The United States gives much to the individual, more, I think, than any other country; but she has not given intelligently, she has nearly pauperized us all by her beneficence, and has demanded nothing in return, nor even taught us common gratitude.
Our children are told that they must love their country, but what that means beyond fighting when it is in danger they know not. That it means to do their work thoroughly, that they must learn to do things well, and exalt the nation by becoming efficient workmen that they may help win their country’s battles in the factory, or behind the counter, they do not yet know; and what we have not learned, we cannot teach.
This questioning mood of mine is never gendered as I contemplate the mob, the many who are driven to revolt either by their unbridled passions or by the unbearable conditions under which they have to labor; my fear is strongest when I look into the schools and when I face our youth which comes out of them, inefficient, but above all, undisciplined. They do not lack physical courage, nor yet devotion to the country, in a sort of abstract way; they do lack the submission to intelligent authority.
In this latter-day test of different ideals of the state, through the cruel, undecisive test of war, we may learn from Germany to instill this “Pflichttreue,” this loyalty to the job. We may also learn the more difficult lesson for us individualists—submission to authority which we must make intelligent, as well as conscientious.
Necessity will soon teach us to be thorough, and thoroughness presupposes patience. Add these qualities and this discipline to the enterprise, the love of fair play, the courage, the faith in God and man, which we possess, and we too may ultimately develop a patriotism which will stand the test of adversity, and emerge from it purified and strengthened.
When we stepped out of the restaurant and its German atmosphere into the unmistakably American Broadway, my German guests felt that my rampant Americanism had been thoroughly subdued. However they had literally “reckoned without their host.” My protracted silence had misled them, but I could contain myself no longer.
“We are now walking in the streets of the second largest city in the world, its population thrown together and blown together from every quarter of the globe, and the most of these people, if not the worst of them, have come here in the last thirty-five years. They brought neither love of their new country nor knowledge of its language and institutions; they all came to make money, and to-morrow morning four millions of people will begin again the competitive battle from which they are resting to-night.
“The laws which govern them are illy made, but they have made them, or at least had a chance to select those who did make them. They have not always chosen well; the officers who govern them are often not good men; frequently they are only the most cunning politicians and one has but scant respect for them. Yet in spite of it all, this is a fairly well governed city and it is quite remarkable that these four million people live together in comparative peace and order. Neither is there any ill from which this great city or any group of its individuals suffers for which there is not some help or healing or some attempt to heal.
“If I were an absolute stranger without money, knowing neither the language of the people nor their ways, I would rather be on the streets of the city of New York than anywhere else.”
“How do you account for it?” the Frau Directorin ventured to ask, although the Herr Director had been violently expressing his dissent.