Now there must be people in all nations who feel like this, but I believe that there are more people in the English-speaking countries who have been taught this than in any other countries. They have been taught a progressive Christianity. They have been taught to think for themselves, and that is why I am so keen that these two great nations should not only go on thinking for themselves, but should think how to help all mankind. To be great for ourselves is the poorest sort of greatness. It is pitiful, because it is not great at all.
I now finish my sermon on Anglo-Saxon idealism, and turn to facts as I have found them in America. I am not here to speak of England; I did that for one month in America. To-night I am here to speak of America, and I can do so with as much pride and confidence as to her greatness as I spoke of England’s in America. Let no one mistake America’s greatness—her greatness of heart. That’s what struck me most forcibly from the first time I spoke there. You may not realise that my first speeches in America were on the need of America’s coming into a league of peace. I spoke frankly and tried to point out why she was needed—that it was just because of the entanglements of Europe and her own happy fate and freedom from these entanglements that she, above all other nations, had such a chance to help on the peace of the world. No one desires to get any one else into entanglements, but we long to disentangle the entangled. If America had been able to stay in on the reparation question, with no axe of her own to grind, we all feel that the world might have been in a better position now—international markets might have been more prosperous and fewer children might have been starving. We can’t blame any country for thanking God that she is not entangled in the European chaos, but we must count on the wise people of all countries to help to put the tangle straight.
Everywhere I went in America I spoke of the League of Nations. Everywhere I found hundreds and thousands of people eager to help along a league of peace. Much in this league of nations has been misunderstood and misrepresented in America. The Covenant became mixed up with party politics at election time. Millions of Americans seemed to favour some modified league of peace. I am sure this country has never considered the League perfect or above amendment; and I believe that changes could be made which would improve the efficiency of the League and which would at the same time make international coöperation acceptable in America. I may be wrong, I do not think so. Many in America have been frightened by certain clauses. They fear they might be drawn into European wars—as though England with her nine hundred thousand dead would ever join any league except to avoid wars. If certain clauses are unacceptable to America, let us change those clauses. No league can succeed unless it is based on mutual trust.
In America I tried to make them see that it was neither their money nor their sons, but their great moral support which was needed. I think myself that they realise it, thousands of them. The foreign-born American can hardly fail to see that the best way to help the country he has left is to vote for a real league of nations, which will include all nations. The League of Women Voters, which represents millions of women, is overwhelmingly in favour of some league of peace. Women of all countries want peace because we pay so heavily in war. There are women of all countries in America, and I feel sure they will work toward peace. They may give a lead to the men. They can if they will, and I feel that they will. America is bound to have a foreign policy if she has a Mercantile Marine! The thinking men and women realise that, and it’s only the thinkers in any country that count. They are thinking hard in America, thinking so hard that they are playing havoc with the old Party machines. They are bound to be broken unless they represent the soul of the country. I don’t believe that America cares more for oil concessions than for bleeding humanity. Certain interests may, but they exist in all countries.
If the Press of the country is any indication of the thought of the country, then we can rejoice when we read the American Press. Not the Personal Press. The Personal Press in all countries is very much alike and very misleading—in fact, it is a curse to any country. It’s no good the reporters taking this down for most of their employers won’t publish it. One reads the Press for news, true news and facts, not to have the news tainted by the personal prejudices of the owner. Unfortunately some newspaper owners don’t realise this, but we, who read their papers, can only pity them and pray for better times. Now the Associated Press of America is a shining light in the country, because it tries to put true European news before the people. Mr. Melville Stone, and the gentlemen who helped him to build up the Associated Press deserve, and some day will get, the gratitude of the world. True international news is what we need to know to-day. I was much struck with the good European news that once got in the American Press. Over here, except for a few commendable exceptions, one would almost think that America was made up of bootleggers, drunken society girls, and cinema scandals. If that were true, it would be far better that America should never come into a league of nations. But that kind of news does not represent the country: it is only true of those people who add to no country’s greatness, and unfortunately are to be found in all countries.
I could talk to you for hours of my travels, and the wonderful kindness shown me wherever we went. It was so unexpected. I never started on a mission; I never knew that America would be so interested in what England had done and was trying to do. They warned me not to speak of the League of Nations, but I found that a fool without fear is sometimes wiser than an angel with fear. I had to speak of what was in my heart. No one could have lived through these last seven years and not had their hearts either broken, hardened, or just made larger. I tried to tell them about English sailors and soldiers, and above all English women. Many could have done it better, but I feel that England’s greatness lies, perhaps, in her reticence. No English-born M. P. could have spoken out so. I had an unique opportunity, and sometimes when I feared I should fail, I remembered my friends in Flanders fields, and that gave me courage. However, it doesn’t take great courage to speak out what you feel is the truth to people, particularly if they are your own people. It’s a wonderful thing to belong to two great countries, but it’s even more wonderful to feel that the hearts and desires of these two countries are striving for what is best and what is right. It may take time before America comes into her own, but her own is clear to me. She cannot live up to her high ideals if she tries to live to herself alone. I don’t believe she wants to do it. She proved it at the Washington Conference. She had the chance to build the greatest navy in the world. She gave it up with as much grace as the greatest navy in the world gave up her long reign of the seas. There they showed the rest of the world how great they were. Sometime, somehow, America will confer again, and that will be to help the whole world, as England is so bravely trying to do almost alone now—to show men that her foundations are built on peace on earth and good-will toward all men.
IX[I]
“America is no more a mere country of business men than England is a nation of shop-keepers.”