“A fair rejoinder in a debate, but we are not appealing to the applause of an audience, but, I take it, as two men holding diametrically opposite opinions, honestly seeking to find out what each believes.”
“All right,” said Magnus, evidently favorably influenced by the other’s good nature, for he answered more frankly. “It is possibly true that the Jewish race is most ready to embrace the principle of internationalism on account of its past history. I will grant that. But that does not affect the general proposition. Pacifism, which is good Christianity, is the first step to internationalism, and don’t forget that the most determined opponents of militarism are of a Christian sect,—your Quakers.”
“Two years ago,” said Brinsmade, carefully, “when I called myself a pacifist, I might have denied that. By pacifism then I meant opposition to war,—the belief in the possibility of universal disarmament and settlement of all difficulties by arbitration. But I never associated that with internationalism.”
“Am I not logical when I say that pacifism must be considered the first step to internationalism?” said Magnus. There was in his voice the persuasive gentleness of the born debater, who is confident of leading his opponent to the conclusion he seeks. “If you wish nations to renounce warring on each other by arms, isn’t it because we are coming to the point of view that we are all human beings on the same globe, artificially divided by national lines? And if it is abhorrent to you that one nation should murder another with gunpowder, isn’t it just as wrong to seek by commercial warfare to impoverish and reduce an inferior to a state of commercial slavery, a portion of the same human race?”
I sat up, listening with strong attention. Thoughts which had struggled for clarification in my own deliberate mind started up. Once or twice I had come near breaking in with a question, so close to my own problems had the debate come. Here were two men discussing theories that might apply in a thousand years, when the immediate problem was this present thing: what should a nation—my nation—do in this world crisis, for its greater good?
“Well, now, Magnus—there’s logic in what you say, and I’m the more ready to admit it in that I haven’t the slightest patience with what I used to believe.”
“What’s changed you?”
“France. Keeping my eyes open and seeing things as they are in this world, and not as I want them to be. Your internationalism is a political millennium, which will come just about as soon as the other millennium. I used to think that we were all pretty much alike, English, American, German, and French. I’ve found out we’re not. We’re not pursuing the same ideas. The English world has settled down to an easy-going existence, each man sufficient unto himself, occupied in his own private affairs, getting farther and farther away from his national ideal, looking on government as a convenient policeman, a central telephone, and all that. And then, there’s Germany—and the explanation of Germany is national solidarity—every man fitting into the national scheme, and every man working for the national aggrandizement. ‘Deutschland uber alles!’ We used to laugh at that. I don’t. It impresses me now. And it terrifies me.”
“Do you want to live under such a system?”
“I’ll come back to that. No, I don’t want to be subjected to that. That’s why I’m done with pacifism. Because the world’s up against not simply German armies but the German idea. And we may as well admit that it is the German idea that’s got to be destroyed or adopted: no two ways.”