The Lost Fruits of Waterloo

by John Spencer Bassett

Of course, there is the difficulty that the United States may not be guided by statesmen who realize the importance of following a thoroughly American policy. It has long been a practice with a great many Americans to follow the lead of Great Britain. Unaccustomed to take a normal share of responsibility in world problems, we may now be inclined to hold back, leaving the game to hands that have acquired greater skill in playing it. Such a course would be a misfortune. It would mean that statesmen would be given charge of the situation who derived all their ideas under the old system of Balance of Power, and it would be strange if they did not try to carry on the world in the future with a strong squint at the only principles of international policy they know anything about. To break into this well crystallized realm of so-called practical ideas, demands an unusually strong man, a man well founded in principles and able to convince others of the wisdom of his views.

It is true that the President of the United States now in office has many of the traits that seem necessary to a correct conduct of the situation. A man who had the training of a mere politician might well be less than able to deal with the situation that faces us. President Wilson’s knowledge of history enables him to think in terms of large national movements. That is the chief value of historical training to a statesman. If he knows the history of the attempts to settle the affairs of the nations after the great world struggles of the past, he is better able to understand how the various suggested plans will work in the crisis that is to be passed through.

President Wilson has, also, the unusual faculty of doing what he wishes to do. When he has formed a purpose it is not generally a compromise with a number of men whose chief concern is how the result of action will affect their party support. At least this is true in matters not clearly within the bounds of party activity. Moreover, he has spoken and written words which seem to show that he understands the need of providing for such a course of conduct between the nations as will assure us of coöperation for the elimination of future wars. In his long delay in urging war and in his early pronouncement for a league of peace, he gave us the assurance, if nothing else, that he understands the situation and is capable of holding a firm course in accordance with his principles.

If the submarines fail, therefore, and if we come to a settlement of the largely new world problems that will confront us, and if our policy is in the hands of wise men, what principles will guide our actions and the actions of the rest of the world? This is a question that all intelligent citizens should consider, since it cannot be answered well unless there is a restrained and broad-minded public opinion to support the leaders of the people. It is a matter for the consideration of Germans as well as their opponents; for their attitude toward any policy adopted will have a strong effect upon the continuation of the policy.

The first question we should ask ourselves is: What are we to do to the Germans? How shall we punish them for what they have done to make the world miserable? My answer to that is: Let God punish them. For us it is not a question of giving the Germans their deserts but a question of coming out of this cataclysm with a clear gain for the cause of human happiness. Let us look upon the Germans as suffering from a kind of disease of the mind which produces bad results on those with whom they are in contact. It is ours to prescribe a cure, both for their sake and for ours. I suggest that we first put them on a liquid diet to reduce their exuberant vitality and then give them the rest cure. At any rate, that is better than cropping their ears or putting them into strait-jackets. To treat an impassioned man you do not kick and beat him but try to bring him to his senses. To bring the Germans into a realization that this world is run on the principle of live-and-let-live, we ourselves must show a willingness to let live.

We had a large amount of the opposite spirit in the United States from 1865 to 1875. The South, passionately convinced that slavery was no evil, had made as good a fight to preserve her cause as Germany has made or can make. She held out to the last with what her own people called a stout heart, but her foes said with a stiff neck. For a year and a half after the outside world concluded that she could never win, she held on in the hope that her adversaries would tire of war and make peace without victory. Now all this was exasperating, and the mass of the Northern people felt in 1865 that some punishment should be inflicted on the perverse people who had inflicted so much unnecessary misery on the country. But Lincoln did not feel that way. There is no reason to think that he gave a moment’s thought to making the South suffer for her course. For him all thought was how to smooth the wrinkles out of the present, and how to make the Southern people cast out their hatred of the union and come back to their former loyalty. The Lincoln spirit should guide the world at the end of the present struggle.

War lives on hatred. To make your people put all their energy into the fight make them hate the other people; and you may rest in the assurance that the leaders of the others are striving to make their followers hate the men on your side. The mill of hate grinds steadily and at a high speed while war lasts. In Germany in these days is a vast amount of industrious abusing of England. That makes the German people support the war. In Great Britain is a great activity in describing atrocities in Belgium and Armenia, and it exists in order to make the British people mad for war. When you see a new crop of the testimony concerning the torturing horrors of the first month of war in Belgium, you may know that the war spirit is running low in Britain. Unhappily, such propaganda is a necessary feature of war. We are naturally good-hearted, and we do not go out to kill men until we are made to hate them.

The moment war ends all this kind of thing should cease. The time will then have come for the propaganda of peace. Unfortunately there are few men whose mission it is to spread such ideas. Merchants and tourists may do what is their nature to do, but they are not sufficient; and it generally takes years for the fires to cool off.

The aftermath of our civil war was as unhappy a series of events as we have encountered within our national history. Undertaken as a means of making sure of the gains of the civil war, it became a procession of passion in which stalked all the worst feelings that divided the people in actual warfare. There are still men in the North who have Andersonville in mind when they vote, and men in the South who can never respect the republican party because it was responsible for the reconstruction acts of 1867. It will be extremely unfortunate if we take up the problems that are soon to be upon us in the spirit with which we assumed the duties of reconstructing the South.

During the civil war the South was possessed of a fixed idea: the same thing is true of Germany today. The South was committed to a position that the rest of the world had abandoned: Germany is committed to a type of bureaucratic government which is as much out of date in a modern world as slavery. No ordinary system of reasoning could show fair and honest Southern men in what respect they had the sentiment of civilization against them: the German is thoroughly convinced that he is fighting for the preservation of the most efficient type of government the world has seen. The South went to her defeat after a long and astonishingly effective resistance: Germany seems to be destined to a similarly long and steady process of reduction into complete prostration. The South was ruled by a small but able class of landed proprietors who refused to see the plain truth of the situation before them and prolonged the struggle until they were exhausted, although by making a favorable adjustment in accordance with the logic of the conditions before them they might have ended the war in 1864 and saved their people from the uttermost bitterness of defeat: the Germans, ruled by their Junkers, are equally deaf to argument, equally determined to die at their posts, and equally opposed to a compromise by which they will have to give up their antiquated “institution,” relinquish their special privileges, and make their country like the rest of the world. There are so many parallels between the two countries that we wonder if there will not also be a disposition of the victorious opposing allies to degrade Germany in her defeat.