{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_10837/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_10837","id":"gutenberg_10837","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10837","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Democracy","World War I","World War, 1914-1918 -- Influence"],"text":"THE SOUL OF DEMOCRACY\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD WAR\nIN RELATION TO HUMAN LIBERTY\n\nBY\n\nEDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS\n\n\n\n\nMan for the State means autocracy and imperialism;\nMAN FOR MANKIND is the soul of democracy.\n\n\n\n1918\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nI     THE WORLD TRAGEDY\nII    THE CONFLICT OF IDEAS IN THE WAR\nIII   THE IDEAS FOR WHICH THE ALLIED NATIONS FIGHT\nIV    MORAL STANDARDS AND THE MORAL ORDER\nV     THE PRESENT STATE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS\nVI    THE ETHICS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSHIP\nVII   AMERICA'S DUTY IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS\nVIII  THE GOSPEL AND THE SUPERSTITION OF NON-RESISTANCE\nIX    PREPAREDNESS FOR SELF-DEFENSE\nX     RECONSTRUCTION FROM THE WAR\nXI    THE WAR AND EDUCATION\nXII   SOCIALISM AND THE WAR\nXIII  THE WAR AND FEMINISM\nXIV   THE TRANSFORMATION OF DEMOCRACY\nXV    DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION\nXVI   MENACES OF DEMOCRACY\nXVII  THE DILEMMA OF DEMOCRACY\nXVIII PATERNALISM VERSUS DEMOCRACY\nXIX   THE SOLUTION FOR DEMOCRACY\nXX    TRAINING FOR MORAL LEADERSHIP\nXXI   DEMOCRACY AND SACRIFICE\nXXII  THE HOUR OF SACRIFICE\n\n\n\nTHE SOUL OF DEMOCRACY\n\n\nI\n\nTHE WORLD TRAGEDY\n\nWe are living under the shadow of the greatest world tragedy in the\nhistory of mankind.  Not even the overthrow of the old Roman empire was\nso colossal a disaster as this.  Inevitably we are bewildered by it.\nUtterly unanticipated, at least in its world extent, for we had believed\nmankind too far advanced for such a chaos of brute force to recur, it\noverwhelms our vision.  Man had been going forward steadily, inventing\nand discovering, until in the last hundred years his whole world had\nbeen transformed. Suddenly the entire range of invention is turned\nagainst Man.  The machinery of comfort and progress becomes the enginery\nof devastation.  Under such a shock, we ask, \"Has civilization\nover-reached itself?  Has the machine run away with its maker?\"  The\nimagination is staggered.  We are too much in the storm to see across\nthe storm.\n\nWhen the War began, it was over our minds as a dark cloud.  It was the\nlast conscious thought as we went to sleep at night, and the first to\nwhich we awakened in the morning: wakening with a dumb sense of\nsomething wrong, as if we had suffered a personal tragedy, and then as\nwe came to clear consciousness we said, \"O yes, the War!\"  The days have\npassed into weeks, the weeks into months and years: inevitably we become\nbenumbed to the long continued disaster.  It is impossible to think\ndeaths and mutilations in terms of millions.  Even those who stand in\nthe immediate presence of it and suffer most terribly become calloused\nto it: much more must we who stood so long apart and have not yet felt\nthe brunt of it.  Even our entrance into the whirling vortex, drawing\never nearer our shores, has failed to waken us to a realizing sense of\nit.  Nevertheless, these years through which we are now living are the\nmost important in the entire history of the world.  It is probable that\nthe future will look back upon them as the years determining the destiny\nof mankind for ages to come.\n\nHow this terrible fact of War falls across all philosophies!  Complacent\noptimisms, so widely current recently, are put out of court by it. The\npleasant interpretations mediocrity formulates of the universe are torn\nto tatters.  There is at least the refreshment of standing face to face\nwith brute actuality, though it crash all our \"little systems\" to the\nground. Philosophy must wait.  The interpretations cannot be hastened,\nwhile the facts are multiplying with such bewildering rapidity.  The one\ncertainty is that an entirely new world is being born--_what_ it will\nbe, no one knows.\n\nNevertheless, we have gone far enough to recognize that all our thinking\nwill be transformed under the influence of the struggle.  It will be\nimpossible for us, after the War, to do what we have done so widely\nhitherto: proclaim one range of ethical ideals and standards, and live\nto something widely different in practice.  Either we shall have to\nabandon the standards, or bring our conduct measurably into harmony with\nthem. We shall be unable longer to hold unconsciously in solution\nChristianity and the gospel of brute force.  One or the other must be\nrejected, or both consciously reconstructed. The effect on the thought\nlife of the world will be even greater--vastly greater--than that of the\nFrench Revolution.  The twentieth century will differ from the\nnineteenth more than that did from the eighteenth. The effect on the\nrelations of different social groups throughout the world will be so\nfar-reaching that possibly the democracy and socialism of the nineteenth\ncentury may look like remote historic phenomena, such as the Athenian\ntribal system or mediaeval feudalism.\n\nThus our whole social philosophy will have to be remolded.  We Americans\nare still in the patent medicine period of politics, trusting to\npolitical devices on the surface for the cure of any evils that arise.\nAll across the country, like an epidemic of disease has gone the notion\n--if anything is the matter with us, just pass another law.  Thus we are\nsuffering under an ill-considered mass of legislation, while blindly\ntrusting to it to solve all problems.  Legislation is no solution for\nmoral evils.  It is possible, to some extent, to suppress vice by\nlegislation, but not to create virtue.  Virtue can be developed only by\nconduct and education. You cannot drive men into the kingdom of heaven\nwith the whip of legislation; and if you could, you would so change the\natmosphere of the place that one would prefer to take the other road.\n\nIf our democracy is to survive, we must think it through; carrying it\ndown, from these superficial political devices, into our industry and\ncommerce, still so largely dominated by feudal ideas of the middle age,\ninto our science and art, far more completely into our education, into\nour social relationship, and beyond all else, into our fundamental\nattitude of mind.  Democracy is, at bottom, not a series of political\nforms, but a way of life.\n\nThus the War will be the supreme test of democracy.  The question it\nwill settle is this: can free men, by voluntary cooperation, develop an\nefficiency and an endurance which will make it possible for them to\nstand and protect their liberties against the machinery and aggressive\nambitions of autocratic empires where everything is done paternally from\nthe top?  If they can, then democracy will survive and grow as the\nhighest form of society for ages to come; if not, then democracy will\npass and be succeeded by some other social order.\n\nThat is why this War has been our war from the beginning, though we have\nentered it so late.  As we look back upon the struggle of Athens and the\nother free Greek cities with the overwhelming hordes of Asia, at\nMarathon and Salamis, as the conflict that saved democracy for Europe\nand made possible the civilization of the Occident, so it is probable\nthat the world will look back upon this colossal War as the same\nstruggle, multiplied a thousand times in the men and munitions employed,\nthe struggle determining the future of democracy and civilization for\ngenerations, perhaps for all time.\n\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE CONFLICT OF IDEAS IN THE WAR\n\nThe world has been confused as to the issue in this War, because of the\nmultitude of its causes and of the antagonisms it involves; yet under\nall the national and racial hatreds, the economic jealousies, certain\ngreat ideas are being tested out.\n\nApologists for Germany have told us, even with pride, that in Germany\nthe supreme conception is the dedication of Man to the State.  This was\nnot true of old Germany.  Before the formation of the Prussian empire,\nher spirit was intensely individualistic.  She stood preeminently for\nfreedom of thought and action.  It was this that gave her noble\nspiritual heritage. Goethe is the most individualistic of world masters.\nFroebel developed, in the Kindergarten, one of the purest of\ndemocracies.  Luther and German protestantism represented the\naffirmation of individual conscience as against hierarchical control.\nIt was this spirit that gave Germany her golden age of literature, her\nunmatched group of spiritual philosophers, her religious teachers, her\npre-eminence in music.\n\nNevertheless, the Prussian state, autocratic from its inception,\nreceived philosophic justification in a series of thinkers, culminating\nin Hegel, who regarded the individual as a capricious egotist, the\nstate, incarnate in its sovereign, as the supreme spiritual entity.  He\njustified war, regarding it as a permanent necessity, and practically\nmade might, right, in arguing that a conquering nation is justified by\nits more fruitful idea in annexing the weaker, while the conquered, in\nbeing conquered, is judged of God.  Here is the philosophic\njustification of that Prussian arrogance which in Nietzsche is carried\ninto glittering rhetoric.  Thus the Prussian state from afar back was\nopposed to the general spirit of old Germany.\n\nSince 1870, it must be admitted, that spirit is gone.  With the\nformation of the Prussian empire and for the half century of its\nexistence, every force of social control--press, church, state,\neducation, social opinion--was deliberately employed to stamp on the\nGerman people one idea--the subordination of the individual to the\nstate, as the supreme and only virtue. How far has the policy succeeded?\nApparently absolutely.  To the outside observer the old spirit seems\nutterly gone.  How far this policy has been helped by the cultivation of\nthe fear of the Slav, one cannot say. Looking at the map of Europe, one\nsees that the geographical relation of Germany to the great Slavic\nempire is not unlike the relation of Holland to Germany.  Thus the\ndeliberate fostering of fear of the vast empire of the East has done\nmuch to strengthen the hands of the Prussian regime in its chosen task.\n\nNevertheless, when one recalls the spiritual heritage of Germany: when\none thinks of Herder, Schiller and Goethe; Tauler, Luther and\nSchleiermacher; Froebel, Herbart and Richter; Kant, Fichte and Novalis;\nMozart, Beethoven and Wagner; one feels that something of the old German\nheritage must survive. When the German people find out what has happened\nto them and why, that heritage surely ought to show in some reaction\nagainst the present autocratic regime, after the War closes, if not\nbefore, perhaps even to the extent of making Germany a republic.  That\nwould be some compensation for the waste and destruction of the War.\nMeantime Germany stands now, ruthlessly, for the dedication of Man to\nthe State.\n\nOne can understand why a Prussian minister forbade the teaching of\nFroebel's ideas in Prussia during the latter period of the educator's\nlife.  So one understands the hatred of Goethe because he refused\nallegiance to a narrow nationalism and remained cosmopolitan in his\nworld-view.  Similarly Hegel, with his justification of absolute\nmonarchy and his theory of the German state as the acme of all spiritual\nevolution, was the acclaimed orthodox philosopher of Prussia, while the\nindividualist, Schopenhauer, was neglected and despised.\n\nOne must have lived in Germany to realize the absolute control of the\nState over the individual--the incessant surveillance, the petty\nregulations, the constant interference with private life.  It was to\nescape just this vexatious control, with the arduous militarism in which\nit culminates, that so vast a multitude of Germans left their native\nland and came to the United States--not all of whom have shown\nappreciation and loyalty to the free land that welcomed them.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE IDEAS FOR WHICH THE ALLIED NATIONS FIGHT\n\nIn contrast to the idea for which Germany now stands, the Anglo-Saxon\ninstinctively and tenaciously believes in the liberty and initiative of\nthe individual.  We, of course, are no longer Anglo-Saxon. When De\nTocqueville in 1831 visited our country, surveyed our institutions and,\nafter returning home, made his trenchant diagnosis of our democracy, he\ncould justly designate us Anglo-Americans.  That time is past; we are\nto-day everything and nothing: a great nation in the womb of time,\nstruggling to be born.\n\nNevertheless, Anglo-American ideas still dominate and inspire our\ncivilization. It is, indeed, remarkable to what an extent this is true,\nin the face of the mingling of heterogeneous races in our population.\nAs English is our speech, so Anglo-American ideas are still the soul of\nour life and institutions.\n\nThis is evident in the jealousy of authority.  We resent the intrusion\nof the government into affairs of private life, and prefer to submit to\nannoyances and even injustice on the part of other individuals, rather\nthan to have protection at the price of paternalistic regulation by the\nstate. We resent any law that we do not see is necessary to the general\nwelfare, and are rather lawless even then.  This shows clearly in our\nreaction on legislation in regard to drink.  The prohibition of\nintoxicating liquor is about the surest way to make an Anglo-Saxon want\nto go out and get drunk, even when he has no other inclination in that\ndirection.  In Boston, under the eleven o'clock closing law, men in\npublic restaurants will at times order, at ten minutes of eleven, eight\nor ten glasses of beer or whiskey, for fear they might want them,\nwhereas, if the restriction had not been present, two or three would\nhave sufficed.\n\nNot long ago we saw the very labor leaders who forced the Adamson law\nthrough congress, threatening to disobey any legislation limiting their\nown freedom of action, even though vitally necessary to the freedom of\nall.\n\nThe general behavior under automobile and traffic regulation illustrates\nthe tendency evenmore clearly.  Thinking over the list of acquaintances\nwho own automobiles, one finds it hard to recall one who would not break\nthe speed law at a convenient opportunity.  Even a staid college\nprofessor, who has walked the walled-in path all his life: let him get a\nFord runabout, and in three months he is exultant in running as close as\npossible to every foot traveler and in exceeding the speed limit at any\nfavorable chance. These are not beautiful expressions of our national\nspirit, but they serve to illustrate our instinctive individualism.\n\nEspecially are we jealous of highly centralized authority.  De\nTocqueville argued that we would never be able to develop a strong\ncentral government, and that our democracy would be menaced with failure\nby that lack.  That his prophecy has proved false and our federal\ngovernment has become so strong is due only to the accidents of our\nhistory and the exigency of the tremendous problems we have had to\nsolve.\n\nThe same individualistic spirit is strong in England.  It has been\nparticularly evident, during the War, in the resentment of military\nauthority as applied to labor conditions.  The artisans and their\nleaders dreaded to give up liberties for which they had struggled\nthrough generations, for fear that those rights would not be readily\naccorded them again after the War. It must be admitted that this fear is\njustified.  The same spirit was evident in the fight on conscription.\nThis attitude has been a handicap to England in successfully carrying on\nthe War, as it is to us; but it shows how strong is the essential spirit\nof democracy in both lands.\n\nIn France, the Revolution was at bottom an affirmation of individualism\n--of the right of the people, as against classes and kings, to seek life,\nliberty and happiness. The great words, _Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,_\nthat the French placed upon their public buildings in the period of the\nRevolution, are the essential battle-cry of true democracy,--as it is to\nbe, rather than as it is at present.\n\nThrough her peculiar situation, threatened and overshadowed by potential\nenemies, France has been forced to a policy of militarism, with a large\nsubordination of the individual to the state.  The subordination,\nhowever, is voluntary.  That is touchingly evident in the beautiful\nfraternization of French officers and men in the present War.  With our\nAnglo-Saxon reserve, we smile at the pictures of grave generals kissing\nbearded soldiers, in recognition of valor, but it is a significant\nexpression of the voluntary equality and brotherhood of Frenchmen in\nthis War.  The reason France has risen with such splendid courage and\nunity is the consciousness of every Frenchman that complete defeat in\nthis War would mean that there would be no France in the future, that\nParis would be a larger Strassburg, and France a greater\nAlsace-Lorraine.  While the subordination has been thus voluntary,\nsurely the French soldiers, man for man, have proved themselves the\nequal of any soldiers on earth.\n\nThe anomaly of the first two years of the War was the presence of the\nvast Russian autocratic empire on the side of the allied democracies.\nFor Russia, however, the War was of the people, rather than of the\nautocracy at the top, and one saw that Russia would emerge from the War\nchanged and purified.  What one could not foresee was that, under the\nawakening of the people, Russia could pass, in a day, through a\nRevolution as profound in its character and consequences as the great\nexplosion in France.  It would be almost a miracle if so complete a\nRevolution, in such a vast, benighted empire, were not followed by\ndecades of recurrent chaos and anarchy.  If Russia avoids this fate, she\nwill present a unique experience in history. The tendency to abrogate\nall authority, the spectacle of regiments of soldiers becoming debating\nsocieties to discuss whether or not they shall obey orders and fight,\nare ominous signs for the next period.  Emancipated Russia must learn,\nif necessary through bitter suffering, that liberty is not license, that\ndemocracy is not anarchy, but voluntary and intelligent obedience to\njust laws and the chosen executors of those laws.  Meantime, whatever\nher immediate future may be, Russia's transformation has clarified the\nissue and justified her place with the allied democracies.  However long\nand confused her struggle, there can be no return to the past, and, in\nthe end, her Revolution means democracy.\n\nThus, in democracy, the State exists for Man.  Other forms of society\nseek the interest or welfare of an individual, a group or a class,\ndemocracy aims at the welfare, that is, the liberty, happiness, growth,\nintelligence, helpfulness of _all the people_.  Under all the welter of\nthis world struggle, it is therefore these great contrasting ideas that\nare being tested out, perhaps for all time.  What is their relative\nvalue for efficiency, initiative, invention, endurance, permanence;\nbeneath all, what is their final value for the happiness and helpfulness\nof all human beings?\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nMORAL STANDARDS AND THE MORAL ORDER\n\nThere is only one moral order of the universe--one range of moral as of\nphysical law.  For instance, the law of gravitation--simplest of\nphysical principles--holds the last star in the abyss of space, rounds\nthe dew-drop on the petal of a spring violet and determines the symmetry\nof living organisms; but it is one and unchanging, a fundamental pull in\nthe nature of matter itself.  So with moral laws: they are not\nsuperadded to life by some divine or other authority.  They are simply\nthe fundamental principles in the nature of life itself, which we must\nobey to grow and be happy.\n\nIf the moral order is one and unchanging, man does change in relation to\nit, and moral standards are relative to the stage of his growth.\nHistory is filled with illustrations of this relativity of ethical\nstandards.\n\nFor instance: human slavery doubtless began as an act of beneficence on\nthe part of some philanthropist well in advance of his age.  The first\nman who, in the dim dawn of history, said to the captive he had made in\nwar, \"I will not kill you and eat you; I will let you live and work for\nme the rest of your life\": that man instituted human slavery; but it was\ndistinctly a step upward, from something that had been far worse.\n\nHomer represents Ulysses as the favorite pupil of Pallas Athena, goddess\nof wisdom: why?  Baldly stated, because Ulysses was the shrewdest and\nmost successful liar in classic antiquity.  If Ulysses were to appear in\na society of decent men to-day, he would be excluded from their\ncompanionship, and for the same reason that led Homer to glorify him as\nthe favorite pupil of the goddess of wisdom.  Thus what is a virtue at\none stage of development becomes a vice as man climbs to higher\nrecognition of the moral order.\n\nJust because the moral standard is relative, it is absolutely binding\nwhere it applies.  In other words, if you see the light shining on your\npath, you owe obedience to the light; one who does not see it, does not\nowe obedience in the same way.  If you do not obey your light, your\npunishment is that you lose the light--degenerate to a lower plane, and\nit is the worst punishment imaginable.\n\nThus the same act may be for the undeveloped life, non-moral, for the\ndeveloped, distinctly immoral.  Before the instincts of personal modesty\nand purity were developed, careless sex-promiscuity meant something\nentirely different from what a descent to it means in our society.  When\na man of some primitive tribe went out and killed a man of another\ntribe, the action was totally different morally from .the murder by a\nman of one community of a citizen of a neighboring town to-day.\n\nThis gradual elevation of moral standards, or growth in the recognition\nof the sacredness of life and the obligation to other individuals, can\nbe traced historically as a long and confused process.  There was a\ntime, in the remote past, when no law was recognized except that of the\nstrong arm. The man who wanted anything, took it, if he was strong\nenough, and others submitted to his superior force.  Then follows an age\nwhen the family is the supreme social unit.  Each member of the family\ngroup feels the pain or pleasure of all the others as something like his\nown, but all outside this circle are as the beasts.  This is the\ncondition among the Veddahs of Ceylon, studied so interestingly by\nHaeckel.  Living in isolated family groups, scattered through the\ntropical wilderness: one man, one woman and their children forming the\nsocial unit: they as nearly represent primitive life as any other body\nof people now on the earth.\n\nThen follows a long roll of ages when the tribe is the highest social\nunit. Each member of the tribe is conscious of the sacredness of life of\nall the other members and of some obligation toward them; but men of\nother tribes may be slain as freely as the beasts.  Then comes a period\nwhen appreciation of the sacredness of life is extended over all those\nof the same race, tested generally by their speaking somewhat the same\nlanguage.  That was the condition in classic antiquity: it was \"Jew and\nGentile,\" \"Greek and barbarian\"--the very word \"barbarous\" coming from\nthe unintelligible sounds, to the Greeks, of those who spoke other than\nthe Hellenic tongue.  Even Plato, with all his far-sighted humanism,\nsays, in the _Republic_, that in the ideal state, \"Greeks should deal\nwith barbarians as Greeks now deal with one another.\"  If one remembers\nwhat occurred in the Peloponnesian war--how Greek men voted to kill all\nthe men of military age in a conquered Greek city and sell all the women\nand children into slavery--one will see that Plato's dream of humanity\nwas not so very wide.\n\nFrom that time on, there has been further extension of the appreciation\nof the sacredness of life and of the consciousness of moral obligation\ntoward other human beings.  We are far from the end of the path.  Our\nsympathies are still limited by accidents of time and place, race and\ncolor; but we have gone far enough to see what the end would be, were we\nto reach it: a sympathy so wide, an appreciation of the sacredness of\nlife so universal, that each of us would feel the joy or sorrow of every\nother human being, alive to-day or to be alive to-morrow, as something\nlike his own.  Moreover, in all civilized society, we have gone far\nenough to renounce the right to private vengeance and adjustment of\nquarrels: we live under established courts of law, with organized civil\nforce to carry out their judgments.  This gives relative peace and\nsecurity, and a general, if imperfect, application of the moral law.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE PRESENT STATE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS\n\nThe astounding anomaly of modern civilization is the way we have lagged\nbehind in applying to groups and nations of men the moral laws,\nuniversally recognized as binding over individuals.  For instance, about\ntwenty years ago we coined and used widely the phrase, \"soulless\ncorporation,\" to designate our great combinations of capital in industry\nand commerce.  Why was that phrase used so widely?  The answer is\nilluminating: we took it for granted that an individual employer would\ntreat his artisans to some extent as human beings and not merely as\ncog-wheels in a productive machine; but we also took it for granted that\nan impersonal corporation, where no individual was dominantly\nresponsible, would regard its artisans merely as pieces of machinery,\nwith no respect whatever for their humanity.\n\nThe supreme paradox, however, is in the relation of nations: it is there\nthat we have most amazingly lagged behind in applying the moral laws\nuniversally accepted in the relations of individuals.  For instance,\nlong before this War began we heard it proclaimed, even proudly, by\ncertain philosophers, in more than one nation, that the state is the\nsupreme spiritual unit, that there is no law higher than its interest,\nthat the state makes the law and may break it at will.  When a great\nstatesman in Germany, doubtless in a moment of intense anger and\nirritation, used the phrase that has gone all across the earth, \"_scrap\nof paper_,\" for a sacred treaty between nations, he was only making a\npungent practical application of the philosophy in question.\n\nDo we regard self-preservation as the highest law for the individual?\nDistinctly not.  Here is a crowded theater and a sudden cry of fire,\nwith the ensuing panic: if strong men trample down and kill women and\nchildren, in the effort to save their own lives, we regard them with\nloathing and contempt.  On the other hand, it is just this plea of\nnational self-preservation that the German regime has used in cynical\njustification of its every atrocity--the initial violation of Belgium,\nthe making war ruthlessly on civil populations, the atrocious spying and\nplotting in the bosom of neutral and friendly nations, the destruction\nof monuments of art and devastation of the cities, fields, orchards and\nforests of northern France, and finally the submarine warfare on the\nworld's shipping.  No civilized human being would, for a moment, think\nof using the plea of self-preservation to justify comparable conduct in\nindividual life.\n\nConsider international diplomacy: much of it has been merely shrewd and\nskillful lying.  If you will review the list of the most famous\ndiplomats of Europe for the last thousand years, you will find that a\nconsiderable portion of them won their fame and reputation by being a\nlittle more shrewd and successful liars than the diplomats with whom\nthey had to deal in other lands.  In other words, their conduct has been\nexactly on the plane that Ulysses represented in personal life, afar\nback in classic antiquity.\n\nTake an illustration a little nearer home.  If you were doing business\non one side of the street and had two competitors in the same line,\nacross the way, and a cyclone swept the town, destroying their\nestablishments and sparing yours: you, as an individual, would be\nashamed to take advantage of the disaster under which your rivals were\nsuffering, using the time while they were out of business to lure their\ncustomers away from them and bind those customers to you so securely\nthat your competitors would never be able to get them back.  You would\nscorn such conduct as an individual; but when it comes to a relation of\nthe nations: during the first two years of the War, from the highest\ngovernment circles down to the smallest country newspaper, we were urged\nto take advantage of the disaster under which our European rivals were\nsuffering, win their international customers away from them and bind\nthose customers to us so securely that Europe would never be able to get\nthem back.  Not that we were urged to industry and enterprise--that is\nalways right--but actually to seek to profit by the sufferings of\nothers--conduct we would regard as utterly unworthy in personal life.\n\nIf your neighbor were to say, \"My personal aspirations demand this\nportion of your front yard,\" and he were to attempt to fence it in: the\nsituation is unimaginable; but when a nation says, \"My national\naspirations demand this portion of your territory,\" and proceeds to\nannex it: if the nation is strong enough to carry it out, a large part\nof the world acquiesces.\n\nThe relations of nations are thus still largely on the plane of\nprimitive life among individuals, or, since nations are made up of\ncivilized and semi-civilized persons, it would be fairer to say that the\nrelations of nations are comparable to those prevailing among\nindividuals when a group of men goes far out from civil society, to the\nfrontier, beyond the reach of courts of law and their police forces:\nthen nearly always there is a reversion to the rule of the strong arm.\nThat is what Kipling meant in exclaiming,\n\n\"There's never a law of God or man runs north of fifty-three.\"\n\nThat condition prevailed all across our frontier in the early days. For\ninstance, the cattle men came, pasturing their herds on the hills and\nplains, using the great expanse of land not yet taken up by private\nownership.  A little later came the sheep men, with vast flocks of\nsheep, which nibbled every blade of grass and other edible plant down to\nthe ground, thus starving out the cattle.  What followed?  The cattle\nmen got together by night, rode down the sheep-herders, shot them or\ndrove them out, or were themselves driven out.\n\nSo on the frontier, in the early days, a weakling staked out an\nagricultural or mining claim.  A ruffian appears, who is a sure shot,\njumps the claim and drives the other out.  It was the rule of the strong\narm, and it was evident on the frontier all across the country.\n\nThis is exactly the state that a considerable part of the world has\nreached in international relationship to-day.  Claim-jumping is still\naccepted and widely practised among the nations.  That is, in fact, the\nway in which all empires have been built--by a succession of successful\nclaim-jumpings. Consider the most impressive of them all, the old Roman\nempire.  Rome was a city near the mouth of the Tiber.  She reached out\nand conquered a few neighboring cities in the Latin plain, binding them\nsecurely to herself by domestic and economic ties.  Then she extended\nher power south and north, crossed into northern Africa, conquered Gaul\nand Spain, swept Asia Minor, until a territory three thousand by two\nthousand miles in extent was under the sway of her all-conquering arm.\n\nWhat justified Rome, as far as she had justification, was the remarkable\nstrength and wisdom with which she established law and order and the\nprotections of civil society over all the conquered territory, until\noften the subject populations were glad they had come under the\nall-dominant sway of Rome, since their situation was so much more\npeaceful and happy than before.  Such justification, however, is after\nthe fact: it is not moral justification of the building of the empire.\nThat represented a succession of claim-jumpings.\n\nFor an illustration from more modern history, take the greatest\ninternational crime of the last five hundred years, with one exception--\nthe partition of Poland. It is true the Polish nobles were a nuisance to\ntheir neighbors, ever quarreling among themselves, with no central\nauthority powerful enough to restrain them, but that did not justify the\naction taken.  Three nations, or rather the autocratic sovereigns of\nthose nations, powerful enough to accomplish the crime, agreed to\npartition Poland among themselves.  They did it, with the result that\nthere are plenty of Poles in the world to-day, but there is no Poland.\n\nConsider the possession of Silesia by Prussia.  Silesia was an integral\npart of the Austrian domain, long so recognized.  Friedrich the Great\nwanted it.  He annexed it.  The deed caused him many years of recurring,\ndevastating wars; again and again he was near the point of utter defeat;\nbut he succeeded in bringing the war to a successful conclusion, and\nSilesia is part of Prussia to-day.  The strong arm conquest is the only\nreason.\n\nSo is it with Germany's possession of Schleswig-Holstein, with Austria\nin Herzegovina and Bosnia, France in Algiers, Italy in Tripoli: they are\nall instances of claim-jumping, reprehensible in varying degrees.\n\nI suppose no thoughtful Englishman would attempt to justify, on high\nmoral grounds, the building up of the British empire: for instance, the\npossession of Egypt and India by Britain.  How does India happen to be a\npart of the British realm?  Every one knows the answer. The East India\nCompany was simply the most adventurous and enterprising trading company\nthen in the world.  It grew rich trading with the Orient, established\nthe supremacy of the British merchant marine, got into difficulties with\nFrench rivals and native rulers, fought brilliantly for its rights, as\nit had every reason to do, conquered territory and consolidated its\npossessions, ruling chiefly through native princes. It became so\npowerful that it did not seem wise to the British government to permit a\nprivate corporation to exercise such ever-growing political authority.\nIt was regulated, and in the end abolished, by act of Parliament; its\npossessions were taken over by the Crown; the conquests were extended\nand completed, and India today is a gem in the crown of the British\nempire.\n\nWhat justifies Britain, as far as she has justification, is the\nremarkable wisdom and generosity with which she has extended, not\nonlylaw and order and protection to life and property, but freedom and\nautonomous self-government, to her colonies and subject populations,\nwith certain tragic exceptions, about as fast as this could safely be\ndone.  It is that which holds the British empire together.  Great\nirregular empire, stretching over a large part of the globe: but for\nthis it would fall to pieces over night.  It would be impossible for\nforce, administered at the top, to hold it together.  The splendid\nresponse of her colonies in this War has been purely voluntary.  That\nCanada has four hundred thousand trained men at the front, or ready to\ngo, is due wholly to her free response to the wise generosity of\nEngland's policy, and in no degree to compulsion, which would have been\nimpossible.  This justification of the British empire is, nevertheless,\nas in the case of Rome, after the fact, and does not justify morally the\nbuilding up of the empire.\n\nOur own hands are not entirely clean.  It is true we came late on the\nstage of history, and, starting as a democracy, were instinctively\nopposed to empire building.  Thus our brief record is cleaner than that\nof the older nations.  Nevertheless, there are examples of claim-jumping\nin our history. The most tragic of all is a large part of our treatment\nof the American Indians.  It is true, with Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy, we\ntried to make every steal a bargain.  Many an expanse of territory has\nbeen bought with a jug of rum.  The Indian knew nothing about the\nownership of land; we did. So we made the deed, and he accepted it.\nThen, to his surprise, he found he had to move off from land where for\ngenerations his ancestors had hunted and fought, with no idea of private\nownership.  So we pushed him on and on. Of late decades we have become\nashamed, tried in awkward fashion to render some compensation for the\nwrongs done, but the larger part of the story is sad indeed.\n\nThere is, of course, another side to all this: the more highly developed\nnations do owe leadership and service in helping those below to climb\nthe path of civilization; but let one answer fairly how much of empire\nbuilding has been due to this altruistic spirit, and how much to\nselfishness and the lust for power and possession.\n\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE ETHICS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSHIP\n\nWe have seen that all empires have been built up by a series of\nsuccessful aggressions, and that claim-jumping still characterizes the\nrelations of the nations.  Nevertheless, there has been some progress in\napplying to groups and nations the moral principles we recognize as\nbinding upon individuals.  Consider again our internal life: it was\ntwenty years ago that we coined and used so widely the phrase \"soulless\ncorporations\" for our great combinations of capital in industry.  To-day\nthat phrase is rarely heard.  One sees it seldom even in the pages of\nsurviving \"muck-raking\" magazines.  Why has a phrase, used so widely in\nthe past, all but disappeared? Again the answer is illuminating: there\nhas been tremendous growth in twenty years, on the part of our great\ncorporations, in treating their employees as human beings and not merely\nas cog-wheels in a productive machine.  When the greatest corporation in\nthe United States voluntarily raises the wages of all its employees in\nthe country ten per cent., five several times, within a few months, as\nthe Steel trust has recently done, something has happened.  It may be\nsaid, \"they did it because it was good business\": twenty years ago they\nwould not have recognized that it was good business. It may be said,\n\"they did it to avoid strikes\": twenty years ago they would have\nwelcomed the strikes, fought them through and gained what selfish\nadvantage was possible.  The point is, there has been vast increase in\nthe consciousness of moral responsibility on the part of corporations\ntoward their artisans.  This has been due partly to legislation, but\nmainly to education and the awakening of public conscience.  If you wish\nto find the greatest arrogance and selfishness now, you will discover\nit, not among the capitalists: they are timid and submissive--strangely\nso.  You will find it rather in certain leaders of the labor  movement,\nwith their consciousness of newly-gained powers.\n\nSome growth there has been in the application of the same moral\nprinciples even to the relations of the nations.  For instance: a\nhundred years ago the Napoleonic wars had just come to an end.  In the\ndays of Napoleon men generally gloried in war; to-day most of them\nbitterly regret it, and fight because they believe they are fighting for\nhigh moral aims or for national self-preservation, whether they are\nright or wrong.\n\nWhen Napoleon conquered a country, often he pushed the weakling king off\nthe throne, and replaced him with a member of his own family--at times a\nworse weakling.  Think of such a thing being attempted to-day: it is\nunimaginable, unless the worst tyranny on earth got the upper hand for\nthe next three hundred years of human history.\n\nA more pungent illustration of progress is the feverish desire, shown by\neach of the  combatants in this world struggle, to prove that he did not\nbegin it. Now some one began it.  A hundred years ago belligerents would\nnot have been so anxious to prove their innocence: then victory closed\nall accounts and no one went behind the returns.  The feverish anxiety\neach combatant has shown to establish his innocence of initiating this\ndevastating War is conclusive proof that even the worst of them\nrecognizes that they all must finally stand before the moral court of\nthe world's conscience and be judged.  The same tendency is shown in the\nefforts of Germany--grotesquely and tragically sophistical as they are--\nto justify her ever-expanding, freshly-invented atrocities.  At least\nshe is aware that they require justification.\n\nThis explains why we react so bitterly even on what would have been\naccepted a century ago.  What was taken for granted yesterday is not\ntolerated to-day, and what is taken for granted to-day will not be\ntolerated in a to-morrow that maybe is not so distant as in our darker\nmoments we imagine.\n\nWhat would be the conclusion of this process?  It would be, would it\nnot, the complete application to the relations of the nations, of the\nmoral principles universally accepted as binding upon individuals?  If\nit is true that the moral order of the universe is one and unchanging,\nthen _what is right for a man is right for a nation of men, and what is\nwrong for a man is wrong for a nation_; and no fallacious reasoning\nshould be allowed to blind us to that basic truth.\n\nThis would mean the end of all diplomacy of lying and deceit.  The\nrelations of the nations would be placed on the same plane of relative\nhonesty and frankness now prevailing among individuals: not absolute\ntruth--few of us practice that--but that general ability to trust each\nother, in word and conduct, that is the foundation of our business and\nsocial life.\n\nIt would mean the end of empire building.  Those empires that exist\nwould fall naturally into their component parts.  If those parts\nremained affiliated with the central government, it would be only\nthrough the voluntary choice of the majority of the population dwelling\nupon the territory.  Thus every people would be affiliated with the\ngovernment to which it naturally belonged and with which it wished to be\naffiliated.\n\nIt would mean finally a voluntary federation of the nations, with the\nestablishment of a world court of justice; but no weak-kneed, spineless\narbitration court: rather a court of justice, comparable to those\nestablished over individuals, whose judgments would be enforced by an\ninternational military and naval police, contributed by the federated\nnations.\n\nPeople misunderstand this proposal.  They imagine it would mean the\ngiving over of the entire military and naval equipment of each federated\nnation to the central court.  Far from it: each nation would retain, for\ndefense purposes, the mass of its manhood and the larger fraction of its\nlimited equipment, while a minor fraction would be contributed to the\nworld court.\n\nWhen this is achieved there will be, for the first time in the history\nof the world, the dawn of the longed-for era of universal and relatively\npermanent peace for mankind.\n\nIt is a far-off dream, is it not?  Let us admit it frankly, and it seems\nfurther off than it did four years ago; for the approximations to it,\nachieved through international law, we have seen go down in a blind\nwelter, through the invention of new instruments of destruction and the\nwillful perpetration of illegal and immoral atrocities in this horrible\nWar.\n\nNevertheless, it is not so far off as in ourdarker moments we fear.  If\nthis world War ends justly; which means if it ends so that the people\ndwelling on any territory are affiliated with the government to which\nthey naturally belong and with which they wish to be affiliated, the\ndream will be brought appreciably nearer.  If the War ends unjustly,\nwhich means if it ends with the gratification of the ambitions of\naggressive tyranny, the dream will be put remotely far off.  If a peace\nis patched up meantime, with no solution, it will mean Europe sleeping\non its arms, and the breaking out of the war with multiplied devastation\nwithin twenty years.  That is why these blithely undertaken peace\nmissions and other efforts at peace without victory, even when not\ncloaks for pro-German movements, are such preposterous absurdities or\nelse play directly into the hands of tyranny.\n\nAt best, however, the dream is a long way ahead.  Men dislike to give up\npower, nations equally.  It will take a long process of international\nmoral education to induce the nations to renounce their arbitrary\npowers, their right to adjust all their own quarrels, and lead them to\nenter voluntarily a federation under a world court of Justice.  This,\nnevertheless, is the hope of the world, toward which we should work with\nall our might.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nAMERICA'S DUTY IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS\n\nSince the world solution is, at best, so remote, our question is: what\nare we to do meantime?  Our entrance into the War partially answers the\nquestion.  We have before us the immediate task of aiding in\noverthrowing autocracy and tyranny and of defending our liberties and\nthose of the nations that stand for democracy.  This is the first duty,\nbut not the only one.\n\nMore definitely than any other nation we have thrown down to the world\nthe challenge of democracy.  We have said, \"Away with kings, we will\nhave no more of them!  Away with castes and ruling classes, we will have\nno more of them!\"  As a matter of fact, democracies have no rulers--the\nword survives from an older order of society--they have guides, leaders\nand representatives.  If you wish to use the word, in a democracy every\nman is the ruler--and every woman too, we hope, before long.  To this\nideal we are committed and it carries certain obligations; for every\nright carries a duty, and every duty, a right.  Often the best way to\nget a privilege is by assuming a responsibility.  That is a truth it\nwould be well for the leaders of the feminist and labor movements to\nrecognize. The obligations carried by the challenge of our democracy are\nclear.\n\nWe Americans should have done, once and for all time, with the diplomacy\nof lying and deceit.  Fortunately our recent traditions are in harmony\nwith this demand; but we should not depend upon the happy accident of an\nadministration which takes the right attitude.  It should be the open\nand universal demand of the American people that those who represent us\nshall place the relations we sustain to other nations permanently on the\nsame plane of frank honesty, generally prevailing among individuals.\nIncidentally, any politician or statesman who, at this heart-breaking\ncrisis of the world's life, dares play party politics with our\ninternational relations, should be damned forever by the vote of the\nAmerican people.\n\nFurther, it is our duty to have done with all dream of empire building.\nIt is not for us: let us abandon it frankly and forever.  Those\ndependencies which have come to us through the accidents of our history\nshould be granted autonomous self-government at the earliest moment at\nwhich they can safely take it over--which does not necessarily mean\nto-morrow.  If they remain affiliated with us it should be only through\nthe voluntary choice of the majority of the population dwelling upon\nthem.\n\nIt is, moreover, our duty to lead the world in the effort to form a\nfederation of the nations and establish the aforesaid world court of\njustice, with the international military and naval police to enforce its\njudgments.\n\nMore than this is demanded: on the basis of the challenge of our\ndemocracy, it is our duty to rise to the point of placing justice higher\nthan commercial interest.  It is a hard demand; but, with the latent\nidealism in our American life, surely we can rise to it.  For instance,\nthe vexed puzzle of the tariff will never be justly and permanently\nsettled, till it is settled primarily as a problem of moral\ninternational relationship, and not as one merely of economic interest\nand advantage.\n\nFor example, a tariff wall between the United States and Canada is as\npreposterous an absurdity as would be a long line of bristling\nfortifications along the three thousand and more miles of international\nboundary.  We are not protecting ourselves from slave labor over there.\nThey are not protecting themselves from slave labor here.  Barring a few\nlines of industry, there are the same conditions of labor, production\nand distribution both sides of the line.  The only reason for a tariff\nwall is their wish, or our wish, or the wish of each, to gain some\nadvantage at the expense of the other party.  Now every business man\nknows that any trade that benefits one and injures the other party to it\nis bad business, as well as bad ethics, in the long run.  Good business\nbenefits both traders all the time.\n\nOn the other hand, when it comes to protecting our labor from\ncompetition with slave labor in other quarters of the earth, we have not\nonly the right, but the duty to do it.  So when it is a matter of\nprotecting our industries from being swamped by the unloading of vast\nquantities of goods, produced under the feverish and abnormal\nconditions, sure to prevail in Europe after the War, we have again, not\nonly the right, but the duty to do it.\n\nFinally, a still higher call is upon us: we must somehow rise to the\npoint of placing humanity above the nation.  It is true, \"Charity begins\nat home,\" certainly justice should.  One should educate one's own\nchildren, before worrying over the children of the neighborhood; clean\nup one's own town, before troubling about the city further away.  Often\nthe whole is helped best by serving the part; but it is with national\npatriotism as it is with family affection.  The latter is a lovely\nquality and the source of much that is best in the world; but when\nfamily affection is an instrument for gaining special privilege at the\nexpense of the good of society, a means of attaining debauching luxury\nand selfish aggrandisement, it is an abomination.  The man who prays\nGod's blessing on himself, his wife and his children, and nobody else,\nis a mean man, and he never gets blessed--not from God.  Similarly, the\nman who seeks the interest of his own nation, against the welfare of\nmankind, who prays God's blessing only on his own people, is equally a\nmean man, and his prayer, also, is never answered from the Most High.\nThe world has advanced too far for the spirit of a narrow nationalism.\nThe recrudescence of such a spirit is one of the sad consequences of\nthis world War.  Only in a spirit of international brotherhood, in\ndedication to the welfare of humanity, can democracy go towards its\ngoal.\n\nThese are the obligations following upon the challenge of democracy we\nhave proclaimed to the nations.\n\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE GOSPEL AND THE SUPERSTITION OF NON-RESISTANCE\n\nThe first condition of fulfilling the responsibilities imposed upon us\nby the challenge of our democracy is, now and hereafter, readiness and\nwillingness for self-respecting self-defense, defense of our liberties\nand of the principles and ideals for which we stand.  There is much\nnonsense talked about non-resistance to evil.  It is a lovely thing in\ncertain high places of the moral life.  It was well that Socrates\nremained in the common criminal prison in Athens and drank the hemlock\npoison; but nine times out of ten it would have been better to run away,\nas he had an opportunity to do. It was good that Jesus healed the ear of\nthe servant of the high priest,--and good that St. Peter cut it off.\n\nIn other words, acts of non-resistance and self-sacrifice are fine\nflowers of the moral life; but you cannot have flowers unless their\nroots are below ground, otherwise they quickly wither.  Thus, to have\nsound value, these acts of non-resistance and self-sacrifice must rest\non a solid foundation of self-affirmation and resistance to evil.\n\nAs with the individual, so with the nation: there come high moments in a\nnation's life, when a strong people might resist and deliberately\nchooses not to.  As an illustration, take our Mexican problem.  The\nannouncement that under no circumstances would we intervene, may have\nled to misunderstanding.  Our purpose to let the Mexican people work out\ntheir own problem may have been taken to mean that we would not justly\nprotect ourselves, with consequent encouragement to border raiding.\nNevertheless, if there has been any error in handling the situation, it\nhas been on the better side--on the side of patience, generosity,\nlong-suffering, giving the other fellow another chance, and another and\nanother, even though he does not deserve them.  Now that is not the side\non which human nature usually errs.  The common temptation is to\nselfishness and unjust aggression. Since that is the case, if we cannot\nstrike the just balance, it is better to push too far on the other side\nand avoid the common mistake.\n\nSuppose, after the War, Japan, alone or in conjunction with one or\nanother European power, closes the door to China: one can imagine\ncircumstances where we, with the right to insist that the door be kept\nopen, and perhaps, by that time, something of the strength to enforce\nthat right, might deliberately say, \"No, we will not resist.\"  Not that,\nwith our present situation, such action is desirable, but that one can\nimagine conditions arising where it might be the higher choice.\n\nLet me repeat that, for the nation as with the individual, these high\nmoments must rest on something else.  They are the high mountain peaks\nof the moral life; but detached mountain peaks are impossible,--except\nas a mirage.  They must rest upon the granite foundation of the hills\nand plateaus below. So these high virtues of non-resistance, magnanimity\nand self-sacrifice must always rest upon the granite foundation of the\nmasculine virtues of self-affirmation, endurance, heroism, strong\nconflict with evil. It takes strength to make magnanimity and\nself-sacrifice  possible, if their lesson is not lost.  A weak man\ncannot be magnanimous, since his generosity is mistaken for servile\ncowardice. After all, the best time to forgive your enemy, for his good\nand yours, is not when he has his foot on your neck: he is apt to\nmisunderstand and think you are afraid.  It is often better to wait\nuntil you can get on your feet and face him, man to man, and then if you\ncan forgive him, it is so much the better for you, for him and for all\nconcerned.\n\nThus there are two opposite lines of error in the moral life.  The\nphilosophy of the one is given by Nietzsche, while Tolstoy, in certain\nextremes of his teaching, represents the other.  Nietzsche, I suppose,\nshould be regarded as a symptom, rather than a cause of anything\nimportant; but the ancestors of Nietzsche were Goethe and Ibsen, with\ntheir splendid gospel of self-realization.  Nietzsche, on the contrary,\nwith his contempt for the morality of Christianity as the morality of\nslaves and weaklings, with his eulogy of the blond brute striding over\nforgotten multitudes of his weaker fellows to a stultifying isolation\napart--Nietzsche is self-realization in the mad-house.  It has always\nseemed to me not without significance that his own life ended there.\n\nOn the other hand, when Tolstoy responded to an inquirer that, if he saw\na child being attacked by a brutal ruffian, he would not use force to\nintervene and protect the child: that, too, is non-resistance fit for\nthe insane asylum. One of these is just as far from sane, balanced human\nmorality as the other.\n\nIt is a terrible thing to suffer injustice; it is far worse to\nperpetrate it. If one had to choose between being victim or tyrant, one\nwould always choose to be victim: it is safer for the moral life and\nthere is more recovery afterward.  If, however, it is better to suffer\ninjustice than to perpetrate it, better than either is to resist it,\nfight it and, if possible, overthrow it.\n\nIt has been said so many times by extreme pacifists that even sane human\nbeings sometimes take it for granted, that \"force never accomplished\nanything permanent in human history.\"  It is false, and the reasoning by\nwhich it is supported involves the most sophistical of fallacies.  All\ndepends on who uses the force and the purpose for which it is used.  The\nforce employed by tyranny and injustice accomplishes nothing permanent\nin history.  Why? Because tyranny and injustice are in their very nature\ntransient, they are opposed to the moral order of the universe and, in\nthe end, must pass. On the other hand, the force employed on the part of\nliberty and justice has attained most of the ends of civilization we\ncherish to-day.  The force of the million of mercenaries, collected\nthrough Asia and Africa by Darius and Xerxes, to overwhelm a few Greek\ncities, accomplished nothing permanent in history; but the force of the\nten thousand Athenians who fought at Marathon and of the other thousands\nat Salamis, saved democracy for Europe and made possible the\ncivilization of the Occident.  The force employed by King Louis of\nFrance to support a tottering throne and continue the exploitation of\nthe people by an idle and selfish aristocratic caste, accomplished\nnothing permanent in history; but the force of those Frenchmen who\nmarched upon Paris, singing the Marseillaise, made possible the freedom\nand culture of the last hundred years.  The force employed by King\nGeorge of England, to wring taxes without representation from reluctant\ncolonies, accomplished nothing permanent in history, but the force\nwhich, at Bunker Hill and Concord Bridge, \"fired the shot heard round\nthe world,\" achieved the liberty and democracy of the American\ncontinent.\n\nIt may be freely admitted that all use of force is a confession of\nfailure to find a better way.  If you use force in the education of a\nchild, it is such a confession of failure.  So is it if force is used in\ncontrolling defectives and criminals, or in adjusting the relations of\nthe nations; but note that the failure may be one for which the\nindividual parent, teacher, society, state or nation is in no degree\nresponsible.   Force is a tragic weapon--and the ultimate one.\n\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nPREPAREDNESS FOR SELF-DEFENSE\n\nSince force is still the weapon of international justice, readiness and\nwillingness to use it for defense, when necessary, is then the first\ncondition of fulfilling the aims and serving the causes for which\nAmerica stands.  In other words, since the relations of the nations are\nstill so largely those of individuals under the conditions of frontier\nlife, as with the honest man on the frontier, so for the\nself-respecting, peace-loving nation to-day, it is well to carry a gun\nand know how to shoot.\n\nCarrying a gun is a dangerous practice, for two reasons: it may go off\nin your pocket; you may get drunk and shoot when you ought not.  Those\nare the only two rational arguments against national preparation for\ndefense, in the present state of the world.  Let us see.  The gun may go\noff in your pocket: that is, if a strong armament for defense is built\nup, there is always danger that it may be used internally, against the\npeople, unjustly.  That, indeed, has been one of the curses of Europe\nfor a thousand years. It is a grave danger, but recognizing it is partly\nforestalling it; moreover, we would better face that danger than one far\nworse.  So with the other menace: you may get drunk and shoot when you\nought not.  Nations get drunk: they get drunk with pride, arrogance,\naggressive ambition, revenge, even with panic terror, and so shoot when\nthey should not.  This, also, is a grave danger; but here, as well,\nrecognizing it is part way forestalling it, and this danger, too, we\nwould better face than one far more terrible. Moreover, it is armament\nfor the gratification of aggressive ambition, and under the control of\nthe arbitrary authority of a despotic individual or group, that tends to\ninitiate war, not armament solely to defend the liberties of a people.\n\nThus, under the conditions cited, it is well to be armed and prepared.\nIf a wolf is at large, if a mad dog is loose, if a madman is abroad with\nan ax, it is the part of wisdom to have an adequate weapon and be\nprepared to use it.  If the Athenians had not resisted the hordes of\nAsia, what would have been the history of Europe?  If the French had not\nresisted tyranny and injustice in the Revolution, what would have been\nthe civilization of the last hundred years?  If the English colonists\nhad not resisted taxation without representation, what would be the\npresent status of America?  If the artisan groups had not united and\nfought economic exploitation, what would be their life to-day?  If\nBelgium had not resisted Germany, what would be the future of democracy\nin Europe?  Thus, now and after the War, the need is for all necessary\narmament for self-respecting self-defense and not an atom to gratify\naggressive ambition.  This does not mean that, once involved in war, the\nmilitary tactics of democracy should be merely defensive.  As has often\nand wisely been said, in war the best defense is a swift and hard\nattack.\n\nIt is widely argued, however, since our aim is peace and a world-court\nof justice to settle the disputes among the nations, making general\ndisarmament possible, should not one great nation, fortunately free from\nthe quarrels of Europe, occupying the major portion of a continent, its\nshores washed by two great oceans, with peaceful friendship on the north\nand weak anarchy on the south--should not such a nation take the lead,\ndisarm and set an example to mankind?  It is a beautiful dream!  Would\nthat those who really believe in non-resistance to evil would be\nlogical, and apply it to internal as well as external policy.  What is a\npolice force? It is a body of men, trained, employed and paid to use\nforce in resisting evil.  If you wish to try out non-resistance, why not\nlet some city apply it? Let Chicago do it: abolish its police force and\nset the example to the rest of the benighted cities of the country.\nWhat would happen?  As long as there are criminals in all cities of the\nland, how they would flock to that fat pasturage.  What devastation of\nproperty, destruction of life, injury to innocent women and children!\nUntil the best men of Chicago would get together, form a vigilance\ncommittee, shoot some of the criminals, hang others, drive the rest out;\nand Chicago would get back to law and order, with courts of justice and\na regular police body, composed of men trained, employed and paid to use\nforce in resisting evil.\n\nThe example of Canada and the United States is cited, and a noble\nexample it is: three thousand and more miles of international boundary,\nwith never a shining gun or bristling fortress on the entire frontier.\nA glorious example, prophetic of what is coming all over the world,\nperhaps more quickly than we dare hope to-day; but what made it\npossible?  Agreement in advance, and that at a time when one of the\nparties was too weak to be feared. Canada is getting strong: she has at\npresent four hundred thousand trained men at the front or ready to go.\nBefore the War closes she will have over a half million.  Now suppose\nCanada fortified: we would be compelled to, there would be no other way.\n\nThus one nation cannot disarm while the others are strongly armed, and\namong them are those whose autocratic rulers and imperialistic castes\nare watching for signs of weakness in order to perpetrate international\nclaim-jumping.\n\nIt is true that, on the frontier, in the early days, there were\nindividuals who went about unarmed among the gun men, did it\nsuccessfully, and some of them died peacefully in their beds: Christian\nministers--sky-pilots, they were called.  Please note, however, that the\nsky-pilot never had any money. He had no claims to be jumped.\n\nWe are not sky-pilots--far from it.  As to money: the wealth of the\nworld has been flowing into our coffers in a golden stream, to the\nembarrassment of our financial institutions, to the exaltation of the\ncost of living to such a point that, with more money than we ever\ndreamed of having, we find it more difficult to buy enough to eat and\nwear.  As for claims to be jumped: they are on every hand: Panama Canal,\nHawaiian Islands, Philippine Islands, ports of New York and San\nFrancisco, vast reaches of unprotected coast.  No, we are not\nsky-pilots, we cannot claim exemption on that ground.\n\nSuppose, after the War, we attempted to disarm, without the protection\nof a world court and international police, while the other nations\nretained war armament.  They, the victors and perhaps the defeated,\nwould possess a great army and navy, manned with seasoned veterans, and\nbe burdened with an intolerable debt; for the War has gone too far for\nany one to be able to pay adequate indemnity.  We, rich, young,\nheedless, sure that no one on earth could ever whip us, chiefly because\nno one worth while has ever seriously tried: suppose we were completely\ndisarmed.  It would require only a little meddling with Mexico or\nBrazil, and we should have to give up the Monroe Doctrine or fight.\nWell, perhaps we shall give it up: it has even been suggested in the\nhalls of Congress that we should--to the shame of the suggester, be it\nsaid.  People do not understand the Monroe Doctrine: they talk of it as\nif it were a law.  It is in no sense a law, but is merely a rather\narrogant expression of our desires. We said to the other nations: \"We\ndesire that none of you henceforth shall fence in any part of our front\nor back yard, or the front or back yard of any of our neighbors,\ndwelling on the North and South American continents.\"  That is the\nMonroe Doctrine, and that is all that it is: an expression of our\nwishes.  All very well if others choose to respect them, but suppose\nsome one does not?  Perhaps, as stated, we may abandon the Monroe\nDoctrine: that is the easiest way, and the easiest way, for a nation or\nan individual, is usually the way of damnation. Even so, suppose the\nnation in question to say, \"My national aspirations demand the Panama\nCanal, the Philippine Islands, or Long Island and the Port of New York.\"\nWhy not?  The Atlantic Ocean is only a mill-pond. It is not half so wide\nas Lake Erie was fifty years ago, in relation to modern means of\ntransportation and communication.  People say, \"Do we want to give up\nour traditional isolation?\"  They are too late in asking the question:\nthat isolation is irrecoverably gone.  That should be now evident even\nto people dwelling in fatuously fancied security between the Alleghenies\nand the Rockies.  We are inevitably drawn into relation with the rest of\nmankind.  The question is no longer, \"Shall we take a part in world\nproblems?\", but \"What part shall we take?\"\n\nThe point is, that if, under the circumstances cited, any one wished to\ndo so, we could quickly be driven to such a condition of abject\nhumiliation that we should be compelled to fight.  Now suppose,\ndisarmed, we should enter the conflict utterly unprepared?  The result\nwould be, hundreds of thousands of young men, going out bravely in\nobedience to an ideal--untrained and half equipped--to be butchered, a\nhumiliating peace, and an indemnity of many billions to be groaned under\nfor fifty years.\n\nOn the other hand, if we were adequately armed for defense, there would\nbe much less temptation to any one to trouble us; and if we were\ncompelled to fight, would it not be better to fight reasonably prepared?\n\nThere is a story, going the rounds of the press, about the bandit, Jesse\nJames: telling how, on one occasion, he went to a lonely farm house to\ncommandeer a meal.  Entering, he found one woman, a widow, alone and\nweeping bitterly.  He asked her what was the matter, and she replied\nthat, in one hour, the landlord was coming, and if she did not have her\nmortgage money, she would lose her little farm and home and be out in\nthe world, shelterless.  The heart of the bandit was touched.  He gave\nher the money to pay off the mortgage, hid in the brush and held up the\nlandlord on the way back.\n\nNeed the moral be pointed?  We have been getting the mortgage money.\nDuring the first years of the War it rolled in, an ever-increasing\ngolden stream, until we held a mortgage on numerous European nations.\nWe have the mortgage money, but _beware of the way back!_\n\nThus the agitation, in one nation, for disarmament, unpreparedness and a\npatched up peace, while the other nations are armed and embittered, not\nonly renders the situation of the one people critically perilous, but\nactually cripples its power to serve the cause of world peace and\nhumanity.  If only the peace-at-any-price people had to pay the price,\none would be willing to wait and see what happened; but they never pay\nit, they take to cover.  It is those hundreds of thousands of splendid\nyoung men, going out blithely in obedience to duty, to be butchered, it\nis the millions of women and children, who cannot escape from a\ndevastated area, who pay that price.\n\nEvery people in the past that turned to money and mercenaries for\ndefense has gone down.  No people ever survived that was unable and\nunwilling to fight for its liberties and spend, if necessary, the last\ndrop of its blood for the principles it believed.\n\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nRECONSTRUCTION FROM THE WAR\n\nWe have seen how impossible it is to forecast the new world that will\nfollow the War, we know merely that it will be utterly new.\nNevertheless, the great tendencies already at work we can partly discern\nand recognize something of what they promise.  It is well to try to see\nthem, that we may be not too unready to welcome the opportunity and\naccept the burden of the world that is being born in pain.\n\nPeace and prosperity produce a peculiar type of conservatism.  People\nare then relatively free in action and expression, things are going well\nwith them, and they are instinctively inclined to let well enough alone.\nThus in thought they tend to a conservative inertia.\n\nOn the other hand, in periods of great strain and suffering, as in war\ntime, thought is stimulated, all ordinary views are broken down and the\nmost radical notions are widely disseminated and even taken for granted\nby those who, shortly before, would have been scandalized by them.\nAction and certain phases of free speech are, in such a period, much\nmore widely restrained by authority.  There is a swift and strong\ndevelopment of social control, urged by necessity.\n\nThus, in war time, there is the curious paradox of ever widening\nradicalism in thought, with constantly decreasing freedom in action and\nexpression. When the discrepancy becomes too great, you have the\nexplosion--Revolution. This cause hastened and made more extreme the\nRussian Revolution, which had been simmering for a century.  It has not\nyet appeared in Germany because of the forty years of successful work in\ndrilling the mind of the German people to march in goose-step; yet the\nincreasing signs of questioning the infallibility of the existing regime\nand system in Germany give evidence that there, too, the conflict is at\nwork.\n\nWith ourselves, the opposition appears, as yet, only in minor degree.\nNevertheless, it is here.  On the one hand, are the registration,\nconscription and espionage measures, the effort to control news, the\ngovernmental supervision of food supplies, transportation, production\nand corporation earnings, the war taxes.  On the other hand, thought is\nso stimulated that everything is questioned: our political system, our\nsocial institutions--marriage, the family, education.  As some one says,\n\"Nothing is radical now.\"  We probably shall escape a sudden revolution,\nbut the conflict must produce profound readjustment in every aspect of\nour life; for thought and action must come measurably together, since\nthey are related as soul and body.\n\nThere are singular eddies in the main current both ways.  For instance,\nthe exigencies and sufferings of war produce a reaction toward narrower,\northodox forms of religion and a harsher spirit of nationalism; while in\nfields of action apart from the struggle, freedom and even license may\nincrease, as in sex-relations.  Nevertheless these cross-currents, while\nthey may obscure, do not alter the main tendencies, which move swiftly\nand increasingly toward the essential conflict.\n\nEven before our actual entrance into the War, its profound influence\nupon both our thinking and our conduct and institutions was evident.\nNow that we are in the conflict that influence is multiplied.  We are\naroused to new seriousness of thought.  The frivolity and selfish\npleasure-seeking that have marked our life for recent decades are\ndecreasing.  We may reasonably hope that the literature of superficial\ncleverness and smart cynicism, which has been in vogue for the last\nperiod, will have had its day, that the perpetrators of such literature\nwill be, measurably speaking, without audience at the conclusion of the\nWar.\n\nThe philosophy of complacency, at least, will be at an end, and the\nworld will face with new earnestness the problem of life.  This\ngeneration will be tired, perhaps exhausted, by the titanic struggle;\nbut youth comes on, fresh and eager, with exhaustless vital energy, and\nthe generations to come will take the heritage and work out the new\nphilosophy.  As Nature quickly and quietly covers the worst scars we\nmake in her breast, so Man has a power of recovery, beyond all that we\ncould dream.  It is to that we must look, across the time of demoniac\ndestruction.\n\nWe may even dare to hope that the next half-century will see a great\ndevelopment of noble literature in our own land.  War for liberty,\njustice and humanity always tends to create such a productive period in\nliterature and the other fine arts.  The struggle with Persia was behind\nthe Periclean age in Athens.  It was the conflict of England with the\novershadowing might of Spain that so vitalized the Elizabethan period.\nThe Revolution was behind the one important school of literature our own\ncountry has produced hitherto.\n\nSince this War is waged on a scale far more colossal than any other in\nhuman history, and since liberty and democracy are at stake, not only in\none land, but throughout the world and for the entire future of\nhumanity, it is reasonable to expect that the stimulation to the\ncreation of art and literature will be far greater than that following\nany previous struggle. Where the sacrifice for high aims has been\ngreatest, the inspiration should be greatest, as in France.  The\nliterature currently produced, as in the books of Loti, Maeterlinck and\nRolland, is scrappy and disappointing, it is true; but that is to be\nexpected when the whole nation is strained to its last energy and\ngasping for breath, under the titanic struggle, and is no test of what\nwill be.  In spite of the destruction of so large a fraction of her\nmanhood, France will surely rise from the ashes of this world\nconflagration regenerated and reinspired.  The pessimism of her late\ndecades will be gone.  The literature and other art she will produce\nwill be instinct with new earnestness and exalted vision, and she may\nexcel even her own great past.\n\nWe too are awakening.  Since the War began, all over the United States,\nmen and women have been thinking more earnestly and have been more\nwilling to listen to the expression of serious thought than ever before\nfor the last quarter century.  Now that the hour of sacrifice has\nstruck, this earnestness must greatly deepen.  Perhaps we, too, may have\nour golden age of art.\n\nThe same inspiration carries naturally into the religious life.  It is\ntrue, as we have seen, that there is a cross-current of reversion to\nnarrower orthodoxy, caused by the War.  The Gods of War are all national\nand tribal divinities.  While they rule, the face of the God of Humanity\nis veiled. The Kaiser's possessive attitude toward the Divine is but the\nextreme case of what War does to the religious life.  Even among\nourselves the tendency shows in such phenomena as the current popular\nevangelism--an eloquent, if artfully calculated and vulgarized preaching\nof the purely personal virtues, with an ignorance that there is a social\nproblem in modern civilization, profound as that displayed by a\nmediaeval churchman. The evangelist's list of inmates, whom he relegates\nto the kingdom of the lost, makes the place singularly attractive to the\nlover of good intellectual society.\n\nNevertheless, the reversion to narrower creeds but indicates the newly\nawakened hunger of the religious life.  Men who sacrifice live with\ngraver earnestness than those who are carelessly prosperous.  Cynicism\nand pessimism are children of idleness and frivolity, never of heroic\nsacrifice and nobly accepted pain.  These latter foster faith in life\nand its infinite and eternal meaning.  Thus, with all the tragic\nsubmerging of our spiritual heritage the War involves, we may hope that\nit will cause a revival, not of emotional hysteria, but of deepened\nfaith in the spirit, in the supreme worth of life, until at last we may\nsee the dawn of the religion of humanity.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nTHE WAR AND EDUCATION\n\nEqually far-reaching are the changes the War must produce in our\neducation. Temporarily, our higher institutions will be crippled by the\ndrawing off of the youth of the land for war.  This is one of the\nunfortunate sacrifices such a struggle involves.  We must see to it that\nit is not carried too far. One still hears old men in the South\npathetically say, \"I missed my education because of the Civil War.\"  Let\nus strive to keep open our educational institutions and continue all our\ncultural activities, in spite of the drain and strain of the War.  For\nnever was intellectual guidance and leadership more needed than in the\npresent crisis.\n\nThe paramount effect of the War on education is, however, in the\nmultiplied demand for efficiency.  This is the cry all across the\ncountry to-day, and, in the main, it is just.  Our education has been\ntoo academic, too much molded by tradition.  It must be more closely\nrelated to life and to the changed conditions of industry and commerce.\nEach boy and girl, youth and maiden, must leave the school able to take\nhold somewhere and make a significant contribution to the society of\nwhich he or she is an integral part.  Vocational training must be\ngreatly increased.  The problems of the school must be increasingly\npractical problems, and thought and judgment must be trained to the\nsolution of those problems.  This is all a part of that socialization of\ndemocracy which must be achieved if democracy is to survive in the new\nworld following the War.\n\nThere is, nevertheless, an element of emotional hysteria in the demand\nfor efficiency and only efficiency.  Efficiency is too narrow a standard\nby which to estimate anything concerning human conduct and character.\nIn the effort to meet and conquer Germany, let us beware of the mistake\nof Germany. One of the world tragedies of this epoch is the way in which\nGermany has sacrificed her spiritual heritage, first for economic, then\nfor purely military efficiency.  When we recall that spiritual heritage,\nas previously described, when we think of Schiller, Herder and Goethe,\nFroebel, Herbart and Richter, Tauler, Luther and Schleiermacher, Kant,\nFichte and Schopenhauer, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner, we stand aghast\nat the way in which she has plunged it all into the abyss,--for what?\nShall it profit a people, more than a man, if it gain the whole world\nand lose its own soul?\n\nIn such a time, then, all of us who believe in the spirit must hold high\nthe torch of humanistic culture.  Education is for life and not merely\nfor efficiency.  Of what worth is life, if one is only a cog-wheel in\nthe economic machine?  It is to save the spiritual heritage of humanity\nthat we are fighting, and it is that heritage that education must bring\nto every child and youth, if it fulfills its supreme trust.  Education\nfor the purposes of autocratic imperialism seeks to make a people a\nperfect economically productive and militarily aggressive machine.\nEducation for democracy means the development of each individual to the\nmost intelligent, self-directed and governed, unselfish and devoted,\nsane, balanced and effective humanity.\n\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nSOCIALISM AND THE WAR\n\nOne of the surprises of the War was the complete breakdown of\ninternational socialism.  Not only socialists, but those of us who had\nbeen thoughtfully watching the movement from without, had come to\nbelieve that the measure of consciousness of international brotherhood\nit had developed in the artisan groups of many lands, would be a\npowerful lever against war.  We were wrong: the superficial\ninternational sympathy evaporated like mist under the rays of a revived\nnationalism.  The socialists fell in line, almost as completely as any\nother group, with the purely nationalist aims in each land.\n\nThis must have gratified certain despots; for one cause of the War, not\nthe cause, was undoubtedly the preference on the part of various\nautocrats, to face an external war rather than the rising tide of\ndemocracy within the nation.  Temporarily, they have been successful,\nbut surely only for a brief time.  The victory of democracy will vastly\naccelerate the growth of the spirit of brotherhood throughout the world.\n\nThe terrible waste of the War must of itself produce a reaction of the\npeople on kings and castes in all lands.  The suffering that will follow\nthe War, in the period of economic readjustment, will accentuate this.\nSurely the _people_, in England, France, America, Italy, Russia, and\namong the neutral nations, will strive that no such war may come again.\nEven in Germany, when the people find out what they have paid and why,\ninevitably they must struggle so to reform their institutions that no\nruler or class may again plunge them into such disaster for the selfish\nbenefit or ambitions of that ruler or class.  How our hearts have warmed\nto Liebknecht!\n\nThe realignment of nations must work to the same end.  War, like\npolitics, makes strange bed-fellows.  Germany and Austria, for centuries\nrivals, and, at times, enemies, we behold united so completely that it\nis difficult to imagine them disentangled after the War.\n\nFrance and England, long regarding each other as natural enemies, are\nfused heart and soul.  Strangest of all, we have seen England struggling\nto win for Russia that prize of Constantinople, which for generations it\nhas been a main object of British diplomacy to keep from Russian grasp.\nMost impressive of all, has been the new consciousness of unity and\ncommon cause among the nations of the earth, and the groups within all\nnations, standing for democracy.\n\nThus the tide, checked for a time, will inevitably break forth with\nrenewed force.  It is probable that the next fifty years will be a\nperiod of great change--even of revolutions, peaceful or otherwise,\nthroughout the earth.\n\nTo understand the effect on the whole socialist movement, one must\ndistinguish clearly the two contrasting types of socialism.  It is the\ncurse of the orthodox, or Marxian, type of socialism, that it was \"made\nin Germany.\" Its economic state is modeled directly on the Prussian\nbureaucratic and paternalistic state.  Its dream realized, would mean\nPrussian efficiency carried to the _nth_ power, in a society of as\nmerciless slavery as that prevailing among the ants and the bees.  It is\ndoubtless this characteristic that has made so many bureaucratic or\northodox socialists instinctively Pro-German in sentiment and sympathy\nduring the War.\n\nThe contrasting type of socialism is that which is really the full\ndevelopment of democracy, its movement from a narrow individualism to\never wider voluntary co-operation.  It moves, not toward government\nownership, but toward ownership by the people, of natural monopolies.\nIt means, not the turning over to a bureaucratic government, of plants\nand instruments of production, but the progressive cooperative ownership\nof them by the workers themselves.  It will end, not in the overthrow of\nthe capitalist regime, but in all workers becoming co-operative\ncapitalists, and all capitalists, productive workers, since no idle\nrich--or poor, will be tolerated.  Such socialism, if it be so called,\nwill depend upon the highest individual initiative, the most voluntary\nco-operation and will include the individualism which is the cherished\nboon of democracy.  It is significant that those who represent this type\nof socialism and who think for themselves, are breaking away from the\northodox party, under the courageous leadership and example of John\nSpargo, in increasing numbers, since our entrance into the War.  They\nare as instinctively American and democratic in sympathy, as those of\nthe opposite type are Pro-German.\n\nEven in the most democratic countries, however, the War has caused a\nvast increase of the undesirable type of socialism: that is one of its\ntemporary penalties.  To carry on such a war successfully, it is\nnecessary to multiply the authority of the central government.  That has\nbeen the experience of England, now being repeated here.  Men, who were\n_citizens_ of a democracy, become, as soldiers, and in part as workers,\n_subjects_ of the government in war.  To some extent we are forced to\nimitate the tendencies we deplore and seek to overthrow in Germany, to\nbe able to meet and defeat Germany.\n\nEven so, the difference is profound.  The subordination to the\ngovernment is, for the people as a whole, voluntary, achieved through\nlaws passed by chosen representatives of the people, and not by the\narbitrary will of a kaiser and ruling caste.  Thus the freedom,\nvoluntarily relinquished for a time, can be quickly regained when the\ncrisis is past.  Subjects will become citizens again, when soldiers\nreturn to civil life.\n\nNevertheless, there will be no return to the old, selfishly\nindividualistic regime.  The lesson of organized action will have been\nlearned, and a vast increase of voluntary co-operation, that is, of the\nsocialism that is true democracy may be anticipated as a beneficent\nresult of the War.  This will be one of the great compensations for the\nwaste of our heritage, spiritual and material, through the War.  _The\nvoluntary socialization of previously individualistic democracy will be\nthe next great forward movement of the human spirit_.\n\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nTHE WAR AND FEMINISM\n\nOf all consequences of the War, perhaps none is more significant than\nits effect upon the position of women.  Militarism and feminism are\ncounter currents in the tide of history.  All recrudescence of brute\nforce carries the subjugation of women.  In the degree to which\nprofessional militarism prevails in any society, women are forced into\nhard industrial activities, despised because fulfilled by women.  On the\nother hand, a group of carefully protected women is held apart as a fine\nadornment of life. Both ways militarism accentuates the property idea in\nreference to women: the one type, useful, the other, adorning, property.\nThe one shows in marriage by purchase, the other in the dowry system.\nIt is hard to say which is more dishonoring to women.  It would,\nperhaps, seem preferable and less offensive to be bought as useful,\nrather than accepted with a money payment, as an adorning but expensive\npossession, where, as with the automobile, \"it is the upkeep that\ncounts.\"  Surely, however, either attitude is degrading enough.\n\nThe accentuation, in the present War, of the notion of women as\nproperty, is evident in more brutal form in the horrors of rape, in the\ndeliberate and organized use of women as breeders, with the same\nefficiency with which Germany breeds her swine.\n\nNevertheless, here, too, strong counter currents are at work.  As this\nis a war of nations, not of armies, it is the whole people that, in each\ninstance, has had to be mobilized and organized.  In all the democracies\nwomen have voluntarily risen to this need, just as citizens have\nvoluntarily become soldiers.  Thus women, by the legion, are working in\nmunition factories, on the farms, in productive plants of every kind, in\npublic service and commerce organizations.  The noble way in which women\nhave accepted the double burden has created a wave of reverent\nadmiration throughout the world.  Thus where professional militarism\ntends to despise the industrial activities into which it forces women,\nwar for defense and justice causes reverence for the same socially\nnecessary activities and for the women who so courageously undertake\nthem for the sake of all.\n\nMoreover, the increased freedom of action for women will outlast its\ntemporary cause.  Once so admitted to new fields of industrial, business\nand professional activity, women can never be generally excluded from\nthem again.  Thus when the soldiers become citizens, many of the women\nwill remain producers, working beside men under new conditions of\nequality.\n\nThe result, with the general stimulation of radical thinking that the\nWar involves, will be a profound acceleration of the feminist movement\nthroughout, at least, the democracies of the world.  Already it is being\nrecognized that all valid principles of democracy apply to women equally\nwith men. Regenerated, if chaotic, Russia takes for granted the farthest\nreaches of feminism.  The regime in England, that bitterly opposed\nsuffrage for women, is now voluntarily granting it before the close of\nthe War.\n\nThus the victory of the allied nations will mean the fruition of much of\nthe feminism that is a phase of humanism.  It will mean freeing women\nfrom outgrown custom and tradition, from unjust limitations in\nindustrial, social and political life.  It will mean men and women\nworking together, on a plane of moral equality, with free initiative and\nvoluntary co-operation, for the fruition of democracy.  Just as that\nfruition will see the end of idle rich and poor, so there will be no\nmore women slaves or parasites, none regarded or possessed as property,\nbut only free human beings, each self-directed and self-controlled, and\nresponsible for his or her own personality and conduct.\n\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nTHE TRANSFORMATION OF DEMOCRACY\n\nThe nineteenth century was the period of rapid growth in adhesion to\nthose ideals of democracy for which the War is being fought.  It is not\nso well recognized that during the same hundred years democracy was so\ntransformed as to be to-day a new thing under the sun.\n\nUp to the time of the French and American revolutions democracy rested\nlargely upon certain abstract ideas of human nature.  Rousseau could\nargue that in primitive times men sat down together to form a state,\neach giving up a part of his natural right to a central authority, and\nthus justifying it.  We now know that nothing of the kind ever happened,\nthat society had undergone a long process of development before men\nbegan to think about it at all.  We continue to repeat the splendid at\nall. I refer, of course, to the women of antiquity.  Where respectable,\nthese were the head of the household slaves, scarcely removed from the\ncondition of the latter.  The few women who did achieve freedom of\nthought and action, and became the companions of cultivated men--the\nAspasias of antiquity--bought their freedom at a sad price.\n\nSo Rome is called a republic, and it is true that, during the first half\nof her long history, freedom gradually broadened down from the patrician\nclass to the plebeian multitude.  When Rome reached out, however, to the\nmastery of the most impressive empire the world has seen, she never\ndreamed of extending that freedom to the conquered populations.  If she\ndid grant Roman citizenship to an occasional community, to enjoy the\nrights and exercise the privileges of that citizenship, it was necessary\nto journey to Rome.  It was the city and the world: the city ruling the\nworld as subject.\n\nThe same principle holds with the republics developing at the close of\nthe middle age, in Italy, in the towns of the Hanseatic League and\nelsewhere. Always the freedom achieved was for a city, a group or a\nclass, never for all the people.  Our dream, on the contrary, is to take\nall the men and women in the land, ultimately in the world, and help\nthem, through the free and cooperative activity of each with all the\nrest, on toward life, liberty, happiness, intelligence--all the ends of\nlife that are worth while.  If we demand life for ourselves, we ask it\nonly in harmony with the best life for all.  We want no special\nprivilege, no benefit apart, bought at the price of the best welfare of\nhumanity.  \"We,\" unfortunately, does not yet mean all of us, but it does\nsignify an increasing multitude, rallying to this that is the standard\nof to-morrow.\n\nA third transformation, at least equally important with these, is in the\ninvention, for it is no less, of representative government.  Political\nthinkers, such as John Fiske, have tried to make us understand what this\ninvention means: we do not yet realize it.  The development of\nrepresentative government is the cause, first of all, of the tremendous\nexpansion of the area over which we apply democracy.  Plato, in the\n_Laws_, limits the size of the ideal state--the one realizable in this\nworld--to 5040 citizens.  Why?  Well, the exact number has a certain\nmystical significance, but the main reason is, Plato could not imagine a\nmuch larger body of citizens than 5000 meeting together in public\nassembly and fulfilling the functions of citizenship.\n\nWe have extended democracy over a hundred millions of population,\ndwelling on the larger part of a continent; and if one travels North,\nSouth, East, West, to-day, one is impressed that, in spite of\nunassimilated elements, everywhere men and women are proud, first of\nall, of being American citizens, and only in subordinate ways devoted to\nthe section or community to which they belong.  This has been made\npossible by the invention and development of representative government.\n\nThat is not all: it is representative government that takes the sting\nout of all the older criticisms of democracy.  Plato devotes one of the\nsaddest portions of his _Republic_ to showing how in a brief time,\ndemocracy must inevitably fall and be replaced by tyranny.  With the\ndemocracy Plato knew this was true.  It was impossible for Athens to\nprotect and make permanent her constitution.  She might pass a law\ndeclaring the penalty of death on any one proposing a change in the\nconstitution.  It did no good.  Let some demagogue arise, sure of the\nsuffrage of a majority of the citizens: he could call them into public\nassembly, cause a repeal of the law, and make any change in the\nconstitution he desired.  There was no way to prevent it.\n\nIt is the invention and development of representative government that\nhas changed all that.  We chafe under the slow-moving character of our\ndemocracy--over the time it takes to get laws enacted and the longer\ntime to get them executed.  We may well be patient: this slow-moving\ncharacter of democracy is the other side of its greatest safe-guard.  It\nis because we cannot immediately express in action the popular will and\nopinion, but must think two, three, many times, working through chosen\nand responsible representatives of the people, that our democracy is not\nsubject to the perils and criticisms of those of antiquity.\n\nThe voice of the people in the day and hour, under the impulse of sudden\ncaprice or passion, is anything but the voice of God: it is much more\napt to be the voice of all the powers of darkness.  It is common\nthought, sifted through uncommon thought, that approaches as near the\nvoice of God as we can hope to get in this world.  It is not the surface\nwhim of public opinion, it is its _greatest common denominator_ that\napproximates the truth.\n\nIt behooves us to remember this at a time when changes are coming with\nsuch swiftness.  Our life has developed so rapidly that the old\npolitical forms proved inadequate to the solution of the new problems.\nAs a practical people, we therefore quickly adopted or invented new\nforms. Doubtless this is, in the main, right, but we should understand\nclearly what we are doing.\n\nFor instance, one of the great changes, recently inaugurated, is the\nelection of national senators by popular vote.  Our forefathers planned\nthat the national upper house should represent a double sifting of\npopular opinion. We elected state legislatures; they, in turn, chose the\nnational senators: thus these were twice removed from the popular will.\nIt proved easy to corrupt state legislatures; the national senate came\nto represent too much the moneyed interests; and so, through an\namendment to the constitution, we changed the process, and now elect our\nsenators by direct vote of the people.  This makes them more immediately\nrepresentative of the popular will, and perhaps the change was wise; but\nwe should recognize that we have removed one more safe-guard of\ndemocracy.\n\nA story, told for a generation, and fixed upon various British\nstatesmen, will illustrate my meaning.  The last repetition attributed\nit to John Burns. On one occasion, while he was a member of Parliament,\nit is said he was at a tea-party in the West End of London.  The\nhostess, pouring his cup of tea, anxious to make talk and show her deep\ninterest in politics, said, \"Mr. Burns, what is the use of the house of\nLords anyway?\"  The statesman, without replying, poured his tea from the\ncup into the saucer.  The hostess, surprised at the breach of etiquette,\nwaited, and then said, \"but Mr. Burns, you didn't answer my question.\"\nHe pointed to the tea, cooling in the saucer: that was the function, to\ncool the tea of legislation.  That was the function intended for our\nnational senate.  The trouble was, the tea of legislation often became\nso stone cold in the process that it was fit only for the political\nslop-pail, and that was not what we wanted.  So we have changed it all,\nbut one more safe-guard of democracy is gone.\n\nSo with other reforms, loudly acclaimed, as the initiative and\nreferendum. With the new problems and complications of an\nextraordinarily developed life, it is doubtless wise that the people\nshould be able to initiate legislation and should have the final word as\nto what legislation shall stand.  On the other hand, if we are not to\nsuffer under a mass of hasty and ill-considered legislation, if laws are\nto stand, they must always be formulated by a body of trained\nlegislators, and not by the changing whim of popular opinion.\n\nSo with the recall, now so widely demanded in many sections of the\ncountry. In the old days, our candidates were most obsequious and\nprofuse in promises to their constituents _before_ election; but once\nelected, only too often they turned their backs on their constituents,\nwent merrily their own way, making deals and bargains, in the spirit\nthat \"to the victor belong the spoils.\"  Therefore we justly demanded\nsome control of them, after, as before, election: hence the recall.\nAgain the movement is right; but if the fundamentals of democracy are to\nbe permanent, that body of men, concerned with the interpretation of the\nconstitution and the fundamental law of the land, must not be subject to\nthe immediate whim of mob mind, and the power to recall those judges\noccupied with this task would be a graver danger than advantage.  They\nwill make mistakes, at times they will be ultra conservative and\nservants of special interests, but that is one of the incidental prices\nwe have to pay for the permanence of free institutions.  The problem is\nto keep the basic principles of democracy unchanged, the forms on the\nsurface as fluid and adjustable as possible.\n\nIt is these three transformations--the abandonment of the old abstract\nnotions and the testing of democracy by its results, the expansion of\nits application over the entire population, and the invention and\ndevelopment of representative government--it is these three changes that\nmake our democracy a new order of society, new in its problems, its\nmenaces, its solutions.\n\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nDEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION\n\nAll just government is a transient device to make ordered progress\npossible. In the kingdom of heaven there would be no government, for if\nall human beings saw the best, loved the best and willed the best, the\nfunction of government would be at an end.  Obviously there is no hope\nor fear that we shall get into the kingdom of heaven soon, and the\nnecessity for government will exist for an indefinitely long time.\nNevertheless, government is due to the imperfection of human nature and,\nas stated, its aim is ordered progress.  Progress without order is\nanarchy; order without progress is stagnation and death.\n\nIt must frankly be admitted, moreover, that democracy is not the\nshortest road to good government nor to economic efficiency.  That we\nrecognize this as a people is proved by the drift of our opinion and of\nthe changes in our lesser institutions.  Take, for instance, our city\ngovernment. A few decades ago our cities were so notoriously misgoverned\nthat they were the scandal of the world.  Our boards of aldermen or\ncouncilmen, representing ward constituencies, with all sorts of local\nstrings tied to them, were clumsy and unwieldy and easily subject to\ncorruption.\n\nSo, about twenty years ago, all across the country went the cry, \"Get a\ngood mayor, and give him a free hand.\"  That is the way our great\nindustries are conducted: a wise captain of industry is secured and\ngiven full control. Being a practical people, and imagining ourselves to\nbe much more practical than really we are, we said, let us conduct our\ncity business in the same way. Why not?  Plato showed long ago that you\ncan get the best government in the shortest time by getting a good\ntyrant, and giving him a free hand.\n\nThere arc just two objections.  The first is incidental: it is\nexceedingly difficult to keep your tyrant good.  Arbitrary authority\nover one's fellows is about the most corrupting influence known to man.\nNo one is great and good enough to be entrusted with it.  Responsible\npower sobers and educates, irresponsible power corrupts.  Nevertheless\nwe pay the price of this error and learn the lesson.\n\nThe other objection is more significant.  It is the effect on the rank\nand file of the citizenship, for the meaning of democracy is not\nimmediate results in government, but the education of the citizen, and\nthat education can come only by fulfilling the functions of citizenship.\nThus it is better to be the free citizen of a democracy, with all the\nwaste and temporary inefficiency democracy involves, than to be the\ninert slave of the most perfect paternal despotism ever devised by man.\nThus the movement away from democratic city government is gravely to be\nquestioned, no matter what economic results it secures.\n\nThe same argument applies to more recent changes, as the commission form\nof city government.  As in the previous case, reacting upon the\nscandalous situation, we said, \"Let us choose the three to five best men\nin the community, and let them run the city's business for us.\"  Nearly\nevery time this change has been made, the result has been an immediate\ncleaning up of the city government; but why?  Chiefly because \"a new\nbroom sweeps clean,\"--not so much for the reason that it is new, as\nbecause you are interested in the instrument.  You can get a dirty room\nremarkably clean with an old broom, if you will sweep hard enough.  The\ncleaning up is due, not primarily to the instrument, but to the hand\nthat wields it.\n\nTo speak less figuratively: the cleaning up of the city government with\nthe inauguration of the commission system, came because the change was\nmade by an awakening of the good people of the community.  Good people\nhave a habit, however, of going to sleep in an astoundingly short time;\nbut _the gang never sleeps_.  Now suppose, while the good people are\ndozing in semi-somnolence, assured that the new broom will sweep of\nitself, the gang gets together and elects the three to five worst\ngangsters in the city to be the commission?  Is it not evident that the\nvery added efficiency of the instrument means greater graft and\ncorruption?\n\nEqually the argument applies to the most recent device suggested--the\ncity manager plan.  As we have largely taken our schools out of\npolitics, and have a non-partisan educational expert as superintendent,\nso it is suggested we should conduct our city business.  Again, suppose\nthe gang appoints the city manager: he will be an expert in graft,\nrather than in government.\n\nThe moment a people gets to trusting to a device it is headed for\ndanger. There is just one safeguard of democracy, and that is _to keep\nthe good people awake and at the task all the time_.  Some instruments\nare better and some are worse, but the instrument never does the work,\nit is the hand and brain that wield it.\n\nIf there is one field where we could reasonably expect to find pure\ndemocracy, it is in our higher educational institutions.  In a college\nor university, where a group of young men and women, and a group of\nolder men and women are gathered apart, out of the severer economic\nstruggle, dedicated to ideal ends: there, surely, we could expect pure\ndemocracy in organization and relationship; yet the tendency has been\nsteadily toward autocracy.  One can count the fingers of both hands and\nnot cover the list of college and university presidents who have taken\noffice during the last fifteen years, only on condition that they have\ncomplete authority over the educational policy of the institution, and\noften over its financial policy as well.  The reason is obvious: we run\na railroad efficiently by getting a good president and giving him\narbitrary control; why not a university?\n\nThere are just the two objections cited above: even in a university, it\nis difficult to keep your tyrant good.  This, again, is the minor\nobjection.  The real evil is in the effect upon the rank and file of\nthose governed by the autocrat.  There are men in university faculties\nto-day who say, privately, that if they could get any other opportunity,\nthey would resign to-morrow, for they feel like clerks in a department\nstore, with no opportunity to help determine the educational policy of\nthe institutions of which they are integral parts.\n\nThe German university, under all the autocracy and bureaucracy of the\nGerman state, is more democratic in its organization than our own. Its\nfaculty is a self-governing body, electing to its own membership. The\nRectorship is an honor conferred for the year on some faculty member for\nsuperior worth and scholarship.  Each member of the faculty may thus\nfeel the self-respect and dignity, resulting from the power and\ninitiative he possesses as a free citizen of the institution.\n\nLet me suggest what would be the ideal democratic organization of a\ncollege or university.  Why not apply the same division of functions of\ngovernment that has proved so successful in the state?  The board of\nTrustees is the natural judiciary; the President, the executive.  The\nfaculty is the legislative body, with the student body as a sort of\nlower house, cooperating in enacting the legislation for its own\ngovernment.  Where has such a plan been tried?\n\nIf the primary purpose of democracy is thus, not immediate results in\ngovernment, but the education of the citizen, on the other hand,\ndemocracy rests, for its safety and progress, on the ever better\neducation of the citizen.  Under the older forms of human society, laws\nmay be passed and executed that are far in advance of public opinion.\nThat cannot be done in a democracy.  The law may be a slight step in\nadvance, and so perhaps educate public opinion to its level; but if it\ngoes beyond that step, after the first flurry of interest in the law is\npast, it remains a dead letter on the statute books--worse than useless,\nbecause cultivating that dangerous disrespect for all law, which we have\nseen growing upon us as a people.\n\nThus from either side, the problem of democracy is a problem of\neducation. It rests upon education, its aim is education.  In a\ndemocracy, the supreme function of the state is, not to establish a\nmilitary system for defense, or a police system for protection, it is\nnot the enforcement of public and private contract: it is to take the\nchildren and youth of each generation and develop them into men and\nwomen able to fulfill the responsibility and enjoy the opportunity of\nfree citizenship in a free society.\n\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nMENACES OF DEMOCRACY\n\nSince modern democracy is a new thing under the sun, so its menaces are\nnew, or, if old, they take misleadingly new forms.  For instance, the\ngreatest danger in the path of our democracy is the world-old evil of\nselfishness, but it does take surprisingly new form.  It is not\naggressive selfishness that we have primarily to dread.  There are\nthose, it is true, who believe we may soon be endangered by the\nambitions of some arrogant leader in the nation.  The fear is\nunwarranted, for our people are still so devoted to the fundamental\nprinciples of democracy, that if any leader were to take one clear step\ntoward over-riding the constitution and making himself despot, that step\nwould be his political death-blow.  No, we are not yet endangered by the\naggressive ambitions of those at the front, but we are in grave danger\nfrom the negative selfishness of indifference, shown in its worst form\nby just those people who imagine they are good because they are\nrespectable, whereas they may be merely good--for nothing.\n\nPlato argued that society could never have patriotism in full measure\nuntil the family was abolished.  A singular notion that any school boy\nto-day can readily answer, yet here is the curious situation.  Family\nlife, among ourselves, in its better aspects, has reached a higher plane\nthan ever before in any people.  More marriages are made on the only\ndecent basts of any marriage.  This is the woman's land.  Children have\ntheir rights and privileges, even to their physical, mental and moral\ndetriment.  It is here that men most willingly sacrifice for their\nfamilies, slaving through the hot summer in the cities, to send wife and\nchildren to the seashore or the mountains; yet it is just here that men\nmost readily unhinge their consciences when they turn from private to\npublic life.\n\nSome cynic has said that there is not an American citizen who would not\nsmuggle to please his wife.  Of course the statement is not true, but if\nyou have ever crossed the ocean on a transatlantic liner, and watched\nthe devices to which ordinarily decent men--men who would be ashamed to\nsteal your pocket handkerchief or to lie to you as an individual--will\nresort, in order to lie to the government or steal from the government,\nyou begin to wonder if the cynic was not right.  The law, obviously, may\nbe unjust: if so, protest against it and seek to have it changed, but\nwhile it is the law, does it not deserve your respectful obedience,\nunless you would add to the dangerously growing disrespect for all law?\n\nNext to the menace of selfishness is that of ignorance, and this, too,\ntakes confusingly new form.  It is not ignorance of scientific fact and\nlaw, dangerous as that is, that threatens, but ignorance of what our\ninstitutions mean, of what they have cost, of the ideal for which we\nstand among the nations.  The celerity with which, even during the past\ntwo decades, the younger generation has abandoned old standards and\nideals, is an ominous illustration.  It is true:\n\n\"New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient goods uncouth; 'They\nmust upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth.\"\n\nThose words of Lowell's are as fully applicable to the present crisis,\nas to that for which Lowell wrote them; but to give up the past, without\nknowing that you are letting go, is surely not the part of wisdom.\n\nA third menace shows in that fickleness of temper and false standard of\nlife that cause us to admire the wrong type of leader.  Probably one\nhalf of all the attacks on men of unusual wealth and success come from\nother men, who would like to be in the same situation with those they\nattack, and have failed of their ambition.  Part of the attack is\nsincere, no doubt, but if you assumed that all the abuse heaped upon\nconspicuous men came from moral conviction, you would utterly misread\nthe situation.\n\nOn the other hand, men of moral excellence make us ashamed.  Now it\ntakes a rarely magnanimous spirit to be shamed and not resent it.  We\nare apt to feel that, if we can pull another down, we raise ourselves.\nTo realize this, consider the growl of joy that comes from the worse\nsort of citizen and newspaper when some public leader is caught in a\nprivate scandal.  As if pulling him down, raised us!  We are all tarred\nwith his disgrace.  There are, indeed, two ways of stating the ideal of\ndemocracy: you can say, \"I am just as good as any one else,\" which in\nthe first place, is not true, and, in the second, would be unlovely of\nyou to express, were it true.  You can say, on the contrary, \"Every\nother human being ought to have just as good a chance as I have,\" which\nis right; and yet you will hear the ideal of democracy phrased a dozen\ntimes the first way, where it is expressed once in the second form.\n\nThat democracies are fickle is one of the oldest criticisms upon them.\nWe had thought that we were not subject to that criticism, and in the\nold days we were not.  We had the country debating club and the village\nlyceum.  We were an agricultural people, sober and slow-moving. We had\nfew books, they were good books and we read them many times. We had few\nnewspapers, we knew the men who wrote in them, and when we read an\neditorial, our mind was actively challenged by the sincere thinking of\nanother mind.\n\nTo-day, everywhere, we have moved into the cities.  The strength of the\ncountry-side is sobriety and slow incubation of the forces of life. Its\nvice is stupidity.  The strength of the city is keen wittedness,\nversatility, quick response.  Its vice is fickleness, morbidity,\nexhaustion.  We have our great blanket sheet newspapers, representing a\nparty, a clique, a financial interest, with writers lending their brains\nout, for money, to write editorials for causes in which they do not\nbelieve.  We have the multitude of books, incessantly and hastily\nproduced; we read much, and scarcely think at all.  We have got rid of\nthe old \"three decker\" novel, reduced it to a single volume, and then\ntaken out the climax of the story, publishing it in the corner of the\ndaily newspaper, as the short story of the day, so that he who runs may\nread.  If he is a wise man he will run as fast as he can and not read\nthat stuff at all.  We have our ever increasing \"movies,\" with their\nincessant titillation of the mind with swift passing impressions, as\ndisintegrating to intellectual concentration, as they are injurious to\nthe eyes.  The result of it all is an increasing fickleness of temper,\nso that the same people who shout most loudly when the popular hero goes\nby, the next week cover his very name with vituperation and abuse, if he\noffends their slightest whim.\n\nThis evil breeds another: fickleness in the people means demagoguery in\nthe leader, inevitably.  We have said to our public men--not in words,\nbut by the far more impressive language of our conduct--\"get money,\npower, success, and we will give you more money, power and success, and\nnot ask you how you got them nor what ends you serve in using them.\"\nThat so many have refused the bribe is to their credit, not ours; we\nhave done what we could to corrupt them.\n\nFinally, we are the most irreverent people in the world.  We believe in\nyouth, we scorn age.  We have splendid enthusiasm, we do not know what\nwisdom means.  One hears college presidents say--half jokingly, of\ncourse--that there is no use appointing a man over thirty to the faculty\nthese days.  So one hears Christian ministers, in those denominations\nwhere the minister is called by the particular church, say there is no\nuse trying to get another call after one is fifty!  Of course, it is not\ntrue, but it is true enough to be a serious criticism upon us.  For what\nother vocation is there where the mellowness that comes only from time\nand long experience, from presiding at weddings and standing beside open\ngraves, sharing the joys and sorrows of innumerable persons, is so\nindispensable, as in the pastor, the physician of the spirit?  Still, we\nwill turn out some wise, shy, mellow old man, just ripened to the point\nof being the true minister to the souls of others, and replace him with\na recent graduate of a theological school, because the latter can talk\nthe language of the higher criticism or whatever else happens to\ninterest us for the moment.  Obviously, we pay the price, but think what\nit indicates of our civilization.\n\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\nTHE DILEMMA OF DEMOCRACY\n\nWe have seen that the gravest menaces of democracy are the faults in\nmind and character in the multitude.  Selfishness, fickleness,\nignorance, irreverence in the people, with demagoguery in the leader--\nthese are the menaces of American democracy.  How then can the people be\ntrusted, since democracy depends upon trusting them?  This is an old\nindictment, searching to the very heart of democracy.  Plato made it of\nancient Athens, while, more recently and trenchantly, Ibsen has made it\nfor all modern society.\n\nThe argument runs thus: democracy means the rule of the majority.  Well,\nthere are more fools than wise men in the world, more ignorant than\nintelligent.  Thus the rule of the majority must mean the rule of the\nfools over the wise men, of the ignorant over the intelligent.  Such is\nthe significant indictment, and we are compelled to admit that our\npolitical life is filled with illustrations that would seem to\nsubstantiate it. The ward bosses, the demagogues and grafters who are\ngiven power by the multitude, one campaign after another, would seem to\njustify the pessimism of Plato and Ibsen.\n\nIs there not, however, a subtle fallacy in the very phrasing of the\nindictment?  The majority does not \"rule\": it elects representatives who\nguide.  That is something entirely different.  When the worst is said of\nthem those representatives of the people are distinctly above the\naverage of the majorities electing them.  Take the roll of our\npresidents, for instance.  With all the corruption and vulgarity of our\nnational politics, that list, from Washington, through such altitudes as\nJefferson and Lincoln, to the present occupant of the White House, is\nsuperior to any roster of kings or emperors in the history of mankind.\n\nWhat does this mean?  It means that _the hope of democracy is the\ninstinctive power in the breast of common humanity to recognize the\nhighest when it appears_.  Were this not true, democracy would be the\nmost hopeless of mistakes, and the sooner we abandoned it, with its\nvulgarity and waste, the better it would be for us.  The instinctive\npower is there, however: to recognize, not to live, the highest.\n\nHow many have followed the example of Socrates, remaining in prison and\naccepting the hemlock poison for the sake of truth?  Yet all who know of\nhim thrill to his sacrifice.  Of all who have borne the name, Christian,\nhow many have followed consistently the footsteps of Jesus and obeyed\nliterally and unvaryingly the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount?  Of\nthe millions, perhaps ten or twenty individuals--to be generous in our\nview; but _all the world recognizes him_.\n\nHere, then, is the hope that takes the sting from the indictment of\nPlato, Ibsen and how many other critics of democracy.  Plato said,\n\"Until philosophers are kings, . . . cities will never have rest from\ntheir evils,--no, nor the human race, as I believe.\"  Once, perhaps once\nonly, Plato's dream was realized: in that noblest of philosopher\nemperors, wholly dedicated to the welfare of the world he ruled with\nautocratic power; yet the soul of Marcus Aurelius was burdened with an\nimpossible task. It is one of the tragic ironies of history that, in\nthis one realization of Plato's lofty dream, the noble emperor could\npostpone, he could not avert, the colossal doom that threatened the\nworld he ruled.  So he wrapped his Roman cloak about him and lay down to\nsleep, with stoic consciousness that he had done his part in the place\nwhere Zeus had put him, but relieved that he might not see the disaster\nhe knew must swiftly come.\n\nHow different our dream: it is no illusion of a happy accident of\nphilosopher kings.  We want no arbitrary monarchs, wise or brutal: from\nthe noblest of emperors to the butcher of Berlin, we would sweep them\nall aside, to the ash-heap of outworn tools.  Our dream is the awakening\nand education of the multitude, so that the majority will be able and\nglad to choose, as its guides, leaders and representatives, the noblest\nand best.  When that day comes, there will be, for the first time in the\nhistory of mankind, the dawn of a true _aristocracy_ or rule of the\nbest; and it will come through the fulfillment of democracy. A long and\ntroubled path, with many faults and evils meantime?  Yes, but not so\nhopelessly long, when one considers the ages of slow struggle up the\nmountain and the swiftly multiplying power of education over the mind of\nall.\n\n\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\nPATERNALISM VERSUS DEMOCRACY\n\nThe contrast between paternalism and democracy in aim and method is thus\nextreme.  Paternalism seeks directly organization, order, production and\nefficiency, incidentally and occasionally the welfare of the subject\npopulation.  Democracy seeks directly the highest development of all men\nand women, their freedom, happiness and culture, in the end it hopes\nthis will give social order, good government and productive power.  It\nis willing, meantime, to sacrifice some measure of order for freedom, of\ngood government for individual initiative, of efficiency for life.\nPaternalism seeks to achieve its aims, quickly and effectively, through\nthe boss's whip of social control.  Democracy works by the slower, but\nmore permanently hopeful path of education, never sacrificing life to\nmaterial ends.  Paternalism ends in a social hierarchy, materially\nprosperous, but caste-ridden and without soul.  Democracy ends in the\nabolishment of castes, equality of opportunity, with the freest\nindividual initiative and finest flowering of the personal spirit. Which\nshall it be: God or Mammon, Men or Machines?\n\nThere is no doubt that efficiency can be achieved most quickly under a\nwell-wielded boss's whip, but at the sacrifice of initiative and\ninvention. Moreover, remove the whip, and the efficiency quickly goes to\npieces. On the other hand, the efficiency achieved by voluntary effort\nand free cooperation comes much more slowly, but it lasts.  Moreover, it\ndevelops, hand in hand, with initiative and invention.\n\nThe negro, doubtless, has never been so generally efficient as before\nthe civil war, in the South, under the overseer's whip; yet every negro\nwho, to-day, has character enough to save up and buy a mule and an acre\nof ground, tills it with a consistent and permanent effectiveness of\nwhich slave labor is never capable.  In the one case, moreover, there is\nthe average economic result, in the other, the gradual development of\nmanhood.\n\nOrganize a factory on the feudal lines so prevalent in current industry.\nGet a strong, dominating superintendent and give him autocratic\nauthority. Quickly he will show results.  Always, however, there is the\ndanger of strikes, and if the strong hand falters, the organization\ndisintegrates. On the other hand, let a corporation take its artisans\ninto its confidence, give each a small proportionate share in the annual\nearnings.  Each worker will feel increasingly that the business is his\nbusiness.  He will take pride in his accomplishment.  Gradually he will\nattain efficiency, and work permanently, without oversight, with a\nconsistent earnestness no boss's whip ever attained,\n\nThe experience of the National Cash Register Company at Dayton, Ohio,\nproves this.  The experiments of Henry Ford are a step toward the same\nsolution.  So, in lesser measure, is the plan of the Steel trust to\npermit and encourage its employees to purchase annually its stock,\nsomewhat below the current market price, giving a substantial bonus if\nthe stock is held over ten years.\n\nIf you wish an illustration on a larger scale, consider the mass\nformation tactics of the German soldiers, in contrast to the individual\ncourage, initiative and action of the French.  There are the two types\nof efficiency in sheerest contrast, but beyond is always the question of\ntheir effect on manhood.  France has saved and regenerated her soul; but\nGermany--?\n\nFurther, the breakdown of paternalistically achieved efficiency has been\nevident in Germany's utter failure to understand the mind of other\npeoples, particularly of democracies.  She had voluminous data, gathered\nby the most atrociously efficient spy system ever developed, yet she\nutterly misread the mind of France, England and the United States.  The\nsame break-down is evident in Germany's failure in colonization in\ncontrast to England's success.\n\nFor offensive war, it must be admitted, the efficiency under the boss's\nwhip will go further.  For defensive war, or war for high moral aims, it\nis desirable that the individual soldier should think for himself,\nrespond to the high appeal.  Thus for such warfare the efficiency of\nvoluntary effort and cooperation is superior.  An autocracy would better\nrule its soldiers by a military caste; there can be no excuse for such\nin a democracy.  Thus, the utmost possible fraternization of officers\nand men is desirable, and social snobbery, the snubbing of officers who\ncome up from the ranks, and other anachronistic survivals, should be\nstamped out, as utterly foreign to what should be the spirit of the\nmilitary arm of democracy.\n\nFurther, in estimating the two types, one must remember that paternalism\nmay exercise its power in secret and that it accomplishes much in the\ndark. Democracy, on the other hand, is afflicted and blessed with\npitiless publicity.  Thus its evils are all exposed, it washes all its\ndirty linen in public; but the main thing is to get it clean.\n\nWhen it comes to invention and initiative, as already indicated,\ndemocracy has the advantage, immediately, as in the long run.  We are\nthe most inventive people on earth, and that quality is a direct result\nof our democratic individualism.  It is a significant fact that most of\nthe startling inventions used in this War were made in America--but\n_developed and applied in Germany._  There, again, are evident the\ncontrasting results of the two types of social organization.  The\nindefatigably industrious and docile German mind can work out and apply\nthe inventions furnished it, with marvelous persistency and\neffectiveness, under paternal control. We have the problem of achieving\nby voluntary effort and cooperation a persistent thoroughness in working\nout the ideas and inventions that come to us in such abundant measure.\n\nThe path of democracy is education.\n\n\n\n\nXIX\n\nTHE SOLUTION FOR DEMOCRACY\n\nWhen we say that the path of democracy is education, we do not mean that\nthere is an easy solution of its problem.  There is no patent medicine\nwe can feed the American people and cure it of its diseases.  There is\nno specific for the menaces that threaten.  Eternal vigilance and effort\nare the price, not only of liberty, but of every good of man.  Let\nthings alone, and they get bad; to keep them good, we must struggle\neverlastingly to make them better.  Leave the pool of politics unstirred\nby putting into it ever new individual thought and ideal, and how\nquickly it becomes a stagnant, ill-smelling pond.  Leave a church\nunvitalized, by ever fresh personal consecration, and how quickly it\nbecomes a dead form, hampering the life of the spirit.  Leave a\nuniversity uninfluenced by ever new earnestness and devotion on the part\nof student and teacher, and how soon it becomes a scholastic machine,\npositively oppressing the mind and spirit.\n\nThere is a true sense in which the universe exists momentarily by the\ngrace of God.  Take light away, and you have darkness.  Take darkness\naway, and you have not necessarily light; you might have chaos. Take\nhealth away, and you have disease.  Take disease away, and you have not\nnecessarily health; you may have death.  Take virtue away, and you have\nvice.  Take vice away, and you have not necessarily virtue; you might\nhave negative respectability.  Thus it is the continual affirmation of\nthe good that keeps the heritage of yesterday and takes the step toward\nto-morrow.\n\nNevertheless, if there is no easy solution of the problem, there are\ncertain big lines of attack.  If we are right in our diagnosis, that the\nproblem of democracy is a problem of education, then our whole system of\neducation, for child, youth and adult, should be reconstructed to focus\nupon the building of positive and effective moral personality.\n\nAmerican education began as a subsidiary process.  Children got organic\neducation in the home, on the farm, in the work shop.  They went to\nschool to get certain formal disciplines, to learn to read, write and\ncipher and to acquire formal grammar.  With the moving into the cities,\nthe industrial revolution and the entire transformation of our life, the\nschool has had to take over more and more of the process of organic\neducation. If children fail to get such education in the school, they\nare apt to miss it altogether.\n\nWith this entire change in the meaning of the school, old notions of its\npurpose still survive.  Probably no one is so benighted to-day as to\nimagine that the chief function of the school is to fill the mind with\ninformation; but there are many who still hold to the tradition that the\nchief purpose of education is to sharpen the intellectual tools of the\nindividual for the sake of his personal success.  This notion is a\nmisleading survival, for tools are of value only in terms of the\ncharacter using them.  The same equipment may serve, equally, good or\nbad ends.  Only as education focusses on the development of positive and\neffective moral character can it aid in solving the problem of\ndemocracy.\n\nNeed it be added that this does not mean teaching morals and manners to\nchildren, thirty minutes a day, three times a week?  That is a minor\nfragment of moral education.  It means that all phases of the process--\nthe relation of pupil and teacher, school and home, the government and\ndiscipline, the lessons taught in every subject, the environment, the\nproportioning of the curriculum, of physical, emotional and intellectual\nculture--all shall be focussed and organized upon the one significant\naim of the whole--_character_.\n\nFurther, if education is to overcome the menaces and solve the dilemma\nof democracy, it must be carried beyond childhood and youth and outside\nthe walls of academic institutions.  The ever wider education of adult\ncitizenship is indispensable to the progress and safety of democracy. It\nis one of the glaring illustrations of the inefficiency of our democracy\nthat there are still communities where school boards build school houses\nwith public money, open them five or six hours, five days in the week,\nand refuse to allow them to be opened any other hour of the day or\nnight, for a civic forum, parents' meeting, public lecture or other\nactivity of adult education; and yet we call ourselves a practical\npeople!  Surely, in a democracy, the state is as vitally interested in\nthe education of the adult citizen as of the child.\n\nHerein is the significance of those various extensions of education,\ndeveloping and spreading so widely to-day.  University-extension and\nChautauqua movements, civic forums, free lectures to the people by\nboards of education and public libraries, summer schools, night schools\nfor adults--all are illustrations of this movement, so vital to the\nprogress of democracy.  Through these instrumentalities the popular\nideal may be elevated, the public mind may be trained to more logical\nand earnest thought, citizenship may be made more serious and\nintelligent, and finally a most helpful influence may be exerted on the\nacademic institutions themselves.  It is an easily verifiable truth that\nany academic institution that builds around itself an enclosing\nscholastic wall, refuses to go outside and serve and learn in the larger\nworld of humanity, in the long run inevitably dies of academic dry rot.\n\nIn the endeavor to solve the problem of democracy cannot we do more than\nwe have done hitherto in cultivating reverence for moral leadership--the\nquality so much needed in democracy at the present hour?  This may be\nachieved through many aspects of education, but especially through\ncontact with noble souls in literature and history.  History, above all,\nis the great opportunity, and, from this point of view, is it not\nnecessary to rewrite our histories: instead of portraying solely\nstatesmen and warriors, to fill them with lofty examples of leadership\nin all walks of life?\n\nWomen as well as men: for surely ideals of both should be fostered. A\ncolleague, interested in this problem, recently took one of the most\nwidely used text-books of American history, and counted the pages on\nwhich a woman was mentioned.  Of the five hundred pages, there were\nfour: not four pages devoted to women; but four mentioning a woman.\nWhat does it mean: that women have contributed less than one part in a\nhundred and five to the development of American life?  Surely no one\nwould think that.  What, then, are the reasons for the discrepancy?\nThere are several, but one may be mentioned: men have written the\nhistories, and they have written chiefly of the two fields of action\nwhere men have been most important and women least, war and\nstatesmanship.  Surely, however, if American history is to reveal the\nAmerican spirit, exercise the contagion of noble ideals and develop\nreverence for true moral leadership, it must present types of both\nmanhood and womanhood in all fields of action and endeavor.\n\nOne who has stood with Socrates in the common criminal prison in Athens\nand watched him drink the hemlock poison, saying \"No evil can happen to\na good man in life or after death,\" who has heard the oration of Paul on\nMars Hill or that of Pericles over the Athenian dead, who has thrilled\nto the heroism of Joan of Arc and Edith Cavell, the noble service of\nElizabeth Fry and Florence Nightingale, the high appeal of Helen Hunt\nJackson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who has heard Giordano Bruno\nexclaim as the flames crept up about him, \"I die a martyr, and\nwillingly,\" who has responded to the calm elevation of Marcus Aurelius,\nthe cosmopolitan wisdom of Goethe, the sweet gentleness of Maeterlinck's\nspirit and the titan dreams of Ibsen, can scarcely fail to appreciate\nthe brotherhood of all men and to learn that reverence for the true\nmoral leader, that dignifies alike giver and recipient.\n\n\n\n\nXX\n\nTRAINING FOR MORAL LEADERSHIP\n\nSince the path of democracy is education, moral leadership is more\nnecessary to it, than in any other form of society; yet there are\nexceptional obstacles to its development.  We speak of \"the white light\nthat beats upon a throne\": it is nothing compared to the search light\nplayed upon every leader of democracy.  With our lack of reverence, we\ndelight in pulling to pieces the personalities of those who lead us.\nThus it is increasingly difficult to get men of sensitive spirit to pay\nthe price of leadership for democracy.\n\nIs it not possible to do more than we have done, consciously to develop\nsuch leadership?  Where is it trained?  In life, the college and\nuniversity, the normal school, the schools of law, medicine and\ntheology.  Yes, but if not one boy and girl in ten graduates from the\nhigh school, surely we want one man and woman in ten to fulfill some\nmeasure of moral leadership, and the high school is directly concerned\nwith the task of furnishing such leadership for American democracy.\n\nIf that is true, is it not a pity that the high school is so largely\ndominated from above by the demand of the college upon the entering\nfreshman?  It is not to be taken for granted that the particular regimen\nof studies, best fitting the student to pass the entrance examinations\nof a college or university, is the best possible for the nine out of ten\nstudents, who go directly from the high school into the world, and must\nfulfill some measure of moral leadership for American democracy.  The\npresumption is to the contrary.  College professors are human--some of\nthem.  They want students prepared to enter as smoothly as possible into\nthe somewhat artificial curricula of academic studies they have\narranged. The Latin professor wishes not to go back and start with the\nrudiments of his subject, as the professor of mathematics with the\nbeginnings of Algebra and Geometry.  The result is they demand of the\nhigh school what fits most smoothly into their scheme.\n\nNow if it is not possible to serve equally the needs of both groups,\nwould it not be better to neglect the one tenth of the students, going\non to college, even assuming they are the pick of the flock, which they\nare not always?  They have four more years to correct their mistakes and\nround out their culture.  If any one must be subordinated, it would be\nbetter to neglect them, and focus upon the needs of the nine out of ten,\nwho go directly from the high school into life and have not another\nchance; yet there are states in the Union, where it is possible for a\ncommittee of the state university at the top to say to every high school\nteacher in the state, \"Conform to our requirements, or leave the state,\nor get out of the profession.\"  The threat, moreover, has been carried\nout more than once.\n\nThat situation is utterly wrong.  We want organization of the\neducational system, with each unit cooperating with the next higher, but\nif education is to solve the problem of democracy and furnish moral\nleadership for American life, we want each unit to be free, first of\nall, to serve its own constituency to the best of its power.  The\nproblem is not serious for the big city high school, with its multiplied\nelective courses, but for the small rural or town high school, with its\nlimited corps of teachers and its necessarily fixed courses, the burden\nis onerous indeed.\n\nIs the American college and university doing all that it might do in\ncultivating moral leadership for American democracy?  The last decades\nhave seen an astounding and unparalleled development of higher education\nin America.  In the old days, the college was usually on a\ndenominational foundation.  It was supported by the dollars and pennies\nof earnest religionists who believed that education was necessary to\nreligion and morality.  The president was generally a clergyman of the\ndenomination; he taught the ethics course, and all students were\nrequired to take it. There was compulsory chapel attendance, and once a\nday the entire student body gathered together to listen to some moral\nand religious thought.\n\nThen came the immense expansion of higher education.  Courses were\nmultiplied and diversified.  Universities were established or endowed by\nthe state.  Academies became colleges, and colleges, universities.\nInstitutions were generally secularized.  Compulsory chapel attendance\nwas rightly abandoned.  Each department served its own interest apart.\nUntil to-day certain of our great universities are not unlike vast\nintellectual department stores, with each professor calling his goods\nacross the counter, and the president, a sort of superior floorwalker,\nto see that no one clerk gets too many customers.  It is an impressive\nillustration of what has happened to our higher institutions that, in\ncertain of them, the one regular meeting place of the entire student\nbody in a common interest, is the bleachers by the athletic field. One\ncontinues to believe in college athletics, in spite of the frequent\nabsurdities and worse, done in their name; only if the numbers of those\nplaying the game and those exercising only their lungs and throats from\nthe bleachers, were reversed, better all-round athletic education would\nresult.  Is it not, however, a trenchant criticism on the situation in\nour higher education, that so often the one common interest should be in\nsomething that is, at least, aside from the main business of the\ninstitution?\n\nMoreover, no institution can rightly serve democracy, unless it is\nitself democratic.  Thus the growth of an aristocratic spirit in our\ncolleges and universities is an ominous sign.  For instance, it is still\ntrue that any boy or girl, with a sound body and a good mind and no\nfamily to support, can get a college education.  Money is not\nindispensable: it is possible to work one's way through.  Will this\nalways be true?  One wonders.  It is significant that it is easiest to\nwork your way through college, and keep your self-respect and the\nrespect of your fellows, in the small, meagerly endowed college on the\nfrontier.  It is most difficult, with a few exceptions one gladly\nrecognizes, in the great, rich universities of the East. What does that\nmean?\n\nStraws show the tide: it was announced some time ago by the president of\none of our richest and oldest universities that henceforth scholarships\nin that institution would be given solely on the basis of intellectual\nscholarship, as tested by examination; and applause went up from the\nalumni all across the country; yet what does it mean?  It means that the\nboy who has to work on a threshing machine, sell books to an\nunsuspecting public, or do some other semi-honorable work all summer to\nget back into college in the Fall, cannot pass those examinations\nequally with a rich man's son of equal mind, who can take a tutor to the\nseashore or the mountains and coach up all summer.  Thus foundations,\nestablished by well-meaning people to help poor boys self-respectingly\nthrough college, become intellectual prizes for those who do not need\nthem.  That is all wrong.\n\nTake the special student problem.  When a college or university is\nfounded, it needs students: they are the life-blood of the institution.\nReally all that is needed to make a college is a teacher and some\nstudents: buildings are not indispensable, but students the school must\nhave.  Thus it is apt to keep its bars down and its entrance\nrequirements flexible.  Special students, often mature men and women,\nwho are not prepared to pass the freshman examinations, are admitted on\nthe recommendation of heads of d epartments, to special courses they are\nwell fitted to take.  Students are admitted freely, and then sifted out\nafterward, if they prove unworthy of their opportunity: not a bad\nmethod, by the way.\n\nA dozen years pass, and the institution wants to become respectable.\nIt is just as with the individual: the man, at first, is absorbed in\nmoney-getting, and when he has it, yearns for respectability.  Now\ngetting respectable, for a college or university, is called \"raising the\nstandard of scholarship.\"  Let this not be misunderstood: painstaking,\ninfinitely laborious, accurate scholarship is a noble aim, well worth\nthe consistent effort of a lifetime; but there are two sides to raising\nthe standard of scholarship.  Does an educational institution exist for\nthe sake of its reputation, or to serve its constituency?  If it seeks\nto advance its reputation at the expense of its fullest and best service\nto those who need its help, is it not recreant to its duty and\nopportunity?\n\nWell, in the mood cited, the institution raises and standardizes its\nentrance-requirements and generally excludes special students.  One\nreadily sees why: it is much easier to work with the regularly prepared\nfreshman, he fits much more smoothly and comfortably into the machinery\nof the institution.  Many a wise teacher will admit, nevertheless, that\nthe best students he ever taught and the ones whose lives he is proudest\nof having influenced, were often men and women, thirty, forty, fifty\nyears of age--teachers who suddenly realized that the ruts of their\ncalling had become so deep they could no longer see over them, ministers\nawakening to the fact that they had given all their store and must get a\nnew supply, business men aware of a call to another field of action--\nworking with a consistent earnestness the average fledgling freshman\ncannot imagine--he is not old enough; yet generally the tendency is to\nexclude such students, unless they will go back and do the arduous, and\noften for them useless, work of preparing to pass the examinations for\nentrance to the freshman class.  That, too, is all wrong.\n\nThe American college and university stands to-day at the parting of the\nways: this generation will largely determine its future.  If the\nAmerican college and university ever becomes a social club for the sons\nand daughters of the rich, an institution making it easy for them to\nsecure business and professional opportunity and advancement, to the\nexclusion of their poorer fellows, it may be as necessary to\ndisestablish the foundations of our great universities, as statesmen in\nEurope thought it necessary to disestablish the monastic foundations at\nthe close of the middle age.  They, too, began as educational\ninstitutions. If, on the other hand, the American college and university\nremains true to its task, if it keeps its doors open and its spirit\ndemocratic, if it seeks to render ever larger service to the great\npublic and to develop moral leadership for American democracy, then,\nindeed, it will go ever forward upon its noble path.\n\n\n\n\nXXI\n\nDEMOCRACY AND SACRIFICE\n\nWe have seen the conflict of ideas in the War: the German philosophy\nthat man exists for the state, the contrasting idea of democracy that\nthe state exists for man.  We may well ask why any institution should be\nregarded as sacred, except as it has the adventitious sacredness, coming\nfrom time, convention and hoary tradition.  It was said long ago that\n\"the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath,\" and the\nstatement may be universalized.  Every institution on earth--marriage,\nthe family, education, the church, the state--was made for man and not\nman for the institution.  Humanity must always be the end.  Why should\nwe perpetuate any institution that does not serve life?  Kant voiced the\nprinciple in his second imperative of duty: \"Always treat humanity,\nwhether in thine own person or that of any other, as an end withal, and\nnever as a means only.\"  Kant was a Prussian philosopher: one wonders\nwhat he would have thought of the \"Kanonen-Futter\" theory of manhood!\n\nAn organization or institution is only a machine, an instrument for a\npurpose.  Thus always it is a means, never an end: its value lies in\nserving its purpose--the end of human life.  So the whole existing order\nmust justify itself.  Where it rests on forms of injustice, it must be\nbroken or destroyed, and there is no reason to fear the breaking.\n\nThus there is no \"divine right\" of kings.  They represent a vested\ninterest, surviving from the past.  They must justify themselves by the\nservice of those under them, or pass.\n\nSimilarly, there is no divine right of a class or caste, enjoying\nsupremacy or special privilege.  It also is a surviving vested interest,\nthat must justify itself, or be swept aside as an incubus.\n\nThe same test applies to an empire.  It, too, is a vested interest,\ndeveloped out of conditions prevailing in the past.  If it does not\njustify itself by the largest service of all within it, then it, too, is\nan anachronistic survival, no longer to be tolerated.\n\nThe principle is universal: the institution of private property, the\ncontrolling power of captains of industry, the capitalistic system,\nfinally, the state itself, in every form: all are vested interests that\nmay be permitted to continue in the exercise of power only as they prove\ntheir superiority to any other form of organization in serving the good\nof all.\n\nThis does not mean that, under democracy, the individual shall fail of\nsacrifice and the dedication to something higher than himself. That is\nthe glory of life, transfiguring human nature, and without it, life\nsinks to sordid selfishness.  Your life is worth, not what you have, but\nwhat you are, and what you are is determined by that to which you\ndedicate yourself.  Is it creature comforts, pleasure, selfish\nprivilege, or the largest life and the fullest service of humanity? What\nyou have is merely the condition, the important question is, what do you\ndo with it?  Is it wealth, prosperity: do you sit down comfortably on\nthe fact of it, to secure all the selfish pleasures possible; or do you\nregard your fortunate circumstances as so much more opportunity and\nobligation of leadership and service?  Is it poverty, even starvation:\ndo you whine and grovel, or stand erect, with shut teeth, andwring\nheroic manhood from the breast of suffering?\n\nThat is why peace can never be an end: it, too, is merely a condition or\nmeans.  The question is, what do you do with your peace, for peace may\nmean merely sloth and cowardly ease, where war may mean unselfish\nheroism.  That is what the peace promoters forget.  War has its\nbrutalities, and terrible indeed they are: unleashed hate, lust, cruelty\nand revenge; but war has its heroisms.  It calls out the devotion to\nsomething higher than the individual from even the commonest of men.\nTo-day all over the earth, ordinary men are quietly going out to\nprobable death or mutilation in its most horrible forms, and going for\nthe sake of an ideal larger than themselves.  Women are doing even more\nthan that. For it is not so hard to die, but to send out those you love,\ndearer than life itself, to almost certain death--that, indeed, is\ndifficult, and women are doing it everywhere with a smile on their lips\nand choked-back tears.\n\nPeace, on the other hand, has its virtues: the softening and refining of\nlife, gradual development of sympathy, achievement of comfort and\nbeauty; but peace has its vices.  In times of peace and prosperity there\nseems to be no great cause at stake.  Of course, always it is there, but\nwe do not see it.  We become increasingly absorbed in selfish interests,\nin the good of our immediate family.  Thus petty, time-serving\nselfishness is the vice peculiarly characteristic of times of peace and\nprosperity. Consider, for instance, the spirit of France during the\nclosing years of the nineteenth century, and at the present dark, but\npregnant, hour of destiny.\n\nThus the question is not whether you have peace or war, but what you do\nwith your peace or war.  It is not whether you are rich or poor, but\nwhat you do with your riches or poverty.\n\nSuppose we were able to reconstruct our entire social and industrial\nworld, so that every human being would have plenty to eat, plenty to\nwear and a comfortable house to live in: would we have the kingdom of\nheaven? Not necessarily: we might have merely a comfortable,\nwell-decorated pig-sty, if men lived to nothing higher than pigs.  \"Man\ncannot live by bread alone,\" important as bread is, but by dedication to\nthe things of the spirit.\n\nThus there must ever be the capacity for self-forgetfulness,\nself-sacrifice, the dedication of life to supreme aims, but that does\nnot mean the dedication of man to the institution.  Rather it is the\nconsecration to the welfare of humanity.  Man for the State means\nautocracy and imperialism; Man for Mankind is the soul of democracy.\nThat is the ideal to which we must rise, if democracy is to prove itself\nworthy to be the form of human society for the great future.\n\nThis ideal is realized through many lesser forms and instruments, but\nalways with the same final test.  The family, for instance, is one of\nthese lesser forms, and the subordination of the individual to the\nfamily unit is just.  Thus there is a measure of right in seeking first\nthe interest of the family group; but when this is sought to the end of\nspecial privilege and debauching luxury, against the welfare of all, it\nbecomes, as we have seen, an evil.\n\nThere is, similarly, a certain justice in the subordination of the\nindividual to the social class or group interest.  It is right that\nartisans should unite in trade unions, that employers should get\ntogether in associations for common benefit.  One need only contrast the\nconditions where each workman had to bid in competition against all\nothers, and each manufacturer, the same, to realize the advance made\nthrough group union and cooperation.  When either group, however, seeks\nto further its own interest at the expense of the welfare of the whole\nsociety, as in securing class legislation, achieving monopolies, holding\nefficient workers to the level of production of the slowest and least\ncapable of the group, then the class or group spirit becomes an evil\nthat must be fought for the good of all.\n\nIt is exactly the same with the nation.  Its interest is justly served\nonly in harmony with the welfare of humanity.  Any current problem will\nillustrate the principle, as, for instance, that of immigration.\n\nCertainly the nation has the right to prohibit immigration which\nproduces unassimilated plague-spots and threatens to cause racial\ndeterioration, as in phases of Oriental immigration to the Pacific\ncoast.  Similarly, it is right to restrict immigration that would\nfurther economic prosperity, at the expense of the manhood of the\nnation.  We must answer the question, whether we want factories or men.\nIt is desirable to have some of both, of course, but when one is to be\nobtained at the expense of the other, it is manhood that must be the\ndeciding end.\n\nOn the other hand, when it comes to refusing a refuge to the poor and\noppressed, who are physically and morally acceptable, but lack a small\namount of money, or are unable to respond to a literary test, then the\nwelfare of humanity demands the opposite decision.  Better give them the\nfifty dollars--a healthy slave was worth more than that in the old days.\nSo teach them to read and write.  The nation, can readily pay the small\neconomic price and accept the incidental difficulties for the sake of\nthe larger end.\n\nThus the deciding principle must always be the welfare, happiness,\ngrowth, intelligence, helpfulness of each individual in harmony with all\nothers. Humanity is incarnatein each man.  While, therefore, the\nindividual must dedicate and, at times, sacrifice himself, it is for the\nsake, not of the state, church or other institution, but for the welfare\nof all--_Man for Mankind_.\n\nFrom so many sources the view finds expression that modern life has been\n\"weakened by humanitarianism.\"  If there is truth in the view, we would\nbetter take account of it and radically revise our ethical philosophy.\nIf it is false, it is a damning error, the reiteration of which tends to\nundermine all that has been achieved for the spirit.\n\nAn interesting comment on the view is the fact that, in spite of all its\nhorrors, this War has given _no attested instance of arrant cowardice on\nany front_.  Cruelty, lust, brutality, hate: these have appeared in\nunspeakable guise, but apparently no cowardice or weak timidity; yet the\nmail clad heroes of ancient wars, who met their adversaries face to\nface, were subjected to no such strain as the men standing in trenches\nwaiting momentarily death or mutilation from an unseen foe.  No, modern\nlife has not lost strong fiber and is capable of supreme heroism.\n\nThe old society secured its leadership through _noblesse oblige_--the\nobligation of nobility.  Men of aristocratic family and rank felt that,\nbecause they stood above the people, they owed a certain leadership and\nservice, and they gave it, often in abundant measure, but always\ncondescendingly from above.\n\nWe have lost \"noblesse oblige\": we may even be glad it is gone, if we\ncan substitute for it something larger and better.  It is not the\nobligation of nobility, but the obligation of humanity that is the need:\nto realize that all power is obligation.  As you can, you owe; and as\nyou know, you owe.  If you have money, it is so much obligation of\nleadership and service.  If you have talent, education, social or\npolitical influence, it is all so much obligation of leadership and\nservice.  If, as individuals, we can generally realize that and act upon\nit, then indeed we may hope to carry to successful completion the\nexperiment of democracy and see our beloved country fulfill the measure\nof moral leadership to which we believe she is called among the nations\nof the earth, but fulfilling it not as master over slave, nor as one\nempire among others, but as a more experienced brother toward others\nfollowing the same open path.\n\n\n\n\n\nXXII\n\nTHE HOUR OF SACRIFICE\n\nThe supreme world crisis is on.  We have entered the War in the purest\nspirit of democracy.  We state frankly in advance that we want no\nindemnity, no extension of territory.  We war with no people, except as\nthat people identifies itself with aggressive autocracy and imperialism,\nimperilling our safety, as of all democracies, and seeking to ride\ntyrannically and unjustly over the rights and liberties of other\npeoples. Thus we enter the War solely for the cause of democracy and\nhumanity.\n\nThe hour of sacrifice has struck for the American people: will it rise\nto the test?  When one considers the characteristics of our surface life\nfor recent decades--the devotion to money-getting, the rapid increase of\nsenseless and debauching luxury, the reckless frivolity, the unthinking\nhaste and selfish pleasure-seeking--one questions.  Underneath, however,\nis a tremendous latent idealism.  We are young, enthusiastic, capable of\nglorious consecration.  Cynical disillusionment is all upon the surface\n--the cult of the clique of cleverness, uprooted from the soil of common\nlife and the deeps of the eternal verities.  Beneath in the great mass\nof the people is profound faith in life, deep trust in the ideal, belief\nin the great future of humanity.  Democracy will justify itself.  We\nshall rise to the test; but how we need to hear and heed the call!\n\n\"Awake America\" means Americans awake!  For in democracy the individual\nis the soul.  On each person rests the responsibility.  Let us accept\nthe bitter burden and meet the supreme test, giving time, money,\nservice, life and those we love better than life, for the sake of the\nsafer, freer, nobler world that is to be.  Since we stood apart so long\nand entered the horrible devastation so late, it is our privilege to do\nall we can to save the spiritual heritage of humanity, to keep our\nhearts clean from the corrosive acid of national and racial hatred, to\ndo all in our power to remove it from the breasts of others.  Injustice\nin high places is possible only because there is injustice in the hearts\nof men.  To overthrow tyranny is but the initial step of emancipation:\nunless the tyrant hate in the heart is dethroned, the external tyrant,\nin some form of social injustice will surely return.  He who conquers\nhate and the lust for revenge in his own breast is spiritually free and\nmaster of the tyrant that wrongs him.  Thus it is our privilege and duty\nto hate no one; but to hate injustice, greed, tyranny, aggressive\nselfishness, the wicked ambitions of autocratic imperialism, to resist\nand help to overthrow them, and so do our part in bringing in the free\nbrotherhood of the nations and peoples in one humanity, that will be the\ndawn of the longed-for era of universal and permanent peace for mankind.","title":"The Soul of Democracy: The Philosophy of the World War in Relation to Human Liberty","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":26800}