The second great evil under which certain large nations of Europe—notably Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary—have long suffered and still suffer is the permanent national Executive, independent of popular control through representative bodies, holding strong views about rights of birth and religious sanctions of its authority, and really controlling the national forces through some small council and a strong bureaucracy. So long as Executives of this sort endure, so long will civilization be liable to such explosions as have taken place this August, though not always on so vast a scale.
Americans now see these things more clearly than European lovers of liberty, because Americans are detached from the actual conflicts by the Atlantic, and because Americans have had no real contact with the feudal or the imperial system for nearly 300 years. Pilgrim and Puritan, Covenanter and Quaker, Lutheran and Catholic alike left the feudal system and autocratic government behind them when they crossed the Atlantic. Americans, therefore, cannot help hoping that two results of the present war will be: (1) The abolition of secret diplomacy and secret understandings, and the substitution therefor of treaties publicly discussed and sanctioned, and (2) the creation of national Executives—Emperors, Sultans, Kings, or Presidents—which cannot use the national forces in fight until a thoroughly informed national assembly, acting with deliberation, has agreed to that use.
Opposite Tendencies.
The American student of history since the middle of the seventeenth century sees clearly two strong though apparently opposite tendencies in Europe: First, the tendency to the creation and maintenance of small States such as those which the Peace of Westphalia (1648) recognized and for two centuries secured in a fairly independent existence, and, secondly, a tendency from the middle of the nineteenth century toward larger national units, created by combining several kindred States under one executive. This second tendency was illustrated strongly in the case of both Germany and Italy, although the Prussian domination in Germany has no parallel in Italy. Somewhat earlier in the nineteenth century the doctrine of the neutralization of the territories of small States was established as firmly as solemn treaties could do it. The larger national units had a more or less federative quality, the components yielding some of their functions to a central power, but retaining numerous independent functions. This tendency to limited unification is one which Americans easily understand and appreciate. We believe in the federative principle, and must therefore hope that out of the present European horror will come a new development of that principle, and new security for small States which are capable of guaranteeing to their citizens "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"—a security which no citizen of any European country seems today to possess.
Some of the underlying causes of the horrible catastrophe the American people are now watching from afar are commercial and economic. Imperial Germany's desire for colonies in other continents—such as Great Britain and France secured earlier as a result of keen commercial ambitions—is intense. Prussia's seizure of Schleswig in 1864-5 had the commercial motive; and it is with visions of ports on the North Sea that Germany justifies her present occupation of Belgium. The Russians have for generations desired to extend their national territory southward to the Aegean and the Bosphorus, and eastward to good harbors on the Pacific. Later they pushed into Mongolia and Manchuria, but were resisted successfully by Japan. Austria-Hungary has long been seeking ports on the Adriatic, and lately seized without warrant Herzegovina and Bosnia to promote her approach toward the Aegean, and is now trying to seize Servia with the same ends in view. With similar motives Italy lately descended on Tripoli, without any excuse except this intense desire for colonies—profitable or unprofitable. On the other hand, the American people, looking to the future as well as to the past, object to acquisitions of new territory by force of arms; and since the twentieth century opened they have twice illustrated in their own practice—first in Cuba, and then in Mexico—this democratic objection. They believe that extensions of national territory should be brought about only with the indubitable consent of the majority of the people most nearly concerned. They also believe that commerce should always be a means of promoting good-will, and not ill-will, among men, and that all legitimate and useful extensions of the commerce of a manufacturing and commercial nation may be procured through the policy of the "open door"—which means nothing more than that all nations should be allowed to compete on equal terms for the trade of any foreign people, whether backward or advanced in civilization. No American Administration has accepted a "concession" of land in China. They also believe that peaceable extensions of territory and trade will afford adequate relief from the economic pressure on a population too large for the territory it occupies, and that there is no need of forcible seizure of territory to secure relief. It is inevitable, therefore, that the American people should hope that one outcome of the present war should be—no enlargement of a national territory by force or without the free consent of the population to be annexed, and no colonization except by peaceable commercial and industrial methods.
Aggressive Force a Failure.
One of the most interesting and far-reaching effects of the present outbreak of savagery is likely to be the conviction it carries to the minds of thinking people that the whole process of competitive armaments, the enlistment of the entire male population in national armies, and the incessant planning of campaigns against neighbors, is not a trustworthy method for preserving peace. It now appears that the military preparations of the last fifty years in Europe have resulted in the most terrific war of all time, and that a fierce ultimate outbreak is the only probable result of the system. For the future of civilization this is a lesson of high value. It teaches that if modern civilization is to be preserved, national Executives—whether imperial or republican—must not have at their disposal immense armaments and drilled armies held ready in the leash; that armaments must be limited, an international Supreme Court established, national armies changed to the Swiss form, and an international force adequate to deal with any nation that may suddenly become lawless agreed upon by treaty and held always in readiness. The occasional use of force will continue to be necessary even in the civilized world; but it must be made not an aggressive but a protective force and used as such—just as protective force has to be used sometimes in families, schools, cities, and Commonwealths.
At present Americans do not close their eyes to the plain fact that the brute force which Germany and Austria-Hungary are now using can only be overcome by brute force of the same sort in larger measure. It is only when negotiations for peace begin that the great lesson of the futility of huge preparations for fighting to preserve peace can be given effect. Is it too much to expect that the whole civilized world will take to heart the lessons of this terrible catastrophe and co-operate to prevent the recurrence of such losses and woes? Should Germany and Austria-Hungary succeed in their present undertakings, the whole civilized world would be obliged to bear continuously, and to an ever-increasing amount, the burdens of great armaments, and would live in constant fear of sudden invasion, now here, now there—a terrible fear, against which neither treaties nor professions of peaceable intentions would offer the least security.
It must be admitted, however, that the whole military organization, which has long been compulsory on the nations of Continental Europe, is inconsistent in the highest degree with American ideals of individual liberty and social progress. Democracies can fight with ardor, and sometimes with success, when the whole people is moved by a common sentiment or passion; but the structure and discipline of a modern army like that of Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia, has a despotic or autocratic quality which is inconsistent with the fundamental principles of democratic society. To make war in countries like France, Great Britain, and the United States requires the widespread, simultaneous stirring of the passions of the people on behalf of their own ideals. This stirring requires publicity before and after the declaration of war and public discussion; and the delays which discussion causes are securities for peace. Out of the present struggle should come a check on militarism—a strong revulsion against the use of force as means of settling international disputes.