The Sacred Remembrance
Ten years after the beginning of the world war, fought on our side with a high appeal to such great words as “Liberty,” “Justice,” “a world made safe for democracy” and “the overthrow of militarism,” one is dismayed to find the beginning of a class warfare with appeals to force, and denials of liberty and justice, on both sides. Surely the one sacred remembrance worth keeping, the only glory that belonged to that war, is the spiritual emotion which for a time exalted our common clay above self-interest, above the fear of death itself, and united all classes in the nation in a comradeship of sacrifice and service. It was so in Germany as well as in England, in the United States as well as in France. Each side believed itself to be in the right, prayed God for aid with no sense of blasphemy.
Never before in history, at least in France, England and the United States, was there such a “sacred union” of all ranks and classes under the first impulse of that immense emotion for a single purpose. All political differences were blotted out, all prerogatives of caste and wealth, all hatreds between groups of men, all intolerance were waived. In those days, as I have written, the society women went down on their knees to scrub floors for the wounded, or serve as drudges in wayside canteens. In those days, ten years ago, the young aristocrat marvelled at the splendour of his men—“nothing was too good for them.” In those days before the time of disillusion the men were uplifted by the love of the nation that went out to them. There was no spirit of class warfare, no Bolshevism, no hatred of “Labour.” The dirtiest soldier in the trenches, covered with mud and blood, was our national hero. Our soul did homage to him. And between the wounded soldier lying in his shell-hole beside his wounded officer there was no hostility, no gulf of class. They were crucified together on the same cross. They were comrades in agony and death.
It was for war. The service which united all classes was the slaughter of men on the other side of the line drawn across the map of the world, or the provision of means of slaughter. That intense impulse of devotion, sacrifice and duty which in its first manifestations had something divine in its carelessness of self—in all countries—was in its effects destructive of the best human life in the world. Is it too much for humanity to get that same impulse for the cause of peace, to get back to that comradeship and co-operation within those nations for other purposes than that of war, to rise above self-interest for the commonwealth of civilisation?
It is very difficult, almost impossible I think, without tremendous leadership which we cannot yet perceive. War is a shock which thrills every soul by its terrific portent. Peace is a state in which the smaller interests of life seem more important than great issues. War provides the people with a single dominating purpose, inspired by passion. Peace has no definite goal to capture or defend, and human intelligence is divided by a million views in its gropings for the ideals of peace. It is only danger that rallies the human tribes in self-defence. In safety they scatter and are hostile to each other.
Well, the danger ahead is great enough in my judgment to provide the impulse again, and to recreate the passion which united classes and nations ten years ago. If we have that “next war” it is going to thrust us all into deep pits of ruin. If we have social warfare within the civilised nations we shall not emerge from it until tides of blood have flowed. If we have an unrestricted commercial war, a savage and ruthless competition between great powers out for world trade at all costs against each other, the other things will happen. The human tribes in the next phase of history, now approaching, must co-operate or perish.
There is no one cure for all these troubles, but they may be lessened, and their greatest perils averted surely by a spirit of reason against unreason, by tolerance against intolerance, by ideals of peace against ideals of force, by conciliation against conflict, by a change of heart in the individual as well as in the nation.