American ideals, and other essays, social and political

by Theodore Roosevelt

Nineteenth century democracy needs no more complete vindication for its existence than the fact that it has kept for the white race the best portions of the new worlds’ surface, temperate America and Australia. Had these regions been under aristocratic governments, Chinese immigration would have been encouraged precisely as the slave trade is encouraged of necessity by any slave-holding oligarchy, and the result would in a few generations have been even more fatal to the white race; but the democracy, with the clear instinct of race selfishness, saw the race foe, and kept out the dangerous alien. The presence of the negro in our Southern States is a legacy from the time when we were ruled by a trans-oceanic aristocracy. The whole civilization of the future owes a debt of gratitude greater than can be expressed in words to that democratic policy which has kept the temperate zones of the new and the newest worlds a heritage for the white people.

As for the industrial competition, the Chinaman and the Hindoo may drive certain kinds of white traders from the tropics; but more than this they cannot do. They can never change the status of the white laborer in his own home, for the latter can always protect himself, and as soon as he is seriously menaced, always will protect himself, by protective tariffs and stringent immigration laws.

Mr. Pearson fears that when once the tropic races are independent, the white peoples will be humiliated and will lose heart: but this does not seem inevitable, and indeed seems very improbable. If the Englishman should lose his control over South Africa and India, it might indeed be a serious blow to the Englishman of Britain; though it may be well to remember that the generation of Englishmen which grew up immediately after England had lost America, accomplished feats in arms, letters, and science such as, on the whole, no other English generation ever accomplished. Even granting that Britain were to suffer as Mr. Pearson thinks she would, the enormous majority of the English-speaking peoples, those whose homes are in America and Australia, would be absolutely unaffected; and Continental Europe would be little more affected than it was when the Portuguese and Dutch successively saw their African and Indian empires diminish. France has not been affected by the expulsion of the French from Hayti; nor have the freed negroes of Hayti been capable of the smallest aggressive movement. No American or Australian cares in the least that the tan-colored peoples of Brazil and Ecuador now live under governments of their own instead of being ruled by viceroys from Portugal and Spain; and it is difficult to see why they should be materially affected by a similar change happening in regard to the people along the Ganges or the upper Nile. Even if China does become a military power on the European model, this fact will hardly affect the American and Australian at the end of the twentieth century more than Japan’s effort to get admitted to the circle of civilized nations has affected us at the end of the nineteenth.

Finally, it must be borne in mind that if any one of the tropical races ever does reach a pitch of industrial and military prosperity which makes it a menace to European and American countries, it will almost necessarily mean that this nation has itself become civilized in the process; and we shall then simply be dealing with another civilized nation of non-aryan blood, precisely as we now deal with Magyar, Fin, and Basque, without any thought of their being ethnically distinct from Croat, Rouman, or Wend.

In Mr. Pearson’s second chapter he deals with the stationary order of society, and strives to show that while we are all tending toward it, some nations, notably France, have practically come to it. He adds that when this stationary state is reached, it will produce general discouragement, and will probably affect the intellectual energy of the people concerned. He further points out that our races now tend to change from faith in private enterprises to faith in State organizations, and that this is likely to diminish the vigorous originality of any race. He even holds that we already see the beginning of a decadence, in the decline of speculative thought, and still more in the way of mechanical inventions. It is perfectly true that the laissez-faire doctrine of the old school of political economists is receiving, less and less favor; but after all, if we look at events historically, we see that every race, as it has grown to civilized greatness, has used the power of the State more and more. A great State cannot rely on mere unrestricted individualism, any more than it can afford to crush out all individualism. Within limits, the mercilessness of private commercial warfare must be curbed as we have curbed the individual’s right of private war proper. It was not until the power of the State had become great in England, and until the lawless individualism of feudal times had vanished, that the English people began that career of greatness which has put them on a level with the Greeks in point of intellectual achievement, and with the Romans in point of that material success which is measured by extension through settlement, by conquest, by triumphant warcraft and statecraft. As for Mr. Pearson’s belief that we now see a decline in speculative thought and in mechanical invention, all that can be said is that the facts do not bear him out.

There is one side to this stationary state theory which Mr. Pearson scarcely seems to touch. He points out with emphasis the fact, which most people are prone to deny, that the higher orders of every society tend to die out; that there is a tendency, on the whole, for both lower classes and lower civilizations to increase faster than the higher. Taken in the rough, his position on this point is undoubtedly correct. Progressive societies, and the most progressive portions of society, fail to increase as fast as the others, and often positively decrease. The great commanders, great statesmen, great poets, great men of science of any period taken together do not average as many children who reach years of maturity as a similar number of mechanics, workmen, and farmers, taken at random. Nevertheless, society progresses, the improvement being due mainly to the transmission of acquired characters, a process which in every civilized State operates so strongly as to counterbalance the operation of that baleful law of natural selection which tells against the survival of some of the most desirable classes. Mr. Balfour, by the way, whose forecast for the race is in some respects not unlike Mr. Pearson’s, seems inclined to adopt the view that acquired characteristics cannot be inherited; a position which, even though supported by a few eminent names, is hardly worthy serious refutation.

The point I wish to dwell upon here, however, is that it is precisely in those castes which have reached the stationary state, or which are positively diminishing in numbers, that the highest culture and best training, the keenest enjoyment of life, and the greatest power of doing good to the community, are to be found at present. Unquestionably, no community that is actually diminishing in numbers is in a healthy condition: and as the world is now, with huge waste places still to fill up, and with much of the competition between the races reducing itself to the warfare of the cradle, no race has any chance to win a great place unless it consists of good breeders as well as of good fighters. But it may well be that these conditions will change in the future, when the other changes to which Mr. Pearson looks forward with such melancholy, are themselves brought about. A nation sufficiently populous to be able to hold its own against aggression from without, a nation which, while developing the virtues of refinement, culture, and learning, has yet not lost those of courage, bold initiative, and military hardihood, might well play a great part in the world, even though it had come to that stationary state already reached by the dominant castes of thinkers and doers in most of the dominant races.

In Mr. Pearson’s third chapter he dwells on some of the dangers of political development, and in especial upon the increase of the town at the expense of the country, and upon the growth of great standing armies. Excessive urban development undoubtedly does constitute a real and great danger. All that can be said about it is that it is quite impossible to prophesy how long this growth will continue. Moreover, some of the evils, as far as they really exist, will cure themselves. If towns-people do, generation by generation, tend to become stunted and weak, then they will die out, and the problem they cause will not be permanent; while on the other hand, if the cities can be made healthy, both physically and morally, the objections to them must largely disappear. As for standing armies, Mr. Pearson here seems to have too much thought of Europe only. In America and Australia there is no danger of the upgrowing of great standing armies: and, as he well shows, the fact that every citizen must undergo military training, is by no means altogether a curse to the nations of Continental Europe.

There is one point, by the way, although a small point, where it may be worth while to correct Mr. Pearson’s statement of a fact. In dwelling on what is undoubtedly the truth, that raw militia are utterly incompetent to make head against trained regular forces, he finds it necessary to explain away the defeat at New Orleans. In doing this, he repeats the story as it has been told by British historians from Sir Archibald Alison to Goldwin Smith. I hasten to say that the misstatement is entirely natural on Mr. Pearson’s part; he was simply copying, without sufficiently careful investigation, the legend adopted by one side to take the sting out of defeat. The way he puts it is that six thousand British under Pakenham, without artillery, were hurled against strong works defended by twice their numbers, and were beaten, as they would have been beaten had the works been defended by almost any troops in the world. In the first place, Pakenham did not have six thousand men; he had almost ten thousand. In the second place, the Americans, instead of being twice as numerous as the British, were but little more than half as numerous. In the third place, so far from being without artillery, the British were much superior to the Americans in this respect. Finally, they assailed a position very much less strong than that held by Soult when Wellington beat him at Toulouse with the same troops which were defeated by Jackson at New Orleans. The simple truth is that Jackson was a very good general, and that he had under him troops whom he had trained in successive campaigns against Indians and Spaniards, and that on the three occasions when he brought Pakenham to battle—that is, the night attack, the great artillery duel, and the open assault—the English soldiers, though they fought with the utmost gallantry, were fairly and decisively beaten.

This one badly-chosen premise does not, however, upset Mr. Pearson’s conclusions. Plenty of instances can be taken from our war of 1812 to show how unable militia are to face trained regulars; and an equally striking example was that afforded at Castlebar, in Ireland, in 1798, when a few hundred French regulars attacked with the bayonet and drove in headlong flight from a very strong position, defended by a powerful artillery, five times their number of English, Scotch, and Irish militia.