But I do not believe that the American people will ever indulge in aggressive warfare for the sake of imperial ambitions or for world domination. Their spirit of adventure finds scope in higher ideals, in the victories of science and commerce, in the organization of every-day life, in the triumph of industry, in the development of the natural sources of wealth which belong to their great country and their ardent individuality. They believe in peace, if we may judge by their history and tradition, and non-interference with the outside world. Their hostility to the peace terms and to certain clauses in the League of Nations was due to a deep-seated distrust of entanglements with foreign troubles, jealousies, and rivalries, and the spirit of the United States, so far from desiring "mandates" over great populations outside the frontiers of its own people, harked back to the old faith in a "splendid isolation" free from imperial responsibilities. The people were perhaps too cautious and too reserved. They risked the chance they had of reshaping the structure of human society to a higher level of common sense and liberty. They made "reservations" which caused the withdrawal of their representatives from the council-chamber of the Allied nations. But that was due not merely, I think, to party politics or the passionate rivalry of statesmen. Truly and instinctively, it was due to the desire of the American people to draw back to their own frontiers and to work out their own destiny in peace, neither interfering nor being interfered with, according to their traditional and popular policy.
Apart from individual theorists, of the "cranky" kind, the main body of intellectual opinion in England, as far as I know it, looks to the United States as the arbitrator of the world's destiny, and the leader of the world's democracies, on peaceful and idealistic lines. There is a conviction among many of us—not killed by the controversy over the Peace Treaty—that the spirit of the American people as a whole is guided by an innate common sense free from antiquated spell-words, facing the facts of life shrewdly and honestly, and leaning always to the side of popular liberty against all tyrannies of castes, dynasties, and intolerance. Aloof from the historical enmities that still divide the nations of Europe, yet not aloof in sympathy with the sufferings, the strivings, and the sentiment of those peoples, the United States is able to play the part of a reconciling power, in any league of nations, with a detached and disinterested judgment. It is above all because it is disinterested that Europe has faith and trust in its sense of justice. It is not out for empire, for revenge, or for diplomatic vanity. Its people are supporters of President Wilson's ideal of "open covenants openly arrived at," and of the "self-determination of nations," however violently they challenge the authority by which their President pledged them to definite clauses in an unpopular contract. They are a friendly and not unfriendly folk in their instincts and in their methods. They respond quickly and generously to any appeal to honest sentiment, though they have no patience with hypocrisy. They are realists, and hate sham, pose, and falsehood. Give them "a square deal" and they will be scrupulous to a high standard of business morality. Because of the infusion of foreign blood in their democracy which has been slowly produced from the great melting-pot of nations, they are subject to all the sensibilities of the human race and not narrowly fixed to one racial idea or type of mind. The Celt, the Slav, the Saxon, the Teuton, the Hebrew, and the Latin strains are present in the subconsciousness of the American people, so that they are capable of an enormous range of sympathy with human nature in its struggle upward to the light. They are the new People of Destiny in the world of progress, because after their early adventures of youth, their time of preparation, their immense turbulent growth, their forging of tools, and training of soul, they stand now in their full strength and maturity, powerful with the power of a great, free, confident people.
To some extent, and I think in an increasing way, the old supremacy which Europe had is passing westward. Europe is stricken, tired, and poor. America is hearty, healthy, and rich. Intellectually it is still boyish and young and raw. There is the wisdom as well as the sadness of old age in Europe. We have more subtlety of brain, more delicate sense of art, a literature more expressive of the complicated emotions which belong to an old heritage of civilization, luxury, and philosophy. But I look for a Golden Age of literature and art in America which shall be like our Elizabethan period, fresh and spring-like, and rich in vitality and promise. I am bound to believe that out of the fusion of races in America, and out of their present period of wealth and power, and out of this new awakening to the problems of life outside their own country, there will come great minds, and artists, and leaders of thought, surpassing any that have yet revealed themselves. All our reading of history points to that evolution. The flowering-time of America seems due to arrive, after its growing pains.
Be that as it may, it is clear, at least, that the destiny of the American people is now marked out for the great mission of leading the world to a new phase of civilization. By the wealth they have, and by their power for good or evil, they have a controlling influence in the reshaping of the world after its convulsions. They cannot escape from that power, even though they shrink from its responsibility. Their weight thrown one way or the other will turn the scale of all the balance of the world's desires. People of destiny, they have the choice of arranging the fate of many peoples. By their action they may plunge the world into strife again or settle its peace. They may kill or cure. They may be reconcilers or destroyers. They may be kind or cruel. It is a terrific power for any people to hold. If I were a citizen of the United States I should be afraid—afraid lest my country should by passion, or by ignorance, or by sheer carelessness take the wrong way.
I think some Americans have that fear. I have met some who are anxious and distressed. But I think that the majority of Americans do not realize the power that has come to them nor their new place in the world. They have a boisterous sense of importance and prestige, but rather as a young college man is aware of his lustiness and vitality without considering the duties and the dangers that have come to him with manhood. They are inclined to a false humility, saying: "We aren't our brothers' keepers, anyway. We needn't go fussing around. Let's keep to our own job and let the other people settle their own affairs." But meanwhile the other people know that American policy, American decisions, the American attitude in world problems, will either make or mar them. It is essential for the safety of the world, and of civilization itself, that the United States should realize its responsibilities and fulfill the destiny that has come to it by the evolution of history. To those whom I call the People of Destiny I humbly write the words: Let the world have peace.
[VI]
AMERICANS IN EUROPE
It is only during the war and afterward that European people have come to know anything in a personal way of the great democracy in the United States. Before then America was judged by tourists who came to "do" Europe in a few months or a few weeks. In France, especially, all of them were popularly supposed to be "millionaires," or, at least, exceedingly rich. Many of them were, and in Paris, to which they went in greatest numbers, they were preyed upon by hotel managers and shopkeepers, and were caricatured in French farces and French newspapers as the "nouveaux riches" of the world who could afford to buy all the luxury of life, but had no refinement of taste or delicacy of sentiment. There was an enormous ignorance of the education, civilization, and temperament of the great masses of people in the United States, and it was an absolute belief among the middle classes of Europe that the "almighty dollar" was the God of America and that there was no other worship on that side of the Atlantic.