded no relief. The so-called mitigations of
war are comparatively trivial. The recent Balkan wars were as ferocious
as those of Alexander. The German aviators drop aimless bombs at night
into cities occupied chiefly by non-combatants. The North Sea is strewn
with floating mines which may destroy fishing, freight, or passenger
vessels of any nation, neutral or belligerent, which have business on
that sea. The ruthless destruction of the Louvain Library by German
soldiers reminds people who have read history that the destroyers of the
Alexandria Library have ever since been called fanatics and barbarians.
The German Army tries to compel unfortified Belgian cities and towns to
pay huge ransoms to save themselves from destruction--a method which the
Barbary States, indeed, were accustomed to use against their Christian
neighbors, but which has long been held to be a method appropriate only
for brigands and pirates--Greek, Sicilian, Syrian, or Chinese.
What Is Wrong with Civilization?
How can it be that the Government of a civilized State commits, or
permits in its agents, such barbarities? The fundamental reason seems to
be that most of the European nations still believe that national
greatness depends on the possession and brutal use of force, and is to
be maintained and magnified only by military and naval power.
In North America there are two large communities--heretofore inspired
chiefly by ideals of English origin--which have never maintained
conscripted armies, and have never fortified against each other their
long frontier--Canada and the United States. Both may fairly be called
great peoples even now; and both give ample promise for the future.
Neither of these peoples lacks the "stout and warlike" quality of which
Sir Francis Bacon spoke; both have often exhibited it. The United States
suffered for four years from a civil war, characterized by determined
fighting, in indecisive battles, in which the losses, in proportion to
the number of men engaged, were often much heavier than any thus far
reported from the present battlefields in Belgium and France. There
being then no lack of martial spirit in these two peoples, it is an
instructive phenomenon that power to conquer is not their ideal of
national greatness. Much the same thing may be said of some other
self-governing constituents of the British Empire, such as Australia,
New Zealand, and South Africa. They, too, have a better ideal of
national greatness than that of military supremacy.
What are the real ambitions and hopes of the people of the United States
and the people of Canada in regard to their own future? Their
expectations of greatness certainly are not based on any conception of
invincible military force, or desire for the physical means of enforcing
their own will on their neighbors. They both believe in the free
commonwealth, administered justly, and with the purpose of securing for
each individual all the freedom he can exercise without injury to his
neighbors and the collective well-being. They desire for themselves,
each for itself, a strong Government, equipped to perform its functions
with dignity, certainty, and efficiency; but they wish to have that
Government under the control of the deliberate public opinion of free
citizens, and not under the control of any Prætorian Guard, Oligarchic
Council, or General Staff, and they insist that the civil authority
should always control such military and police forces as it may be
necessary to maintain for protective purposes.
True National Greatness.
They believe that the chief object of government should be the promotion
of the public welfare by legislative and administrative means; that the
processes of government should be open and visible, and their results be
incessantly published for approval or disapproval. They believe that a
nation becomes great through industrial productiveness and the resulting
internal and external commerce, through the gradual increase of comfort
and general well-being in the population, and through the advancement of
science, letters, and art. They believe that education, free intercourse
with other nations, and religious enthusiasm and toleration are means of
national greatness, and that in the development and use of these means
force has no place. They attribute national greatness in others, as well
as in themselves, not to the possession of military force, but to the
advance of the people in freedom, industry, righteousness, and
good-will.
They believe that the ideals of fighting power and domination should be
replaced by the ideals of peaceful competition in production and trade,
of generous rivalry in education, scientific discovery, and the fine
arts, of co-operation for mutual benefit among nations different in
size, natural abilities, and material resources, and of federation among
nations associated geographically or historically, or united in the
pursuit of some common ends and in the cherishing of like hopes and
aspirations. They think that the peace of the world can be best promoted
by solemn public compacts between peoples--not Princes or
Cabinets--compacts made to be kept, strengthened by mutual services and
good offices, and watched over by a permanent International Judicial
Tribunal authorized to call on the affiliated nations for whatever force
may be necessary to induce obedience to its decrees.
Will not the civilized world learn from this horrible European war--the
legitimate result of the policies of Bismarck and his associates and
disciples--that these democratic ideals constitute the rational
substitute for the imperialistic ideal of fighting force as the
foundation of national greatness? The new ideals will still need the
protection and support, both within and without each nation, of a
restrained public force, acting under law, national and international,
just as a sane mind needs as its agent a sound and strong body. Health
and vigor will continue to be the safeguards of morality, justice, and
mercy.