Patriotism is conceivable to a civilized man in times of stress and storm, when his country is wobbling and sore beset. His country then appeals to him as any victim of misfortune appeals to him—say, a street-walker pursued by the police. But when it is safe, happy and prosperous it can only excite his loathing. The things that make countries safe, happy and prosperous—a secure peace, an active trade, political serenity at home—are all intrinsically corrupting and disgusting. It is as impossible for a civilized man to love his country in good times as it would be for him to respect a politician.
[XIX. SUITE AMÉRICANE]
1
Aspiration
Police sergeants praying humbly to God that Jews will start poker-rooms on their posts, and so enable them to educate their eldest sons for holy orders.... Newspaper reporters resolving firmly to work hard, keep sober and be polite to the city editor, and so be rewarded with jobs as copy-readers.... College professors in one-building universities on the prairie, still hoping, at the age of sixty, to get their whimsical essays into the Atlantic Monthly. ... Car conductors on lonely suburban lines, trying desperately to save up $500 and start a Ford garage.... Pastors of one-horse little churches in decadent villages, who, whenever they drink two cups of coffee at supper, dream all night that they have been elected bishops.... Movie actors who hope against hope that the next fan letter will be from Bar Harbor.... Delicatessen dealers who spend their whole lives searching for a cheap substitute for the embalmed veal used in chicken-salad.... Italians who wish that they were Irish.... Mulatto girls in Georgia and Alabama who send away greasy dollar bills for bottles of Mme. Celestine’s Infallible Hair-Straightener.... Ash-men who pull wires to be appointed superintendents of city dumps. Mothers who dream that the babies in their cradles will reach, in the mysterious after years, the highest chairs in the Red Men and the Maccabees.... Farmers who figure that, with good luck, they will be able to pay off their mortgages by 1943.... Contestants for the standing broad-jump championship of the Altoona, Pa., Y. M. C. A.... Editorial writers who essay to prove mathematically that a war between England and the United States is unthinkable....