In the West there are no indications that an effect of the war will be to awaken new radical movements or strengthen tendencies that were apparent before America sounded the call to arms. I have dwelt upon the sobriety with which the West approached the election of 1916 merely as an emphasis of this. We shall have once more a “soldier vote” to reckon with in our politics, and the effect of their participation in the world struggle upon the young men who have crossed the sea to fight for democracy is an interesting matter for speculation. One thing certain is that the war has dealt the greatest blow ever administered to American sectionalism. We were prone for years to consider our national life in a local spirit, and the political parties expended much energy in attempts to reconcile the demands and needs of one division of the States with those of another. The prolonged debate of the tariff as a partisan issue is a noteworthy instance of this. The farmer, the industrial laborer, the capitalist have all been the objects of special consideration. One argument had to be prepared for the cotton-grower in the South; another for the New England mill-hands who spun his product; still another for the mill-owner. The farm-hand and the mechanic in the neighboring manufacturing town had to be reached by different lines of reasoning. Our statesmanship, East and West, has been of the knot-hole variety—rarely has a man risen to the top of the fence for a broad view of the whole field. What will be acceptable to the South? What does the West want? We have had this sort of thing through many years, both as to national policies and as to candidates for the presidency, and its effect has been to prevent the development of sound national policies.
The Republican party has addressed itself energetically to the business of reorganization. The national committee met at St. Louis in February to choose a new chairman in place of Mr. William R. Willcox, and the contest for this important position was not without its significance. The standpatters yielded under pressure, and after a forty-eight-hour deadlock the election of Mr. Will H. Hays, of Indiana, assured a hospitable open-door policy toward all prodigals. In 1916 Mr. Hays, as chairman of the Republican State committee, carried Indiana against heavy odds and established himself as one of the ablest political managers the West has known. As the country is likely to hear a good deal of him in the next two years, I may note that he is a man of education, high-minded, resourceful, endowed with prodigious energy and trained and tested executive ability. A lawyer in a town of five thousand people, he served his political apprenticeship in all capacities from precinct committeeman to the State chairmanship. Mr. Hays organized and was the first chairman of the Indiana State Council of Defense, and made it a thoroughly effective instrument for the co-ordination of the State’s war resources and the diffusion of an ardent patriotism. Indeed the methods of the Indiana Council were so admirable that they were adopted by several other States. It is in the blood of all Hoosiers to suspect partisan motives where none exists, but it is to Mr. Hays’s credit that he directed Indiana’s war work, until he resigned to accept the national chairmanship, with the support and to the satisfaction of every loyal citizen without respect to party. Mr. Hays is essentially a Westerner, with the original Wabash tang; and his humor and a knack of coining memorable phrases are not the least important items of his equipment for politics. He is frank and outspoken, with no affectations of mystery, and as his methods are conciliatory and assimilative the chances are excellent for a Republican rejuvenation.
The burden of prosecuting the war to a conclusive peace that shall realize the American aims repeatedly set forth by President Wilson is upon the Democratic administration. The West awaits with the same seriousness with which it pondered the problems of 1916 the definition of new issues touching vitally our social, industrial, and financial affairs, and our relations with other nations, that will press for attention the instant the last shot is fired. In the mid-summer of 1918 only the most venturesome political prophets are predicting either the issues or the leaders of 1920. Events which it is impossible to forecast will create issues and possibly lift up new leaders not now prominent in national politics. A successful conclusion of the war before the national conventions meet two years hence would give President Wilson and his party an enormous prestige. On the other hand, if the war should be prolonged we shall witness inevitably the development of a sentiment for change based upon public anxiety to hasten the day of peace. These things are on the knees of the gods.
In both parties there is to-day a melancholy deficiency of presidential timber. It cannot be denied that Republican hopes, very generally, are centred in Mr. Roosevelt; this is clearly apparent throughout the West. In the Democratic State convention held at Indianapolis, June 18, tumultuous enthusiasm was awakened by the chairman, former Governor Samuel M. Ralston, who boldly declared for Wilson in 1920—the first utterance of the kind before any body of like representative character. However, the immediate business of the nation is to win the war, and there is evident in the West no disposition to suffer this predominating issue to be obscured by partisanship. Indeed since America took up arms nothing has been more marked in the Western States than the sinking of partisanship in a whole-hearted support of the government and a generous response to all the demands of the war. In meetings called in aid of war causes Democrats and Republicans have vied with each other in protestations of loyalty to the government. I know of no exception to the rule that every request from Washington has been met splendidly by Republican State governors. Indeed, there has been a lively rivalry among Middle Western States to exceed the prescribed quotas of dollars and men.
Already an effect of the war has been a closer knitting together of States and sections, a contemplation of wider horizons. It is inevitable that we shall be brought, East and West, North and South, to the realization of a new national consciousness that has long been the imperative need of our politics. And in all the impending changes, readjustments, and conciliations the country may look for hearty co-operation to a West grown amazingly conservative and capable of astonishing manifestations of independence.
CHAPTER VI
THE SPIRIT OF THE WEST
The wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and not lead, the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government which prevails is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it.—Emerson.
I
MUCH water has flowed under the bridge since these papers were undertaken, and I cheerfully confess that in the course of the year I have learned a great deal about the West. My observations began at Denver when the land was still at peace, and continued through the hour of the momentous decision and the subsequent months of preparation. The West is a place of moods and its changes of spirit are sometimes puzzling. The violence has gone out of us; we went upon a war footing with a minimum amount of noise and gesticulation. Deeply preoccupied with other matters, the West was annoyed that the Kaiser should so stupidly make it necessary for the American Republic to give him a thrashing, but as the thing had to be done the West addressed itself to the job with a grim determination to do it thoroughly.
We heard, after the election of 1916, that the result was an indication of the West’s indifference to the national danger; that the Middle Western people could not be interested in a war on the farther side of the Atlantic and would suffer any indignities rather than send their sons to fight in Europe. It was charged in some quarters that the West had lost its “pep”; that the fibre had softened; that the children and the grandchildren of “Lincoln’s men” were insensible to the national danger; and that thoughts of a bombardment of New York or San Francisco were not disturbing to a people remote from the sea. I am moved to remark that we of the West are less disposed to encourage the idea that we are a people apart than our friends to the eastward who often seem anxious to force this attitude upon us. We like our West and may boast and strut a little, but any intimation that we are not loyal citizens of the American Republic, jealous of its honor and security and responsive to its every call upon our patriotism and generosity, arouses our indignation.