VIII
Capital, it is often said, is cosmopolitan; capital knows no such thing as patriotism. This may be true of the cautious, colorless capital of ordinary finance and industry. It is not true of the capital upon which speculative enterprise is based. It was an intense patriotism that was avowed by Jay Gould and Harriman; intense is the patriotism of J. J. Hill, of the DuPonts and the Guggenheims. Even Mellen is, or was, patriotic in his feelings toward New England. But most intense of all is the patriotism of the capitalist whose interests lie in the twilight zone of the barbaric belt. Purer expressions of devotion to America, of deep concern for her future, than those issuing from the lips of American concessionaries in Mexico, you never hear. We were all moved by the grandiose African dream of Cecil Rhodes. “All red”—i. e. British—a British heart within every black skin, from the Cape to Cairo. The case is typical of the capitalist speculator abroad. He is a patriot through thick and thin, not a white-blooded “cit” like you and me, who before volunteering support for our country’s acts would presume to pass judgment upon them. He is a patriot who would knock a chip off the shoulder of the meanest upstart of a barbarian dictator—without regard to the cost of doing it: not a calculator, like you and me.
By interest, the concessionary capitalist is a patriot. He needs his country in his business. But this is by no means the whole explanation of his patriotism. His type is reckless, and therefore generous and idealistic. He must love and admire great things, and what thing is greater than the imperial dominion of his country? One must have a mean opinion of human nature to suspect the purity of the motives of Cecil Rhodes. Doubtless Rhodes began with selfish motives, but his private interests were soon submerged in his imperial ambitions. We may not be justified in assuming that selfish interest operates, to the utter exclusion of all patriotic motives. It does not necessarily follow that because Mr. William Randolph Hearst, for example, has mines in Mexico, his motives are determined by them. His Mexican interests would be advanced if the American boundary were extended to include all on this side of Panama. Is this, however, the whole tale of his aggressive Americanism? Patriotism has always burned more brightly in border provinces than in the heart of the national territory. It is natural, then, that patriotism should be still more intense in those extensions of the national domain represented by permanent interests abroad.
In an ideal scheme of things, love of one’s own country would not involve hatred and contempt for other countries. But patriotism compounded with financial interest does usually produce detestation for the corresponding alien compound. We who meet the Germans in America, in England, in Germany, engaged in the common labor of advancing man’s control over nature, respect them, and if we see much of them, love them. Our capitalist speculators in South America and in the Orient, meeting their similars of German nationality, hate them heartily. Those speculators are the nerve ends of modern industrial nationalism, and they are specialized to the work of conveying sensations of hate. For the present we have few nerves of the kind, and all they have succeeded in conveying to us is a vague feeling of uneasiness over the German advance in the colonial field. Far more powerful must have been the reaction upon nations like England and France that are serious competitors in the same field. And German capitalist speculators, thwarted in their designs by the English and the French, have contributed to the popular feeling that Germany must fight for what she gets.
The capitalistic speculator, even when operating at home where his action may be directed against us, enjoys a power over the popular imagination, and a political influence quite incommensurate with the extent of his interests. When the seat of his operations is a foreign territory, whence flow back reports of his great achievements—achievements that cost us nothing, and that bring home fortunes to be taxed and spent among us—his social and political influence attains even more exaggerated proportions. And this is the more significant in view of the fact that his relations with government—now even a more important part of his business—are concentrated upon that most sensitive of governmental organs, the foreign office.
When diplomatic questions concerning the non-industrial belt arise, and most modern diplomatic questions concern this belt, the voice of the concessionaries is heard in the councils of state. This voice is the more convincing because of the patriotism that colors its expression of interest. What is perhaps more important, the ordinary conduct of exploitative business in an undeveloped state keeps the concessionary in constant relation with the consular and diplomatic officers established there. In a sense, such officers are the concessionary’s agents, yet their communications to the home office are the material out of which diplomatic situations are created.
It is accordingly idle to suppose that exploitative capital in foreign investments weighs in foreign policy only as an equal capital at home. When we consider the personality of the director of colonial enterprise, the conditions in which he meets competitors of foreign nations, and his relations with the foreign service of his home government, we can readily understand how a very small investment may prove a great menace to the peace of nations. For years the popular consciousness, in the several nations, has been steadily absorbing conceptions of rivalry of interest that have no meaning except to the category of concessionary capital. Germany, Russia, England and France have been brought to the belief that something very vital turns upon the control of the Land of the Morning. Indeed the whole civilized world has been seduced into accepting the view that something very vital turns upon the control of the tropics. Yes, something very vital for exploitative capital. Indirectly vital for the rest of society: for from such delusions spring wars that sow the unwilling fields with the shattered limbs of the best of our youth.
IX
It is the interest of exploitative capital that makes the Morning Land, Mexico, China and Africa rotten stones in the arch of civilization. But for exploitative capital, those regions might remain backward, socially and politically: this would not greatly concern any industrial nation, except in so far as it responded to a missionary impulse. The backward states afford, however, possibilities of sudden wealth; and since this is the case, they must attract exploiters, who must seek, and obtain, the backing of their home governments, with resultant international rivalry, hostility, war.