As we walked homeward through the fog I talked to him of Professor

Dewey's work and its results, while he explained to me the methods of the

Reconstruction Department. "Out of every audience like that we get a

group and form a class," he said. "They're always a bit backward at

first, just as they were tonight, but they grow very keen. We have a

great many classes already started, and we see to it that they are

provided with text-books and teachers. Oh, no, it's not propaganda,"

he added, in answer to my query; "all we do is to try to give them facts

in such a way as to make them able to draw their own conclusions and join

any political party they choose--just so they join one intelligently."

I must add that before Sunday was over he had organized his class and

arranged for their future instruction.

CHAPTER III

I would speak first of a contrast--and yet I have come to recognize how

impossible it is to convey to the dweller in America the difference in

atmosphere between England and France on the one hand and our country on

the other. And when I use the word "atmosphere" I mean the mental state

of the peoples as well as the weather and the aspect of the skies. I

have referred in another article to the anxious, feverish prosperity one

beholds in London and Paris, to that apparent indifference, despite the

presence on the streets of crowds of soldiers to the existence of a war

of which one is ever aware. Yet, along with this, one is ever conscious

of pressure. The air is heavy; there is a corresponding lack of the

buoyancy of mind which is the normal American condition. Perhaps, if

German troops occupied New England and New York, our own mental barometer

might be lower. It is difficult to say. At any rate, after an ocean

voyage of nine days one's spirits rise perceptibly as the ship nears

Nantucket; and the icy-bright sunlight of New York harbour, the sight of

the buildings aspiring to blue skies restore the throbbing optimism which

with us is normal; and it was with an effort, when I talked to the

reporters on landing, that I was able to achieve and express the

pessimism and darkness out of which I had come. Pessimism is perhaps too

strong a word, and takes no account of the continued unimpaired morale

and determination of the greater part of the British and French peoples.

They expect much from us. Yet the impression was instantaneous, when I

set forth in the streets of New York, that we had not fully measured the

magnitude of our task--an impression that has been amply confirmed as the

weeks have passed.

The sense of relief I felt was not only the result of bright skies and a

high barometer, of the palpable self-confidence of the pedestrians, of

the white bread on the table and the knowledge that there was more, but

also of the ease of accomplishing things. I called for a telephone

number and got it cheerfully and instantly. I sent several telegrams,

and did not have to wait twenty minutes before a wicket while a

painstaking official multiplied and added and subtracted and paused to

talk with a friend; the speed of the express in which I flew down-town

seemed emblematic of America itself. I had been transported, in fact,

into another world--my world; and in order to realize again that from

which I had come I turned to a diary recording a London filled with the

sulphur fumes of fog, through which the lamps of the taxis and buses

shone as yellow blots reflected on glistening streets; or, for some

reason a still greater contrast, a blue, blue November Sunday afternoon

in parts, the Esplanade of the Invalides black with people--sad people

--and the Invalides itself all etched in blue as seen through the wide

vista from the Seine.

A few days later, with some children, I went to the Hippodrome. And it

remained for the Hippodrome, of all places, to give me the thrill I had

not achieved abroad, the thrill I had not experienced since the first

months of the war. Mr. George Cohan accomplished it. The transport with

steam up, is ready to leave the wharf, the khaki-clad regiment of erect

and vigorous young Americans marches across the great stage, and the

audience strains forward and begins to sing, under its breath, the words

that proclaim, as nothing else perhaps proclaims, how America feels.

"Send the word, send the word over there . . .

We'll be o-ver, we're coming o-ver,

And we won't come back till it's o-ver, over there!"

Is it the prelude of a tragedy? We have always been so successful, we

Americans. Are we to fail now? I am an American, and I do not believe

we are to fail. But I am soberer, somehow a different American than he

who sailed away in August. Shall we learn other things than those that

have hitherto been contained in our philosophy?

Of one thing I am convinced. It is the first war of the world that is

not a miltary war, although miltary genius is demanded, although it is

the bloodiest war in history. But other qualities are required; men and

women who are not professional soldiers are fighting in it and will aid

in victory. The pomp and circumstance of other wars are lacking in this,

the greatest of all. We had the thrills, even in America, three years

ago, when Britain and France and Canada went in. We tingled when we read

of the mobilizing of the huge armies, of the leave-takings of the

soldiers. We bought every extra for news of those first battles on

Belgian soil. And I remember my sensations when in the province of

Quebec in the autumn of 1914, looking out of the car-window at the troops

gathering on the platforms who were to go across the seas to fight for

the empire and liberty. They were singing "Tipperary!" "Tipperary!" One

seldoms hears it now, and the way has proved long--longer than we

reckoned. And we are singing "Over There!"

In those first months of the war there was, we were told, in England and

France a revival of "religion," and indeed many of the books then written

gave evidence of having been composed in exalted, mystic moods. I

remember one in particular, called "En Campagne," by a young French

officer. And then, somehow, the note of mystic exaltation died away,

to be succeeded by a period of realism. Read "Le Feu," which is most

typical, which has sold in numberless editions. Here is a picture of

that other aspect--the grimness, the monotony, and the frequent

bestiality of trench life, the horror of slaughtering millions of men

by highly specialized machinery. And yet, as an American, I strike

inevitably the note of optimism once more. Even now the truer spiritual

goal is glimpsed through the battle clouds, and has been hailed in

world-reverberating phrases by our American President. Day by day the

real issue is clearer, while the "religion" it implies embraces not one

nation, wills not one patriotism, but humanity itself. I heard a

Frenchwoman who had been deeply "religious" in the old sense exclaim:

"I no longer have any faith in God; he is on the side of the Germans."

When the war began there were many evidences of a survival of that faith

that God fights for nations, interferes in behalf of the "righteous"

cause. When General Joffre was in America he was asked by one of our

countrywomen how the battle of the Marne was won. "Madame," he is

reported to have said, "it was won by me, by my generals and soldiers."

The tendency to regard this victory, which we hope saved France and the

Western humanitarian civilization we cherish, as a special interposition

of Providence, as a miracle, has given place to the realization that the

battle was won by the resourcefulness, science, and coolness of the

French commander-in-chief. Science preserves armies, since killing, if

it has to be done, is now wholly within that realm; science heals the

wounded, transports them rapidly to the hospitals, gives the shattered

something still to live for; and, if we are able to abandon the

sentimental view and look facts in the face--as many anointed chaplains

in Europe are doing--science not only eliminates typhoid but is able to

prevent those terrible diseases that devastate armies and nations. And

science is no longer confined to the physical but has invaded the social

kingdom, is able to weave a juster fabric into the government of peoples.

On all sides we are beginning to embrace the religion of self-reliance,

a faith that God is on the side of intelligence--intelligence with a

broader meaning than the Germans have given it, for it includes charity.

II

It seems to me that I remember, somewhere in the realistic novel I have

mentioned "Le Feu"--reading of singing soldiers, and an assumption

on the part of their hearers that such songs are prompted only by a

devil-may-care lightness of heart which the soldier achieves. A shallow

psychology (as the author points out), especially in these days of trench

warfare! The soldier sings to hide his real feelings, perhaps to give

vent to them. I am reminded of all this in connection with my trip to

the British front. I left London after lunch on one of those dreary,

grey days to which I have referred; the rain had begun to splash angrily

against the panes of the car windows before we reached the coast. At

five o'clock the boat pushed off into a black channel, whipped by a gale

that drove the rain across the decks and into every passage and gangway.

The steamer was literally loaded with human beings, officers and men

returning from a brief glimpse of home. There was nothing of the glory

of war in the embarkation, and, to add to the sad and sinister effect of

it, each man as he came aboard mounted the ladder and chose, from a pile

on the hatch combing, a sodden life-preserver, which he flung around his

shoulders as he went in search of a shelter. The saloon below, where we

had our tea, was lighted indeed, but sealed so tight as to be

insupportable; and the cabin above, stifling too, was dark as a pocket.

One stumbled over unseen passengers on the lounges, or sitting on kits on

the floor. Even the steps up which I groped my way to the deck above

were filled, while on the deck there was standing-room only and not much

of that. Mal de mer added to the discomforts of many. At length I found

an uncertain refuge in a gangway amidships, hedged in between unseen

companions; but even here the rain stung our faces and the spray of an

occasional comber drenched our feet, while through the gloom of the night

only a few yards of white water were to be discerned. For three hours I

stood there, trying to imagine what was in the minds of these men with

whose bodies I was in such intimate contact. They were going to a

foreign land to fight, many of them to die, not in one of those

adventurous campaigns of times gone by, but in the wet trenches or the

hideous No Man's Land between. What were the images they summoned up in

the darkness? Visions of long-familiar homes and long-familiar friends?

And just how were they facing the future? Even as I wondered, voices

rose in a song, English voices, soldier voices. It was not "Tipperary,"

the song that thrilled us a few years ago. I strove to catch the words:

"I want to go home!

I don't want to go back to the trenches no more,

Where there are bullets and shrapnel galore,

I want to go home!"

It was sung boisterously, in a defiant tone of mockery of the desire it

expressed, and thus tremendously gained in pathos. They did want to go

home--naturally. It was sung with the same spirit our men sing "We won't

come back till it's over, over there!" The difference is that these

Britishers have been over there, have seen the horrors face to face, have

tasted the sweets of home, and in spite of heartsickness and seasickness

are resolved to see it through. Such is the morale of the British army.

I have not the slightest doubt that it will be the morale of our own army

also, but at present the British are holding the fort. Tommy would never

give up the war, but he has had a realistic taste of it, and his songs

reflect his experience. Other songs reached my ears each night, above

the hissing and pounding of the Channel seas, but the unseen group

returned always to this. One thought of Agincourt and Crecy, of

Waterloo, of the countless journeys across this same stormy strip of

water the ancestors of these man had made in the past, and one wondered

whether war were eternal and inevitable, after all.

And what does Tommy think about it--this war? My own limited experience

thoroughly indorses Mr. Galsworthy's splendid analysis of British-soldier

psychology that appeared in the December North American. The average

man, with native doggedness, is fighting for the defence of England.

The British Government itself, in its reconstruction department for the

political education of the wounded, has given partial denial to the old

maxim that it is the soldier's business not to think but to obey; and the

British army is leavened with men who read and reflect in the long nights

of watching in the rain, who are gaining ideas about conditions in the

past and resolutions concerning those of the future. The very army

itself has had a miracle happen to it: it has been democratized--and with

the cheerful consent of the class to which formerly the possession of

commissions was largely confined. Gradually, to these soldier-thinkers,

as well as to the mass of others at home, is unfolding the vision of a

new social order which is indeed worth fighting for and dying for.

III

At last, our knees cramped and our feet soaked, we saw the lights of the

French port dancing across the veil of rain, like thistledowns of fire,

and presently we were at rest at a stone quay. As I stood waiting on the

deck to have my passport vised, I tried to reconstruct the features of

this little seaport as I had seen it, many years before, on a bright

summer's day when I had motored from Paris on my way to London. The gay

line of hotels facing the water was hidden in the darkness. Suddenly I

heard my name called, and I was rescued from the group of civilians by a

British officer who introduced himself as my host. It was after nine

o'clock, and he had been on the lookout for me since half past seven.

The effect of his welcome at that time and place was electrical, and I

was further immensely cheered by the news he gave me, as we hurried along

the street, that two friends of mine were here and quite hungry, having

delayed dinner for my arrival. One of them was a young member of

Congress who had been making exhaustive studies of the situation in

Italy, France and England, and the other one of our best-known writers,

both bound for London. We sat around the table until nearly eleven,

exchanging impressions and experiences. Then my officer declared that

it was time to go home.

"Home" proved to be the big chateau which the British Government has

leased for the kindly purpose of entertaining such American guests as

they choose to invite. It is known as the "American Chateau," and in the

early morning hours we reached it after a long drive through the gale.

We crossed a bridge over a moat and traversed a huge stone hall to

the Gothic drawing-room. Here a fire was crackling on the hearth,

refreshments were laid out, and the major in command rose from his book

to greet me. Hospitality, with these people, has attained to art, and,

though I had come here at the invitation of his government, I had the

feeling of being his personal guest in his own house. Presently he led

the way up the stone stairs and showed me the room I was to occupy.

I awoke to the sound of the wind whistling through the open lattice, and

looking down on the ruffled blue waters of the moat I saw a great white

swan at his morning toilet, his feathers dazzling in the sun. It was one

of those rare crisp and sparkling days that remind one of our American

autumn. A green stretch of lawn made a vista through the woods.

Following the example of the swan, I plunged into the tin tub the orderly

had placed beside my bed and went down to porridge in a glow. Porridge,

for the major was Scotch, and had taught his French cook to make it as

the Scotch make it. Then, going out into the hall, from a table on which

lay a contour map of the battle region, the major picked up a hideous

mask that seemed to have been made for some barbaric revelries.

"We may not strike any gas," he said, "but it's as well to be on the safe

side," whereupon he made me practise inserting the tube in my mouth,

pinching the nostrils instantly with the wire-covered nippers. He also

presented me with a steel helmet. Thus equipped for any untoward

occurrence, putting on sweaters and heavy overcoats, and wrapping

ourselves in the fur rugs of the waiting automobile, we started off,

with the gale on our quarter, for the front.

Picardy, on whose soil has been shed so much English blood, never was

more beautiful than on that October day. The trees were still in full

leaf, the fields green, though the crops had been gathered, and the

crystal air gave vivid value to every colour in the landscape. From time

to time we wound through the cobble-stoned streets of historic villages,

each having its stone church end the bodki-shaped steeple of blue slate

so characteristic of that country. And, as though we were still in the

pastoral times of peace, in the square of one of these villages a

horse-fair was in progress, blue-smocked peasants were trotting chunky

ponies over the stones. It was like a picture from one of De

Maupassant's tales. In other villages the shawled women sat knitting

behind piles of beets and cabbages and apples, their farm-carts atilt in

the sun. Again and again I tried to grasp the fact that the greatest of

world wars was being fought only a few miles away--and failed.

We had met, indeed, an occasional officer or orderly, huddled in a

greatcoat and head against the wind, exercising those wonderful animals

that are the pride of the British cavalry and which General Sir Douglas

Haig, himself a cavalryman, some day hopes to bring into service. We had

overtaken an artillery train rumbling along toward the east, the men

laughing and joking as they rode, as though they were going to

manoeuvres. Farther on, as the soldiers along the highroads and in the

towns grew more and more numerous, they seemed so harmoniously part of

the peaceful scene that war was as difficult to visualize as ever. Many

sat about smoking their pipes and playing with the village children,

others were in squads going to drill or exercise--something the Briton

never neglects. The amazing thing to a visitor who has seen the trenches

awash on a typical wet day, who knows that even billeting in cold farms

and barns behind the lines can scarcely be compared to the comforts of

home, is how these men keep well under the conditions. To say that they

are well is to understate the fact: the ruddy faces and clear eyes and

hard muscles--even of those who once were pale London clerks--proclaim a

triumph for the system of hygiene of their army.

Suddenly we came upon a house with a great round hole in its wall, and

then upon several in ruins beside the village street. Meanwhile, at work

under the windswept trees of the highway, were strange, dark men from the

uttermost parts of the earth, physiognomies as old as the tombs of

Pharaoh. It was, indeed, not so much the graven red profiles of priests

and soldiers that came tome at sight of these Egyptians, but the singing

fellaheen of the water-buckets of the Nile. And here, too, shovelling

the crushed rock, were East Indians oddly clad in European garb, careless

of the cold. That sense of the vastness of the British Empire, which at

times is so profound, was mingled now with a knowledge that it was

fighting for its life, marshalling all its resources for Armageddon.

Saint Eloi is named after the good bishop who ventured to advise King

Dagobert about his costume. And the church stands--what is left of it

--all alone on the greenest of terraces jutting out toward the east; and

the tower, ruggedly picturesque against the sky, resembles that of some

crumbled abbey. As a matter of fact, it has been a target for German

gunners. Dodging an army-truck and rounding one of those military

traffic policemen one meets at every important corner we climbed the hill

and left the motor among the great trees, which are still fortunately

preserved. And we stood for a few minutes, gazing over miles and miles

of devastation. Then, taking the motor once more, we passed through

wrecked and empty villages until we came to the foot of Vimy Ridge.

Notre Dame de Lorette rose against the sky-line to the north.

Vimy and Notre Dame de Lorette--sweet but terrible names! Only a summer

had passed since Vimy was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of

the war. From a distance the prevailing colour of the steep slope is

ochre; it gives the effect of having been scraped bare in preparation for

some gigantic enterprise. A nearer view reveals a flush of green; nature

is already striving to heal. From top to bottom it is pockmarked by

shells and scarred by trenches--trenches every few feet, and between them

tangled masses of barbed wire still clinging to the "knife rests" and

corkscrew stanchions to which it had been strung. The huge shell-holes,

revealing the chalk subsoil, were half-filled with water. And even

though the field had been cleaned by those East Indians I had seen on the

road, and the thousands who had died here buried, bits of uniform, shoes,

and accoutrements and shattered rifles were sticking in the clay--and

once we came across a portion of a bedstead, doubtless taken by some

officer from a ruined and now vanished village to his dugout. Painfully,

pausing frequently to ponder over these remnants, so eloquent of the fury

of the struggle, slipping backward at every step and despite our care

getting tangled in the wire, we made our way up the slope. Buttercups

and daisies were blooming around the edges of the craters.

As we drew near the crest the major warned me not to expose myself.

"It isn't because there is much chance of our being shot," he explained,"

but a matter of drawing the German fire upon others." And yet I found it

hard to believe--despite the evidence at my feet--that war existed here.

The brightness of the day, the emptiness of the place, the silence--save

for the humming of the gale--denied it. And then, when we had cautiously

rounded a hummock at the top, my steel helmet was blown off--not by a

shrapnel, but by the wind! I had neglected to tighten the chin-strap.

Immediately below us I could make out scars like earthquake cracks

running across the meadows--the front trenches. Both armies were buried

like moles in these furrows. The country was spread out before us, like

a map, with occasionally the black contour of a coal mound rising against

the green, or a deserted shaft-head. I was gazing at the famous

battlefield of Lens. Villages, woods, whose names came back to me as the

major repeated them, lay like cloud shadows on the sunny plain, and the

faintest shadow of all, far to the eastward, was Lens itself. I marked

it by a single white tower. And suddenly another white tower, loftier

than the first, had risen up! But even as I stared its substance seemed

to change, to dissolve, and the tower was no longer to be seen. Not

until then did I realize that a monster shell had burst beside the

trenches in front of the city. Occasionally after that there came to my

ears the muffed report of some hidden gun, and a ball like a powder-puff

lay lightly on the plain, and vanished. But even the presence of these,

oddly enough, did not rob the landscape of its air of Sunday peace.

We ate our sandwiches and drank our bottle of white wine in a sheltered

cut of the road that runs up that other ridge which the French gained at

such an appalling price, Notre Dame de Lorette, while the major described

to me some features of the Lens battle, in which he had taken part.

I discovered incidentally that he had been severely wounded at the Somme.

Though he had been a soldier all his life, and a good soldier, his true

passion was painting, and he drew my attention to the rare greens and

silver-greys of the stones above us, steeped in sunlight--all that

remained of the little church of Notre Dame--more beautiful, more

significant, perhaps, as a ruin. It reminded the major of the Turners he

had admired in his youth. After lunch we lingered in the cemetery, where

the graves and vaults had been harrowed by shells; the trenches ran right

through them. And here, in this desecrated resting-place of the village

dead, where the shattered gravestones were mingled with barbed wire,

death-dealing fragments of iron, and rusting stick-bombs that had failed

to explode, was a wooden cross, on which was rudely written the name of

Hans Siebert. Mouldering at the foot of the cross was a grey woollen

German tunic from which the buttons had been cut.

We kept the road to the top, for Notre Dame de Lorette is as steep as

Vimy. There we looked upon the panorama of the Lens battle-field once

more, and started down the eastern slope, an apparently smooth expanse

covered now with prairie grasses, in reality a labyrinth of deep ditches,

dugouts, and pits; gruesome remnants of the battle lay half-concealed

under the grass. We walked slowly, making desperate leaps over the

trenches, sometimes perforce going through them, treading gingerly on the

"duck board" at the bottom. We stumbled over stick-bombs and unexploded

shells. No plough can be put here--the only solution for the land for

years to come is forest. Just before we gained the road at the bottom,

where the car was awaiting us, we were startled by the sudden flight of a

covey of partridges.

The skies were grey when we reached the banal outskirts of a town where

the bourgeoise houses were modern, commonplace, save those which had been

ennobled by ruin. It was Arras, one of those few magic names, eloquent

with suggestions of mediaeval romance and art, intrigue and chivalry;

while upon their significance, since the war began, has been superimposed

still another, no less eloquent but charged with pathos. We halted for a

moment in the open space before the railroad station, a comparatively new

structure of steel and glass, designed on geometrical curves, with an

uninspiring, cheaply ornamented front. It had been, undoubtedly, the

pride of the little city. Yet finding it here had at first something of

the effect of the discovery of an office-building--let us say--on the

site of the Reims Cathedral. Presently, however, its emptiness, its

silence began to have their effects--these and the rents one began to

perceive in the roof. For it was still the object of the intermittent

yet persistent fire of the German artillery. One began to realize that

by these wounds it had achieved a dignity that transcended the mediocre

imagination of its provincial designer. A fine rain had set in before

we found the square, and here indeed one felt a certain desolate

satisfaction; despite the wreckage there the spirit of the ancient town

still poignantly haunted it. Although the Hotel de Ville, which had

expressed adequately the longings and aspirations, the civic pride of

those bygone burghers, was razed to the ground, on three sides were still

standing the varied yet harmonious facades of Flemish houses made

familiar by photographs. Of some of these the plaster between the carved

beams had been shot away, the roofs blown off, and the tiny hewn rafters

were bared to the sky. The place was empty in the gathering gloom of the

twilight. The gaiety and warmth of the hut erected in the Public Gardens

which houses the British Officers' Club were a relief.

The experiences of the next day will remain for ever in my memory etched,

as it were, in sepia. My guide was a younger officer who had seen heroic

service, and I wondered constantly how his delicate frame had survived in

the trenches the constant hardship of such weather as now, warmly wrapped

and with the car-curtains drawn, we faced. The inevitable, relentless

rain of that region had set in again, the rain in which our own soldiers

will have to fight, and the skies were of a darkness seldom known in

America. The countryside was no longer smiling. After some two hours of

progress we came, in that devastated district near the front, to an

expanse where many monsters were clumsily cavorting like dinosaurs in

primeval slime. At some distance from the road others stood apparently

tethered in line, awaiting their turn for exercise. These were the

far-famed tanks. Their commander, or chief mahout--as I was inclined to

call him--was a cheerful young giant of colonial origin, who has often

driven them serenely across No Man's Land and into the German trenches.

He had been expecting us, and led me along a duck board over the morass,

to where one of these leviathans was awaiting us. You crawl through a

greasy hole in the bottom, and the inside is as full of machinery as the

turret of the Pennsylvania, and you grope your way to the seat in front

beside that of the captain and conductor, looking out through a slot in

the armour over a waste of water and mud. From here you are supposed to

operate a machine gun. Behind you two mechanics have started the engines

with a deafening roar, above which are heard the hoarse commands of the

captain as he grinds in his gears. Then you realize that the thing is

actually moving, that the bosses on the belt have managed to find a grip

on the slime--and presently you come to the brink of what appears, to

your exaggerated sense of perception, a bottomless chasm, with distant

steep banks on the farther side that look unattainable and

insurmountable. It is an old German trench which the rains have worn and

widened. You brace yourself, you grip desperately a pair of brass

handles in front of you, while leviathan hesitates, seems to sit up on

his haunches, and then gently buries his nose in the pasty clay and paws

his way upward into the field beyond. It was like sitting in a huge

rocking-chair. That we might have had a bump, and a bone-breaking one, I

was informed after I had left the scene of the adventure. It all depends

upon the skill of the driver. The monsters are not as tractable as they

seem.

That field in which the tanks manoeuvre is characteristic of the whole of

this district of levelled villages and vanished woods. Imagine a

continuous clay vacant lot in one of our Middle Western cities on the

rainiest day you can recall; and further imagine, on this limitless lot,

a network of narrow-gauge tracks and wagon roads, a scattering of

contractors' shanties, and you will have some idea of the daily life and

surroundings of one of oar American engineer regiments, which is running

a railroad behind the British front. Yet one has only to see these men

and talk with them to be convinced of the truth that human happiness and

even human health thanks to modern science--are not dependent upon an

existence in a Garden of Eden. I do not mean exactly that these men

would choose to spend the rest of their existences in this waste, but

they are happy in the consciousness of a job well done. It was really

inspiring to encounter here the familiar conductors and brakemen,

engineers and firemen, who had voluntarily, and for an ideal, left their

homes in a remote and peaceful republic three thousand miles away, to

find contentment and a new vitality, a wider vision, in the difficult and

dangerous task they were performing. They were frequently under fire

--when they brought back the wounded or fetched car-loads of munitions to

the great guns on the ridiculous little trains of flat cars with

open-work wheels, which they named--with American humour--the Federal

Express and the Twentieth Century Limited. And their officers were

equally happy. Their colonel, of our regular Army Engineer Corps, was

one of those broad-shouldered six-footers who, when they walk the streets

of Paris, compel pedestrians to turn admiringly and give one a new pride

in the manhood of our nation. Hospitably he drew us out of the wind and

rain into his little hut, and sat us down beside the stove, cheerfully

informing us that, only the night before, the gale had blown his door in,

and his roof had started for the German lines. In a neighbouring hut,

reached by a duck board, we had lunch with him and his officers baked

beans and pickles, cakes and maple syrup. The American food, the

American jokes and voices in that environment seemed strange indeed! But

as we smoked and chatted about the friends we had in common, about

political events at home and the changes that were taking place there, it

seemed as if we were in America once more. The English officer listened

and smiled in sympathy, and he remarked, after our reluctant departure,

that America was an extraordinary land.

He directed our chauffeur to Bapaume, across that wilderness which the

Germans had so wantonly made in their retreat to the Hindenburg line.

Nothing could have been more dismal than our slow progress in the steady

rain, through the deserted streets of this town. Home after home had

been blasted--their intimate yet harrowing interiors were revealed. The

shops and cafes, which had been thoroughly looted, had their walls blown

out, but in many cases the signs of the vanished and homeless proprietors

still hung above the doors. I wondered how we should feel in New England

if such an outrage had been done to Boston, for instance, or little

Concord! The church, the great cathedral on its terrace, the bishop's

house, all dynamited, all cold and wet and filthy ruins! It was dismal,

indeed, but scarcely more dismal than that which followed; for at Bapaume

we were on the edge of the battle-field of the Somme. And I chanced to

remember that the name had first been indelibly impressed on my

consciousness at a comfortable breakfast-table at home, where I sat

looking out on a bright New England garden. In the headlines and columns

of my morning newspaper I had read again and again, during the summer of

1916, of Thiepval and La Boisselle, of Fricourt and Mametz and the Bois

des Trones. Then they had had a sinister but remote significance; now I

was to see them, or what was left of them!

As an appropriate and characteristic setting for the tragedy which had

happened here, the indigo afternoon could not have been better chosen.

Description fails to do justice to the abomination of desolation of that

vast battle-field in the rain, and the imagination, refuses to

reconstruct the scene of peace--the chateaux and happy villages, the

forests and pastures, that flourished here so brief a time ago. In my

fancy the long, low swells of land, like those of some dreary sea, were

for the moment the subsiding waves of the cataclysm that had rolled here

and extinguished all life. Beside the road only the blood-red soil

betrayed the sites of powdered villages; and through it, in every

direction, trenches had been cut. Between the trenches the earth was

torn and tortured, as though some sudden fossilizing process, in its

moment of supreme agony, had fixed it thus. On the hummocks were graves,

graves marked by wooden crosses, others by broken rifles thrust in the

ground. Shattered gun-carriages lay in the ditches, modern cannon that

had cost priceless hours of skilled labour; and once we were confronted

by one of those monsters, wounded to the death, I had seen that morning.

The sight of this huge, helpless thing oddly recalled the emotions I had

felt, as a child, when contemplating dead elephants in a battle picture

of the army of a Persian king.

Presently, like the peak of some submerged land, we saw lifted out of

that rolling waste the "Butt" of Warlencourt--the burial-mound of this

modern Marathon. It is honeycombed with dugouts in which the Germans who

clung to it found their graves, while the victorious British army swept

around it toward Bapaume. Everywhere along that road, which runs like an

arrow across the battle-field to Albert, were graves. Repetition seems

the only method of giving an adequate impression of their numbers; and

near what was once the village of Pozieres was the biggest grave of all,

a crater fifty feet deep and a hundred feet across. Seven months the

British sappers had toiled far below in the chalk, digging the passage

and chamber; and one summer dawn, like some tropical volcano, it had

burst directly under the German trench. Long we stood on the slippery

edge of it, gazing down at the tangled wire and litter of battle that

strewed the bottom, while the rain fell pitilessly. Just such rain, said

my officer-guide, as had drenched this country through the long winter

months of preparation. "We never got dry," he told me; and added with a

smile, in answer to my query: "Perhaps that was the reason we never

caught colds."

When we entered Albert, the starting point of the British advance, there

was just light enough to see the statue of the Virgin leaning far above

us over the street. The church-tower on which it had once stood erect

had been struck by a German shell, but its steel rod had bent and not

broken. Local superstition declares that when the Virgin of Albert falls

the war will be ended.

IV

I come home impressed with the fact that Britain has learned more from

this war than any other nation, and will probably gain more by that

knowledge. We are all wanting, of course, to know what we shall get out

of it, since it was forced upon us; and of course the only gain worth

considering--as many of those to whom its coming has brought home the

first glimmerings of social science are beginning to see--is precisely a

newly acquired vision of the art of self-government. It has been

unfortunately necessary--or perhaps fortunately necessary--for the great

democracies to turn their energies and resources and the inventive

ingenuity of their citizens to the organization of armies and indeed of

entire populations to the purpose of killing enough Germans to remove

democracy's exterior menace. The price we pay in human life is

appallingly unfortunate. But the necessity for national organization

socializes the nation capable of it; or, to put the matter more truly,

if the socializing process had anticipated the war--as it had in Great

Britain--the ability to complete it under stress is the test of a

democratic nation; and hence the test of democracy, since the socializing

process becomes international. Britain has stood the test, even from the

old-fashioned militarist point of view, since it is apparent that no

democracy can wage a sustained great war unless it is socialized. After

the war she will probably lead all other countries in a sane and

scientific liberalization. The encouraging fact is that not in spite of

her liberalism, but because of it, she has met military Germany on her

own ground and, to use a vigorous expression, gone her one better. In

1914, as armies go today, the British Army was a mere handful of men

whose officers belonged to a military caste. Brave men and brave

officers, indeed! But at present it is a war organization of an

excellence which the Germans never surpassed. I have no space to enter

into a description of the amazing system, of the network of arteries

converging at the channel ports and spreading out until it feeds and

clothes every man of those millions, furnishes him with newspapers and

tobacco, and gives him the greatest contentment compatible with the

conditions under which he has to live. The number of shells flung at the

enemy is only limited by the lives of the guns that fire them. I should

like to tell with what swiftness, under the stress of battle, the wounded

are hurried back to the coast and even to England itself. I may not

state the thousands carried on leave every day across the channel and

back again--in spite of submarines. But I went one day through Saint

Omer, with its beautiful church and little blue chateau, past the

rest-camps of the big regiments of guards to a seaport on the downs,

formerly a quiet little French town, transformed now into an ordered

Babel. The term is paradoxical, but I let it stand. English, Irish, and

Scotch from the British Isles and the ends of the earth mingle there with

Indians, Egyptians, and the chattering Mongolians in queer fur caps who

work in the bakeries.

I went through one of these bakeries, almost as large as an automobile

factory, fragrant with the aroma of two hundred thousand loaves of bread.

This bakery alone sends every day to the trenches two hundred thousand

loaves made from the wheat of western Canada! Of all sights to be seen

in this place, however, the reclamation "plant" is the most wonderful.

It covers acres. Everything which is broken in war, from a pair of

officer's field-glasses to a nine-inch howitzer carriage is mended here

--if it can be mended. Here, when a battle-field is cleared, every article

that can possibly be used again is brought; and the manager pointed with

pride to the furnaces in his power-house, which formerly burned coal and

now are fed with refuse--broken wheels of gun-carriages, sawdust, and

even old shoes. Hundreds of French girls and even German prisoners are

resoling and patching shoes with the aid of American machinery, and even

the uppers of such as are otherwise hopeless are cut in spirals into

laces. Tunics, breeches, and overcoats are mended by tailors; rusty camp

cookers are retinned, and in the foundries the precious scraps of cast

iron are melted into braziers to keep Tommy in the trenches warm. In the

machine-shops the injured guns and cannon are repaired. German prisoners

are working there, too. At a distance, in their homely grey tunics, with

their bullet-shaped heads close-cropped and the hairs standing out like

the needles of a cylinder of a music-box, they had the appearance of hard

citizens who had become rather sullen convicts. Some wore spectacles. A

closer view revealed that most of them were contented, and some actually

cheerful. None, indeed, seemed more cheerful than a recently captured

group I saw later, who were actually building the barbed-wire fence that

was to confine them.

My last visit in this town was to the tiny but on a "corner lot," in

which the Duchess of Sutherland has lived now for some years. As we had

tea she told me she was going on a fortnight's leave to England; and no

Tommy in the trenches could have been more excited over the prospect.

Her own hospital, which occupies the rest of the lot, is one of those

marvels which individual initiative and a strong social sense such as

hers has produced in this war. Special enterprise was required to save

such desperate cases as are made a specialty of here, and all that

medical and surgical science can do has been concentrated, with

extraordinary success, on the shattered men who are brought to her wards.

That most of the horrible fractures I saw are healed, and healed quickly

--thanks largely to the drainage system of our own Doctor Carrel--is not

the least of the wonders of the remarkable times in which we live.

The next day, Sunday, I left for Paris, bidding farewell regretfully to

the last of my British-officer hosts. He seemed like an old, old friend

--though I had known him but a few days. I can see him now as he waved

me a good-bye from the platform in his Glengarry cap and short tunic and

plaid trousers. He is the owner of a castle and some seventy square

miles of land in Scotland alone. For the comfort of his nation's guests,

he toils like a hired courier.

PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

American religion as set forth by William James

Be useful!

Privilege of making blunders

Rising every time you fall (Confucius on greatness)

Sentimentalism, ignorance, close-mindedness, and cant

The English do not advertise their sorrows

AN ESSAY ON THE AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION AND THE DEMOCRATIC IDEA

By Winston Churchill

Failure to recognize that the American, is at heart an idealist is to

lack understanding of our national character. Two of our greatest

interpreters proclaimed it, Emerson and William James. In a recent

address at the Paris Sorbonne on "American Idealism," M. Firmin Roz

observed that a people is rarely justly estimated by its contemporaries.

The French, he says, have been celebrated chiefly for the skill of their

chefs and their vaudeville actors, while in the disturbed 'speculum

mundi' Americans have appeared as a collection of money grabbers whose

philosophy is the dollar. It remained for the war to reveal the true

nature of both peoples. The American colonists, M. Roz continues, unlike

other colonists, were animated not by material motives, but by the desire

to safeguard and realize an ideal; our inherent characteristic today is a

belief in the virtue and power of ideas, of a national, indeed, of a

universal, mission. In the Eighteenth Century we proposed a Philosophy

and adopted a Constitution far in advance of the political practice of

the day, and set up a government of which Europe predicted the early

downfall. Nevertheless, thanks partly to good fortune, and to the

farseeing wisdom of our early statesmen who perceived that the success

of our experiment depended upon the maintenance of an isolation from

European affairs, we established democracy as a practical form of

government.

We have not always lived up to our beliefs in ideas. In our dealings

with other nations, we yielded often to imperialistic ambitions and thus,

to a certain extent, justified the cynicism of Europe. We took what we

wanted--and more. From Spain we seized western Florida; the annexation

of Texas and the subsequent war with Mexico are acts upon which we cannot

look back with unmixed democratic pride; while more than once we

professed a naive willingness to fight England in order to push our

boundaries further north. We regarded the Monroe Doctrine as altruistic,

while others smiled. But it suited England, and her sea power gave it

force.

Our war with Spain in 1898, however, was fought for an idea, and,

despite the imperialistic impulse that followed it, marks a transition,

an advance, in international ethics. Imperialistic cynics were not

lacking to scoff at our protestation that we were fighting Spain in order

to liberate Cuba; and yet this, for the American people at large, was

undoubtedly the inspiration of the war. We kept our promise, we did not

annex Cuba, we introduced into international affairs what is known as the

Big Brother idea. Then came the Platt Amendment. Cuba was free, but she

must not wallow near our shores in an unhygienic state, or borrow money

without our consent. We acquired valuable naval bases. Moreover, the

sudden and unexpected acquisition of Porto Rico and the Philippines made

us imperialists in spite of ourselves.

Nations as well as individuals, however, must be judged by their

intentions. The sound public opinion of our people has undoubtedly

remained in favour of ultimate self-government for the Philippines, and

the greatest measure of self-determination for little Porto Rico; it has

been unquestionably opposed to commercial exploitation of the islands,

desirous of yielding to these peoples the fruits of their labour in

developing the resources of their own lands. An intention, by the way,

diametrically different from that of Germany. In regard to our

protectorate in the island of San Domingo, our "semi-protectorate" in

Nicaragua, the same argument of intention may fairly be urged. Germany,

who desired them, would have exploited them. To a certain extent, no

doubt, as a result of the momentum of commercial imperialism, we are

still exploiting them. But the attitude of the majority of Americans

toward more backward peoples is not cynical; hence there is hope that a

democratic solution of the Caribbean and Central American problem may be

found. And we are not ready, as yet, to accept without further

experiment the dogma that tropical and sub-tropical people will not

ultimately be able to govern themselves. If this eventually, prove to be

the case at least some such experiment as the new British Labour Party

has proposed for the Empire may be tried. Our general theory that the

exploitation of foreign peoples reacts unfavourably on the exploiters is

undoubtedly sound.

Nor are the ethics of the manner of our acquisition of a part of Panama

and the Canal wholly defensible from the point of view of international

democracy. Yet it must be remembered that President Roosevelt was

dealing with a corrupt, irresponsible, and hostile government, and that

the Canal had become a necessity not only for our own development, but

for that of the civilization of the world.

The Spanish War, as has been said, marked a transition, a development of

the American Idea. In obedience to a growing perception that dominion

and exploitation are incompatible with and detrimental to our system of

government, we fought in good faith to gain self-determination for an

alien people. The only real peril confronting democracy is the arrest

of growth. Its true conquests are in the realms of ideas, and hence it

calls for a statesmanship which, while not breaking with the past, while

taking into account the inherent nature of a people, is able to deal

creatively with new situations--always under the guidance of current

social science.

Woodrow Wilson's Mexican policy, being a projection of the American Idea

to foreign affairs, a step toward international democracy, marks the

beginning of a new era. Though not wholly understood, though opposed by

a powerful minority of our citizens, it stirred the consciousness of a

national mission to which our people are invariably ready to respond.

Since it was essentially experimental, and therefore not lacking in

mistakes, there was ample opportunity for a criticism that seemed at

times extremely plausible. The old and tried method of dealing with such

anarchy as existed across our southern border was made to seem the safe

one; while the new, because it was untried, was presented as disastrous.

In reality, the reverse was the case.

Mr. Wilson's opponents were, generally speaking, the commercial classes

in the community, whose environment and training led them to demand a

foreign policy similar to that of other great powers, a financial

imperialism which is the logical counterpart in foreign affairs of the

commercial exploitation of domestic national resources and domestic

labour. These were the classes which combated the growth of democracy at

home, in national and state politics. From their point of view--not that

of the larger vision--they were consistent. On the other hand, the

nation grasped the fact that to have one brand of democracy at home and

another for dealing with foreign nations was not only illogical but, in

the long run, would be suicidal to the Republic. And the people at large

were committed to democratic progress at home. They were struggling for

it.

One of the most important issues of the American liberal movement early

in this century had been that for the conservation of what remains of our

natural resources of coal and metals and oil and timber and waterpower

for the benefit of all the people, on the theory that these are the

property of the people. But if the natural resources of this country

belong to the people of the United States, those of Mexico belong to the

people of Mexico. It makes no difference how "lazy," ignorant, and

indifferent to their own interests the Mexicans at present may be. And

even more important in these liberal campaigns was the issue of the

conservation of human resources--men and women and children who are

forced by necessity to labour. These must be protected in health, given

economic freedom and a just reward for their toil. The American

democracy, committed to the principle of the conservation of domestic

natural and human resources, could not without detriment to itself

persist in a foreign policy that ignored them. For many years our own

government had permitted the squandering of these resources by

adventurous capitalists; and gradually, as we became a rich industrial

nation, these capitalists sought profitable investments for their

increasing surplus in foreign lands. Their manner of acquiring

"concessions" in Mexico was quite similar to that by which they had

seized because of the indifference and ignorance of our own people--our

own mines and timber lands which our government held in trust. Sometimes

these American "concessions" have been valid in law though the law itself

violated a democratic principle; more often corrupt officials winked at

violations of the law, enabling capitalists to absorb bogus claims.

The various rulers of Mexico sold to American and other foreign

capitalists the resources belonging to the people of their country, and

pocketed, with their followers, the proceeds of the sale. Their control

of the country rested upon force; the stability of the Diaz rule, for

instance, depended upon the "President's" ability to maintain his

dictatorship--a precarious guarantee to the titles he had given. Hence

the premium on revolutions. There was always the incentive to the

upstart political and military buccaneer to overthrow the dictator and

gain possession of the spoils, to sell new doubtful concessions and levy

new tribute on the capitalists holding claims from a former tyrant.

The foreign capitalists appealed to their governments; commercial

imperialism responded by dispatching military forces to protect the lives

and "property" of its citizens, in some instances going so far as to take

possession of the country. A classic case, as cited by Hobson, is

Britain's South African War, in which the blood and treasure of the

people of the United Kingdom were expended because British capitalists

had found the Boers recalcitrant, bent on retaining their own country for

themselves. To be sure, South Africa, like Mexico is rich in resources

for which advancing civilization continually makes demands. And, in the

case of Mexico, the products of the tropics, such as rubber, are

increasingly necessary to the industrial powers of the temperate zone.

On the other hand, if the exploiting nation aspire to self-government,

the imperialistic method of obtaining these products by the selfish

exploitation of the natural and human resources of the backward countries

reacts so powerfully on the growth of democracy at home--and hence on the

growth of democracy throughout the world--as to threaten the very future

of civilization. The British Liberals, when they came into power,

perceived this, and at once did their best to make amends to South Africa

by granting her autonomy and virtual independence, linking her to Britain

by the silken thread of Anglo-Saxon democratic culture. How strong this

thread has proved is shown by the action of those of Dutch blood in the

Dominion during the present war.

Eventually, if democracy is not to perish from the face of the earth,

some other than the crude imperialistic method of dealing with backward

peoples, of obtaining for civilization the needed resources of their

lands, must be inaugurated--a democratic method. And this is perhaps the

supreme problem of democracy today. It demands for its solution a

complete reversal of the established policy of imperialism, a new theory

of international relationships, a mutual helpfulness and partnership

between nations, even as democracy implies cooperation between individual

citizens. Therefore President Wilson laid down the doctrine that

American citizens enter Mexico at their own risk; that they must not

expert that American blood will be shed or the nation's money be expended

to protect their lives or the "property" they have acquired from Mexican

dictators. This applies also to the small capitalists, the owners of the

coffee plantations, as well as to those Americans in Mexico who are not

capitalists but wage earners. The people of Mexico are entitled to try

the experiment of self-determination. It is an experiment, we frankly

acknowledge that fact, a democratic experiment dependent on physical

science, social science, and scientific education. The other horn of the

dilemma, our persistence in imperialism, is even worse--since by such

persistence we destroy ourselves.

A subjective judgment, in accordance with our own democratic standards,

by the American Government as to the methods employed by a Huerta, for

instance, is indeed demanded; not on the ground, however, that such

methods are "good" or "bad"; but whether they are detrimental to Mexican

self-determination, and hence to the progress of our own democracy.

II

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

1881 was indeed the name 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.

III

In fighting Germany we are indeed fighting an evil Will--evil because it

seeks to crush the growth of individual and national freedom. Its object

is to put the world back under the thrall of self-constituted authority.

So long as this Will can compel the bodies of soldiers to do its bidding,

these bodies must be destroyed. Until the Will behind them is broken,

the world cannot be free. Junkerism is the final expression of reaction,

organized to the highest efficiency. The war against the Junkers marks

the consummation of a long struggle for human liberty in all lands,

symbolizes the real cleavage dividing the world. As in the French

Revolution and the wars that followed it, the true significance of this

war is social. But today the Russian Revolution sounds the keynote.

Revolutions tend to express the extremes of the philosophies of their

times--human desires, discontents, and passions that cannot be organized.

The French Revolution was a struggle for political freedom; the

underlying issue of the present war is economic freedom--without which

political freedom is of no account. It will not, therefore, suffice

merely to crush the Junkers, and with them militarism and autocracy.

Unless, as the fruit of this appalling bloodshed and suffering, the

democracies achieve economic freedom, the war will have been fought in

vain. More revolutions, wastage and bloodshed will follow, the world

will be reduced to absolute chaos unless, in the more advanced

democracies, an intelligent social order tending to remove the causes

of injustice and discontent can be devised and ready for inauguration.

This new social order depends, in turn, upon a world order of mutually

helpful, free peoples, a league of Nations.--If the world is to be made

safe for democracy, this democratic plan must be ready for the day when

the German Junker is beaten and peace is declared.

The real issue of our time is industrial democracy we must face that

fact. And those in America and the Entente nations who continue to

oppose it will do so at their peril. Fortunately, as will be shown, that

element of our population which may be designated as domestic Junkers is

capable of being influenced by contemporary currents of thought, is

awakening to the realization of social conditions deplorable and

dangerous. Prosperity and power had made them blind and arrogant. Their

enthusiasm for the war was, however, genuine; the sacrifices they are

making are changing and softening them; but as yet they can scarcely be

expected, as a class, to rejoice over the revelation--just beginning to

dawn upon their minds--that victory for the Allies spells the end of

privilege. Their conception of democracy remains archaic, while wealth

is inherently conservative. Those who possess it in America have as a

rule received an education in terms of an obsolete economics, of the

thought of an age gone by. It is only within the past few years that our

colleges and universities have begun to teach modern economics, social

science and psychology--and this in the face of opposition from trustees.

Successful business men, as a rule, have had neither the time nor the

inclination to read books which they regard as visionary, as subversive

to an order by which they have profited. And that some Americans are

fools, and have been dazzled in Europe by the glamour of a privilege not

attainable at home, is a deplorable yet indubitable fact. These have

little sympathy with democracy; they have even been heard to declare that

we have no right to dictate to another nation, even an enemy nation, what

form of government it shall assume. We have no right to demand, when

peace comes, that the negotiations must be with the representatives of

the German people. These are they who deplore the absence among us of a

tradition of monarchy, since the American people "should have something

to look up to." But this state of mind, which needs no comment, is

comparatively rare, and represents an extreme. We are not lacking,

however, in the type of conservative who, innocent of a knowledge of

psychology, insists that "human nature cannot be changed," and that the

"survival of the fittest" is the law of life, yet these would deny Darwin

if he were a contemporary. They reject the idea that society can be

organized by intelligence, and war ended by eliminating its causes from

the social order. On the contrary they cling to the orthodox contention

that war is a necessary and salutary thing, and proclaim that the

American fibre was growing weak and flabby from luxury and peace,

curiously ignoring the fact that their own economic class, the small

percentage of our population owning sixty per cent. of the wealth of the

country, and which therefore should be most debilitated by luxury, was

most eager for war, and since war has been declared has most amply proved

its courage and fighting quality. This, however, and other evidences of

the patriotic sacrifices of those of our countrymen who possess wealth,

prove that they are still Americans, and encourages the hope and belief

that as Americans they ultimately will do their share toward a democratic

solution of the problem of society. Many of them are capable of vision,

and are beginning to see the light today.

In America we succeeded in eliminating hereditary power, in obtaining a

large measure of political liberty, only to see the rise of an economic

power, and the consequent loss of economic liberty. The industrial

development of the United States was of course a necessary and desirable

thing, but the economic doctrine which formed the basis of American

institutions proved to be unsuited to industrialism, and introduced

unforeseen evils that were a serious menace to the Republic. An

individualistic economic philosophy worked admirably while there was

ample land for the pioneer, equality of opportunity to satisfy the

individual initiative of the enterprising. But what is known as

industrialism brought in its train fear and favour, privilege and

poverty, slums, disease, and municipal vice, fostered a too rapid

immigration, established in America a tenant system alien to our

traditions. The conditions which existed before the advent of

industrialism are admirably pictured, for instance, in the autobiography

of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, when he describes his native town of Quincy

in the first half of the Nineteenth Century. In those early communities,

poverty was negligible, there was no great contrast between rich and

poor; the artisan, the farmer, the well-to-do merchant met on terms of

mutual self-respect, as man to man; economic class consciousness was

non-existent; education was so widespread that European travellers

wonderingly commented on the fact that we had no "peasantry"; and with

few exceptions every citizen owned a piece of land and a home. Property,

a refuge a man may call his own, and on which he may express his

individuality, is essential to happiness and self-respect. Today, less

than two thirds of our farmers own their land, while vast numbers of our

working men and women possess nothing but the labour of their hands. The

designation of labour as "property" by our courts only served to tighten

the bonds, by obstructing for a time the movement to decrease the tedious

and debilitating hours of contact of the human organism with the

machine,--a menace to the future of the race, especially in the case

of women and children. If labour is "property," wretches driven by

economic necessity have indeed only the choice of a change of masters.

In addition to the manual workers, an army of clerical workers of both

sexes likewise became tenants, and dependents who knew not the

satisfaction of a real home.

Such conditions gradually brought about a profound discontent, a grouping

of classes. Among the comparatively prosperous there was set up a social

competition in luxury that was the bane of large and small communities.

Skilled labour banded itself into unions, employers organized to oppose

them, and the result was a class conflict never contemplated by the

founders of the Republic, repugnant to democracy which by its very nature

depends for its existence on the elimination of classes. In addition to

this, owing to the unprecedented immigration of ignorant Europeans to

supply the labour demand, we acquired a sinister proletariat of unskilled

economic slaves. Before the war labour discovered its strength; since

the war began, especially in the allied nations with quasi-democratic

institutions, it is aware of its power to exert a leverage capable of

paralyzing industry for a period sufficient to destroy the chances of

victory. The probability of the occurrence of such a calamity depends

wholly on whether or not the workman can be convinced that it is his war,

for he will not exert himself to perpetuate a social order in which he

has lost faith, even though he now obtains a considerable increase in

wages. Agreements entered into with the government by union leaders will

not hold him if at any time he fails to be satisfied that the present

world conflict will not result in a greater social justice. This fact

has been demonstrated by what is known as the "shop steward" movement in

England, where the workers repudiated the leaders' agreements and

everywhere organized local strikes. And in America, the unskilled

workers are largely outside of the unions.

The workman has a natural and laudable desire to share more fully in the

good things of life. And it is coming to be recognized that material

prosperity, up to a certain point, is the foundation of mental and

spiritual welfare: clean and comfortable surroundings, beauty, rational

amusements, opportunity for a rational satisfaction of, the human.

instincts are essential to contentment and progress. The individual, of

course, must be enlightened; and local labour unions, recognizing this,

are spending considerable sums all over the country on schools to educate

their members. If a workman is a profiteer, he is more to be excused

than the business profiteer, against whom his anger is directed; if he is

a spendthrift, prodigality is a natural consequence of rapid acquisition.

We have been a nation of spendthrifts.

A failure to grasp the psychology of the worker involves disastrous

consequences. A discussion as to whether or not his attitude is

unpatriotic and selfish is futile. No more profound mistake could be

made than to attribute to any element of the population motives wholly

base. Human nature is neither all black nor all white, yet is capable of

supreme sacrifices when adequately appealed to. What we must get into

our minds is the fact that a social order that insured a large measure of

democracy in the early days of the Republic is inadequate to meet modern

industrial conditions. Higher wages, material prosperity alone will not

suffice to satisfy aspirations for a fuller self-realization, once the

method by which these aspirations can be gained is glimpsed. For it

cannot be too often repeated that the unquenchable conflicts are those

waged for ideas and not dollars. These are tinged with religious

emotion.

IV

Mr. Wilson's messages to the American people and to the world have

proclaimed a new international order, a League of Democracies. And in a

recent letter to New Jersey Democrats we find him warning his party, or

more properly the nation, of the domestic social changes necessarily

flowing from his international program. While rightly resolved to

prosecute the war on the battle lines to the utmost limit of American

resources, he points out that the true significance of the conflict lies

in "revolutionary change." "Economic and social forces," he says, "are

being released upon the world, whose effect no political seer dare to

conjecture." And we "must search our hearts through and through and make

them ready for the birth of a new day--a day we hope and believe of

greater opportunity and greater prosperity for the average mass of

struggling men and women." He recognizes that the next great step in

the development of democracy which the war must bring about--is the

emancipation of labour; to use his own phrase, the redemption of masses

of men and women from "economic serfdom." "The old party slogans," he

declares, "will mean nothing to the future."

Judging from this announcement, the President seems prepared to condemn

boldly all the rotten timbers of the social structure that have outlived

their usefulness--a position that hitherto no responsible politician has

dared to take. Politicians, on the contrary, have revered the dead wood,

have sought to shore the old timbers for their own purposes. But so far

as any party is concerned, Mr. Wilson stands alone. Both of the two

great parties, the Republican and the Democratic, in order to make a show

of keeping abreast of the times, have merely patched their platforms with

the new ideas. The Socialist Party in the United States is relatively

small, is divided against itself, and has given no evidence of a

leadership of broad sanity and vision. It is fortunate we have been

spared in this country the formation of a political labour party, because

such a party would have been composed of manual workers alone, and hence

would have tended further to develop economic class consciousness, to

crystallize class antagonisms. Today, however, neither the Republican

nor the Democratic party represents the great issue of the times; the

cleavage between them is wholly artificial. The formation of a Liberal

Party, with a platform avowedly based on modern social science, has

become essential. Such a party, to be in harmony with our traditions and

our creed, to arrest in our democracy the process of class stratification

which threatens to destroy it, must not draw its members from the ranks

of manual labour alone, but from all elements of our population. It

should contain all the liberal professions, and clerks and shopkeepers,

as well as manual workers; administrators, and even those employers who

have become convinced that our present economic system does not suffice

to meet the needs of the day. In short, membership in such a party, as

far as possible, should not be based upon occupation or economic status,

but on an honest difference of view from that of the conservative

opposition. This would be a distinctly American solution. In order to

form such a party a campaign of education will be necessary. For today

Mr. Wilson's strength is derived from the independent vote representing

the faith of the people as a whole; but the majority of those who support

the President, while they ardently desire the abolition in the world of

absolute monarchy, of militarism and commercial imperialism, while they

are anxious that this war shall expedite and not retard the social

reforms in which they are interested, have as yet but a vague conception

of the social order which these reforms imply.

It marks a signal advance in democracy when liberal opinion in any

nation turns for guidance and support to a statesman of another nation.

No clearer sign of the times could be desired than the fact that our

American President has suddenly become the liberal leader of the world.

The traveller in France, and especially in Britain, meets on all sides

striking evidence of this. In these countries, until America's entrance

into the war, liberals had grown more and more dissatisfied with the

failure of their governments to define in democratic terms the issue of

the conflict, had resented the secret inter-allied compacts, savouring of

imperialism and containing the germs of future war. They are now looking

across the Atlantic for leadership. In France M. Albert Thomas declared

that Woodrow Wilson had given voice to the aspirations of his party,

while a prominent Liberal in England announced in a speech that it had

remained for the American President to express the will and purpose of

the British people. The new British Labour Party and the Inter-Allied

Labour and Socialist Conferences have adopted Mr. Wilson's program and

have made use of his striking phrases. But we have between America and

Britain this difference: in America the President stands virtually alone,

without a party behind him representing his views; in Britain the general

democratic will of the nation is now being organized, but has obtained as

yet no spokesman in the government.

Extraordinary symptomatic phenomena have occurred in Russia as well as in

Britain. In Russia the rebellion of an awakening people against an

age-long tyranny has almost at once leaped to the issue of the day, taken

on the complexion of a struggle for industrial democracy. Whether the

Germans shall be able to exploit the country, bring about a reaction and

restore for a time monarchical institutions depends largely upon the

fortunes of the war. In Russia there is revolution, with concomitant

chaos; but in Britain there is evolution, an orderly attempt of a people

long accustomed to progress in self-government to establish a new social

order, peacefully and scientifically, and in accordance with a

traditional political procedure.

The recent development of the British Labour Party, although of deep

significance to Americans, has taken place almost without comment in this

country. It was formally established in 1900, and was then composed of

manual workers alone. In 1906, out of 50 candidates at the polls, 39

were elected to Parliament; in 1910, 42 were elected. The Parliamentary

Labour Party, so called, has now been amalgamated with four and a half

millions of Trade Unionists, and with the three and a half millions of

members of the Co-operative Wholesale Society and the Co-operative Union.

Allowing for duplication of membership, these three organizations

--according to Mr. Sidney Webb--probably include two fifths of the

population of the United Kingdom. "So great an aggregation of working

class organizations," he says, "has never come shoulder to shoulder in

any country." Other smaller societies and organizations are likewise

embraced, including the Socialists. And now that the suffrage has been

extended, provision is made for the inclusion of women. The new party is

organizing in from three to four hundred constituencies, and at the next

general election is not unlikely to gain control of the political balance

of power.

With the majority of Americans, however, the word "labour" as designating

a party arouses suspicion and distrust. By nature and tradition we are

inclined to deplore and oppose any tendency toward the stratification of

class antagonisms--the result of industrial discontent--into political

groups. The British tradition is likewise hostile to such a tendency.

But in Britain the industrial ferment has gone much further than with us,

and such a result was inevitable. By taking advantage of the British

experience, of the closer ties now being knit between the two

democracies, we may in America be spared a stage which in Britain was

necessary. Indeed, the program of the new British Labour Party seems to

point to a distinctly American solution, one in harmony with the steady

growth of Anglo-Saxon democracy. For it is now announced that the word

"labour," as applied to the new party, does not mean manual labour alone,

but also mental labour. The British unions have gradually developed and

placed in power leaders educated in social science, who have now come

into touch with the intellectual leaders of the United Kingdom, with the

sociologists, economists, and social scientists. The surprising and

encouraging result of such association is the announcement that the new

Labour Party is today publicly thrown open to all workers, both by hand

and by brain, with the object of securing for these the full fruits of

their industry. This means the inclusion of physicians, professors,

writers, architects, engineers, and inventors, of lawyers who no longer

regard their profession as a bulwark of the status quo; of clerks, of

administrators of the type evolved by the war, who indeed have gained

their skill under the old order but who now in a social spirit are

dedicating their gifts to the common weal, organizing and directing vast

enterprises for their governments. In short, all useful citizens who

make worthy contributions--as distinguished from parasites, profiteers,

and drones, are invited to be members; there is no class distinction

here. The fortunes of such a party are, of course, dependent upon the

military success of the allied armies and navies. But it has defined the

kind of democracy the Allies are fighting for, and thus has brought about

an unqualified endorsement of the war by those elements of the population

which hitherto have felt the issue to be imperialistic and vague rather

than democratic and clear cut. President Wilson's international program

is approved of and elaborated.

The Report on Reconstruction of the new British Labour Party is perhaps

the most important political document presented to the world since the

Declaration of Independence. And like the Declaration, it is written in

the pure English that alone gives the high emotional quality of

sincerity. The phrases in which it tersely describes its objects are

admirable. "What is to be reconstructed after the war is over is not

this or that government department, this or that piece of social

machinery, but Society itself." There is to be a systematic approach

towards a "healthy equality of material circumstance for every person

born into the world, and not an enforced dominion over subject nations,

subject colonies, subject classes, or a subject sex." In industry as

well as in government the social order is to be based "on that equal

freedom, that general consciousness of consent, and that widest

participation in power, both economic and political, which is

characteristic of democracy." But all this, it should be noted, is not

to be achieved in a year or two of "feverish reconstruction"; "each brick

that the Labour Party helps to lay shall go to erect the structure it

intends and no other."

In considering the main features of this program, one must have in mind

whether these are a logical projection and continuation of the

Anglo-Saxon democratic tradition, or whether they constitute an absolute

break with that tradition. The only valid reason for the adoption of

such a program in America would be, of course, the restoration of some

such equality of opportunity and economic freedom as existed in our

Republic before we became an industrial nation. "The first condition of

democracy,"--to quote again from the program, "is effective personal

freedom."

What is called the "Universal Enforcement of the National Minimum"

contemplates the extension of laws already on the statute books in order

to prevent the extreme degradation of the standard of life brought about

by the old economic system under industrialism. A living minimum wage is

to be established. The British Labour Party intends "to secure to every

member of the community, in good times and bad alike . . . all the

requisites of healthy life and worthy citizenship."

After the war there is to be no cheap labour market, nor are the millions

of workers and soldiers to fall into the clutches of charity; but it

shall be a national obligation to provide each of these with work

according to his capacity. In order to maintain the demand for labour

at a uniform level, the government is to provide public works. The

population is to be rehoused in suitable dwellings, both in rural

districts and town slums; new and more adequate schools and training

colleges are to be inaugurated; land is to be reclaimed and afforested,

and gradually brought under common ownership; railways and canals are to

be reorganized and nationalized, mines and electric power systems. One

of the significant proposals under this head is that which demands the

retention of the centralization of the purchase of raw materials brought

about by the war.

In order to accomplish these objects there must be a "Revolution in

National Finance." The present method of raising funds is denounced; and

it is pointed out that only one quarter of the colossal expenditure made

necessary by the war has been raised by taxation, and that the three

quarters borrowed at onerous rates is sure to be a burden on the nation's

future. The capital needed, when peace comes, to ensure a happy and

contented democracy must be procured without encroaching on the minimum

standard of life, and without hampering production. Indirect taxation

must therefore be concentrated on those luxuries of which it is desirable

that the consumption be discouraged. The steadily rising unearned

increment of urban and mineral land ought, by appropriate direct

taxation, to be brought into the public exchequer; "the definite

teachings of economic science are no longer to be disregarded." Hence

incomes are to be taxed above the necessary cost of family maintenance,

private fortunes during life and at death; while a special capital levy

must be made to pay off a substantial portion of the national debt.

"The Democratic Control of Industry" contemplates the progressive

elimination of the private capitalist and the setting free of all who

work by hand and brain for the welfare of all.

The Surplus Wealth is to be expended for the Common Good. That which

Carlyle designates as the "inward spiritual," in contrast to the "outward

economical," is also to be provided for. "Society," says the document,

"like the individual, does not live by bread alone, does not exist only

for perpetual wealth production." First of all, there is to be education

according to the highest modern standard; and along with education, the

protection and advancement of the public health, 'mens sana in corpore

sano'. While large sums must be set aside, not only for original

research in every branch of knowledge, but for the promotion of music,

literature, and fine art, upon which "any real development of

civilization fundamentally depends."

In regard to the British Empire, the Labour Party urges self-government

for any people, whatever its colour, proving itself capable, and the

right of that people to the proceeds of its own toil upon the resources

of its territory. An unequivocal stand is taken for the establishment,

as a part of the treaty of peace, of a Universal Society of Nations;

and recognizing that the future progress of democracy depends upon

co-operation and fellowship between liberals of all countries, the

maintenance of intimate relationships is advocated with liberals oversea.

Finally, a scientific investigation of each succeeding problem in

government is insisted upon, and a much more rapid dissemination among

the people of the science that exists. "A plutocratic party may choose

to ignore science, but no labour party can hope to maintain its position

unless its proposals are, in fact, the outcome of the best political

science of its time."

V

There are, it will be seen, some elements in the program of the new

British Labour Party apparently at variance with American and English

institutions, traditions, and ideas. We are left in doubt, for instance,

in regard to its attitude toward private property. The instinct for

property is probably innate in humanity, and American conservatism in

this regard is, according to certain modern economists, undoubtedly

sound. A man should be permitted to acquire at least as much property

as is required for the expression of his personality; such a wise

limitation, also, would abolish the evil known as absentee ownership.

Again, there will arise in many minds the question whether the funds for

the plan of National finance outlined in the program may be obtained

without seriously deranging the economic system of the nation and of the

world. The older school denounces the program as Utopian. On the other

hand, economists of the modern school who have been consulted have

declared it practical. It is certain that before the war began it would

not have been thought possible to raise the billions which in four years

have been expended on sheer destruction; and one of our saddest

reflections today must be of regret that a small portion of these

billions which have gone to waste could not have been expended for the

very purposes outlined--education, public health, the advancement of

science and art, public buildings, roads and parks, and the proper

housing of populations! It is also dawning upon us, as a result of new

practices brought about by the war, that our organization of industry was

happy-go-lucky, inefficient and wasteful, and that a more scientific and

economical organization is imperative. Under such a new system it may

well be, as modern economists claim, that, we shall have an ample surplus

for the Common Good.

The chief objection to a National or Democratic Control of Industry has

been that it would tend to create vast political machines and thus give

the politicians in office a nefarious power. It is not intended here to

attempt a refutation of this contention. The remedy lies in a changed

attitude of the employee and the citizen toward government, and the fact

that such an attitude is now developing is not subject to absolute proof.

It may be said, however, that no greater menace to democracy could have

arisen than the one we seem barely to have escaped--the control of

politics and government by the capitalistic interests of the nation.

What seems very clear is that an evolutionary drift toward the national

control of industry has for many years been going on, and that the war

has tremendously speeded up the tendency. Government has stepped in to

protect the consumer of necessities from the profiteer, and is beginning

to set a limit upon profits; has regulated exports and imports;

established a national shipping corporation and merchant marine, and

entered into other industries; it has taken over the railroads at least

for the duration of the war, and may take over coal mines, and metal

resources, as well as the forests and water power; it now contemplates

the regulation of wages.

The exigency caused by the war, moreover, has transformed the former

practice of international intercourse. Co-operation has replaced

competition. We are reorganizing and regulating our industries, our

business, making sacrifices and preparing to make more sacrifices in

order to meet the needs of our Allies, now that they are sore beset.

For a considerable period after the war is ended, they will require our

aid. We shall be better off than any other of the belligerent nations,

and we shall therefore be called upon to practice, during the years of

reconstruction, a continuation of the same policy of helpfulness.

Indeed, for the nations of the world to spring, commercially speaking,

at one another's throats would be suicidal even if it were possible.

Mr. Sidney Webb has thrown a flood of light upon the conditions likely

to prevail. For example, speculative export trade is being replaced by

collective importing, bringing business more directly under the control

of the consumer. This has been done by co-operative societies, by

municipalities and states, in Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom,

and in Germany. The Co-operative Wholesale Society of Great Britain,

acting on behalf of three and a half million families, buys two and a

half million dollars of purchases annually. And the Entente nations, in

order to avoid competitive bidding, are buying collectively from us, not

only munitions of war, but other supplies, while the British Government

has made itself the sole importer of such necessities as wheat, sugar,

tea, refrigerated meat, wool, and various metals. The French and Italian

governments, and also certain neutral states, have done likewise. A

purchasing commission for all the Allies and America is now proposed.

After the war, as an inevitable result, for one thing, of transforming

some thirty million citizens into soldiers, of engaging a like number of

men and women at enhanced wages on the manufacture of the requisites of

war, Mr. Webb predicts a world shortage not only in wheat and foodstuffs

but in nearly all important raw materials. These will be required for

the resumption of manufacture. In brief, international co-operation will

be the only means of salvation. The policy of international trade

implied by world shortage is not founded upon a law of "supply and

demand." The necessities cannot be permitted to go to those who can

afford to pay the highest prices, but to those who need them most. For

the "free play of economic forces" would mean famine on a large scale,

because the richer nations and the richer classes within the nations

might be fully supplied; but to the detriment and ruin of the world the

poorer nations and the poorer classes would be starved. Therefore

governments are already beginning to give consideration to a new

organization of international trade for at least three years after the

war. Now if this organization produce, as it may produce, a more

desirable civilization and a happier world order, we are not likely

entirely to go back--especially in regard to commodities which are

necessities--to a competitive system. The principle of "priority of

need" will supersede the law of "supply and demand." And the

organizations built up during the war, if they prove efficient, will not

be abolished. Hours of labour and wages in the co-operative League of

Nations will gradually be equalized, and tariffs will become things of

the past. "The axiom will be established," says Mr. Webb, "that the

resources of every country must, be held for the benefit not only of its

own people but of the world . . . . The world shortage will, for

years to come, make import duties look both oppressive and ridiculous."

So much may be said for the principle of Democratic Control. In spite of

all theoretical opposition, circumstances and evolution apparently point

to its establishment. A system that puts a premium on commercial greed

seems no longer possible.

The above comments, based on the drift of political practice during the

past decade and a half, may be taken for what they are worth.

Predictions are precarious. The average American will be inclined to

regard the program of the new British Labour Party as the embodiment of

what he vaguely calls Socialism, and to him the very word is repugnant.

Although he may never have heard of Marx, it is the Marxian conception

that comes to his mind, and this implies coercion, a government that

constantly interferes with his personal liberty, that compels him to

tasks for which he has no relish. But your American, and your

Englishman, for that matter, is inherently an individualist he wants as

little government as is compatible with any government at all. And the

descendants of the continental Europeans who flock to our shores are

Anglo-Saxonized, also become by environment and education individualists.

The great importance of preserving this individualism, this spirit in our

citizens of self-reliance, this suspicion against too much interference

with personal liberty, must at once be admitted. And any scheme for a

social order that tends to eliminate and destroy it should by Americans

be summarily rejected.

The question of supreme interest to us, therefore, is whether the social

order implied in the British program is mainly in the nature of a

development of, or a break with, the Anglo-Saxon democratic tradition.

The program is derived from an English source. It is based on what is

known as modern social science, which has as its ultimate sanction the

nature of the human mind as revealed by psychology. A consideration of

the principles underlying this proposed social order may prove that it is

essentially--if perhaps paradoxically--individualistic, a logical

evolution of institutions which had their origin in the Magna Charta.

Our Declaration of Independence proclaimed that every citizen had the

right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," which means the

opportunity to achieve the greatest self-development and self-realization.

The theory is that each citizen shall find his place, according to his

gifts and abilities, and be satisfied therewith. We may discover that

this is precisely what social science, in an industrial age, and by

spiritualizing human effort, aims to achieve. We may find that the

appearance of such a program as that of the British Labour Party,

supported as it is by an imposing proportion of the population of the

United Kingdom, marks a further step, not only in the advance of social

science and democracy, but also of Christianity.

I mention Christianity, not for controversial or apologetic reasons, but

because it has been the leaven of our western civilization ever since the

fall of the Roman Empire. Its constant influence has been to soften and

spiritualize individual and national relationships. The bitter

controversies, wars, and persecutions which have raged in its name are

utterly alien to its being. And that the present war is now being fought

by the Allies in the hope of putting an end to war, and is thus in the

true spirit of Christianity, marks an incomparable advance.

Almost up to the present day, both in our conception and practice of

Christianity, we have largely neglected its most important elements.

Christian orthodoxy, as Auguste Sabatier points out, is largely derived

from the older supernatural religions. The preservative shell of dogma

and superstition has been cracking, and is now ready to burst, and the

social teaching of Jesus would seem to be the kernel from which has

sprung modern democracy, modern science, and modern religion--a trinity

and unity.

For nearly two thousand years orthodoxy has insisted that the social

principles of Christianity are impractical. And indeed, until the

present day, they have been so. Physical science, by enormously

accelerating the means of transportation and communication, has so

contracted the world as to bring into communion peoples and races

hitherto far apart; has made possible an intelligent organization of

industry which, for the first time in history, can create a surplus ample

to maintain in comfort the world's population. But this demands the will

to co-operation, which is a Christian principle--a recognition of the

brotherhood of man. Furthermore, physical science has increased the need

for world peace and international co-operation because the territories of

all nations are now subject to swift and terrible invasion by modern

instruments of destruction, while the future submarine may sweep commerce

from the seas.

Again, orthodoxy declares that human nature is inherently "bad," while

true Christianity, endorsed by psychology, proclaims it inherently

"good," which means that, properly guided, properly educated, it is

creative and contributive rather than destructive. No more striking

proof of this fact can be cited than the modern experiment in prison

reform in which hardened convicts, when "given a chance," frequently

become useful citizens. Unjust and unintelligent social conditions are

the chief factors in making criminals.

Our most modern system of education, of which Professor John Dewey is the

chief protagonist, is based upon the assertions of psychology that human

nature is essentially "good" creative. Every normal child is supposed to

have a special "distinction" or gift, which it is the task of the

educator to discover. This distinction found, the child achieves

happiness in creation and contribution. Self-realization demands

knowledge and training: the doing of right is not a negative but a

positive act; it is not without significance that the Greek word for sin

is literally "missing the mark." Christianity emphasizes above all else

the worth of the individual, yet recognizes that the individual can

develop only in society. And if the individual be of great worth, this

worth must be by society developed to its utmost. Universal suffrage is

a logical corollary.

Universal suffrage, however, implies individual judgment, which means

that the orthodox principle of external authority is out of place both

in Christianity and democracy. The Christian theory is that none shall

intervene between a man's Maker and himself; democracy presupposes that

no citizen shall accept his beliefs and convictions from others, but

shall make up his own mind and act accordingly. Open-mindedness is the

first requisite of science and democracy.

What has been deemed, however, in Christianity the most unrealizable

ideal is that which may be called pacifism--to resist not evil, to turn

the other cheek, to agree with your adversary while you are in the way

with him. "I come not," said Jesus, in one of those paradoxical

statements hitherto so difficult to understand, "I come not to bring

peace, but a sword." It is indeed what we are fighting for--peace. But

we believe today, more strongly than ever before, as democracy advances,

as peoples tend to gain more and more control over their governments,

that even this may not be an unrealizable ideal. Democracies, intent on

self-realization and self-development, do not desire war.

The problem of social science, then, appears to be to organize human

society on the principles and ideals of Christianity. But in view of the

fact that the trend of evolution is towards the elimination of commercial

competition, the question which must seriously concern us today is--What

in the future shall be the spur of individual initiative? Orthodoxy and

even democratic practice have hitherto taken it for granted--in spite of

the examples of highly socialized men, benefactors of society--that

the average citizen will bestir himself only for material gain. And it

must be admitted that competition of some sort is necessary for

self-realization, that human nature demands a prize. There can be no

self-sacrifice without a corresponding self-satisfaction. The answer

is that in the theory of democracy, as well as in that of Christianity,

individualism and co-operation are paradoxically blended. For

competition, Christianity substitutes emulation. And with democracy,

it declares that mankind itself can gradually be rained towards the level

of the choice individual who does not labour for gain, but in behalf of

society. For the process of democracy is not degrading, but lifting.

Like Christianity, democracy demands faith, and has as its inspiring

interpretation of civilization evolution towards a spiritual goal. Yet

the kind of faith required is no longer a blind faith, but one founded on

sane and carefully evolved theories. Democracy has become a scientific

experiment.

In this connection, as one notably inspired by emulation, by the joy of

creative work and service, the medical profession comes first to mind.

The finer element in this profession is constantly increasing in numbers,

growing more and more influential, making life less easy for the quack,

the vendor of nostrums, the commercial proprietor of the bogus medical

college. The doctor who uses his talents for gain is frowned upon by

those of his fellow practitioners whose opinion really counts. Respected

physicians in our cities give much of their time to teaching, animating

students with their own spirit; and labour long hours, for no material

return, in the clinics of the poor. And how often, in reading our

newspapers, do we learn that some medical scientist, by patient work, and

often at the risk of life and health, has triumphed over a scourge which

has played havoc with humanity throughout the ages! Typhoid has been

conquered, and infant paralysis; gangrene and tetanus, which have taken

such toll of the wounded in Flanders and France; yellow fever has been

stamped out in the tropics; hideous lesions are now healed by a system of

drainage. The very list of these achievements is bewildering, and

latterly we are given hope of the prolongation of life itself. Here in

truth are Christian deeds multiplied by science, made possible by a

growing knowledge of and mastery over Nature.

Such men by virtue of their high mission are above the vicious social and

commercial competition poisoning the lives of so many of their fellow

citizens. In our democracy they have found their work, and the work is

its own reward. They give striking testimony to the theory that

absorption in a creative or contributive task is the only source of

self-realization. And he has little faith in mankind who shall declare

that the medical profession is the only group capable of being

socialized, or, rather, of socializing themselves--for such is the true

process of democracy. Public opinion should be the leaven. What is

possible for the doctor is also possible for the lawyer, for the teacher.

In a democracy, teaching should be the most honoured of the professions,

and indeed once was,--before the advent of industrialism, when it

gradually fell into neglect,--occasionally into deplorable submission to

the possessors of wealth. Yet a wage disgracefully low, hardship, and

even poverty have not hindered men of ability from entering it in

increasing numbers, renouncing ease and luxuries. The worth of the

contributions of our professors to civilization has been inestimable; and

fortunately signs are not lacking that we are coming to an appreciation

of the value of the expert in government, who is replacing the panderer

and the politician. A new solidarity of teaching professional opinion,

together with a growing realization by our public of the primary

importance of the calling, is tending to emancipate it, to establish it

in its rightful place.

Nor are our engineers without their ideal. A Goethals did not cut an

isthmus in two for gain.

Industrialism, with its concomitant "corporation" practice, has

undoubtedly been detrimental to the legal profession, since it has

resulted in large fees; in the accumulation of vast fortunes, frequently

by methods ethically questionable. Grave social injustices have been

done, though often in good faith, since the lawyer, by training and

experience, has hitherto been least open to the teachings of the new

social science, has been an honest advocate of the system of 'laissez

faire'. But to say that the American legal profession is without ideals

and lacking in the emulative spirit would be to do it a grave injustice.

The increasing influence of national and state bar associations evidences

a professional opinion discouraging to the unscrupulous; while a new

evolutionary and more humanitarian conception of law is now beginning to

be taught, and young men are entering the ranks imbued with this. Legal

clinics, like medical clinics, are established for the benefit of those

who cannot afford to pay fees, for the protection of the duped from the

predatory quack. And, it must be said of this profession, which hitherto

has held a foremost place in America, that its leaders have never

hesitated to respond to a public call, to sacrifice their practices to

serve the nation. Their highest ambition has even been to attain the

Supreme Court, where the salary is a mere pittance compared to what they

may earn as private citizens.

Thus we may review all the groups in the nation, but the most significant

transformation of all is taking place within the business group,--where

indeed it might be least expected. Even before the war there were many

evidences that the emulative spirit in business had begun to modify the

merely competitive, and we had the spectacle of large employers of

labour awakening to the evils of industrialism, and themselves attempting

to inaugurate reforms. As in the case of labour, it would be obviously

unfair to claim that the employer element was actuated by motives of

self-interest alone; nor were their concessions due only to fear.

Instances could be cited, if there were space, of voluntary shortening of

hours of labour, of raising of wages, when no coercion was exerted either

by the labour unions or the state; and--perhaps to their surprise

employers discovered that such acts were not only humane but profitable!

Among these employers, in fact, may be observed individuals in various

stages of enlightenment, from the few who have educated themselves in

social science, who are convinced that the time has come when it is not

only practicable but right, who realize that a new era has dawned; to

others who still believe in the old system, who are trying to bolster it

up by granting concessions, by establishing committees of conference, by

giving a voice and often a financial interest, but not a vote, in the

conduct of the corporation concerned. These are the counterpart, in

industry, of sovereigns whose away has been absolute, whose intentions

are good, but who hesitate, often from conviction, to grant

constitutions. Yet even these are responding in some degree to social

currents, though the aggressive struggles of labour may have influenced

them, and partially opened their eyes. They are far better than their

associates who still seek to control the supplies of food and other

necessities, whose efficiency is still solely directed, not toward a

social end, but toward the amassing of large fortunes, and is therefore

wasted so far as society is concerned. They do not perceive that by

seeking to control prices they merely hasten the tendency of government

control, for it is better to have government regulation for the benefit

of the many than proprietary control, however efficient, for the benefit

of the few.

That a significant change of heart and mind has begun to take place

amongst capitalists, that the nucleus of a "public opinion" has been

formed within an element which, by the use and wont of business and

habits of thought might be regarded as least subject to the influence of

social ideas, is a most hopeful augury. This nascent opinion has begun

to operate by shaming unscrupulous and recalcitrant employers into better

practices. It would indeed fare ill with democracy if, in such an era,

men of large business proved to be lacking in democratic initiative,

wholly unreceptive and hostile to the gradual introduction of democracy

into industry, which means the perpetuation of the American Idea.

Fortunately, with us, this capitalistic element is of comparatively

recent growth, the majority of its members are essentially Americans;

they have risen from small beginnings, and are responsive to a democratic

appeal--if that appeal be properly presented. And, as a matter of fact,

for many years a leaven had been at work among them; the truth has been

brought home to them that the mere acquisition of wealth brings neither

happiness nor self-realization; they have lavished their money on

hospitals and universities, clinics, foundations for scientific research,

and other gifts of inestimable benefit to the nation and mankind.

Although the munificence was on a Medicean scale, this private charity

was in accord with the older conception of democracy, and paved the way

for a new order.

The patriotic and humanitarian motive aroused by the war greatly

accelerated the socializing transformation of the business man and the

capitalist. We have, indeed, our profiteers seeking short cuts to luxury

and wealth; but those happily most representative of American affairs,

including the creative administrators, hastened to Washington with a

willingness to accept any position in which they might be useful, and

in numerous instances placed at the disposal of the government the

manufacturing establishments which, by industry and ability, they

themselves had built up. That in thus surrendering the properties for

which they were largely responsible they hoped at the conclusion of peace

to see restored the 'status quo ante' should not be held against them.

Some are now beginning to surmise that a complete restoration is

impossible; and as a result of their socializing experience, are even

wondering whether it is desirable. These are beginning to perceive that

the national and international organizations in the course of

construction to meet the demands of the world conflict must form the

model for a future social structure; that the unprecedented pressure

caused by the cataclysm is compelling a recrystallization of society in

which there must be fewer misfits, in which many more individuals than

formerly shall find public or semi-public tasks in accordance with their

gifts and abilities.

It may be argued that war compels socialization, that after the war the

world will perforce return to materialistic individualism. But this

calamity, terrible above all others, has warned us of the imperative need

of an order that shall be socializing, if we are not to witness the

destruction of our civilization itself. Confidence that such an order,

thanks to the advancement of science, is now within our grasp should not

be difficult for Americans, once they have rightly conceived it. We, who

have always pinned our faith to ideas, who entered the conflict for an

Idea, must be the last to shirk the task, however Herculean, of world

reconstruction along the lines of our own professed faith. We cannot be

renegades to Democracy.

Above all things, then, it is essential for us as a people not to abandon

our faith in man, our belief that not only the exceptional individual but

the majority of mankind can be socialized. What is true of our

physicians, our scientists and professional men, our manual workers, is

also true of our capitalists and business men. In a more just and

intelligent organization of society these will be found willing to

administer and improve for the common weal the national resources which

formerly they exploited for the benefit of themselves and their

associates. The social response, granted the conditions, is innate in

humanity, and individual initiative can best be satisfied in social

realization.

Universal education is the cornerstone of democracy. And the recognition

of this fact may be called the great American contribution. But in our

society the fullest self-realization depends upon a well balanced

knowledge of scientific facts, upon a rounded culture. Thus education,

properly conceived, is a preparation for intelligent, ethical, and

contented citizenship. Upon the welfare of the individual depends the

welfare of all. Without education, free institutions and universal

suffrage are mockeries; semi-learned masses of the population are at the

mercy of scheming politicians, controversialists, and pseudo-scientific

religionists, and their votes are swayed by prejudice.

In a materialistic competitive order, success in life depends upon the

knack--innate or acquired, and not to be highly rated--of outwitting

one's neighbour under the rules of the game--the law; education is merely

a cultural leaven within the reach of the comparatively few who can

afford to attend a university. The business college is a more logical

institution. In an emulative civilization, however, the problem is to

discover and develop in childhood and youth the personal aptitude or gift

of as many citizens as possible, in order that they may find

self-realization by making their peculiar contribution towards the

advancement of society.

The prevailing system of education, which we have inherited from the

past, largely fails to accomplish this. In the first place, it has been

authoritative rather than scientific, which is to say that students have

been induced to accept the statements of teachers and text books, and

have not been trained to weigh for themselves their reasonableness and

worth; a principle essentially unscientific and undemocratic, since it

inculcates in the future citizen convictions rather than encourages the

habit of open-mindedness so necessary for democratic citizenship. For

democracy--it cannot be too often repeated--is a dynamic thing,

experimental, creative in its very essence. No static set of opinions

can apply to the constantly changing aspect of affairs. New discoveries,

which come upon us with such bewildering rapidity, are apt abruptly to

alter social and industrial conditions, while morals and conventions are

no longer absolute. Sudden crises threaten the stability of nations and

civilizations. Safety lies alone in the ability to go forward, to

progress. Psychology teaches us that if authoritative opinions,

convictions, or "complexes" are stamped upon the plastic brain of the

youth they tend to harden, and he is apt to become a Democrat or

Republican, an Episcopalian or a Baptist, a free trader or a tariff

advocate or a Manchester economist without asking why. Such "complexes"

were probably referred to by the celebrated physician who emphasized the

hopelessness of most individuals over forty. And every reformer and

forum lecturer knows how difficult it is to convert the average audience

of seasoned adults to a new idea: he finds the most responsive groups in

the universities and colleges. It is significant that the "educated"

adult audiences in clubs and prosperous churches are the least open to

conversion, because, in the scientific sense, the "educated" classes

retain complexes, and hence are the least prepared to cope with the world

as it is today. The German system, which has been bent upon installing

authoritative conviction instead of encouraging freedom of thought,

should be a warning to us.

Again, outside of the realm of physical science, our text books have been

controversial rather than impartial, especially in economics and history;

resulting in erroneous and distorted and prejudiced ideas of events,

such for instance, as our American Revolution. The day of the

controversialist is happily coming to an end, and of the writer who

twists the facts of science to suit a world of his own making, or of that

of a group with which he is associated. Theory can now be labelled

theory, and fact, fact. Impartial and painstaking investigation is the

sole method of obtaining truth.

The old system of education benefited only the comparatively few to

whose nature and inclination it was adapted. We have need, indeed, of

classical scholars, but the majority of men and women are meant for other

work; many, by their very construction of mind, are unfitted to become

such. And only in the most exceptional cases are the ancient languages

really mastered; a smattering of these, imposed upon the unwilling

scholar by a principle opposed to psychology,--a smattering from which is

derived no use and joy in after life, and which has no connection with

individual inclination--is worse than nothing. Precious time is wasted

during the years when the mind is most receptive. While the argument of

the old school that discipline can only be inculcated by the imposition

of a distasteful task is unsound. As Professor Dewey points out, unless

the interest is in some way involved there can be no useful discipline.

And how many of our university and high school graduates today are in any

sense disciplined? Stimulated interest alone can overcome the resistance

imposed by a difficult task, as any scientist, artist, organizer or

administrator knows. Men will discipline themselves to gain a desired

end. Under the old system of education a few children succeed either

because they are desirous of doing well, interested in the game of mental

competition; or else because they contrive to clothe with flesh and blood

some subject presented as a skeleton. It is not uncommon, indeed, to

recognize in later years with astonishment a useful citizen or genius

whom at school or college we recall as a dunce or laggard. In our

present society, because of archaic methods of education, the development

of such is largely left to chance. Those who might have been developed

in time, who might have found their task, often become wasters, drudges,

and even criminals.

The old system tends to make types, to stamp every scholar in the same

mould, whether he fits it or not. More and more the parents of today are

looking about for new schools, insisting that a son or daughter possesses

some special gift which, under teachers of genius, might be developed

before it is too late. And in most cases, strange to say, the parents

are right. They themselves have been victims of a standardized system.

A new and distinctly American system of education, designed to meet the

demands of modern conditions, has been put in practice in parts of the

United States. In spite of opposition from school boards, from all those

who cling to the conviction that education must of necessity be an

unpalatable and "disciplinary" process, the number of these schools is

growing. The objection, put forth by many, that they are still in the

experimental stage, is met by the reply that experiment is the very

essence of the system. Democracy is experimental, and henceforth

education will remain experimental for all time. But, as in any other

branch of science, the element of ascertained fact will gradually

increase: the latent possibilities in the mind of the healthy child will

be discovered by knowledge gained through impartial investigation. The

old system, like all other institutions handed down to us from the ages,

proceeds on no intelligent theory, has no basis on psychology, and is

accepted merely because it exists.

The new education is selective. The mind of each child is patiently

studied with the view of discovering the peculiar bent, and this bent is

guided and encouraged. The child is allowed to forge ahead in those

subjects for which he shows an aptitude, and not compelled to wait on a

class. Such supervision, of course, demands more teachers, teachers of

an ability hitherto deplorably rare, and thoroughly trained in their

subjects, with a sympathetic knowledge of the human mind. Theirs will be

the highest and most responsible function in the state, and they must be

rewarded in proportion to their services.

A superficial criticism declares that in the new schools children will

study only "what they like." On the contrary, all subjects requisite for

a wide culture, as well as for the ability to cope with existence in a

highly complex civilization, are insisted upon. It is true, however,

that the trained and gifted teacher is able to discover a method of so

presenting a subject as to seize the imagination and arouse the interest

and industry of a majority of pupils. In the modern schools French, for

example, is really taught; pupils do not acquire a mere smattering of the

language. And, what is more important, the course of study is directly

related to life, and to practical experience, instead of being set forth

abstractly, as something which at the time the pupil perceives no

possibility of putting into use. At one of the new schools in the south,

the ignorant child of the mountains at once acquires a knowledge of

measurement and elementary arithmetic by laying out a garden, of letters

by inscribing his name on a little signboard in order to identify his

patch--for the moment private property. And this principle is carried

through all the grades. In the Gary Schools and elsewhere the making of

things in the shops, the modelling of a Panama Canal, the inspection of

industries and governmental establishments, the designing, building, and

decoration of houses, the discussion and even dramatization of the books

read,--all are a logical and inevitable continuation of the abstract

knowledge of the schoolroom. The success of the direct application of

learning to industrial and professional life may also be observed in such

colleges as those at Cincinnati and Schenectady, where young men spend

half the time of the course in the shops of manufacturing, corporations,

often earning more than enough to pay their tuition.

Children are not only prepared for democratic citizenship by being

encouraged to think for themselves, but also to govern and discipline

themselves. On the moral side, under the authoritative system of lay

and religious training, character was acquired at the expense of mental

flexibility--the Puritan method; our problem today, which the new system

undertakes, is to produce character with open-mindedness--the kind of

character possessed by many great scientists. Absorption in an

appropriate task creates a moral will, while science, knowledge, informs

the mind why a thing is "bad" or "good," disintegrating or upbuilding.

Moreover, these children are trained for democratic government by the

granting of autonomy. They have their own elected officials, their own

courts; their decisions are, of course, subject to reversal by the

principal, but in practice this seldom occurs.

The Gary Schools and many of the new schools are public schools. And the

principle of the new education that the state is primarily responsible

for the health of pupils--because an unsound body is apt to make an

unsound citizen of backward intelligence--is now being generally adopted

by public schools all over the country. This idea is essentially an

element of the democratic contention that all citizens must be given

an equality of opportunity--though all may not be created equal--now

becoming a positive rather than a negative right, guaranteed by the state

itself. An earnest attempt is thus made by the state to give every

citizen a fair start that in later years he may have no ground for

discontent or complaint. He stands on his own feet, he rises in

proportion to his ability and industry. Hence the program of the British

Labour Party rightly lays stress on education, on "freedom of mental

opportunity." The vast sums it proposes to spend for this purpose are

justified.

If such a system of education as that briefly outlined above is carefully

and impartially considered, the objection that democratic government

founded on modern social science is coercive must disappear. So far as

the intention and effort of the state is able to confer it, every citizen

will have his choice of the task he is to perform for society, his

opportunity for self-realization. For freedom without education is a

myth. By degrees men and women are making ready to take their places in

an emulative rather than a materialistically competitive order. But the

experimental aspect of this system should always be borne in mind, with

the fact that its introduction and progress, like that of other elements

in the democratic program, must be gradual, though always proceeding

along sound lines. For we have arrived at that stage of enlightenment

when we realize that the only mundane perfection lies in progress rather

than achievement. The millennium is always a lap ahead. There would be

no satisfaction in overtaking it, for then we should have nothing more to

do, nothing more to work for.

The German Junkers have prostituted science by employing it for the

destruction of humanity. In the name of Christianity they have waged the

most barbaric war in history. Yet if they shall have demonstrated to

mankind the futility of efficiency achieved merely for material ends; if,

by throwing them on a world screen, they shall have revealed the evils of

power upheld alone by ruthlessness and force, they will unwittingly have

performed a world service. Privilege and dominion, powers and

principalities acquired by force must be sustained by force. To fail

will be fatal. Even a duped people, trained in servility, will not

consent to be governed by an unsuccessful autocracy. Arrogantly Germany

has staked her all on world domination. Hence a victory for the Allies

must mean a democratic Germany.

Nothing short of victory. There can be no arrangement, no agreement,

no parley with or confidence in these modern scions of darkness

--Hohenzollerns, Hindenburgs, Zudendorffs and their tools. Propaganda must

not cease; the eyes of Germans still capable of sight must be opened.

But, as the President says, force must be used to the limit--force for a

social end as opposed to force for an evil end. There are those among us

who advocate a boycott of Germany after peace is declared. These would

seem to take it for granted that we shall fall short of victory, and

hence that selfish retaliative or vindictive practices between nations,

sanctioned by imperialism, will continue to flourish after the war. But

should Germany win she will see to it that there is no boycott against

her. A compromised peace would indeed mean the perpetuation of both

imperialism and militarism.

It is characteristic of those who put their faith in might alone that

they are not only blind to the finer relationships between individuals

and nations, but take no account of the moral forces in human affairs

which in the long run are decisive,--a lack of sensitiveness which

explains Germany's colossal blunders. The first had to do with Britain.

The German militarists persisted in the belief that the United Kingdom

was degenerated by democracy, intent upon the acquisition of wealth,

distracted by strife at home, uncertain of the Empire, and thus would

selfishly remain aloof while the Kaiser's armies overran and enslaved the

continent. What happened, to Germany's detriment, was the instant

socialization of Britain, and the binding together of the British Empire.

Germany's second great blunder was an arrogant underestimation of a

self-reliant people of English culture and traditions. She believed that

we, too, had been made flabby by democracy, were wholly intent upon the

pursuit of the dollar--only to learn that America would lavish her vast

resources and shed her blood for a cause which was American. Germany

herself provided that cause, shaped the issues so that there was no

avoiding them. She provided the occasion for the socializing of America

also; and thus brought about, within a year, a national transformation

which in times of peace might scarce in half a century have been

accomplished.

Above all, as a consequence of these two blunders, Germany has been

compelled to witness the consummation of that which of all things she had

most to fear, the cementing of a lasting fellowship between the English

speaking Republic and the English speaking Empire. For we had been

severed since the 18th Century by misunderstandings which of late Germany

herself had been more or less successful in fostering. She has furnished

a bond not only between our governments, but--what is vastly more

important for democracy--a bond between our peoples. Our soldiers are

now side by side with those of the Empire on the Frontier of Freedom; the

blood of all is shed and mingled for a great cause embodied in the

Anglo-Saxon tradition of democracy; and our peoples, through the

realization of common ideas and common ends, are learning the supreme

lesson of co-operation between nations with a common past, are being

cemented into a union which is the symbol and forerunner of the

democratic league of Nations to come. Henceforth, we believe, because of

this union, so natural yet so long delayed, by virtue of the ultimate

victory it forecasts, the sun will never set on the Empire of the free,

for the drum beats of democracy have been heard around the world. To

this Empire will be added the precious culture of France, which the

courage of her sons will have preserved, the contributions of Italy,

and of Russia, yes, and of Japan.

Our philosophy and our religion are changing; hence it is more and more

difficult to use the old terms to describe moral conduct. We say, for

instance, that America's action in entering the war has been "unselfish."

But this merely means that we have our own convictions concerning the

ultimate comfort of the world, the manner of self-realization of

individuals and nations. We are attempting to turn calamity into good.

If this terrible conflict shall result in the inauguration of an

emulative society, if it shall bring us to the recognition that

intelligence and science may be used for the upbuilding of such an order,

and for an eventual achievement of world peace, every sacrifice shall

have been justified.

Such is the American Issue. Our statesmen and thinkers have helped to

evolve it, our people with their blood and treasure are consecrating it.

And these statesmen and thinkers, of whom our American President is not

the least, are of democracy the pioneers. From the mountain tops on

which they stand they behold the features of the new world, the dawn of

the new day hidden as yet from their brothers in the valley. Let us have

faith always that it is coming, and struggle on, highly resolving that

those who gave their lives in the hour of darkness shall not have died in

vain.

PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS OF THE ENTIRE PG WORKS OF WINSTON CHURCHILL:

A man ought never to be frightened by appearances

A man's character often give the lie to his tongue

A bold front is half the battle

A people is rarely justly estimated by its contemporaries

A lie has short legs

Absurd to promise to love

Acceptance of authority is not faith, it is mere credulity

Affections warm despite absence, and years, and interest

Always getting glimpses of things when it is too late

American religion as set forth by William James

Antipathy to forms

Appearance of a professional pallbearer

Architects should be driven and not followed

As little government as is compatible with any government at all

Bad music, she said, offended her

Be useful!

Behind that door was the future: so he opened it fearfully

Being caught was the unpardonable crime

Believe in others having a hard time

Best way is to leave 'em alone. Don't dandle 'em (babies)

Blessed are the ugly, for they shall not be tempted

Can't believe in the doctrine of the virgin birth

Clothes of one man are binding on another

Comparisons, as Shakespeare said, are odorous

Consequential or inconsequential irrespective of their size

Constitutionally honest

Conversation was a mockery

Conviction that all things were as they ought to be

Deal with a fool according to his folly

Deification of beauty to the exclusion of all else

Do not fear to reverse themselves when occasion demands

Economic freedom, without which political freedom is a farce

Economic slavery

Elaborate attention little men are apt to bestow upon women

Even after all these ages, the belief, the hope would not down

Ever been my nature to turn forward instead of back

Every one, man or woman, has the right to happiness

Fact should be written like fiction, and fiction like fact

Faith may be likened to an egg

Fetters of love

Flaming flag of a false martyrdom

Foolish sacrifices are worse than useless

For ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter

Freedom meant only the liberty to earn their own living

Freedom without education is a myth

Futility of the traditional words of comfort

Genius honored but never encouraged

Genius, analyzed, is often disappointing

God himself would have divorced us

God bless their backs, which is the only part I ever care to see

Had a habit of not waiting for answers to her questions

Happiness of gratitude and wonder, too wise to exult

Happy the people whose annals are blank in history's book

He was what is known as a "success"--always that magic word

He was our macaroni of Annapolis

He has always been too honest to make a great deal of money

Hell's here--isn't it?

Her words of comfort were as few as her silent deeds were many

How to be silent with a clamouring heart

How can you talk of things other people have and not want them

Human multitude with its infinity of despairs and joys

Humiliation and not conscience which makes the sting

I see no one upon whom I can rely but myself

I hate humility

I'm always searching for things to do

If Christians were logical, they should be Socialists

Immortality as orthodox Christianity depicts it

Immutable love in a changing, heedless, selfish world

Impervious to hints, and would not take no for an answer

Impulse had brought him thus far

Indiscriminate, unreasoning self-sacrifice

Individualism with which the Church can have no sympathy

Intellectually lazy

Intense longing is always followed by disappointment

It is sorrow which lifts us nearest to heaven

It's money that makes you free

Know a great deal and don't believe anything

Knowledge puts faith out of the question

Leaders and interpreters, must grow to meet critical situations

Little better than a gambling place (Stock Exchange)

Logical result of independent thinking is anarchy

Love," she added, "plays such havoc with one's opinions

Luxuries formerly unthought of seemed to become necessities

Material proof, it seems to me, is a denial of faith

Mistaking the effect for the cause

Mixture of awkwardness and straightforwardness

Most dangerous of gifts, the seeing of two sides of a quarrel

Naturally she took preoccupation for indifference

No reason why we should suffer all our lives for a mistake

No real prosperity comes out of double-dealing

Not given to trite acquiescence

Often in real danger at the moment when they feel most secure

Often times principles is nothing but pride

Old enough to know better, and too old to be taught

Olmah which Isaiah uses does not mean virgin

Only one regret as to what you said--that it is true

Outwitting one's neighbour under the rules of the game--the law

Pleasure? Yes. It makes me feel as if I were of some use

Principle in law not to volunteer information

Privilege of making blunders

Providence is accepted by his beneficiaries as a matter of fact

Read a patent medicine circular and shudder with seven diseases

Regarding favourable impressions with profound suspicion

Religion, I think, should be everybody's (profession)

Resented the implication of possession

Rising every time you fall (Confucius on greatness)

Rocks to which one might cling, successful or failing

Rule which you so confidently apply to fit all cases

Scandalously forced through the council of Nicaea

Seeking a forgiveness out of all proportion to the trespass

Self-torture is human

Sentimentalism, ignorance, close-mindedness, and cant

Shaped his politics according to the company he was in

She had never known the necessity of making friends

She could pass over, but never forgive what her aunt had said

Sight of happiness is often a pleasure for those who are sad

Silence--goad to indiscretion

Simple men who command by force of character

Sir, I have not yet begun to fight

Sleep! A despised waste of time in childhood

So glad to have what other people haven't

So much for Democracy when it becomes a catchword

Sought to remove comparisons

St Paul, you say, put us in our proper place

Success--which was really failure

Sunday was then a day essentially different from other days

Taking him like daily bread, to be eaten and not thought about

That abominable word "like"

That magic word Change

The law cannot fit all cases

The weak always sink

The English do not advertise their sorrows

The hours of greatest suffering are the empty hours

The worse the disease, the more remarkable the cure

The days of useless martyrdom are past

The greatest wonders are not at the ends of the earth, but near

Their lines belonged rather to the landscape (cottages)

They have to print something

Thinking isn't--believing

Thinking that because you have no ideals, other people haven't

Those who walk on ice will slide against their wills

Thy politics are not over politic

Time, the unbribeable

Tis no so bad it micht-na be waur

To be great is to be misunderstood

Universal suffrage, however, implies individual judgment

Unquenchable conflicts are those waged for ideas and not dollars

Vagueness generally attributed to her sex

Vividly unreal, as a toy village comes painted from the shop

We never can foresee how we may change

We must believe, if we believe at all, without authority

We are always trying to get away from ourselves

We have no control over our affections

We can't take Christianity too literally

Weak coffee and the Protestant religion seemed inseparable

When our brief span of usefulness is done

Who had learned the lesson of mothers,--how to wait

Whole conception of charity is a crime against civilization

Why should I desire what I cannot have

Within every man's province to make himself what he will

Ya maun ken th' incentive's the maist o' the battle

You and your religion are as far apart as the poles

Youth is in truth a mystery