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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 D 443.077 
 
 3 1924 027 886 039 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027886039 
 
THE 
 IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
Tft« 
 IMPERIAL I\IPULSE 
 
 UDIES 
 GLAND 
 * RUSSIA 
 
 BY 
 
 UEL P. ORTH 
 
 Professor of Political Science in bomell University. 
 
 Author of "Socialism and Democracy 
 
 in Europe," etc., etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1916 
 
Copyright, 1916, by 
 The Century Co. 
 
 Published, March, 1916 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Of the following essays, the first three (on 
 Germany, France and England) have ap- 
 peared in the Century Magazine; the last one 
 ("Our First Duty") appeared in the Sunday 
 magazine of the New York Times. The pa- 
 pers on Belgium and Russia are now printed 
 for the first time. 
 
 Imperialism, whether economic, political or 
 dynastic, is not the product of an hour. We 
 are beholding the collision of many generations 
 of ambitions and hatred. To understand them 
 we must look behind the soldiery and attempt 
 to discover the work-a-day habits and charac- 
 teristics of the people. 
 
 These papers aim at nothing more than a 
 rapid sketching of the ethnic, economic and po- 
 litical background of these countries, now en- 
 gaged in the most colossal recrudescence of the 
 imperial instinct of modem times. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAFIKB PAGE 
 
 I GERMANY'S DESTINY 3 
 
 II THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH ...... 38 
 
 III ENGLAND: IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST ... 82 
 
 IV BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF .... 126 
 V RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 164 
 
 VI OUR FIRST DUTY 314 
 
THE 
 IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
THE 
 IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 I 
 
 GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 Bearing on shoulder immense, 
 
 Atlantean, the load, 
 
 Well nigh not to be borne. 
 
 Of the too vast orb of her fate. 
 
 TO-DAY the vision in every one's mind is 
 the colossal figure of the Iron Chancel- 
 lor, standing with uplifted sword in the great 
 hall of Versailles, proclaiming that German 
 Empire which four centuries of vicissitudes had 
 retarded, and tWo brief decades of superhuman 
 energy had wrought. 
 
 Most people seem to believe that German 
 destiny is balanced on the sword. If it is, then 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 the very precincts of its birth enshrouded the 
 new empire with an ominous fate ; for Versailles 
 is the greatest monument to autocratic folly in 
 the world, and the pale ghosts that haunt its 
 vast and silent corridors are the souvenirs of a 
 Bourbon wilfulness that nowhere has found a 
 nearer replica than in the grandson of the smil- 
 ing WiUiam who stood by Bismarck's side to 
 receive the symbol of empire from his great 
 chancellor's hand. 
 
 Cxu-iously, Germany has been the one great 
 modern cultural and industrial power to pre- 
 serve almost intact the theory of class govern- 
 ment through divine right; and the corollary 
 of divine right is military might. So the 
 HohenzoUern presence looms at once into your 
 vision as you scan the European horizon. 
 
 It is now five hundred years since the em- 
 peror of the Holy Roman Empire sent Prince 
 Frederick an impecunious Swabian nobleman 
 to subdue the wild and wilful province of 
 Brandenburg. This Frederick was the first 
 of the Hohenzollerns. He was a militant, ca- 
 
 4 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 pable, daring prince, with his eye on the stars, 
 his hand on his sword, and his heart in his royal 
 prerogative. 
 
 A few years ago, after one of the Kaiser's 
 characteristic coups de personne, August 
 Bebel, the fearless commoner, was asked what 
 he thought of it. 
 
 "I can only say," he replied, "that the 
 HohenzoUems never change." 
 
 The first Frederick was the princely ex- 
 ample of the last, and the last William is the 
 faithful follower of the first. The race has 
 rranained true to the type, and the individual 
 members of the race pride themselves on this 
 lineal integrity. A recent cautious biographer 
 of the Kaiser says : 
 
 He is to-day the same HohenzoUern he was when 
 he mounted the throne, observing exactly the same 
 attitude toward the world abroad and his folk at 
 home. . . . He still thinks himself the selected in- 
 strument of Heaven, and acts toward his people, and 
 addresses them, accordingly. He still opposes all 
 efforts at political change, as witness his attitude 
 toward electoral reform, toward the Germanization 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 of Prussian Poland, toward socialism, toward liberal- 
 ism in all its manifestations. He is still, as he was 
 at the outset of his reign, the patron of classical art, 
 classical drama and classical music. He is stUl the 
 War Lord with the spirit of the Bishop, and the 
 Bishop with the spirit of the War Lord. With the 
 Emperor time for twenty-five years appears to have 
 stood stiU. 
 
 II 
 
 Autocracy moves only by compulsion, and 
 to the Hohenzollerns compulsion has been so 
 moderated by conditions and events that they 
 have succeeded in bringing political medieval- 
 ism into the heart of the present. 
 
 First, the throne has been constantly sur- 
 rounded by an assertive feudatory camarilla. 
 Aristocracy and the Junkers have united in 
 a ruling class that possesses all the practical 
 characteristics of the feudal barony. The 
 "upper class" stiU regards the constitution as 
 a concession. It beUeves in Stein's maxim, 
 "Authority, not majority." It therefore pre- 
 fers a Caesar to a cabinet. It is in every sense 
 a governing caste, from the ranks of which 
 
 6 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 alone are recruited the leading officers of army 
 and navy, of government and diplomacy. 
 
 Then, history and geography conspired to 
 prevent a German union that would enable a 
 united people to overthrow the assumptions of 
 autocracy. The Teutons sifted into the vast 
 area between the Baltic and the Alps in 
 groups. Separatism seemed the doom of these 
 scattered nuclei. Even the Carlovingian em- 
 pire failed to bring unity, and at the close of 
 the Middle Ages there were three hundred 
 and sixty-two German states, some ecclesiasti- 
 cal, some secular, all petty, ruled by no fewer 
 than eighteen diflFerent kinds of governments. 
 
 Germany has thus had to struggle con- 
 stantly against political provincialism in its 
 worst form. Petty states are the opportunity 
 of the feudalist ; the lord can maintain his vas- 
 salage only on the threat of combat. When 
 political nationalism dawns, feudalism fades. 
 Thus France and England rid themselves of 
 petty principaUties and dukedoms while Ger- 
 many was still in fragments. 
 
 7 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Moreover, during these years of particular- 
 ism, Germany was the battle-ground of the 
 Continent. From Luther to Napoleon, two 
 hundred and fifty years, she endvu-ed a con- 
 stant warfare, in which her unhappy people 
 saw almost every race of Europe, by both hire- 
 ling and patriot, devastate the fields and towns 
 of Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, and Wiirtem- 
 berg. This warfare culminated in Waterloo, 
 and what was left of Germany fell back ex- 
 hausted after that supreme effort. 
 
 This constant fighting weakened the people 
 and strengthened the autocracy. For the 
 populace, weary and despoiled, relied on the 
 strength and leadership of the governing class. 
 And this became a national habit. 
 
 Above this feudalistic particularism has 
 loomed a constant larger sectionalism, threat- 
 ening German unity: first pope versus em- 
 peror, then Protestant versm Cathohc, finally 
 Hapsburg versus HohenzoUem. 
 
 As pohtical unity was denied these people, 
 so also was the realization of a democratic self- 
 
 8 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 consciousness. Only once, in 1848, after the 
 full meaning of the centuries of warfare had 
 been brought home to the working-man, was 
 there an attempt to establish constitutionaUsm. 
 It was short lived. The exiles of that patriotic 
 revolt found refuge in America. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Then came Bismarck, master of kings, but 
 not master of destiny. For sheer power of 
 command he ranks with Ceesar and Charle- 
 magne. But what is the judgment of time on 
 his political clairvoyance? He looked back- 
 ward, not forward. And while with giant 
 strokes he welded the petty states to the throne 
 of Prussia in the forge of his statecraft, he 
 wrought his work for the purpose of strength- 
 ening the state, not for the purpose of widen- 
 ing the sphere of individual freedom. His 
 great contribution to statesmanship, state in- 
 surance, or state socialism, was to him merely 
 the application of a feudal formula to modern 
 workmen. 
 
 9 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Bismarck is not the pinnacle— he is rather 
 the pivot — of German destiny. Behind him 
 lay the old Germany, before him the new, and 
 he chose to invest his great work with the spirit 
 of the past. So with MachiavelUan craftiness 
 he manipulated the great liberal party of that 
 day until it became an ally to his reactionary 
 conservatism. He crushed every attempt at 
 democratic autonomy in his iron fist. Equal- 
 manhood suflfrage for the Reichstag he wrote 
 into the imperial constitution as a concession 
 to the smaller states. He provided a parlia- 
 ment, but no parhamentary government; a 
 council, but no cabinet; a chancellor, but no 
 prime minister. The entire administration of 
 the Bismarckian empire centered in the Kaiser. 
 You may say that this is a constitutional au- 
 tocracy, but it is nevertheless autocratic. 
 
 The Bismarckian conception of political 
 freedom is displayed by the anti-socialist law 
 the chancellor framed after several insane at- 
 tempts had been made upon the Hf e of the aged 
 Kaiser. His weapon he took from the arsenal 
 
 10 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 of the Inquisition — repression. Into the hands 
 of an unenlightened constabulary he placed the 
 most extravagant discretion in closing meet- 
 ings and making arrests. He established what 
 he gently termed "the minor state of siege," a 
 sort of politico-intellectual terrorism, so that in 
 the twelve years of its operation, in this land 
 boasting a leadership in culture, fifteen hun- 
 dred periodicals and books were placed on the 
 Index Expurgatorius of this pope of privilege, 
 fourteen hundred outspoken and fearless Ger- 
 mans were imprisoned, and an empire-wide 
 propaganda forced underground. With the 
 retirement of the old chancellor the law was re- 
 pealed, and it was found that this repression 
 had merely developed the roots of a plant that 
 at the end of this war may bear strange fruit- 
 age. 
 
 The soldiers who clustered about the Iron 
 Prince in exultant mood at Versailles were the 
 legionary of a people who had maintained a 
 cultural cohesion in the midst of political and 
 sectarian sectionahsm. Their sheer physical 
 
 11 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 hardihood challenges admiration. The Thirty 
 Years' War alone would have drained the vi- 
 taUty of an ordinary people; but the Teutons 
 multiplied despite the sapping of war. Bur- 
 dened with poverty and strife, they had en- 
 riched philosophy as no race since the Athe- 
 nian. Learning and all the gentler arts 
 were richly intermingled in German culture, 
 and the universities, housed in imostentatious 
 buildings, drew the scholarship of the world. 
 Let the German reflect, that when his country 
 was torn by pohtical and rehgious discord, 
 when from without her condition seemed least 
 attractive, her inner hfe glowed with the 
 brightest achievements of her genius. Goethe 
 dwelt in a humiliated fatherland. 
 
 The old Germany was a land of peasants 
 and artisans, a plodding, early rising, thought- 
 ful. God-fearing folk, who somehow thrived 
 on the lean German soil, who patiently obeyed 
 their masters, and wasted no thought on (Ger- 
 man destiny. 
 
 There was scarcely a factory in the whole 
 
 12 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 realm. Wealth was not sought. Plain living 
 and high thinking had for at least three cen- 
 turies characterized the Teuton. No one ever 
 dreamed, least of all the Briton, that this over- 
 careful race of craftsmen and farmers would 
 penetrate the corners of the earth with the 
 legend "Made in Germany." 
 
 Everybody knows that this is what actually 
 has happened. With his feet planted squarely 
 on Kant and Goethe, Bismarck proclaimed 
 "Aus dem Lern-folk soil ein That- folk wer- 
 den" ("the race of thinkers shall become a race 
 of doers") . 
 
 Almost in a trice idealist Germany became 
 first industrial Germany, then imperialist Ger- 
 many. It is the most astounding transforma- 
 tion ever known. We pride ourselves on our 
 rapid industrial development, but we had a 
 virgin continent, untrammeled by hampering 
 conditions. A new people, the pick of the 
 most enterprising, we shaped our own govern- 
 ment, made our own pohcies, and had no jeal- 
 ous neighbors across the Une-fence. 
 
 13 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 But the German had all the handicaps of 
 temperament, tradition, poverty, industrial in- 
 experience, a poor soil, and a restricted area. 
 One marvels how he achieved the metamor- 
 phosis from the plodding worm to the ambi- 
 tious butterfly; how this scholar discovered the 
 imity between the abstract and the concrete. 
 
 Americans returning from Germany are 
 constantly expressing their surprise at the ex- 
 tent and perfection of this new industrialism, 
 which outrivals ovu* own. Everywhere you see 
 business — business. I remember the disap- 
 pointment of my first trip up the Rhine. The 
 Rhine I had pictured was the Rhine my mother 
 had often described, and the Rhine of my 
 mother was the Rhine of old Germany. To- 
 day factory towns, steamboats, barges, locomo- 
 tives, smoke, noise ; yesterday vineyards, peas- 
 ants, song, legend. The Heidelberg of old is 
 now cradled in the black bosom of a new fac- 
 tory town. 
 
 Sixty years ago there were two cities of a 
 hundred thousand inhabitants in the empire; 
 
 u 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 to-day there are forty-eight such cities. What 
 need of reminding the reader that in twenty- 
 five years Germany's coal production increased 
 twelve per cent., coke production forty-three 
 per cent., banking capital one hundred and 
 forty-five per cent., pig-iron production three 
 himdred and one per cent. ; that in this period 
 the horse-power of her machinery has tripled, 
 the tonnage of her shipping quadrupled, the 
 savings bank deposits quintupled? Statistics 
 are only an aggravation wh^n viewing such a 
 stupendous spectacle. 
 
 IV 
 
 How was this magic leap into the sun 
 accomplished? By mechanism. You realize 
 the moment you cross the border that you have 
 entered a realm where some mysterious gravi- 
 tation is at work subordinating individual ini- 
 tiative to the will of the state. Everywhere 
 you find the evidence of a compelling fore- 
 ordination. The empire is organized into a gi- 
 gantic machine, the spirit of which is efiiciency, 
 
 15 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 the inexorable law, subordination. Every- 
 body is fashioned into his place, and keeps it. 
 
 "What are you going to be when you grow 
 up?" I asked the bright son of a master me- 
 chanic. 
 
 "He is going to be a machinist," promptly 
 answered the father. 
 
 The lad had no choice, and unquestionably 
 the father had no choice; perhaps he did not 
 want any choice. For we must remember that 
 this mechanism is possible only in a land of 
 caste, where persons are bom into iand not unto. 
 
 A part of this machine is the wonderful 
 school system, which, while it teaches every- 
 thing under the sun, teaches thoroughly only 
 one thing to one lad. So is the complicated 
 system of state insurance a part of this machine 
 — pensions for the aged, the sick, and the 
 maimed, and bounties for widows and orphans. 
 And a part of this mechanism is the good-wiU 
 shown by the state to capitalism on the one 
 hand, and agrarianism on the other. Peda- 
 gogue, preacher, and professor, — especially 
 
 16 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 the professor, — capitalist and landlord, artisan 
 and laborer, have all been marshaled with exact 
 miHtary precision under the overmastery of 
 the state into this marvelous modern feudality, 
 which tolerates no derehcts. 
 
 Without crowding the individual, — rather, 
 as an aid to his efforts, — the state engages in all 
 sorts of activities. It owns railroads and tele- 
 graphs, warehouses, electric power plants, thear 
 ters, markets, pawnshops, tenements. It has 
 hospitals for the sick, shelters for the homeless, 
 soup-houses for the hungry, asylums for the 
 weak and unfortunate, nurseries for the babies, 
 homes for the aged, cemeteries for the dead. 
 
 And what activities are not reached by the 
 omnipotent state are organized by private per- 
 sons. The land teems with cooperative enter- 
 prises of aU kinds. Nowhere else are there 
 such labor organizations, such agricultural 
 banks, such co-partnership shops, such cartels 
 and trusts of every variety. Organized labor, 
 organized capital, organized charity, organized 
 cooperation, wheels within wheels, man and 
 
 17 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 nature put under hourly tribute to the great 
 god Routine! 
 
 The meager soil is harassed until only 9.3 
 per cent, of the area is unproductive, against 
 18.3 per cent, of little England, and 14.3 per 
 cent, of fertile France. Every waterway is 
 harnessed; harbors are wrested from the sea. 
 A few years ago Wilhelmshaven was a sand 
 waste. 
 
 And this organized vigilance extends into 
 every market on earth. Last winter I was 
 shown German-made scrapes and hats sold in 
 Chile. I was told that Germans had carefully 
 studied the ChiKans' wishes as to design and 
 quahty and size, and had responded to the pre- 
 cise demand, while American manufacturers 
 tried to impose ordinary hats and cheap 
 blankets without any regard to the traditions 
 and tastes of the Chihan. I have known of 
 Berlin making careful inquiry into the best 
 method for putting up pearl buttons, — ^the 
 color of the pasteboard to be used, etc., — to 
 please prospective African customers. 
 
 18 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 It is a stupendous machine, with the patents 
 of Bismarck, Hohenzollerns & Co. on every 
 detail. And it works. 
 
 It is not surprising that industrial Germany 
 became almost immediately imperialist Ger- 
 many. This self-conscious nation, grown 
 proud of her puissance, looked beyond the sea. 
 Bismarck put it this way: "Up to 1866 we 
 had a Prusso-German policy. From 1866-70 
 we had a German-European poUcy. Since 
 then we have had a world pohcy." 
 
 This world-consciousness of a humble and 
 frugal people naturally brought on a great 
 change in their mental attitude. A new ambi- 
 tion stirred their hearts. The sea lured them, 
 as it had called to the English, the Dutch, the 
 Spanish four centuries before. The truth is, 
 the Germans experienced simultaneously the 
 period of commercial adventure and the indus- 
 trial revolution. 
 
 19 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Bom out of time, it would seem, this people 
 of thinkers in the brief span of a few decades 
 passed through the most thrilling experiences 
 which the Britons had known in four centuries 
 of romantic history — adventure, colonization, 
 industrial awakening. They met the shock of 
 this dual reahzation with the mechanism of 
 feudal autocracy, and sought through a perfec- 
 tion of foreordained routine, rather than 
 through the stimulation of individual initiative, 
 to atone for this tardiness. 
 
 In 1896 the Kaiser said at a banquet of his 
 leading merchants and financiers: 
 
 The German Empire is now a world empire. . . . 
 German subjects, German knowledge, and German 
 industry cross the ocean. The volume of German 
 goods on the sea amounts to thousands of millions 
 of marks. On you, gentlemen, is placed the duty of 
 helping me unite this greater German Empire to the 
 empire here at home. 
 
 So this industrial paternalism was to be- 
 come a world force, not through an extension 
 of "knowledge" merely, — of arts, science, 
 
 20 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 skill, idealism, — ^but of "subjects" and "indus- 
 try." 
 
 The sudden prosperity of Germany brought 
 a ludicrous self-exaggeration. "German cul- 
 ture win be the world culture," was the eu- 
 phonious paraphrasing of this ambition. 
 
 Prof. Heinrich von Treitschke, a popular 
 and brilUant exponent of the HohenzoUern im- 
 perialism, made it very clear: 
 
 When the German flag covers and protects this 
 immense Empire [colonial], to whom shall the scepter 
 of the universe belong? What nation shall impose 
 her will upon the others in a state of weakness and 
 decadence? Shall it not be Germany whose mission 
 it will be to guarantee the peace of the world? Rus- 
 sia, a vast, half-developed colossus, with feet of clay, 
 will be absorbed in economic and internal difficulties ; 
 England, stronger in appearance than in reality, will 
 doubtless see her colonies break away and become 
 exhausted in fruitless struggle; France, a prey to 
 discord and faction, will sink deeper and deeper into 
 decadence ; as for Italy, she will be able to do no more 
 than assure a meager existence to her sons. . . . The 
 future belongs to Germany, and Austria, if she values 
 her national existence, will stand by her side. 
 
 21 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Forgotten at once are all the painful lessons 
 of history and the greatest of aU international 
 factors, the ethnic factor. 
 
 Another imperialistic professor whom Ger- 
 many is proud to honor. Professor Delbruck, 
 last year gave the following explanation of the 
 world-desire of his Kaiser: 
 
 Since 1871, particularly within the last fifteen 
 years, enormous and productive territories have been 
 continually seized and occupied by strong nations. 
 Britain has conquered a new empire in South Africa. 
 America has acquired the Philippines, the Hawaiian 
 Islands, and Porto Rico, and imposed her hegemony 
 over the West Indies and Central America. Japan 
 has annexed Corea and is dividing Manchuria and 
 Mongolia with Russia. England and Russia are ab- 
 sorbing Persia. France has pocketed Morocco. 
 Austria-Hungary has annexed Bosnia and Herze- 
 govina. Italy has taken Tripoli. The Balkan 
 States have partitioned the Turkish Empire. 
 
 All these are natural processes. Germany has no 
 reason to oppose them. But she wants her share. 
 
 For this object she needs a fleet. . . . The aban- 
 donment of unworthy suspicion ; the acknowledgment 
 of our right to grow, and participate in shaping the 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 world's destiny ; the expression of an honest desire to 
 reach an understanding; formal diplomatic steps in 
 that direction ; simultaneous withdrawal of arbitrary 
 opposition to legitimate German political aspirations 
 — these are the things we await of England. If she 
 has no inclination to meet us on that ground, if her 
 interests rather point to a perpetuation of the any- 
 thing-to-beat-Germany policy, so let it be. The 
 Armageddon which must then some day ensue will not 
 be of our making. 
 
 VI 
 
 This, then, is the German's interpretation 
 of his destiny. How has nature served him? 
 Of all the powers who have, in the European 
 era, aspired to colonial empire, Germany is the 
 first one which has had meager access to the sea. 
 Geographically she is a layer of Teutonic in- 
 fluence between the irrepressible Muscovite 
 and the rapidly recuperating Latin. She is 
 bottled in. The North Sea is Britain's, and 
 must remain so as long as any vitaUty is left in 
 that island empire. The Mediterranean gate- 
 way is held at Gibraltar, while Latin influences 
 
 23 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 control both its African and European shores. 
 There is no direct access to the Atlantic. Yet 
 the Kaiser said at Stettin in 1898, "Our future 
 lies on the water," and Kiel is the symbol of 
 this See-Herrschaft. 
 
 This tight little country, scarcely half as 
 large as Texas, with a teeming population of 
 60,000,000, increasing at the rate of 800,000 a 
 year, which has long been compelled to import 
 food, and whose productiveness is probably at 
 its height, is told to extend territorially. 
 Where? America has its Monroe Doctrine; 
 Asia its "open door"; Africa, the only con- 
 tinent left, has been largely preempted. 
 
 Clearly, for this ambitious people the era of 
 colonization dawned late. 
 
 About 1880 a pioneer German trader got a 
 "concession" from the Hottentots, and from 
 that day to this there have been ardent, and 
 often agonizing, attempts to secure colonial 
 territory; witness Morocco, the Agadir inci- 
 dent, the Philippine attitude. 
 
 History shows that time has a way of re- 
 
 24 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 warding the efficient, the wary, and the patient; 
 and this reward the German imperialist might 
 well have expected. But for once he forgot 
 the national proverb: "Geduld iiberwindet 
 Alles" ("Patience overcometh all obstacles"), 
 and we behold an impatient leader of a patient 
 people attempting by force what could reason- 
 ably be presumed to be accomphshed only by 
 wary waiting and crafty diplomacy. How 
 else explain the constantly increasing arma- 
 ments, the restless aggressiveness, and to-day's 
 wanton inopportunism ? Perhaps this war wiU 
 refute the maxim of Frederick the Great, the 
 HohenzoUem ideal: "Any war is a good war 
 undertaken to increase the power of the state." 
 
 VII 
 
 In the meantime industrialism has made its 
 mark on the brow of these superbly organized 
 people. 
 
 Partly because of this mihtary training, — 
 the raucous command of the drill sergeant has 
 never been silenced in Germany, — ^partly be- 
 
 25 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 cause of his genius for thoroughness, this all- 
 embracing mechanism has not been so deadly 
 to the German as one would think. To the 
 American ideal of liberty it would be instantly 
 fatal. But the Teuton cares little for the para- 
 phernalia of hberty. He cares a good deal, 
 however, for that "inner freedom" which 
 Goethe taught him to win "daily" ; he struggles 
 for philosophical rather than for political hb- 
 erty. 
 
 Occupied with introspection, this child of 
 thought is willing to submit to conditions which 
 the American would angrily resent. Lacking 
 the volatile emotionalism of the Latin and the 
 self-complacent stohdity of the Briton, he pos- 
 sesses a perseverance which, if wisely led, would 
 be all-conquering. If wisely led! 
 
 This mechanism has not stimulated inven- 
 tiveness. Mechanically the German is an imi- 
 tator. Careful German observers have as- 
 sured me that, in their opinion, state paternal- 
 ism has checked initiative, and has even, to 
 some extent, threatened the self-rehance of the 
 
 26 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 workman. Even for the Teuton the limits of 
 a state machine have been reached. 
 
 It is his patience, his perseverance, and his 
 habit of obeying orders that has made it pos- 
 sible to perpetuate the caste system while trans- 
 forming an agricultural into an industrial coun- 
 try. Germany is at heart as much a land of 
 social layers to-day as it was in the days of the 
 Great Elector. Every one has his status, his 
 "Stand," from the aristocracy down, and this 
 status is quite as important as one's personality 
 or one's achievements. It is more than "sta- 
 tion"; it is hfe: it absorbs the thought and the 
 activity of every one, and lends a rigidity to so- 
 ciety which seems paradoxical in a country that 
 has seen remarkable transformations in forty 
 years. 
 
 This caste explains the ludicrous uniform- 
 worship, the authority fetish of the Germans. 
 Take the Kupenick incident, which set the 
 world laughing. A few years ago a poor 
 soldier, who was evidently a mixture of knave 
 and wag, somehow got possession of a cap- 
 
 27 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 tain's ixniform and the password. He invaded 
 a provincial town, commandeered a company 
 of soldiers, marched to the town hall, repre- 
 sented to the officials that he had authority 
 from the Government to take over the keys 
 to the treasxiry; received the keys, helped him- 
 self to the pubhc funds, and marched away. 
 Such was the German respect for the uniform, 
 the token of authority, that no warrant was 
 asked for, and the looting was not exposed 
 until the next stated accounts were sent to 
 Berlin. Imagine an American town clerk 
 opening the village safe on the verbal represen- 
 tation of any one. President, governor, or 
 sheriff! This hierarchy of officialdom is 
 builded upon medieval obedience and patience. 
 But in the train of all her new wealth has 
 come a new sort of Teuton — ^the spendthrift 
 and voluptuary. Gruel is no longer the na- 
 tional diet. FoUy comes on the wings of pros- 
 perity. It Unks arms with the swaggering 
 miUtarist, it bows obedience to officialdom, and 
 the snobbery of aristocracy is wedded to the 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 snobbery of money. Germany has grown rich, 
 and it need not cause surprise if these riches 
 prove her greatest curse. I believe there is ap- 
 parent a decadence in habits, in morals, in 
 ideals, in research, in art. "Business has eaten 
 the heart out of scholarship," said Germany's 
 leading scholar to me two years ago. This 
 savant had himself become "Excellence," and 
 was announced by an obedient flunky as you 
 entered his study. 
 
 Every one who has sojourned in Berlin has 
 been shocked at the banal Aoilgarity of the 
 "night hfe," which fairly typifies the resultant 
 of the two forces, new wealth and ancient caste. 
 This decadence is the more remarkable when 
 one considers the chaste and frugal Teuton of 
 yesterday. 
 
 But even in this land of fixed status, many 
 of the business phenomena with which we are 
 famihar appeared. Great captains of indus- 
 try by their own prowess lifted themselves from 
 the bottom to the top, like Ballin, and Thyssen 
 and Rothenau. 
 
 29 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Here is a new aristocracy in a land of fixity, 
 a money power with which the feudahsts were 
 not slow in forming a working alliance. The 
 Kaiser took pecuUar pleasure in honoring them. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Modern Germany is, then, a dual kingdom, 
 the aristocratic and the plutocratic. And there 
 is a third Germany. Outside the orbit of 
 Gottes-gnddigkeit and the industrial hierarchy 
 is a vast body of men who have not been in- 
 vulnerable to the war-cry of La Salle, the ex- 
 perience of '48, and the rising tide of hberal 
 thought in university, church, and forum. 
 German Social Democracy has long held the 
 eye of the world, and many hoped to see in it 
 the advance guard of a new era — the dawn of 
 disarmament. 
 
 In this Social Democracy the emphasis is 
 on the second syllable. These four and a half 
 milhon voters are first of all democrats, and 
 many of them are not socialist at all. Many 
 small merchants and manufacturers, especially 
 
 so 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 in southern Germany and the Rhine valley, 
 have assured me that they voted for the Social- 
 Democratic candidate because it is the only 
 party through which they can utter their pro- 
 test against the hierarchy of blood, steel, and 
 gold. 
 
 Three Germanys, one within the other, 
 feudal, industrial, democratic, and all of them 
 resting on that medieval bulwark of authority, 
 militarism. Never in history has there been 
 such another combination. England and the 
 United States are industrial countries. Eng- 
 land, an island empire, relies, it is true, upon 
 her vast navy; but she has no great standing 
 army, and her government is democratic. The 
 soldier is merely an incident in Anglo-Saxon 
 industrialism, and democracy is potent. Rus- 
 sia has a feudal autocracy and an army, but she 
 has only a nucleus of political democracy and 
 the beginning of a factory industry. France 
 has her army and her industry, but she is a re- 
 public, and her army is not the expression of 
 her political theorems. 
 
 81 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 During forty years of development, these 
 three German empires have been growing. 
 Democratic Germany grew more rapidly than 
 even industrial Germany, but it gained scarcely 
 any concessions. In Prussia, at least, every 
 yoimg man who joins the Social-Democratic 
 party leaves all hope of governmental prefer- 
 ment behind. The expanding circle of the 
 democracy crowded both the industrial and 
 feudal camarilla more and more, until in the 
 last elections it seemed as if somewhere the en- 
 circling steel of prerogative would have to 
 yield. 
 
 But instead of revolution, more army levies, 
 a five-per-cent. property tax, a greater navy. 
 
 Then the war. Encircled by enemies, some 
 prompted by revenge, some by jealousy, some 
 by the instinct of ethnic growth, this triplicate 
 empire of mechanical perfection faces its su- 
 preme fate. Lord Roberts said only two years 
 ago, "Germany strikes when Germany's hour 
 has struck." 
 
 The hour has come, and the three Germanys 
 
 32 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 thus far have stood together. It was expected 
 that the industrial princes would stand by the 
 Kaiser. But the Social-Democrats have con- 
 stantly opposed the increase in armaments, and 
 preached against violence. While their lead- 
 ers had repeatedly assured the Gk)vermnent 
 that in the hour of peril the socialist would 
 prove as patriotic as any others, they at the 
 same time warned the nation that they would 
 resist a war of aggression. Their actions in- 
 dicate that they consider this a war of defense. 
 The patriot has overcome the doctrinaire, and 
 for the moment all are united around the 
 throne. 
 
 So the student of affairs sees to-day the final 
 test of a vast human mechanism that has re- 
 duced 60,000,000 persons to 60,000,000 obedi- 
 ent "parts," resting upon the tripod of bureau- 
 cracy, bayonet, and state benevolence. Is it 
 possible so to drill the human mind and body 
 into mechanical docility and yet retain that 
 nationalistic spirit which is the noblest phase 
 of race development? Can you unite mihtary 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 efficiency and industrial efficiency in one peo- 
 ple, in the twentieth century proscribe auton- 
 omy to both society and the individual, and yet 
 retain cultural virility? Can you make a man 
 a machine, and yet by some autocratic miracle 
 save his soul? This is the greatest issue of this 
 war. 
 
 Recognizing all the historical hatreds, the 
 race feuds, and the rivalry for world markets, 
 this war is primarily a war for the survival of 
 an idea — ^the imperiahstic idea of centralized, 
 mechanical force. 
 
 Force is the key-note in this most needless 
 of wars. The aristocratic idea has fortified it- 
 self behind German tradition and German ef- 
 ficiency. It persists in believing that nations 
 and world empires are built on superimposed 
 force, not on spontaneous power. No modern 
 empire has tranquilly survived a century of 
 superimposed force. Probably the biggest 
 mistake militarists have made is the delusion 
 that the British empire is built on coercion, 
 symbolized by the navy. Every Englishman 
 
 34 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 knows that the moment Downing Street lifts 
 its little finger to coerce any part of the empire 
 it wiU fall to dust. 
 
 It is, after all, the old notion that has time 
 and again prompted international levelers, the 
 Caesars, Napoleons, and Alexanders, to try to 
 wipe out by the force of arms national indi- 
 viduality, and substitute a general monoto- 
 nous imperium. It is the imperial impulse 
 that has crazed all great nations in the hey-day 
 of their power. It destroys autonomy, is the 
 foe of small states and the deadUest enemy of 
 a genuine intemationahsm. 
 
 We have arrived at a time when national in- 
 dividuahty is a recognized necessity for the 
 perpetuation and enrichment of culture and 
 civilization, when the size of a nation has little 
 to do with its power to sway ideals. To work 
 out their own personaUty is the appointed des- 
 tiny of nations, as of individuals. It is a pain- 
 ful struggle, requiring fortitude as well as abil- 
 ity, self-sacrifice as well as self -development. 
 Above all it requires the free and natiu-al ex- 
 
 35 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 pression of the personality of every citizen. In 
 this program, history has long since revealed 
 the necessity of a hearty cooperation between 
 the free individual and the responsive state. 
 After all, it is individuals, and not machines, 
 that make a nation. 
 
 Events will soon declare whether Germany 
 is to he shocked into a newer and truer self- 
 realization. This unusual people, so capable 
 of efficient team-work and yet so fecund of 
 talent, has not, in the sway of the Bismarckian 
 empire, been able to break the circle of political 
 intolerance which envelops them. Antiquated 
 election laws, a peculiarly odious caste system, 
 and, above aU, the coarse spirit of militarism 
 have stifled the artistic and intellectual aspira- 
 tions of the patient Teutons. 
 
 However the fate of battle may ensue, the 
 new Germany will surely come. It will have 
 more, much more, of Bavaria, and less, very 
 much less, of Prussia. It will break the shell 
 of caste, open the magic chambers of oppor- 
 tunity, and allow that upward flow of talent 
 
 36 
 
GERMANY'S DESTINY 
 
 and ambition from the humblest to the might- 
 iest, which is the only purifying current in a 
 nation's life. It will substitute the power of 
 the people for the force of the bureaucrat. It 
 wiU invade the farthest comers of the earth 
 with the rich and varied products of its genius, 
 and retinn to her high place German art, Ger- 
 man music, and German scholarship. 
 
 Such a Germany the world needs. Such a 
 Germany will have a large claim to interna- 
 tional captaincy, in the super-struggle for cul- 
 tm-al leadership that will arise out of the 
 ashes of this war. 
 
 37 
 
II 
 
 THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 A PICTUEB OP OLD PARIS AND NEW FRANCE 
 
 "France has grown young again." 
 
 Frances Trollope (1836). 
 "We are no longer naive enough to be conceited." 
 
 Brieux. 
 
 I 
 
 AGAIN" all eyes are on Paris. No other 
 modern city is so much the center of the 
 world, or has commanded so frequent and gen- 
 eral attention; for here was the throne of Bour- 
 bonism, here occurred the cataclysm which will 
 remain an eternal admonition to statesmen and 
 reformers, and, above all, here is Paris, the 
 Paris which powerful kings meant to be merely 
 a world capital, but which the genius of a re- 
 markably facile and unusual people trans- 
 
 S8 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 formed into a universal atmosphere. The 
 Paris which to Balzac was an "unfathomable 
 ocean," to Goethe a "universal town," to 
 Sainte-Beuve a place "to live and die in," and 
 to Richard de Bury "the paradise of the 
 world," this Paris to our day is the capital of 
 individualism, the one city where a man is what 
 he is, not what he buys or what he advertises 
 himself to be. 
 
 It is not difficult to understand Bourbonism; 
 it was merely an extravagantly ornate despot- 
 ism. It is not easy to understand the Revolu- 
 tion, its chaos was so sudden and appalling. 
 It is almost impossible to understand Paris, es- 
 pecially for an American, so intangible are the 
 sources of its influences, so different the point 
 of view, so apparently unstable the center of 
 gravity, so dramatic and constant the shifting 
 of events, ideas, and assumptions. 
 
 It is necessary to know old Paris, in order 
 to understand the new, for the heart of this 
 city of sentiments is ancient ; it is only the man- 
 nerisms that are modem. 
 
 39 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Let us roughly divide the growth of old Paris 
 into three eras, corresponding with the three 
 stages of French cultiu-e. The first era we 
 will place between the reigns of Clovis and 
 Philip Augustus. It was Clovis who first 
 made the town a capital and instituted a munic- 
 ipal history that soon became a national his- 
 tory, and which presents to our gaze a constant 
 procession of sieges, calamities, victories, revo- 
 lutions, affaires, events. You find everything 
 in the story of this joyous city except repose. 
 For Paris, like the Parisian, never reaches a 
 resting-place in its thought or action, but revels 
 in change and novelty. 
 
 This was the formative period in which the 
 two elements which make the foimdation of 
 French character predominated. These were 
 symbolized by the two styles of architecture 
 then established, the first, the sedate and solid 
 Norman, and later, under Louis VII, the agile, 
 ambitious, pointed Gothic. The fine old 
 church of St. Germain-des-Pres, with its Nor- 
 man nave and Gothic choir, survives as a sym- 
 
 40 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 bol of this early Paris which accomplished the 
 blending of the hard-headed, sensible French- 
 man with the artistic, temperamental French- 
 man. To-day one still finds these two French- 
 men imder every jacket and blouse. 
 
 A new epoch began with Phihp Augustus, 
 sometimes called the second founder of Paris. 
 Now learning was exalted, the university was 
 incorporated, and under Charles V the Na- 
 tional Library, one of the three largest in the 
 world, was endowed. This French Augustus 
 thus added an imperishable glory to his North- 
 ern Rome; for, no matter what vicissitudes 
 have overcome the French nation, they have 
 never lost their love for the arts and their deep 
 respect for learning. Now, also, was laid the 
 foundation of the commercial prosperity under 
 the wise directorship of Etienne Boileau, 
 whose municipal ordinances remained imto the 
 day of the Revolution, attesting his wisdom 
 and the prosperity of the tradespeople. 
 
 Thus old Paris was prepared for the third 
 and final period of its development. This was 
 
 41 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 set in motion by Francis I, a patron of the 
 ornate. Embellishment was the passion of the 
 day. The elaborate Italian Renaissance, un- 
 der royal stimulus, yielded easily to the deft 
 touch and lavish imagination of the Parisian 
 artist. 
 
 The simplicity and naturalness of the first 
 epoch, the learning and the prosperity of the 
 second, were forgotten in the riot of artificiality 
 that now reigned over Mterature, art, manners, 
 and religion. Now began that march of splen- 
 dor and foUy which has been at once the curse 
 and glory of Paris. In his extravagant zeal 
 Francis demolished the Louvre of Augustus, 
 and commanded that master of architects, 
 Pierre Lescot, to design a new one four times 
 as large and a hundred times as costly. This 
 was soon followed by the impressive Hotel de 
 Ville, the Chateau de Tuileries of Catharine 
 de' Medici, the Palais Royal of Richelieu, the 
 Palais de Elysee, the Pantheon, the Palais 
 Bourbon, the Invalides, and then Versailles. 
 These were merely the leaders in that impres- 
 
 42 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 sive architectural parade of luxury and glory. 
 Hundreds of minor buildings of scarcely lesser 
 costliness sprang up about them. 
 
 It was indeed a magnificent Paris, that old 
 Paris of the day before the judgment. No- 
 where else since ancient Rome were seen such 
 palaces and residences ; nowhere else such paved 
 avenues presenting such dazzling vistas; no- 
 where else had the hard sense and noble aspira- 
 tions of a primitive town ended in such over- 
 powering luxury. 
 
 And while this metamorphosis from Norman 
 simplicity to Bourbon extravagance was taking 
 place, a threefold Paris was growing up around 
 the He de la Cite. It was on this island that 
 the Franks built their first Paris. Here they 
 erected a castle, a chapel, a mill, and a market 
 — everything needful for a feudal stronghold. 
 This island, hke many of the primitive traits of 
 the Franks, is now almost lost in the swirl of 
 the modern metropohs. But it survives not 
 only as a memory, but in a noble symbolism: 
 purple Notre Dame and the spiritual Sainte- 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Chapelle, souvenir of the first religious estab- 
 lishment in Paris ; the Palace of Justice and the 
 Hotel de Ville, representing the older halls of 
 government. 
 
 But mill and market have long since disap- 
 peared. They were early pushed to that other 
 Paris, the right bank, where greater markets 
 soon flourished, and where now the larger por- 
 tion of the population dwells. 
 
 The third Paris moved from the He in the 
 opposite direction, to the left bank. It was 
 very distinct from commercial Paris; for here 
 flourished the imiversity, and here, in the cool, 
 shady retreats around St. Germain and the 
 Luxembourg, the aristocracy of the realm built 
 their splendid houses and laid out their refresh- 
 ing gardens. 
 
 So both the inner and the outer development 
 of old Paris was threefold. Fancy loves to 
 trace its history in three great strides from sim- 
 plicity and lofty aspiration, through learning 
 and piety, into extravagance and splendor, and 
 to picture the old city as a trifoliate town the 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 center of which was the island, representing 
 government and aristocracy, the right wing 
 commerce and trade, and the left wing learning 
 and culture. 
 
 It was a city that represented power and 
 splendor at its f uU orb, granting protection to 
 learning, to art, and to trade. Prosperity 
 gleamed upon it despite its spectacular history. 
 Time and again it outgrew its walls. Every 
 effort on the part of kings to restrict its growth 
 and keep it as a residence city failed. In his 
 long reign, Louis XIV tried six times to check 
 it. In the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
 turies ordinances were issued to bind its bounds. 
 New houses and factories were forbidden, or 
 their cost made prohibitive, or only unattrac- 
 tive sites made available. 
 
 All was of no avail. Paris constantly out- 
 grew its older walls, annually seeking new 
 phambers for its expanding life, like a vast and 
 radiant nautilus. 
 
 It is no wonder that this romantic city ab- 
 sorbed the national thought of France. In 
 
 45 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 1740 the observant Montesquieu said, "Noth- 
 ing is left in France but Paris and the distant 
 provinces, because Paris has not yet had time 
 to devour them," and "While activity every- 
 where prevailed, the motive principle was no 
 longer anywhere but in Paris." 
 
 Arthur Young, a frank and open-eyed Eng- 
 lish traveler who spent several years in France 
 just preceding the Revolution, wrote that the 
 French "people do not venture an opinion un- 
 til they know what is thought in Paris." 
 
 When Paris became mistress of France, she 
 became mistress of the king. It was more 
 than a whim that prompted him to curb her 
 growth; it was a fatal premonition. For here 
 was a mistress who refused to be beguiled by 
 gifts and purchased by favors. Woe to the 
 king whose mistress is a mob! 
 
 II 
 
 Looking beyond the walls of old Paris, we 
 see old France. It is out of the patient heart 
 of this old France that the spirit of the new 
 
 46 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 has come. Old France was a land where aris- 
 tocracy had achieved its greatest height, its 
 most exclusive assumptions, and therefore suf- 
 fered its deepest fall. The noblesse oblige re- 
 mained exclusive until the end. Their cha- 
 teaus were inaccessible, and their city hotels and 
 beautiful gardens were secluded behind high 
 walls, with embrasures reaching to the highest 
 shrubs. 
 
 Arthur Young said that nowhere in France 
 did he find that solicitude of the nobility for 
 the peasantry which has always characterized 
 the British aristocrat. Even the largest farm- 
 ers and squires were never allowed to enter the 
 front door of the chateau. 
 
 Aristocracy dined and talked, danced and 
 sinned, exclusively with themselves, in mimicry 
 of that absolutism which exclaimed, "I am the 
 state." In other countries feudalism assumed 
 a splendid feeling of class responsibility; in 
 France both feudal and legal conceptions of 
 class obUgations seem to have entirely vanished. 
 
 In the towns lived the middle class, a new 
 
 47 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 class, who had early acquired that characteristic 
 which always has distinguished them the world 
 over — a snobbish aping of the upper class and 
 a contempt for the lower. And finally, be- 
 neath these widely separate layers, was spread 
 that vast and necessary stratum, the peasantry, 
 upholding all the other social formations, like 
 the "basement complex," of the geologist, upon 
 which all the other layers of the globe are super- 
 imposed. Historians have minutely described 
 the oppression, the misery, the degradation of 
 those patient peasants. It was Richelieu, who 
 lived in the Palais Royal, who said, "If nations 
 were well-to-do, they would hardly keep within 
 the rules." Poverty was a national policy. 
 Burden after burden was heaped on the peas- 
 ant, tax upon tax, forced labor upon forced 
 labor, until even contemporaries "marveled at 
 the multiplicity of the shackles which kept them 
 poor and depressed." 
 
 Only half of the soil was tilled, and that 
 only half tilled. People soon learned that it 
 paid to be poor, and when in 1767 the minister 
 
 48 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 ordered all the beggars to be arrested, 50,000 
 were gathered in, the able-bodied sent to the 
 gaUeys, the rest to some forty almshouses. In 
 1697j Vauban, the great engineer, maintained 
 that one half the people were reduced to beg- 
 gary, and that not more than 10,000 families 
 were left in comfortable circumstances. 
 
 So you have here a social structure imique 
 in the annals of Europe : an aristocracy whose 
 royal gravitation kept it from contact with life ; 
 a middle class who could neither pity the poor 
 nor attain gentility; and a peasantry who were 
 serfs to the land, chained to an unending pov- 
 erty. 
 
 But even more astounding than this lack of 
 social sympathy and interest was the physical 
 separation of those groups. The nobiUty 
 abandoned the country and lived in Paris. In 
 the stately Faubourg St. Germain they built 
 their great houses, wishing to be near the king, 
 so that they could grace his court and practise 
 daily those grand manners and delicate sayings 
 that were the badge of their station. The mid- 
 49 
 
THE IMPERIAI. IMPULSE 
 
 die class lived in the towns ; the peasant alone 
 was left on the soil. It was a forsaken peas- 
 antry. 
 
 This is the characteristic of old France that 
 must not be forgotten. We can forget the 
 splendor of the gilded palaces, the show that 
 bears scarcely any relation to new France; but 
 we must not forget this forsaken peasantry. 
 It was the only time in European history that 
 the tiller of the soil had been completely neg- 
 lected. Old France forgot its soil and the 
 tillers of the soil while it played, like a wilful 
 child, with that colossal, iridescent bubble of 
 folly, Versailles. 
 
 For a hundred and fifty years the people had 
 been kept out of responsible positions. No- 
 body beheved they had any political capacity ; 
 they were considered deaf to reason, blind to 
 beauty, insensible to pleasure, possessing noth- 
 ing but hands, and these only for the sake 
 of toiling for the king. 
 
 This separateness of the social elements was 
 not unknown to French observers. They fre- 
 
 50 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 quently called the attention of the king to it. 
 In 1785, Neckar spoke of "the immense dis- 
 tance which exists between the conmion people 
 and all other classes of society," and that 
 neither understood the other. 
 
 Turgot, the greatest French statesman of 
 his day, told his master, Louis XVI, the truth : 
 
 The nation is a community, consisting of different 
 orders, ill compacted together, and of a people whose 
 members have very few ties between, themselves, so 
 that every man is engrossed exclusively in his per- 
 sonal interest. 
 
 Where, then, was the French nation? Not 
 in the nobility ; that was soon to vanish. Not 
 in a collective consciousness of the people ; that 
 had not been called into being. It reposed in 
 the ideals of individualism, which three cen- 
 turies of hard experience had woven into the 
 tissue of every French toiler. 
 
 The development and persistence of this in- 
 dividualism is revealed in the remarkable lit- 
 erary movement that reached its height in the 
 eighteenth century. This France, while pre- 
 
 51 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 paring for social chaos, was unconsciously pro- 
 ducing philosophers, poets, and orators who 
 were emancipating the old while preparing it 
 for the new. Here, as perhaps nowhere else, 
 we see the outstanding characteristic of the 
 French nation. A galaxy of writers possess- 
 ing neither offices, wealth, honors, nor experi- 
 ence addressed themselves to political idealism, 
 and this amazing application of theory to in- 
 experience brought a new out of an old France. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But while it is true that the thinkers who 
 proved so powerful had not been experienced 
 in governments or revolutions, they had, how- 
 ever, seen the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of 
 French politics turning constantly before their 
 gaze. From Henry IV (1610), who became 
 king on the assassination of his predecessor, to 
 the Revolution, the court was nothing so much 
 as a living kinematograph of intrigues. The 
 will of Louis XIV that a council of regents act 
 while the heir, his grandson, remained in his 
 
 52 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 minority was violated by a parliament that pre- 
 ferred the notorious Duke of Orleans. Three 
 of the reigns were preceded by long regencies : 
 Louis XIII became heir at ten years of age, 
 Louis XIV and Louis XV at the age of five. 
 This added to the opportunities for intrigue. 
 Favorite succeeded favorite in rapid succes- 
 sion; to the petulance of childhood and senility 
 were added the whims of the mistress. The 
 people saw the never-settled pohcies of state 
 vacillating between the influences of courtiers 
 and courtezans. 
 
 And while they were beholding these in- 
 numerable shifts in the personnel of their gov- 
 ernment, the people were being slowly and 
 firmly brought under the sway of the most cen- 
 trahzed and permanent administration in Eu- 
 rope. From Phihp Augustus to Louis XIV 
 monarch and minister endeavored to combine 
 all the diverse historical units of France into 
 what they called an etat unitaire, a state, 
 namely, which bound the governmental routine 
 of the humblest functionary to the throne; a 
 
 53 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 state, therefore, in which local autonomy, lib- 
 erty in neighborhood matters, such as we know 
 and Britain knows, is impossible. 
 
 When the Revolution came, there were two 
 governments, the outward, or the king and his 
 court, constantly playing favorites, who 
 changed from day to day; and the inner, or 
 permanent and real government, which with al- 
 most inexorable routine looked after the every- 
 day drudgery of the state. 
 
 When the king's head was cut off, all that 
 the mob needed to do was to put a political 
 camarilla in his place. An attempt, made in 
 1789, to abohsh the whole centralized system 
 and grant local self-government failed. The 
 old regimen remained; and with few changes 
 it remains to this day. 
 
 So old France was the breeding-place of a 
 colossal individualism. The thinker saw that 
 politically France had no background; it had 
 only a rapidly shifting panorama of royal vicis- 
 situdes. But he realized that \mderneath the 
 flux of favorites and princes was an adminis- 
 
 54i 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 trative stability which was beyond personal loy- 
 alty; it was a machine. He saw further the 
 whole fabric of society disintegrated, the woof 
 and warp separated; the social instinct, the 
 neighborhood feehng, the medieval trait of 
 class responsibility, all forsaken and every one 
 taught by the most terrible experiences to rely 
 on himself. 
 
 And of old France, old Paris was the soul. 
 It looked upon the gorgeous monarch and his 
 show, and remained indifferent. It worshiped 
 in Notre Dame or assumed a skeptical non- 
 chalance. It flocked to the university lectures, 
 read the quips of the wits, the wisdom of the 
 philosophers, and the effusions of the poets; 
 delighted itself with the foibles of fashion and 
 the deeper significance of the arts, but never 
 surrendered to any of these things. Through 
 it all the Parisian, like the peasant afield, was 
 busy with his own affairs. He learned to smile 
 at the passing show, even to take part in it; 
 but his heart, his task, that he kept to himself. 
 The words that fell from his lips, the laughter, 
 
 55 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 the tears, the exciting gesture, were the out- 
 ward signs of — ^nothing. To himself every 
 Frenchman was impersonal, which is merely 
 another way of saying that to himself every 
 Frenchman was a personage. 
 
 For a nation of individualists pays homage 
 only to personal achievement, and seeks only 
 for personages who can amuse, interest, stimu- 
 late. No one, therefore, has ever been able 
 to lead these people merely because he had 
 power. The French follow a leader only while 
 he is interesting. I believe this is true even 
 of Napoleon, who craftily used the well-known 
 stimulants, pride, excitement, and glory. 
 
 IV 
 
 The cataclysm which ended old France did 
 not change the Frenchman. It merely pro- 
 duced shocks and excitements that accentuated 
 his characteristics. 
 
 All the Revolutions of France have been 
 Parisian. Paris stormed the BastiUe, Paris 
 tore into Versailles, Paris dragged the king 
 
 56 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 and queen to the Tuileries, Paris established 
 the Convention, and Paris ushered in the new 
 era, not by destroying a dynasty, — that only 
 needed a knife, — ^but by declaring the church 
 lands national property and selling them to the 
 peasants for assignats. And so land-hungry 
 were these new freedmen that in one year a 
 thousand milhon francs' worth was sold. 
 
 The Revolution shows the limitations of the 
 blend of individuahsm and intellectualism that 
 characterizes the Frenchman. This child of 
 reason suddenly deserted his postulates and re- 
 sorted to action, and revolution became the 
 apotheosis of logic. Other peoples, when rea- 
 son fails, find solace in faith; the French then 
 long for violence. 
 
 The second Revolution also belongs to Paris. 
 It was the first "social" revolution, an up- 
 rising of laboring-men, instigated by Louis 
 Blanc, an "intellectual," whose vibrant phrases 
 were the trumpet-call that raised five hundred 
 barricades in Paris, the red flag flying over 
 most of them. Sixteen thousand men were 
 
 57 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 killed and wounded before this forerunner of 
 strikes, sabotage, and other labor orgies was 
 put down by the republic. 
 
 The third revolution, the commune of 1871, 
 was also a working-men's uprising. The vet- 
 erans of this revolution — communards they call 
 themselves, and proud they are of their dis- 
 tinction — still show you the wounds it left on 
 the trees in the Tuileries. But the burning of 
 public buildings, the needless sacrifice of hu- 
 man life, all the rash folly of victorious discon- 
 tent, have long since been forgotten and for- 
 given. 
 
 So within one century Paris has mothered 
 three revolutions on her bosom. Little wonder 
 that new France has not found political tran- 
 quillity. From 1793 to 1873 there have been 
 three republics and three empires as well as 
 three revolutions. This excitable throng of 
 the boulevards has been "governed" by the 
 Convention (1793-5), the Directory (1795- 
 1799), the Consul Napoleon (1799-1804), the 
 Emperor Napoleon (1804-14 ) and his two sue- 
 as 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 cessors, Louis XVIII and Charles X (1814- 
 30), the ephemeral repubUe of 1830, the res- 
 toration under Louis Philippe (1830-48), the 
 republic of 1848, the third Napoleon, the Com- 
 mune of 1871, and the third republic, which still 
 survives. 
 
 Of the three kings of this century, Napoleon 
 I died in exile, Louis Philippe and Charles 
 X were both compelled to flee. Since the 
 setting up of the present constitution ten 
 presidents have lived in the Palace of the 
 Elysee. 
 
 And who shall count the ministries? The 
 French have a saying, "The ministry has 
 shpped on an orange-peel." Well, Delcasse or 
 Clemenceau or the lamented Jaures always had 
 fresh orange-peels in their pockets, and when 
 dread ennui overcame the populace, they tossed 
 one under the soles of the prime minister. An 
 average of two or three a year, in times of 
 special excitement a ministry a week, records 
 the seesaw of momentary personal power. 
 Not of political principle, however, for minis- 
 
 59 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 tries in this land of personages are not shunted 
 on principle. 
 
 To these shifts must be added the grand ex- 
 citements, an average of one a decade. In the 
 eighties the Boulanger affaire, in which the 
 handsome general, who sat his horse so magnifi- 
 cently that the boulevards by sheer admiration 
 of his art were moved to cheer him, threatened 
 the third repubhc. In the late nineties the 
 Dreyfus affaire, which served to revive all the 
 old issues, rehgious, pohtical, and social, fol- 
 lowed by the excitements of church disestab- 
 lishment and the driving of all suspected royal- 
 ists from army and navy. 
 
 And interspersed between the grand affairs 
 and the innvmierable changes in the ministry, 
 all the little excitements: Mme. Steinhal or 
 Mme. Caillaux are tried for murder, and politi- 
 cal eminence is threatened; "La Gioconda" is 
 kidnapped from the Louvre, and a ministry 
 falls; a coterie of admirers forces Rodin into 
 greater public notice, and immediately the 
 Government is in a swirl of excitement. The 
 
 60 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 Parisian never lets an event pass without in 
 some way connecting the Government with it. 
 Not that the Government is important : to him 
 it is entirely secondary, and can be shifted or 
 overturned with impunity. It 's the event that 
 interests the Frenchman. 
 
 No, the pohtical kaleidoscope never rests on 
 the banks of the Seine. Guizot, who served 
 as minister to Louis Phihppe, exclaimed, 
 "Have we the monopoly of all the impossibil- 
 ities!" 
 
 V 
 
 The century of revolutions and commotions 
 has brought forth a new France. And its 
 foundation is the peasantry: the stone which 
 Bourbon builders discarded has indeed become 
 the head of the comer. The emancipation of 
 the church lands and the breaking up of the 
 feudal estates are the enduring results of the 
 great Revolution. They formed a new de- 
 parture for population, wealth, and patriotism. 
 
 New France is a land of peasants and ar- 
 
 61 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 tisans. Of her 207,218 square miles, eighty- 
 five per cent, are cultivated, employing over 
 6,000,000 of her 40,000,000 inhabitants. 
 
 The average area of the French farm is 32 
 acres. In the United States it is 134 acres ; in 
 Great Britain 390 acres; in Denmark 115 
 acres; in Holland 45 acres. About 500,000 
 landowners hold an average of 7% acres; an- 
 other 500,000 an average of 75 acres. While 
 in Russia one per cent, of the families own 
 forty per cent, of the land, in France estates of 
 over a thousand acres are comparatively rare. 
 
 France is a land of small farmers. This 
 means independence. It means political in- 
 dependence. Hamerton remarked as early as 
 1876 that neither priest nor politician could 
 pocket the peasant vote. It means financial 
 independence. These peasants are wonderful 
 gardeners; their intensive farming has paid. 
 They have over 4% milhon acres in grapes, and 
 all the world knows that they know how to 
 extract the divine flavor from every cluster. 
 Their cabbages and potatoes formed a more 
 
 62 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 substantial entente cordiale with England than 
 any necromancy of the genial Edward. 
 
 While these peasants were making a vast 
 garden out of the land that Louis XVI aban- 
 doned to weeds, the artisans of the towns were 
 perfecting those crafts in which the French- 
 man has long excelled. About 5,800,000 are 
 engaged in manufacture. But this is not the 
 massive manufacture of Germany, England, 
 and the United States. There are a few large 
 iron industries in the mining region, but other- 
 wise there are no great manufactories. 
 
 But the French people are the creators of 
 those articles requiring individual skiU and that 
 deft, inimitable quality called "chic." Cotton, 
 silk and wool, gold, silver and iron they trans- 
 form into the dainty and luxurious necessities 
 of modern hf e. 
 
 These peasants and artisans are thrifty. 
 They may, to the hurrying tourist, seem gay 
 and indolent, but they are hard workers and 
 small spenders. They are rich. How rich 
 they are no one seems to have been able to cal- 
 
 63 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 culate. It is a sort of mysterious wealth. It 
 appears and disappears as by magic. But 
 they are, I beUeve, the richest peasants and 
 artisans in Europe. 
 
 Here is an example of the stowed-away 
 wealth of the French people. A few years 
 ago Paris offered for sale $41,000,000 of bonds 
 for enlarging the city gas plant. Following 
 the French custom, these bonds were offered in 
 fraction lots, so that a workman or peasant 
 could buy half a bond or even a fourth of a 
 bond. The amount was oversubscribed eighty 
 times. This means that $3,280,000,000 had 
 been in the stocking. As a deposit of ten per 
 cent, was required for each bond subscribed 
 for, you have the surprising result of $115,- 
 000,000 actually deposited for the privilege of 
 subscribing for $41,000,000. 
 
 I was told that this is not considered re- 
 markable. Where else could it occur? Cer- 
 tainly not in our country. This year, in six 
 months, workmen deposited 6,000,000 francs in 
 the postal savings. An American relates that 
 
 64 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 after the war was declared a French friend of 
 his who owned a chateau, yacht, and automo- 
 biles could not raise a loan from any of his 
 acquaintances. But he got 500 francs in gold 
 from his milkman through the intervention of 
 his cook! 
 
 Everybody knows that modem France is 
 the home of art, where the freak, such as the 
 Cubist, has his opportunity, as well as the 
 genius. In fact, everything which encourages 
 personal achievement flourishes in the France 
 of to-day. Here the monotonous process of 
 factory production has found only a few vic- 
 tims. These individuahsts, to whom creation 
 is a passion, have brought the day of hand skill 
 into the heart of the machine age. Here the 
 workers are individuals, not unions. Organ- 
 ized labor exists and boasts of its strength; 
 but the French syndicat, or union, is an odd 
 mixture of rebellious individualists. 
 
 What the Frenchman lacks in discipline he 
 makes up in distinction. 
 
 By the side of its agriculture, its art, and 
 
 66 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 its industry, the new France has its new learn- 
 ing; it is also steeped in the conviction that the 
 highest achievement of a race is a rare person- 
 ahty. The Frenchman of to-day believes that 
 mere energy is futile. So he elevates accom- 
 phshment above strength and sets out to culti- 
 vate taste rather than to develop force. At- 
 tainment, not assimilation, is therefore the goal 
 of his learning. 
 
 Complete freedom of expression is the life 
 of this ideal. When you close the avenues of 
 personal expression to a Frenchman, you kill 
 hitn. His overruling ambition is to live his 
 own life, and the aim of his education is to 
 enrich that life and make it capable of com- 
 plete self-expression. 
 
 When democracy permeated this ideal, it 
 threw wide open the doors of elementary 
 schools and lycees to the people. Children of 
 poor and rich sit side by side in the school- 
 room. Opportunity beckons to talent, and 
 France to-day is a nation of self-made men. 
 Even the language is democratized. All chil- 
 
 66 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 dren are taught to speak the French tongue 
 with beauty and precision. There are no lin- 
 gual class distinctions such as in London sep- 
 arate the costermonger from the lord. 
 
 There is a nobility in France. It is the 
 nobility of learning. In Paris intellectual 
 achievement is respected as in no other world 
 city, and to be an "Academician" is still the 
 highest honor in the nation. I imagine the 
 average Frenchman would like nothing better 
 than to make of the whole world one vast 
 Latin Quarter, with its true bonhomie of in- 
 tellect. 
 
 The Englishman lauds the athlete, the Ger- 
 man the soldier, the American the business 
 magnate, the Frenchman reserves his laurels 
 for the intellect. Everything else, even 
 character, he places secondary to this. Paris 
 will not immolate a man of brains on the 
 altar of moral standards. The fate of Sir 
 Charles Dilke would not have been possible in 
 France. 
 
 67 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 VI 
 
 What sort of government have these people 
 reared upon the shifting foundations of French 
 temperament and spectacular experience? At 
 times one is almost inclined to the beUef that 
 they have no government. I visit the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies, which, constitutionally, is the 
 strongest factor in the Government, for it sus- 
 tains or wrecks the premier, and I behold par- 
 liamentary chaos. The member addressing the 
 assembly mounts a tribune several feet above 
 the floor. No sooner has he made a statement 
 than a score of members rush down the aisles, 
 chattering objections and shaking their fingers 
 up at him. The President of the Chamber 
 rings a big bell and shouts "Silence!" at the 
 top of his voice ; but there is no silence. There 
 can be no silence among a group of Frenchmen, 
 each one fully bound to express himself on the 
 spur of the moment. 
 
 After an unusually tvimultuous meeting, 
 which resembled a mob in noise and behavior, 
 
 158 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 I asked a deputy, a well-known barrister, if 
 excitement always ended in such seeming in- 
 decorum. 
 
 "Have you, then, no enthusiasm in your Con- 
 gress?" he rephed. 
 
 But you soon learn that these people do not 
 take government as seriously as we do. To 
 them it is not the great abiding necessity it is 
 to Teuton or Anglo-Saxon. It is an incident, 
 a large incident, perhaps, but only an incident, 
 in the living of an individual's life. Rous- 
 seau's maxim is never forgotten: "A people, 
 Uke a person, belongs to itself." What, then, 
 is the function of government to such a people? 
 Not to "govern," but merely to make it easy 
 for every person to find himself. 
 
 In France the Government is not the object 
 of worship or of solicitude or, I am tempted 
 to say, of respect. Ministries and dynasties 
 come and go; the peasant, the craftsman, the 
 artist, and the savant return to their inner cares 
 from barricade and battle-field with almost as 
 much imconcem as from a market, and cer- 
 
 69 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 tainly with less ecstasy than from a new play 
 or the premiere of the annual Salon. 
 
 Where every one is busy living his own life, 
 government is a game. We have been told 
 that Frenchmen have no genius for govern- 
 ment. What is meant is that they have no 
 aptitude for team-work. 
 
 The government which they have devised 
 presents one of the greatest anomalies of mod- 
 ern politics. It is a republic, governed with- 
 out parties and without responsible leadership. 
 "We have no real parties except the unified 
 Sociahsts," said Yves Guyot. 
 
 "How, then, do you maintain political 
 equilibrium?" I asked. 
 
 "We do not care to maintain it. Our ideals 
 guide us." 
 
 After the election of the present Chamber, 
 last spring, the factions were so confused that 
 scarcely any two classifications were alike. 
 "Le Temps" enumerated them as follows: first 
 group composed of Independent Sociahsts, In- 
 dependent Radicals, Repubhcans of the Left ; 
 
 70 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 second group composed of United Radicals 
 and moderate Socialists; third group consist- 
 ing of extreme Socialists, United Republicans, 
 and United Progressives; and the Right con- 
 sisting of Conservatives, Royalists, Bonapart- 
 ists. Catholics, and Independent Conserva- 
 tives. Where there is such a hodge-podge of 
 political opinion in the ruling Chamber, it is 
 no wonder that every ministry rests on a pre- 
 carious foundation. Even these groups are 
 not fixed. They change at the whim of every 
 individual component. 
 
 You visit the Senate, in the old Palace of 
 the Luxembourg, and hope to find stability 
 there. Instead, you find only inanity. The 
 Senate has a veto power on the Chamber. It 
 is conservative, and can force itself upon public 
 attention only by overruling the vehemence of 
 the radical deputies. 
 
 And finally, there is the president. If the 
 republic is not governed by parties, surely it is 
 by a personage? No. The French sedu- 
 lously avoided centering responsibility in their 
 
 71 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Government. The president, by the constitu- 
 tion, is only a sham king housed in a palace and 
 surrounded with uniforms. President Poin- 
 care is the first to hold the office whose per- 
 sonaUty has challenged continuous attention. 
 
 Deputies, Senate, president, — ^none of them 
 vested with sole responsibility, — ^this is the os- 
 tensible Government; but back of it, running 
 silently and unnoticed, revolves the machinery 
 invented by old Paris, the vast centralized ad- 
 ministration. 
 
 "Behind the superficial authority of the min- 
 isters, an anonymous power is secretly at work 
 whose might is constantly increasing in the 
 Government. Possessing traditions, a hier- 
 archy, a continuity, they are a power against 
 which the ministers quickly realize they are in- 
 capable of struggUng." Le Bon, who thus de- 
 scribes the administrative machine, is an un- 
 favorable critic; but he has not overstated the 
 influence of this army of permanent officials 
 who view the constant changes in the ministry 
 
 72 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 merely as an opportunity for self-advance- 
 ment. 
 
 Here is an anomaly indeed, the most un- 
 stable of political contrivances cooperating 
 with the most adamant of administrations for 
 the government of a republic that repudiates 
 personal responsibility in office and knows 
 nothing of party fealty! 
 
 For practical purposes we may omit the 
 president and the Senate. The Chamber of 
 Deputies is the pivot of the revolving minis- 
 try. There are 602 members in the present 
 Chamber. This means that there are 602 
 pivots. We recognize the caucus as a sta- 
 bilizer in our legislative assembhes. But 
 where there is no party loyalty, the individual 
 becomes the dictator. So it happens that 
 the ministry is constantly dickering with the 
 individual deputies, not with a party caucus. 
 The deputy trades his influence for favors, 
 and he is constantly sought by the administra- 
 tive officers to exert his powers in their behalf. 
 
 78 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Thus has arisen a modern clientage as dis- 
 gusting as that of ancient Rome. 
 
 A French lady, writing with full knowledge 
 of the facts, has described her experience : 
 
 There are so many more applicants than vacancies 
 ■ — that it is the best "pistorme," or "protected" can- 
 didate, who ultimately obtains the much-coveted ap- 
 pointment. These "protections" seem to be indis- 
 pensable for the advancement of the careers of all 
 state employees. Really excellent state servants 
 who have no powerful friends may remain for years 
 forgotten in some small post without getting promo- 
 tion. . . • Some years back one of my own relatives 
 was in the cabinet and it was perfectly incredible, 
 during the whole length of time he remained in power, 
 the number of letters I received every morning from 
 various people whom I knew either slightly or not at 
 all, begging me to intercede in their favor. From 
 such humble state servants as policemen or railway 
 porters to the more magnificent officials who sought 
 to fill some of the higher posts batches of letters came 
 each morning.^ 
 
 There are nearly a million of these em- 
 ployees, including aU the functionaries high 
 
 iDe Pratz, "France from Within," p. 24. 
 
 74 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 and low, the workmen on the state raikoad 
 and other government industries. They have 
 formed a "freemasonry" which cooperates with 
 the radicals and socialists. How powerful this 
 coalition is was revealed after the Dreyfus af- 
 fair, when all the suspected Royalists were 
 weeded out of the army. General Andre's fa- 
 mous "fisches" revealed a nation-wide espion- 
 age, which hounded every suspect in the re- 
 motest commune. It recalled the days of 
 1789. 
 
 There are constant reminders that the spirit 
 of Revolutionary Paris is not dead. A few 
 years ago there was a revival of the doctrine 
 of the "unconscious masses" led by the "con- 
 scious minority." Syndicalism (the mother of 
 the I. W. W.) revived the old anarchism under 
 the cloak of labor-xmionism, and France was 
 nearly terrorized by the flare-up. Georges 
 Sorrel, Professor Lagardelle, and other keen 
 intellectuals incited the workmen to violence 
 by their subtle writings. Flaming posters 
 bade the populace to "Rip up the bourgeois" 
 
 75 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 and to "Cut buttonholes in the skins of the 
 rich." Strikes were called, sabotage prac- 
 tised, railway servants and post-office em- 
 ployees stopped work; for the Revolutionists 
 had found a leader. He was none other than 
 a mild-eyed lycee professor, Gustave Herve, 
 who with Gallic swiftness had risen to emi- 
 nence on the wings of an epithet, "The flag is 
 bom of dirt." This became the slogan of the 
 new anti-patriotism and anti-militarism, which 
 for the moment threatened to disrupt the 
 army. 
 
 Then arose in the Chamber of Deputies a 
 resolute minister. He ordered the railroad 
 strikers to join the reserves. They had to put 
 on the uniform or be deserters! This clever 
 minister was Aristide Briand, the socialist, who 
 a few years before had thrilled his audiences 
 by denouncing the use of the army in labor 
 matters and said that workmen soldiers need 
 not always fire in the direction the officers 
 meant when the command was given. 
 
 This is typical: the ancient anarchy of vio- 
 
 76 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 lence, proclaimed by professors and journal- 
 ists, eagerly responded to by the mob, checked 
 by a minister of state who yesterday preached 
 disobedience to soldiers and held aloft the red 
 flag. 
 
 And to-day? Gustave Herve, after serving 
 four years in the Prison de la Sante for writing 
 incendiary, anti-military editorials, is a super- 
 patriot, dedicating his newspaper to war, army, 
 and the Marseillaise. There are five socialists 
 in the war cabinet, headed by Viviani, a social- 
 ist. Even Jules Guesde, the Commimard of 
 1871, an exile for years, vehement leader of 
 the most revolutionary socialists, irreconcilable, 
 fiery in his denunciation of capital and govern- 
 ment, eagle-eyed, shrill-voiced, hawk-faced, the 
 very embodiment of Revolution — even Jules 
 Guesde now sits in the cabinet! 
 
 Wonder of wonders! No, it is no wonder 
 at all. It could all be foreseen by the student 
 of old Paris. France has never changed heart. 
 The shouting, discontented one of yesterday 
 always was the rouge coulotte who to-day 
 
 77 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 cracks jokes in the trenches of Belfort and Ver- 
 dun. 
 
 Now we see that the Revolutionist was first 
 a patriot. Every Frenchman is always a pa- 
 triot. Like aU his other quahties his patriotism 
 is fervently personal. His country is personi- 
 fied, wooed, loved and defended, and carries 
 the key to his heart. In a land of individual- 
 ists, a man's heart need not be bound to his 
 opinions not even to his actions. His heart is 
 true to an ideal; all else is pivotal, shifting with 
 the impulse of the moment. 
 
 So you have this boulevardier who is the 
 greatest of home-lovers; this inteUectualist who 
 loses himself in revolution; this revolutionist 
 who is consumed with patriotism; this bravado 
 who flaunts his vices while he carefully con- 
 ceals his virtues; who is simple, yet long ago 
 ceased to be "naive enough to be conceited"; 
 a man who has, in a word, learned to laugh at 
 himself while the world takes him seriously, 
 and who has learned to take himself seriously 
 when the world laughs at him. 
 
 78 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 VII 
 
 Many have been the doleful predictions that 
 this Frenchman is a degenerate who cannot 
 survive the conflict of arms. It is true that 
 miUtarism is nowhere such a curse as in a land 
 of individuaUsts, who have an instinct for art 
 and a passion for thrift. 
 
 The French have been great soldiers; that 
 was many years ago. To-day the stunted men 
 tell the tale of the cost of Bourbon and Na- 
 poleonic wars. I asked a little Parisian school- 
 master once why Frenchmen were so small. 
 
 "Ah," he cried, "all our large ancestors died 
 in the glorious wars." 
 
 In fine spirit, courage, and fervor the 
 Frenchman can defy the world; but in the 
 clockwork precision, in the obedience which 
 makes masses powerful, he is deficient. 
 
 Despite this natural ineptitude, he has kept 
 up a vast standing army, inspired by the black 
 ribbons that have dangled from the Strasburg 
 statue in the Place de la Concorde since 1871. 
 
 79 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 In this terrible war, the motive of the French- 
 man is the easiest to explain. He is not fight- 
 ing for conquest or glory or economic su- 
 premacy. He is fighting for revenge, a very 
 childish, but a very human, motive. 
 
 His fighting qualities have surprised the 
 Germans. They expected a repetition of 
 1871. French soldiers told me three years 
 ago that France would not seek war with Ger- 
 many; but should the Kaiser ever attempt to 
 invade France, they would show him a new 
 kind of Frenchman. 
 
 He was conscious of his own fighting ca- 
 pacity. Yet left to his own fate, the inexo- 
 rable German machine would have crushed 
 him. 
 
 And if he is finally overwhelmed, if his 
 sunny land, the land of bonhomie, the land 
 whose prosperity bodes evil for no one — if this 
 land is finally overrun by brute force, what 
 shall be our verdict on a "civilization" that per- 
 mits the test of the barbarian to be made the 
 measure of its survival? 
 
 80 
 
THE SOUL OF THE FRENCH 
 
 In these days of "efl5ciency"-hunting, it will 
 be worth untold fortunes to have one nation 
 of individuals left, an oasis of artistic intuition 
 in a desert of socialized machinery. In these 
 days of cant and insincerity, it will be worth 
 even more to preserve the one people who are 
 not afraid of inconsistency. 
 
 81 
 
Ill 
 
 ENGLAND: IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 "Everything English is a fusion of distant and an- 
 tagonistic elements. . . . Nothing can be praised in 
 it without damning exceptions, and nothing de- 
 nounced without salvos of cordial praise." 
 
 Emeeson. 
 
 I 
 
 TO know this island and its agglomerate 
 empire, it is necessary to know London; 
 just as to know the realm of the Caesars, with 
 which Britons love to compare their domin- 
 ions, it was necessary to know Rome. With 
 always this supreme difference in mind: the 
 Roman Empire was a compact legal entity; 
 the British Empire is a vague generalization 
 which will vanish the moment the prime min- 
 ister tries to tie a red tape around it. 
 
 It is trade and sentiment, nothing more, 
 nothing less. And London is the brains of 
 
 83 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 this trade and the heart of this sentiment. It 
 is "a London extended into every man's mind, 
 though he live in Van Diemen's Land or Cape 
 Town." 
 
 The Bank of Australia, the Bank of 
 India, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of South 
 Africa, all clustered around "the Bank" — 
 there you have the British Empire. Colonial 
 stocks in the exchanges, colonial company pro- 
 motions in the financial streets, "colonial 
 wares" in the shops, tens of thousands of 
 colonials "back home" for a holiday — ^that is 
 the empire that has made London by far the 
 richest city the world has ever known, through 
 the copious streams of wealth from the treas- 
 ure of India, the mines of Austraha, the 
 prairies of Canada, the forests of the Congo, 
 that for three centuries have been emptied into 
 its treasure-house. 
 
 And there is the sentiment. You cannot 
 call it an Anglo-Saxon sentiment, for it em- 
 braces Scotchman and Welshman. You can- 
 not call it a religious sentiment, for it includes 
 
 83 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 all sects. It is a home-loving sentiment, stolid, 
 stanch, deep-seated, which is, after all, stronger 
 than gold. It is this sentiment that has made 
 this islander more than a money-maker. It 
 has made him the greatest colonizer of all time. 
 In his adventiires for wealth he has always 
 taken with him his flag and his language. 
 Athens never was Greece, because the Athe- 
 nian, cut loose from the native soil, started a 
 new Athens of his own. So Rome was the em- 
 pire only in a legal sense. Its imperium 
 rested on the shoulders of its legions. But 
 London is the potential center of an imperial 
 patriotism the periphery of which girdles the 
 globe. England has its Liverpool, Scotland 
 its Edinburgh, Ireland its Dublin, Canada its 
 Montreal, Australia its Melbourne, India its 
 Calcutta ; but the empire has London, and Lon- 
 don has the empire. 
 
 II 
 
 So in London we may look for the charac- 
 teristic habits of the empire-builders. The 
 
 84 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 most significant of these is the amazing blend- 
 ing of the past and the present. "We want 
 no Haussmanns and emperors here to drive 
 uniform boulevards or rectangular squares 
 through the old city," cried Frederic Harrison, 
 the town's most ardent apologist. Why? 
 "Let us keep the history and traditions," he 
 replies. The nation cherishes the past. It is 
 always searching for a precedent, like a law- 
 yer, and reveres the customs that have been 
 handed down for ages, faithfully and devoutly 
 practising them to this hour. 
 
 You visit Parliament, and must write your 
 name in the visitors' book with a sputtering 
 goose quiU such as was used three hundred 
 years ago. The lord chancellor sits on a wool- 
 sack, by him stands an hour-glass patiently 
 measuring the dry sands of debate ; before him, 
 as he enter the hall, is borne a silken purse on a 
 velvet cushion, empty symbol of his former 
 financial power. When the Lords wish to 
 communicate with the Commons, the messen- 
 ger, in the garb of the seventeenth century, 
 
 85 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 knocks at the door of the House, where a small 
 panel is opened, and he is asked solemnly who 
 he is and what he wants; and as solemnly he 
 says he is a friend and not a foe, and the bearer 
 of a most important message from the Lords. 
 He is then permitted to enter, after all the pre- 
 cautions of Cromwell's day, when caution was 
 necessary, and stateliness was a parliamentary 
 habit. 
 
 There is no such'pohtical ritualism in Paris, 
 Berlin, or Vienna: in no other modern me- 
 tropolis does the chief magistrate make a toy 
 parade of medieval uniforms and trappings as 
 does the lord mayor in his annual "show." 
 
 No other people can hang these gaudy vel- 
 vet cloaks over their shoulders, or show their 
 rounded calves, with so serious an air. All 
 this tinsel and ermine really means something 
 to this islander. It is symbolic, like their king, 
 who was long ago deprived of every royal 
 political prerogative, but is conscientiously re- 
 garded by poUticians of all parties as a super- 
 political token of imperial patriotism. 
 
 86 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 London lives in the past, clings to formu- 
 laries and literalisms. "They have always 
 done so," is the general excuse. But London 
 also hves in the present. This is her monu- 
 mental paradox, her wonderful, almost mi- 
 raculous, blending of tradition and life. The 
 Londoner feeds on cabbages and precedents, 
 cabbages for his body, precedents for his soul. 
 I am not sure which he would the sooner die 
 for. 
 
 Take the law, in London still a profession, 
 and not, as with us, a trade. Everybody ex- 
 pects dusty tradition to reign here, but one is 
 surprised to find the grimy old ofl&ces, in this 
 age of vacuum-cleaners and varnish, which 
 the medieval Temple still houses. Passing 
 through the ancient brick gateway that Eliza- 
 beth used, you are in an instant transported 
 from the streaming traffic of Fleet Street into 
 the presence of Mansfield and Blackstone. 
 Here the past is supreme in wig, gown, and 
 minute precedent. 
 
 But cross the street with me at the Temple 
 
 87 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Bar to the Law Courts and into the Admiralty- 
 Court, where a case is being tried. By the 
 side of the stem judge, who is, of course, in 
 wig and gown, sit two sailors, captains of 
 ships, in their every-day uniforms. They are 
 there to see that what is done is practical; the 
 robed judge is there to see that it is regular; 
 and the bewigged barristers to see that it is 
 completely done for each side. Procedure is 
 absolutely stripped of its medievalism. These 
 British courts put ours to shame. They have 
 cast aside the endless and useless technicalities 
 to which we still chng. Yet there are the wigs 
 and robes, and there is the anchor of silver on 
 the bench, the ancient insignia of admiralty 
 jurisdiction. 
 
 I think this is typical of the British Empire 
 in every one of its activities. Everywhere you 
 find this amazing juxtaposition of the old and 
 the new. Upon analysis, you learn that what 
 is old is ceremony and that what is new is es- 
 sential. I might say the head of the EngUsh- 
 man is modern, his heart is ancient, and he is 
 
 88 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 put to his wit's end to keep the two in unison. 
 But he does keep both his head and his heart. 
 And how he does it, I beheve is discernible. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon built the pillars of his 
 power on the banks of the Thames, when he 
 founded his capital, long before he had an em- 
 pire. Here he built the Tower, a citadel for 
 his king and his army; he built the Abbey for 
 his faith; the Hall of St. Stephen for his free 
 Parliament; the market, and later the Bank, 
 for his business. 
 
 These, army and government, church and 
 business, are London, Britain, and the empire. 
 They are ever present, everywhere, but they 
 never obtrude themselves upon you. Here 
 you have the secret of this imperial dominance. 
 These potencies of national life are perfectly 
 blended. There may be rivalry between 
 church and business, or business and politics, 
 or army and government; but the rivalry is 
 never carried to excess. Each apparently 
 
 89 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 gives way before the other. They know when 
 to stop competing, when to compromise and 
 coalesce their influences into a mighty sov- 
 ereignty. 
 
 Other coimtries and civilizations have ex- 
 celled, and do now excel, in one or the other 
 of these forces. No other has been able so 
 deftly to unify them. 
 
 The British soldier is not officious, and 
 burly, like the Prussian. He yields to you 
 on the sidewalk, is polite, even gentle to ladies 
 and children, and wears his flaming uniform 
 with civilian ease. During the great trans- 
 portation strike in 1911, when the territorials, 
 in large numbers, were gathered in Battersea 
 Park and other open spaces of London and 
 there was tense feeliug, there was a remark- 
 able subduing of the appearance of force and 
 a remarkable yielding to its influence. 
 
 Nor is the Government dogmatic or obtrud- 
 ing. It has no inquisitive fingers feeling in 
 your pockets and does not wish to know your 
 ambitions. London has been the hospitable 
 
 90 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 city of refuge to political outcasts of every 
 Continental country. It was here that Karl 
 Marx, driven out of his native Germany, so- 
 journed for many years, and wrote his great 
 book "Capital." Time and again the foreign 
 office has refused to yield up pohtical refugees, 
 declaring it to be the British pohcy to welcome 
 all peoples, and to let them alone, as long as 
 they respected the laws of their host. 
 
 One evening several years ago I was the 
 guest of a candidate for Parliament for Beth- 
 nal Green, the London district that includes 
 the notorious, but now officially scrubbed, 
 Whitechapel region. It was a beautifid, 
 moonlit Saturday night, a rare night for Lon- 
 don, and the streets were jammed with peo- 
 ple. The East End was hke a colossal nest 
 of giant vermin that had crawled out of their 
 dismal holes, lured by the full moon, the 
 torches, and the bands. There were meetings 
 of every party, on scores of stre^et corners, and 
 in many halls. Our automobile was driven 
 slowly through the crowded, narrow defiles, 
 
 91 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 from one appointed place to another, and we 
 visited a score of meetings. 
 
 Here I was in the heart of a district com- 
 posed of London dregs. Most of the people 
 looked as if they had not had a square meal for 
 a week; there were rags, filth, wretchedness, 
 debauchery so vile that even the mantle of 
 night could not conceal the marks. Yet here 
 were gentlemen of high birth begging these 
 creatures for their vote. One of the brilliant 
 hterary men of the day was present to heckle 
 the Liberal candidate, a noble lord of long and 
 distinguished Uneage lent his grace in behalf 
 of the Conservative candidate, a prosperous 
 business man financed and personally con- 
 ducted the campaign of the Socialist candi- 
 date. 
 
 The "pubs" belched forth their tottering 
 throngs, half of them women, to cheer the 
 speakers or to "boo" them. The tone of the 
 crowd was anti-radical. Old, toothless hags, 
 tipsy with vile, raw, red ale, cursed the Radi- 
 cals in the most loathsome language and 
 
 93 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 cheered the Conservatives. And when the 
 Socialist candidate, a working-man, backed by 
 some fifty or sixty young men singing "The 
 International" and carrying their red fllag, 
 tried to march through the streets, they were 
 set upon by the ragged crowd, and a cordon of 
 policemen, who suddenly appeared, promptly 
 formed around the marchers to protect the 
 red flag against the shouters for the Union 
 Jack, 
 
 This experience in the heart of London 
 slumdom epitomizes the anomalies of political 
 England: wretchedness cheering peerage and 
 privilege; social discontent financed by pros- 
 perity; red revolt protected by the law. 
 
 Here is a government where peers are not 
 ashamed to be democratic, and where literary 
 and business men do not shrink from pohtical 
 responsibility even among slum-dwellers and 
 gin-guzzlers; a government where radicalism 
 is reduced to simple terms, and aristocracy, 
 literary and genetic, is touched by a demo- 
 cratic idealism; a government that clings to 
 
 93 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 the heart of tradition, but seizes the hand of 
 the present, and protects its most rabid critics ; 
 in short, the most accommodating and flexible 
 scheme of politics in the world. 
 
 The third factor, the church, has, perhaps, 
 a historic rather than an active present power. 
 Religion, in Britain, is pohtic rather than 
 polemic. Like aU the other potencies of the 
 empire, it is diplomatic in bearing, quite or- 
 thodox at heart, accommodating in temper, 
 and inflexible in conviction. The church is 
 estabhshed; rehgion is not. Bishops sit in the 
 Lords, non-conformist preachers in the Com- 
 mons; both hsten to prayers in the Abbey at 
 the beginning of a new Parliament, fight each 
 other politically, and bow to each other with 
 deference socially. 
 
 If any one of these four factors of British 
 dominance is inclined to jostle the others, it 
 is business. For, after all, trade is the busi- 
 ness of the empire. It is the instinct of the 
 Briton. I do not say it is his passion, — ^he is 
 too stolid to be called passionate, — but busi- 
 
 94i 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 ness is his life. His little island, a mere speck 
 on the map, turned the whole world of gilds 
 and crafts and trade-adventurers into a world 
 of corporations, of manufacturers, and of mer- 
 chants when it started the industrial revolu- 
 tion. In the spirit of the commercial zealot 
 he built his Bank, the temple of his trade. He 
 is rich, very rich; but his is not the obtruding 
 wealth of the neo-Prussian, or the impertinent 
 wealth of the American, or the reckless wealth 
 of the Argentinian. It is a self-complacent, 
 quiet, easy-going wealth. The Bank stops for 
 tea every afternoon. Not even Black Friday 
 can spoil the brew. It is a pious wealth. 
 Sunday is sacred to other forms of worldliness, 
 but not to business. 
 
 In the sagacious blending of church, govern- 
 ment, and business we find the secret of the 
 imperial poise that to-day is fighting for its 
 existence. It has been a marvelous adapta- 
 bility, worshiping bygones, and yet keeping up 
 the crescendo of trafiic and trade; inclined to 
 rest on what has been done, but constantly 
 
 95 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 meeting new political conditions with a new 
 constitution, and new competitions with new 
 machinery. 
 
 IV 
 
 History forced this islander to adopt this 
 policy of give and take. He is first of all a 
 medley of races, Celt, Saxon, Scandinavian, 
 Norman. The Englishman, traveling in our 
 country, wonders if we are ever going to "ab- 
 sorb" the various nationalities that have come 
 to us in such great numbers. He forgets that 
 in his own veins flows the blood of four or five 
 distinct strains. He has probably never 
 learned that most of his institutions are the 
 blending of several diverse racial contributions. 
 His law and his language bear the evidence of 
 many influences. 
 
 While he was being molded by many ethnic 
 forces, his country was merely a collection of 
 "counties." How long did it take to make 
 the seven kingdoms one? And having 
 achieved a unity, was it anything more than 
 
 96 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 federated cooperation? And having so cre- 
 ated an England, how troublesome was the 
 "conquest" of Wales and the "union" with 
 Scotland, and what of Ireland to-day? And 
 having phrased "the United Kingdom," what 
 of Canada, Austraha, New Zealand, South 
 Africa, not to name Egypt and India and the 
 Sudan? How has this empire grown from a 
 congeries of townships and counties, through 
 a group of kingdoms, into a collection of giant 
 colonies? 
 
 By means of an accommodating opportun- 
 ism and the principle of local self-government. 
 Just as church and state and business have 
 learned to adjust themselves to one another, 
 yet are to a degree self-rehant, so these various 
 localities and units have been allowed their 
 own self-government, and have learned to ac- 
 commodate themselves to one another. 
 
 This British opportunism has known only 
 one iron rule — "to make a go of it." So this 
 imperialist, this trader, asks of you only one 
 question. Does it work? All the rest he leaves 
 
 97 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 to your own device. Live as you please, work 
 as you please, mind your own business, but 
 succeed. If the plan of government, of char- 
 ity, of learning, of business, of diplomacy, of 
 war, or of peace, does not work, away it goes, 
 without pity or tears, to the rubbish heap. 
 When it comes to business and statecraft, there 
 are no questions asked of ideals, of historic con- 
 tinuity, of artistic or philosophical finesse, or 
 — let us be frank about it — of right or wrong. 
 For, in this inexorable process of "making a 
 go of it" nothing succeeds but success, and 
 nothing is right that does not succeed. 
 
 The hard law of the survival of the fittest 
 is the only rule by which these imperturbable 
 individualists measure themselves. It is al- 
 most pitiful to see how the "unfit" succumb 
 uncomplainingly to its rigor. Every town is 
 full of misery; hunger and rags and filth are 
 nowhere so in evidence as in London. It 's 
 the poorest as well as the richest of cities. 
 
 But it must also be admitted that the "sur- 
 vivors" are a magnificent group. Try to read 
 
 98 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 the history of science, literature, statesman- 
 ship, jurisprudence, invention, enterprise, dis- 
 covery, omitting British names, and see how 
 far you get. 
 
 Now, a people who have accommodated 
 themselves to the most forbidding of climates, 
 compromised with the most exacting of neigh- 
 bors, who have learned so completely the great 
 game of "give and take," and discarded, by 
 compulsion perhaps, the soft rule of "love thy 
 neighbor as thyself" — such a people, always 
 wilhng to shift their basis of action, looking 
 not at methods, but at results, must expect 
 to be called hard names. The anomalies of 
 Britain have been the source of amazement to 
 Continentals, who love logic and are addicted 
 to definite rules of action. For the path of 
 commercial and colonial success threads the 
 winding maze of compromise, and compromise 
 is the mother of anomalies. A systematic peo- 
 ple, like the Germans, an artistic people, like 
 the Latins, beholding only the surface of these 
 contradictions, denounce England as perfidi- 
 
 99 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 ous. They do not discern the difference be- 
 tween consistency and adaptabihty. 
 
 But when you stop to think about it, why 
 shouldn't London have a House of Lords 
 based on hereditary peerage, scarce one fourth 
 of whom have a lineage of three generations, 
 the rest being successful brewers, bankers, and 
 bucaneers? Why shouldn't there be a king 
 without royal prerogative? A democratic 
 House of Commons controlled by an auto- 
 cratic committee called the Cabinet? An 
 Established Church paying its primate $75,- 
 000 a year and its bishops $10,000 to $50,000, 
 while its clergy barely exist and hundreds of 
 thousands of its parishioners never get 
 enough to eat? Why shouldn't opium and 
 rum be sold to the "heathen" of Asia and 
 Africa, as long as it swells the bank accounts 
 of the West End? Why shouldn't women 
 be allowed to get beastly drunk in the "pubs" 
 as long as the proceeds of their debauch go to 
 the stockholders who sit on the red morocco 
 cushions of the lords? In an island where 
 
 100 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 land is so limited and population so crowded, 
 why shouldn't 2500 people own sixty per 
 cent, of the soil and exact tribute of millions 
 for the privilege of standing room only? 
 
 All these things are not a matter of prin- 
 ciple at all. Nobody compels these people to 
 be poor, or drunk, or hungry, or crowded! 
 They are their own masters, and are judged 
 by what they can accomphsh under this en- 
 vironment! 
 
 This callousness to sequence, and worship 
 of consequence, have made the Briton appear 
 ruthless; this desire for achievement without 
 undue friction has made him appear hypo- 
 critical. He is not necessarily either. 
 
 The truth is, the Briton is a supreme in- 
 dividualist, brought up under most forbidding 
 skies, in a slimy atmosphere, on a little island 
 four times invaded and conquered in the be- 
 ginning of this era, who conquered his con- 
 querors by successful compromise, and who 
 by a combination of hardihood^ persistence, 
 and push, backed up with a vast amount of 
 
 101 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 sound sense, has "gotten on." This sort of 
 rough person has no use for experimenting. 
 He has had vastly more luck at fulfilling than 
 at planning. 
 
 He has estabhshed an essential democracy, 
 a middle-class democracy. "The Englishman 
 loves a lord," but only when the lord has made 
 good. His practical eye sees deeper than the 
 Frenchman or the German. While Paris was 
 mad, butchering the noblesse, and while Prus- 
 sia, equally mad, was pulling the crown deeper 
 over the Hohenzollern brow, the EngUsh- 
 man shrewdly preserved the advantages of 
 blue blood while he absorbed all of its preroga- 
 tives. Tocqueville wrote: 
 
 Wherever on the Continent of Europe the feudal 
 system had been established it ended in caste : in Eng- 
 land alone it returned to aristocracy. The nobility 
 and the middle class in England followed the same 
 business, embraced the same profession, and, what is 
 more significant, intermarried with each other. The 
 daughter of a great nobleman could without disgrace 
 marry a man of yesterday. If the middle class of 
 England, instead of making war upon the aristoc- 
 
 102 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 racy, have remained so intimately connected with it, 
 it is not because the aristocracy is open to all, but 
 rather because its outline was indistinct and its limits 
 unlcnozem, not so much that any man could be ad- 
 mitted to it, as because it was impossible to say with 
 certainty who might take rank there, so that all who 
 approached it might look upon themselves as belong- 
 ing to it, might take part in its rule, and derive either 
 luster or profit from its influences. 
 
 This has been the British method through- 
 out the world and in every activity. Its con- 
 stitution works "because its outhnes are indis- 
 tinct and its limits unknown," ready for any 
 emergency, be it pulling the teeth of the House 
 of Lords or settling a coal-miners' strike. It 
 has, for instance, without premeditation, 
 adapted itself to the new social conditions — 
 workmen's compensation, town-planning, in- 
 dustrial insurance, minimum wage; the labor- 
 ing class sits in Parliament and, presto! is in- 
 vited into the cabinet. 
 
 It is a democracy in spirit, an aristocracy in 
 dress. Nowhere else is there a higher sense 
 of pubhc duty among the rich and the power- 
 
 103 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 ful. The history of the justice of the peace 
 alone places it high in the annals of govern- 
 ment. In Birmingham town hall a list of the 
 mayors is inscribed on the walls. There are 
 the names of great families, where three and 
 four generations have gratuitously and ar- 
 dently served the municipality. I know of 
 no greater example of democratic efficiency 
 than the town council of Glasgow, where rich 
 and poor. Socialist and Conservative, work 
 together, imbued by the same municipal patri- 
 otism. 
 
 No one knows his virtues better than this 
 islander himself. He is aware of his power, 
 his ability, his success, and has auto-hypno- 
 tized himself into believing that he always is 
 right. You have never heard an Englishman 
 admit that he blundered. He pays the bills 
 of his monumental mistakes, — as he is paying 
 this day, — pulls his cap over his eyes, clenches 
 his fists, and plods on. In the sanctuary of 
 his conceit the candle of self -righteousness is 
 always biu-ning. 
 
 104 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 This, again, is the psychology of imperial 
 opportunism. Its creed knows no other or- 
 thodoxy than accomphshment, seeks no other 
 justification, and its power is therefore always 
 amply cloaked with self-complacency. 
 
 V 
 
 Well, this independent, individualistic httle 
 island accumulated an empire. How? The 
 empire has "gotten on," hke London. You 
 ride on a bus from Hampstead to the Strand, 
 and you pass at least four High Streets, each 
 once the main thoroughfare of a former village. 
 London is only a fortuitous collection of vil- 
 lages. It was never planned, it could not be 
 planned. It has no community of interest 
 save trade. It was never governed as a mu- 
 nicipaUty. For years each parish had its own 
 government; to-day it is governed by a 
 county coimcil. It is an amorphous aggrega- 
 tion of hovels, shops, and palaces, with no hm- 
 its or plan to its spreading. Like a ter- 
 rible Brobdingnagian amoeba, it pushes its 
 
 105 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 tentacles hither and thither, prompted only by 
 the instinct for food. 
 
 And this has been the haphazard of em- 
 pire. When a new spirit of adventure came 
 over the vrorld four hundred years ago, Portu- 
 gal attained southern Asia and portions of the 
 African continent ; Spain explored the Ameri- 
 cas ; France followed in the wake of Spain, and 
 Holland in the path of Portugal, and after two 
 hundred years of moving about over the vast 
 new lands, Britain had only a strip of North 
 American coast, which she shared with Dutch 
 and Swedish settlers, and which was encircled 
 by Spanish and French forts. To-day the 
 Union Jack floats over an area as large as 
 Africa and a population as great as Europe. 
 
 But we must not forget that the empire is 
 the product of commercial and political condi- 
 tions that have now passed away. No mod- 
 ern power could duplicate this achievement un- 
 der modern conditions. When the age of 
 trade-adventures followed in the wake of the 
 age of "voyage and discovery," Spain had al- 
 
 106 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 ready begun her rapid decline, and France was 
 distressed by Continental entanglements. 
 Indeed, until Sedan, the European nations 
 were too distraught to pay ample attention 
 to the new worlds. After Holland had been 
 ruthlessly outstripped, England was free to 
 push her hardy sailors into every harbor. 
 Asia, Africa, the Americas were virgin terri- 
 tory for her traders and settlers, and British 
 opportunism flourished. 
 
 Soon her notable army of inventors wrought 
 the industrial revolution, capitahsm was born, 
 and in every new field British capital immedi- 
 ately found investment. 
 
 In a very real sense the British had no com- 
 petition until their world empire was well 
 established. The new-world opportunity 
 found Great Britain wholly prepared. She 
 was ready with ships, with capital, and, what 
 is far more important, with colonists. 
 
 There was no planning this. The only rec- 
 ords we have of an imperial ambition is the 
 empire itself. Neither Parliament nor crown 
 
 107 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 nor even trader designed the empire; but no 
 opportunity to add to it has ever been allowed 
 to slip by. 
 
 One might say that India is the keystone 
 to this colonial world. Searching for a new 
 route to the Indes, America was found in 
 the way; to protect the Cape of Good Hope 
 route to India, South Africa was fortified; 
 to safeguard the Mediterranean route, Gibral- 
 tar was taken; and to shorten this route, the 
 Suez was cut: to guard every possible water- 
 way to that ancient and populous realm of 
 wealth, coahng stations and forts dot all the 
 seas. A war with France — partially over co- 
 lonial trade — ^was a war for India, and casually 
 brought Canada into the realm; and the 
 whole Austrahan Archipelago, lying in the 
 paths of the Eastern trader, was acquired by 
 the English. 
 
 Just as, on the coronation of the King, all 
 eyes were turned upon the Indian potentates 
 and their glittering retinue, who garnished the 
 festal parade, so the eyes of Britain, for three 
 
 108, 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 Hundred years were on India. It was npt 
 until 1872 that the Queen of Britain became 
 the Empress of the domain of the Great 
 Jehan, and King George has now returned the 
 capital to ancient Delhi. 
 
 So Britain has gathered her empire: a 
 tessellated collection of gaikwars, khedives, 
 princes, naked chieftains, elder brothers, gov- 
 ernors, captains, councils, free presidents, — 
 whatever best suits local conditions and works 
 well; whether republic, federation, principal- 
 ity, protectorate, sphere of influence, what- 
 ever meets the need of the hour and the satis- 
 faction of the trader. 
 
 Yet there is an undeniable majesty about 
 this workaday empire, which has no imperial 
 pohcy and the pohtical center of which is a 
 rather shabby room in Downing Street. You 
 get an idea of its size, if not of its splendor, 
 when you sit in the Commons during question- 
 time. No subject seems too trivial for con- 
 sideration: one member asks about the treat- 
 ment of natives in a South African town; an- 
 
 109 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 other, about the trade conditions in Indo- 
 China; another, whether the Government has 
 looked into the causes for mine disaster in 
 Wales; another, about the government loans 
 to Pat Flannigan in Ireland; another, why the 
 steamship Carnatic was held in Hong-Kong, 
 and a most inquisitive member asks about the 
 Persian break-up. All are quietly answered 
 except the last one; that is a question of di- 
 plomacy, and must be kept secret. 
 
 When the navigation laws, trade monopo- 
 lies, and other devices for stimulating com- 
 merce became obsolete, as they did after 1776, 
 when Adam Smith showed their economic 
 folly, and America their political folly, an era 
 of freer trade came on, which ultimately put 
 the whole system to the test of competition. 
 The British did not stand the first shocks of 
 this competition with good grace. The 
 colonies became unpopular. In 1852, Disraeli 
 wrote to Lord Malmesbury, "These wretched 
 colonies will be independent in a few years, and 
 are millstones round our necks," Sir George 
 
 110 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 Comewall Lewis gave the reasons for this feel- 
 ing. He wrote, "If a country possesses a de- 
 pendency from which it derives no puhlic 
 revenue, no military or naval strength, no com- 
 mercial advantages or facilities for emigration, 
 which it would not equally enjoy though the 
 dependency were independent; . . . such a 
 possession cannot justly be called glorious." 
 
 Gladstone was austere and haughty toward 
 the colonies, and Australians will tell you that 
 Joseph Chamberlain saved that vast country 
 for the motherland when he approached it in a 
 spirit of friendliness and invited the colonial 
 premiers to the first colonial conference. 
 
 VI 
 
 Thus by trading and pushing, desultory 
 fighting, taking advantage of the decline of 
 foreign powers, by perseverance, hardihood, 
 shrewdness, the Briton, in a fortunate century, 
 got together his strange empire. After aU, 
 the gathering of it together is not so strange 
 as the fact that up to the present he has been 
 
 111 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 able to keep it. How has he done this? Two 
 words answer the question: ships and diplo- 
 macy. 
 
 Britain is an island, and the Norse instinct 
 prevails. That explains a great deal of Brit- 
 ish history. The trader would be helpless 
 and the island would be foodless without ships. 
 Trade did not follow the flag; the flag followed 
 the trader. And the manufacturer depended 
 upon the seaman for raw material and for mar- 
 ket. Everything that encourages ship-build- 
 ing and ship-sailing has been fostered. The 
 law willingly yields to the seamen's necessities : 
 impressment of seamen was for years a na- 
 tional policy. "We demand," wrote Single- 
 ton as late as 1871, "the abrogation of the 
 declaration of maritime law, and the restora- 
 tion of the ancient practice of the right of 
 search and privateering. We demand it, be- 
 cause, being a maritime nation, our greatest 
 defense must ever be our power at sea. We 
 demand it as a security for the peace of Eu- 
 rope, . . . and Great Britain makes this de- 
 
 112 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 mand, and absolutely insists on it, that she may 
 be able, as far as possible, to protect the weak 
 against the strong, which is the end and aim of 
 her own constitution." Here you have an ex- 
 ample of that blending of British ambition, 
 egoism, and prudence which has succeeded. 
 
 We must expect that Britain's diplomacy 
 would be entirely guided by her maritime 
 policy. Lord Nelson said, "Battle-ships are 
 the best negotiators of Europe." A "two- 
 power" navy to maintain her prestige, di- 
 plomacy to reduce the active use of navy to its 
 lowest terms — ^that is the British pohcy. 
 
 John Stuart Mill, certainly one of the most 
 enlightened of men, speaking in the House 
 of Commons (August 5, 1867), called the 
 navy Britain's "natural indispensable .weapon" 
 and then followed with these significant sen- 
 tences : 
 
 I should be ashamed to claim anything for ray 
 country which I believed to be a damage and an in- 
 jury to the common interests of civilization and man- 
 kind. I will not even urge, though the feelings of 
 
 113 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 the elite of Europe would bear me out if I did, that 
 the safety, and even the power of England, are valu- 
 able to the freedom of the world, and therefore to the 
 greatest and most permanent interests of every civil- 
 ized people. No, sir, my argument shall not have 
 even a tinge of nationality about it. It is on the 
 broadest cosmopolitan and humanitarian principles 
 that I rest the case. I maintain it to be for the gen- 
 eral interest of the world, if there is to be fighting, 
 that every power should fight with its natural weap- 
 ons and with its best strength, that so there may be 
 the greatest possible division of force and no one be 
 able to disturb the world nor any two or three powers 
 be able to divide it among them. . . • Above all it is 
 for the interests of the world that the naval powers 
 should not be weakened, for whatever is taken from 
 them is given to the great military powers, and it is 
 from these alone that the freedom and independence 
 of nations has anything to fear. Naval power is as 
 essentially defensive as military power is aggressive. 
 It is by armies, not by fleets, that wars of conquest 
 can be carried on ; and naval powers, both in ancient 
 and modern times, have been the cradle and the home 
 of liberty. Take away the naval powers of the 
 world at this moment, and where would be the main 
 defense of the minor European States ? Two or three 
 
 114 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 military monarchies could, in a few years, parcel out 
 Europe and everything else on this side of the At- 
 lantic among them ; and after they had done so, would 
 probably desolate the earth by fighting for a redi- 
 vision. 
 
 This extended quotation remains the logic 
 and the solace of the British statesmen, even in 
 tl^se days of submarines, 
 yr England's powerful navy and her intrepid 
 ' troops have been repeatedly used for maintain- 
 ing that costly and highly artificial and pe- 
 culiarly imstable equilibritmi called the balance 
 of power. The extravagant Burke said: 
 "The Balance of Power has been assumed as 
 the common law of Europe at alt times and by 
 all Powers. In all those systems of Balance, 
 England was the Power to whose custody it 
 was thought it might be most safely com- 
 mitted." It has been the policy of Enghsh di- 
 plomacy adroitly to balance Spain and France, 
 Russia and Prussia, Italy, Turkey, and Aus- 
 tria, against one another, while holding in 
 her own forceps the deciding penny weight. 
 
 115 
 
/ 
 
 THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 And when a master bully appeared, a Philip, 
 a Louis, a Napoleon, and now, as she says, a 
 William, she took part "in uniting the insulted 
 and endangered nations against the offender." 
 
 About 1827, when the competition of for- 
 eign trade began to be sorely felt, and a slump 
 in British imperialism set in, the foreign policy 
 became "one of absolute non-interference." 
 England became a sort of isolated umpire, by 
 no means abrogating her perpetual interest in 
 the balance of power, now called "the concert of 
 powers," but not forming ententes and al- 
 liances. The last three generations of Britons 
 were brought up to be proud of their aloofness. 
 It suited the hour. 
 
 But in the interval a new power appeared 
 , — a power that very quickly not only became 
 potent in Continental affairs, but spread her 
 influence over every sea. When that master 
 of diplomacy, Edward VII, was crowned, his 
 German cousin was his real rival. It was Ed- 
 ward who broke the new tradition of isolation, 
 and sought an understanding with Russia and 
 
 116 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 a working agreement with France. This 
 suave king, who knew so shrewdly how to gov- 
 ern his democracy, wrought deeper than he 
 probably thought. The Triple Entente was 
 to balance the Triple Alliance, but not to over- 
 balance it. See what has happened! 
 
 In the light of that Edwardian foreign 
 policy, the causes of this war are not to be 
 
 ^^ught in western, but in eastern, Europe. 
 
 '"^The day when the Russo-British alliance was 
 consummated, that day this war became not 
 merely possible, but probable. If this was not 
 discerned at the time. Sir Edward Grey's ex- 
 perience with Persia must surely have opened 
 his eyes when five years ago the Muscovite re- 
 vealed his ambition to reach the Persian 
 Gulf, and was permitted to despoil that an- 
 cient and romantic land. 
 
 The oft-quoted will of Peter the Great 
 contains the following advice to his country- 
 men: 
 
 We must principally seek the alliance of England 
 for commerce, because it is the power most in want 
 
 117 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 of us for its navy, and which can be the most useful 
 in the development of ours. We must exchange wood 
 and other productions for her gold, and keep up con- 
 tinual relations among her traders and seamen and 
 ours. 
 
 We must advance as much as possible toward Con- 
 stantinople and India. Whoever shall reign there 
 will be the true master of the world. Therefore, we 
 must fan continental wars, sometimes with Turkey, 
 sometimes with Persia; create dockyards and em- 
 poriums on the Black Sea; take possession, little by 
 little, of that sea, as well as of the Baltic, which is a 
 point doubly necessary for the success of the plan; 
 we must hasten the downfall of Persia ; advance into 
 the Persian Gulf, reestablish as far as can be done the 
 ancient commerce of the East through Syria, and 
 enter into the two Indies, which are the store of the 
 world. When once there, we can do without the gold 
 of England. 
 
 How ominous these words resound, in the 
 light of the present conflict and the newest ag- 
 grandizement of the Muscovite. At one time 
 an alliance between Germany and England 
 would have appeared natural. Would a sensi- 
 ble, constructive understanding between these 
 
 118 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 countries have been possible? Was one at- 
 tempted since Disraeli's day? We do not 
 know. Amidst the agitated nations rises the 
 calm face of Sir Edward Grey, the imper- 
 turbable sphinx of this unnecessary catastro- 
 nhe. 
 
 / In international relations we are still in the 
 barbarous age of brute force. The age of 
 submarines has not advanced, in this respect, 
 upon the days of galleys. Rarely has con- 
 structive diplomacy reached the heights which 
 were attained by John Hay in his Chinese 
 policy. 
 "^ England has been no exception to this rule, 
 and is not now an exception to it; the high- 
 sounding moraUties of her parhamentary 
 speakers notwithstanding. The motive of 
 self-preservation, united with the promptings 
 of imperial and commercial growth, have al- 
 ways characterized her foreign policy. 
 
 As for constructive, statesmanlike diplo- 
 macy, where shall we find it in Europe? The 
 sacredness of the status quo is the fetish to 
 
 119 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 which the successful nation bows ; the weak are 
 sacrificed to it. Belgium, Holland, and Den- 
 mark are permitted because the pushing Ger- 
 mans are thus kept from the channel and the 
 sea; Switzerland and Turkey are preserved, 
 because their territory would be prey to Rus- 
 sia and Prussia, Italy and Austria. Poland, 
 Bohemia, the Balkans, Finland — ^these are the 
 living indexes to the selfishness of European 
 internationalism. 
 
 The map of Europe is to-day a fine example 
 of that imperial altruistic game, might makes 
 right. 
 
 An understanding with Germany as to an 
 outlet for her rapidly growing population 
 might, remotely, have been possible ; but in the 
 present state of internationalism such a notion 
 is chimerical, and its advocates are laughed and 
 hooted out of Parhament. "England has 
 grabbed all there is, and now she says, 'Let 
 us all quit grabbing,' " a retired German of- 
 ficer said. England's reply is that she simply 
 took advantage of her opportunity, and that, 
 
 120 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 on the whole, she has not abused her privileges ; 
 that, as a rule, individual freedom and initia- 
 tive have followed in the wake of her cruisers, 
 and that her diplomacy has been prompted by 
 the strict law of self-preservation. 
 
 VII 
 
 So, out of her diplomatic imbroglios has 
 come the supreme test of the empire. It is 
 the first time since the Napoleonic wars that 
 Britain engages in a general European con- 
 flict; it is the first time since keen competition 
 arose that her trade and her navy are simul- 
 taneously tested. Neither the Napoleonic 
 wars, nor the sporadic uprisings in India, 
 Egypt, South Africa, nor the Crimean cam- 
 paign tested the whole fabric of the empire. 
 To-day not a fiber of this mighty and majes- 
 tic structure can escape the strain. 
 
 It tests first of all the stamina of the British 
 Islander. Has he deteriorated into a self- 
 complacent being, indifferent to his fate? 
 Will he volunteer or must conscription force 
 
 121 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 him to fight? Is his pluck sapped by a cen- 
 tury of successful bargaining? Or is the fear 
 that is traditional, the ghost that for a thou- 
 sand years has stalked the chalk chff s of Dover, 
 looking for Armadas, cruisers, submarines, 
 i^nd Zeppehns, to drive him into a panic? 
 This fear is not lessened by the knowledge that 
 the usual food-supply on hand is enough for 
 only four weeks. 
 
 England has had a great deal of nerv- 
 ousness over her vast territories. When the 
 Canadians rejected the reciprocity treaties a 
 few years ago, a great sigh of relief went up, 
 and many well-informed Londoners asked me, 
 "What are the States going to do now?" 
 
 The war will, secondly, test the financial re- 
 sources of the empire. Hitherto these have 
 been more than ample. Lombard Street still 
 is the world's money-center. But now there 
 are other lands, also, leaning on these re- 
 sources. If the war lasts two or three years, 
 as now seems probable, Russia will need help ; 
 so will Italy, who will, in that event, join in the 
 
 122 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 conflict. And no one knows when the turmoil 
 will stop. Never has the old kingdom faced 
 so long, so widely extended, so fiercely fought 
 a contest. 
 
 And, finally, this war will test the loyalty 
 of the colonies. It seems anomalous to ask 
 India to be "loyal." Loyal to what? To a 
 foreign crown, an exotic social order, a strange 
 legal system, a pound-shilhng-pence policy? 
 Yet we are assured India is loyal, and that 
 Hindu troops are fighting in the European 
 trenches. What of Egypt, and the Boers, and 
 a score of other races that have no aptitude 
 with Shakspere's tongue and do not look for- 
 ward to a year "back home"? 
 
 And to Canada and Australasia and South 
 Africa this war brings the real test of loyalty. 
 Will they go down into their pockets — deep 
 down — to pay for warships, and will they con- 
 tinue to send levies of their finest manhood? 
 
 Long before this war is over, the slow- 
 thinking London shopkeeper will be brought 
 to reahze that the days of his island's sole im- 
 
 123 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 perium are over forever. A new empire must 
 emerge from the old; or, rather, a federation 
 of empires, binding under a working constitu- 
 tion the potencies of Canada, Australia, New 
 Zealand, South Africa, and the kingdom, into 
 the most impressive and invincible confedera- 
 tion the world has ever known; foreshadow- 
 ing, perhaps, that other federation, of which 
 the noble laureate sang, when all nationalities 
 will be willing in candor to grant one another 
 respect and freedom. 
 
 Meanwhile the decennial colonial confer- 
 ences have laid the foundations for a colonial 
 building in Ijondon. This is the nucleus 
 around which the new federation will probably 
 form in a workable, clumsy sort of way. The 
 German would make a highly perfect, sym- 
 metrical plan, and break every neck in making 
 every colony live up to it. That 's not the 
 British way. The Briton makes no plan, is 
 greatly surprised if you ask him what he is 
 going to do next ; relies on his nerve, his ability, 
 his energy, and his God — least of all on his 
 
 124 
 
IMPERIAL OPPORTUNIST 
 
 God. And he will calmly tell you, come of 
 this war what may, that his opportunism is 
 merely self-preservation, well lubricated and 
 in working order. 
 
 lis 
 
IV 
 
 BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 Mon pays tout entier vit et pense en mon corps, 
 II absorbe ma force en sa force profonde 
 Pour que je sente mieux, a travers lui, le monde 
 Et celebre la terre avec un chant plus fort. 
 
 Vebhaeeen. 
 
 I 
 
 WHEN" Julius Csesar wrote, after his 
 hard experiences with the Nervii and 
 other GaUic tribes: "Fortissinoi sunt Bel- 
 gae," he gave at once a name and a character 
 to these peoples who have from that remote 
 day to this struggled against great odds to 
 maintain a national identity and local liberty. 
 For fate, that has endowed the Belgians 
 with such temperament and patience, with such 
 fervor and enterprise that in periods of tran- 
 quiUity they have recovered amazingly from 
 the desolations of war, has, alas, placed them 
 
 126 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 at the confluence of three irresistible and an- 
 tagonistic ethnic currents, which century after 
 century have swept over their lowlands in the 
 struggle for the mastery of Europe. From 
 the south, the French have always claimed, and 
 still claim, a paramount share in the genius and 
 the product of the Belgians. From the east, 
 the Germans have restlessly demanded influ- 
 ence. From the west, from her island vantage 
 ground, England has time after time acted as 
 champion for the small State, whose posses- 
 sion of the North Sea coast was a surety 
 to Britain's safety. 
 
 Teuton, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon have 
 dominated the world since the Christian era, 
 and their domination has been achieved, in a 
 large measure, at the sacrifice of the Low Covm- 
 tries. 
 
 During the early medieval period the vast 
 domains of the Merovingians and the Carlovin- 
 gians, embracing virtually all of Europe, ex- 
 cepting the Russias, broke into two natural 
 fragments, the eastern and the western king- 
 
 127 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 doms — ^the Neustria and Austria of historians 
 — the one Teutonic, the other Gallic ; one domi- 
 nated by Prussia and Austria, to be later ruled 
 by the Hapsburgs and HohenzoUerns, and the 
 other dominated by Spain and France, to be 
 ruled by the Philips and the Louis. 
 
 But between these two great hemispheres of 
 governmental and cultural ambitions, remained 
 a number of smaller States, or middle coun- 
 tries, whose allegiance alternated between their 
 great and overpowering neighbors. 
 
 Of these between-provinces, Flanders and 
 Brabant, Liege and Hainault, were the most 
 harassed. They form the greater part of mod- 
 ern Belgium. Other border or buffer States 
 had national defenses. Switzerland, its moun- 
 tain citadels, and Holland could call in its irre- 
 sistible ally, the sea. 
 
 But Belgium was unprotected. So the 
 period of the rise and break-up of feudalism 
 witnessed for this distracted country nothing 
 but a procession of battles, invasions, and 
 sieges. The peaceful intervals were few and 
 
 128 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 brief. But brief as they were, they sufficed 
 to show the wonderful recuperative power of 
 the people. 
 
 Finally, in the fifteenth century the House 
 of Burgundy assumed control over the Bel- 
 gians, a period of repose and prosperity set in, 
 and Flanders became the richest country in 
 Europe. In the sixteenth century Belgium 
 fell under the terrible rule of the Spain of 
 Philip and Alva, and for over one hundred 
 years the inquisition and all its instruments 
 of tyranny and bigotry wrought desolation 
 among the brave inhabitants. Alva's "Coun- 
 cil of Troubles" put to death in cold blood 20,- 
 000 inoffensive persons in Brussels alone. 
 "Industry," says a contemporary record, 
 "which had in the old days made other States 
 tributary to this, had departed to England and 
 Holland by the flight of artizans who had sup- 
 ported it. The villages lay in ruins, the fields 
 in desolation. Famine stalked through the 
 land." From this ruin some of the Belgian 
 towns never recovered. 
 
 12& 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Austria succeeded Spain as sovereign over 
 Belgium, and for sixty-five years peace 
 reigned, until the death of Maria Theresa. 
 Joseph, her successor to the Belgian domains, 
 well meaning but brusque and undiplomatic, 
 failed to secure popular support. The nobles 
 and clergy were willing to acquiesce to his arbi- 
 trary demands. But the artizans and mer- 
 chants, in true Belgic spirit, refused any en- 
 croachments upon the traditional rights of 
 their cities, and the country was again in 
 turmoil, which was not allayed until the 
 present Belgium emerged from international 
 chaos. 
 
 The victory of the French at Fleurus ended 
 the Austrian domination and put the French 
 into power. It was the France of the Revolu- 
 tion, and under the guise of democracy she 
 inflicted woes upon Belgian towns that recalled 
 the tyranny of Alva. Thiers, the French his- 
 torian, is witness of the cruelty of his country- 
 men. He decries especially "the violent acts 
 of the Prefets carrying off the children of the 
 
 130 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATigNAL WAIF 
 
 people for the conscription, those of the upper 
 classes of the so-called schools of honor, tor- 
 turing the f amihes of those who did not answer 
 the appeal by quartering troops on them, em- 
 ploying movable colimins against the refrac- 
 tory, taking provisions, horses, cattle, under 
 the name of requisitions. Added to these ex- 
 actions were those of the secret police, col- 
 lecting and magnifying the smallest gossip 
 and arbitrarily imprisoning on the least sus- 
 picion." 
 
 Th is brings us into the modem era . Where 
 were England and Austria and Prussia in this 
 hour of Belgiimi's need?-^ Pitt, seeking to 
 himable France, looked beyond the helpless 
 Low Country; Austria was deUberately with- 
 drawing from the Netherlands; Prussia was 
 waiting. Belgiimi was abandoned by Europe. 
 Yet when the Corsican succeeded to the Con- 
 vention and raided the Continent, it was on 
 Belgian soil and with the aid of brave Belgian 
 troops that Waterloo was won. 
 
 The Protocol of London (1814) settled the 
 isi 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 next brief Belgian rigime. The Netherlands, 
 after three hundred years of separation, were 
 again to be united — Holland and Belgium un- 
 der the House of Orange — a fate decided with- 
 out the assent of Belgium, at the request 
 of Wellington who had strong affinities for 
 the Dutch king and in accordance with the 
 dictum of Stein, the Prussian minister, wrote : 
 "My objection to little sovereign princes is 
 known by everybody, but I make an exception 
 in favor of the House of Orange." 
 
 The Belgians earnestly desired peace, and 
 gave William a respectful welcome when he 
 was crowned in Brussels, amidst a splendor 
 that recalled somewhat the "joyous entries" 
 of the Middle Ages. Had the Dutch pos- 
 sessed tact as well as good intentions, the ef- 
 fort might have succeeded. But they were 
 overbearing. The King appointed only one 
 Belgian to his council and distributed the prin- 
 cipal offices in the army and civil hsts to Dutch- 
 men. Within a year the Prince of Orange 
 wrote to Wellington: "The spirit of the Bel- 
 las 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 gians is becoming daily worse and more dis- 
 satisfied on account of the entire influence of 
 the Dutch, who have all the business in hand 
 and consider Belgium daily more as an an- 
 nexed province which is to be submissive to 
 the mother country." 
 
 This treatment, sooner than any other, would 
 hasten the ahenation of the Belgians. For 
 their spirit has ijever been conquered since 
 Caesar's day. Moreover, they were larger in 
 territory and population than Holland, and 
 claimed, not without just cause, complete local 
 autonomy and at least an equal share in the 
 joint government. 
 
 But beyond the hauteur of the Dutch lay an- 
 other cause that made their reunion difiicult. 
 The Spaniard had left Belgium desolated, but 
 he had left it united in faith. H olland had 
 remained Protestant ; Belgium had become 
 Catholic. The two failed to coalesce. In 
 1830 Belgium revolted. In 1831 the five 
 great powers, England, Austria, Prussia, 
 France, and Russia, decreed that "Belgium 
 
 133 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 . . . shall form an independent and per- 
 petually neutral state. It shall be bound to 
 observe such neutrality toward all other 
 States." 
 
 It was not until 1839 that Holland finally 
 agreed to this treaty and Belgium, as we know 
 it, began at last, after centuries of vicissitudes, 
 an independent existence, governed by a king 
 of her own choice, and by a constitution of her 
 own making. 
 
 But her independence was only on suffer- 
 ance. 
 
 Thus this waif among nations has passed 
 successively under the sovereignty of Rome 
 and of Charlemagne, of the Holy Roman Em- 
 pire and of imperial France, of Burgundy and 
 of Spain, of Austria and of Revolutionary 
 France, of Holland and of international ward- 
 ship. 
 
 And during all these centuries her years have 
 been years of warfare not of her oAvn seeking; 
 of invasions and destruction for which she gave 
 no cause. 
 
 134 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 11 
 
 But while Belgium thus by decree of Fate 
 had been denied a nationalism, she developed 
 a civic patriotism, rivaled only by that of the 
 city repubUcs of Italy. 
 
 WhUe these momentous shifts in imperial 
 fealty were taking place, these industrious Bel- 
 gians were paying as httle attention as possible 
 to the doings of the great lords, and busied 
 themselves building cities, digging canals 
 through the low marshes and dunes, construct- 
 ing docks at Antwerp, and developing their 
 skilled craftsmen whose products were world 
 famed. Denied a national existence, these in- 
 genious and alert peoples early achieved many 
 communal liberties, such as the right to be gov- 
 erned by their own eschevin or sheriff and col- 
 lecting their own taxes. As they grew in opu- 
 lence, they bought or won concession after con- 
 cession from their feudal masters. 
 
 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there 
 were 208 walled towns, 150 boroughs or open 
 
 135 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 towns, and 6300 villages with a church tower 
 in Belgian provinces. Courtrai, Ypres, 
 Ghent, Bruges, and Antwerp were great cities. 
 Bruges alone recognized fifty-two crafts and 
 four great merchant guilds, the cloth jner- 
 chants, the linen merchants, the mercers, and 
 the brewers. Ghent registered 50,000 handi- 
 craftsmen, and when London had only 35,000 
 inhabitants, Ypres had its 100,000. By the 
 middle of the sixteenth century the Belgium 
 cities were at their highest prosperity. Brus- 
 sels now became a center of carpet weaving, 
 together with Arras and Tournai. Courtrai 
 was famed for its table Unen, Louvain for its 
 gloves. The Flemish craftsmen possessed 
 rare trade secrets of woolen and linen weaving 
 and dyeing, of leatKi^)working, lace making, 
 and iron mongering, and their unrivaled skill 
 brought enormous wealth to the cities. 
 
 Juste, the Belgian historian, records that 
 "the period of Antwerp's greatest splendor 
 was between the years 1550 and 1560, when it 
 contained the houses of not fewer than a thou- 
 
 136 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 sand foreign merchants. These houses were 
 divided among six nations, the Spaniards, the 
 Danes and the Hansa together, the Italians, 
 the Enghsh, the Portuguese, and the Germans. 
 In 1560 more business was done in one month 
 at Antwerp than in two years at Venice, al- 
 though that place was still one of the chief 
 seats of trade in the world. Every day nearly 
 500 vessels entered and left the great port 
 on the Scheldt, 2000 wagons entered the city 
 every week from France or Germany." 
 
 In these days of opulence the merchant was 
 royal in his tastes. He loved high living and 
 splendor. His delight in silks and satins, 
 jewels and ermine and sables, is revealed in the 
 portraiture of the Flemish artists, who detailed 
 with photographic faithfulness all the tokens 
 of splendor and wealth of the burgher and his 
 spouse. 
 
 When the House of Burgundy brought a 
 century of tranquilhty to these cities, halting 
 the eager encroachments of the French and the 
 pretensions of the Austrians, Flemish art, 
 
 1S7 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Flemish printing, Flemish architecture, flour- 
 ished with Flemish industry. Under the 
 fifty years of the Burgundian Philip's reign, 
 these towns were embelhshed by haUs, churches, 
 and market places, which remain to this day 
 as their chief ornament. The town halls of 
 Brussels and Louvain and Mons rose as golden 
 symbols of this age of glory. Caxton learned 
 his trade in Bruges, which out of jealousy of 
 his foreign birth, expelled him — but not his art. 
 
 These were the joyous years when each vil- 
 lage prided itself on its belfry and each town 
 on its market place, town hall, and guUd halls ; 
 when "joyous entries" marked the coming of 
 the lords; when elaborate fetes, resplendent 
 with color and baptized in rare wines, marked 
 the festal days; when the journeyman was hon- 
 ored and the master workman was king. 
 
 Now, the reader will observe that this 
 municipal prosperity could not lead to na- 
 tionalism. The merchant's enthusiasm was 
 for his commerce ; the craftsman's for his guild; 
 localism and individualism overcame such 
 
 138 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 gravitation towards nationalism as may have 
 existed. Commercialism cherished neutrality 
 (a universal trait of the trader) at a period 
 when aU nations fought periodically, and when 
 such a thing as the right to neutrality had not 
 been recognized in international procedure. 
 Such a fragmentary patriotism, if that term 
 is permissible, produces no great leaders, and 
 Belgiimi has been peculiarly wanting in pre- 
 dominating personalities. There have indeed 
 been many local leaders, some of great ability, 
 but they failed to achieve a national status, 
 partly through the particularism of the day, 
 partly because the ruling classes opposed every 
 leader who arose from among the people. 
 
 Moreover, in these towns bourgeoism 
 reigned. Thus they lacked the unity which 
 princes bring and royalty espouses. Their 
 principal buildings were not palaces and 
 castles, but town halls where burghers met, 
 guild halls where the guilds convened, and ex- 
 changes where merchants and bankers did their 
 business. This, again, accentuated their mu- 
 
 139 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 nicipal particularism. The nation lived in its 
 commerce. 
 
 Nor did Belgium possess a leadership of 
 cities, such as Paris assumed in France, Rome 
 in Italy, London in England, Vienna in Aus- 
 tria. These busy hives of industry in this Ut- 
 tle land scarcely larger than a Texas county 
 were very individualistic. They were not 
 jealous rivals, for each had developed its own 
 special trade or handicraft. Some worked in 
 woolens, some in leather, some in flax, some in 
 iron. Yet each was surrounded by a wall of 
 custom higher and more isolating than the 
 stone walls and turrets of the feudal times. 
 Each one of the towns had its own charter and 
 privileges, its own traditions, its own heroes 
 and saints, and, to-day the charm of Belgium is 
 its municipal history and its local color. 
 
 Even in modem years, when Brussels, the 
 largest of the sisterhood of cities, became the 
 residence of the national king, the seat of the 
 national parliament, and in gaiety, in art, fash- 
 ions, and learning a sort of replica of Paris, 
 
 140 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 these other cities have not yielded their indi- 
 viduahty, and walk aloof, quite independent as 
 in the days of the guUds. And this is frankly 
 recognized by the people. In Brussels I ask 
 for an example of this or that art or craft. I 
 am promptly told, "Oh, you must go to Ant- 
 werp to see that," or, "You should visit Ghent 
 if you are interested in that," or, "We have 
 here no such works as they have in Mons; we 
 are busy with other things." 
 
 Ill 
 
 Belgium has, however, achieved a national- 
 ism, in spite of all the discouragements of his- 
 tory. And in spite of a far greater obstacle, 
 namely for ethnic dualism. For the popula- 
 tion consists about equally of Flemings and 
 Walloons. In 1900 there were 2,574,000 who 
 spoke French only, 2,822,000 who spoke Flem- 
 ish only, while 801,000 spoke both languages; 
 28,000 spoke German only (mostly in the 
 province of Limbourg), and 43,000 spoke all 
 three languages. 
 
 141 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 When the present regime began French was 
 the official language, but very soon a Flemish 
 revival arose. And it was not long before the 
 Flemings, who could appeal to a resplendent 
 art and a brilliant literature, as well as to 
 formidable pohtical influence, were able to 
 make their country officially bi-lingual. So 
 you will see in Brussels and other cities, the 
 street names in two languages, and the pro- 
 ceeedings in court and parliaments are con- 
 ducted in both tongues. 
 
 This is a suggestive phenomenon in the de- 
 velopment of nationalism. We have been 
 taught that unity of language is one of the es- 
 sential elements of the spirit of one-ness in a 
 people. Britain has absorbed her racial units 
 into one ethnic unity. So are we absorbing. 
 But Belgium remains a melange of two distinct 
 races, two languages, two idealizations. 
 There is neither geographic, ethnic, intel- 
 lectual, commercial, nor religious reason for the 
 existence of this high and appealing national- 
 ism. Geographically, Belgium, with the ex- 
 
 142 
 
BELGIUM: mTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 ception of the Ardennes is a part of the Low 
 Co\intries, comprising Holland and parts of 
 Denmark as weU; ethnically the two races are 
 almost antithetic ; intellectually the south is by 
 ambition a suburb of Paris, the north by in- 
 stinct a part of Holland; commercially her 
 cities are imique only in their intensiveness and 
 they derive their prosperity from the frugality 
 and skill of their inhabitants, rather than from 
 any nationahstic pohcy ; and while the state re- 
 Ugion predominates in cathedral and parlia- 
 ment house, nearly one third of the population 
 are socialistic and incline toward free thinking. 
 This achievement of a genuine cosmopolitan- 
 ism, which is the antithesis of provincialism, 
 has been at least partly due to historical causes. 
 Throughout her history the administration of 
 Belgium has never coincided with the two racial 
 divisions. The feudal lords held both in vas- 
 salage; the Count of Flanders, for instance, 
 while a vassal of both the King of France and 
 Emperor of Germany, governed both French 
 and German Flanders. Neither church nor 
 
 143 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 state seemed to care that here were two distinct 
 peoples. They were compelled to tolerate 
 each other's ideas and to tolerate each other. 
 This has made the Belgian much more recep- 
 tive in spirit and international in his outlook 
 than any other European. And yet the 
 anomaly persists, the two races remain dis- 
 tinct. 
 
 Let us look more closely at these two strains. 
 There has been a long and unfruitful discus- 
 sion among scholars whether the Fleming and 
 Walloon were originally both of Celtic origin 
 or whether the one was of purely Celtic, the 
 other of Teutonic stock. However that may 
 be, we know that since the third century the 
 two strains have been differentiated by two 
 very different influences, the Germanic and 
 the Latin. The Dutch acquired the Germanic 
 trait of patience ; the French the Celt's restless 
 energy. 
 
 The ferocious temperament that Caesar de- 
 scribed was Gallic, and this prehistoric trait 
 has never been quite subdued. The Walloon 
 
 144 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 occupies the higher provinces of Brabant, Hai- 
 nault, Namur, Luxembourg, and Liege. He 
 has forests and hills to break the monotony of 
 his horizon. He is essentially French. He 
 cherishes the privilege of unfettered expression 
 and fondles words for their deUcate shades of 
 meaning. His passion is for fellowship and 
 he loves the city. 
 
 On the other hand, the Fleming, large and 
 heavy, built Hke his draft horses, Uves on the 
 flats that are so infertile except by enormous 
 toil, so gray and vistaless, all horizon, no per- 
 spective. A son of the soil, who, while he has 
 his Ghent, Tremonde, Dixmude, and Nieu- 
 port, prefers rather the dim monotony of the 
 fields and invests his towns with a peculiar 
 rural dullness. He prefers silence to speech, 
 his language is monosyllabic, blunt and direct, 
 and his debates in ParUament and town hall 
 are a series of body blows. 
 
 The Fleming hides his emotions behind stolid 
 silence ; the Walloon garnishes his most obscure 
 ideas with an amazing volubihty. The Flem- 
 
 145 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 ing is pious, the Walloon incredulous. The 
 Fleming is silent at his work, while the Wal- 
 loon sings. Their art portrays their differ- 
 ences. The Flemish painter sees but does not 
 imagine. He portrays with medieval exact- 
 ness a simple interior, a cockfight, the portrait 
 of a dame, a brace of fowl, a bull. And this 
 single subject he invests with colors that ap- 
 peal, but do not glow. The Walloon, how- 
 ever, is voluptuous in his art. Details mean 
 nothing to him, fantasy everything. 
 
 They possess, however, some traits in com- 
 mon. Both are highly appreciative, both are 
 endowed with unusual adaptabihty, absorbing 
 from German and Enghsh and French a com- 
 bination of tastes, skill, and perseverance that 
 is remarkable ; finally, both are intensely prac- 
 tical and are not likely to let any vagary or 
 prejudice to stand in their way. "Heavy and 
 hard Flemish heads," is an old saying; they are 
 in partnership with mellow and fervid Wal- 
 loon hearts. 
 
 But do not imagine that this country with 
 
 146 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 these dominant differences of race is a hybrid. 
 Against a baekgromid of German aggression, 
 Austrian domination, French conquests, Span- 
 ish terror, and Dutch obstinacy hes this httle 
 land, a mere handful of clay and sand, peo- 
 pled by fragments of Teutonic and Latin 
 races, stubbornly resisting emperors and do- 
 minions, and insisting upon a robust national 
 freedom. 
 
 It has at least a pohtical homogeneity of 
 which you become convinced as you sojourn 
 among the fascinating ancient towns and mod- 
 ern fields and factories. They rather pride 
 themselves on their dualism. One of the lead- 
 ing hterateurs calls the use of two languages 
 "an honor," "a double expression of national- 
 ism." This is no figurative boast. It ex- 
 presses the real sentiment of the people. 
 Whatever the tilts between the two elements — 
 and they are not without their debates and 
 family clashes — after all they dwell together in 
 freedom. To them freedom does not mean a 
 forced homogeneity of speech or of race; but 
 
 147 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 the right of each citizen to use what language 
 he pleases, pursue what calling he may, wor- 
 ship as his ancestors taught or his reason di- 
 rects, and to assist in making such rules for 
 common conduct as the communal needs of the 
 hour demand. Freedom to such a man is more 
 than uniformity or homogeneity; it is a per- 
 sonal reality. It does not mean a national 
 culture, which usually signifies an esthetic form 
 of tyranny. 
 
 The Belgian has thus solved one of the most 
 important problems of individual freedom. 
 He is not perplexed by that bugaboo of uni- 
 ' formity, which still impels us to hastily 
 "Americanize" every sprig of every cultxu'e 
 that seeks root in our soil. 
 
 Belgian dualism has produced an equilib- 
 rium, ethnic and industrial, between city and 
 country, between Walloon and Fleming. 
 
 But it is not alone the compulsion of history 
 that has produced this balance. The natures 
 of the two races complement one another; the 
 natural resources, the configuration of the 
 
 148 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 land, the hard necessities of toil, and above all 
 the practical sense of the people have made pos- 
 sible this nationaUstic anomaly. 
 
 A priori one would think this equilibrimn 
 impossible. A fragment of France and a 
 fragment of Germany vmited in a tiny coun- 
 try, what bizarre and curious consequences 
 would result! Yet here is domestic content- 
 ment and prosperity. 
 
 IV 
 
 And what is even more surprising, this 
 strange blending of localism and nationalism, 
 and this prosperous copartnership of two dis- 
 tinct racial strains, have taken place in a 
 diminutive coimtry, one of the smallest autono- 
 mous nations in the world. 
 
 Belgium is a living microcosm. In area it 
 comprises 11,373 square miles, 7,275,000 acres, 
 sustaining a population of seven and one-half 
 million, one person per acre, the population of 
 Pennsylvania, sustained in New Hampshire 
 and Rhode Island. 
 
 149 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 In a few hours you can traverse it. Travel- 
 ing inward from the coast you cross first the 
 sea-border, called the Polders, so nearly on the 
 sea level that dykes, sustained at great cost 
 and exertion, are necessary to prevent flooding. 
 The soil is so heavy that only the strongest 
 teams can pull a plow through it. Then you 
 come to the sandy regions. These are the 
 famous "fertile plains of Flanders." But 
 they are fertile only because of the severest 
 toil. Rowntree says, "There is scarcely any 
 soil in Europe so infertile by nature, and if 
 abandoned for only two or three years it re- 
 turns to barren waste. Constant care and 
 enormous quantities of manure are required if 
 good crops are to be obtained. A proprietor 
 whose farm has been neglected by a bad tenant 
 is glad to let it to a capable farmer rent-free 
 for some years, that it may be brought into 
 good heart again." So intensive is the cultiva- 
 tion of this tract that over one third of its area 
 yields two crops a year. Thus alone could so 
 dense a population thrive. The northernmost 
 
 150 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 portion of this plain is dotted with marshes and 
 bogs, and is called the Campine. It is the 
 most infertile and poverty-stricken portion of 
 Belgium. To the southwest lies a rich loamy 
 region, which gently ascends into the beauti- 
 ful Ardennes. 
 
 Of the total area only 4,740,000 acres are 
 cultivated. Scarcely one fifth of the tiUed 
 land can be said to be very fertile, another fifth 
 is quite infertile, while the remainder is pro- 
 ductive only by dint of the hardest kind of toil. 
 Yet so carefully are these niggardly acres 
 plowed and fertilized that their only rivals for 
 productivity in the world are the famous 
 market gardens of Paris. 
 
 As you cross these low plains and their bor- 
 der of undulating hiUs you pass through a con- 
 tinuous succession of manufacturing towns and 
 cities, as if Belgium were a Pittsburgh with a 
 hundred teeming suburbs. The industrial 
 revolution foimd Belgium ready with crafts- 
 men possessed of remarkable adaptability. It 
 was in Belgimn that the first locomotive and 
 
 151 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 the first power machinery on the Continent 
 were built. To-day her factories rival those 
 of England and the Rhineland. Every im- 
 portant industry is represented. Belgium is 
 sixth in value of exports, eighth in riches, and 
 almost the least in size of the commercial coun- 
 tries of the earth. 
 
 The prosperity of the fifteenth centvuy has 
 returned to her cities. Antwerp has forty 
 mUes of quays. Mons, Namur, and Liege 
 possess vast metal industries; Jumet, St. Lam- 
 bert, and Charleroi are famous for their glass- 
 ware ; while of the ancient textile arts, Verriers, 
 Ghent, Alost, Brussels, Maline, Courtrai, and 
 scores of lesser towns are still the masters. 
 
 This intensive industrialization is made pos- 
 sible by a careful territorial differentiation of 
 industry, rather than by a rigid social organiza- 
 tion such as Germany possesses. In Belgium 
 I perceive more personal autonomy than in 
 Germany, but also a stricter classification of 
 industry. ISTot only are the metal, glass, 
 chemical, and textile works grouped in sepa- 
 
 152 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 rate cities peculiarly adapted to their manu- 
 facture, but each general industry is subdivided 
 into numerous groups and different towns de- 
 voted to specialized production. 
 
 And to further aid in this industrial miracle, 
 Belgimn possesses the most complete transpor- 
 tation system in the world. Early she built 
 canals, of which she now has 604 miles, to sup- 
 plement the 745 miles of navigable streams. 
 She has 2859 miles of railways or 30.29 miles 
 to every 100 square miles of territory. Com- 
 pare this with England's 22.38 miles, Ger- 
 many's 15.72 miles and France's 11.72. To 
 this must be added a remarkable network of 
 "light railways" — small local lines correspond- 
 ing roughly to our trolley systems, but run by 
 steam. Of these she has some 3000 miles, nine 
 times as many per area as Germany, fourteen 
 times as many as France; These connect 
 farming hamlets with factory towns and make 
 an almost perfect system of interchange. 
 
 Here you have then the densest agricultural 
 and industrial population in the world. You 
 
 153 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 have also the poorest paid and the most illiter- 
 a te body of workmen of the progressive Euro - 
 pean countri es. Wages are depressingly low. 
 In 1896, when the first governmental labor in- 
 quiry was made, the following startling facts 
 were revealed: 
 
 170,000 persons received less than 2 francs (40 
 cents) a day of 13-1 4 hours. 
 
 172,000 persons received from 2-& francs (40-60 
 cents) a day of 12—14 hours. 
 
 169,000 persons received from 3—4 francs (60-80 
 cents) a day of 12^-14 hours. 
 
 102,000 persons received more than 4 francs (80 
 cents) a day of 12-14 hours. 
 
 Since then wages have risen considerably, in 
 some instances doubled; the cost of hving has 
 also risen. Yet wages are stiU only from one 
 half to three fourths as much as in England. 
 Especially in Flanders, the wages remain very 
 low. In this region, so devoted to agriculture, 
 home industries still thrive. The peasant pos- 
 sesses a few acres of land and the whole family 
 must join in the bread winning. Here you 
 
 154 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 still find women working fourteen hours a day 
 at lace making or some other medieval craft- 
 survival for 75 cents to $1.00 a week, besides 
 attending to their household duties. The men, 
 working at home-trades, such as shoe-making, 
 can earn about 4 francs (80 cents) a day. 
 Many of these Flemish towns are not savory, 
 for they possess all the elements of slum life, 
 even overcrowding. Living, naturally, must 
 be cheap under such conditions. The garden, 
 the pig, the chickens, as well as the children, 
 of whom there are very many, contribute to the 
 family support. 
 
 In the Walloon districts conditions are some- 
 what better. 
 
 About one fourth of the Belgian workmen 
 are imable to read and write, the per cent, of 
 illiteracy being highest among the Flemings. 
 Condemned to bread-earning from tender 
 youth and dedicated to a life of continual toil, 
 they have, until recently, lacked the initiative 
 and organization to overcome the inertia aris- 
 ing from such conditions. 
 
 155 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 But the picture is gloomier than the actu- 
 ality. Belgium, on the whole, was not an un- 
 happy country before this war ravaged its vil- 
 lages and fields. The Belgian workman con- 
 trives somehow to get a great deal of enjoy- 
 ment out of life. The spirit of the medieval 
 pageantry has not been entirely killed by our 
 monotonous and colorless machine industry. 
 There are sports and holidays ; pigeon flying is 
 almost the national pastime. At Liege, for in- 
 stance, hundreds of miners keep carrier pigeons 
 in their attics and every week-end there are 
 races. And if the pigeons' return is delayed 
 by bad weather, the miners take Monday off to 
 see the outcome of the race. 
 
 In Brussels and other cities I was told that 
 many workingmen's families save up, penny 
 by penny, a fund every year for a holiday. 
 This is usually an excursion of a few days to 
 some near-by place of interest. I recall 
 vividly the eagerness with which a girl of six- 
 teen, who had a position in a printing estab- 
 lishment, described to me the contemplated 
 
 156 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 family excursion. "It was hard to put by the 
 centimes every pay day, but I am so happy 
 now that I did it." 
 
 This is a fine spirit. It is this spirit that has 
 led to the organization of the most compact 
 labor party in Europe. Under the auspices of 
 this party are conducted numerous highly suc- 
 cessful cooperative enterprises. In every city, 
 for instance, the workmen have cooperative 
 dairies, butcher shops, bakeries, and dry goods 
 stores. Nowhere else in Europe did I find 
 such successful cooperation. The hard sense 
 of the Belgian has led him to discard the usual 
 sociahstic vagaries and cling to facts. So 
 there are People's Clubhouses, like Vooruit 
 in Ghent and the Maison du Peuple in 
 Brussels. The latter cost 1,000,000 francs, 
 paid for by these underpaid workingmen. 
 Through agitation organization and even the 
 general strike, they have succeeded in demo- 
 cratizing the constitution; and have now at- 
 tacked the problem of universal education. 
 
 The organization of these workingmen, 
 
 157 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 however, has achieved by far its greatest re- 
 sults in arousing simultaneously a self-satisfied 
 church and a lethargic government to the 
 acute needs of the working people, who are, 
 and always have been, Belgium. 
 
 V 
 
 This, then, in hasty sketch, is the country 
 whose desolation has shocked the world. And 
 the thinking people are asking why it is that a 
 nation so industrious, with such unassuming 
 and unaggressive demeanor, desiring nothing 
 so much as to be let alone, should be again sub- 
 jected to the cruelties of invasion and warfare. 
 
 Belgium is a small State still in the pathway 
 of the great ; incapable, alone, of defending her 
 neutrality. She is a waif, dependent on the 
 good faith of other countries. God pity the 
 land sustained upon such conscienceless mer- 
 cies! 
 
 Belgium was poised on the honor of the five 
 guaranteeing powers. Had she possessed con- 
 fidence in their integrity, she would not have 
 
 158 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 fortified Namur, Antwerp, or Liege, nor kept 
 a standing army. These modern forts spell 
 suspicion. And it is senseless for any nation 
 now to express surprise over the German in- 
 vasion. Belgium and the other powers ex- 
 pected it. The German military plans as- 
 sumed it; the French prepared for it; the 
 British foresaw it. In 1912 a British states- 
 man wrote in "The Westminster Review"; 
 "We are solemnly pledged to defend by force 
 of arms, if necessary, the integrity of Belgium. 
 A great mihtary power has built up on the 
 frontier of this peaceable and neutral little 
 kingdom an enormous permanent military es- 
 tablishment, and has been gradually building a 
 network of roads and railways that serve, and 
 can serve, no other purpose, than to facilitate 
 a swift invasion of Belgium. Does this not 
 concern us?" 
 
 Nearly ten years ago another publicist wrote 
 in "The Fortnightly Review" : "The tempta- 
 tion to Germany to establish her hegemony on 
 the shores of the North Sea can even now 
 
 159 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 scarcely be restrained. ... As practical men 
 we have to consider a little calmly as to the 
 ways and means available for the fulfilment of 
 our pledges, and as to how we are to safeguard 
 our own vital interests in the Netherlands." 
 
 Such sentiments filled the English press 
 in recent years. Lord Roberts frequently 
 pointed to the same conditions and pressed his 
 warnings upon his countrymen. The Bel- 
 gians themselves dwelt in perpetual fear. In 
 1887 King Leopold said at Bruges, "There 
 are constantly dangers on the horizon. We 
 are small; then let us be vigilant. Wars have 
 become overwhelming; those who are taken by 
 them unawares are lost." Thus he expressed 
 the threat that hovers over the small nations, 
 and exposed the burlesque of guaranteed neu- 
 trality. 
 
 What this "guaranteed" neutrality is worth 
 is shown by the action of England in 1870, 
 when the British government made treaties 
 with France and Prussia obhging Britain to 
 join forces with the other against the State that 
 
 160 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 should violate Belgian neutrality. Why bol- 
 ster 1830 with 1870? Was the original prom- 
 ise void or voidable? 
 
 Perhaps this all simply means that Europe 
 expects history to repeat itself. England, at 
 least, has this generalization in the background 
 of her national demeanor. She recalls that, in 
 her historic struggles with France, Flanders 
 was the landing place of her troops and the 
 strategic base of her expeditions under Henry 
 the Sixth, William the Third, Marlborough, 
 and Wellington. So she cannot forget that 
 since the Battle of Hastings her precious island 
 security has, with the exception of the invasion 
 of Henry the Seventh, been threatened alone 
 from the harbors of the Netherlands. Nor 
 can she forget that the last of these attempted 
 invasions led her to crown William of Holland 
 in Westminster and form a royal imity with 
 the Upper Netherlands. 
 
 In the present crisis she may recall with 
 some satisfaction that the governments of 
 Elizabeth and WilUam the Third, of Anne and 
 
 161 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 George the Third, in turn intervened to save 
 the integrity of the Dutch and the Belgians 
 and keep inviolate the shore of the Strait of 
 Dover and the North Sea. As early as the 
 fourteenth century James Van Artevelde, the 
 Belgian patriot and statesman, said: "It is 
 necessary for us to be friends with England, 
 for without her we cannot Uve," and it was 
 King Edward the Third who first invited the 
 persecuted weavers of Flanders to England, 
 promising them "Good beef, good beer, good 
 beds, and companions better still, the English 
 girls being the most renowned in the world for 
 beauty." 
 
 Thus the self-protection of the great has 
 been the defense of the small; and the liberties 
 of the weak are pendent upon the selfishness of 
 the powerful. 
 
 The age of howitzers has made no progress 
 in this respect upon the age of halberds. 
 
 Last autumn the Belgian Commission to the 
 United States headed by M. Vandervelde, one 
 of the world's leading socialists, now minister 
 
 162 
 
BELGIUM: INTERNATIONAL WAIF 
 
 of state, visited Mt. Vernon to place a wreath 
 upon the tomb of Washington bearing the in- 
 scription, "A tribute from Independent Bel- 
 gium." At the moment this beautiful cere- 
 mony took place, Belgium was trembling un- 
 der the tread of foreign armies and her govern- 
 ment was a fugitive installed in a foreign city, 
 under the protection of a friendly power. By 
 this simple and touching act Belgium chal- 
 lenged the effete internationalism of the past 
 and appealed to America to hasten the in- 
 auguration of the juster internationalism of 
 to-morrow, and make a hving reahty the prin- 
 ciples of neutrality first espoused by George 
 Washington. 
 
 163 
 
V 
 
 RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 "It is impossible to reason about the Russians, one 
 can only believe in them." 
 
 A Feench Sayino. 
 
 I 
 
 WE are accustomed to look upon the 
 great war as primarily a struggle be- 
 tween England and Germany; and we there- 
 fore presimie that its greatest eflfects will be 
 felt by these contending giants. It is not im- 
 possible, however, that the war will create a 
 new and mighty force in international affairs. 
 Germany and England are old and tried na- 
 tions; they have made great contributions to 
 culture and statecraft, and no war can wipe out 
 their influence upon the destinies of civihza- 
 tion. But beyond them, to the eastward, 
 
 164 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 stretches the vast domain of the Czar, with its 
 170,000,000 souls, cloaked in illiteracy and 
 superstition; upon whom French and German 
 enterprise and learning have made barely an 
 impression; who are evidently awaiting a cul- 
 ture of their own, and whose geographical posi- 
 tion hnks them to the eager aggressiveness of 
 the West and the wise and patient somnolence 
 of the East. 
 
 If this war unites Russia's various elements, 
 awakens their pohtical and economic conscious- 
 ness, disrupts the lethargy of bhnd obedience, 
 and destroys the reactionary habit of autoc- 
 racy, then, indeed, are we on the threshold of a 
 new era. 
 
 It is difficult, if not impossible, for a stranger 
 to imderstand Russia. There are such strange 
 anomalies, such violent contrasts, and such un- 
 usual conventions. Moreover, we have heard 
 so much of its terrorism and so little of its 
 favorable traits that our prejudices are vio- 
 lently aroused against it. "This is not Rus- 
 sia" is a favorite exclamation of our popular 
 
 165 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 orators, and no one dares to question its 
 finality. 
 
 Russia is in a state of transition. Here are 
 now contending the two traditional enemies: 
 autocracy and democracy. In France the con- 
 test culminated in revolution ; in England in a 
 gradual and even gracious yielding to the 
 popular demands; in Germany in a pusillani- 
 mous surrender, after much socialistic bustle 
 and bravado, to the Junkerdom. In Russia, 
 revolution has more than once been imminent; 
 one might say it is an ever-present possibility. 
 That at least is the theory of the secret police 
 and their masters. Yet one sees on every hand 
 evidences of a shifting of the assumptions of 
 autocracy. Not merely a benevolent and con- 
 descending paternalism, such as every czar has 
 professed and most have practised, but a real 
 transition from an older to a newer order. 
 
 The process is slow. Autocracy has the ad- 
 vantage of being in power, of legality, of ortho- 
 doxy, and of a lack of political sympathy which 
 makes it immune to humane motives. Democ- 
 
 166 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 racy has the advantage of numbers, of an un- 
 shaken conviction of its Tightness, and of the 
 consciousness that both history and progress 
 are fighting on its side. 
 
 Will a world war stimulate or retard these 
 transitions? The question cannot be dog- 
 matically answered. Certain groups of facts, 
 however, may be set forth that will have a vital 
 bearing upon the effect of the war upon this 
 backward and powerful nation. 
 
 II 
 
 The first and foremost fact is autocracy. 
 The official style of aU imperial ukases is: 
 "We, Nicholas II, by God's grace Emperor 
 and autocrat of all the Russias," etc. In 
 theory, the Czar is the Government. In his 
 will are merged all the functions that we usu- 
 ally include under the names executive, legis- 
 lative, and judicial. In practice, this becomes 
 impossible, for no one man could possess the 
 versatihty and the endurance to look after the 
 wants of even a nation of peasants whose wants 
 
 167 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 are simple. Peter the Great may have aspired 
 to such govermnental omniscience, but even he 
 was remarkable mainly for his selection of 
 helpers. 
 
 So the Czar must be autocrat by proxy. He 
 has two agencies that are at once intolerant 
 and powerful: the bureaucracy and the ortho- 
 doxy. 
 
 Here bureaucracy has found its most con- 
 genial environment. There is no over-watch- 
 ful lord at the top, nor an over jealous elec- 
 torate at the bottom. So that mechanism, 
 formalism, alone keeps the bureaucrats in 
 leash. Now, in the hands of tinscrupulous, 
 mediocre men this formalism becomes a more 
 tjrrannical master than a czar. For these men 
 are petty, indolent, and underpaid, and must 
 eke out their small salaries as best they may. 
 So that the Russian mujik expects to buy 
 justice and official sanction (not favors, but 
 just ordinary sanctions) as he buys tobacco 
 and bread. He always expects to give a tip, 
 to the officials, no matter how small their 
 
 168 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 service; and if any special favor is asked, he 
 can usually buy it. The bureaucracy is as 
 corrupt as it is idle, and it is as potent as it 
 is corrupt. If an enlightened master like 
 Witte seeks to remedy its grosser evils, he finds 
 himself mysteriously thwarted on every hand. 
 
 Moreover, the bureaucracy is clumsily over- 
 organized. There is a hopeless overlapping of 
 functions. The empire is more or less arti- 
 ficially divided into "governments," which are 
 in turn divided into "districts" and "stations." 
 A governor is appointed for each "govern- 
 ment." He represents the central government 
 in the promulgating of laws, and he is identi- 
 fied with the Ministry of the Interior, thereby 
 becoming the head of the police in his province. 
 He is usually a soldier, and therefore displays 
 the usual aptitudes of his trade, when conduct- 
 ing civil business. Under him are a series of 
 officers, in the lesser divisions, ruled by heu- 
 tenants named by him. Then each ministry 
 has its own series of bureaus, independent of 
 each other, in each province and lesser district. 
 
 169 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Here, then, is a colossal system of autocrats 
 and autocratlets, from czar, minister, governor, 
 down to local police oflScers. Also a series of 
 bureaus and subbureaus, representing a dozen 
 diflFerent yet overlapping activities, each set in- 
 dependent of the other and each set a perfect 
 gradation from Petrograd to the humblest dis- 
 trict. 
 
 Bureaus within bm^eaus, sets within sets, 
 subordinates under other subordinates, all 
 knowing neither personal responsibility nor 
 efficiency, and rarely honesty. This is the 
 mechanism with which the Government con- 
 ducts its necessary routine. 
 
 The second agency of the supreme autocrat 
 is the Church. Autocracy and religion are 
 craftily blended. The Code says, "Obedience 
 to the sovereign power of the Emperor is com- 
 manded by God himself, not only by fear, but 
 in conscience." 
 
 The catechism, taught the children, asks, 
 "What does rehgion teach us as our duty to 
 the Czar?" 
 
 170 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 And it answers, "Worship, fidelity, the pay- 
 ment of taxes, service, love and prayer, the 
 vi^hole being comprised in the words, worship 
 and fidelity." 
 
 There is theoretical religious freedom. But 
 there can be no actual freedom of conscience 
 when the Czar becomes a demigod and his acts 
 are invested with a divine florescence. When 
 the reactionaries discovered, through their ex- 
 periences with the first and second Duma, that 
 the first election law was too liberal to permit 
 their control of the results, they had the law 
 carefully modified so that the orthodox repre- 
 sentation should be increased; that of the 
 Roman Catholics, Jews, Mohammedans and 
 sectarians decreased. Russian autocracy, by 
 instinct, relies on Russian orthodoxy. 
 
 While Russian autocracy thus acts through 
 church and bureaucracy, it has two methods of 
 action which have always characterized autoc- 
 racy from the beginning of time, isolation and 
 repression. 
 
 The first instinct of autocracy is to keep 
 
 171 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 itself aloof from the rest of the world. It as- 
 cribes to itself attributes that won't bear com- 
 mingling with the cultures of other lands. 
 This is a primitive instinct. Japan and China 
 are modern examples. They isolated them- 
 selves for ages, until, in the last century, their 
 doors were opened to trade, by the friendly 
 energy of the United States. To-day we see 
 the ancient aloofness swept aside by the cur- 
 rent of modernism that has rejuvenated these 
 governments and their people. 
 
 Russia has clung to isolation, while yet cher- 
 ishing the ambition to be cultured in the Euro- 
 pean sense of that word. Peter the Great 
 attempted to introduce German efficiency in 
 army and civil service, and Catherine sought 
 to infuse learning and grace into court and 
 salon. It was a veneer. They failed to rec- 
 ognize that culture and efficiency must come 
 from within, are natural products, cannot be 
 superimposed. They left an ignorant pop- 
 ulace, a subjected serfdom, as the basis of the 
 State. That is, they still clung to the bar- 
 
 172 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 baric notion of isolation: isolation for the 
 masses, European culture for the handful. 
 Until the Russo-Japanese War this remained 
 Russian policy. This isolation of the masses 
 from European influence has been made easier 
 by the teachings of the Russian Church. It 
 forbade allegiance to Rome and hence sepa- 
 rated Russia from Western Christendom at 
 a time when the Church of Rome was all pow- 
 erful in Western Europe and fostered a uni- 
 formity of law and of thought. 
 
 Russia is still a land of isolation. Nicholas I 
 fought sturdily against the introduction of the 
 railway, allowing only 632 miles in his empire ! 
 Her passport system is the most rigorous in 
 the world. She does not welcome strangers; 
 she coldly tolerates them. 
 
 This physical isolation, however, is breaking 
 down under the modern system of transporta- 
 tion and industriahsm. But a far more dan- 
 gerous isolation stUl threatens this land of un- 
 known possibihties, an isolation of ideas. To 
 stop the infiltration of ideas, that is the most 
 
 173 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 difficult problem of Russian autocracy to-day. 
 You can keep people from doing but not from 
 thinking. This fear of new ideas makes Rus- 
 sia war with her finest intellects. She is afraid 
 of her thinkers, and of the world's thinkers. 
 This policy is illustrated by the attempted 
 segregation of the people. "Keep the people 
 apart, keep them leaderless," cries autocracy. 
 Forbid meetings of a dozen for discussing po- 
 htical subjects; censor the vitality out of news-- 
 papers and books! The majority of Russian 
 villages are not on railways; and only the 
 larger towns have newspapers, which a large 
 majority of the people cannot read. Letters 
 are opened by the Government whenever re- 
 ceiver or sender are under suspicion. Kill 
 ideas, then, by isolation. 
 
 To accomplish this Russia has recourse to 
 the first and last resort of tyranny, repression. 
 We have heard this side of the Russian's life 
 often told. One hundred and seventy million 
 people watched by a million police who are 
 usually ignorant, frequently brutal, always ar- 
 
 174 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 bitrary. Organized under the Department of 
 the Interior, they make the Minister of the In- 
 terior the most powerful personage in the 
 reahn, in ordinary affairs more powerful than 
 the Czar. The secret police aid not alone in 
 compelling obedience to ukases and pogroms; 
 they are the cordon of barbaric force that at- 
 tempts to draw itself around the vast empire 
 and keep out unwelcome truths. Here is 
 government by police, not by ideas. 
 
 It is useless to describe these repressive ac- 
 tivities. The newspapers, magazines, and 
 books have so often pictured them that we 
 think of the knout and the Cossack and the 
 Czar as synonyms for Russia. 
 
 The great power of the police is due first to 
 the effectiveness of their secret organization — 
 in Russia the walls not only have ears but eyes 
 also — and secondly, their authority to arrest 
 without warrant and exUe without trial any one 
 suspected of revolutionary intent. Backed by 
 this arbitrary power, which knows neither in- 
 violability of home nor of person, the police can 
 
 175 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 strike swiftly and effectively. So it was that 
 under Stolypin, the "last of the great "Ty- 
 rants," 3750 persons were executed without 
 jury trials, in five years' time, and 31,885 po- 
 litical offenders were sent to Siberia; and 1500 
 persons were killed by military raids in the in- 
 terest of "law and order." 
 
 These repressive measures not infrequently 
 disclose a curious ofiicial dualism. Stolypin, 
 for instance, was not merely a tyrant; he was 
 also the promoter of many reforms, judicial, 
 administrative, agrarian, and educational. 
 Whatever he did, however, for the amelioration 
 of the people, pivoted always upon the central 
 fact of autocracy. His tyranny was prompted 
 by his devotion to the autocrat; so also his re- 
 forms; for not even his apologists would ac- 
 cuse him of a deep-rooted love for the people. 
 
 But we must not ascribe, even to the auto- 
 crat himself, a ruthless disregard for his peas- 
 ants. On the contrary, the Russian czars have 
 displayed a peculiar and especial interest in 
 the welfare of their "children." And these 
 
 176 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 "reforming czars," while clinging tenaciously 
 always to their autocratic prerogatives, have 
 usually found their greatest obstacles, none the 
 less, among the reactionary officialdom. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But, while autocracy is thus a synonym for 
 Russia, we must not ascribe the Russia of to- 
 day entirely to autocratic rule. Like all other 
 governments it has its roots deep in the past. 
 
 la one sense, Russia is merely the melting 
 pot of all the barbarous and semi-barbarous 
 tribes that inhabited the vast areas lying be- 
 tween the Arctic Sea and China, and the 
 Caspian Sea and the Pacific, whose turbulence 
 required a strong rule and whose rough and 
 violent natures are now but half refined. 
 
 Russia in the Middle Ages was an insig- 
 nificant coimtry occupying the lands between 
 powerful Galicia on the east and the Mongolian 
 domains on the Steppes of Asia. It was only 
 an agglomeration of more or less independent 
 princes and tribes, when in 1224 one of her 
 
 177 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 nomad princes sent word to the Prince of Ga- 
 lida that his lands had been invaded from the 
 southeast by the Tartars. "To-day, they have 
 seized our country and to-morrow they will 
 seize yours if you do not help us." These 
 words announced the Mongolian invasion that 
 swept over Asia and whose advance guards 
 reached into the center of Europe and at one 
 time threatened the extinction of European 
 civilization. Genghis Khan moved forward, 
 not in armies, but in tribes. He and his nomad 
 hordes wanted not so much to possess lands, 
 but herds and other movable property. He 
 collected an enormous tribute and left his 
 agents to perpetuate his demands. 
 
 The Khans of the Golden Horde, who suc- 
 ceeded the great Genghis, were not astute ad- 
 ministrators. The Russian princes were con- 
 tinually at war among themselves. From 1228 
 to 1462 they engaged in about ninety inter- 
 tribal wars. This tribal jealousy was the op- 
 portunity of the Khans. But they failed to 
 grasp it. Their domination gradually de- 
 
 178 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 teriorated and. its place was taken by the crafty 
 and cruel princes of Moscow, who put them- 
 selves at the head of the liberation movement, 
 became the natural leaders of the Russian 
 princes, and in the sixteenth centmy pro- 
 claimed themselves czars of all the Russias. 
 
 Only an autocracy could hold these nomad 
 tribes and their turbulent lords. And the 
 Moscow princes knew only the rule of iron. 
 Ivan III married Sofia, a niece of the last of 
 the Byzantine emperors. From this union of 
 Byzantinism and Moscovitism sprang Ivan IV, 
 known as the Terrible, who in an xmparalleled 
 career of treachery, cruelty, and sagacity 
 greatly extended the confines of his empire and 
 tightened the iron hand of his power. From 
 that day to this geographical expansion has 
 been rapid. This insignificant collection of 
 tribes, which, a thousand years ago, contented 
 itself with the upper valleys of the Dneiper 
 and a few adjacent stretches, has pushed its 
 domain to the Baltic and the Arctic and the 
 Pacific; it touches the frontiers of China, Tur- 
 
 179 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 key, and Germany; it is even now penetrating 
 the Balkans and Persia. 
 
 This expansion, prompted by ambition, by 
 economic necessity, and by self-defense, could 
 not have taken place vpithout a strong central- 
 ized leadership. This becomes particularly ap- 
 parent when we recall the ethnic conditions 
 that prevail. Over seventy distinct ethnic 
 units comprise this people. They are of all 
 gradations of temperament, from the peace- 
 able Laplanders of the north to the warhke 
 nomads of the steppes. They include not only 
 the few city-dwellers, but the vast population 
 of peasantry, and many of the Asiatic tribes 
 still persist in their nomadic habits. 
 
 It will be instructive to inquire into this ex- 
 pansion in somewhat more detail. The method 
 of agriculture still remains, in the larger por- 
 tion of the empire, the old three-field system. 
 In the farther provinces it is even more primi- 
 tive. There a patch of ground is cleared and 
 cultivated until its fertility wanes, when it is 
 given back to nature, while another plot is 
 
 180 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 prepared for cultivation. This process is con- 
 tinued until the first plot, after many years, 
 is again plowed and sown. This antiquated 
 form of tilling the soil entails a larger acreage 
 of land than intensive farming. With the in- 
 crease of population it becomes easier to spread 
 into adjacent lands than to change the system 
 of agricultural production or to curtail the 
 popiolation. Now, in the vast plains of Asia 
 and eastern Europe no geographical barrier 
 was set for this expansion. Boundless 
 stretches lay at their borders. Into the forest 
 lands that stretched northeastward towards 
 Kamchatka and into the steppes or prairies 
 southward to the Black Sea and eastward into 
 the heart of Asia traveled these migrations. 
 The forest land they occupied with ease, for 
 the tribes which held it were not aggressive. 
 But the steppes were peopled with predatory 
 nomads and could be conquered only by the 
 help of Cossacks. The Muscovite Princes ex- 
 tended their "protection" to the constantly ex- 
 panding borders ; they furnished troops to ward 
 
 i8i; 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 off the nomadic marauders and annexed the 
 whole of the vast and thinly populated steppes. 
 
 While this natural expansion by colonization 
 was going on to the eastward, the western fron- 
 tier was extended only by conquest. 
 
 Here Poland and Sweden were Russia's 
 great rivals; both were strong, had armies of 
 the European model, had advanced in agricul- 
 ture and the arts, and possessed a more com- 
 pact population. 
 
 But Russia had two great advantages — the 
 same she possesses to-day — a limitless popula- 
 tion and a centralized government that could 
 mobihze the population. Poland was finally 
 partitioned, and Sweden was forced to yield 
 her trans-Baltic provinces and Finland. The 
 reign of the czar had at last reached European 
 tide-waters. 
 
 The growth of the empire is shown as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 In 1505 the Muscovite czardom contained about 
 784,000 square miles. 
 
 In 1533 about 996,000 square miles. 
 182 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 In 1584 about 2,650,000 square miles. 
 In 1598 about 3,328,000 square miles. 
 In 1676 about 5,448,000 square miles. 
 In 1682 about 5,618,000 square miles. 
 
 One third of this Jay in Europe, the rest in 
 
 Asia. 
 
 At the time of the death of Peter the Great, 
 
 Russia in Europe contained 1,738,000 square 
 
 miles. From that time forward the growth 
 
 has been as follows: 
 
 In Europe In Asia 
 1725 Russian Empire 1,738,000 4,092,000 
 1770 Russian Empire 1,780,000 4,452,000 
 1800 Russian Empire 2,014,000 4,452,000 
 1825 Russian Empire 2,226,000 4,452,000 
 1855 Russian Empire 2,261,250 5,194,000 
 1867 Russian. Empire 2,267,360 5,267,560 
 1897 Russian Empire 2,267,360 6,382,321 
 
 These immeasurable areas were inhabited as 
 follows: 
 
 1722 about 14 millions. 
 
 1742 about 16 millions. 
 
 1762 about 19 millions. 
 
 1782 about 28 millions. 
 183 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 1796 about 36 millions. 
 1812 about 41 millions. 
 1815 about 45 millions. 
 1835 about 60 millions. 
 1851 about 68 millions. 
 1858 about 74 millions. 
 1897 about 129 millions. 
 1912 about 173 millions. 
 
 There has been no addition to this colossal 
 country which has threatened in any way to 
 mitigate the autocracy of czar. On the con- 
 trary, the nature of the conquest, both eco- 
 nomically and politically, has been such as to 
 extend his sway over the annexed territory, in 
 undiminished vigor and, indeed, some authori- 
 ties affirm that when, in the earlier years, occa- 
 sions were found when the populace might have 
 weakened this absolutism, they preferred to 
 reestablish it. 
 
 So Russia has been growing, growing 
 amorphously, like some vast and vague half- 
 organized creature, feehng for the open seas, 
 first at the Dardanelles, then at Port Arthur, 
 
 184 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 then at the Persian Gulf — ahnost succeeding 
 at each point, but because of defective plans, 
 or misdirected energy, or some internal weak- 
 ness never quite succeeding. 
 
 IV 
 
 Let us glance briefly at the economic status 
 of this country that has grown so rapidly that 
 she has not taken the time for internal develop- 
 ment. First, then, of her agriculture; for 
 Russia is an agricultural land. The govern- 
 ment classifies the land of European Russia as 
 follows: 19 per cent, unfit for cultivation, 
 mostly perpetually frozen tundras which can 
 never be reclaimed; 39 per cent, forest; 26 per 
 cent, arable and 16 per cent, pasturage. Thus 
 of this vast area only 42 per cent, is at present 
 used for cultivation; the morasses and swamps 
 and the forests can ultimately be reclaimed and 
 portions are even now under process of drain- 
 age by the Government. 
 
 Great expectations were based upon the 
 emancipation of the serfs in 1862. Sir Donald 
 
 185 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Mackenzie Wallace writes : ^ "These expecta- 
 tions were not realized. One year passed, five 
 years passed, ten years passed, and the ex- 
 pected transformation did not take place. On 
 the contrary, there appeared certain very ugly 
 phenomena which were not at all in the pro- 
 gram. The peasants began to drink more and 
 work less, and the public life which the com- 
 munal institutions produced was by no means 
 of a desirable kind. The 'brawlers' acquired a 
 prejudicial influence in the village assemblies, 
 and in very many Volosts the peasant judges, 
 elected by their fellow villagers, acquired a bad 
 habit of selhng their decisions for vodka." 
 
 It was but a repetition of the lesson states- 
 men are loath to learn, that decrees and enact- 
 ments alone cannot bring about reform. An 
 ignorant, more or less indolent, and imam- 
 bitious serfdom could not be suddenly trans- 
 formed into an industrious and enlightened 
 peasantry. They clung to their wasteful 
 three-field system, whereby one third of the 
 
 1 "Russia," Volume II, page 196. 
 186 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 land is perpetually idle : they found neither the 
 means nor the ambition to undertake intensive 
 cultivation. They had, under the old system, 
 depended so largely upon their owners for the 
 simpler necessities of life that they foimd it 
 quite impossible to arouse themselves into a 
 newer life. Add to this their incapacity for 
 governing the mir (their communal villages), 
 and their rapidly growing fondness for vodka, 
 and you have a picture that might well have 
 disheartened those who had championed peas- 
 ant emancipation. 
 
 So for many years one heard of peasant im- 
 poverishment. In 1903 a commission of ex- 
 perts was set to work to gather the facts, and 
 their report was far from reassuring. Live- 
 stock had deteriorated, only a few of the prov- 
 inces had undertaken to raise the standards of 
 cultivation, peasant housing was miserable, and 
 there was periodical want in many of the dis- 
 tricts. 
 
 Since that time considerable improvement 
 has taken place. Better seed, better imple- 
 
 187 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 ments, and better livestock are being intro- 
 duced; the use of fertilizers, grains, and roots 
 encouraged. Moreover, the development of 
 industrialism is providing a vent for the sur- 
 plus rural population. 
 
 One should not forget the heavy taxes, when 
 considering the depressed state of peasant agri- 
 culture, nor the primitive community, the mir, 
 which periodically doled out, in more or less 
 artificial manner, the acres it possessed amongst 
 its members, depriving the peasant of the in- 
 centive of private ownership. 
 
 Peasant agriculture, we may say, is then just 
 on the verge of awakening. The mir is being 
 slowly reorganized and peasant proprietorship 
 encouraged. But its progress wiU depend on 
 wise leadership, which the peasant himself can- 
 not always provide. Intelligence and sobriety, 
 together with modern machinery and methods 
 of cultivation, which will make the fertile black 
 earth of southern Russia at least as productive 
 as the hghter soil of Germany, France, and 
 Holland, will indeed make a new Russia. 
 
 188 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 But what of the proprietary agriculture? 
 
 The wealth of the landed proprietors has 
 been greatly overstated. In 1861 when the 
 serfs were emancipated, there were 101,247 
 landed proprietors; over 41,000 of these had 
 less than twenty-one male serfs. These were 
 poor men, inasmuch as it was generally be- 
 lieved that the possession of 500 serfs placed 
 one only in a fair independence. There were 
 only 3803 proprietors who had that many. 
 There were, of course, several families that 
 possessed vast estates. Count Orloff-Davy- 
 doff possessed over 500,000 acres. The Demi- 
 dofs possessed rich mines; the Strogonoffs 
 owned enormous estates, and Count Sherime- 
 tief was master over 300,000 "souls" on the 
 day of emancipation. 
 
 The emancipation of the serf was a great 
 blow to the proprietors, although they had long 
 expected it. It deprived them of free labor 
 and of a large portion of their land for which, 
 it is generally conceded, they were underpaid 
 by the Government. They adapted them- 
 
 189 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 selves naturally more intelligently to tjje new 
 order, than the serfs ; and yet one is surprised 
 at the conservatism and reluctance of the 
 noblesse to adopt new methods. Sir Mac- 
 kenzie Wallace says : that "as a class they are 
 impoverished and indebted, but this state of 
 things is not due entirely to serf -emancipation. 
 On the eve of the emancipation the proprietors 
 were indebted to the Government for the sum 
 of 425 milhon roubles and 69 per cent, of their 
 serfs were mortgaged." This amount was 
 gradually reduced, but the famine years 
 brought it, by 1894, up to 994 million roubles. 
 It is probably higher than this at present. 
 Little wonder that from 1861 to 1892 the acre- 
 age occupied by them fell 30 per cent, and over 
 20,000 proprietors sold their holdings and 
 moved to the towns. 
 
 The export of grain has, however, steadily 
 increased to over four times as much as in the 
 decade following emancipation. And it is the 
 ease with which he can put his grain on ship- 
 board that makes the comparative prosperity 
 
 190 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 of the proprietor. There is, hence, a constant 
 pressure from within upon the Government to 
 get seaports that are open the year round. 
 
 Great progress has been made in the last ten 
 years, due to the greater ease of getting capital 
 and to improved machinery, which offsets the 
 lack of rehable farm labor. 
 
 From this very hasty and imperfect glance 
 at agricultural conditions, the reader will see 
 that proprietary and peasantry agriculture is 
 by no means modernly organized. Only iso- 
 lated cases of intensive cultivation are found, 
 to indicate the transition from the old and shift- 
 less to the new and efficient order. To-day, 
 both the large proprietors and the peasants be- 
 long to the debtor class ; and this in a country 
 of unlimited agricultural possibiUties! 
 
 The second phase of economic development 
 is manufacture. A country that depends upon 
 serf labor is slow to develop artizans. The 
 czars from the days of the first Ivan encour- 
 aged foreign craftsmen to settle in Russia and 
 practise their crafts. It was Peter the Great, 
 
 i9i: 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 however, who systematically undertook the 
 building up of manufactures, imder a system 
 of protectionism which has continued to the 
 present day. The construction of railroads, 
 the influx of foreign capital, the development 
 of modern credit institutions, has in the last 
 twenty years greatly increased the industrial 
 population. To-day Russia occupies fifth 
 place among the manufacturing nations, fol- 
 lowing the United States, Great Britain, Ger- 
 many, France, and preceding Austria. The 
 principal industries are cotton and iron, and 
 the leading manufacturing centers are Mos- 
 cow and Petrograd, and the cities of Livonia 
 and Poland. 
 
 Around the Sea of Azof are vast Ijeds of 
 iron and coal, near together, and great blast 
 furnaces may now be seen there. The Baku 
 oil fields are among the most productive in the 
 world. So Russia is on the verge of an in- 
 dustrial expansion. Possessing two of the 
 requisites of an industrial country, unlimited 
 natural mineral and agricultural resources, and 
 
 192 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 a vast population, she must herself solve the 
 problem of fitting that population for inten- 
 sive industriaUsm: and she must find capital, 
 that other requisite, without which iadustry is 
 impossible. 
 
 Capital clearly she has not. She is a debtor 
 nation. Her landed classes are in debt; her 
 government is deeply in debt; her citizenry is 
 taxed to the verge of ruin. But next to the 
 United States I know of no country where 
 nature has so lavishly provided all the raw ma- 
 terials for that dual development of agricul- 
 ture and industry which permits a nation to 
 become self-sustaining, progressive, and pros- 
 perous. 
 
 V 
 
 Before such a period of prosperity can dawn, 
 a social and cultural readjustment must, how- 
 ever, take place. When Russia took her place 
 among the nations of Europe she had prac- 
 tically a two-class system — a serfdom and an 
 ofiicialdom — roughly not unlike Mexico to-day, 
 
 193 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 with its virtual peonage and its proprietary 
 class. Peter the Great, with autocratic power, 
 sought to build up a middle class by encour- 
 aging trade and artificially stimulating indus- 
 try. The emancipation of the serfs, in 1861, 
 created a peasantry; and the development of 
 manufacturing is creating a proletariat. 
 
 But these classes are in a condition of flux. 
 The peasant is not only being affected by the 
 development of manufactures, luring him from 
 the soil to the city, but also by the changes 
 necessarily wrought in the mir^ and in the dis- 
 integration of the old family unit. Formerly, 
 when a son married, he brought his wife to 
 dwell under the same roof with his parents, and 
 not infrequently three or more families thus 
 shared the same hearth. The family was the 
 imit on which the responsibihty of the mir 
 rested. To-day, owing to many causes, this 
 semi-patriarchal family system is breaking up 
 and each son desires to establish a household of 
 his own. It is impossible to tell what changes 
 this will necessitate in peasant economy. 
 
 194 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 Probably it means the abandonment of the 
 communal land system and the adoption of 
 private peasant ownership. Out of the peas- 
 antry is recruited the factory and mine laborer. 
 This further is shifting the social equihbrium. 
 
 So of the middle class. It is still in process 
 of recruiting, from the most intelligent portion 
 of the peasantry; from the impoverished 
 noblesse ; and by volunteers from foreign covm- 
 tries, lured by the promise of large gain. 
 Since the development of manufactures and 
 railways, the noblesse do not disdain owning 
 stock in the corporations and the nobles are ac- 
 tive in many enterprises. 
 
 The noblesse do not form a governing ciass. 
 In the primitive days, before the czardom, each 
 prince was surrounded by his retainers, called 
 hoydrs. These were independent and bold 
 personages whose advice was always sought by 
 the prince. But when the Muscovite power 
 united the princes under one sway, the nobles 
 lost their dignities; they were no longer con- 
 sulted as to affairs of state; the Czar did not 
 
 195 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 treat them as equals but as inferiors, and they 
 were subjected to a court ritual which clearly 
 revealed their subjugation. They were com- 
 pelled to prostrate themselves before the 
 throne in oriental style and were subject to the 
 displeasure of the Czar, who punished them at 
 will. 
 
 The Romanoff dynasty from the end of the 
 sixteenth century forward treated the noblesse 
 with far greater leniency, but did not restore 
 them to political influence. Peter the Great, 
 with that tremendous insight that made him 
 almost superhuman, discarded all claims of 
 birth to preferment and chose his aids in the 
 most democratic form. He elevated to duke- 
 doms the brilliant sons of priests, bakers and 
 sailors. 
 
 This Spartan democracy was modified by 
 Catherine, who was greatly influenced by 
 French models. She sought instead a bowing, 
 over-dressed, court-loving noblesse. They 
 were none the less cruelly subject to her whims. 
 
 To-day, the noblesse possess a social rather 
 
 196 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 than a political significance. They do not 
 form a class in the sense that German or Eng- 
 lish nobles form a class, or the French noblesse 
 of the ancient regime, with a political, social, 
 and economic homogeneity. Their struggles 
 have been with autocracy, not with democracy. 
 They have neither power nor privilege because 
 of their birth. They are quite devoid of those 
 sentiments, habits, and traits which we usually 
 call aristocratic, and there is a saying that there 
 is no aristocracy in Russia. 
 
 There is no aristocracy in the commonly ac- 
 cepted usage of that word. But there is a 
 powerful cabal of leading famihes that sur- 
 round the throne. This is not, however, based 
 on birth, but rather on official prestige and 
 partly on culttire. In the sense of blood line- 
 age there is no aristocracy, no Adel as the Ger- 
 mans call it, no imperial caste like the German 
 Junker. A man of abiUty and energy can 
 push his way into it; and a man, in time, may 
 have the misfortune of falling out of it. 
 
 It is this cabal of ofiicials that forms the 
 
 197 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 hedge around the Czar, keeping him deceived 
 on many points, where his kind disposition 
 would seek to alleviate conditions, and impos- 
 ing upon him acts, which, did he know their 
 consequences, he would shrink from doing. 
 
 Here you have, then, a nohlesse with virtu- 
 ally only social distinctions. Titles count for 
 little in Russia. "Princes" there are who 
 would not be invited to refined tables ; I have 
 heard of one "prince" who earned his living 
 as a cabman in Petrograd, and another who 
 was a head waiter ! 
 
 In one sense, this autocracy is, then, most 
 democratic. It has no caste except the czar- 
 dom. There is an absence of aristocratic senti- 
 ment among both high and low that surprises 
 the visitor. Russian autocracy is not built on 
 a category of nobihty, bourgeoisie, and peas- 
 antry. It is sustained upon terrorism and su- 
 perstition, with its cognate characteristics, 
 ignorance and servility, and these abject traits 
 are found among the noblesse as well as the 
 peasantry and bourgeoisie. 
 
 198 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 While there is this absence of class spirit, the 
 code none the less classifies the population into 
 various groups. But these are more or less 
 artificial, although their legal status, their 
 rights for intermarriage, etc., are carefully de- 
 tailed. I infer, however, that these laws are 
 virtually a dead letter and that the classifica- 
 tion, hke so many other things in Russian law, 
 is an administrative convenience dating from 
 Peter the Great. 
 
 But there is a class arising in Russia that 
 is demanding increasingly the attention of the 
 police on one hand and of the world on the 
 other. I mean the educated class. In the old 
 sense of the word they are not a class : they in- 
 clude recruits from every social stratum. Yet, 
 in a reactionary country they form the most 
 important group. Enhghtenment is the 
 deadhest foe of aristocracy. By instinct the 
 czars and their cabal of reactionaries have 
 fought learning, while at the same time they 
 have fostered universities. Perhaps it would 
 be more accurate to say that they fought the 
 
 199 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 blending of learning and politics. There is 
 arising, then, an intellectual class which has set 
 its face towards the sun. 
 
 The ignorance of the masses is appalling. 
 Seventy-two per cent, of the whole population 
 can neither read nor write ; nearly 90 per cent, 
 of the peasantry must get their ideas through 
 the ear, from priest, therefore, and neighbor. 
 But even here transition is at work and public 
 schools are being estabhshed everywhere. 
 
 VI 
 
 Finally, let us glance at the political status 
 of this empire. Here, too, we see clearly the 
 processes of change rapidly taking place. It 
 is sometimes said that Kussia is a country with- 
 out political parties and without public opinion. 
 This is not true. There has always been a 
 dumb sort of consent to the tyranny of the 
 police; this is rapidly giving way to horror, 
 resentment, and retaliation that are based upon 
 a weU-defined and growing public opinion that 
 autocracy must be either modified or abol- 
 
 200 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 ished. The terrorism of the minister of the 
 interior is no longer merely pitted against the 
 terrorism of Nihilists. The determination of 
 the autocrat is being slowly but surely matched 
 by the determination of the populace; at least 
 of two portions of the populace : the educated 
 classes and that part of the working classes 
 which is organized. 
 
 There are arising, hence, two wings to the 
 opposition — ^the Liberals and the Socialists. 
 These latter are sometimes divided into Social- 
 Democrats and Social-Revolutionists, a dis- 
 tinction based on methods rather than objec- 
 tives. 
 
 The present era of political agitation in 
 Russia began with the Japanese war. It was 
 hoped by many Liberals and by all Sociahsts 
 that Russia would be defeated in the war, not 
 from unpatriotic motives, but because it was 
 felt that victory would stiffen autocracy, defeat 
 would himible it. When defeat came, so hu- 
 miUating and revealing such incompetence in 
 the bureaucracy, all reform groups hoped for 
 
 201 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 changes. They clamored for a constitution 
 and a representative parliament, freedom from 
 arrest without warrant or sentence without 
 trial, freedom of speech and of press, and a 
 large degree of local self-government. In a 
 word, they desired those political institutions 
 which we beUeve to be fundamental in the se- 
 curing of political liberty. 
 
 As long as the reactionary and cruel Plehve 
 was minister of interior, there was little oppor- 
 tunity for voicing these aspirations. Upon his 
 assassination (July 28, 1904), a more humane 
 police regime was inaugurated by Prince 
 Mirski, and public opinion began to be heard. 
 Members of the Zemstovs (the Provincial 
 Councils) met for consultation in Petrograd, 
 after having been granted permission to do 
 so! They promulgated their recommenda- 
 tions and sent them to the ministry to be laid 
 before the Czar. Lawyers, professors, physi- 
 cians, and other groups of professional men 
 met at banquets and conventions, and openly 
 discussed their desires. The Czar's answer 
 
 202 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 was disheartening. But, with added zest, the 
 opposition continued its demands. In Oc- 
 tober, 1905, a general strike took place. E. A. 
 Goldenweiser, in a recent article,^ says: 
 "What was never accomphshed by organized 
 labor in countries which have the right of free 
 speech and assembly, was achieved by the 
 bureaucracy-ridden, imorganized, and gagged 
 Russian nation. Russia struck, and her trains 
 ceased to run; her telephone and telegraph 
 wires remained idle; her nights were not 
 hghted by gas or electricity; her waterworks 
 ran dry; her newspapers ceased to appear; her 
 courts of law were deserted; her shops were 
 closed; and her people remained at home wait- 
 ing to see the effect of this tremendous demon- 
 stration." 
 
 October 17, the daunted government issued 
 a manifesto guaranteeing civil liberty and pro- 
 viding for the election of a representative 
 chamber, the historic First Duma. 
 
 At last, the liberal element thought relief 
 
 1 "Political Science Quarterly," September, 1914i. 
 SOS 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 from autocratic tension was at hand. But 
 they were doomed to many disappointments. 
 The Duma is the lower chamber; the Council 
 of State, an appointive body, is the upper. 
 Both must concur in all legislative proposals, 
 and the Czar retains an absolute veto. Rep- 
 resentative government, then, had taken only 
 the first step. 
 
 But repression was by no means at an end. 
 Of the first Duma 48.1 per cent, were peasants, 
 36.7 per cent, noblesse, and only about 12 per 
 cent, of the so-called bourgeois classes. This 
 large proportion of peasants disappointed both 
 bureaucrats and the liberals. It disappointed 
 the bureaucrats because they beheved they 
 could easily manipulate the ignorant peasants 
 whom they deemed loyal to conservative cus- 
 toms; it disappointed the liberals because the 
 peasant representatives devoted so much time 
 to the discussion of the agrarian problem, 
 boldly demanding a division of the large es- 
 tates. This aroused the apprehension of the 
 bureaucracy and the assembly was quickly pro- 
 go* 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 rogued after a session of only seventy-two 
 days. Thus the lack of tact on the part of 
 the Radicals dissolved the visions of immediate 
 reform. 
 
 A number of the members of the ill-fated 
 Duma then met in Viborg, Finland, where 
 they believed themselves secure from police in- 
 terference. Thence they sent an appeal to the 
 Russian people, suggesting that they refrain 
 from paying taxes and rendering military duty 
 until their civil liberties were assured. All 
 those who signed this manifesto were promptly 
 arrested, imprisoned, and deprived of the right 
 to participate in future elections. Among 
 them were some of the ablest radical leaders, 
 prominent lawyers, professors, and journalists, 
 who thus efficiently were put out of the way of 
 further harm. 
 
 The second Duma was even more radical 
 than the first and was dissolved after a hun- 
 dred and four days, because the secret police 
 claimed they had unearthed a revolutionary 
 plot amongst some of its Socialist members. 
 
 205 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Autocracy had been enlightened by its ex- 
 periments. It now resolved on a new electoral 
 law which would give an opportunity to 
 manipulate the choice of candidates and insure 
 greater accord betweeen Duma and bureau- 
 cracy, and this was accomplished by the ukase 
 of June 3, 1907. The Duma chosen under the 
 new and complicated system of electoral 
 groups was more submissive and lasted its full 
 term of five years. It accomplished few re- 
 forms, none radical. The present (fourth) 
 Duma contains 53.1 per cent, noblesse, 20.9 
 per cent, peasants, and 11.2 per cent, mer- 
 chants. 
 
 It is evident from this experience that autoc- 
 racy had not surrendered; it had not even 
 yielded; it merely made a concession with a 
 string tied to it. But it is none the less a vic- 
 tory for the hberal element. The wedge has 
 entered. The Duma has become a precedent. 
 The peasant has tasted the sweets of political 
 self-determination. 
 
 206 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 VII 
 
 So we behold in this vast country, not merely 
 a land of problems, but a nation in transition. 
 In economic and political life and in cultural 
 activities one sees everywhere the evidence of 
 change. This makes Russia significant. It 
 has limitless opportunities. Its area is 9,000,- 
 000 square miles, that of the United States is 
 4,000,000. Its population is increasing at the 
 rate of 3,000,000 a year, nearly four times as 
 fast as Germany's. But with all this increase 
 it is a sparsely settled coimtry. European 
 Russia has 65 inhabitants per square mile; 
 Asiatic Russia only 3.7; the average is 20; the 
 average in Germany is 310. It has a climate 
 with extremes of heat and cold, like the United 
 States. Moscow and Riga are in the same 
 latitude as Glasgow and Copenhagen; Kiel and 
 Kharkoff in central Russia are not far north 
 of Frankf ort-on-the-Main ; Odessa and Rostoff 
 are south of Venice and Milan; Tiflis and 
 Khiva share the same climate and latitude with 
 
 207 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Naples and Constantinople. South European 
 Russia grows tobacco and cotton, peaches and 
 grapes. Her arable plains are comparable 
 only to our prairies and Argentine's pampas. 
 There are rich deposits of mineral, enormous 
 stretches of forests, and vast inland waterways. 
 The Russian peasant is not by any means the 
 hopeless and helpless creature he has often 
 been painted by hasty tourists. He is igno- 
 rant, as all untaught peoples are ignorant; his 
 standard of living is low, as is that of all peo- 
 ples who have lacked opportunity and who 
 have been artificially suppressed. He has a 
 patient personality, not unalert; he receives im- 
 pressions readily, but does not possess the 
 power of promptly analyzing them or the in- 
 stinct to choose the right ones. He is thus 
 conservative in action, while at the same time 
 gulhble and open to the arts of the demagogue. 
 He is not entirely without ambition, as is shown 
 by the rise of numerous peasants to important 
 mercantile positions and the ability of some of 
 their representatives in the Duma. He does 
 
 208 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 not lack courage, as this war testifies. Before* 
 the emancipation of the serfs, they, in spite of 
 the vigilant watch kept over them and the 
 heavy hand of repression, succeeded in foment- 
 ing many outbreaks. From 1828 to 1854 
 there was an average of thirty-one serf revolts 
 a year. In 1848 there were sixty-four out- 
 breaks. Only a resolute and exasperated peo- 
 ple revolt under such circumstances. 
 
 But he is ignorant, therefore superstitious; 
 his religion is a semi- fetishism; his priests who 
 wield a large influence are scarcely schooled; 
 before 1869 they were almost as ignorant as 
 the peasant. Yet in spite of the oppression 
 of taxes and all manner of exactions, the peas- 
 ant has retained a certain dignity and social co- 
 hesiveness that evinces powerful resisting quali- 
 ties. 
 
 It used to be said that the peasant was 
 merely land hungry. I find evidence to-day 
 that he is also hungry for knowledge. 
 Madame Jornitzoff in her interesting book on 
 Russia affirms that his eagerness for knowl- 
 
 209 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 edge is inspiring and that the schools recently 
 opened are crowded. The peasant is not with- 
 out aptitudes for art. Russian singing and 
 dancing are revelations of his romantic and 
 artistic aspirations. 
 
 The intellectual achievements of the edu- 
 cated classes compare favorably with those of 
 othet European countries. They have at- 
 tained eminence in science, in art, in letters. 
 They have, indeed, invested their art and ht- 
 erature with a melancholy that seems to deny 
 them that versatility in style and originahty 
 of conception which we find in France, or Eng- 
 land, or Italy. But we must recall the vast 
 and dreary background of their history, the 
 forlorn struggles against the iron barriers of 
 autocracy, and the consciousness of the sup- 
 pressed aspirations of their countrymen. 
 
 These peoples await only the magic of op- 
 portunity. Will the war bring it? 
 
 The first step in a great national transforma- 
 tion, such as apparently awaits Russia, is an 
 awaking, the second is unity, the third is ac- 
 
 210 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 tion. The awaking assuredly has come. 
 Russia's most enlightened classes are aroused 
 to the needs of their nation. Unity appears 
 at hand. 
 
 Professor Vinogradoff , of Oxford, writes : ^ 
 "A friend, a Liberal like myself, writes to me 
 from Moscow, 'It is a great, unf orgetable time : 
 we are happy to be all at one!' And from the 
 ranks of the most unfortunate of Russia's chil- 
 dren, from the haunts of the political exiles in 
 Paris, comes the news that Bourtzeff, one of 
 the most prominent among the revolutionary 
 leaders, has addressed an appeal to his com- 
 rades, urging them to stand by their country 
 to the utmost of their power." Bourtzeff him- 
 self writes as follows to the London "Times," 
 September 18, 1914: "The representatives of 
 all political parties and of all nationalities in 
 Russia are now at one with the Government 
 and this war with Germany and Austria, both 
 guided by the Kaiser, has already become a 
 national war for Russia. Even we, the ad- 
 
 1 London "Times," September 14, 1914. 
 211 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 herents of the party of the Extreme Left, and 
 hitherto ardent anti-militants and pacifists, 
 even we beheve in the necessities of this war. 
 This war is to protect justice and civilization. 
 It wiU, we hope, be a decisive factor in our 
 united war against war, and we hope that after 
 it, it will at last be possible to consider seriously 
 the questions of disarmament and imiversal 
 peace. . . . To Russia this war will bring re- 
 generation. We are convinced that after this 
 war there will no longer be any room for po- 
 litical reaction and Russia will be associated 
 with the existing group of cultured and civi- 
 lized countries. . . . 
 
 "The word on all lips in Russia now is 
 'Freedom.' All are hungrily awaiting a gen- 
 eral amnesty, freedom of the press and of na- 
 tional life. 
 
 "All the parties, without any exceptions, 
 have supported the Government without even 
 waiting for it to make any definite announce- 
 ment about these crying needs. This is the 
 measure of the firmness of the belief of the 
 
 212 
 
RUSSIA IN TRANSITION 
 
 people in the inevitableness of liberal reform." 
 Professor Vinogradoff states, "It is our firm 
 conviction that the sad tale of reaction and 
 oppression is at an end in Russia, and that oxir 
 country will issue from this momentous crisis 
 with the insight and strength required for the 
 constructive and progressive statesmanship of 
 which it stands in need." 
 
 These are significant words. They are 
 spoken by a Russian Liberal who knows the 
 temper of his own people and as professor of 
 jurisprudence at Oxford also knows the 
 course that British and European statesman- 
 ship and law have pursued. 
 
 Let us hope that this transformed Russia 
 will, however, not be merely an imitation of 
 Britain or of any other European State. But 
 that it wiU select the political and economic in- 
 stitutions of other lands merely as suggestions, 
 not as models, and therewith fashion a new 
 Russia, a free Russia, a noble Russia, created 
 through the impulses of its own peoples and 
 kept alive by its own instincts and ambitions. 
 
 213 
 
VI 
 
 OUR FIRST DUTY 
 
 "Europe has a set of primary interests, which to 
 us have none, or a very remote relation. . . . 
 
 "There can be no greater error than to expect or 
 calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It 
 is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just 
 pride ought to discard." — ^Washington's Fakewell 
 Addkess. 
 
 I 
 
 IT is sheer self-delusion to think that this 
 war is only going to make victims. It 
 will also make victors, and victors are likely 
 to be bullies when they get their second wind. 
 We must not forget that the spirit of Europe 
 is very different from the spirit of America. 
 Many times I have been asked by Europeans, 
 "When is the United States going to annex 
 Mexico, Canada, or Brazil?" That's their 
 
 214 
 
OUR FIRST DUTY 
 
 spirit: annex, crowd, dominate. Europe has 
 been the world bully ever since the days of 
 Ceesar. When she ceases to be a bully it will 
 be because she is either dead or democratized. 
 
 It will make no difference whether this new 
 bully is a single nation or, as Is likely, a com- 
 bination of nations. He will want what a 
 bully has always wanted — power, territory, 
 trade. To-day it is particularly trade that he 
 is after. This is not alone an emperor's war 
 or a soldier's war. This is also a trader's war. 
 Rake over the ashes of Louvain and Rheims 
 and you will find his blackened coins. If Ger- 
 many had consented to remain bookish, Eng- 
 land would have remained shoppish. If Rus- 
 sia had not longed for seaports, her peasants 
 would not now be in imif orm. This is a world 
 war for world trade as well as world empire, 
 as has been every world war since Columbus 
 unlocked the western portals and gave our 
 twin continents to the enterprise of man. 
 
 One of these continents has been wrested 
 from the commercial and political greed of 
 
 215 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Europe. No foreign power now looks to 
 North America for aggrandizement. We are 
 no longer to be conquered, but we are to be 
 curbed. The southern continent, however, 
 and the Isthmus, including Mexico, are still in 
 the vision of the trade and land-grabbers. 
 They only await their opportunity. 
 
 The attitude of Europe has never been over- 
 friendly toward us. Whatever may be the 
 language of her diplomacy, the heart of her 
 rulers and of those who surround her rulers has 
 never quite fully indorsed our democracy. 
 
 We may roughly divide our experience with 
 Em-ope into four periods. The first embraces 
 the Revolutionary War and its aftermath, the 
 War of 1812. The anti-British feehng, nat- 
 urally, ran very high, and every conceivable 
 reaction against aristocracy and monarchism 
 was popular. Whatever of friendliness was 
 shown toward us at this time by France and 
 Prussia was due to our enmity with England 
 rather than to any genuine enthusiasm in those 
 countries for our national experiment. Dur- 
 
 216 
 
OUR FIRST DUTY 
 
 ing this period we wiped out all property 
 qualifications for voting and holding office, and 
 for the first time in history a large country was 
 choosing its own rulers by universal manhood 
 suffrage. 
 
 The second stage includes the "middle 
 period" of our history, when Europe was 
 busied with the revolutions of the forties, which 
 swept the continent from Venice to Berlin, 
 from St. Petersbiu'g to London, with waves 
 of repubhcan and proletarian protests, and 
 when we were engaged in the vital struggle 
 against slavery. Both continents thus em- 
 ployed with internal problems were not, how- 
 ever, unmindful of each other, for a cabal of 
 kings made President Monroe's message warn- 
 ing Europe to keep hands off America, per- 
 tinent — a pronunciamento that will play a 
 leading part in the next epoch of our interna- 
 tional relations. Because of the failure of all 
 these democratic uprisings, we received at this 
 time an influx of noble men, especially from the 
 German countries — political exiles who be- 
 
 217 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 came leaders in American idealism, men of 
 whom Carl Schurz was the type. 
 
 The third period embraces our Civil War 
 and supplies us with a revelation of the heart 
 of Europe, whose aristocratic sympathies were 
 flagrantly with the disunionists. This was es- 
 pecially apparent in England. The grandilo- 
 quent Gladstone, whose amazing vocabtdary 
 of Liberalism made him in later years uncom- 
 monly popular in America, and who was then 
 chancellor of the exchequer, publicly said that 
 a severed union was an accomplished fact. 
 And Lord Derby, who made no pretension of 
 republican devotions, declared that the one im- 
 possible result was the restoration of the 
 Union. 
 
 In his efforts to avert an open breach Presi- 
 dent Lincoln sent over his ablest politician, 
 Thurlow Weed; his most effective orator, 
 Henry Ward Beecher; and his sanest diplo- 
 mat, Francis Adams. 
 
 And while our hands were employed holding 
 together our precious Union all of aristocratic 
 
 218 
 
OUR FIRST DUTY 
 
 Europe looked complacently on while the last 
 and least of the Napoleons placed a crown of 
 withered pretensions on the brow of poor Maxi- 
 milian. 
 
 The fourth period ushers in the Spanish war. 
 If Europe was surprised and a bit disap- 
 pointed because the Union proved itself virile 
 enough to survive the terrible shocks of civil 
 war, and if she was astounded at the unparal- 
 leled revivifying power of American industry 
 and commerce, she was amazed and startled at 
 the short shrift which our navy made of the 
 Spanish fleets. And when, after the treaty of 
 peace, she looked aloft and beheld a new ban- 
 ner over the Philippines and West Indies, she 
 admitted reluctantly that a new "world power" 
 had appeared. 
 
 But it was not done in good grace. Ameri- 
 cans who were then abroad will recall the gibes, 
 caricatures, and coarse jests, especially in Ger- 
 many and naturally in Latin countries, aimed 
 at our soldiers, our Government, and our peo- 
 ple. Even in England there was a deep sub- 
 
 219 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 stratum of wonderment and perhaps suspicion. 
 The German admiral in Manila Bay revealed 
 the real heart of the Prussian junker toward 
 America. And he did it at a time when 
 Britain, having arbitrated the Venezuela 
 question, f oimd it opportune to be on our side. 
 
 Since the Spanish war a change has come 
 over European opinions concerning America. 
 This is, in some measure, due to the war, and 
 its consequent territorial annexations. It is 
 partly due to our friendly interchange of ideas, 
 our exchange professors, the translations of 
 works of art and science and literature; some- 
 what due, perhaps, to our extensive touring of 
 Europe, thus providing a means of livelihood 
 to multitudes and keeping many a bankrupt 
 ancient village on the map ; and to a greater de- 
 gree it is due to the remarkable development 
 of international finance. 
 
 But, more than all these reasons combined, 
 it is due to the widespread democratic move- 
 ments in Europe; to the labor parties, the so- 
 cial democratic parties, the intellectual liberal- 
 
 220 
 
OUR FIRST DUTY 
 
 istie parties, that have grown so rapidly in the 
 last twenty years in every European country. 
 To these missionaries of democracy the Ameri- 
 can Union is an example of democratic federa- 
 tion, often cited, frequently praised, and never 
 despised. International peace will rest only 
 on international democracy. Our amity with 
 Europe proceeds, pari passu, with the liberal- 
 izing of her populace, not of her Princes. 
 
 n 
 
 And now this world war is going to substi- 
 tute a world balance of power for the Euro- 
 pean balance of power. We have kept, thus 
 far, out of the war. (^an we keep out of this 
 balance? 
 
 Our duty in this world balance, which is 
 merely a soft synonym for world bullying, is 
 perfectly plain. The sensible, average Ameri- 
 can wants none of the entanglements in which 
 the hypocrisies and dek'sions of Europe's se- 
 cret intrigues have, since the beginning of "di- 
 plomacy," involved every one of her countries. 
 
 221 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 Every alliance is only a temptation, both to 
 those within and without ; merely the subtle op- 
 portunity of Fate, like a petty leak in a dam. 
 
 We have kept out of European imbroglios 
 and have not allowed ourselves to be lured into 
 them by the glitter of "world influence." And 
 we have likewise told Europe to keep out of 
 American affairs. This we have done for our 
 own protection, and the reasons for increasing 
 our vigilance are now multiphed. And they 
 call us to a saner understanding with South 
 America. 
 
 We cannot separate the destinies of North 
 and South America. They are united by a 
 Cordillera of common interests, common hopes 
 and benevolences, loftier, deeper, and more en- 
 during than the Sierras that link our conti- 
 nents. It is not to our credit that so few 
 American statesmen have grasped the unity of 
 Pan-American interests. Henry Clay, as 
 secretary of state for John Quincy Adams, 
 could wrest only a tardy consent from Con- 
 gress to send delegates to the Panama Con- 
 
 222 
 
OUR FIRST DUTY 
 
 gress. James G. Blaine could arouse only a 
 passing interest in his Pan-American policy. 
 
 We have never really tried to understand our 
 southern neighbors. We have not studied 
 their resources, their aptitude for commerce 
 and the arts, and their eagerness for national 
 expression. We have not even seriously tried 
 to get our share of South American trade. 
 We have been timid of extending credit, tardy 
 in establishing exchange, and negligent in try- 
 ing to manufacture goods to meet the exact 
 demands of these people. We have shown 
 neither enterprise, adaptability, nor good 
 sense in our dealings with them. 
 
 Now we are confronted by a situation that 
 wiU force us to take action. Whatever the out- 
 come of this war, a new threat hovers over the 
 Americas, a new determination bent upon seek- 
 ing an entrance into the promised land south 
 of the Rio Grande. Or, if not so directly ag- 
 gressive, bent upon imposing trade restrictions 
 to which we cannot consent, except in shame. 
 
 It is high time that we soberly and in the 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 most friendly and helpful manner seek a loftier 
 understanding with these southern republics. 
 The Mexican commission which met at Niagara 
 last winter is a good beginning toward the new 
 intercontinental cooperation. The recent sug- 
 gestion of Argentine, Chile, Peru, and Uru- 
 guay that we unite in formulating an all- 
 American neutral zone, to prevent the bel- 
 ligerents of the present war from violating 
 neutrahty, especially in southern waters, and 
 to devise "steps which can be taken to protect 
 and restore Pan-American trade," is the most 
 hopeful event in our recent history. 
 
 This conference could be made a periodical 
 congress and become the organ of mutual co- 
 operations. We must not merely make these 
 neighbors our customers; we must make them 
 our friends; we must win their good-will and 
 respect, and prove ourselves willing to learn 
 from them. For they have a capacity for art 
 and social gallantry which we do not possess. 
 
 Our place in world affairs depends almost 
 entirely upon our place in all- American affairs. 
 
 224. 
 
OUR FIRST DUTY 
 
 We cannot escape this place. We have issued 
 the Monroe Manifesto and amplified it; we 
 fought the Spanish war in its vindication; we 
 have built the Panama Canal and fortified it; 
 we have with extreme long-suffering awaited 
 troubled Mexico's self-realization; we have 
 time and again championed the cause of South 
 American States against public and private 
 aggrandizement. All of this, and much more, 
 have we done to provide for our national de- 
 fense which forever forbids our permitting for- 
 eign dictation, dominance, or interference over 
 any portion of these continents dedicated to the 
 American ideal. 
 
 By one of those strange conjunctions of 
 events, this warning is sounded also from the 
 other side of the earth. England has played 
 a deeper game than she knew, when she ordered 
 her ally, Japan, to besiege Kiao-Chau. We 
 hear, leaking through the crevices of the con- 
 ference chamber, that Japan wants an entry to 
 the balance of power. The fact that she has 
 been a useful ally of Great Britain gives her 
 
 225 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 a tremendous advantage. Count Okuma, in 
 recommending an increased army and navy to 
 the present Parliament, said: 
 
 The army increase is opposed on the ground of our 
 growing intimacy with Russia. The Ministry is 
 doing its best to advance this intimacy. But this 
 satisfactory diplomatic relationship is no reason for 
 neglecting an expedient measure of national defense. 
 
 Thus this Prussia of the Pacific, linking 
 arms with the giants of Asia and Europe, looks 
 forward to a brilliant career in world politics. 
 
 This would not need to concern us but for 
 two all-important facts. 
 
 First, Japan needs room for expansion, and 
 thousands of her swarthy and wiry workers are 
 already in Peru and other South American 
 countries, not to mention Southern Cahfornia. 
 And these countries are looking upon this 
 Mongolian invasion with great concern, for 
 they have no navies to match Japan's and can- 
 not offer successful diplomatic resistance. 
 
 This will compel them to turn to the United 
 
 226 
 
. OUR FIRST DUTY 
 
 States for protection, and the Monroe Doc- 
 trine may yet be made to face both oceans. 
 And whatever may be the weakness of Califor- 
 nia's attitude on the ahen land question, the 
 fact remains that President Wilson considered 
 the situation so serious that he sent his secre- 
 tary of state across the continent to compose 
 the differences, an event without precedent in 
 our history. 
 
 And, secondly, Japan is threatening the in- 
 tegrity of China and its open door — a threat 
 which we cannot ignore. 
 
 What if Japan demands help in this expan- 
 sion as her share in the Allies' peace ? Or what 
 if she merely demands hands off? 
 
 From the Near East and the Far East comes 
 the warning of changed conditions. The Eu- 
 rope of Charlemagne and Napoleon has linked 
 its hands with the Russia of Alexander and 
 Peter and the Japan of Ito and Okuma. And 
 the area of spoliation is Africa, the Pacific 
 Islands, and South America. 
 
 Nor will it be prudent to omit China from 
 
 227 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 our speculations. This ancient country is re- 
 newing a second youth under the segis of 
 an awakened leadership. Her sons possess 
 genius and a quality in which we are quite lack- 
 ing — patience. She, too, like Japan, has a 
 country so full that she must count the grains 
 of rice for every meal. 
 
 What if a new tribal restlessness seizes these 
 Tartars and Mongols? With their native tal- 
 ents once introduced to the mechanical arts of 
 our civilization, they will become our equals in 
 industrial competition. Asia was the center 
 of learning when America was unknown, and 
 when Europe was the breeding ground of tur- 
 bulent tribes who ate with their fingers. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Ah, but above the roar of the guns you hear 
 the honeyed voice of praise! Allies and Ger- 
 mans seem almost as eager to have us think 
 well of them as they are to kill each other. 
 
 Despoiled and deluded Belgium has sent a 
 delegation of statesmen to Washington for- 
 
 228 
 
OUR FIRST DUTY 
 
 mally to protest against the unspeakable out- 
 rage committed upon her. The French gov- 
 ernment officially decorates and lavishly praises 
 our ambassador. The British press, ministry, 
 and populace openly court our good-will, and 
 even the Kaiser writes a formal telegram to 
 the President to enhst his sympathies against 
 the barbarities of the enemy! 
 
 "German-American information bureaus" 
 fervently issue excuses, explanations, and ap- 
 peals, and the ablest of German ex-ministers 
 comes to New York as Envoy Extraordinary 
 of Accurate PubUcity! Bernard Shaw, who 
 formerly never let a chance go by to say some- 
 thing nasty about us, now prophesies : "When 
 peace comes there must be a world conference 
 with the President of the United States in the 
 chair — ^Americans will be leaders to-morrow." 
 
 These somersaults, this sycophantic scram- 
 bling for our favor, this sudden flattery from 
 kings and cynics — ^what does it all mean? Let 
 us not be deluded by these unctuous phrases. 
 They are the voices of sirens luring our re- 
 
 229 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 public to enter the bloody maelstrom of Eu- 
 ropean deceptions and destructions. 
 
 Are we going to be as naive as Europe thinks 
 we are, and let this flattery turn our heads and 
 make us their cat's-paw? This war is not 
 changing the aristocratic heart of Europe, 
 whatever it may be doing to the people's heart. 
 And many a touching deathbed repentance has 
 been spoiled by the unexpected recovery of the 
 patient. 
 
 If there is to be a world conference and if 
 we must participate in it, there is one prin- 
 ciple, and one principle only, for which we can 
 stand, and all other participations we must 
 avoid — that every people with national in- 
 stincts be allowed to determine its own Glov- 
 ernment. 
 
 IV 
 
 For us the war has brought to an end the 
 decade of claptrap sentimentalism that has per- 
 meated our society and politics. It has 
 brought us face to face with grim realities. It 
 
OUR FIRST DUTY 
 
 has suddenly ended the pretensions of self- 
 constituted reformers and returned our 
 thoughts to the fundamental realism of indi- 
 vidual and national responsibility. It has 
 shocked us out of the illusions of repose into 
 which we have hypnotized ourselves ; out of the 
 deceptions of security and superiority, so 
 heightened by the comforts of our people and 
 the ease with which we have been getting on, 
 and brought us full face into the presence of 
 actuahty. 
 
 The principal question which this war thrusts 
 upon us is whether America shall proceed to 
 develop her ideals of humanity and democracy 
 in her own way as she has heretofore attempted, 
 or whether she is now to be driven into a world 
 swirl of empires and thereby lose herself in the 
 destructive orgies of international ambitions 
 and hatreds. 
 
 We must not be cajoled by the flattery of 
 princes and premiers. For we now know that 
 the only treaties that we can be sure of are 
 those backed by a resolute and determined 
 
 231 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 populace with guns in its arsenals and cruisers 
 in its harbors. We have no guarantee from 
 any of the belligerents, and from the nature of 
 mankind can have none, that the new dispen- 
 sation Avill substitute brotherhness for suspicion 
 and jealousy. 
 
 And we must, for this purpose, keep intact 
 the American continents. Our northern fron- 
 tier is not guarded by the guarantees of Brit- 
 ain. It is fortified by the self-interests and 
 good sense of the Americans and Canadians 
 who live on either side of it. And imagine the 
 Rio Grande a German- American boundary, 
 with a von Kluck at every ford or bridge! 
 
 This new dispensation, then, instead of 
 bringing added security, brings added respon- 
 sibility. In that ethnic and geographical read- 
 justment which is now taking place a realign- 
 ing of civilizations will come forth. The 
 Asiatic civihzation, touched with Oriental mys- 
 ticism and knowing the value of repose, now 
 assuming a new consciousness; the European 
 civilization, with its traditions of force, mon- 
 
OUR FIRST DUTY 
 
 archism, and materialism, its history replete 
 with the tyramiies of feudal and commercial 
 aristocracies; and the American civilization 
 based upon the broadest f oimdations of human- 
 ity, exalting the common-place and founding 
 its hope of progress not on privilege, but upon 
 opportunity. 
 
 In this competition, the Oriental ideal has 
 the advantage of patience, the European of 
 experience, the American of energy. The 
 Asiatic has the disadvantage of inertia, the Eu- 
 ropean of traditional hatreds, the American of 
 lack of consistent leadership. 
 
 This gives us a great handicap in times of 
 crises. It is the constitutional weakness of 
 democracy that it is impatient of constant lead- 
 ership, a weakness that may prove fatal in 
 days when the people need firm and wise di- 
 rection. This weakness must be overcome by 
 the intelligence and sincerity of the citizenship. 
 
 The new dispensation, therefore, will require 
 of us an awakening of spiritual idealism, a re- 
 juvenescence of a wholesome faith, as well as an 
 
 233 
 
THE IMPERIAL IMPULSE 
 
 alertness of mind that watches every current of 
 thought. No vain optimism or vainglory will 
 answer in this fateful hour. Without increas- 
 ing the quahty of our citizenship, the posses- 
 sion of a great merchant marine, of islands in 
 every sea, and of enormous wealth will only be 
 an aggravation to those who envy us and covet 
 our position. For a democracy built upon 
 riches, cynicism, and skepticism, scorning the 
 cautions of defense and the inspiration of faith, 
 is built upon sand. 
 
 THE END 
 
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