The mad turmoil of folly and disaffection was kept at high pressure by the adroitness of the Imperial Government in juggling with technicalities. While we fed, like Hamlet, on the chameleon’s dish, and, “promise-crammed,” debated windily over words, ship after ship was sunk, and fresh exonerations and pledges were served up for our entertainment. It became difficult even for German-Americans to know just where they stood, and how far they might fittingly express their contempt for the United States, without out-distancing the Fatherland. When the “Friends of Peace” in Chicago cheered the sinking of the Hesperian,—an exploit naturally gratifying to peaceful souls,—they were silenced by more prudent members of the convention, who bethought themselves that this illustration of good faith might in turn be politely regretted. All that was left for these enthusiasts was to praise Germany’s “magnanimity,” to brag of her “historic friendship” for America (apparently under the impression that Lafayette was a Prussian officer), to regret the “hysteria” of Americans over the drowning of their countrymen, and to ascribe the whole war to the machinations of “Grey and Asquith, and Delcassé, and Poincaré,”—“demons whom we should hiss and howl into the abyss of Hell.”
There was plenty of disaffection in 1776, plenty in 1861; but we fought our two great wars without dishonour. If the Germans, well aware of our unpreparedness and of our internal dissensions, have flouted us unsparingly, it is because they are, as they have always been, densely incapable of reading the souls of men. Let us not add to our own peril by misreading the soul of Germany. We lack her discipline, we lack her unity, we lack her efficiency, the splendid result of thirty years’ devotion to a single purpose. It avails us very little to analyze the “falling sickness” which has made her so mighty. Dr. Lightner Witmer, in a profoundly thoughtful and dispassionate paper on “The Relation of Intelligence to Efficiency,” diagnoses her disease as “primitivism,”—“meaning thereby a reversion in manners, customs, and principles to what is characteristic of a lower level of civilization.” Mr. Owen Wister, who is as poignantly eloquent as Dr. Witmer is logical and chill, reaches in “The Pentecost of Calamity” a somewhat similar conclusion. “The case of Germany is a hospital case, a case for the alienist; the mania of grandeur complemented by the mania of persecution.” Even Mr. Bryan (always a past-master of infelicitous argument) tells us that a war with Germany is impossible, because it would be like “challenging an insane asylum;”—as if an insane asylum which failed to restrain its inmates could be left unchallenged by the world.
It is unwise to minimize our danger on the score of our saner judgment or higher morality. These qualities may win out in the future, but we are living now. Germany is none the less terrible because she is obsessed, and we are not a whit safer because we recognize her obsession. The German war-maps of Paris, cut into sections and directing which sections were to be burned, are grim warnings to the world. It is disturbing to think how insensitive Paris was to her peril when those maps were prepared. It is disturbing to think that a fool’s paradise is always the most popular playground of humanity. In the “Atlantic Monthly” for August, 1915, an Englishman explained lucidly to American readers (the only audience patient enough to hear him) that non-resistance is the road to security. Mr. Russell, “a mathematician and a philosopher,” is confident that if England would submit passively to invasion, and refuse passively to obey the invader, she would suffer no great wrong. Had he read “Sandford and Merton” when he was a little boy, it might possibly occur to him that Germany would treat the non-resisting strikers as Mr. Barlow treated Tommy, when that misguided child refused to dig and hoe. Had he read the “Bryce report,”—which is not pleasant reading,—he might feel less sure that English homes and English women would be safe from assault because they lacked protectors.
The same happy confidence in our receptivity and in our limitless good nature was shown by Professor Kraus, who, in the “Atlantic Monthly” for September, 1915, conveyed to us in the plainest possible language his unfavourable opinion of the Monroe Doctrine and of its supporters. No German could be less “nice” in concealing his contempt than was this ingenuous contributor; and nothing could be better for us than to hear such words spoken at such a time. The threat of a “general accounting” was not even presented suavely to our ears, but it left us no room for doubt.
That two such arguments from two such sources should have enlivened our term of waiting is worthy of note. The Englishman, seeing us beset by irrationalities, added one more phantasy to our load. The German, seeing us beset by alarms, added one more menace to affright us. Our patience is impervious to folly and to intimidation. We have plenty of both at home. Only an American can understand the cumulative anger in his countryman’s heart as affront is added to affront, and the slow lapse of time brings us neither redress nor redemption. However sanguine and however peace-loving we may be, we cannot well base our hopes of future security on the tenderness shown us in the past. If long months of painful suspense, of hope alternating with despondency, and pride with shame, have wrought no other good, they have at least revealed to us where our danger lies. They have bared disloyalty, and have put good citizens on their guard.
Somewhere in the mind of the nation is a saving sanity. Somewhere in the heart of the nation is a saving grace. A day may come when these two harmonious qualities will find expression in the simple words of Cardinal Newman: “The best prudence is to have no fear.”
Americanism
Whenever we stand in need of intricate knowledge, balanced judgment, or delicate analysis, it is our comfortable habit to question our neighbours. They may be no wiser and no better informed than we are; but a collective opinion has its value, or at least its satisfying qualities. For one thing, there is so much of it. For another, it seldom lacks variety. Two years ago the “American Journal of Sociology” asked two hundred and fifty “representative” men and women “upon what ideals, policies, programmes, or specific purposes should Americans place most stress in the immediate future,” and published the answers that were returned in a Symposium entitled, “What is Americanism?” The candid reader, following this symposium, received much counsel, but little enlightenment. There were some good practical suggestions; but nowhere any cohesion, nowhere any sense of solidarity, nowhere any concern for national honour or authority.
It was perhaps to be expected that Mr. Burghardt Du Bois’s conception of true Americanism would be the abolishment of the colour line, and that Mr. Eugene Debs would see salvation in the sweeping away of “privately owned industries, and production for individual profit.” These answers might have been foreseen when the questions were asked. But it was disconcerting to find that all, or almost all, of the “representative” citizens represented one line of civic policy, or civic reform, and refused to look beyond it. The prohibitionist discerned Americanism in prohibition, the equal suffragist in votes for women, the biologist in applied science, the physician in the extirpation of microbes, the philanthropist in playgrounds, the sociologist in eugenism and old-age pensions, and the manufacturer in the revision of taxes. It was refreshing when an author unexpectedly demanded the extinction of inherited capital. Authorship seldom concerns itself with anything so inconceivably remote.
The quality of miscellaneousness is least serviceable when we leave the world of affairs, and seek admission into the world of ideals. There must be an interpretation of Americanism which will express for all of us a patriotism at once practical and emotional, an understanding of our place in the world, and of the work we are best fitted to do in it, a sentiment which we can hold—as we hold nothing else—in common, and which will be forever remote from personal solicitude and resentment. Those of us whose memories stretch back over half a century recall too plainly a certain uneasiness which for years pervaded American politics and American letters, which made us unduly apprehensive, and, as a consequence, unduly sensitive and arrogant. It found expression in Mr. William Cullen Bryant’s well-known poem, “America,” made familiar to my generation by school readers and manuals of elocution, and impressed by frequent recitations upon our memories.